Christopher Hitchens: “The Holocaust has become a secular religion, with state support in the form of a national museum.”
David Irving is arguably one of the most controversial historians of the modern era. He has been characterized by critics as an “anti-Semite,” a “neo-Nazi,” and a “Holocaust denier.” In 2010, former news anchor Keith Olbermann went so far as to include Irving among the “world’s worst” individuals.[1]www.youtube.com, 09/16/10. Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman call him “the most historically sophisticated of the [Holocaust] deniers.”[2] Richard J. Evans, a historian who was a witness at the Holocaust trial, denounces Irving’s writing as
“completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about…if we mean by historian someone who is concerned to discover the truth about the past, and to give as accurate a representation of it as possible, then Irving is not a historian.”[3]
Before the trial, however, Evans acknowledged that Irving had uncovered valuable archival materials. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) describes Irving as “one of the best-known Holocaust deniers in the world.”
Other historians disagree with common opinion. Military historian Sir John Keegan called Irving’s Hitler’s War “certainly among the half dozen most important books.”[5] Keegan admits, however, that Irving is a controversial figure “who currently champions extreme right-wing politics in Europe. Nonetheless, he is a historian of formidable power, having worked in all major German archives, discovered important deposits of papers himself, and interviewed man of the survivors or their families and intimates.”[6]
Keegan moves on to say, “No historian of the Second World War can afford to avoid Irving.”[7]
Irving’s biography of Goring, says Keegan, is “the most illuminating”[8]
among historical books. In 1977, noted British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, though questioning Irving’s motives, wrote that “no praise can be too high for his [Irving’s] indefatigable, scholarly industry.”[9] Other historians such as Paul Addison, John Charmley, and Rainer Zitelmann, praised Irving’s work, although they do not like some of the positions he has taken. Noted British historian A. J. P. Taylor wrote that Irving possessed “an unrivaled industry” and a “good scholarship”[10]
when it comes to decoding the archives to see what the records actually say. British historian Paul Addison likewise noted that Irving possesses a “colossus of research,”[11]
while at the same time taking issues with him on other matters.
Some historians appear to harbor animosity toward Irving precisely because he differs from the typical historian who advances extraordinary claims without substantial archival evidence. Much like Gollum’s conflicted relationship with the Ring of Power in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, certain historians seem to both admire and resent Irving—admire him for his exhaustive archival work yet resent him for the challenges he poses to established narratives. This tension is exemplified by historian Peter Hoffmann of McGill University, who remarked that:
“Mr. Irving’s constant references to archives, diaries and letters, and the overwhelming amount of detail in his work, suggest objectivity. In fact, they put a screen behind which a very different agenda is transacted… Mr. Irving is a great obfuscator…Distortions affect every important aspect of this book to the point of obfuscation… It is unfortunate that Mr. Irving wastes his extraordinary talents as a researcher and writer on trivializing the greatest crimes in German history, on manipulating historical sources, and on highlighting the theatrics of the Nazi era.”[12]
One of the people who found Irving’s work as anti-Semitic, however, is Deborah Lipstadt, who also accused him of a “Holocaust denier.” Lipstadt, whose principal intellectual and historical claim to fame seems to be labeling anyone who fundamentally disagrees with her on aspects of the Holocaust a “Holocaust denier,” writes in History on Trial that John Lukacs and Charles Sydnor challenged Irving’s use of sources and found them inaccurate.[13]
Yet simply asserting that Irving’s sources are inaccurate — while failing to document where or how — poses a serious problem for Lipstadt’s argument. She never identifies, let alone demonstrates, where Lukacs and Sydnor supposedly found Irving’s sources to be “pretentious twaddle.”[14]
The audience is essentially asked to accept her claims on faith. In 2012, while researching these issues, I contacted Lipstadt directly and requested that she document her assertions. She merely repeated the same talking points from her book, and never presented the evidence she claimed existed. The following is the exchange I had with Lipstadt:
JEA: I am currently reading some of your work. What is your take on David Irving’s Hitler’s War precisely? Forget about Irving the “anti-Semite.” He has been praised by a number of historians for digging into the archives and looking into primary sources. I realized that much of what has been written about the Third Reich has been based on secondary sources. You also wrote on History on Trial that John Lukacs and Charles Sydnor challenged Irving on his use of sources and found them inaccurate. They found his sources as “pretentious twaddle.” Can you tell me where he misused his sources? History on Trial did not go that far.
DL: I suggest you look at the experts’ reports on www.hdot.org especially Richard Evans’ report. It is all dealt with there point by point. Evans finds Irving’s work to be a “tissue of lies.” So did the judge.
JEA: Thanks for the quick response. I found Evans’ statement to be somewhat inconsistent. At one point, he declared that Irving “knows an enormous amount about Hitler and his entourage and his immediate circle in the second world war and their conduct of military affairs, and over the years he’s dug up through contacts and through sheer energy and diligence enormous amounts of new documentation of varying interest and importance, but some of it is undeniably important.”
Yet after the trial, he wrote that Irving’s writing is “completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about…if we mean by historian someone who is concerned to discover the truth about the past, and to give as accurate a representation of it as possible, then Irving is not a historian.” I certainly do not know which statement I should take seriously, since the latter was posed after the trial. I have written to Evans about this and I’m hoping to get a response. Honestly, historical scholarship should not be solely contingent upon the experts’ opinions but on historical evidence and consistency. We know that Galileo got into trouble largely for similar issues. I would definitely agree that Irving is on the far-right, but surely his books cannot be dis missed on that issue alone. They have to stand on their own. Moreover, what about other historians who have found his works to be historical? Can we all dismiss them as well? Since History on Trial was purportedly written on the basis of evidence, I definitely believe that you should have given some specifics as to where the other authors disagree with Irving. That would have placed the book on a much rational and historical ground.
DL: Forgive me but I don’t have the time to enter into a long discourse on this. Simply put, Evans came to his conclusions before the trial. [His expert report was given to the court well before the trial.] Secondly, just because someone knows a tremendous amount about some topic does not mean that the person tells the truth. Every conclusion about Irving’s work is based on evidence. Do the work, read the report, and you will see. Good luck to you on this.
JEA: Thank you again for taking time to write. I honestly am doing the work by reading your books as well as the work of others, including Evans’. If Evans came to his conclusion before the trial, then what does his previous statement mean, where he unequivocally declared that Irving has done his home work? Evans is a rational person. How do I reconcile that statement with the one he made during or after the trial? Once again these issues seem to vindicate what Irving has been saying for decades: that “conformist” historians like to cite each other for opinions which have never been verified by the historical data. I certainly do not want to find myself in this circle, since we all know that we all have our biases and opinions. This is why historians would best serve the interest of historical scholarship by digging into the archives and reliable documents, not quoting each other for statements which are disputable. I am also willing to accept that Irving can be wrong, but he has to be proved wrong by the method he seems to know best: the archives, documentary evidence, etc.
DL: My final word to you: read the evidence submitted. Read the transcripts. Read the judgment.
Interaction with Richard J. Evans
JEA: I am currently reading some of your work. What is your take on David Irving’s Hitler’s War precisely? He has been praised by a number of historians for digging into the archives and looking into primary sources. I realized that much of what has been written about the Third Reich has been based on secondary sources. I also discovered that you seem to present two contradictory views on Irving. At one point, you declared that Irving “knows an enormous amount about Hitler and his entourage and his immediate circle in the second world war and their conduct of military af fairs, and over the years he’s dug up through contacts and through sheer energy and diligence enormous amounts of new documentation of varying interest and importance, but some of it is undeniably important.” Yet after the trial, you wrote that Irving’s writing as “completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about if we mean by historian someone who is concerned to discover the truth about the past, and to give as accurate a representation of it as possible, then Irving is not a historian.” Can you clarify those statements? Thank you so much.
