"From Author to Outcast: David Irving and the Holocaust" - Anthony Long
Originally published in Australian Rationalist No. 53 (Autumn 2000): 30-39.
1. Introduction
2. Holocaust denial or Holocaust revisionism? The most important claims made by such individuals can be summarised as follows:
1. 'Holocaust revisionists' do not, in most cases, 'deny' that the Holocaust occurred -- they simply question the extent and causes of it. These points are common to most self-declared 'Holocaust revisionists'. Some also make claims about the alleged inherent Jewish characteristics of Communism, that Germany only attacked the Soviet Union as a pre-emptive measure against the imminent Soviet invasion, or that world Jewry declared war on Germany in 1933, and any measures taken by Germany against Jews were retaliatory in nature. The following quote perhaps sums up the fallacy of Holocaust denial most succinctly. The American Greg Raven wrote the following in the Internet newsgroup alt.revisionism in 1994. In attempting to explain why he did not he consider himself to be a Holocaust denier, Raven stated that:
[..]
Second, here is what Holocaust revisionists REALLY say: The Jews of Europe suffered a great tragedy before and during the Second World War. Many were mistreated, and many died under horrific conditions. However, a) there is no evidence that the Nazis had a plan or policy of exterminating the Jews, b) there is no evidence that there were homicidal gas chambers for murder [sic] Jews, and c) the figure of six million Jewish victims is an exaggeration (online posting). Raven does not consider himself to be a Holocaust denier, yet he denies each of the points to which he refers as being part of the definition of the term 'Holocaust' that he provides. Rather than refuting the accusation of being a Holocaust denier, Raven actually confirms it, by demonstrating that he denies it. Whilst Irving does not consider himself to be a 'Holocaust revisionist', let alone a Holocaust denier, his views on it suggest otherwise. During the recent libel case Irving's claims about the Holocaust were examined in minute detail, in order to test the validity of the accusations levelled at him by Lipstadt. Although both parties that agreed the case was not about the historical record of the Holocaust, it was nonetheless necessary to examine aspects of it, in order to determine whether Irving had distorted or manipulated the evidence he had used as a basis for his claims.
3. Irving and the Holocaust Until Irving was denied entry to Australia in 1992, he had visited in 1986 and 1987 to promote his books. The Australian League of Rights promoted the tours in their newsletter On Target. In an interview on Adelaide radio in March 1986 Irving claimed that "without Adolf Hitler, the state of Israel probably wouldn't exist today, so to that extent he was probably the Jews' greatest friend... the only genuine wartime documents linking Hitler to the Jews [..] show him holding out his hand to protect them, to prevent things happening to them, it's quite extraordinary"(Ontario Jewish Archives, 1991, 9). In another radio interview Irving stated that Hitler "had lived to see his reputation dragged into the mire, his name linked to these appalling atrocities and crimes... the millions - or hundreds of thousands - I am not going to name a figure - of Jews were the victims of a large number of nameless criminals" (Ontario Jewish Archives, 1991, 10). It is clear that Irving was increasingly becoming more extreme in his assertions before he publicly began to deny aspects of the historiography of the Holocaust.
