David Irving

David John Cawdell Irving ( Brentwood , 24 as March as 1938 ) is a writer negacionista British .

Early life

Irving, along with his twin brother - Nicholas - are the youngest of four children of an illustrator and John James Cawdell Irving, a British Navy officer who left his family during World War II .

According to his brother, Irving would have been a provocateur and a prankster from his youth: “At the age of six I was already greeting the Nazi.” ¹

Irving describes this period of his life as very hard, ² and adds that his vision about Hitler and the war itself goes back to those times, particularly his rejection of the way Hitler was caricatured in English propaganda of that time .

Studies

After finishing high school, Irving studied Physics for two years (1957-59, repeated the first), although he did not graduate, due to both economic problems and his difficulties with the math of the race. ³ In that period he became popular among his student peers as a columnist for the Phoenix student magazine and as editor of the Carnival Times , a magazine dedicated to promoting a student carnival celebrated in order to raise funds for “good causes.”

First controversies

As editor of the Carnival Times , Irving included a “secret supplement” in the magazine. ⁴ In that supplement, Irving called Hitler “the greatest European unifying force since Charlemagne.” He also stated that “the formation of the European Union can be interpreted as the constitution of a group of higher peoples, and Jews have always viewed with suspicion the emergence of any” higher race “(other than their own, of course) . The suggestions that apartheid was not severe enough, that black Africans were inherently violent, and that the British press belonged to Jews, would also be rejected . ⁵Irving admitted that the criticisms that fell on him were “probably justified” and tried to excuse his action explaining that he tried to avoid that the Carnivalcollected funds, since in his opinion they would have been channeled through the World University Service to What he considered a “subversive South African organization,” ³ although the intention was to raise funds for black South African students to pursue university studies in England. ⁵ It should be noted that the World University Service is an officially registered NGO governed by British law and whose “services are intended to assist individuals and groups whose access to education is limited or whose qualifications are not recognized, especially to those who seek Asylum, refugees, people affected by conflict and victims of discrimination. ⁶

As a result of the above, Irving achieved for the first time certain notoriety in the United Kingdom. In the May 1, 1959 issue, the Daily Mail quotes him by replying to a reporter: “You may consider me a moderate fascist, if you like. I just got back from Madrid. […] I went back through Germany and visited the Hitler’s Eagle Nest in Berchtesgaden . For me, it is a sacred place. ” ⁷ Irving subsequently denounced that article as injurious and, while accepting that it was “half right,” the rest would be “the product of the creation of an imaginative reporter.” ³

1960

Later, Irving went to live in Germany, where he worked as a laborer in a steel factory in Thyssen, in the Ruhr , a period in which he perfected his German. Then he moved to Spain, where he worked as a stenographer in the Strategic Air Command of the United States at the airbase of Torrejon ; And where it contracted marriage with the Madrilenian Pilar Stuyck (1961), with which it had four daughters (they divorced in 1981).

At the end of 1961, he returned to London, where he studied Political Economy, a career that did not end either, since he ceased to interest him once he realized that he could make a living as a writer: “After two years at University College , I made the decision to dedicate myself completely to the career of professional history writer, and left without obtaining the academic degree ». ³ During that period, Irving spoke at a university debate about immigration, in favor of the proposal of Oswald Mosley , founder of the British Union of Fascists. ⁸ According to Private Eye (a British magazine for political satire) Irving ended his speech with the Nazi salute, ⁵ so he was heavily booed.

From 1962, in the context of a debate about the morality of the “carpet bombing” of World War II, he began writing for the German magazine Neue Illustrierte a series of 37 articles (called Wie Deutschlands Städte starben (‘ How the German cities perished “) about the air bombing of the allies during such a war.These articles formed the basis of his first book: Destruction of Dresden (1963), which managed to become a bestseller .

