<html>
I've been trying to follow this, so I decided to "research" by
looking at the David Irving article Robert referred to. I'm new to the
list, so I don't know who's on it or what they know, but I want to weigh
in with the facts as I have found them (I know it's very long, but please
read before making any judgments). In short, I think that Richard has
taken things out of context Therefore I've put in below:<br>
<br>
1) a short part of Richard's email -- specifically what he says
Stevertigo says about Irving.<br>
2) the link to the page history<br>
3) the article before Stevertigo edited it<br>
4) the article after, which was posted with the comment line: <i>(This is
a minor edit of about 2000 words... Definitely in need of some
edits...)</i> <br>
<br>
Thanks, Brian
<<a href="http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bcorr" eudora="autourl">http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bcorr</a>><br>
=================<br>
<br>
At 04:36 PM 10/1/03 +0000, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite cite>Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 09:36:23 -0700
(PDT)<br>
From: Robert <rkscience100@yahoo.com><br>
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Stevertigo should not be allowed to write about<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>Jews<br>
To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org</blockquote>...snip...<br>
<blockquote type=cite cite>3. [[David Irving]] is a much-maligned
academic. He is a<br>
"young<br>
and talented writer," who has simply, and misguidedly tried<br>
to point out that post the second generation of Germans<br>
after the Holocaust "were no less victims of Hitler than<br>
the Jews were." Irving then wants "to bridge the gap<br>
between victor and victim." <br>
<br>
4. David Irving gave reasons why the numbers attached to<br>
the [[Holocaust]] could not be authentic. He repeats<br>
Irving's famous assertion: "more women died on the back<br>
seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than ever<br>
died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz." </blockquote><br>
-----------------------------<br>
Here is the page history:<br>
<<a href="http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=David_Irving&action=history" eudora="autourl">http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=David_Irving&action=history</a>><br>
<b>-----------------------------<br>
<br>
David Irving<br>
</b>(Revision as of 02:22, 21 Sep 2002) <br>
<
<a href="http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=David_Irving&oldid=674726" eudora="autourl">http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=David_Irving&oldid=674726</a>><br>
<br>
<b>David Irving</b> (born <font color="#0000FF"><u>1938</u></font>),
historian well known for his <font color="#0000FF"><u>Holocaust
revisionism</u></font>. Among other things, he denies that the Germans
exterminated jews in <font color="#0000FF"><u>Gas Chambers</u></font>
during <font color="#0000FF"><u>World War II</u></font> <br>
-----------------------------<br>
<br>
<b>David Irving<br>
(Revision as of 19:29, 16 Feb 2003)<br>
</b><<a href="http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=David_Irving&diff=674731&oldid=674726" eudora="autourl"><font color="#0000FF"><u>http://en2.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=David_Irving&diff=674731&oldid=674726</a></u></font>><br>
<br>
<b>David Irving</b> (born <font color="#0000FF"><u>1938</u></font>),
historian well known for his <font color="#0000FF"><u>Holocaust
revisionism</u></font>. Among other things, he has denied that the
Germans exterminated jews in <font color="#0000FF"><u>Gas
Chambers</u></font> during <font color="#0000FF"><u>World War
II</u></font>. In a judgement by the <font color="#0000FF"><u>High court
of Justice</u></font>, Irving was found to be a
<font color="#0000FF"><u>Holocaust</u></font> denier and an
"anti-Semite."<br>
<br>
A forgiving view of David Irving might see him as; a conflicted,
ambitious, and talented, (albeit entirely misguided) young man, who tried
to shake off, instead of reconciling, the legacy of German shame for his
its Nazi past. He originally stirred up a hornets nest of very sensitive
issues in a sensationalistic and irresponsible way, and in the light of
the aftermath; the stinging controversy, the focused attacks upon his
person, and marginalized prospects for future academic acceptance.<br>
<br>
Too quick to rush to the assertion of his premises. he published books,
perhaps originally with little understanding of the kind of backlash they
would cause. '<font color="#0000FF"><u>Bad press being good
press</u></font>', he continued to work under conditions of
ever-increased marginalization, and rejection by whatever limited
academic connections he had. His associations with racist or quasi-racist
groups, began in an attempt to seek support for his work, while perhaps
negotiating issues in a way that tried to reconcile disparate facts and
social elements.<br>
<br>
Irving, however, often was neither courteous or tactful; nor in the least
bit considerate of the passionate anger his books, theories and comments
would face, and he often spoke quite "tastelessly." As he put
it, :<br>
<br>
"I don't see any reason to be tasteful about
<font color="#0000FF"><u>Auschwitz</u></font>. It's baloney, it's a
legend. Once we admit the fact that it was a brutal slave labour camp and