4. The Leuchter Report After Zündel's conviction (which was overturned in 1992, after the Supreme Court ruled that the law under which he had been charged was unconstitutional) Irving started a campaign to publicise the Leuchter Report. This marked a radical departure from Irving's previous public expression of his views on the Holocaust. In 1989 he published an edition of the Leuchter Report in the United Kingdom and used his own imprint, Focal Point. He wrote a foreword for his edition, and offered his support for the claims made within, and stated that the results were "truly astounding", and that:
[..] However, Irving did admit that would "have preferred to see more rigorous methods used in identifying and certifying the samples taken for analysis", but excused this because he realised the difficulties faced by Leuchter and his team (Irving, 1989). He announced the publication at a press conference that he held in his flat in central London on June 23, 1989. He began by stating that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz, Majdanek or Treblinka, and that there were no mass exterminations by poison gas (Auschwitz Pressekonferenz, 1989, 3). In the libel case Irving was forced to reveal the extent of his knowledge of the Leuchter Report, both at the time he testified on behalf of Zündel and, what steps he had taken since the 1988 trial to confirm the validity of the document. He admitted that he had only read "a few figures in a column of chemical tests" as bedtime reading the night before he testified in 1988, despite having stated at that time that he had read the entire report (Irving v. Penguin & Lipstadt, 2000, 7-113). Furthermore, the Defence's representative, Richard Rampton, Q.C., extracted the following admission from Irving:
[..] Shortly after this Irving was again forced to admit that he had not taken any action to verify the validity of the Leuchter Report:
[..] However, at around the same time Irving held the press conference to publicise the Leuchter Report, he had claimed that the reason that he had become convinced by its content was because he had conducted his own research into the historiography of the Holocaust. For example, at a meeting in Canada in August 1988, Irving claimed that he started looking through archives "with a completely open mind", in search of evidence to demonstrate that Auschwitz was an extermination factory, but had only found a couple of documents and eyewitness accounts to support the claim (Irving v. Penguin and Lipstadt, 2000, 7/152-3). Shortly before the libel case Irving still claimed that the Leuchter Report was "an important historical document", even though he knew that it was flawed (Irving, 1999). The most surprising development during the libel case was the number of concessions Irving made about the Leuchter Report. The Defence expert witnesses highlighted many factual errors contained in it, of which Irving accepted almost all. In summarising the evidence, Judge Gray stated that: "In the light of the evidence of [Defence expert witness] van Pelt and Irving's answers in cross-examination, I do not consider that an objective historian would have regarded the Leuchter Report as a sufficient reason for dismissing, or even doubting [..] the presence of homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz" (Gray, 2000, 13.80). Irving did, however, claim that the German Germar Rudolf had done so in the Rudolf Gutachten. Rudolf, a German chemist who was studying for a doctorate at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, wrote a report, which arrived at the same conclusions as Leuchter's. It was initially presented as evidence at the trial of the right wing extremist Ernst Otto Remer in 1992. Remer was involved in suppressing the attempted coup against Hitler in 1944, and remained active in the far right scene in Europe until his death in 1997. Rudolf offered his 'research' to defend Remer against the accusation of spreading the 'Auschwitz lie' (the German term for 'Holocaust denial'). As a direct result of this, Rudolf was charged with inciting the people and defaming the memory of the dead. He was convicted and fled to the United Kingdom, in order to avoid imprisonment, where he has since been living in hiding. Although Irving claimed that Rudolf's report supported the basic assertions of Leuchter's, he did not attempt to introduce this as evidence. In response, Rudolf described Irving as "a fool" for not calling him as an expert witness (Rudolf, 2000). Irving regrets testifying on behalf of Zündel in 1988, claiming that he "would never do it again", because of the damage it did to his career and the intimidation, of which he alleges to have been the victim (Irving, 1999). He claimed that he would be willing to sign any document that the Jewish community would present him with, in order to re-establish his career as an author. However, he also stated that he would not reject his previous claims about the Holocaust. Irving claims his reason for wishing to do this is simple: he has a Leuchter Report as a supposedly valid scientific report on the existence of the gas chambers at Auschwitz.
