David John Cawdell Irving (born 24 March 1938) is an English author and

Holocaust denier Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: * ...

who has written on the military and political history of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, with a focus on

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. His works include '' The Destruction of Dresden'' (1963), ''

Hitler's War ''Hitler's War'' is a biographical book by British author David Irving. It describes the Second World War from the point of view of Nazi Germany’s leader Adolf Hitler. It was first published in April 1977 by Hodder & Stoughton and Viking Pre ...

'' (1977), ''Churchill's War'' (1987) and ''Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich'' (1996). In his works, he argued that

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...

did not know of the extermination of Jews, or, if he did, he opposed it. Though Irving's

negationist Historical negationism, also called denialism, is falsification or distortion of the historical record. It should not be conflated with ''historical revisionism'', a broader term that extends to newly evidenced, fairly reasoned academic reinterp ...

claims and views of German war crimes in World War II (and Hitler's responsibility for them) were never taken seriously by mainstream historians, he was once recognised for his knowledge of Nazi Germany and his ability to unearth new historical documents. By the late 1980s, Irving had placed himself outside the mainstream of the study of history, and had begun to turn from soft-core' to 'hard-core' Holocaust denial", possibly influenced by the 1988 trial of Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel. That trial, and his reading of the 1988

pseudoscientific Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claim ...

Leuchter Report dismissed as pseudoscientific: *"Leuchter and Rudolf have published pseudoscientific reports purporting to show that chemical residues present in the gas chambers of

Auschwitz-Birkenau Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed int ...

are incompatible with homicidal gassings." Green, Richard J
"Leuchter, Rudolf, and the Iron Blues"
. Retrieved 11 September 2008. *"The Leuchter Report, a pseudo-scientific document which allegedly proves that Zyklon B was not used to exterminate human beings, was translated into Arabic and sold at the International Book Fair in Cairo in January 2001." Roth, Stephen. Stephen Roth Institute. ''Antisemitism Worldwide, 2000/1'', University of Nebraska Press, 2002, p. 228. *"The turning point came in 1989, when Irving launched Fred Leuchter's pseudo-scientific Leuchter Report, which made the spurious claim that the absence of cyanide residues in the walls of the gas chambers at Auschwitz and other camps proved that they could not have functioned as mass extermination centres." Brinks, Jan Herman; Timms, Edward; Rock, Stella. ''Nationalist Myths and Modern Media'', I.B. Tauris, 2006, p. 72. *"The Leuchter report, was, indeed, an amateurish report produced by a man with no expertise, either historical or forensic." Hirsh, David. ''Law Against Genocide''. Routledge Cavendish, 2003, p. 134. *"Another common tactic of the deniers is to engage in historical inquiries that on the surface appear legitimate but upon close examination prove to be based on pseudo-science. One prominent example was the investigation of the Auschwitz gas chambers by Fred Leuchter ..Detailed study of the 'Leuchter Report' revealed that it was based on erroneous assumptions (cyanide does not penetrate deeply into concrete). It also emerged that Leuchter had falsified his credentials and overstated his expertise. Despite this, his report is still cited by deniers." Cull, Nicholas John; Culbert, David Holbrook; Welch, David. ''Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present'', ABC-CLIO, 2003, p. 168. *"...the institute relied primarily on the talents of a California-based publicist named Bradley Smith who packaged and promoted Leuchter's discredited material as if it were the very essence of 'scientific research' or at least a tenable 'point of view', intrinsically worthy of inclusion in the academic agenda..." Churchill, Ward. ''A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present''. City Lights Books, 1997, p. 24. *"After the trial, both Irving and Zündel published the results of Leuchter's trial research as ''The Leuchter Report: The End of a Myth,'' despite the fact that the court rejected both the report and Leuchter's testimony. ..The discredited report is popular in the Holocaust denial movement and one edition features a foreword by Irving." Gerstenfeld, Phyllis B. Grant, Diana R. ''Crimes of Hate: Selected Readings'', SAGE Publications, 2003, p. 201. *"Leuchter's report contained a considerable amount of scientific, or, as it turned out, pseudo-scientific analysis of chemical residues on the gas chamber walls and similar matters. It was quickly discredited, not least on the basis of Leuchter's failure adequately to defend his findings on the witness stand." Evans, Richard J. ''David Irving, Hitler and Holocaust Denial: Electronic Edition'', Section 3.3c
The 1991 Edition of ''Hitler's War''
, Paragraph 13. Retrieved 12 September 2008. Leuchter report, led him to openly espouse Holocaust denial, specifically denying that Jews were murdered by gassing at the

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. I ...

. Irving's reputation as a

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

was further discreditedIrving is discredited as a historian in a number of sources: *"Conclusion on meaning 2.15 (vi): that Irving is discredited as a historian." ''David Irving v Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt''. *"Deborah Lipstadt is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies and director of The Rabbi Donald A. Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory University. She is the author of two books about the Holocaust. Her book ''Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory'' led to the 2000 court case in which she defeated and discredited Holocaust denier David Irving." *"If the case for competence applies to those who lack specialist knowledge, it applies even further to those who have been discredited as incompetent. For example, why ought we include David Irving in a debate aiming to establish the truth about the Holocaust, after a court has found that he manipulates and misinterprets history?" *. " rvingclaimed that Lipstadt's book accuses him of falsifying historical facts in order to support his theory that the Holocaust never happened. This of course discredited his reputation as a historian ..On 11 April, High Court judge Charles Gray ruled against Irving, concluding that he indeed qualified as a Holocaust denier and anti-Semite and that as such he has distorted history in order to defend his hero, Adolf Hitler." *"In Britain, which does not have a Holocaust denial law, Irving had already been thoroughly discredited when he unsuccessfully sued historian Deborah Lipstadt in 2000 for describing him as a Holocaust denier." in 1996, when, in the course of an unsuccessful libel case he filed against the American historian

Deborah Lipstadt Deborah Esther Lipstadt (born March 18, 1947) is an American historian, best known as author of the books '' Denying the Holocaust'' (1993), ''History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier'' (2005), ''The Eichmann Trial'' (2011), and ...