RJE: Thanks—there is really no contradiction. He did dig up a lot of valu able material but what he did with it was worthless.
JEA: Thanks for the response. If he actually “did dig up a lot of valuable material,” then everything he ever wrote could not possibly be “worthless.” That would be an obvious contradiction, and I’m sure you would agree with me here. Some of his stuff could be demonstrably false—and I think he should be willing to conceive that point. However, one should be able to disprove his claims by what he seems or claims to know best: the archives, documented accounts, etc. I have carefully read Lying About Hitler and you seem to rely heavily on what other historians have said about Irving, which again is an appeal to authority. Moreover, if that is not ad hominem, it is close enough. Should serious historians be willing to take this route?
I really enjoy reading your work In Defense of History, in which you argue quite rightly that there was a community of historians in the 1920s in Germany who agreed on similar issues but we today would consider those issues to be quite wrong. If that is the case, it is not historically sound to summon the opinions of the experts in order to dismiss Irving. Is it possible to challenge Irving on his own ground? He has been saying for decades that he is more than willing to change his mind if someone would prove him wrong from the archives. If not, he will then continue to marshal his claims that “conformist historians” have no interest in real history, most particularly when it comes to making extraordinary claims with regard to Nazi Germany and providing little archival evidence for those claims. He certainly would be right in line with rational and historical thought if he backs his claims with documents straight from the archives as opposed to relying on the opinions of like-minded historians. Would you not agree?
RJE: Sorry, you do not seem to have grasped my point. He has discov ered some valuable documents, but in presenting him in his work he has frequently manipulated them by adding words, leaving words out, changing the order, and so on. My book does not rely on what other historians have said. The first chapter analyses their views in order to establish his reputation. All the rest is based on a thorough analysis of his own work compared to the sources on which it claims to rest. You need to read my book and the notes more carefully.
Irving has never changed his mind in the light of criticism. Read the trial transcripts and the High Court judgement for many examples of his refusal to do so when presented with incontrovertible evidence. The archival evidence presented by serious historians of the Holocaust is massive, many thousands of times more than anything Irving has put forward. His charge that historians are ‘conformist’ is fantasy, especially since he also says he never reads other historians! We are perfectly capable of making up our own minds.
JEA: Thanks again for the response. I understood your point. What I am saying is that when you unequivocally write that Irving’s writing is “completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about…” then by definition you are saying that absolutely nothing he has written is “valuable.” You also wrote on page 253, “Irving is essentially an ideologue who uses history for his own political purposes; he is not primarily concerned with discovering and interpreting what happened in the past, he is concerned merely to give a selective and tendentious account of it to further his own ideological ends in the present…That is why, in my expert report, in a passage that the judge did not in the end accept, I concluded that Irving was not a historian.” To categorize Irving in such a manner in Lying About History without adding clauses such as “he has discovered some valuable documents” would give the reader the impression that Irving has produced nothing worth reading. Moreover, are noted historians such as John Keegan, A. J. P. Taylor, Donald Cameron Watt, J. E. Molpurgo, Stephen Spender, Hugh Trevor Roper, Norman Stone, Gordon A. Craig, Larry Thompston, Fran cis L. Lowewenheim, John Erickson, Michael Howard, Stephen Roskill, among others, wrong in praising Irving the ideologue? What do they have to gain in praising such a mad man who is furthering his own ideological purposes? I guess Irving is not the only mad man in town. Of course not a single historian is perfect and we all have our biases and preconceptions, and Irving certainly has his shortcomings. Simply because a historian might be wrong on a few issues does not necessarily mean that his entire work is worthless. For example, William L. Shirer, in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, advanced the now defunct idea that the German used Jewish fat to make soap. Alleged eyewitness accounts were also summoned to propagate the same idea. Yet even Lipstadt now agrees that this is balderdash. Should we discount Shirer’s entire book as “worth less”? Should we discount all eyewitnesses as well? In the same sense, rational people should accept the premise that Irving is probably wrong on some of his views and sources, but it is the job of the historian—and a noted figure like you—to clearly point out where he is right and where he is wrong. Moreover, summoning the opinions of like-minded historians to disprove Irving will not do for the same reason that other noted figures also praise him. As previously suggested, Irving will continue to laugh at the popular historians when they cannot disprove him by the archives, since this is where most of his sources originated. Lying About History gives the impression that Irving’s entire edifice is “worthless,” and I do not think this is in line with historical research, since other noted historians have found his work to be valuable. Lipstadt for example used to assign the book Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood 1939-1948 to her students. The Holocaust memoir of Benjamin Wilkomirski, Fragments, came out in 1995 and enjoyed immediate success. Practically overnight, the book received worldwide success. Publishers Weekly, Historical Standard & Scholarship, the National Jewish Historical Scholarship & Books Awards, Prix Memoire de la Shoah, have all praised the book. To make a long story short, the whole story was a complete hoax, a thread-bare fabrication by a non-Jew who lived in Switzerland during the war. Despite the revelation of Fragments as a hoax, Deborah Lipstadt stated the book was still “powerful as a novel”! I am sure you would say that Lipstadt is quite wrong here, but it would be illogical to dismiss all her work as “worthless” without a convergence of evidence. I am a bit surprised that you say your book does not rely on what other historians have said. You frequently cite secondary sources in your massive endnotes and in the text itself. For one example, on page 243 you wrote, “Both Charles Sydnor and John Lukacs had identified inaccuracies in Irving’s accounts of military campaign” without even telling the reader where the inaccuracies lie. This same citation is repeated in Lipstadt’s Denying History with the exact implication. Do misleading citations like this serve the interest of historical scholarship?
RJE: Irving has indeed produced nothing worth reading. The only things worth reading are the documents he has discovered, for which you have to go back to the originals, as I did. His manipulations and inventions were partly exposed by Trevor-Roper and Sereny in the 1970s but their full extent only became apparent as a result of my work during the trial. All the historians you list are completely wrong in their views of him apart from Trevor-Roper, who sent me a lengthy letter before the trial branding Irving as an ideologue whose work was without value. Many historians changed their mind as a result of the trial’s exposure of Irving’s falsifications so it is no use citing their pre-trial views. In any case you are doing the same thing that you wrongly accuse me of doing, namely using other historians to bolster your case. To repeat: my assessment of Irving is not based on the opinions of other historians, but on my own research. Please read my book again if you cannot grasp this point. Irving’s views have in fact been disproved by the archives. Again, read the judgment and my book if you cannot grasp this point. Of course I refer to other historians’ work like any proper historian does (Irving does not) but you can check it out via the page references in my footnotes, which are in no sense misleading. And in any case it is the archival record and the way Irving misuses it that is at the centre of ‘Lying about Hitler’. Shirer’s ‘Rise and Fall of the Third Reich’ is pretty much worth less. It was out of date even when it was written. The only real value is in his own participant observation, best approached through his wonderful ‘Berlin Diary’. This correspondence is now closed.
