Historian David Irving : Trial and Controversy.
Latest hand-picked WWII news. See also: Holocaust Denial, WWII Aftermath.
David Irving defends his guided history tours of Nazi death camps in Poland
Controversial historian David Irving has hit back at claims his 1-week guided history tours of Nazi death camps in Poland are "Nazi Travel" by saying that it is the Polish authorities who are "tasteless" for their promotion of Auschwitz as a "Disney-style" tourist site. The WW2 tour Irving is setting up includes visits to Hitler's Wolfsschanze headquarters (The Wolf's Lair) and the Treblinka death camp - and a special screening of the film "Downfall". The tour is fully-booked with American and British history buffs. "There is no question that the Nazis killed millions of people in these camps," Irving explains.
(dailymail.co.uk)
"Hitler appointed me his biographer": An Exclusive Interview With David Irving
"Hitler appointed me his biographer," David Irving says. He found out about this prophecy when he was writing his biography of Adolf Hitler: "I identified Erwin Giesing as the doctor who treated Hitler after the bomb attempt on his life in 1944." He tracked him down in the 1970s, and when Irving called, Giesing said: "Yes, I've been expecting you." And when Irving arrived, Giesing handed a 400-page file (his diary of his time with Hitler) and said: "That's what you have come for." Irving asked why, why me? Why haven't you given it to Jacobson or any of the other great historians?" Giesing said the answer lay on page 385.
(huffingtonpost.com)
British historian David Irving expelled from Warsaw book fair
British historian David Irving was escorted out of an international book fair in Warsaw where he was planning to display his books. "We asked him to leave. Our employees helped him pack up his things, and our car drove him to the address he specified," said Grzegorz Guzowski. He said Irving's publishers did not send materials detailing his work to the fair until a few hours before the deadline, giving organisers too little time to prevent him from setting up a table. "It's ironic that it's come to a situation like this in Poland, which fought against restrictions on speech for such a long time," David Irving said.
(smh)
Historian David Irving shows little remorse on return to UK
The discredited historian David Irving was unrepentant as he arrived in the UK after being released early from prison in Austria and deported. He spent more than 13 months in jail before an appeal was successful and Austria's supreme court turned the remainder of his sentence into probation. A judge said David Irving had undergone an "impeccable conversion" from his earlier views and there was no chance he would reoffend. However, last night Irving said that during his case he was "obliged to show remorse" over his views but he had now "decided I have no need any longer to show remorse".
(guardian)
Historian David Irving to be released
An Austrian appeals court has ruled that UK historian David Irving should be released on probation. He was convicted in February in a case that sparked debate about the limits of freedom of speech. In 1989 he spoke in Austria denying the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz, though he later said he was "mistaken". He said he would urge an academic boycott of historians from Germany and Austria until the nations stopped jailing historians: "I was put in prison for three years for expressing an opinion 17 years ago."
(bbc)
British historian David Irving has had his conviction upheld
British historian David Irving has had his conviction upheld by the Austrian Supreme Court. But another court has yet to rule on his appeal against a 3-year jail term, which he is serving in Vienna. The 68-year-old was imprisoned after pleading guilty at a one-day trial on 20 February. Mr Irving said he now believed Jewish people had been gassed during World War II. The historian was also on trial for claiming the November 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom, was not the work of Nazis but of others who had dressed up as stormtroopers.
(bbc)
Should we have argued with Irving rather than jail him?
Now serving three years in an Austrian jail, the historian David Irving, has repeated his claim that the Nazis didn't attempt to systematically wipe out the Jews. But would it have been better to silence Irving by publicly demolishing his arguments rather than sending him to jail? The criminal prosecution has undermined that process because it makes him a martyr, which is even more dangerous. -- Irving felt that Hitler became demonised after the war and he (Irving) was trying to redress the balance, but if you read between the lines you can detect an underlying admiration for Hitler in his work.
(icwales)
Irving banned from speaking to media
The jailed British David Irving has been banned from talking to the press after he continued to question the Holocaust from his cell and claimed he was a victim of Jewish persecution. The author was jailed for three years by a court in Vienna, but since his incarceration he has continued to spout his far-right ideology in a number of interviews. Irving has appealed against his sentence but could face more years behind bars as a result of his recent statements if his case goes back to court.
(guardian)
Just two days after he recanted his views, David Irving reverts to extremism
David Irving's repudiation of his views on the Holocaust has not lasted very long. In a prison interview just days after he told he had been wrong to deny the Holocaust, he reverted to insisting that the slaughter in Nazi death camps was exaggerated, and that Jews "bear blame for what happened". A shortage of money now means Irving's partner Ms Hogh and the couple's daughter Jessica face eviction from their expensive London flat. She told that Jessica now carries a copy of Anne Frank's Diary to make plain her disagreement with her father.
(independent)
Nicholas Irving - Twin brother of David Irving
For 68 years, Nicholas Irving has lived in the shadow of his twin, the reviled historian and Hitler apologist who was jailed last week for three years. Here, he tells of the trials of growing up with a brother who even at the age of six was giving the Nazi salute. The twins, the last of four children, were born in 1938 and grew up during the Second World War. "There was nothing unpatriotic about David's views then," says Nicholas.
(telegraph.co.uk)
European press split over David Irving
The 3-year prison sentence handed down by an Austrian court to British historian David Irving for denying the Holocaust divides opinion in Europe's press. In Austria, a commentator on a leading daily has no doubts that the sentence was fully justified, notwithstanding that the country is a democracy. But elsewhere, commentators worry that the sentence has undermined the fundamental democratic right of freedom of speech, and argue the principle should be upheld however abhorrent the views expressed.
