Telling Lies About Hitler: The Holocaust, History and the David Irving Trial [Paperback]

 

 

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Evans reminds the reader how all this began. Deborah Lipstadt wrote a book on Holocaust denial in 1993, in which Irving featured on just 6 of its 300 pages. In these pages she accused Irving of falsifying history and denying the Holocaust. Two years' later, in 1995, Irving sued Penguin and Lipstadt for libel. Before he did this, hardly anyone in the UK had heard of Lipstadt's book. Her book had only sold 2,000 copies in the UK.

Once he had thrown down the gauntlet, Lipstadt and Penguin had no choice but to contest it. The only other choice was to withdraw the book and never write a critical word about Irving ever again, under pain of criminal sanction.

Irving might have chosen to refute Lipstadt's allegations against him in print. Instead he chose the blunt instrument of the law. He was not seeking to defend his position on the Holocaust, he was seeking to silence his critics. Irving was anything but the underdog defending free speech in this case: he was the one trying to stymie it. A lawsuit is no joke. It was not for nothing that the celebrated US Supreme Court judge Learned Hand once remarked that he feared a lawsuit more than death or taxes.

When one calls someone a liar in court, as Irving did, one will be judged by the same measure which one uses to judge others. This is what happened in Irving's case - and he was found wanting. Under the English law of defamation, one defence available to the defendant is to argue that the remarks made about the plaintiff are not defamatory because they are true. This was the tack defence Lipstadt and Penguin books took, with Evans as expert witness for the defence. It succeeded. Irving was indeed found to be a Holocaust denier, and this denial was based on the falsification of history.

Irving did not start out a Holocaust denier. The 1977 edition of his book Hitler's War, while sympathetic to Hitler, did not deny the Holocaust had happened, only Hitler's responsibility for it. In the 1991 edition of the same book, he had moved to an outright denier's position. But as Evans shows, Irving's use of documentary evidence to exonerate Hitler from responsibility rested on a series of manipulations and misrepresentations of the documentary evidence. It wasn't just in relation to Hitler but also Irving's other work, such as The Bombing of Dresden, with its vastly inflated casualty figures based on the mendacious use of forged documentation, which was exposed in the course of the trial.

The book however goes beyond the trial to questions about the treatment of historical evidence. Evans has given this subject book-length treatment In Defence of History(which is also well worth reading). Some would consider a courtroom to be a bad place to decide matters of historical truth but as Evans says, the exhaustive process allowed full and proper consideration of the evidence presented, much more so than, say, a TV documentary or a televised debate.

Regarding charges of a `Holocaust Industry', that is, the political exploitation of Jewish suffering, Evans reminds the reader that the proper study of the Holocaust is separate from any attempt to exploit it for political reasons. As he points out, radical writers such as Norman Finkelstein do not base their critiques on the assumption that the Holocaust never happened. The Palestinians' cause is not served by the likes of David Irving or the Institute of Historical Review but by historical truth. This is demonstrated by the discrediting of a book called From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters, ripped apart by historians inside and outside of Israel.

Very worthwhile, if you are irked by the misrepresentation of history and by apologists for the Third Reich. Evans was asked to testify for the defence in Irving's libel action against the historian Deborah Lipstadt who, in print, had described Irving as 'discredited', 'a neo-fascist' and a 'Holocaust denier'. The gathering of evidence - checking Irving's books, and tracing his quotations and cited evidence back to the source (where there was a source) - took Evans and a research student 'all of 1998 and much of 1999'. It's not often that such effort is expended to overturn a libel action - in cases like Irving's, the plaintiff can rely on the defendant being unwilling to incur the trouble and expense required to contest the libel action. There is thus a distinct satisfaction in reading about Irving's crushing defeat.

Goebells famously said if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. Which is exactly what Irving has been doing for years. For years Irving has promoted himself as a much more thorough historian than 'mainstream' historians, and has claimed that there is no real evidence that the Holocaust ever happened. Unfortunately when his so-called evidence and methods were criticised by genuine historians, it appeared (superficially) that it was only their word against his - ie as if there was a genuine doubt. So his propaganda was a tool to legitimise holocaust-denial.
Then foolishly he sued one of his critics for libel. Finally this meant that he was put under the spotlight in a court of law. (Where the rules of evidence are in fact very similar to the rules of historical evidence). This book gives a detailed, objective & fascinating account of the trial in which Irving was definitively proven to have deliberately twisted, fabricated or ignored evidence to suit his own agenda. In other words he was exposed for the liar he is. Incredibly he lied throughout the trial too - regularly misquoting the witnesses and reports in his inept attempt to represent himself. And even more incredibly he continued to lie after the trial too, in interviews portraying himself as the victim whose right to free speech had been denied. (Remember it was actually HIM who was trying to silence his critics).
The sad thing is that he & others like him are still telling the same lies.

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1.0 out of 5 stars Very well writen, but useless.
The review is about the book per se, not its content, truthfulness and presentation of facts. Very informing and detailed, though a little boring in parts, but you just don't need... Read more

Published 5 months ago by Efthymios Karaklas

1.0 out of 5 stars Garbage
David Irving is the only true historian on world war 2. The victors of world war 2 are the liars. Victors of all wars lie and rewrite history for their own benefits and to cover... Read more

Published 6 months ago by D. Watson

5.0 out of 5 stars A devastating critique of Irving's so-called scholarship
I read Deborah Lipstadt's excellent account of the court proceedings brought against her by David Irving a while back. Read more

Published 9 months ago by Mace Maclean

5.0 out of 5 stars extraordinary work of painstaking analysis
This is an extraordinarily brilliant work of painstaking analysis of the claims and assertions made over many years by David Irving, a Holocaust denier. Read more

Published 16 months ago by Australian lawyer

5.0 out of 5 stars How "Deniers" work
I found this an excellent and quite gripping book. Professor Evans shows how Irving twists evidence into forms which agree with his own political views - and then (and this is... Read more

Published on 14 Nov 2009 by Davey

5.0 out of 5 stars A super read that's a real eye-opener!
Richard Evans objectively and in detail publishes his findings in this book on the Lipstad/Irving trial. Read more

Published on 3 Oct 2007 by Nathan

4.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant book
Richard J. Evans is one of the most distinguished English-language historians of the Nazi era, and as such he was called as an expert witness by the defence team in the... Read more

Published on 5 Aug 2007 by lexo1941

5.0 out of 5 stars Telling the Truth
In this book which covers Richad Evans's role as an expert witness for the defence in the 2000 libel case brought by the controversial historical writer David Irving; against the... Read more

Published on 16 Jun 2007 by Mark Rowantree

5.0 out of 5 stars An important book
This is an important book. Firstly because of the intrinsic importance of the Holocaust itself. Secondly it is a great study in how history should be done. Read more

Published on 18 Jun 2006 by Timothy Hawthorn

4.0 out of 5 stars Telling Lies about Hitler
The title of the book refers to one of the most shameful moments in history of mankind and it is tempting to move our eyes away from it, as if ignoring the book can help us forget... Read more

Published on 29 July 2005 by Katerina Savva

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