JEA: I now seriously believe you are under the wings of an ideology in writing such libelous accusations. Western culture is based on reason and serious scholarship, not on academic mud-slinging. In In Defense of History, you theoretically and philosophically hold the view that one should have a skeptical approach to history and that documented accounts, archival documents, etc., matter. Yet practically you seem to do the opposite when it comes to examining extraordinary claims about Nazi Germany. While writing that Irving “produced nothing worth reading,” you think that Lipstadt’s Denying the Holocaust is serious scholarship! (Is it any wonder that you were paid half a million dollars to defend her in court? I guess “the love of money is the root of all evil” is right in this case.) All the historians are completely wrong except Trevor-Roper? What, then, caused them to praise his work? How is it that this has all happened after the trial? How is it that Raul Hilberg, one of the first Holocaust scholars in this field, didn’t have the same grudge against Irving? There is no doubt that there will be some errors in a thousand-page book. I agree with you once again that Irving can be wrong on a number of things, but certainly it is a groundless charge to say that he has produced “nothing worth reading.” I cite the other historians precisely because I wanted to show that he is not the only mad man in town; I did not cite them in order to appeal to authority. When you cite authorities in your book, and that I tell you exactly where, you said I “wrongly accuse” you! What else can one say? Moreover, it is again misleading to say that “archival record…is at the centre of ‘Lying about Hitler.’” Yes, you do cite some archival record, but most of the sources are secondary. I am not an Irving apologist, nor am I defending his views. In a search for truth, it is not intellectually safe to dismiss your opponent with name calling and libelous accusations. One should always look for logical consistency, empirical adequacy, intellectual honesty, and rational arguments. One should always be willing to following the truth—wherever it may lead. It is only the truth that will liberate one from historical and intellectual insanity. As Plato rightly put it in The Republic, “And don’t you think that being deceived about the truth is a bad thing, while having a grasp of the truth is good? And don’t you think having a grasp of the truth is shaving a belief that matches the way things are?” If the truth leads to Lipstadt’s argument, so be it. If it leads to Irving’s Hitler’s War, so be it. If it leads to Evans’ Lying about Hitler, so be it. This was what prompted me to read your books, Lipstadt’s books, and Irving’s books. I see many circular arguments and irrationalism most particularly in Lipstadt’s work, and I see ideology in your worldview. As a Cambridge scholar, you would serve the interest of historical enquiry well if you actually live by the historical standard which you write about. The fact that you were paid a large amount of money in order to win the case against Irving says something about the path you had taken and says much about the historical scholarship that was going on then. Moreover, winning such a huge case would certainly advance one’s career.[15]
Raul Hilberg wrote of David Irving: “If these people want to speak, let them. It only leads those of us who do research to re-examine what we might have considered as obvious. And that’s useful for us.”[16] Noted economic historian Robert Higgs has reached similar conclusions, arguing that historical revisionism can foster healthy scholarly debate precisely because historians should always be seeking additional evidence in order to provide a more accurate and coherent account of the past.[17]
Although several aspects of Hilberg’s history of the Holocaust are questionable, as we shall demonstrate in a future article, he was at least willing to remain open-minded on this particular point. Likewise, Jewish scholars such as Murray Rothbard regarded “revisionism” as a healthy and intellectually responsible approach to history—not because revisionists seek to rewrite the past according to their own preferences, but because extraordinary claims require the careful presentation and examination of evidence.[18]
Yet the Holocaust has come to function as a kind of sacred dogma in public discourse, to the extent that even legitimate scholarly debate is frequently branded as anti-Semitic. As Yale historian Paula Hyman noted in a 1980 New York Times piece,
“With regard to Israel, the Holocaust may be used to forestall political criticism and suppress debate; it reinforces the sense of Jews as an eternally beleaguered people who can rely for their defense only upon themselves. The invocation of the suffering endured by the Jews under the Nazis often takes the place of rational argument, and is expected to convince doubters of the legitimacy of current Israeli government policy.”[19]
In such a climate, evidence and logical argument no longer seem to be the central objective of the Holocaust establishment—particularly in Lipstadt’s case. She excels not in careful reasoning, but in summoning ad hominem labels and dispatching them with great theatrical certainty. Within this arena of ideas, historical documentation and logical consistency are treated as secondary, if not irrelevant. The easiest way to discredit a critic is simply to brand him an “anti-Semite,” a “Holocaust denier,” or a “neo-Nazi.” Once Lipstadt succeeded in persuading the media that Irving was a “Holocaust denier” and an anti-Semite, the evidentiary basis of his arguments became irrelevant, because few people were willing to read him at all—let alone examine his claims on their merits.
More importantly, under this framework, any historian who voices even the slightest doubt about Lipstadt’s narrative of the Holocaust is automatically dismissed as an anti-Semite, regardless of the nature of his evidence or reasoning.[20] In a letter she sent to the New York Times, she insinuated that Irving should not be referred to as a historian but a Holocaust denier[21]–although Irving has written at least 30 books on World War II and Lipstadt only four.
Lipstadt’s tactic is intellectually cheap, though not unexpected, as such rhetorical strategies have become standard ideological weapons within the Holocaust establishment. Terms like “anti-Semite,” “Holocaust denier,” “history denier,” and “hater of Jews” are used so loosely and so reflexively that, when subjected to logical or historical scrutiny, they are shown to rest on no demonstrable empirical foundation.
Where the Holocaust Narrative Does Not Add Up
Michael Shermer and his co-author Alex Grobman open their book by asserting that Ernst Zündel claimed that “the Holocaust never happened.”[22] The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust defines Holocaust denial as including “attempts to deny the fact that the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis ever took place,” as well as “the tendentious and trivializing claim that the Holocaust was not unique and that there had been precedents—even precedents that had served as models for the Holocaust.”[23] Even claims that “Jewish losses have been grossly exaggerated”[24]
may be labeled Holocaust denial.
Shermer and his co-author clearly know that so-called “Holocaust deniers” do not deny that Jews suffered under Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, it is far simpler—and rhetorically more effective—to construct a distorted caricature of their beliefs than to confront their actual claims with reasoned argument. In fact, back in 1998 (long before Shermer got involved in writing Denying History, which is a thoroughly dishonest book), Mark Weber, director of the Institute for Historical Review, wrote in the L.A. Times:
“Revisionist scholars do not ‘deny’ the Holocaust. They acknowledge that many hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed and otherwise perished during the Second World War as a direct and indirect result of the brutally anti-Jewish policies of Germany and its allies.”[25] Weber continued to say, “Since its founding in 1978, the IHR has steadfastly opposed bigotry of all kinds in its efforts to promote greater public understanding of key chapters of history.”[26]
In a similar vein, David Irving declared in a speech that “there is no doubt at all that the Nazis in their twelve-year rule inflicted nameless horrors on a large segment of the population, including the Jews and other people, whom they disliked.”[27]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgGP_evkvOk
Video Link.
Irving goes even further, suggesting that the atrocities committed by all sides during World War II should be termed “innocenticide—the killing of innocent people in war.” He emphasizes, “I am not Jewish, I am not anti-Jewish, and I am not an anti-Semite.”[28]
What is even more striking is that Shermer debated Weber on this very issue, yet continued to misrepresent “Holocaust deniers” in his book. Moreover, he makes no mention of the debate in Denying History. After reading the book, I contacted Shermer—around the same time I reached out to Lipstadt and Evans. The following is the exchange I had with him:
JEA: I am currently re-reading some of your works, most particularly Denying History and Why People Believe Weird Things. I agree with some of what you have written in both books, but I have taken issues with much of the key premises. For example, when David Irving makes the claim that the archives seem to say that Hitler did not know about this alleged “Final Solution,” you summon Raul Hilberg to disprove Irving and say that Irving was completely wrong [Why People Believe Weird Things, 217]. Was Hilberg able to prove this point from the archive? No. You disprove Irving by simply interviewing Hilberg [Ibid., 217, 322]. I think you could have proved Irving wrong by going through the archives since Irving, throughout Hitler’s War, gives the exact location of where to find his sources. This seems to vindicate what Irving has been saying for decades: just talking to like-minded people does little to historical scholarship, particularly when making extraordinary claims. Moreover, you could have done something even better: he could have asked Hilberg to cite archival documents which proves his conclusion.