(bbc)
David Irving: An anti-Semitic racist who has suffered financial ruin
In 2000 David Irving was in court to sue the historian Deborah Lipstadt, whose book singled him out as a Holocaust denier. The unsuccessful 32-day libel action brought financial ruin and professional disgrace. Most damning were the words of Mr Justice Gray, presiding at the High Court, who branded the Third Reich historian "an active Holocaust denier ... anti-Semitic and racist". The author of more than 30 books on the WW2, Irving contends that most of those who died at concentration camps were not executed but succumbed to diseases. His career has been characterised by a savage intellect and a consuming self-confidence.
(independent)
Nation-States Gone Wild: The Persecution of David Irving
Will the European governments that ban any talk about the Nazis not having murdered 6 million Jews start rounding up the newspaper editors who published the Muhammad cartoons and start putting them on trial for crimes against Islam? Should people who downplay the Confederate States of America`s treatment of slaves and the U.S. government`s treatment of Native Americans face criminal charges? Should the people who publicly contend that the U.S. government was justified in killing hundreds of thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki face criminal charges?
(pressaction)
Austria sentences historian David Irving to jail for Holocaust denial
An Austrian court sentenced David Irving to 3 years in prison for denying the Holocaust during a 1989 stopover in Austria, dismissing his argument that he had changed his views. Irving pleaded guilty, but the Vienna criminal court concluded he was only making a pretence of acknowledging Nazi Germany's genocide against Jews in order to escape a jail term. Irving said he was shocked by the sentence and lodged an immediate appeal. His lawyer said that even if Irving lost the appeal, he was likely to serve a maximum 1-1/2 to two years because of his age and status as a first-time offender.
(bbc)
Eichmann papers convinced Irving Holocaust happened
British historian David Irving pleaded guilty to charges of denying the Holocaust 17 years ago, but told an Austrian court that the personal files of Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann had changed his views. Asked whether he had denied in speeches in 1989 that Nazi Germany had killed millions of Jews, Irving said he had until he had seen the personal files of Adolf Eichmann, the chief organizer of the Holocaust.
(tvnz)
David Irving says he has no choice but to admit charges of Holocaust denial
David Irving revealed that he would plead guilty to charges of Holocaust denial. Irving said he did not consider himself to be a Holocaust denier but had no choice but plead "guilty as charged". Irving said he had been labelled a Holocaust denier by Austrian and German journalists and deliberately misunderstood. "It means they've not read anything I've written since the actual offence was committed, which is 1989 - 17 years ago," he said. "If they read that, they'll see I describe in great detail what Hitler and his troops were doing to the Jews behind the Eastern front … I'm very angry indeed about it."
(telegraph.co.uk)
Hitler? He was good in parts - David Irving
The discredited right-wing historian David Irving was arrested in Austria last year for denying the Holocaust and faces trial next month. From his Viennese prison, he gives his first interview to German author and academic Malte Herwig, who asks if arrogance is at the heart of Irving's desire for outrage - or something more sinister. -- His lawyer, Elmar Kresbach, shakes his head at the incoherent and confused hate mail that has clogged his letterbox since he took over Irving's mandate.
(guardian)
The Swastika Wielding Provocateur - David Irving
British historian David Irving, arrested in Austria where his views are illegal, is busy preparing his trial in a Vienna prison. Could this be the eccentric Hitler admirer's final act of provocation? Irving is writing his memoirs, 20 pages a day. There is little else to do for a writer behind bars, and there's a tradition about writing while incarcerated. "Perhaps I should call it Mein Krieg" says grinning Irving. His daughter finds it "cool that Daddy is in prison", and one has the impression that Daddy himself still sees the whole thing as part of an adventure. David Irving is a man marooned on the fringes of society, but adventure is part of his business.
(spiegel)
Profile: David Irving
David Irving was once seen as the brightest new star in the historical firmament: an extraordinarily competent researcher, a brilliant linguist and a first class writer. First book, The Destruction of Dresden, described the 1945 air raid on the city as "the worst single massacre in European history". He followed it with a series of bestsellers, including The Mare's Nest and The Virus House, about the Nazis' atomic research programme. In 1977, he produced the work for which he is best known - Hitler's War. The book looked at the conduct of World War II from Hitler's perspective, "from behind the Fuhrer's desk".
(bbc)
Nazi apologist finds his works in Austrian prison
Austria's authorities were facing embarrassment yesterday after it emerged that the controversial historian David Irving had discovered two of his books inside the prison where he was held. Irving stumbled across copies of Hitler's War and Schlacht im Eismeer (Battle in the Arctic Sea) while browsing through the 6,400-volume library of Graz's prison. A delighted Irving asked warders if he could sign his own works. They agreed.
(Guardian)
Repentant Irving to plead guilty but must stay in jail
David Irving, the discredited British historian of the Nazis, will spend Christmas and New Year in a Viennese jail after yesterday being refused bail. Mr Kresbach argued that his client was elderly, no threat to Austria, and had promised to return for the trial if released on bail of up to 20,000 euros. The magistrate dismissed the argument, declaring there was a "flight risk."
(guardian)
Irving faces 20 years' jail in Austria for 'Holocaust denial'
The British historian David Irving has been charged by prosecutors in Austria of denying the existence of the Holocaust, an offence that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail. Mr Irving's website claimed last week that he had been detained while on his way to address a group of "courageous students" on the subject of a deal reached between the Gestapo chief Adolf Eichmann and Hungarian Jewish leaders during the Second World War.
(Independent)
Austria: Police arrest historian David Irving for Holocaust denial
British revisionist historian David Irving is being held in Austria under laws against denying the Holocaust. Mr Irving was on his way to give a lecture in the capital, Vienna. In his books, Mr Irving has argued that the scale of the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis in World War II has been exaggerated. He also claimed that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler knew nothing of the Holocaust.
(BBC)
See also:
Holocaust Denial
WWII Aftermath.