and

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Charles Gray determined in his ruling that Irving willfully misrepresented historical evidence to promote Holocaust denial and

whitewash Whitewash, or calcimine, kalsomine, calsomine, or lime paint is a type of paint made from slaked lime (calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)2) or chalk calcium carbonate, (CaCO3), sometimes known as "whiting". Various other additives are sometimes used. ...

the Nazis, a view shared by many prominent historians.Shown to have misrepresented historical evidence: * "In 1969, after David Irving's support for Rolf Hochhuth, the German playwright who accused Winston Churchill of murdering the Polish wartime leader General Sikorski, ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' issued a memo to all its correspondents. 'It is incorrect', it said, 'to describe David Irving as a historian. In future we should describe him as an author. * "It may seem an absurd semantic dispute to deny the appellation of 'historian' to someone who has written two dozen books or more about historical subjects. But if we mean by historian someone who is concerned to discover the truth about the past, and to give as accurate a representation of it as possible, then Irving is not a historian. Those in the know, indeed, are accustomed to avoid the term altogether when referring to him and use some circumlocution such as 'historical writer' instead. Irving is essentially an ideologue who uses history for his own political purposes; he is not primarily concerned with discovering and interpreting what happened in the past, he is concerned merely to give a selective and tendentious account of it to further his own ideological ends in the present. The true historian's primary concern, however, is with the past. That is why, in the end, Irving is not a historian." ''Irving v Lipstadt'' and ''Irving v Penguin Books''
Expert Witness Report
by Richard J. Evans FBA, Professor of Modern History,

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, 2000, Chapter 6. * "State prosecutor Michael Klackl said: 'He's not a historian, he's a falsifier of history. * "Irving has never examined and interpreted facts for the simple reason that he is not a historian. He twists or suppresses evidence to fit a foregone conclusion—the opposite of what any reputable historian does." * Hugh Trevor-Roper: "But I don't regard him as an historian. I don't think he has any historical sense. He is a propagandist who uses efficiently collected and arranged material to support a propagandist line." Cited in Richard J. Evans (2002). ''Telling lies about Hitler: the Holocaust, history and the David Irving trial''. Verso. p. 261, and Michael Shermer
"''Enigma'': The Faustian Bargain of David Irving"
''

Skeptical Inquirer ''Skeptical Inquirer'' is a bimonthly American general-audience magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) with the subtitle: ''The Magazine for Science and Reason''. Mission statement and goals Daniel Loxton, writing in 2 ...

'', 3 May 2005. The English court found that Irving was an active Holocaust denier,

antisemite Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

and

racist Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

, who "for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence". In addition, the court found that Irving's books had distorted the history of Hitler's role in the Holocaust to depict Hitler in a favourable light.

Early life

David Irving and his twin brother Nicholas. were born in Hutton, near Brentwood,

Essex Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

, England. They had a brother, John, and a sister, Jennifer. Their father, John James Cawdell Irving (1898–1967), was a career naval officer and a commander in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...

. Their mother, Beryl Irving (''née'' Newington), was an illustrator and a writer of children's books. During

, Irving's father was an officer aboard the light cruiser HMS ''Edinburgh''. On 30 April 1942, while escorting

Convoy QP 11 Convoy QP 11 was an Arctic Convoy of World War II, made up of merchant ships returning from the Soviet Union to Britain after delivering their cargo to the Soviet Union. The convoy consisted of 13 merchant ships, escorted by 18 warships. The conv ...

in the

Barents Sea The Barents Sea ( , also ; no, Barentshavet, ; russian: Баренцево море, Barentsevo More) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located off the northern coasts of Norway and Russia and divided between Norwegian and Russian terr ...

, the ship was badly damaged by the German submarine U-456. Two days later, the ship was attacked by a surface craft, and now beyond recovery was abandoned and scuttled by a torpedo from HMS ''Foresight''. Irving's father survived, but severed all links with his wife and children after the incident. Irving described his childhood in an interview with the American writer Ron Rosenbaum as: "Unlike the Americans, we English suffered great deprivations ... we went through childhood with no toys. We had no kind of childhood at all. We were living on an island that was crowded with other people's armies".. According to his brother, Nicholas, David has been a provocateur and prankster since his youth. Nicholas Irving has said that "David used to run toward bombed out houses shouting 'Heil Hitler!, a statement which Irving denies. Irving went on to say to Rosenbaum that his

views about World War II dated to his childhood, particularly due to his objections to the way

was portrayed in the British media during the war. Irving asserted that his sceptical views about the Third Reich were rooted in his doubts about the cartoonist caricatures of Hitler and the other Nazi leaders published in the British wartime press.

Student years

After completing

A levels The A-Level (Advanced Level) is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational au ...

at Brentwood School, Irving studied for a physics degree at

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

, leaving after the first year. He did not complete the course because of financial constraints.. Irving later studied for two years toward a degree in

Economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...

in the department of

Political Economy Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. However, he again had to drop out due to lack of funds. During this period at university, he participated in a debate on

Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...

immigration, seconding

British Union of Fascists The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was a British fascist political party formed in 1932 by Oswald Mosley. Mosley changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936 and, in 1937, to the British Union. In 1939, f ...

founder

Sir Oswald Mosley Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980) was a British politician during the 1920s and 1930s who rose to fame when, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, he turned to fascism. He was a member ...

''Carnival Times'' article

Irving's time as an editor of the ''Carnival Times'', a student

rag mag Rags are student-run charitable fundraising organisations that are widespread in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Some are run as student societies whilst others sit with campaigns within their student unions. Most universities in the UK and Irela ...

of the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...

Carnival Committee, became controversial in 1959 when he added a "secret supplement" to the magazine. This supplement contained an article in which he called Hitler the "greatest unifying force Europe has known since

Charlemagne Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first E ...

". Although Irving deflected criticism by characterising the ''Carnival Times'' as "

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or ...

", he also stated that " the formation of a European Union is interpreted as building a group of superior peoples, and the Jews have always viewed with suspicion the emergence of any 'master-race' (other than their own, of course)". Opponents also viewed a cartoon included in the supplement as racist and criticised another article in which Irving wrote that the British press was owned by Jews. Volunteers were later recruited to remove and destroy the supplements before the magazine's distribution. Irving has said that the criticism is "probably justifiable" and has described his motivation in producing the controversial secret issue of ''Carnival Times'' as being to prevent the ''Carnival'' from making a profit that would be passed on to a South African group which he considered a "subversive organisation".