In the first edition of the book, Irving estimated the deaths in Dresden as a result of bombardment between 100,000 and 250,000, considerably higher than previous estimates. ⁹ Such figures became, as a result of his book, widely cited. However, he himself, in later editions, revised them, reducing them to between 50,000 and 100,000. ^10- current estimates put them between 25,000 and 35,000. ¹¹ According to evidence presented at trial in 2000 against Lipstad, Irving would have based its estimate on three sources: the testimony of an individual who did not submit any evidence, some fake documents and version of a urologist Irving told Who was the deputy head of the Dresden medical services. He would have protested that he had been misunderstood by Irving and that he had only spoken to him of rumors about the number of deaths. ¹²

Theft in Irving’s apartment (1963)

The book’s sales success not only allowed him to solve his economic problems, but made him a public figure. In November 1963, three individuals entered his apartment with the excuse that they were employees of the telephone company. Irving suspected that he had been the victim of an illegal act. Police arrested, among others, Gerry Gable, ¹³ who admitted to acting with the intention of stealing private documents “in order to hand them over to the security police.”

The case quickly gained notoriety, and was picked up by, among others, the Daily Telegraph , on January 17, 1964. ¹⁴ Irving considered the subject - in his video Ich komme wieder (‘I will return’) - as the first sign that he “he was being pursued for some reason” ¹⁵

After the commercial success of the book on Dresden, he continued to write about issues related to Nazism from an empathetic point of view with that ideology. In 1964, he published his The mare’s nest , a narration on secret Nazi weapons and measures to counter them by the allies. In 1965, he translated the Memoirs of Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and in 1967 published Accident: the death of General Sikorski ( ‘accident: the death of General Sikorski ‘), a work in pointing the hypothesis that the plane crash that killed Of the majority of the Polish government in exile in 1945 would have actually been a murder ordered by Churchill in order to facilitate the “surrender” of that country to the Soviet Union. Also in 1967, he published two other works: The virus house (a narration about the German program of nuclear energy) and The destruction of convoy PQ-17 .

In this latest publication, he blamed Jack Broome, commander of the British naval escort for the serious losses suffered by the convoy . In October 1968, in the midst of a great public debate, the ex-commander sued Irving for insults . In February 1970, the High Court of London ruled in his favor, condemning Irving to pay compensation of £ 40,000 at the time and withdrawing the circulation book.

In 1968, prior to the conclusion of the Broome trial, Irving published Breach of Security , where he narrated the interception and reading of secret messages - by the Germans - from and to the British embassy in pre-war Berlin.

After the trial failed, Irving dedicated himself to writing biographies. In 1971 he published an English translation of the memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen ; In 1973, The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe , a biography of Erhard Milch, a general of the Luftwaffe ; In 1977, The Trail of the Fox , a biography of Marshal Erwin Rommel , in which he accused the participants of the July 20, 1944 bombing of cowardice and manipulation. Claiming that Rommel was not involved in the plot, he accused the others of having intentionally charged him in order to cover up his own guilt and because they were jealous of his military successes. In Irving’s view, Rommel would have been faithful to Hitler until the end.

Already at that time, Irving was investigating on his planned next great work, a biography of Hitler. In 1969, during a visit to Germany, he interviewed Robert Kempner (1899-1993), one of the US prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials , to ask “whether the official documents of the Nuremberg Trials had been Falsified ‘and told him that he would go to Washington to compare the recordings with the texts in order to find evidence that the official documents’ had been manipulated and modified’. ¹⁶ Kempner informed the FBI in writing of this conversation, indicating that Irving appeared to be “a young man who was nervous and mentally dispersed” and who made many anti-American and anti-Jewish claims. ¹⁶

At the same time, and possibly as a result of the fame he had achieved with the publication of the book about Dresden and the trial of Broome, he gained acceptance among sectors of the German extreme right and, through them, came into contact with survivors of The Nazi hierarchy. ¹⁷ In an interview with journalist Ron Rosenbaum, Irving called “The Magic Circle” and expressed sympathy for them, ¹⁸adding that he believed that his work was “clean mud” that he believed he had unfairly tarnished the reputation of Hitler.

1970

Biography of Hitler

In 1975, he published in Germany his Hitler und seine Feldherren (‘Hitler and his generals’), a work that was later published in English (Hitler’s war: ‘ Hitler’s war ‘) and that was the first part of his biography Of Hitler . The second part was published as The War Path (‘The Path of War’), in 1978.