large numbers of people did die, as large numbers of innocent people died
elsewhere in the war, why believe the rest of the baloney? ...I say quite
tastelessly, in fact, that more women died on the back seat of
<font color="#0000FF"><u>Edward Kennedy</u></font>'s car at
<font color="#0000FF"><u>Chappaquiddick</u></font> than ever died in a
gas chamber in Auschwitz."<br>
<br>
<b>Criticism<br>
</b>The critics of Irving claim that his scholarship is poor, the
substance in his work trite, and its keen to make assumptions. In Richard
Evans' <i>Lying About Hitler</i>, <font color="#0000FF"><u>London
University</u></font> Professor David Cannadine was quoted (Re: Irving's
first volume of his biography of <font color="#0000FF"><u>Winston
Churchill</u></font>):<br>
<br>
"It has received almost no attention from historians or
reviewers...It is easy to see why.... full of excesses, inconsistancies
and omissions... seems completely unaware of recent work done on the
subject... It is not merely that the arguments in this book are so
perversely tendentious and irresponsibly sensationalist. It is also that
it is written in a tone which is a best casually journalistic and at
worst quite exceptionally offensive. The text is littered with errors
from beginning to end."<br>
<br>
Richard Evans, himself, said: "Irving's conclusions were completely
untenable. I thought his scholarship was sloppy and unreliable and did
not meet even the most basic requirements of honest and competent
historical research."<br>
<br>
<b>Revisionism<br>
</b>In essence, the judgement of Irving and revisionism, by most
historians is that he and it represented a dubiously suspect middle
ground between outright Neo-Naziism and Legitimate historianism, in some
attempt to legitimize the Neo-Nazi movement. The general consensus on
Irving, among established historians, is that he was in far over his
head, making the typical mistake of amateur historians and scientists, of
starting with a premise, and seeking to prove it, instead of researching,
and letting the facts speak for themselves. This eventually led to his
making academic blunders, and to consequent public denouncements, and
thus "<font color="#0000FF"><u>revisionism</u></font>" was
became a genre-of-sorts, sub-academia, attempting to tie together any
work that countered any previously established research into Nazi
history, as "revising" of history, and would attempt to include
neo-Nazi racism in the same category as thorough research that might
challenge an established fact.<br>
<br>
Irvings "revisionism" centered around the idea that Hitler did
not know in any detail about the events of the Holocaust, and that the
coordinated actions by Nazis to murder 6 million Jews took place at some
administrative level, beneath the attention of Hiter himself. While it is
true that Hitler, was clever enough to sanitize records connecting him
with the concentration camps, the idea that the absolute dictator of a
large, modern country, having long-established political and
administrative connections and heirarchies althroughout Germany, Austria,
and other Nazi occupied areas, is highly suspect. There turns out to be
very little paper evidence indeed, of the administration of the
Holocaust, regardless of any connections to Hitler himself. Irving, his
critics say, in order to accept that Hitler knew of the holocaust,
(disregarding, for the moment, any direct role he may have had in its
orchestration), would be, in essence, saying that Hitler was only a
benign figurehead. The evidence supports otherwise.<br>
<br>
Irving was someone who reacted defensively to sharp attacks of
anti-Semitism working with limited credentials - doing serious work,
albeit with little assistance and connection to familiar circles. Working
with limited evidence, such as the forgery of a "Last confession of
Hitler", as the partial basis for some of his work. Irving claims
this as a defense, that others have cited these false sources, and yet
still recieve legitimate attention, despite a flaw in their
publication.<br>
<br>
As the heated feelings about the Holocaust continue, but there has been
some recent academic consensus on an important Holocaust issue: That in
the late 1930's, Hitler had not yet planned to murder Jews of Europe,
rather had hoped to forcibly move them out of Europe entirely. Only
later, the theory says, after pressures from the war, did Hitler act to
deliberately murder millions of Jews. This idea is contradicted by the
that fact that the Nazis made prisons out of the Jewish ghettos, not
allowing them to leave en masse. It is supported by the fact that there
was not yet any devised way to kill and dispose of millions of people, in
the camp furnaces.<br>
<br>
Only more recently, and in the context of debunking Irving, who claimed
that it was impossible to incinerate and dispose of 6 million people, was
it discovered that the Nazis had calculated that human bodyfat, after
preheating, could provide the added fuel that would sustain the feasible
operation of the furnaces.<br>
<br>
<b>Irving v. Lipstadt<br>
</b>David Irving, in <font color="#0000FF"><u>1996</u></font>, sued
writer <font color="#0000FF"><u>Deborah Lipstadt</u></font>, and
publisher Penguin Books in the <font color="#0000FF"><u>High Court of
Justice</u></font> for her book <font color="#0000FF"><u>Denying the
Holocaust</u></font>, on the claim of libel. The verdict in Irving v.