''The Destruction of Dresden''

Irving tried to join the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

, but was deemed to be medically unfit. After serving in 1959 as editor of the University of London Carnival Committee's journal, instead of doing

national service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The ...

, Irving left for West Germany, where he worked as a steelworker in a Thyssen AG steel works in the

Ruhr The Ruhr ( ; german: Ruhrgebiet , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr area, sometimes Ruhr district, Ruhr region, or Ruhr valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/km ...

area and learned the

German language German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a ...

. He then moved to Spain, where he worked as a clerk at an air base. By 1962 he was engaged in writing a series of 37 articles on the Allied bombing campaign, ''Und Deutschlands Städte starben nicht'' ("And Germany's Cities Did Not Die"), for the German boulevard journal ''Neue Illustrierte''. These were the basis for his first book, '' The Destruction of Dresden'' (1963), in which he examined the Allied bombing of Dresden in February 1945. By the 1960s, a debate about the morality of the

carpet bombing Carpet bombing, also known as saturation bombing, is a large area bombardment done in a progressive manner to inflict damage in every part of a selected area of land. The phrase evokes the image of explosions completely covering an area, in th ...

of German cities and civilian population had already begun, especially in the United Kingdom. There was consequently considerable interest in Irving's book, which was illustrated with graphic pictures, and it became an international

best-seller A bestseller is a book or other media noted for its top selling status, with bestseller lists published by newspapers, magazines, and book store chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and specialties (novel, nonfiction book, cook ...

. In the first edition, Irving's estimates for deaths in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

were between 100,000 and 250,000 – notably higher than most previously published figures. These figures became widely accepted in many standard reference works. In later editions of the book over the next three decades, he gradually adjusted the figure downwards to 50,000–100,000. According to Richard J. Evans at the 2000 libel trial that Irving brought against

, Irving based his estimates of the dead of Dresden on the word of one individual who provided no supporting documentation, used a document forged by the Nazis, and described one witness who was a

urologist Urology (from Greek οὖρον ''ouron'' "urine" and '' -logia'' "study of"), also known as genitourinary surgery, is the branch of medicine that focuses on surgical and medical diseases of the urinary-tract system and the reproductive org ...

as Dresden's Deputy Chief Medical Officer. The doctor later complained about being misidentified by Irving, and further, that he, the doctor, was only repeating rumours about the death toll. According to an investigation by Dresden City Council in 2008, casualties at Dresden were estimated as 22,700–25,000 dead. Irving had based his numbers on what purported to be ''Tagesbefehl 47'' ("Daily Order 47", TB 47), a document promulgated by Nazi Propaganda Minister

Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the '' Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to ...

, and on claims made after the war by a former Dresden Nazi functionary, Hans Voigt, without verifying them against official sources available in Dresden. Irving's estimates and sources were first disputed by Walter Weidauer, Mayor of Dresden 1946–1958, in his own account of the Dresden bombing. When it was later confirmed that the TB 47 used was a forgery, Irving published a letter to the editor in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

'' on 7 July 1966 retracting his estimates, writing that he had "no interest in promoting or perpetuating false legends". In 1977, the real document TB 47 was located in Dresden by Götz Bergander. Despite acknowledging that the copy of "TB 47" he had used was inaccurate, Irving argued during the late 1980s and 1990s that the death toll at Dresden was much higher than the accepted estimates: in several speeches during this period he said that 100,000 or more people had been killed in the bombing of Dresden. In some of the speeches Irving also argued or implied that the raid was comparable to the Nazis' killing of Jews.

1963 burglary of Irving's flat

In November 1963, Irving called the

Metropolitan Police The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...

with suspicions he had been the victim of a burglary by three men who had gained access to his Hornsey flat in London by claiming to be

General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II in 1660. ...

engineers.

Anti-fascist Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers wer ...

activist

Gerry Gable Gerry Gable (born 27 January 1937) is a British political activist. He was a long-serving editor of the anti-fascist ''Searchlight'' magazine. Background The son of a Jewish woman and an Anglican father, Gable grew up in post-war east London ide ...

was convicted in January 1964, along with Manny Carpel. They were fined £20 each.

Subsequent works

After the success of the Dresden book, Irving continued writing, including some works of negationist history, although his 1964 work '' The Mare's Nest'' – an account of the German V-weapons programme and the Allied intelligence countermeasures against it – was widely praised when published and continues to be well regarded. Michael J. Neufeld of the Smithsonian's

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the N ...

has described ''The Mare's Nest'' as "the most complete account on both Allied and German sides of the V-weapons campaign in the last two years of the war." Bundesarchiv Bild 102-13774, Adolf Hitler

Bundesarchiv Bild 102-13774, Adolf Hitler

Irving translated the ''Memoirs'' of Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel in 1965 (edited by Walter Görlitz) and in 1967 published ''Accident: The Death of General Sikorski''. In the latter book, Irving claimed that the plane crash which killed

Polish government in exile The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile ( pl, Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Pola ...

leader General

Władysław Sikorski Władysław Eugeniusz Sikorski (; 20 May 18814 July 1943) was a Polish military and political leader. Prior to the First World War, Sikorski established and participated in several underground organizations that promoted the cause for Polish i ...

in 1943 was really an assassination ordered by

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...

, so as to enable Churchill to betray Poland to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

. Irving's book inspired the highly controversial 1967 play ''

Soldiers A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer. Etymology The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word , from Old French ...

'' by his friend, the German playwright Rolf Hochhuth, where Hochhuth depicts Churchill ordering the assassination of General Sikorski. Also in 1967, Irving published two more works: ''The Virus House'', an account of the

German nuclear energy project The Uranverein ( en, "Uranium Club") or Uranprojekt ( en, "Uranium Project") was the name given to the project in Germany to research nuclear technology, including nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors, during World War II. It went through seve ...

for which Irving conducted many interviews, and ''The Destruction of Convoy PQ-17,'' in which he blamed British escort group commander Commander Jack Broome for the catastrophic losses of the

Convoy PQ 17 PQ 17 was the code name for an Allied Arctic convoy during the Second World War. On 27 June 1942, the ships sailed from Hvalfjörður, Iceland, for the port of Arkhangelsk in the Soviet Union. The convoy was located by German forces on 1 July, ...