MS: Thanks for the good email. I have a long discussion on this in Denying History that does not rely on Hilberg at all. I hope you looked at that carefully.
JEA: Thanks for the quick reply. The response to Irving’s assertion in Why People Believe Weird Things was based on Hilberg’s opinion. I have given the citation in my previous email. I am re-reading all those works so that no misrepresentation is allowed. I could not find the section where you had a long discussion of that issue in Denying History. Can you give me some specific?
MS: pp. 200-205
JEA: Thanks for the reference. My conclusion was correct: in both books you heavily rely on Hilberg to prove your conclusion, which to Irving seems to be a circular argument. For example, right after you declare that Irving falls under the snapshot fallacy, you declare, “As Raul Hilberg points out, a more accurate translation of the log is ‘Jewish transport from Berlin. No Liquidation.’ In other words, Himmler is referring to one particular transport, not all Jews. And, ironically, says Hilberg (and Irving concurs in Hitler’s Wars), ‘that transport was liquidated! That order was either ignored, or it was too late.” The citation again? It was based on an interview with Hilberg. There is a bigger issue that needs to be addressed as well: were there people of Jewish descent in Nazi Germany? According to Jewish historian Bryan Mark Rigg in Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers (University Press of Kansas), the answer is yes. Did Hitler know about this? The answer again is a re sounding yes. If Hitler wanted to exterminate all the Jews of Europe, it makes no sense for him to have those people in his own military. Moreover, it makes no sense for him to spare the lives of other Jews such as his own doctor. He called Eduard Bloch, his Jewish doctor when he was growing up, “a noble Jew.” When Germany occupied Austria in 1938, Hitler specifically placed Block “under the protection of the Gestapo, as Linz’s only Jew: Dr. and Mrs. Bloch were allowed to remain in their home undisturbed until all the formalities regarding their emigration were settled. Without interference from the authorities they could sell their large, beautiful home for a fair price, and they were allowed to keep their money—extraordinary privileges at that time.”
Irving would be puzzled by the fact that you cite Albert Speer to support your case. Speer himself admitted during an interview with Irving that his own book was altered by outside forces and he was even afraid to publish the actual memoirs for fear of reprisals. As I have said to Richard Evans and Deborah Lipstadt, if you guys are going to disprove Irving, he has to be disproved on his own grounds: archival documents. You and I agree with Carl Sagan that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. If a person is going to make extraordinary claims about Nazi Germany, then he has to advance extraordinary evidence. Citing the opinions of other historians certainly will not satisfy Irving precisely because no one is exempt from preconceived notions, ideological worldviews, and unproved assumptions. Irving insists that contemporary history is not going to help solve the issues surrounding Nazi Germany if it keeps positing extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence which should be backed up by documents through archives, not through what contemporary historians wished had happened or what political correctness would accept. Regardless of one’s own views about Irving and regardless of his political affiliation or what not, one has to agree that he is in line with rational and historical thought for demanding archival documents for extraordinary claims.
MS: There were lots of Jews in Nazi Germany. Himmler himself complains about this in his Poznan speech, which I also site in the book, scolding his SS leaders that everyone has their favorite Jew that they want to spare, etc., but that this must stop.
JEA: Doesn’t that challenge the prevailing notion that Hitler wanted to exterminate all the Jews of Europe?
MS: No, it’s not black and white. The Holocaust was an evolving process that developed over many years. Jews were deeply embedded in Ger man culture when Hitler came to power, and of course not all Germans felt about Jews the way Hitler did. If you think of the Nazis in a cartoonish fashion then when you encounter counter examples (Germans who liked Jews) you end up concluding, like the deniers do, that there must have been no Holocaust. Ridiculous and simplistic thinking that shows no understanding of the complexities of human nature or hu man history.
JEA: I never said that it was black and white. Nazi Germany was a complex issue and this is why extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. It is ridiculous and anti-Western to put someone in prison because he asks for evidence for a proposition. It is very interesting that you take Creationists and ID theorists to task by constantly asking them to provide evidence for their claims, but you don’t do the same thing with respect to other issues, including Nazi Germany. You are skeptical of some claims, but not of the many claims made by some historians. If you guys keep positing claims with no extraordinary evidence, once again David Irving will look more rational precisely because in most cases he seems to back his claims up. Moreover, I see that you keep misrepresenting others throughout both of your works in saying that they deny the Holocaust when in fact they rightly acknowledge that Jews, like gypsies, homosexuals, Catholics, Protestants, political dis sents, did suffer under Nazi Germany. Let us be reasonable about this. Is Franciszek Piper a Holocaust denier? You’ve read his book, and it would be irrational to call him a denier simply because he has a different take on the number of Jews died in Auschwitz. Some of the arguments you posit in both books can be easily disproved. You declare that Holocaust historians base their arguments on key foundations: a convergence of evidence made by eyewitnesses, documents, photographs, and physical evidence. You know very well that there was indeed a “convergence of evidence” showing that people were gassed at Belsen and other places. Even at the Nurember trials, there was a “con vergence of evidence” showing that people were gassed at Dachau; there was a “convergence of evidence” showing that the Nazis used Jewish fat to make soap. Alleged eyewitnesses were summons, supposed documents were dugged, photographs were forged, and physical evidence was fabricated. Those claims were being made by a wide range of Jewish organizations and groups, including the Simon Wiesenthal center, the organization that helped produce Denying History. These stories, most particularly the soap story, spread like wildfire in countries like Poland, Slovakia, and even Germany. This was so popular that “By July 1942 rumours were rife all over Eastern Europe that Jews were killed in great numbers and ‘boiled into soap.’” I think Christopher Hitchens was much more of a skeptic and a free thinker than many. When David Irving was arrested in Austria, Hitchens stood up to defend him. Arresting Irving, Hitchens declared in the Wall Street Journal, was a “disgrace.” Hitchens pointed out that it is perfectly legitimate to criticize religious belief and historical events, and one should not be placed in a cell for doing so. Not only that, Hitchens wrote that Irving “is in fact not a ‘denier,’ but a revisionist, and much-hated by the full dress ‘denial’ faction. The pages on Goebbels, as in his books on Dresden, Churchill and Hitler, contain some highly important and damning findings from his work in the archives of the Third Reich.” Hitchens, writing in 2001 in the Los Angeles Times, declared that “the Holocaust has become a secular religion, with state support in the form of a national museum.”
