Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Holocaust Almanac: David Irving's Hitler, Essay I
Summary: Eberhard Jaeckel's Essays on David Irving (English translation)
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Reply-To: kmcvay@nizkor.org
Organization: The Nizkor Project, Vancouver Island, CANADA
Keywords: Irving

Archive/File: pub/people/i/irving.david/jackel/jt-1-2 (Part 2 of 6)
Last-modified: 1996/02/26

That   it  nevertheless  happened  is  laid  to  a  Verlegen-
heitsloesung,[25]   i.e.,   a   solution   created   out   of
embarrassment. Thus Hitler unquestionably would have  ordered
the   removal  of  the  European  Jews  into  the   conquered
territories  in  the East. But mid-ranking  authorities  (SS,
party   bosses,  state  commissars)  unable  to   cope   with
continuously   arriving  trainloads  of   deportees   needing
accommodations,  are  said to have  simply  liquidated  them,
partly  to rob them and partly out of "cynical extrapolation"
from Hitler's antisemitic laws and regulations.

This  thesis  is more subtle and cunning than  a  revisionism
that denies everything, and for that reason it may find ready
believers.  According to this thesis Hitler  remains  charged
with  many crimes, but not nearly as many as legend  says  he
committed.  Irving's thesis purports that Hitler,  with  such
power as he wielded, tried, as well or rather as poorly as he
could manage, to resist the mass murder of the Jews.

The  argument follows three lines: first, that  there  is  no
written order, second, that Hitler never mentioned it even to
those in his inner circle (Irving says he interviewed all  of
them:  adjutants,  house servants, and secretaries  and  that
none  of them had heard Hitler speak of it); third, and above
all  else,  there is Hitler's counter-order of  November  30,
1941. It is Irving's piece de resistance. He refers to it not
less  than  six times and the only illustration in  his  book
shows it in facsimile.

Hitler's Counter-order

This   interesting   item  is  a  page   from   Himmler's[26]
handwritten   notebook.  At  the  top  it  says:   "Telephone
conversations 30.XI.1941. Wolgschanze" (Wolf's Lair). Himmler
phoned  five  people, one of these (at 1.30 pm) was  Heydrich
"from  the  bunker." About this conversation Himmler  entered
this   note:  "Jewish  transport  from  Berlin,  not  to   be
liquidated." Note Irving's interpretation: "At 1.30 pm,  from
Hitler's  bunker,  Himmler had to pass  on  to  Heydrich  the
explicit order that Jews were not to be liquidated."

It takes no special training and only a minimum of good sense
and logic to see the flaws in this totally inadequate bit  of
source  interpretation. From the order  not  to  liquidate  a
certain  transport  of  Jewish  people,  Irving  concocts   a
universal   order  that  Jews  are  henceforth  not   to   be
"liquidated."  Actually, exactly the  opposite  is  true.  If
Hitler  had not ordered the general destruction of the  Jews,
it would have made no sense for him to have forbidden it in a
single case. That he did forbid it in this case would seem to
be  proof of the fast that a general order had been given and
that  in this case an exception was to be made. (We now  know
what  caused the exception, and that the missed "liquidation"
was soon made up for).[27]

Other  examples of Irving's skills at interpretation are  not
much  better.  Whoever concerns himself  with  the  so-called
"Final  Solution" has to start with the premise that  it  was
shrouded in official secrecy. The pertinent files are  marked
"Secret  Affairs  of State" and even within these  files  the
killing  operations are cloaked in codified expressions  like
"resettlement."

It  is  thus a sign of ignorance or bias and most  likely  of
both when, in such matters, the words of subordinates and are
given credit. Besides, five of Irving's informants have since
declared  they had merely mentioned that Hitler  had  not  in
their presence referred to the death camps, but that they did
not believe that Hitler was unaware of the Jews' fate.[28]

Evidently  Irving  does not even know  how  to  pose  precise
questions. In any case he seems never to have thought out how
to  investigate a decision-making process that from the start
had  been  cloaked in absolute secrecy. He looks  around  and
collects whatever fits his preconceptions.

The Argument of the "Missing Order"
                              
We now turn to Irving's ultimate argument: the missing written
order.

That fact in itself would not, of course, prove anything. The
process  of history doesn't proceed along such orderly  lines
as if it were a financial transaction, providing receipts and
vouchers.  Many  things  in the world  are  never  officially
recorded.  It  is  a  fact  worth  thinking  about:   perhaps
researchers have passed over it much too lightly.

No  one disagrees that Hitler was an antisemite.  But
many misunderstand the peculiar, unchangeable pattern
of  his  antisemitism. It is already to be  found  in
1927, in the second volume of Mein Kampf:

     No  people  can free itself from that fist  [the
     Jews']other than by the sword.
     
     [...] Such an event is bound to be a bloody
     encounter.

And even more clearly a few pages later:

     If  at  the  beginning of and  during  the  [First
     World]  War  twelve or fifteen thousand  of  these
     Hebrew  destroyers of the German people  had  been
     held   under  poison  gas  the  way  hundreds   of
     thousands of the very best German workingmen  from
     all  social classes and occupations had to  suffer
     it,  then  the  sacrifice of the millions  at  the
     front  would  not  have  been  in  vain.  On   the
     contrary: twelve thousand scoundrels liquidated at
     the right time, might perhaps have saved the lives
     of  a  million  decent, for the  future  valuable,
     Germans.
     
Hitler  was  the first to formulate as concepts these  words:
"removal," "bloody," "liquidation" and, with memories of WWI,
"poison gas." Admittedly, the thought of murder was not alien
to  him,  and considering the fact that later on he  actually
carried  out step by step the foreign policy program designed
in  Mein  Kampf,  why  should one  assume  him  incapable  or
unwilling to do the same with his anti-Jewish program?

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