. Amid much publicity, Broome sued Irving for libel in October 1968, and in February 1970, after a 17-day-trial before London's High Court, Broome won. Irving was forced to pay £40,000 in damages, and the book was withdrawn from circulation. After ''PQ-17'', Irving largely shifted to writing biographies. In 1968, he published ''Breach of Security'', an account of German reading of messages to and from the British Embassy in Berlin before 1939 with an introduction by the British historian Donald Cameron Watt. As a result of Irving's success with ''Dresden'', members of Germany's extreme right wing assisted him in contacting surviving members of Hitler's inner circle. In an interview with the American journalist Ron Rosenbaum, Irving claimed to have developed sympathies towards them. Many ageing former mid- and high-ranked Nazis saw a potential friend in Irving and donated diaries and other material. Irving described his historical work to Rosenbaum as an act of "stone-cleaning" of Hitler, in which he cleared off the "slime" that he felt had been unjustly applied to Hitler's reputation. In 1969, during a visit to Germany, Irving met

Robert Kempner Robert Max Wasilii Kempner (17 October 1899 – 15 August 1993) was a German lawyer who played a prominent role during the Weimar Republic and who later served as assistant U.S. chief counsel during the International Military Tribunal at Nurembe ...

, one of the American prosecutors at the

Nuremberg trials The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies of World War II, Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945 ...

.. Irving asked Kempner if the "official record of the Nuremberg Trials was falsified", and told him that he was planning to go to Washington, D.C., to compare the sound recordings of Luftwaffe Field-Marshal

Erhard Milch Erhard Milch (30 March 1892 – 25 January 1972) was a German general field marshal ('' Generalfeldmarschall'') of Jewish heritage who oversaw the development of the German air force (''Luftwaffe'') as part of the re-armament of Nazi Germany fo ...

's March 1946 evidence with the subsequently published texts to find proof that evidence given at Nuremberg was "tampered with and manipulated". Upon his return to the United States, Kempner wrote to

J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation ...

, the director of the FBI, that Irving expressed many "anti-American and anti-Jewish statements". In 1971, Irving translated the memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen, and in 1973 published ''The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe'', a biography of Field Marshal Milch. He spent the remainder of the 1970s working on ''

'' and ''The War Path'', his two-part biography of Adolf Hitler; ''The Trail of the Fox,'' a biography of Field Marshal

Erwin Rommel Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel () (15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944) was a German field marshal during World War II. Popularly known as the Desert Fox (, ), he served in the ''Wehrmacht'' (armed forces) of Nazi Germany, as well as servi ...

; and a series in the '' Sunday Express'' describing the

's famous Dam Busters raid. In 1975, in his introduction to ''Hitler und seine Feldherren'', the German edition of ''Hitler's War'', Irving attacked Anne Frank's diary as a forgery, claiming falsely that a New York court had ruled that the diary was really the work of American scriptwriter

Meyer Levin Meyer Levin (October 7, 1905 – July 9, 1981) was an American novelist. Perhaps best known for his work on the Leopold and Loeb case, Levin worked as a journalist (for the ''Chicago Daily News'' and, from 1933–1939, as an editor for ''Esquir ...

"in collaboration with the girl's father".

Revisionism

''Hitler's War''

Bundesarchiv Bild 183-C16768A, Hans Heinrich Lammers

In 1977 Irving published ''

'', the first of his two-part biography of

. Irving's intention in ''Hitler's War'' was to clean away the "years of grime and discoloration from the facade of a silent and forbidding monument" to reveal the real Hitler, whose reputation Irving argued had been slandered by historians.. In ''Hitler's War'', Irving tried to "view the situation as far as possible through Hitler's eyes, from behind his desk". He portrayed Hitler as a rational, intelligent politician, whose only goal was to increase Germany's prosperity and influence on the continent, and who was constantly let down by incompetent or treasonous subordinates. Irving's book faulted the Allied leaders, especially

, for the eventual escalation of war, and argued that the

German invasion of the Soviet Union Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named afte ...

in 1941 was a "

preventive war A preventive war is a war or a military action which is initiated in order to prevent a belligerent or a neutral party from acquiring a capability for attacking. The party which is being attacked has a latent threat capability or it has shown ...

" forced on Hitler to avert an impending Soviet attack.. Irving also argued that Hitler had no knowledge of

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europ ...

: while not denying its occurrence, he argued that SS leader

Heinrich Himmler Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...

and his deputy

Reinhard Heydrich Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( ; ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He was chief of the Reich Security Main Office (inclu ...

were its originators and architects. Irving made much of the lack of any written order from Hitler ordering the Holocaust; he offered to pay £1,000 to anyone who could find such an order.. , his offer still stood. In ''Hitler's War'', Irving quoted a 1942 memorandum by

Hans Lammers Hans Heinrich Lammers (27 May 1879 – 4 January 1962) was a German jurist and prominent Nazi politician. From 1933 until 1945 he served as Chief of the Reich Chancellery under Adolf Hitler. During the 1948–1949 Ministries Trial, Lammers was ...

, the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, to the Reich Justice Minister

Franz Schlegelberger Louis Rudolph Franz Schlegelberger (23 October 187614 December 1970) was State Secretary in the German Reich Ministry of Justice (RMJ) who served as Justice Minister during the Third Reich. He was the highest-ranking defendant at the Judges' Tr ...

, saying: "the Führer has repeatedly pronounced that he wants the solution of the

Jewish Question The Jewish question, also referred to as the Jewish problem, was a wide-ranging debate in 19th- and 20th-century European society that pertained to the appropriate status and treatment of Jews. The debate, which was similar to other " national ...

put off until after the war is over". Irving took this as proof that Hitler ordered against the extermination of the Jews. He falsely claimed that "no other historians have quoted this document, possibly finding its content hard to reconcile with their obsessively held views" about Hitler's responsibility for the Holocaust. However, the interpretation of the document is not as simple as Irving made it out to be in his book. The memorandum has no date and no signature on it, although historians estimate that it was issued at some point between 1941 and 1942 by looking at the other documents where the memorandum is located. They have concluded that the memorandum was more than likely from late 1941 when Hitler was still advocating the expulsion of the Jews, rather than later when he advocated their extermination. Critical reaction to ''Hitler's War'' was generally negative. Reviewers took issue with Irving's factual claims as well as his conclusions. For example, American historian Charles Sydnor noted numerous errors, such as Irving's unreferenced statement that the Jews who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 were well supplied with weapons from Germany's allies. Sydnor pointed out that Hitler had received an SS report in November 1942 which contained a mention of 363,211 Russian Jews executed by the ''

Einsatzgruppen (, ; also ' task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the im ...