In the introduction to the German edition of Hitler und seine Feldherren , Irving attacked the authenticity of the Anna Frank Journal , falsely claiming that a US court had determined that the diary was actually a forgery resulting from the collaboration of a movie screenwriter and the father By Anna Frank . ¹⁹

Irving’s self-declared intention in this work was to “cleanse the years of filth and peeling off the facade of a silent and forbidden monument” in order to reveal “the true Hitler,” whose reputation would have been slandered by historians. ²⁰ Irving portrayed Hitler as a rational and normal politician whose only intention was to increase the international influence and prosperity of Germany, but who was constantly disappointed and frustrated by the incompetence and disloyalty of his subordinates. ^twenty

In addition, Irving blamed Allied leaders - especially Winston Churchill - for escalating war, and - citing several revisionist historians such as Harry Elmer Barnes , David Hoggan , and Frederick JP Veale - Irving argued that the United Kingdom would have had The primary responsibility for the start of it. ²¹ Irving added that the invasion of the Soviet Union was an act of preventive war , to which Hitler was forced by Stalin . Irving argued that the famous Kommissarbefehl ²² was the result of that necessity and, consequently, responsibility of Stalin. ^{2. 3}

Finally, Irving argued that Hitler had no knowledge of the policy of the Final Solution, claiming that it was Heinrich Himmler and his deputy Reinhard Heydrich who were responsible (both for the idea and for its development) .

Although most historians rejected the hypothesis of ignorance and innocence of Hitler, ²⁴ Irving insisted much in the absence of any document with the signature of Hitler authorizing the mass murder of the Jews and offered -for some time - a reward of one thousand pounds sterling to whom he could find such a document. ²⁵

In a footnote in Hitler’s War , Irving presents the thesis - then popularized by Ernst Nolte - that a letter written on 3 September 1939 by Chaim Weizman to Neville Chamberlain promising the support of the Jewish Agency to the war effort Ally was “a declaration of Jewish war against Germany” and justified the “internment” of European Jews. ²⁶ It should be noted that on that date, as a result of the introduction of the Nuremberg Laws , hundreds of thousands of German Jews had already been expelled from Germany or interned in a concentration camp , having previously been deprived of their citizenship and all Their rights and property; Which intensified after the Kristallnacht in 1938. ²⁷ The purpose of these “labor camps” - unlike the extermination camps - was the over-exploitation until death ( Vernichtung durch Arbeit , in German) of the prisoners by means of Exhaustion and deprivation of all medical treatment or assistance. ²⁸ In the words of Oswald Pohl , director of the Central Office of Economy and Administration of the SS :

The field commander is responsible for the use of labor. Work has to be strenuous in the true sense of the word in order to get the most out of it. […] There will be no limit on working hours. […] It is forbidden to waste time on walks and recess for the sole purpose of eating. ²⁹

Concentration camps were built near transport hubs, both to facilitate the transportation of production where necessary and that of possible survivors to places where ‘future measures can be more easily organized’. ³⁰ Adolf Eichmann clarifies that these “future measures” were the “physical extemal” (op cit).

The book quickly became a bestseller. American critic and author Gill Seidel summarized the situation thus: “It is not difficult to explain their attraction. The central argument of the book can be summed up that “if Hitler had heard of the extermination of the Jews, he would have stopped him. For the Germans who do not wish to confront their past, it is easy to persuade themselves that if Hitler did not know, the street-citizen would not know either. ” ³¹