5. Contact to Right Wing Extremists Irving also travelled extensively through the United States and spoke to a variety of groups, including ones of the far right. Irving was aware by 1995 that the Leuchter Report was "flawed" (as he often stated during the case against Penguin and Lipstadt). However, he was still actively promoting it as a valid forensic report on the gas chambers at Auschwitz, including at a meeting of the National Alliance in Tampa Bay. The National Alliance is described by the Anti-Defamation League as "the single most dangerous organized hate group in the United States today" (Explosion of Hate, 2000). Irving spoke about the Leuchter Report, stating that it "is one of the most telling reports on the Auschwitz case", and that Leuchter had given expert evidence at the 1988 re-trial of Zündel (Irving v. Penguin & Lipstadt, 2000, 8/79). Irving attempted to minimise the importance of such meetings during the case. In his opening statement he claimed that he had no prior knowledge of the group he addressed in Munich in April 1990 (Irving v. Penguin & Lipstadt, 2000, 1/28). Furthermore, Irving incorrectly claimed that Althans was "in the pay of the German Intelligence Service" (Irving v. Penguin & Lipstadt, 2000, 15/77. When Althans was tried for his activities as a neo-Nazi, he claimed that he had worked for the German Intelligence Service - the GIS rejected this, stating that he had approached the organisation, and offered to provide with a list of names of members of the German far right, in exchange for a large sum of money. The offer was declined). He also claimed at one stage that the skinheads present at meetings at which he spoke in Germany had been bribed to attend (Irving v. Penguin & Lipstadt, 2000, 27/93). Irving was also emphatic about the fact that he had never spoken at meetings of the National Alliance. In November 1996 he claimed in an interview on Radio 2BL that: "I'm a great believer in abiding by the law and I don't give speeches to neo-Nazis (Irving, 1996, 2BL interview). However, the Defence showed this was not true. Not only did they provide evidence to showed Irving speaking on the same platform as leading members of the far right in Germany (including Althans), they also showed that Irving had addressed gatherings of the National Alliance on numerous occasions. The following exchange occurred between Irving and the Defence barrister, Richard Rampton:
[..] In order to demonstrate Irving's assertion to be false, the Defence produced several pieces of evidence. In the material discovered to the Defence by Irving (in a British libel case, each party has the right to request material from the other's records) was a letter written to Irving in 1990 by a National Alliance member. He confirmed the details of a speech he had organised for Irving (Irving v. Penguin & Lipstadt, 2000, 29/39-40). Furthermore, newsletters of the National Alliance and Irving's own diary proved that he had actually spoken at such meetings, despite his claims to the contrary (Irving v. Penguin & Lipstadt, 2000, 29/42-55). A video of the speech at Tampa in October 1995 also showed that he had been introduced "on behalf of the National Alliance" (Irving v. Penguin & Lipstadt, 2000, 14/118). The basic claims made by Irving about the Holocaust are essentially the same as those who call themselves 'Holocaust revisionists'; however, he claims to be extremely critical of many of these individuals. He has stated that he is "disappointed by the general calibre of revisionists" (Irving, 1999). He describes the French Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, who is arguably the most important individual in the Holocaust denial scene today, as "a man of very high academic quality and calibre, who now has a bee in his bonnet - an obsession [the Holocaust]". He thinks "that Faurisson has become corroded and destroyed from within" because of his obsession with the Holocaust (Irving, 1999). He is even harsher in his evaluation of Fredrick Toben, the director of the 'Adelaide Institute', Australia's most active Holocaust denial group. He states that he doesn't "think very much of Fredrick Toben. I think he's a fool" (Irving, 1999). Furthermore, he also has a severe dislike of Zündel, because the latter allegedly refused to pay for a shipment of books Irving sent him (Irving, 1999). One of the only so-called 'Holocaust revisionists', whom Irving respects, is Rudolf, claiming that he believes Rudolf's academic qualifications to be "beyond reproach" (Irving, 1999). Despite his rejection of 'Holocaust revisionists', Irving has associated extensively with them. He has spoken at conferences of the 'Institute of Historical Review' on five occasions, and has had twelve articles published in the IHR's journal, and had six of his books reviewed in it. He first appeared at one of the IHR conferences as a speaker in 1983, five years before he started denying aspects of Holocaust historiography publicly. Irving claims that his opponents point to his contact to other Holocaust deniers in order to find him guilty by association. He rejects such allegations, and claims that he is willing to speak to any group that will host him (Irving, 1999). Whilst this is a valid point, Irving's association with such individuals is deeper than just association. At the tenth IHR conference in 1990 Irving spoke of sinking "the Battleship Auschwitz", which he described as being "the biggest weapon [..] in this propaganda campaign against the truth since 1945", which "we [..], the Revisionist historical profession - have found as our own task, the major task: 'Sink the Auschwitz'!" (Irving, 1990, 499).