It seems that saying things like these would invoke cries of anti-Semitism, but Hitchens moves on to say that his mother’s family was of German and Polish Jewish descent and his wife’s family produced an Auschwitz survivor. Foreseeing that this preface would ease his statements, Hitchens further declared, “I look forward to a time when I won’t feel any need to mention this.” Hitchens continued, implying that it was “revisionists” who first made it clear that 1) there were no gas chambers at Belsen or Dachau or Buchenwald; 2) the Nazis did not turn Jews into soap; and 3) Rudolf Hoess’ “confession” “was extracted by force.” If a person wants to remain a serious historian, he has to abide by these historical facts now recognized by serious World War II historians. This, according to Hitchens, leads to the conclusion that much of the “eyewitness” testimony is propaganda. “Eyewitness” testimony was also responsible for propagating the idea that John Demjanjuk was at Treblin ka, but an Israeli court found that claim untrue. Moreover, Hitchens said, “much of the evidence presented and accepted at Nuremburg was spurious.” For example, during the trial, the Nazis were blamed by the Soviet and Allied judges for the massacre that happened at Katyn in Poland, but all reputable historians know by now that Stalin was responsible for this. Hitchens does not mince words when he said that Irving has a “sneak ing sympathy for fascism,” but states that “his work on the bombing of Dresden, on the inner functioning of the Churchill government and on the mentality of the Nazi generals was invaluable. He changed sides on the issue of the Hitler diaries, but his intervention was crucial to their exposure as a pro-Nazi fabrication. His knowledge of the German language was the envy of his rivals.” Although Hitchens believes that Irving’s work, like other historians, is not flawless, and faults Irving on many occasions, he concluded, “1st Amendment. This culture has assumed several great responsibilities. It sponsored the Nuremberg trials, with all their peaks and troughs of evidence. It has elevated the Holocaust into a universal moral example.” Lastly, you declare quite rightly that “not all Germans felt about Jews the way Hitler did.” This is quite inconsistent with what Daniel Jonah Goldhagen writes in Hitler’s Willing Executioners, a book that was widely dismissed for its lack of historical balance and scholarship and a book which you say is reliable. “Goldhagen is reliable; he plays by the accepted rules of historical scholarship; and he accounts for the observed phenomena while offering a different explanation for them.” Even Hilberg dismissed the book as “worthless” because Goldhagen is “totally wrong about everything.” How interesting that when Goldhagen was asked to provide evidence for some of the claims, and when it was discovered that some of his evidence was a complete misrepresentations of the actual sources, Goldhagen wanted to sue Ruth Bettina Birn!
MS: I like David Irving, and have enjoyed his company on several occasions over the years. But he plays fast and loose with evidence, depending on his audience. I’ve seen him make claims at the IHR’s conference that he absolutely knows to be false, such as the “no holes, no Holocaust” business about Krema II at Birkenau. I’ve been to all the camps, I know the evidence, and I know he knows that some of what he says is absolutely false, but he says it anyway to the IHR crowd. Why? You speculate.
JEA: I have never met Irving but I felt the statement was too bizarre to be true. I thought it was pertinent to get hold of Irving and ask him about the “no holes, no Holocaust” nonsense because that would disprove much of what he said in Hitler’s War. Here’s what he said: “‘No holes, no Holocaust’? He is confusing me with Robert Faurisson. He says that. That is his catch phrase. I will defend or comment on what I say in talks, I don’t have to defend others.” You are basically putting weapons in the arms of Irving by misrepresenting him, and what is so interesting is that you have read Hitler’s War! You know too well that he does admit and document that many Jews indeed suffered under Nazi Germany. Therefore, it makes no sense to put words into his mouth and dismantle them. This is not serious scholarship and you have to characterize your opponent’s arguments properly before you can respond to them. As I insinuate to Evans and Lipstadt, you guys are making real Holocaust deniers look like serious scholars by appealing to circular arguments, misleading notions, and complete mis representations. Those who have died in concentration camps deserve a better scholarship.
MS: What is the purpose of this inquiry of yours? Do you doubt the Holocaust story? Do you think because there were Jews in Nazi Ger many that no Holocaust happened? Do you doubt my long discussion in Denying History about the order to exterminate European Jews? It is not in the least bit premised on a Hilberg interview. What do you think Himmler was talking about in his Poznan speech about the extermination of the Jews, how difficult it is to do but that it must be done? I ask because over the years I’ve had many people write me pre tending to innocently ask some minor question about some minor de tail of the historical record, all in the hopes of tripping me up and thereby proving that the Holocaust didn’t happen and I’m complicit in the conspiracy to pretend it did. Are you one of these people? If not, what exactly are you trying to find out about the Holocaust? What in particular bothers you, besides the point you mentioned about there [being] people of Jewish descent in Germany, which I explained for you. P.S. Tell David Irving I said hello and wish him well. We may dis agree on some matters but, like Hitchens, I find it a travesty of justice that he should be prosecuted in any way by anyone anywhere for his writings and speeches. I consider it a massive step backwards in civil rights to bad so-called “hate speech,” which is just code for “harassing anyone we don’t particularly like.”
JEA: How can anyone seriously doubt the historical Holocaust? I again find it very interesting that when I give the exact page number where you support your point by interviewing Hilberg, you then declare that “It is not in the least bit premised on a Hilberg interview.” Who, then, wrote that particular section of the book? Frankly, my job is to honor those who have died under Nazi Germany with serious historical scholarship and backbone. It is the job of the serious historian to honor the dead, even those who have died under Sta lin. Norman M. Naimark has rightly argued that Stalin too has committed genocide (Stalin’s Genocide). Within just one year, Stalin systematically exterminated more than five million peasants. Yet there is not a single Museum in the entire Western World honoring those people. The job of the serious historian is to try to find out the truth of what happened, not to please the prevailing vision or make people feel happy about themselves. In In Defense of History, Evans theoretically and philosophically hold the view that one should have a skeptical approach to history and that documented accounts, archival documents, etc., matter. Yet practically he seems to do the opposite when it comes to examining extraordinary claims about Nazi Germany. When I pointed out that I enjoy the book and that he should approach some claims with the same critical method, he did not seem to enjoy that. He loves the theoretical framework at an academic institution such as Cambridge, but he does not enjoy those who put that framework to action. Before the trial, he rightly acknowledged that Irving has dug up some good materials, but after the trial he wrote that everything Irving wrote was practically worthless. He could not see this was a contradiction. Thomas Sowell points out in The Visions of the Anointed that “Assumptions are…taken for granted by so many people, including ‘thinking people,’ that neither those assumptions nor their corollaries are generally confronted with demands for empirical evidence. Indeed, empirical evidence itself may be viewed as suspect, insofar as it is inconsistent with [the prevailing vision].” I am sure that you would agree with him here. That is my approach to history or any other subject. We have to rely on some of the best historical methods—such as the archives, primary sources from documented accounts, unspoiled sources, etc—in order to honor the dead of all people who have suffered during World War II. I am not one of those people who will trick you to prove that the Holocaust never happened. From our first discussion, I made it very clear that you and I agree with Carl Sagan’s statement that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. What am I trying to find out? I think that historical truth is as important to you as anyone else, otherwise you would not write Denying History. I am certainly glad you find it a travesty to put someone in a cell for an opinion. The difference, though, is that Hitchens was brave enough to write about this in Vanity Fair, the Wall Street Journal, and the L.A. Times. If you truly want to fight against so-called “hate speech,” you would have pointed this specific issue out long ago in Skeptic Magazine. I can assure you that the moment you take that step, you would receive hundreds of threatening letters, probably accusing you of a Holocaust denier. You prob ably would lose some of your funding as well. (By the way, I really like your discussion on Ayn Rand in Why People Believe Weird Things.)
Let us reiterate a few points. Holocaust revisionism has never claimed that Jews were not persecuted by Nazi Germany—what serious historian would dispute that historical fact? What some revisionist scholars seek to emphasize, however, includes the following:
- Other ethnic and social groups were also persecuted in Nazi Germany.