Lipstadt was short:<br>
<br>
<i>14.1 It follows that there must be judgment for the Defendants.<br>
<br>
</i>This followed numerous court findings, including the counterclaims of
his "anti-Semitism", of his being a "Holocaust
denier", and of his misrepresentaton of fact in his books.<br>
<br>
On the issue of Irving's anti-Semitism, Mr. Justice Gray of the Queen's
Bench Division, in giving judgment against David Irving in April, 2000
wrote:<br>
<br>
"[Irving's] words are directed against Jews, either individually
or<br>
<br>
collectively, in the sense that they are by turns hostile, critical,
offensive, and derisory in their references to semitic people, their
characteristics and appearances. A few examples will suffice: Irving has
made claims that the Jews deserve to be disliked; that they brought the
Holocaust on themselves; that Jewish financiers are crooked; that Jews
generate anti-semitism by their greed and mendacity; that it is bad luck
for Mr. Wiesel to be called "Weasel"; that Jews are amongst the
scum of humanity; that Jews scurry and hide furtively, unable to stand
the light of day; that Simon Wiesenthal has a hideous, leering evil face;
and so on... The inference which in my judgment is clearly to be drawn
from what Irving has said and written is that he is anti-semitic."
(Matas, David. Bloody Speech. Winnipeg & Niagara Falls, 2000, p.
64)<br>
<br>
===In defense of==<br>
Irving has had, at least, one defender in Dr. Joel Hayward of
<font color="#0000FF"><u>Massey University</u></font> in
<font color="#0000FF"><u>New Zealand</u></font>. Hayward, responding to
claims that Irving was unqualified, having never finished a batchelor's
degree, by citing respected historians <font color="#0000FF"><u>Gerald
Reitlinger</u></font>, <font color="#0000FF"><u>Georges
Wellers</u></font>, <font color="#0000FF"><u>Jean-Claude
Pressac</u></font>, and <font color="#0000FF"><u>Walter
Laqueur</u></font>, as having unusual qualifications as historians.
Hayward also wrote:<br>
<br>
"I have critically examined - keeping issues of truth, objectivity
and bias at the forefront of my mind -- ALL his thirty-one books... [I
have] been able to check his sources and they way he used them... I can
say with confidence that I am as well positioned to comment on Irving's
scholarship as anyone. My judgement: I certainly don't agree with all his
arguments and conclusions, and strongly disagree with some, but I can't
find serious flaws in his methodology and I have never found a single
example of deliberate falsification of evidence. ...Deborah Lipstadt's
book is hopeless [and] <font color="#0000FF"><u>Gerald
Fleming</u></font>'s [book] is easily the best of the anti-Irving books,
but even that ultimately fails to prove falsification or improper
consideration of evidence."<br>
<br>
Hayward's motivations, however, have been called as suspect as well: His
masters thesis at the <font color="#0000FF"><u>New Zealand</u></font>'s
<font color="#0000FF"><u>University of Canterbury</u></font>, caused an
uproar, in making the claim that far fewer than 6 million Jews, perhaps
fewer than 1 million, perished in Nazi concentration camps; adding that
Hitler could not be held personally responsible for any suffering
experienced by the Jews of Europe. Hayward later apologized for the
thesis, expressing remorse over the "mistakes I made as an
inexperienced student", adding that he was "inexperienced in
the historian's craft and knew relatively little about the Holocaust and
its complex historiography."<br>
<br>
<font color="#0000FF"><u>David Irving's 'Focal Point Publications'
official website - Holocaust victims website<br>
<br>
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