'' between August and November 1942. Sydnor remarked that Irving's statement that the ''Einsatzgruppen'' were in charge in the

death camps Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. T ...

seems to indicate that he was not familiar with the history of the Holocaust, as the ''Einsatzgruppen'' were in fact mobile death squads who had nothing to do with the death camps.

Irving's work in the late 1970s and early 1980s

Months after the release of ''Hitler's War'', Irving published ''The Trail of the Fox'', a biography of

Field Marshal Field marshal (or field-marshal, abbreviated as FM) is the most senior military rank, ordinarily senior to the general officer ranks. Usually, it is the highest rank in an army and as such few persons are appointed to it. It is considered as ...

. In it, Irving attacked the members of the

20 July Plot On 20 July 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia, now Kętrzyn, in present-day Poland. The ...

to assassinate Hitler, branding them "traitors", "cowards", and "manipulators", and uncritically presented Hitler and his government's subsequent revenge against the plotters, of which Rommel was also a victim. In particular, Irving accused Rommel's friend and Chief of Staff General Hans Speidel of framing Rommel in the attempted coup. The British historian David Pryce-Jones in a book review of ''The Trail of the Fox'' in the edition of 12 November 1977 of ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'' accused Irving of taking everything Hitler had to say at face value. In 1978, Irving released ''The War Path'', the companion volume to ''Hitler's War'' which covered events leading up to the war and which was written from a similar point of view. Again, professional historians such as Donald Cameron Watt noted numerous inaccuracies and misrepresentations. Despite the criticism, the book sold well, as did all of Irving's books up to that date. The success of his books enabled Irving to buy a home in the prestigious

Mayfair Mayfair is an affluent area in the West End of London towards the eastern edge of Hyde Park, in the City of Westminster, between Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly and Park Lane. It is one of the most expensive districts in the world ...

district of London, own a Rolls-Royce car and enjoy an affluent lifestyle. In addition, Irving, despite being married, became increasingly open about his affairs with other women, all of which were detailed in his self-published diary.. Irving's affairs caused his first marriage to end in divorce in 1981. In the 1980s, Irving started researching and writing about topics other than Nazi Germany, but with less success. He began his research on his three-part biography of

. After publication Irving's work on Churchill received at least one bad review from Professor

David Cannadine Sir David Nicholas Cannadine (born 7 September 1950) is a British author and historian who specialises in modern history, Britain and the history of business and philanthropy. He is currently the Dodge Professor of History at Princeton Un ...

(then of the

): In 1981, he published two books. The first was ''The War Between the Generals'', in which Irving offered an account of the Allied High Command on the Western Front in 1944–45, detailing the heated conflicts Irving alleges occurred between the various generals of the various countries and presenting rumours about their private lives. The second book was ''Uprising!'', about the 1956 revolt in Hungary, which Irving characterised as "primarily an anti-Jewish uprising", supposedly because the Communist regime was itself controlled by Jews. Irving's depiction of Hungary's Communist regime as a Jewish dictatorship oppressing

Gentiles Gentile () is a word that usually means "someone who is not a Jew". Other groups that claim Israelite heritage, notably Mormons, sometimes use the term ''gentile'' to describe outsiders. More rarely, the term is generally used as a synonym fo ...

sparked charges of

antisemitism Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

.. In addition, there were complaints that Irving had grossly exaggerated the number of people of Jewish origin in the Communist regime and had ignored the fact that Hungarian Communists who did have a Jewish background like

Mátyás Rákosi Mátyás Rákosi (; born Mátyás Rosenfeld; 9 March 1892
– 5 February 1971) was a Hungarian communis ...

and Ernő Gerő had totally repudiated Judaism and sometimes expressed antisemitic attitudes themselves. Critics such as Neal Ascherson and Kai Bird took issue with some of Irving's language that seemed to evoke antisemitic imagery, such as his remark that Rákosi possessed "the tact of a

kosher (also or , ) is a set of dietary laws dealing with the foods that Jewish people are permitted to eat and how those foods must be prepared according to Jewish law. Food that may be consumed is deemed kosher ( in English, yi, כּשר), fro ...

butcher". In 1982, Irving described himself as an "untrained historian" and argued that his lack of academic qualifications did not mean that he could not be considered a historian. He listed

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...

and

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his two major works—the ...

as examples of historians without university training.

Hitler Diaries

In 1983, ''

Stern The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Or ...

'', a weekly German news magazine, purchased 61 volumes of Hitler's supposed diaries for DM 9 million and published excerpts from them. Irving played the main role in exposing the Hitler Diaries as a hoax. In October 1982 Irving had purchased, from the same source as ''Sterns 1983 purchase, 800 pages of documents relating to Hitler, only to conclude that many of the documents were forgeries.. Irving was amongst the first to identify the diaries as forgeries, and to draw media attention. He went so far as to crash the press conference held by Hugh Trevor-Roper at the

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

offices of ''Stern'' magazine on 25 April 1983 to denounce the diaries as a forgery and Trevor-Roper for endorsing the diaries as genuine. Irving's performance at the ''Stern'' press conference where he violently harangued Trevor-Roper until ejected by security led him to be featured prominently on the news: the next day, Irving appeared on the ''Today'' television show as a featured guest. Irving had concluded that the alleged Hitler diaries were a forgery because they had come from the same dealer in Nazi memorabilia from whom Irving had purchased his collection in 1982. At the press conference in Hamburg, Irving said, "I know the collection from which these diaries come. It is an old collection, full of forgeries. I have some here". Irving was proud to have detected and denounced the hoax material and of the "trail of chaos" he had created at the Hamburg press conference and the attendant publicity it had brought him, and took pride in his humiliation of Trevor-Roper, whom Irving strongly disliked for his sloppy work, in not detecting the hoax, and past criticism of Irving's methods and conclusions.. Irving also noted internal inconsistencies in the supposed Hitler diaries, such as a diary entry for 20 July 1944, which would have been unlikely given that Hitler's right hand had been badly burned by the bomb planted in his headquarters by Colonel

