The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: people/i/irving.david/press/irving-vrs-lipstadt/Press_Summary.000315



Copyright 2000 PR Newswire Europe Limited
Press Association Newsfile

  March  15, 2000, Wednesday

Mr Irving opened his 104-page closing speech by saying that the case was not
about the reputation of the Holocaust but about his reputation "as a human
being, as an historian of integrity".

    "A judgment in my favour is no more than a judgment that disputed points
which I have made about some aspects of the narrative are not so absurd,
given the evidence, as to disqualify me from the ranks of historians."

A judgment against him would mean that no-one would dare to discuss who
exactly was involved in each stage of the Holocaust or how extensive it was.

"A judgment in my favour does not mean that the Holocaust never happened; it
means only that in England today discussion is still permitted."

Mr Irving said that as a result of his work, the Holocaust had been
researched more and was the subject of "a live and on-going discussion".

Dismissing Prof Lipstadt's  book as "malicious and deeply flawed", Mr Irving
said that the defendants had made - and not justified in court - one of the
"gravest libels" that could be imagined for a respectable English citizen.

This was that he consorted with the "extremist anti-Semitic Russian group
Pamyat, with violent anti-Israeli murderers, with extremist terrorists, and
with Louis Farrakhan, a Black Power agitator who is known to be acting in
the pay of a foreign power, namely the Libyan dictator".

They had also offered no justification for repeating the "lie" that he had a
portrait of Hitler over his desk - the only signed photograph in his flat
was one of Winston Churchill.

Mr Irving said that in assessing the defence claim that he was a historian
who "distorts, manipulates and falsifies", the judge should give most weight
to his "avowedly historical written works" and regard his speeches "and the
very occasional lapses of taste in them" as background material.

He had always insisted on using original documents and in making copies of
them freely available to others.

"If, therefore, some of my interpretations are controversial, I also do all
that is possible to let other people judge for themselves.

"This speaks strongly against the accusation that I distort, manipulate and
falsify history."

What he actually wrote in his "flagship study", Hitler's War, was that
Hitler was clearly responsible for the Holocaust both by being head of
state, and by having done so much by his speeches and organisation to start
it off.

"Where I differed from many historians was in denying that there was any
documentary proof of detailed direction and initiation of the mass murders
by Hitler.

"The view was considered to be heretical at the time. But this lack of
wartime documentary evidence for Hitler's involvement is now widely accepted."

He added: "In Hitler's War, I differed from other historians in suggesting
that the actual mass murders were not all or mainly initiated by Hitler.

"I pointed out that my sources were consistent with another explanation: a
conscious desire 'not to know'...

"I submit that I have not distorted, manipulated, and falsified. I have put
all the cards on the table; I made the documents available to allcomers, on
microfilm and in the archives, and I have pointed to various possible
interpretations."

He said that while certainly "selling" his view, he was much less
manipulative than those historians who argued that he ought not to be heard
because his views were "too outlandish or extreme".

"Disgracefully, these scholars have cheered from the sidelines as I have
been outlawed, arrested, harassed, and all but vernichtet (annihilated) as a
professional historian; and they have put pressure on British publishers to
destroy my works."


Copyright 2000 PR Newswire Europe Limited
Press Association Newsfile


March  15, 2000, Wednesday

QC BRANDS IRVING A RABID ANTI-SEMITE

Cathy Gordon and Jan Colley, PA News

  Historian David Irving is a "rabid anti-Semite" who has falsified history
on a staggering scale in pursuit of his obsessive desire to exonerate Hitler
of responsibility for the Nazi persecution of the Jews, the High Court was
told today.

The accusations were made by Richard Rampton QC, who is representing
American academic Deborah Lipstadt  and Penguin Books in the libel action
brought against them by Mr Irving, the 62-year-old author of Hitler's War,
over claims that he is a "Holocaust denier".

There was standing room only in the modern courtroom at London's Law Courts
as Mr Rampton made his closing submissions to Mr Justice Gray, who has heard
the lengthy and complex case without a jury.

Mr Irving, of Duke Street, Mayfair, central London, who is representing
himself, was due to deliver his own closing speech after Mr Rampton.

The judge is expected to reserve his judgment after the speeches are completed.

Mr Irving is seeking damages over Professor Lipstadt's  1994 book, Denying
the Holocaust, which he says has generated waves of hatred against him.

The defendants deny libel.