The book contains numerous omissions, errors, misinterpretations and even contradictions. ^{32 33 25} For example, one of the arguments that Irving offers the alleged ignorance and opposition to Hitler killing Jews is a telephone order- the November 30 , 1941 Himmler to Heydrich that Jews aboard a train To Latvia were not killed “by order of Hitler” according to Irving. ³⁴ The historian Hugh Trevor-Roper points out a contradiction in the argument: if Hitler did not know that the Jews were being killed, why did he order those on that particular train to be not? ³⁴ Lucy Dawidowicz (an American historian) solved the mystery: aboard that train was Dr. Jekelius, who was believed to be the son of Vyacheslav Molotov - Soviet commissar for Foreign Affairs - who could be useful as a hostage Of the Soviet Union had begun a few months earlier, in June 1941). Himmler’s notes about the order do not say that he received it from Hitler - ignoring Irving’s argument - and seems to refer only to that Dr. Jekelius, stating that he should not be “liquidated.” ³⁵

Because of all these errors and misinterpretations, Dawidowicz suggested that Irving was a mere turiferario of the Third Reich , with minimal academic standards. ³⁵ He added that it was not appropriate to apply to Irving the term ” revisionism ” because revisionism is a legitimate historical process, while Irving did not have the right to call historian (either revisionist or not). ³⁵

However, the historian Ian Kershaw considered that the book had a positive result. For more than most historians have rejected the central theses of Irving, it originated the debate would have stimulated research on the period, especially on the role played Hitler in decisions about the Holocaust ³⁶

In 1978 Irving published The War Path , second part of his biography of Hitler, with a rhetoric and a point of view similar to the one of the first part. Again several historians pointed out numerous omissions, errors and misinterpretations. However, the book sold well, like his other works, which allowed Irving to buy a Rolls Royce, buy a mortgage to buy an apartment in the prestigious London neighborhood of Mayfair and carry a ostentatious lifestyle with numerous and open Extramarital relations - which he detailed in an autobiography. ³⁷ which ended up - in 1981 - the end of their marriage.

1980

In 1982, Irving began to live with the Danish model Bente Hogh.

Until the late 1980s, it seems that Irving had been trying to maintain a “balance” between his desire to be accepted as a respectable historian and the eagerness to openly develop his vision.

His main ideas were that the British decision to declare war on Nazi Germany had been a great mistake and-developing the thesis introduced in Hitler’s war about the meaning of Hitler’s written order about the Final Solution-the allegation of That such a failure demonstrated that there was no Holocaust, ³⁸ that the Allies have used “false documents to humiliate the German people,” ³⁹ and that while the Holocaust was only “an exercise in propaganda,” both the Allies and the Axis were equally guilty of war crimes. ⁴⁰ However, following the publication of the Leuchter Report, Irving became increasingly candid about his views, especially as regards his claim that the Holocaust was a myth, which led him to become increasingly integrated into the Openly neo-Nazi conference circuits from Germany and other countries. ⁴⁰

Irving’s stated intention in his speeches in these circuits would have been to “lead young men in the right direction.” Irving often stated his belief that women existed for “certain tasks: basically, to produce males.” ³⁹

Biography of Churchill

By the middle of 1980 Irving had not been able to publish a successful book for several years and, as a result of his standard of living and the funding of his researches, found himself in financial difficulties. ⁴¹

In 1981 he had published the War between the Generals , in which he presented a vision of the heated disputes and disagreements that in Irving’s view had characterized the Allied High Command on the Western Front, along with rumors and infundies about the generals’ private lives. Also in 1981 he published Uprising , a narration of the Hungarian anti-communist uprising in 1956 , according to which this revolt would have been “primarily an anti-Jewish revolt”, assuming that the communist regime was a Jewish dictatorship oppressing the Gentiles .

Finally, Irving wrote a biography of Winston Churchill - Churchill’s war , published in 1987 - in which he accused him of corruption, racism, alcoholism, of being a lackey of Zionist interests, of “selling the British Empire” and of “confronting Great Britain with its natural ally, Germany. ”

None of these works sold well, despite the publicity generated by the controversial and provocative suggestions contained therein.

