Tweet
Thought I'd share one of my favourite websites- http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/holocaust/
One of the most interesting sections covers the Irving denial trial- http://www.channel4.com/history/micr...t/later2d.html
When you're dealing with a subject as emotive as the Holocaust, where should the lines be drawn as to what is an ethical treatment of history?
One of the most interesting sections covers the Irving denial trial- http://www.channel4.com/history/micr...t/later2d.html
Professor Richard Evans and the other expert witnesses for the defence proved to the judge's complete satisfaction that Irving had mistranslated, misinterpreted and distorted documents. They demonstrated that he had constructed a narrative of the past that cohered with his ideological predispositions rather than the facts. To achieve this, he systematically ignored contrary evidence or rubbished it on the most flimsy grounds.
For example, he would cite benign recollections about Hitler from fully paid-up Nazis who were members of the Führer's entourage, but reject any survivor testimony about the death camps. He demanded to see a document signed by Hitler ordering the 'Final Solution' as the only convincing proof of Hitler's responsibility, but was content to accuse Winston Churchill of ordering the assassination in 1943 of General Sikorski, leader of the Polish government in exile, without any documentary evidence connecting Churchill to Sikorski's death.
Mr Justice Gray concluded:
The double standards which Irving adopts to some of the documents and to some of the witnesses appears to me to be further evidence that Irving is seeking to manipulate the evidence rather than approaching it as a dispassionate, if sometimes mistaken, historian.
The judge deduced from the pattern of Irving's distortions and his association with neo-Nazis – whose beliefs he held that Irving shared – that, far from writing history, Irving was actually making pro-Nazi propaganda.
Allowing Irving to spout his poison
Perhaps this was why Irving appeared such a beaten figure in court the day the verdict was delivered. The press were treated to a printed version of Mr Justice Gray's summary judgement when they entered the court, a courtesy that threatened to turn the subsequent proceedings into an anti-climax. But excitement spread as it became clear how far Mr Justice Gray had gone. The jaws of even hardened hacks dropped as the judge trawled through the lexicon of pejoratives, heaping disgrace and ruin on Irving's head.
When he left the court at midday, David Irving was a pariah, but by the evening, he was being feverishly courted by the TV studios. The format of these televised exchanges, often involving Deborah Lipstadt, was depressingly similar. In one studio after another, Lipstadt was asked if she regretted having brought the case. Hadn't it given Irving loads of publicity? Hadn't it turned him into a martyr to free speech? Didn't it seem to confirm that there were some subjects about which there was one acceptable line, and if you diverged from it, a powerful ethnic lobby would smash you up?
In addition to allowing Irving to spout his poison and spin the result of a court case he had lost comprehensively, this kind of questioning scrambled up what had just occurred. The media were creating the demand for Irving, not Lipstadt. He had instigated the case in an attempt to suppress her book and curtail her freedom of speech. As his judgement made clear to anyone who read it, Mr Justice Gray was not arbitrating between legitimate interpretations of the past but ruling on whether a man who claimed to be a historian was, in fact, a falsifier driven by pro-Nazi inclinations.
Real, honest historians of the Holocaust
More reflective responses displayed equally woeful confusion. Writing in the London Evening Standard (on the eve of the judgement), D C Watt opined that all historians have biases. The 'worst outcome' of the trial, he said, 'would be to drive the Holocaust denial school back into the depths'. Indeed, he thought, 'truth needs Irving's challenge to keep it alive.'
By the same logic, laws should not be passed against child pornography for fear of driving it underground. And it is a strange idea that historical truth needs pro-Nazi liars to help research. There are more than enough real, honest historians of the Holocaust arguing together and scrutinising each other's work for that.
Sticking to the facts
John Keegan, in the Daily Telegraph the next day, applauded Irving's merits as a military historian and lamented how 'a small but disabling element in his work' overshadowed his achievements. According to Keegan, Irving is fine as long as he 'sticks to the facts'. But Irving's use of 'facts' on subjects apart from Hitler and the 'Final Solution' has been just as problematic over the last three decades.
In his 1963 book on the bombing of Dresden, Irving was shown to have inflated the numbers of people killed; he was successfully sued for what he wrote about the Arctic convoy PQ17 in a book in 1967; and his theory about Churchill has been attacked for being little better than speculation.
Nor can Irving's apologetics for Hitler and the Holocaust be reduced to a 'small element' of his work. It is consistent with the pattern that runs through most of his books on World War II, of denigrating Allied generals and political leaders, such as Montgomery and Churchill, while boosting German and Nazi figures.
