is David Irving (the revisionist) a Neo-Nazi and an Antisemite; or do you think he is just after the truth -whatever it is-?

At first I thought he was after the truth -actually, at first I thought most revisionists were after the truth-, but if you listen carefully to his speeches you realise that the guy admires Hitler and the Nazis, despises Churchill and the allies in general, and most important, is constantly making nasty comments and sick jokes on the Jews and the victims of the holocaust.

What do you think?

Most of the BNP supporting nazi types are unemployed or low income failures.
Its about their own inadequacies and someone to blame.

The David Irvings of this world seem to lack something in their psychological make up, they play the blame game, it's kind of like reading a spy novel, a who done it, then getting closure once the finger can be pointed and the problem solved, the perpetrator caught.

If they can't get their way and the world isn't taking notice of them they get all defense and fill with hatred, the solution is to kick the shit out of them, make'm pay and that'll make them feel better, till the next frustration arises. Then you have their follows like the rabid Neo Nazi's who dont want to do it themselves, so they seek someone who can vent their frustrations for themselves

andyh wrote:
I could see he was a right-winger, but didn't know he was a BNP supporter... well, I guess that sort of closes the case.

It's rather obvious to me now that he is rather looking to justify his Nazi friends, and clean the memory of this Fuhrer, instead of just being interested in history.

That's a petty, because I was about to read his book on Hitler... now I will just see it as biased pro-Nazi propaganda.

Flyermay wrote:
Anything that praises ANY leader is biased propaganda

Irving once objected to "moderate" when he was described as a "moderate fascist".
This gives an indication of his associations
www.hdot.org/en/trial/defense/funke

Everyone agrees he's incredibly knowledgeable, but he's also a known bullshitter with a heavy bias towards the Nazis. He's told some astonishing whoppers. This is worth checking out. It covers some material specifically from Hitler's War if you scroll down.
www.hdot.org/en/trial/defense/evans

Changed his tune after he read the Eichmann diaries, didn't he?

dogsmilk wrote:
My God... that's what I call a full report on the political affiliation of a person.

Thanks DM; and glad to chat with you again.

I just began reading the report, and I noticed something that's not true... David Irving has never denied the holocaust (at least not to my knowledge). I've been recently interested in the guy because I'm looking for alternative accounts on Hitler, the Nazis and WWII; and Irving seemed at qualified and knowledgeable source. Well, in short, I recently heard him say a lot of stupid things, especially against the Jews, but I never heard him deny the holocaust; at the contrary, so far in every speech I heard he remands his audience that the holocaust did indeed happened, but not just as the mainstream says.

I'm also not that concern about Irving holding extremist views. I mean, he could be an extremist and write unbiased books on this subject; sticking to the evidences and witnesses. What's putting me down from reading his books (I'm really curious to hear what he has to say) is that he keeps on making this nasty comments against the Jews, talks of Hitler with such an admiration that I doubt he would be totally objective, and seems to rather despise Churchill and the allies for defeating the Nazis... all of which I'm afraid is going to influence his research.

Anyway, has anyone read "Hitler's war" already?

Flyermay wrote:
Hi Flyermay - hope you're well.

With Irving it all centred around Auschwitz. Irving did made relatively vague statements about how he'd never studied the Holocaust specifically and IIRC the issue with him didn't cover the entire Holocaust. Though it's difficult to see how you can deny Auschwitz on its own.
I've never read it myself, but as I underdstand it, in the original Hitler's war he tried to claim Hitler didn't actually know about the Holocaust and claimed it was people like Himmler doing it behind his back. This is kinda absurd and smacks of trying to protect Hitler from blame. In the 2nd edition he just excised the Holocaust from the text and ignored it rather than say it didn't happen. This was at the time he endorsed the Leuchter report and made his 'sink the battleship Auschwitz' type remarks. He basically emerged onto the denial circuit claiming Auschwitz wasn't a klling centre. This was at the time when Auschwitz was the big focus for the denier community. I personally think there was an element of oppurtunism in this that backfied. Irving is definitely sympathetic to the Nazis and he's also a publicity whore who fancies himself as a maverick. I think at least part of it is he saw an opportunity to become a celebrity on the denier circuit and mistakenly put faith in the Leuchter report which he published in England himself. Though it's known he even got told it was bullshit from inside the denial community. But then he took Lipstadt to court and it all went horribly wrong. He lost cred in the denier community and what cred he had in the mainstream community. He totally pissed the denier community off by endorsing the Hofle telegram and acknowledging Jews were murdered. So he kind of wasn't a denier, then he was, then he wasn't again. He's driven by what he wants to think - with the Hitler diaries he was famously the first person to say they were fake and the last person to say they were genuine. But he decided they were genuine when he discovered they didn't mention the Holocaust - this fit his thesis at the time Hitler didn't know about it so he wanted them to be genuine. He knows a hell of a lot about the Nazis, but he's extremely biased and is totally prepared to distort sources to fit what he wants to say.