Claus von Stauffenberg Colonel Claus Philipp Maria Justinian Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (; 15 November 1907 – 21 July 1944) was a German army officer best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair. Despite ...

earlier that day. A week later on 2 May, Irving asserted that many of the diary documents appeared to be genuine: at the same press conference, Irving took the opportunity to promote his translation of the memoirs of Hitler's physician

Theodor Morell Theodor Gilbert Morell (22 July 1886 – 26 May 1948) was a German medical doctor known for acting as Adolf Hitler's personal physician. Morell was well known in Germany for his unconventional treatments. He assisted Hitler daily in virtually ev ...

. Robert Harris, in his book ''Selling Hitler'', suggested that an additional reason for Irving's change of mind over the authenticity of the alleged Hitler diaries was that the fake diaries contain no reference to the Holocaust, thereby buttressing Irving's claim in ''Hitler's War'' that Hitler had no knowledge of it. Subsequently, Irving conformed when the diaries were declared a forgery by consensus. At a press conference held to withdraw his endorsement of the diaries, Irving proudly claimed that he was the first to call them a forgery, to which a reporter replied that he was also the last to call them genuine.

Other books

By the mid-1980s, Irving had not had a successful book for some years, and was behind schedule in writing the first volume of his Churchill series, the research for which had strained his finances.. He finished the manuscript in 1985, and the book was published in 1987, as ''Churchill's War, The Struggle for Power''. In 1989, Irving published his biography of

Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...

Holocaust denial

Movement towards Holocaust denial

Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R99621, Heinrich Himmler

Over the years, Irving's stance on the Holocaust has changed significantly. Since at least the 1970s, he has either questioned or denied Hitler's involvement in the Holocaust and whether or not the Nazis had a plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe. Irving always denied Hitler was antisemitic, even before he openly denied the Holocaust. Irving claimed Hitler only used antisemitism as a political platform, and that after he came to power in 1933 he lost interest in it, while Joseph Goebbels and other Nazis continued to espouse antisemitism. In 1977 on a BBC1 television programme, he said that Hitler "became a statesman and then a soldier ... and the Jewish problem was a nuisance to him, an embarrassment." In 1983, Irving summarised his views about Hitler and the Jews when he said that "probably the biggest friend the Jews had in the Third Reich, certainly when the war broke out, was Adolf Hitler. He was the one who was doing everything he could to prevent things nasty happening to them." In the same year, he further declared about Hitler and the mass killing of Jews, "There is a whole chain of evidence from 1938 right through to October 1943, possibly even later, indicating that Hitler was completely in the dark about anything that may have been going on." Irving boasted that he had not been disproved. Irving in his first edition of ''Hitler's War'' in 1977 argued that Hitler was against the killings of the Jews in the East. He claimed that Hitler even ordered a stop to the extermination of Jews in November 1941 (British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper noted that this admission blatantly contradicted Irving's claim that Hitler was ignorant about what was happening to Jews in Eastern Europe). On 30 November 1941 Heinrich Himmler went to the Wolf's Lair for a private conference with Hitler and during it the fate of some Berlin Jews was mentioned. At 1.30 pm Himmler was instructed to tell Reinhard Heydrich that the Jews were not to be liquidated. Himmler telephoned SS General Oswald Pohl, the overall chief of the concentration camp system, with the order: "Jews are to stay where they are." Irving argued that "No liquidation" (Keine Liquidierung) was "incontrovertible evidence" that Hitler ordered that no Jews were to be killed. However, although the telephone log is genuine, it provides no evidence that Hitler was involved at all, only that Himmler contacted Heydrich and there is no evidence that Hitler and Himmler were in contact before the phone call. This is an example of Irving's manipulation of documents since there was no general order to stop the killing of Jews. Historian Eberhard Jäckel wrote that Irving "only ever sees and collects what fits his story, and even now he will not let himself be dissuaded from understanding what he wants to by the phrase 'postponement of the Jewish question'." In June 1977, British television host

David Frost Sir David Paradine Frost (7 April 1939 – 31 August 2013) was a British television host, journalist, comedian and writer. He rose to prominence during the satire boom in the United Kingdom when he was chosen to host the satirical programme ...

aired a debate. During the debate, Irving argued that there was no evidence Hitler even knew about the Holocaust. Frost asked Irving whether or not he thought Hitler was evil, he replied, "He was as evil as

Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1 ...

, as evil as Roosevelt, as evil as Truman". From 1988, Irving started to espouse

Holocaust denial Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that falsely asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust deniers make one or more of the following false statements: ...

openly: he had previously not denied the Holocaust outright, and for this reason many Holocaust deniers were ambivalent about him.. They admired Irving for the pro-Nazi slant in his work and the fact that he possessed a degree of mainstream credibility that they lacked, but were annoyed that he did not openly deny the Holocaust. In 1980, Lucy Dawidowicz noted that, although ''Hitler's War'' was strongly sympathetic to the Third Reich, because Irving argued that Hitler was unaware of the Holocaust as opposed to denying the Holocaust happened at all, his book was not part of the "anti-Semitic canon". In 1980, Irving received an invitation to speak at a Holocaust-denial conference, which he refused on the grounds that his appearance there would damage his reputation. In a letter, Irving stated his reasons for his refusal as: "This is pure ''

Realpolitik ''Realpolitik'' (; ) refers to enacting or engaging in diplomatic or political policies based primarily on considerations of given circumstances and factors, rather than strictly binding itself to explicit ideological notions or moral and ethical ...

