David Irving:
The Journal of Historical Review
David
Irving:
(Based on introduction of
Irving at the Eleventh
IHR Conference, 1992.)
Soviet premier Nikita Kruschev might have had
David Irving in mind when he
once warned that historians are dangerous because they have the power to
upset everything. German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck once said that the
main thing is not to write history, but to make it.
Irving is a man who
has been able to do some of both.
He is also living proof that the life of a historian need not be dull.
The leftist British daily The Guardian once commented, "If one can
overlook his outrageously odious views,
Irving--like Hitler--can be a funny
man. The humor comes from a hint of self-mockery and an obvious delight in
making liberal flesh creep."
At the Eleventh
IHR Conference in October 1992--as he had in his
presentations at the
IHR Conferences of 1983, 1989 and 1990--this good
friend of the
Institute for Historical Review not only shed new light on
important chapters of twentieth-century history, he delighted attendees
with humorous updates on some of the new ways he had found to make liberal
flesh creep.
In the three decades since he published his first book,
Irving has
firmly established himself as not only one of the most successful and
widely-read historians of our time, but also as one of the most courageous.
He has an enviable track record of uncovering startling new facts about
even supposedly well-known episodes of history. His effectiveness is due
in very large measure to his discovery of original source materials, such
as diaries, original documents, and so forth, from both official and
private sources. He is tenacious in his ceaseless digging in just about
every important historical archive in the western world.
A professional historian,
Irving has little respect for taxpayer-
financed scholars who are guilty of what he calls "inter-historian incest,"
and who thereby help to keep alive dangerous myths and legends left over
from wartime propaganda.
His first work, The Destruction of Dresden, was published in 1963 when
he was 25 years old. Since then, he has published more than two dozen
books, many of them best-sellers, including biographies of Hermann Goring,
Winston Churchill, and Erwin Rommel. He is currently at work on a
biography of Joseph Goebbels.
Several of
Irving's books have appeared in various languages, and
several have been serialized in prominent periodicals, including the
Sunday Express, the Sunday Telegraph and Der Spiegel.
Over the years, he has also contributed articles to some 60 British and
foreign periodicals, including the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday
Express in London, the Mainichi Shimbun in Tokyo, and
Stern and Der
Spiegel in Hamburg.
Irving's reputation first came under vicious attack following the
publication in 1977 of Hitler's War, a monumental work that was
hysterically criticized for its contention that Hitler did not order the
extermination of Europe's Jews. The mass killings must have been carried
out by Himmler and his cohorts behind Hitler's back,
Irving concluded at
that time.
As a journalist for _Time_ magazine once told him, "Until Hitler's War
you couldn't put a foot wrong, you were the darling of the media. After
it, they heaped slime on you."
So enraged was the Zionist Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith by
this book that the shadowy organization promptly added his name to its
ever-growing list of enemies. As it turned out, the ADL's troubles with
Irving were only just beginning.
The international campaign against him became even more vicious
following the publication in 1981 of Uprising, a history of the 1956
anti-Communist revolt in Hungary. This book enraged the
ADL crowd because
it does not whitewash the significant Jewish role in the Hungarian
Communist regime. [Softcover edition available from the
IHR for $16.95
plus $2.00 shipping.]
Irving has made several highly successful speaking and promotion tours
in Germany, Canada, Australia, South Africa, the United States, and other
countries. German listeners in particular delight in hearing an Englishman
say out loud what many in that country believe in their souls but have been
intimidated into keeping to themselves. In Germany,
Irving has become a
kind of conscience for a people who have been largely robbed of their own.
A startling climax in the second "Holocaust Trial" of Ernst Zundel in
1988 was the testimony of
Irving, who was the last of 23 defense witnesses.
He stunned the completely packed Toronto courtroom by announcing that he
had changed his mind about the Holocaust story. During his three days on
the stand, he explained in detail why he now endorses the Revisionist view
of the extermination story.
In June 1989,
Irving published the British edition of The Leuchter
Report. This handsome, illustrated edition, for which he wrote a
foreword, was launched by him at a press conference in London. He told the
journalists there that the infamous extermination gas chambers of
Auschwitz
and
Majdanek did not exist, except, perhaps, as the brainchild invention of
Britain's wartime propaganda bureau, the Political Warfare Executive (PWE).
A magnificent 860-page Focal Point edition of Hitler's War was
published last year. Taking account of his most recent research and
insights, references to so-called "extermination camps" have been removed
from this revised edition. And in his introduction,
Irving deftly tears
apart one historical legend after another.
This work--the product of decades of patient research and writing--has
proven particularly enraging to the enemies of truth in history.
In addition to the usual lies, his adversaries have even turned to
criminal burglary and arson in their fitful and frantic efforts to silence
him.
[Continued]
The
original plaintext version
of this file is available via
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Intrepid Battler for Historical Truth
Vol. 13, Number 1 (Jan./Feb. 1993)
Intrepid Battler for Historical Truth