Mr Rampton accused Mr Irving of being a "liar" whose Holocaust denial had
been "exposed as a fraud", and said he had falsified history on a massive
scale.

"By the defendants' estimate, there are, in relation to Hitler alone, as
many as 25 major falsifications of history, as well as numerous subsidiary
inventions, suppressions, manipulations and mistranslations employed to
support the major falsifications," Mr Rampton said.

"If those relating to Auschwitz, Dresden and other matters are added in, the
number goes well over 30."

Mr Rampton said: "As the evidence in this court has shown, Mr Irving is a
right-wing extremist, a racist and, in particular, a rabid anti-Semite.

"How far, if at all, Mr Irving's anti-Semitism is a cause of his Hitler
apology, or vice-versa, is unimportant.

"Whether they are taken together, or individually, it is clear that they
have led him to prostitute his reputation as a serious historian - spurious
though it can now be seen to have been - for the sake of a bogus
rehabilitation of Hitler and the dissemination of virulent anti-Semitic
propaganda."

###


ASSOCIATED PRESS 03.15.00

Historian Irving says he's been object of campaign of vilification

03/15/2000 Associated Press Newswires Copyright 2000.

LONDON (AP) - Historian David Irving, who has outraged survivors of Nazi
death camps by saying the Holocaust was exaggerated, told Britain's High
Court on Wednesday that he had been the victim of a 30-year international
campaign to destroy his reputation as a historian.

"I know of no other historian or writer who has been subjected to a campaign
of vilification even one-tenth as intense," said Irving, 62, who is suing
American academic Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher Penguin Books for libel
over claims that he is a "Holocaust denier."

Lawyer Richard Rampton, representing Lipstadt and Penguin, said Irving had
falsified history in a desire to exonerate Adolf Hitler of responsibility
for the Nazi persecution of the Jews.

Irving, who is representing himself in the non-jury trial, said in his
closing argument that the climax of the alleged campaign against him was
Lipstadt 's 1994 book, "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth
and Memory," which claims that Irving holds extremist views, distorts
history and has denied that the Nazis used gas chambers to exterminate Jews.

He said attempts to "suffocate" his publishing career had included "hostile
groups" applying pressure to major bookselling chains to burn or destroy his
books.

Penguin and Lipstadt , who holds the Dorot Chair in Modern Jewish and
Holocaust Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, deny any libel.

Irving told the packed courtroom the case was not about the reputation of
the Holocaust but about his reputation "as a human being, as an historian of
integrity."

"A judgment in my favor does not mean that the Holocaust never happened; it
means only that in England today discussion is still permitted."

Irving said he had made his documentation open to all and had pointed to
various possible interpretations. He said it was easy to transcribe
incorrectly German words in Gothic script, and he acknowledged he had made
"mistakes of copying, mistakes of omission."

But Lipstadt 's and Penguin's lawyer, Rampton, said, "by the defendants'
estimate, there are, in relation to Hitler alone, as many as 25 major
falsifications of history, as well as numerous subsidiary inventions,
suppressions, manipulations and mistranslations employed to support the
major falsifications."

"How far, if at all, Mr. Irving's anti-Semitism is a cause of his Hitler
apology, or vice-versa, is unimportant," Rampton said.

"Whether they are taken together, or individually, it is clear that they
have led him to prostitute his reputation as a serious historian - spurious
though it can now be seen to have been - for the sake of a bogus
rehabilitation of Hitler and the dissemination of virulent anti-Semitic
propaganda."

Irving called the accusations "evil allegations and slurs which lend fire
and fury to the original libel."

The judge said he would give his judgment in a few weeks. The trial began
Jan. 11.

Irving is the author of several books on the academic fringe, including
"Hitler's War," and has challenged the number and manner of Jewish
concentration camp deaths under Adolf Hitler's regime.

He has addressed neo-Nazi groups in Austria and Germany. In 1992, German
authorities fined him for claiming the historically accepted accounts of
German gas chambers was British "propaganda." He is banned from Germany,
Canada and Australia.

==

JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY  03.15.00
http://jta.virtualjerusalem.com/index.exe?0003157

British Holocaust trial ends with claim of Jewish conspiracy

By Douglas Davis

LONDON, March 15 (JTA) =97 David Irving told the High Court in London this
week that some of the world's largest Jewish organizations are involved in
an international conspiracy against him.

The self-described Holocaust revisionist's claim Wednesday was the
centerpiece of his 104-page closing address at the end of a two-month libel
case against American Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt and her British
publisher, Penguin Books.