It seems that Irving then came to the conclusion that his life as a writer had come to an end. Thus, Irving began in 1982 to try to unify the various neo-Nazi groups of Great Britain in an organization called Focus , in which he himself would play a central role. ²³ Irving considered himself a “moderate fascist” who-as Focus’s leader- would become British Prime Minister. ⁴² The attempt failed because of financial problems. ²³ Despite his proclaimed moderation, Irving had on the wall a copy of Hitler’s “Speech of Prophecy,” in which Hitler predicted- on January 30, 1939- that if “Jewish financiers began another world war. …] the Jewish race would be annihilated in Europe. ” ⁴³

After Focus’s failure-September 1983-Irving attended for the first time a conference of the negationist group Institute for Historical Review , ⁴⁴ which he had so far refused to do for practical reasons: “This is pure and simple Realpolitik . I am already dangerously exposed and I can not afford to suffer attacks directed at others. ” ⁴⁴ At that conference Irving did not deny that the Holocaust existed but apart from sharing the dais with those who did, he said he was impressed with their arguments. ^{Four. Five}

At that time, Irving’s central message was that Hitler did not know of the Holocaust “because he was very busy as a soldier” ⁴⁶ and that Britain had “made a great mistake” in declaring war on Germany in 1939, since “as a result of That decision Britain entered into an irremediable decline. ” ⁴²

Irving began to give lectures in circles of extreme right, in the United States as well as Germany, starting from the good reception that their appearances received. During them, his speech hardened and became increasingly provocative.

For example, he began to assert that the Jews had not been the victims of a policy of extermination by the German state or Hitler, but rather of “unknown criminals,” ⁴⁷ Irving went on to say, first, that the allies were the ” Responsible for their deaths … We deliberately created the conditions of chaos in Germany. We deliberately created epidemics, typhus plagues, and other diseases that led to those terrible scenes that were especially dramatic in areas of overcrowding, concentration camps , […] It was symbolic of the hypocrisy at the end of the war that we chose Those terrible photographs, which of course were good television, as they say these days, good press; They were photogenic those scenes, those piles of bodies. We took them as proof that the war had been a just war. ” ⁴⁸ even suggested that “some” of documents attesting to the facts were false, and finally not only deny directly the Nazis had systematically murdered their victims during the war ⁴⁰ but even claim that “Hitler was the best friend Which the Jews had in the Third Reich. ” ⁴⁹ All this eventually led to the German organization Deutsche Volksunion (DVU) - which was organizing its travels in that country - canceling its contracts with Irving, possibly fearing that its claims would lead to a ban on DVU. ⁷

In 1986 Irving traveled to Canada to give a series of lectures that were not well received until Ernst Zündel - a notorious Holocaust denier - began promoting them after an agreement with Irving. ⁵⁰Consequently, Irving and Zundel became good friends, ⁵⁰ which ultimately led to the participation of Irving in one trial against Zundel for denying the Holocaust (see below).

The “Diaries” of Hitler

In 1983 appeared the famous falsification of the Diaries of Hitler . Irving, from the outset, rejected them, on the ground that he had previously bought material - much of which was false - from the “discoverer” of the newspapers. ⁵¹

During that period Irving went on to boycott a press conference that historian Hugh Trevor Roper had called-April 25, 1983-to denounce the daily assumptions as false, ⁵² accusing Trevor Roper of believing they were genuine. The next day Irving appeared on a television program ⁵³ in which he declared himself proud of the “wake of chaos” he had occasioned at the press conference, the publicity he had gained, and especially the “humiliation” he had inflicted on Trevor Roper. ⁵⁴

However, a week later - on May 2, 1983 - Irving changed his mind, stating that newspapers were, after all, genuine. ⁵⁴ One of the main reasons for this change of opinion was that the daily assumptions did not contain any mention of the Final Solution or Holocaust policy, supporting his view that Hitler was not aware of such events. ⁵⁵

A short time later it was definitively proved that the daily assumptions were a forgery. Irving changed his mind again and called a press conference in which he claimed to have been the first to denounce them as false, to which one journalist added that he had also been the last to regard them as genuine. ⁵⁴ In later statements Irving emphasized his original position, not to mention the rest.

Judgment of Zundel

In January 1988 Irving traveled to Toronto at the request of the defense and as a witness-expert in the trial against Ernst Zundel for denying the Holocaust. The issue on which Irving would testify was his claim that Hitler did not know-at least until October 1943- genocide and that “what they call the Holocaust” was the result of individual atrocities and crimes, not of a politics Systematically.