I'd read it if you fancy it, but just bear in mind it's partisan and he isn't to be assumed to be reliable. People have praised it though for presenting a Nazi's eye view of things. In fact, if you've got your hardcore reading head on, it might be good to read the last of Richard Evans' third reich trilogy (the third Reich at war) as a sort of counterbalance. There's an irony to that as they don't like each other, Irving particularly hates Evans and calls him 'skunky Evans' - Evans doesn't come across as biased in his writing, but IIRC politically he's an old fashioned moderate lefty so it's a good contrast on that front too.
Though a lot of it is just covering material in the report I linked to, Evans' book about the trial - telling lies about Hitler - is well worth reading too. I think that book is the reason Irving hates Evans as much as he does.

dogsmilk wrote:
Yes, about Auschwitz there is an interview where Irving says: "Forget about Auschwitz, that's unimportant... that's not were the killing was done. The real killing was done in these four camps; the Operation Reinhard camps"... though he is acknowledging the holocaust after all.

I think I have the first edition (the 1977 edition)... but I just found something else from Irving that I want to read first; his next book on Hitler "The War Path", which deals with the pre-war.

What I'm looking is exactly for what you said, a counter-balance to all I've been hearing so far. I mean, I don't doubt all it's said about Hitler and the Nazis is true, but I can tell some of it might be exaggerated. I would really like to hear the Nazi side of the story... and I think Irving at the time he wrote those 2 books might be a good candidate for it.

Thanks for recommending Evans, I'll check him out.

And hope you're fine too...

[quote="Flyermay" post=30454.[/quote]

Yes, about Auschwitz there is an interview where Irving says: "Forget about Auschwitz, that's unimportant... that's not were the killing was done. The real killing was done in these four camps; the Operation Reinhard camps"... though he is acknowledging the holocaust after all.[/quote]

That's very disingenous statement because more died at Auschwitz than any other single camp. If he said that post libel trial, I'd see that as backtracking

He's definitely not a denier now, But part of the reason took Lipstadt to court was because she called him a Holocaust denier and he tried (and failed) to win by proving Auschwitz wasn't a killing centre - Auschwitz being central because that's what he'd been talking about.

I'm not 100% convinced he ever actually really believed it all in the first place. He basically just went round spouting off and I assume he thought Penguin would easily cave in and not support Lipstadt. Instead he was forced to make a serious case, which he hadn't needed to before. The denial stuff is certainly not central to him - he's never been a Holocaust denier like Ernst Zundel or whoever where being a Holocaust denier is what they do. Irving hasn't written any big denial tracts or made it his career. If he hadn't taken Lipstadt to court, the whole business would most likely have had far less impact.

AFAIK the main difference between 1st & 2nd eds is the Holocaust stuff.

Evans' The Third Reich in Power could keep your counterbalancing going as that's Nazi Germany from seizing power to war breaking out. Ian Kershaw's 2 volume Hitler biography is good too - but that's pretty massive. Start reading all this stuff and nobody will hear from you for ages.

dogsmilk wrote:
Yes, he was caught by the Leuchter report, who's conclusions were later proven to be wrong and its findings consistent with the mainstream historical accounts about Auschwitz, and which rather confirms that Irving is either desperate looking for any evidences to acquit the Nazis, or to please his Neo-Nazi followers.

I wouldn't personally categorise him as a holocaust denier -apart from Auschwitz, never denied the killing and torture carried out in other concentration camps-. I see him as one of those Neo-Nazis that admits most of the barbarities carried out, but tries to keep his Fuhrer clean from it all; putting the blame on everyone else but Hitler. Also, I see him as one of those that tries to move the deaths figures towards what he calls "natural causes" (which oddly according to him also includes: starvation, executions and working people to death), claiming that the planned exterminations were minor and due to the circumstances of the last years of the war -for which he also puts blame on the allies for bombing Germany's resources and transport networks-. I also think, as you said, that he's been on downward spiral over the years; starting well, and digging himself the shithole he's in now -probably, as you also say, in an attempt to please his audience-; which rather gives me some hope for his 2 books I'm interested in (from 1977 and 1978, before all the troubles began).