Irving has alleged that his reputation was damaged and his career wrecked by
Lipstadt's 1994 book, "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth
and Memory," which, he claims, depicted him as a Holocaust denier who
distorts historical data to suit his own ideological goals.

The trial, which has attracted international attention, has been described
as the most important trial involving the Holocaust since Adolf Eichmann,
the chief engineer of the Holocaust, was convicted in Israel in 1961.

A ruling is expected to be delivered in about four weeks.

The plaintiff and defendant have shown sharply contrasting styles. Irving =
=97
who served as his own attorney and appeared to relish the spotlight =97=
 wasted
no opportunity in and out of court in making statements supporting his
claims that Auschwitz was not a death camp or that there was no systematic,
mass destruction of Jews; Lipstadt, a professor at Emory University in
Atlanta, has sat silently throughout the proceedings.

Asserting that Israeli Holocaust specialist Yehuda Bauer paid for and
directed Lipstadt's book, Irving alleged that Bauer urged Lipstadt to
incriminate him.

The book, said Irving, is part of a 30-year international campaign, led by
the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Simon
Wiesenthal Center, JTA, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and others,
which had aimed to discredit him.

"It is quite evident that the ADL, in cahoots with Lipstadt, set itself the
task of destroying my career," he said, asserting that "the real defendants
in this case are not represented in this court."

But, he added, "We have them to thank for the spectacle that has been
presented in this courtroom since January."

Without their financial assistance, he said, it is doubtful whether the
expensive defense team could have "mounted this colossal assault on my=
 name."

As a result of their campaign, he continued, Germany, Austria, Canada,
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa have banned him.

Irving has represented himself =97 in sharp contrast to the large legal team
defending Lipstadt =97 and he claimed that the defense case had cost some $6
million and at least 20 combined years of research.

"This blinding and expensive spotlight has been focused on the narrowest of
issues," he said, "yet it has still generated more noise than illumination."

Irving has described Auschwitz as a "fable" and insisted there was no
evidence to suggest that Hitler ordered the systematic mass destruction of
the Jews.

Irving was particularly scathing about JTA. He claimed the news agency
provided material in 1992 for Lipstadt's assertion that Irving was to have
participated in a gathering in Sweden, which was later canceled, that would
have been a "confluence between anti-Israel, anti-Semitic and Holocaust
denial forces."

Among others who Lipstadt said were scheduled to attend the conference were
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Holocaust revisionists,
representatives of the Islamic fundamentalist groups Hezbollah and Hamas,
and the ultranationalist Russian group Pamyat.

Irving also claimed that a 1995 JTA report accused him of "having supplied
the trigger mechanism for the Oklahoma City bomb."

"That item," Irving told the court, "was picked up by the American, and then
faintly echoed by the British press. It was only months later that I found
out who had started that lie."

A JTA report, dated March 4, 1996, said Timothy McVeigh's lawyer had gone to
London to investigate whether British neo-Nazis provided components for the
Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995 that killed 168 people.

The report named Irving as one of three British citizens the FBI had
subpoenaed to "provide information on the alleged European link" behind the
bombing.

In his 24-page closing address, defense lawyer Richard Rampton declared that
the trial had exposed Irving's views as a "fraud."

Irving based his claim that Auschwitz was not a death camp on psuedo-
scientific research, said Rampton. He noted that Irving has never traveled
to Auschwitz to examine the archeological remains or the documentary
evidence in its archive.

"It follows that some other reason must be sought to explain his devotion
over many years to the bizarre idea that no significant numbers of people
were murdered in the homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz/Birkenau," said
Rampton.

The reasons, he continued, were not hard to find: "As the evidence in this
court has shown," he said, "Irving is a right-wing extremist, a racist, and,
in particular, a rabid anti-Semite."

Whether anti-Semitism led him to become a Hitler apologist or vice versa was
unimportant, added Rampton.

"Whether they are taken together or individually, it is clear that they have
led him to prostitute his reputation as a serious historian =97 spurious
though it can now be seen to have been =97 for the sake of a bogus
rehabilitation of Hitler and the dissemination of his virulent anti-Semitic
propaganda."

It will not be an easy wait for either Lipstadt or Irving.