During that period Irving came into contact with Robert Faurisson and Fred Leuchter, an engineer and self-styled expert on executions, ⁵⁶ who agreed to act as an “expert witness” for the defense. ⁴² Based on a study of residues of cyanide in fragments of the walls of the buildings where the prisoners were being exterminated Leuchter proclaimed that such destruction could not have happened: the amount of venom present not be able to kill even a louse , Therefore, could not have caused the death of a human being.

Leuchter began by pointing out that:

The required dose for fumigation was 3200 parts per million (ppm), or a total volume of 0.32% HCN. Thirty-one samples were taken selectively from the alleged gas chambers in Kremas I, II, II, IV and V. A control sample was drawn from the dewatering facility No. 1 in Birkenau. The control sample was collected in a thinning chamber where it was known that cyanide had been used and whose presence was noticeably noticeable under the appearance of blue spots. The chemical exams of sample No. 32 showed a cyanide content of 1050 mg / kg , a very high concentration. The conditions in the areas in which such samples were taken were identical to those of the control sample: cold, dark and humidity. Only the Kremas IV and V differed in that, in that they received sunlight (the buildings were demolished) and that light could have accelerated the destruction of the combined cyanide. Cyanide combined with the cement mortar iron and the bricks and became ferrocyanide, or blue pigment from Prussia, a very stable complex of iron and cyanide. […] It is noteworthy that almost all samples had a negative result and that the few positive samples were very close to the detection level (1 mg / kg); 6.7 mg / kg in Krema I). The absence of significant levels at any of the sites examined, as opposed to reading the control sample at a level of 1050 mg / kg, would support the thesis that such facilities did not function as gas chambers for executions. The small amounts detected would indicate that at some time those facilities were disinfected with Zyklon-B as were all the buildings and constructions of those facilities.

Frederick A. Leuchter, Jr. ⁵⁷

Irving commented on this:

“The heart of Leuchter’s testimony was that there were no significant residues of cyanide in the bricks. That made me. When I read the report in court in Toronto, I became a hard believer. ” ⁵⁸

As a result, Irving concluded that “the Holocaust is a myth,” ⁴² adding that he saw himself as “running an intifada of one man” against the idea that there had been a Holocaust. ⁵⁹ Later (in 1999) Irving told British author DD Guttenplan that Zundel had convinced him that the Holocaust had not taken place. ⁶⁰

At the trial itself Irving stated that: “I do not think there was a general policy of the Reich to kill the Jews. If there had been, they would have died and there would be now so many millions of survivors. And believe me, I feel happy for every survivor there was. ” ⁶¹

Following the trial, in 1989 Irving published the Leuchter Report in the United Kingdom under the title of Auschwitz. The End of the Line: The Leuchter Report (‘Auschwitz, the end of the line, the Leuchter report’) and wrote his prologue. In that prologue-in addition to praising Leuchter’s scrupulousness and integrity-Irving wrote: “No one likes to be cheated, and even less when considerable sums of money are at stake.” ⁵⁹ The alleged scam would be reparations for the Holocaust - totaling DM 3000 million - which the German Federal Republic paid Israel between 1952 and 1966. Irving described them as consisting essentially of “a payment for atonement by the gas chambers Of Auschwitz ‘based on’ a myth that would not easily die ‘. ⁵⁹

In a pamphlet published in London on June 23, 1989, Irving proclaimed a “transcendental announcement.” Writing about himself in the third person, he stated that: “He has put himself at the head of a growing group of historians worldwide, who are now skeptical about the idea that in Auschwitz and other fields there would be” Death, “in which millions of innocent people had been gassed dead.” ⁶²Vanangloriándose to have denounced the falsification of the newspapers of Hitler “before others”, Irving wrote “now he affirms the same thing about the infamous gas chamber of Auschwitz , Treblinka and Majdanek . They did not exist-never-except perhaps as inventions by the brilliant British Psychological Warlord. ” The pamphlet concluded: “The very survivors of Auschwitz are testimony to the absence of an extermination program.” ⁶²