If Irving is not an objective historian but the purveyor of propaganda, should his antics still be tolerated? In the Observer, Neal Ascherson argued the classical liberal line that he had the right to express his 'loathsome' views. But the standard argument for freedom of speech has little purchase with regard to Irving. It is proven that he wants freedom to lie and mislead in order to propagate right-wing extremism. In any case, he had no respect for Lipstadt's freedom of opinion.
For example, he would cite benign recollections about Hitler from fully paid-up Nazis who were members of the Führer's entourage, but reject any survivor testimony about the death camps. He demanded to see a document signed by Hitler ordering the 'Final Solution' as the only convincing proof of Hitler's responsibility, but was content to accuse Winston Churchill of ordering the assassination in 1943 of General Sikorski, leader of the Polish government in exile, without any documentary evidence connecting Churchill to Sikorski's death.
Mr Justice Gray concluded:
The double standards which Irving adopts to some of the documents and to some of the witnesses appears to me to be further evidence that Irving is seeking to manipulate the evidence rather than approaching it as a dispassionate, if sometimes mistaken, historian.
The judge deduced from the pattern of Irving's distortions and his association with neo-Nazis – whose beliefs he held that Irving shared – that, far from writing history, Irving was actually making pro-Nazi propaganda.
Allowing Irving to spout his poison
Perhaps this was why Irving appeared such a beaten figure in court the day the verdict was delivered. The press were treated to a printed version of Mr Justice Gray's summary judgement when they entered the court, a courtesy that threatened to turn the subsequent proceedings into an anti-climax. But excitement spread as it became clear how far Mr Justice Gray had gone. The jaws of even hardened hacks dropped as the judge trawled through the lexicon of pejoratives, heaping disgrace and ruin on Irving's head.
When he left the court at midday, David Irving was a pariah, but by the evening, he was being feverishly courted by the TV studios. The format of these televised exchanges, often involving Deborah Lipstadt, was depressingly similar. In one studio after another, Lipstadt was asked if she regretted having brought the case. Hadn't it given Irving loads of publicity? Hadn't it turned him into a martyr to free speech? Didn't it seem to confirm that there were some subjects about which there was one acceptable line, and if you diverged from it, a powerful ethnic lobby would smash you up?
In addition to allowing Irving to spout his poison and spin the result of a court case he had lost comprehensively, this kind of questioning scrambled up what had just occurred. The media were creating the demand for Irving, not Lipstadt. He had instigated the case in an attempt to suppress her book and curtail her freedom of speech. As his judgement made clear to anyone who read it, Mr Justice Gray was not arbitrating between legitimate interpretations of the past but ruling on whether a man who claimed to be a historian was, in fact, a falsifier driven by pro-Nazi inclinations.
Real, honest historians of the Holocaust
More reflective responses displayed equally woeful confusion. Writing in the London Evening Standard (on the eve of the judgement), D C Watt opined that all historians have biases. The 'worst outcome' of the trial, he said, 'would be to drive the Holocaust denial school back into the depths'. Indeed, he thought, 'truth needs Irving's challenge to keep it alive.'
By the same logic, laws should not be passed against child pornography for fear of driving it underground. And it is a strange idea that historical truth needs pro-Nazi liars to help research. There are more than enough real, honest historians of the Holocaust arguing together and scrutinising each other's work for that.
Sticking to the facts
John Keegan, in the Daily Telegraph the next day, applauded Irving's merits as a military historian and lamented how 'a small but disabling element in his work' overshadowed his achievements. According to Keegan, Irving is fine as long as he 'sticks to the facts'. But Irving's use of 'facts' on subjects apart from Hitler and the 'Final Solution' has been just as problematic over the last three decades.
In his 1963 book on the bombing of Dresden, Irving was shown to have inflated the numbers of people killed; he was successfully sued for what he wrote about the Arctic convoy PQ17 in a book in 1967; and his theory about Churchill has been attacked for being little better than speculation.
Nor can Irving's apologetics for Hitler and the Holocaust be reduced to a 'small element' of his work. It is consistent with the pattern that runs through most of his books on World War II, of denigrating Allied generals and political leaders, such as Montgomery and Churchill, while boosting German and Nazi figures.
If Irving is not an objective historian but the purveyor of propaganda, should his antics still be tolerated? In the Observer, Neal Ascherson argued the classical liberal line that he had the right to express his 'loathsome' views. But the standard argument for freedom of speech has little purchase with regard to Irving. It is proven that he wants freedom to lie and mislead in order to propagate right-wing extremism. In any case, he had no respect for Lipstadt's freedom of opinion.
Comment