'' on my part. I am already dangerously exposed, and I cannot take the chance of being caught in flak meant for others!" Though Irving refused at this time to appear at conferences sponsored by the Holocaust-denying Institute for Historical Review (IHR), he did grant the institute the right to distribute his books in the United States. Robert Jan van Pelt suggests that the major reason for Irving wishing to keep his distance from Holocaust deniers in the early 1980s was his desire to found his own political party called Focus. In a footnote in the first edition of ''Hitler's War'', Irving writes, "I cannot accept the view ... hatthere exists no document signed by Hitler, Himmler or Heydrich speaking of the extermination of the Jews". In 1982, Irving temporarily stopped writing and made an attempt to unify all of the various far-right splinter groups in Britain into one party called Focus, in which he would play a leading role. Irving described himself as a "moderate fascist" and spoke of plans to become

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As modern p ...

,. but his efforts to move into politics, which he regarded at the time as very important, failed due to fiscal problems. Irving told the ''

Oxford Mail ''Oxford Mail'' is a daily tabloid newspaper in Oxford, England, owned by Newsquest. It is published six days a week. It is a sister paper to the weekly tabloid ''The Oxford Times''. History The ''Oxford Mail'' was founded in 1928 as a succe ...

'' of having "links at a low level" with the National Front (NF). Irving described ''

The Spotlight ''The Spotlight'' was a weekly newspaper in the United States, published in Washington, D.C. from September 1975 to July 2001 by the now-defunct antisemitic Liberty Lobby. ''The Spotlight'' ran articles and editorials professing a "populist and ...

'', the main journal of the Liberty Lobby, as "an excellent fortnightly paper". At the same time, Irving put a copy of Hitler's " Prophecy Speech" of 30 January 1939, promising the "annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe" if "Jewish financiers" started another world war, onto his wall. Following the failure of Focus, in September 1983, Irving for the first time attended a conference of the IHR. Van Pelt has argued that, with the failure of Irving's political career, he felt freer to associate with Holocaust deniers. At the conference, Irving did not deny the Holocaust, but did appear happy to share the stage with

Robert Faurisson Robert Faurisson (; born Robert Faurisson Aitken; 25 January 1929 – 21 October 2018) was a British-born French academic who became best known for Holocaust denial. Faurisson generated much controversy with a number of articles published in th ...

and Judge Wilhelm Stäglich, and claimed to be impressed with the pseudoscientific allegations of neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier Friedrich "Fritz" Berg that

mass murder Mass murder is the act of murdering a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and in close geographic proximity. The United States Congress defines mass killings as the killings of three or more pe ...

using diesel gas fumes at the

Operation Reinhard or ''Einsatz Reinhard'' , location = Occupied Poland , date = October 1941 – November 1943 , incident_type = Mass deportations to extermination camps , perpetrators = Odilo Globočnik, Hermann Höfle, Richard Thomalla, Erwin L ...

death camps was impossible. At that conference, Irving repeated his claims that Hitler was ignorant of the Holocaust because he was "so busy being a soldier".. In a speech at that conference, Irving stated: "Isn't it right for

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

to claim now that David Irving is talking nonsense and ''of course'' Adolf Hitler must have known about what was going in Auschwitz and Treblinka, and then in the same breath to claim that, ''of course'' our beloved Mr. Begin didn't know what was going on in Sabra and Chatilla". During the same speech, Irving proclaimed Hitler to be the "biggest friend the Jews had in the Third Reich".. In the same speech, Irving stated that he operated in such a way as to bring himself maximum publicity. Irving stated that: "I have at home... a filing cabinet full of documents which I don't issue all at once. I keep them: I issue them a bit at a time. When I think my name hasn't been in the newspapers for several weeks, well, then I ring them up and I phone them and I say: 'What about this one, then? A major theme of Irving's writings from the 1980s was his belief that it had been a great blunder on the part of Britain to declare war on Germany in 1939, and that ever since then and as a result of that decision, Britain had slipped into an unstoppable decline. Irving also took the view that Hitler often tried to help the Jews of Europe. In a June 1992 interview with ''

'', Irving claimed to have heard from Hitler's naval adjutant that the ''Führer'' had told him that he could not marry because Germany was "his bride". Irving then claimed to have asked the naval adjutant when Hitler made that remark, and upon hearing that the date was 24 March 1938, Irving stated in response "Herr Admiral, at that moment I was being born". Irving used this alleged incident to argue that there was some sort of mystical connection between himself and Hitler.. In a 1986 speech in Australia Irving argued that photographs of Holocaust survivors and dead taken in early 1945 by Allied soldiers were proof that the Allies were responsible for the Holocaust, not the Germans.. Irving claimed that the Holocaust was not the work of Nazi leaders, but rather of "nameless criminals", and claimed that "these men ho killed the Jewsacted on their own impulse, their own initiative, within the general atmosphere of brutality created by the Second World War, in which of course Allied bombings played a part." In another 1986 speech, this time in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...

, Irving claimed that "historians have a blindness when it comes to the Holocaust because like

Tay–Sachs disease Tay–Sachs disease is a genetic disorder that results in the destruction of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. The most common form is infantile Tay–Sachs disease, which becomes apparent around three to six months of age, with the baby ...

it is a Jewish disease which causes blindness". In 1986, he told reporters in Brisbane, Australia, without explaining how the Allied bombing raids on Germany had made non-Germans to be antisemitic that: By the mid-1980s, Irving associated himself with the IHR, began giving lectures to groups such as the far-right German

Deutsche Volksunion The German People's Union (german: Deutsche Volksunion, DVU, also ''Liste D'') was a political party in Germany. It was founded by publisher Gerhard Frey as an informal association in 1971 and established as a party in 1987. Financially, it was l ...

(DVU), and publicly denied that the Nazis systematically exterminated Jews in gas chambers during World War II.. Irving in his revised edition of ''Hitler's War'' in 1991 removed all mentions of "gas chambers" and the word "Holocaust". He defended the revisions by stating, "You won't find the Holocaust mentioned in one line, not even in a footnote, why should ou If something didn't happen, then you don't even dignify it with a footnote." Irving was present at a memorial service for

Hans-Ulrich Rudel Hans-Ulrich Rudel (2 July 1916 – 18 December 1982) was a German ground-attack pilot during World War II and a post-war neo-Nazi activist. The most decorated German pilot of the war and the only recipient of the Knight's Cross with ...

in January 1983 after the latter's death, organised by the DVU and its leader

Gerhard Frey Gerhard Frey (; born 1 June 1944) is a German mathematician, known for his work in number theory. Following an original idea of Hellegouarch, he developed the notion of Frey–Hellegouarch curves, a construction of an elliptic curve from a pur ...