==


PRESS ASSOCIATION NEWS UK 03.15.00

Copyright 2000 Press Association Newsfile

March 15, 2000

LIBEL CLAIM AUTHOR ATTACKS '30 YEARS OF VILIFICATION'

Cathy Gordon and Jan Colley, PA News

Hitler's War author David Irving today told the High Court he has been the 
victim of a "30-year international endeavour" by a group of organisations 
to destroy his legitimacy as a historian.

Mr Irving, who is suing American academic Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin 
Books for libel over claims that he is a "Holocaust denier", said: "I have 
been subjected since at least 1973 and probably before then to what would 
be called in warfare a campaign of interdiction.

"I know of no other historian or writer who has been subjected to a 
campaign of vilification even one-tenth as intense."

He said Professor Lipstadt's 1994 book, Denying the Holocaust, which is at 
the centre of the case, was the "climax" of the campaign.

Mr Irving, 62, of Duke Street, Mayfair, central London, who is representing 
himself in his damages action, made his comments during his 104-page 
closing speech to Mr Justice Gray, who has heard the lengthy and complex 
case without a jury at London's Law Courts.

The case was not about the reputation of the Holocaust but about his 
reputation "as a human being, as an historian of integrity", Mr Irving told 
the packed courtroom.

"A judgment in my favour is no more than a judgment that disputed points 
which I have made about some aspects of the narrative are not so absurd, 
given the evidence, as to disqualify me from the ranks of historians."

A judgment against him would mean that no-one would dare to discuss who 
exactly was involved in each stage of the Holocaust or how extensive it was.

"A judgment in my favour does not mean that the Holocaust never happened; 
it means only that in England today discussion is still permitted."

Mr Irving said that as a result of his work, the Holocaust had been 
researched more and was the subject of "a live and on-going discussion".

Dismissing Professor Lipstadt's book as "malicious and deeply flawed", Mr 
Irving said the defendants had made - and not justified in court - one of 
the "gravest libels" that could be imagined for a respectable English citizen.

The defendants had accused him of being a Holocaust denier who has 
falsified history to exonerate Hitler.

Mr Irving said: "I submit that I have not distorted, manipulated, and 
falsified. I have put all the cards on the table; I made the documents 
available to all comers, on microfilm and in the archives, and I have 
pointed to various possible interpretations."

He told the judge: "For the defendants to describe me as one who 
manipulates, distorts and falsifies it would be necessary for them to 
satisfy your lordship that I wilfully adopted perverse and ridiculous 
interpretations. I have not."

Mr Irving said: "Mistakes undoubtedly occur: the mistranscription of 
difficult German words pencilled in Gothic or Sutterlin-style script, a 
script which most modern German scholars find unreadable anyway; mistakes 
of copying; mistakes of omission ... These are innocent mistakes and with a 
book the size of Hitler's War, currently running to 393,000 words, they are 
not surprising."

He added: "The allegation that the mistakes are deliberate - that they are 
manipulations or distortions - is a foul one to make and easily disposed of 
by general considerations."

Richard Rampton QC, counsel for Professor Lipstadt and Penguin Books, when 
making his final submissions to the judge, accused Mr Irving of being a 
"rabid anti-Semite" who had falsified history on a staggering scale in 
pursuit of his obsessive desire to exonerate Hitler of responsibility for 
the Nazi persecution of the Jews.

Counsel, who accused Mr Irving of being a "liar" whose Holocaust denial had 
been "exposed as a fraud", said he had falsified history on a massive scale.

"By the defendants' estimate, there are, in relation to Hitler alone, as 
many as 25 major falsifications of history, as well as numerous subsidiary 
inventions, suppressions, manipulations and mistranslations employed to 
support the major falsifications," Mr Rampton said.

"If those relating to Auschwitz, Dresden and other matters are added in, 
the number goes well over 30."

Mr Rampton said: "As the evidence in this court has shown, Mr Irving is a 
right-wing extremist, a racist and, in particular, a rabid anti-Semite.

"How far, if at all, Mr Irving's anti-Semitism is a cause of his Hitler 
apology, or vice-versa, is unimportant.

"Whether they are taken together, or individually, it is clear that they 
have led him to prostitute his reputation as a serious historian - spurious 
though it can now be seen to have been - for the sake of a bogus 
rehabilitation of Hitler and the dissemination of virulent anti-Semitic 
propaganda."

But Mr Irving strongly denounced the claims as "evil allegations and slurs 
which lend fire and fury to the original libel".

Reserving his decision, the judge said he would give his judgment in "a 
small number of weeks".

###


Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor

© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012

This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and to combat hatred. Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.

As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.