6. Holocaust deniers' responses to the verdict The Portuguese denier A. S. Marques described how he was "dumbfounded to see the truly amazing extent to which one side doesn't even need to speak any more to have practically everybody -- judges, politicians, historians, media opinion-makers -- intellectually capitulating and crawling on all fours before the Dogma of the 20th Century and its blindingly mediocre and ignorant proponents". He surmises that Jewish problem is not the real problem, but rather "the power of stupidity and ignorance and the good life over integrity and the desire to know more and in better ways". Furthermore, Marques claims that the "Holocaust religion" is "an ecumenical phenomenon, and no longer the vanguard of any particular highway-robber gang with a single-minded purpose" (Marques, 2000); presumably the so-called 'highway-robber gang' refers to Jews. The American denier Michael A. Hoffman II wrote how "Gray's verdict in the Irving-Lipstadt case was predictable given the display of naked Jewish power during the trial". Despite the adversity faced by Irving, Hoffmann claims that Irving provided "historical research of the first order; research which the establishment has decreed can't exist" (Hoffmann, 2000). The American denier Bradley Smith claims that Irving was "risking his standing as an historian", and "defending the honor of Germany alone" (Smith, 2000). Each comment reveals the common thread that links Holocaust deniers worldwide: their ability to distort, manipulate and lie about even the most evident facts. Each ignores the actual verdict, and the reasons for it, that Judge Gray handed down. Irving's distortion of the historical record was condemned, yet each individual quoted chooses to ignore this, wither by implying that Irving was the victim of a Jewish conspiracy, or by suggesting that whilst Irving may have lost, 'revisionism' was the overall winner. However, perhaps the most insightful statement by Holocaust denier was offered by the Frenchman Robert Faurisson before the case commenced: "If one day he [Irving] wins his case, at first instance or on appeal, it will certainly not be on the strength of his knowledge of the 'Holocaust'" (Faurisson, 2000). Irving has been blunt in responding to the verdict. He initially stated that he would not appeal the decision (Lawless, 2000), but since changed his mind (although he has employed a legal firm to represent him this time). Shortly after the verdict Irving claimed that he had "no regrets", and that he "put up a good fight" ("Irving says he will still not be silenced", 2000). He was interviewed by many media outlets in the wake of the verdict, and made some extreme allegations. For example, in an interview with John Laws on Australian pay television on April 17, Irving claimed that the 'Australian Jewish Congress' had bribed the Australian government to keep him out of the country. However, he says used his web site as the main medium for responding to the court's verdict. He announced the verdict with the tongue-in-cheek statement "OUCH!", and posted an extensive archive of media reports during and after the verdict. There has been an element of manipulation in some of his web pages. At the bottom of many media articles and other information about the trial Irving added the following text:
Website fact: The stamina of the defence team was aided by a six million dollar fund provided by Stephen Spielberg, Edgar J Bronfman, and the American Jewish Committee, which enabled them to pay 21 lawyers and "experts"; the experts like Evans, Longerich were paid up to £109,000 each to testify as they did (while the defence's star legal team was paid considerably more). Nobody was paying for Mr Irving, who has been fighting this battle for three whole years. Nor did he pay his defence witnesses one cent or sous: they testified from conviction, not for reward. [Help!] He also posted a detailed list of the amounts paid to the individual defence witnesses (Irving, 2000, "Clout: large but lawful payments to witnesses"). Whilst the basic facts are generally accurate, Irving neglects to mention three important points: firstly, he was the one who instigated the libel case against Lipstadt and Penguin Books. The publisher refused to be intimidated by the threat of legal action, and employed a law firm to defend it. Secondly, it is mystifying how witnesses for the plaintiff can be called "defence witnesses". This is indicative of Irving's strategy of attempting to portray himself as the victim of the libel case, rather than as the plaintiff. Thirdly, Irving claims that nobody had paid for him. However, he claimed shortly after the verdict was handed down that he had about 4000 supporters (including 2000 in the United States and 900 in Britain), who had contributed between £1 and £50 000, for a total of £340 000 (around AU $900 000. "Hunt for Irving's backers as lawyers seek £2m costs", 2000). On other pages he referred to Lipstadt's press conferences about the verdict, which he described as a "gloatfest", and how the "Spielberg Clan have put a fortune into scouring the USA for smut and dirt and anything they can to sink me: they won't find anything, but that won't stop them inventing some fantasy. That's the business they're in..", and implies that "ideological" reasons may have influenced Justice Gray's decision against him (Irving, 2000, "A Radical's Diary"). In his closing submission Irving claimed that: "a judgement in my favour does not mean that the Holocaust never happened. It means only that in England today discussion is still permitted" (Irving v. Penguin & Lipstadt, 2000, 32/51), and that aspects of the Defence's claims against him, especially the term "Holocaust denier", have 'more than an echo of Orwellian newspeak" (Irving v. Penguin & Lipstadt, 2000, 32/65-6). It is rather ironic that Irving referred to free speech and censorship. He has repeatedly tried to present himself as the victim throughout the case, yet he was the individual who instigated the civil action. He is the one who sought to prevent the sale of a book, with which he disagreed. He alleged that a conspiracy existed against him, in order to destroy his career as an author. Whether this allegation is true was ultimately irrelevant: the defendants in the case were not responsible for it, even if Irving's allegation is true.
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