The appearance of such publications raised such a scandal in England that the matter was debated in the United Kingdom Parliament , which adopted a motion denouncing Irving as “Nazi propagandist and repeated apologist of Hitler” and to the book itself as “a fascist publication ‘. ^{63 64} And The Times newspaper editorialized that Irving “is a man for whom Hitler is something close to a hero […] and to whom Auschwitz is a Jewish delusion.” ⁶⁴

In response, Irving issued a press statement challenging the deputies who had criticized him: “I will go into the gas chambers and you and your friends can cast Zyklon B in accordance with well-known procedures and conditions. I guarantee you will not be satisfied with the result ». ³⁹

The fact is that everything was based on the premise that the cyanide residues on the walls of the gas chambers did not show sufficient concentration to even kill a louse, with the implication that it obviously would not be enough to kill a person . However, Leuchter did not mention that the concentration of gaseous cyanide in the air needed to kill a human being is 300 ppm for 20 minutes, much less than that needed to kill a lice (1700 ppm for a period of 20 And 25 hours), ⁶⁵ as the manual of use of the product and all standard works of toxicology establish, something that, consequently, any expert should have known. ^{66 67}

Years later, in the course of the trial against Lipstadt and others, Irving was forced to acknowledge that the report was wrong. In the judge’s words: “I have also described Irving’s concessions in relation to the Leuchter Report: see paragraph 7.89. Irving had previously expressed the view that the findings of the report were irrefutable. At the trial, as has been seen, he acknowledged without too much protest that the vast majority of Leuchter’s conclusions were wrong and that the report was a fiasco. ” ⁶⁸

Biography of Göring

In 1989 Irving published a biography of Marshal Hermann Göring , in which he described the Reich economy minister, and in charge of companies in the conquered countries through the Reichswerke , as an incapable drug addict, who was more interested in his Own wealth and personal pleasures than in carrying out their work within the regime. Irving downplayed any responsibility of Göring, especially in relation to the Holocaust, giving the vision of a “fat jovial”, along with many minor details and incidents, including documents suggesting that Göring personally disapproved or found Nazi crimes unpleasant, including Persecution of the Jews. ^{[ Citation needed ]}

1990

Evolution to provocation and stridency

From the controversy generated by his publication of the Leuchter Report, Irving began to take increasingly extreme positions.

In January 1990, Irving stated at a conference in Germany that only 30,000 people had died in Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945, all of them from natural causes - in their opinion, the average death toll caused by an allied aerial bombardment. ⁶⁹ He also added: “I have stated the following: there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz, only mock-ups built by the Poles in the postwar years.” ⁶⁹ On 21 April 1990 repeated the speech, which caused in July 1990 was tried and found guilty of Holocaust denial. ⁶⁹ He was ordered to pay a fine of DM 7000. Irving appealed, and his fine was increased - in May 1992 - to 10,000 marks to be repeated and aggravate his claims in the course of the trial.

In 1991, in a speech in Hamburg, Irving said that this myth of the mass murder of Jews in the death factories of Auschwitz, Majdanek and Treblinka […] would be proven false. Never took place. ⁷⁰ In another , also in 1991 but in Canada , predicted that by 1993, the “deception” (hoax) would be totally discredited and added: “Gradually the truth spreads over Germany. In two years from now, German historians will accept that we are right. ⁷¹

In another speech in 1991, ⁷¹ Irving stated that: “Ridiculous by itself is not enough, we must add rudeness. I must say […] I am forming an association especially dedicated to all those liars who try to convince people that they were in concentration camps. It’s called the Survivors of Auschwitz, Holocaust Survivors and other liars or sashom. ⁷² You can not be harder than that, but you have to be rude because those people deserve our contempt. ” ⁷³

In another speech - in 1994 - Irving lamented the persistence of the belief “in the putrid body” and “the convenient legend” of the Holocaust. ⁷¹ In 1995 claimed that the Holocaust was a myth invented by the “international Jewish cabal” to serve their own interests. ⁷⁴