- Hitler did not necessarily intend to exterminate all Jews in Europe but, according to some interpretations, sought forced migration.[29]
- Individuals of Jewish descent lived in Nazi Germany, and Hitler was aware of this.[30]
- Nazi Germany represents one of many historical atrocities, some of which may be considered worse than the Third Reich.[31]
- The oft-cited figure of six million Jewish deaths may be inflated.
- Some revisionists challenge the historical claim that Jews were systematically gassed in gas chambers.
Moreover, Michael Shermer and his co-author approach the Holocaust in a manner that raises more questions than it resolves. In their view, anyone who challenges the commonly cited figure of five to six million Jewish deaths at the hands of Nazi Germany is labeled a Holocaust denier. Shermer implicitly reinforced this stance upon the publication of Denying History.
For Shermer and his co-author, anyone who questions whether people were gassed in concentration camps is deemed a Holocaust denier. These two premises—the acceptance of the six-million figure and the use of gas chambers—form the core tenets of what is often referred to as the Holocaust establishment. One can argue with a high degree of certainty that these ideas constitute the “nuts and bolts” of that establishment.
In other words, if these premises are shown to be false, the Holocaust establishment would lose its foundational claims. Furthermore, it appears that anyone who does not align with the Holocaust establishment is labeled a Holocaust denier. Even Ernst Zündel, to my knowledge, never denied that Jews suffered or died at the hands of Nazi Germany; rather, his challenge focused on the question, “Did six million really die?”[33]
If we take Jewish historians such as Yehuda Bauer, Gerald Reitlinger, or even Raul Hilberg at their word, the answer to Zündel’s question is clearly no. Anyone with a basic understanding of history would acknowledge that Jews—as well as homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Catholics, and Protestants—suffered under Nazi Germany. This point is not in dispute. What remains controversial, as I have documented elsewhere, is the oft-cited figure of six million Jewish deaths.
Jewish military historian Joel S. Hayward, Head of Air Power Studies at King’s College, while not endorsing all of Irving’s work, wrote a lengthy letter praising him for his meticulous historical documentation. This raises a striking point: either the historians who have praised Irving are self-deluded, intentionally misleading, or they recognize that Irving presents valuable insights. Moreover, the closer a historian engages with primary archival documents, the closer one can come to understanding the actual events of history. Not all historians immerse themselves in the archives; many laboriously quote the work of others to reinforce widely held beliefs. A classic example of this can be found in Richard Evans’ widely read The Third Reich at War, where he declares that
“As soon as the German forces had entered the Soviet Union and the various territories it controlled, followed by the four SS Security Service Task Forces and subordinate Task Units including a number of police battalions, they had begun to carry out the orders Heydrich had given them to kill civilian resisters, Communist Party officials and Jews, along with all Jewish prisoners of war, in order, as they thought, to eliminate any possibility of resistance or subversion from ‘Jewish Bolsheviks.’”[34]
As a Cambridge historian, Evans ought to be able to access the archives and show precisely where the documents supporting these extraordinary claims can be found. Instead, he relies on the opinions of other historians, such as Jewish historians Saul Friedländer and Alfred Stein. Irving would not necessarily dispute Evans’ credentials as a historian, but he would argue that historians best serve the public and the pursuit of historical truth by substantiating their claims with archival evidence—especially when such documents are available.
As the noted Italian philosopher and historian, Benedetto Croce wrote decades ago, “documents and criticism, life and thought, are the true source of history, that is to say, the two elements of historical synthesis…they form a constituent part of it and are constituted by it. Hence the idea of history with its sources outside itself is another fancy to be dispelled, together with that of history being the opposite of chronicle.”[35]
What I have observed over the years is a notable lack of self-criticism within the Holocaust establishment; many historians do not pose deeper questions or rigorously seek evidence to support widely accepted claims. History does not operate in this manner. I had hoped that Shermer and his co-author Grobman would directly engage with Irving’s central theses, as presented in works such as Hitler’s War and Churchill’s War. Instead, Denying History offers very little interaction with Irving’s main arguments.
When he was asked the question “Why do you think that people deny the Holocaust then?,” Shermer responded, “I think it really is mostly anti-Semitism, the belief in the inordinate amount of power that Jews allegedly have in the world. It’s a certain amount of just basic tribalism.”[36]http://hdot.org/en/learning/podcasts/shermer.
What likely leads to Irving being labeled a “Holocaust denier” is his refusal to follow the mainstream historian’s common practice of relying on the opinions of peers without strong evidentiary support. When it comes to extraordinary claims, Irving insists on verification through primary sources rather than the consensus of like-minded historians. For him, healthy skepticism is essential for any claim about World War II, given the Germans’ obsession with documentation. As Irving himself stated, “I am a thorn in the side of certain people who have a vested interest in propagating their own version of history,” a version that “has become big business.” Irving calls those people “the traditional enemy of the truth.”[38]
Why has Irving stood by his views all these years? Why haven’t Lipstadt and others disproved him wrong in all his major views? It is because Irving goes by the archives. He declared, “What is it that distinguishes my books from all the rest?… I write my books from the archives…why is it that other historians get mad as hell when they hear my name? Why is it that they cheer when I get thrown into prison…no court hearing, no trial?”[39]
Primary sources, as critical historians have shown us, are the most reliable evidence for extraordinary claims that purport to be historical.[40] Irving pursues that traditional method, which was followed by celebrated historians such as V. H. Galbraith, who believed that “the principal value of studying history lay in a direct encounter with the primary sources; by comparison, the interpretations of historians were fundamentally transient.”[41] Irving continued to say that many historians
“rely on second-hand sources, which you can get away with….What did Hitler know about Auschwitz? ‘Of course, he knew, he was the one who gave the order.’ And I said, ‘What’s the evidence?’ Professor [X] says that I had it from professor [Y]. Professor [Y] says that I had it from professor [Z]. Professor [Z] says I had it from professor [X]. So the circle is complete. They’ve all been quoting each other like dogs running around a circle…The world’s historians are ashamed of David Irving—and they should be ashamed.”[42]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwp7tVZuXKM
Video Link.
Irving does not reject secondary sources entirely, as valuable information can certainly be gleaned from them. However, he opposes authoritative statements that are made without extraordinary supporting evidence.
Regardless of one’s opinion of the man, Irving aligns closely with the Western historical tradition of rigorous archival research. Moreover, even if he were imprisoned—ostensibly to force a change of mind—he returns undeterred, ready to continue his struggle against what he terms “the traditional enemy of the truth.”
Irving pursues skeptical inquiry to its historical limits. For instance, when Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs by Albert Speer was published, it was Irving who engaged directly with the author, asking probing and detailed questions. Through this process, Irving quickly uncovered that the “memoirs” had been heavily shaped by external influences. Irving writes:
“Albert Speer’s memoir Inside the Third Reich made him a personal fortune after the West Berlin firm of Propyläen published the book in 1969. The volume earned him wide respect for his disavowal of Hitler. Some critics were however puzzled that the American edition differed substantially from the German original Erinnerungen and the British edition. I learned the truth from the horse’s mouth, being one of the first writers to interview Speer after his release from Spandau prison in 1966. The former Reichsminister spent an afternoon reading out loud to me from his draft memoirs. The book subsequently published was very different, having been written, he explained, by my own in-house editor at the Ullstein publishing house (Annette Engel née Etienne), by their chief editor Wolf-Jobst Siedler, and by historian Joachim Fest, editor of the prestigious Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Miss Etienne confirmed this. When I challenged Speer in private at a Frankfurt publishing dinner in October 1979 to publish his original memoirs, he replied rather wistfully that he wished he could: ‘That would be impossible. That manuscript was quite out of keeping with the modern nuances. Even the captions to the chapters would have caused difficulties.’