In any case, Irving nevertheless maintained a certain ambivalence, depending on who was going. In an interview with the American writer Ron Rosenbaum in the early 1990s Irving said he wanted to be regarded as a respectable historian who regretted having to associate with anti-Semitic groups and would dissociate himself from those cracked-up groups. As soon as it was accepted. ³⁸ In a 1993 letter, Irving wrote that his “life was wonderful” until Zundel enveloped him in the denialist movement when he acted as a witness in his cause: “he would not make the same mistake again.” ⁷⁵ In an interview on an Australian radio - in July 1995 - Irving accepted that four million Jews had died during the war, but that this had been due to the terrible sanitary conditions of the fields of the death, and not to a policy organized, ⁷⁶ which led him to a public discussion with other deniers who were able to insist that no Jews died in the Holocaust ⁷⁵ in another interview -in the newspaper the Guardian (London) - Irving said: “the Jews are the architects of their own misfortune. But that is the short version of A to Z. Between A and Z there are 24 other letters in between. ” ⁷⁷

Failure of the publication of a biography of Goebbels

In 1992, Irving signed a contract with the publisher Macmillan to write a biography of Joseph Goebbels , to be named Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich . However, obeying news that Irving could have “selectively edited” a full version of Goebbels’ diaries recently discovered in Moscow, Macmillan canceled the deal. ⁷⁸

Irving had examined these documents after his discovery by Elke Fröhlich, who had previously worked as a researcher for Irving. ⁷⁹ During his stay in Moscow, Irving was able to access some microfilms containing 90 pages, previously unknown, of those newspapers. Although Irving gained access to them only to translate them into English, he “took” the file. Later Irving accepted to have acted illicitly but justified his action with the argument that he had not broken any agreement (not to “take” material) and because otherwise “the material could be lost forever”. ^{80 81} Some historians argued that the action apart from his illegality- threatened the material and any possible damage was irreparable and immeasurable both -given that no one knew for certain what conditions it was before its removal and transportation from Moscow to London -. ⁶⁴

In 1995, St Martin’s Press, a publishing house in New York finally agreed to publish the biography of Goebbels. ⁴¹ But in March 1996, in response to widespread denunciations of anti-Semitism at the site, the company canceled the agreement. ⁸²

This left Irving in a very precarious financial situation - even getting paid on his mortgage - and with a strong need for positive publicity in order to rebuild his reputation as a controversial but responsible historian. ⁸³

The trial for slander against Lipstadt and others

On September 5, 1996, Irving filed a lawsuit against Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books, ^{84 the} publishing house in England of Denying the Holocaust - Lipstadt’s work.

In his book Lipstadt had outlawed Irving as a Holocaust denier, falsifier (of historical facts) and prejudiced, adding that Irving had manipulated and distorted documents.

In addition, in the press and in the trial itself - but not in the official document of complaint - Irving claimed the existence of an international campaign to silence it - organized by the “traditional enemies of truth”. ^{85 86}

Accusation

In the first allegation of accusation, Irving argued that the trial should not address events (specifically, that it should not deal with what they “call the Holocaust”), but whether or not Irving committed acts - and with Which was alleged: “In order to justify its allegations of manipulation and distortion, it will not be enough for Professor Lipstadt to prove, if she can, that I misrepresented what happened, but that: I knew what had happened and I, perversely and deliberately, for whatever purpose, I described it differently from what I knew to have happened. […] That’s what manipulation and distortion means and the other aspect, the story of what really happened, despite being fundamental, is beside the point. In fact, this research should not leave the four walls of my study: I ​​should look at the papers that were in front of me - and not in front of some other magnificently funded student or researcher - and the manuscript that I then wrote, with the base Of my own limited resources. ” ⁸⁷

Irving proceeded to argue that as a result of the actions of the defendants, he had suffered serious financial damage: “By virtue of the action of the defendants, and of those who finance it and guide its hand, I have seen, since 1996 , One fearful publisher after another, away from me, refusing to reprint my works, refusing to do new work and turning my back on me when I approached. ”