“A courageous Berlin author, Matthias Schmidt, later published a book exposing the Speer legend and the ‘memoirs’; but it is the latter volume which the lazy gentlemen of my profession have in their libraries, not Schmidt’s… It was symptomatic of Speer’s truthfulness to history that while he was in Spandau he paid for the entire wartime diaries of his office (Dienststelle) to be retyped, omitting the more unfortunate passages, and donated these faked documents to the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz. My comparison of the 1943 volume, housed in the original in British Cabinet Office archives, with the Bundesarchiv copy made this plain, and Matthias Schmidt also reveals the forgery.”[43]
After more than twenty years of digging in the archives, asking important questions, talking to people who knew Hitler personally, and even reading the diaries of those close to Hitler, Irving admits that Hitler is still a puzzle.”[44]
Regardless of Irving’s personal beliefs, his work must be evaluated based on historical accuracy, consistency, and honesty. His methodology—grounded in careful archival research and corroborated evidence—is far more rigorous and intellectually satisfying than relying on opinions unsupported by primary sources. This approach was even recognized by historians such as Dennis E. Showalter upon the publication of Hitler’s War in 1977.[45]
If Irving’s critics wish to take him seriously, they must challenge his claims with counter-evidence drawn from the very materials he knows best—documented primary sources. If they fail to do so, history may ultimately vindicate Irving’s findings.
Richard J. Evans and the Question of Historical Methodology
It is stunning to read that on a theoretical level, on many occasions Richard J. Evans abides by the historical method. He writes, “In teaching undergraduates and graduate students alike, university historians’ primary aim is to get them to adopt a critical and questioning attitude to the books and articles they read, including their own.”[46] Evans continues, “Historical writing as well as teaching makes a point of conveying the provisional and uncertain nature of interpretation and the need to test it constantly against the source materials used as evidence in its favor.”[47]
Evans also implies that primary sources are important.[48]
Why shouldn’t this method be applied to key aspects of Nazi Germany? Evans, once again, aligns with sound historical inquiry when he observes that (and this is a crucial point): “It is highly dangerous to make objectivity in this sense dependent on the existence of the scholarly community. There was, after all, a scholarly community in Germany in the 1920s which remained in existence, largely unaltered in personnel and ideology, under Hitler’s Third Reich.”[49]
Whether he acknowledges it or not, Evans is in agreement with Irving on this point. For years, Irving has emphasized that the historical community must cease relying on self-referential citations to support extraordinary claims and instead turn to the archives for reliable evidence. In writing Hitler’s War, Irving exemplified what professional historians ought to do: he examined military records and archival documents, gained the trust of Hitler’s close associates, studied original manuscripts and memoirs, reviewed the accounts of Hitler’s personal staff such as Karl Wilhelm Krause, examined the handwritten memoirs of Himmler’s intelligence chief Walter Schellenberg, and consulted unpublished diaries and private correspondence of numerous individuals in Hitler’s inner circle.[50]
Irving even learned German in order to fully access and interpret these documents. One cannot seriously deny that he thoroughly did his homework. After years of meticulous study, he concluded that many widely accepted claims about Nazi Germany are either propaganda or outright false.[51]
What astonished Irving was that many historians who wrote extensive biographies of Hitler did not consult the archives to verify the evidence. Joachim Fest serves as a prime example. Although the National Archives in Washington “houses by far the largest collection of records relating to recent European history,” Fest admitted that he had never visited the facility.[52]
Let me note in passing that Evans’ In Defense of History is a worthwhile and insightful read and deserves recognition as such. Yet he does not seem willing to apply its principles to actual historical inquiry, obviously because political considerations constrain him. In this way, many historians gain popularity precisely by abandoning the rigorous standards that historiographical research demands. As Irving puts it, “A historian has no duty to be popular. It is difficult sometimes to be true to the historical record and popular at the same time.”[53] This is right in line with what the Greek rhetorician and satirist Lucian said about history. It is pertinent to cite him one more time,
“If you are going to write history you must sacrifice to truth alone, ignoring everything else…Well, Well, my historian should be like that: fearless, incorruptible, frank, a friend of free speech and the truth, determined, as the comic poet puts it, to call figs figs and a tub a tub, indulging neither hatred nor friendship, sparing nobody, not showing pity or shame or diffidence, an unbiased judge, kindly to everyone up to the point of not allowing one side more than it deserves, a stranger without a stake in his writings, independent, serving no king, not taking into account what any man will think, but simply saying what happened. happened…On the whole, I ask you to remember this—and I shall keep on repeating it: don’t only write with an eye to the present, hoping that the present generation will praise and honour you. You should aim at eternity, writing for posterity and claiming payment for your book from them; so that it can be said of you: ‘He was a free man, totally frank in his speech, untouched by flattery or servility, showing truthfulness in everything.’””[54]
Foundations of the Holocaust Establishment
Michael Shermer argues that Holocaust historians base their arguments on key foundations: a convergence of evidence made by eyewitnesses, documents, photographs, and physical evidence.[55] Totally flimsy.
There was a “convergence of evidence” showing that people were gassed at Belsen, Dachau, and other places; there was a “convergence of evidence” showing that the Nazis used Jewish fat to make soap. Alleged eyewitnesses were summoned, supposed documents were used, photographs were forged, and physical evidence was fabricated.
Those claims were made by a wide range of Jewish organizations, including Simon Wiesenthal. These stories, particularly the soap story, spread like wildfire in Poland, Slovakia, and even Germany. Walter Laqueur himself declares that the story was so popular that “by July 1942 rumours were rife all over Eastern Europe that Jews were killed in great numbers and ‘boiled into soap.’”
Yet it took Jewish historian Walter Laqueur years to declare that the soap story was demonstrably false.[56]
And Laqueur could never tell us how the story turned out to be false. He simply says that “It emerged after the war that the story was in fact untrue.”[57]
We see the same methodology in Shermer and Grobman’s Denying History. They declare that “most historians do not believe [the soap story]. Deniers exploit this confusion, claiming it is a clear example of Holocaust myth-making, the unreliability of eyewitness testimony, and poor historiography.”[58]
Shermer knows very well that “Holocaust deniers” are not the only ones to say that eyewitness testimony in this case is not enough to establish an extraordinary claim. Shermer could never tell us how most historians came to dismiss the soap story. Moreover, if the soap story is not a historical fact, could it be called a myth or a story that has no historical backup? We also have already seen the inconsistencies among alleged eyewitnesses.
No serious Holocaust historian believes that there is a “convergence of evidence” among eyewitnesses anymore. Consider Paul Rassinier, a French anti-Nazi history and geography teacher who smuggled Jewish refugees into Switzerland. Rassinier was captured by the Nazis in 1943 and sent to Buchenwald. When the war was over, he was released and returned to France, where he was awarded the highest decoration from the French government.
Rassinier, however, was appalled at some of the claims being propagated. Although he hated the Nazi policies, he knew that there was no evidence showing that people were being gassed. He figured that he had to dispel many of the sweeping statements which were being made about the concentration camps.[59]
Irving’s Fatal Error: Taking Lipstadt to Court
I have argued for years that Irving made a fundamental error in suing Lipstadt, as there was little chance of victory—particularly given the substantial financial support organized by Jewish organizations for her defense. Even Hollywood mogul Steven Spielberg contributed thousands of dollars to the case.[60] One can reasonably argue that Irving’s decision to take Lipstadt to court was the very event that ended up rescuing the Holocaust establishment. Had the matter remained in the arena of scholarly debate—rather than being shifted into a courtroom shaped by political and ideological maneuvering—the establishment would likely have been dealt a serious intellectual blow, perhaps even a fatal one. Although it remains intellectually vulnerable, it regained a veneer of political respectability because its defenders were able to claim a courtroom “victory.” That outcome fostered a kind of hubristic confidence—an implicit belief that the archives and the historical record no longer pose a threat to their narrative. They are, of course, mistaken. But the perception of having prevailed has allowed them to marginalize Irving and, to a degree, silence him in the broader public sphere.
Lipstadt admits that when Rabbi Herbert Friedman heard about the case, he pulled Lipstadt aside and said, “It’s time to get organized. Irving set his sights on you, but it’s the entire Jewish community and historical truth that he is aiming at.”[61]
In a similar vein, Leslie Wexner, chairman and CEO of Limited Brands, declared, “This is not Deborah’s issue. It’s our issue.”[62]
Lipstadt declared that Wexner “then relayed a message to me that I was not to worry about funds…All this was done quietly and without any publicity or fanfare.”[63]
In my personal view, Irving would have been better served by writing a book aimed at systematically challenging the central claims of Lipstadt and the broader Holocaust establishment. Such an approach would have been both more intellectually rigorous and historically damaging to Lipstadt’s position than pursuing a court case. I know people who attended his conferences and spoke with him about this very issue, and they told me that he regretted taking Lipstadt to court.
Notes
[1] “Keith Olbermann’s ‘Worst Person’ – David Irving,” www.youtube.com, 09/16/10.
[2] Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), 49.
[3] Richard J. Evans, “David Irving, Hitler and Holocaust Denial: Electronic Edition,” Holocaustdenialontrial.org.
[5] D. D. Guttenplan, The Holocaust on Trial (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2002), 1.
[6] John Keegan, The Battle for History (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), 50.
[7] Ibid., 51.
[8] Ibid., 58.
[9] Deborah Lipstadt, History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005), 23.
[10] Ibid., 23.
[11] Ibid., 22.
[12] Quoted in Richard J. Evans, Lying about Hitler: History, the Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial (New York: Basic Books, 2001), 11.
[13] Lipstadt, History on Trial, 23.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Shortly after this exchange, I received an article from the Australia/Israel Review titled “Thank Evans: Meeting David Irving’s Nemesis,” which reported that Richard Evans had signed a contract with Penguin Books—Lipstadt’s publisher—to produce a three-volume history of the Nazi era. It was later revealed that Evans was set to receive roughly one million pounds—nearly two million dollars—for the project, and this arrangement was made while the trial was still underway. Whether or not he ultimately received the full sum is irrelevant; the fact remains that he did publish the trilogy with Penguin. The appearance of a significant financial incentive is therefore difficult to ignore.
[16] Quoted in Norman Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry, 71.
[17] Robert Higgs, “Why Do So Many People Automatically and Angrily Condemn Historical Revisionism?,” History News Network, December 8, 2011.
[18] Murray N. Rothbard, “Revisionism for our Time,” Ludwig von Mises Institute, June 29, 2007.
[19] Paula Hyman, “New Debate on the Holocaust,” NY Times, September 14, 1980.
[20] Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Assault on Truth (New York: Penguin Books, 1994), 215.
[21] Deborah Lipstadt, “Those Who Deny the Holocaust Deny History,” N Y Times, March 4, 2009.
[22] Shermer and Grobman, Denying History, 1.
[23] Israel Gutman, “Denial of the Holocaust,” Israel Gutman, ed. The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1990), 681-682.
[24] Ibid., 682.
[25] Mark Weber, “Revisionists and the Holocaust,” LA Times, March 15, 1998.
[26] Ibid.
[27] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgGP_evkvOk
Video Link.
[28] Ibid.
[29] See for example Edwin Black, The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Zionist Rescue of Jews from the Third Reich to Jewish Palestine (Washington: Dialog Press, 1984 and 2009).
[30] See for example Bryan Mark Rigg, Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002). Around ten years ago, one of Rigg’s agents contacted me, saying that Rigg would be happy to be interviewed. We eventually conducted the interview, which I published on Veterans Today. Within days of its publication, I received numerous emails from Rigg’s agent reporting that Rigg was furious, having discovered that Veterans Today was allegedly an “anti-Semitic” website. The agent asked me to take down the interview, and to calm the situation, I complied. I believe the tension arose in part because I had begun probing Rigg about Iran, which he essentially regarded as a rogue state seeking to exterminate Israel. Later in life, Rigg discovered that he was Jewish himself and was eventually recruited by the IDF.
[31] See for example Steven Rosefielde, Red Holocaust (New York: Routledge, 2009).
[33] Before he passed away, Zündel contacted me and confirmed that I was correct—that he did not subscribe to the thesis that no Jews suffered in Nazi Germany. He sent me a video presentation detailing how he was persecuted, how his house was burned down, and how the Holocaust establishment made his life difficult. His wife, who was also a columnist at Veterans Today, reached out to me, saying that if I were ever to come back to the United States even for a short visit, she would be more than happy to host me at their home.
[34] Richard J. Evans, The Third Reich at War, 1939-1945 (New York: Penguin Books, 2008), 218.
[35] Benedetto Croce, Theory and History of Historiography (Toronto: The University of Toronto Libraries, 2011), introduction.
[36] http://hdot.org/en/learning/podcasts/shermer.
[38] Ibid
[39] Ibid.
[40] See for example Jenny L. Presnell, The Information-Literature Historian (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 5.
[41] John Tosh, Historians on History (London: Pearson Education Limited, 2009), 19.
[42] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwp7tVZuXKM
Video Link.
[43] David Irving, Hitler’s War (London: Focal Point Publications, 2000), xv-xvi.
[44] Ibid., xxxi.
[45] Dennis E. Showalter, “Book Review—David Irving, Hitler’s War,” American Historical Review, Vol. 82, Nov. 5, December 1977: 1281.
[46] Richard Evans, In Defense of History (New York: Norton, 1999), 93.
[47] Ibid., 94; emphasis added.
[48] Ibid., 94-95, 98, 99-100.
[49] Ibid., 99.
[50] Irving, Hitler’s War, xiv, xxi.
[51] Ibid., xiv-xvii.
[52] Ibid., xviii.
[53] David Irving, Apocalypse 1945: The Destruction of Dresden (London: Focal Point Publications, 2007), xi.
[54] Lucian, Selected Dialogues (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 96, 197, 201.
[55] Walter Laqueur, The Terrible Secret: Suppression of the Truth about Hitler’s “Final Solution” (New York: Henry Holt, 1998), 145.
[56] Ibid., 82.
[57] Ibid.
[58] Shermer and Grobman, Denying History, 115.
[59] See Paul Rassinier, The Holocaust Story and the Lies of Ulysses: A Study of the Nazi Concentration Camps and the Alleged Extermination of European Jewry (Newport Beach, CA: Noontide Press, 1977).
[60] Deborah E. Lipstadt, History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier (New York, HarperCollins, 2005), 37-38.
[61] Ibid., 38.
[62] Ibid.
[63] Ibid.