, delivering a speech, and was given the Hans-Ulrich-Rudel-Award by Frey in June 1985. Irving was a frequent speaker for the DVU in the 1980s and the early 1990s, but the relationship ended in 1993 apparently because of concerns by the DVU that Irving's espousal of Holocaust denial might lead to the DVU being banned. In 1986, Irving visited Toronto, where he was met at an airport by Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel.. According to Zündel, Irving "thought I was 'Revisionist-Neo-Nazi-Rambo-Kook!, and asked Zündel to stay away from him. Zündel and his supporters obliged Irving by staying away from his lecture tour, which consequently attracted little media attention, and was considered by Irving to be a failure. Afterwards, Zündel sent Irving a long letter in which he offered to draw publicity to Irving, and so ensure that his future speaking tours would be a success. As a result, Irving and Zündel became friends, and Irving agreed in late 1987 to testify for Zündel at his second trial for denying the Holocaust. In addition, the publication in 1987 of the book ''Der europäische Bürgerkrieg 1917–1945'' by Ernst Nolte, in which Nolte strongly implied that maybe Holocaust deniers were on to something, encouraged Irving to become more open in associating with Zündel. David Irving appearing on

In 1988, Irving argued that the Nazi state was not responsible for the extermination of the Jews in places like Minsk, Kiev and Riga because according to him they were carried out for the most part by "individual gangsters and criminals". In 1989, Irving during a speech told an audience that "there is not one shower bath in any of the concentration or slave labour camps that turns out to have been some kind of gas chamber." He described Jewish Holocaust survivors as "liars, psychiatric cases and extortionists." In 1990, Irving said on 5 March that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz and that "30,000 people at the most were murdered in Ausschwitz ... that's about as many as we Englishmen killed in a single night in Hamburg." He reiterated his claim that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz on 5 March 1990 to an audience in Germany: During the same speech, he said, "I and, increasingly, other historians ... are saying, the Holocaust, the gas chamber establishments in Auschwitz did not exist." Later on in the same year, Irving told an audience in Toronto, "The gas chambers that are shown to the tourists in Auschwitz are fakes." Irving denied that the Nazis gassed any Jews or other people, with the exception of admitting that a small number of people were gassed during experiments. In 1990, Irving told an audience in Canada that "particularly when there's money involved and they can get a good compensation cash payment out of it" there would be people claiming to be eyewitnesses to gas chambers or extermination camps. He continued: In 1991, Irving espoused an antisemitic conspiracy theory when he stated that the Jews "dragged us into two world wars and now, for equally mysterious reasons, they're trying to drag us into the Balkans." In 1995 when Irving was confronted with a Holocaust survivor, he repeated the same claim and asked, "How much money have you made from that piece of ink on your arm, which may indeed be real tattooed ink? Yes. Half a million dollars, three-quarters of a million for you alone?" On 6 October 1995, Irving told an audience in Tampa, Florida, that he agreed with the Nazi Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels that the Jews "had it coming for them". He continued: Thus, according to Irving, the Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves.

Ernst Zündel trial

In January 1988, Irving travelled to Toronto, Ontario, to assist Douglas Christie, the defence lawyer for Ernst Zündel at his second trial for denying the Holocaust. Working closely with

, who was also assisting the defence, Irving contacted Warden Bill Armontrout of the Missouri State Penitentiary who recommended that Irving and Faurisson get into touch with

Fred A. Leuchter Fred Arthur Leuchter Jr. (born February 7, 1943) is an American manufacturer of execution equipment, and a Holocaust denier best known as the author of the Leuchter report, a pseudoscientific document*"Leuchter and Rudolf have published pseudosc ...

, a self-described execution expert living in Boston. Irving and Faurisson then flew to Boston to meet with Leuchter, who agreed to lend his alleged technical expertise on the behalf of Zündel's defence. Irving argued that an alleged expert on gassings like Leuchter could prove that the Holocaust was a "myth". After work on the second Zündel trial, Irving declared that based on his exposure to Zündel's and Leuchter's theories that he was now conducting a "one-man '' intifada''" against the idea that there had been a Holocaust.. Subsequently, Irving claimed to the American journalist D. D. Guttenplan in a 1999 interview that Zündel had convinced him that the Holocaust had not occurred. In the 1988 Zündel trial, Irving repeated and defended his claim from ''Hitler's War'' that until October 1943 Hitler knew nothing about the actual implementation of the

Final Solution The Final Solution (german: die Endlösung, ) or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question (german: Endlösung der Judenfrage, ) was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution to th ...

. He also expressed his evolving belief that the Final Solution involved " atrocities", not systematic murder: "I don't think there was any overall ''Reich'' policy to kill the Jews. If there was, they would have been killed and there would not be now so many millions of survivors. And believe me, I am glad for every survivor that there was." Similarly, Irving disputed the common held view among historians that the Wannsee Conference meeting on 20 January 1942 was when the extermination of Jews in the near future or later was discussed, he argued: Between 22 and 26 April 1988, Irving testified for Zündel, endorsing

Richard Harwood :''Richard Harwood is also the assumed name of National Front member Richard Verrall.'' Richard Craig Harwood (born 8 August 1979) is a British cellist. Biography Richard Harwood was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire and began learning to p ...

's book ''

Did Six Million Really Die? ''Did Six Million Really Die? The Truth at Last'' is a neo-Nazi, Holocaust denial pamphlet allegedly written by British National Front (NF) member Richard Verrall under the pseudonym Richard E. Harwood and published in 1974 by neo-Nazi propa ...

'' as "over ninety percent... factually accurate".. As to what evidence further led Irving to believe that the Holocaust never occurred, he cited ''The Leuchter report'' by Fred A. Leuchter, which claimed there was no evidence for the existence of homicidal

gas chamber A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or other animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. Poisonous agents used include hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide. History ...

s at the

. Irving said in a 1999 documentary about Leuchter: "The big point f the Leuchter report there is no significant residue of

cyanide Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms. In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of ...

in the brickwork. That's what converted me. When I read that in the report in the courtroom in Toronto, I became a hard-core disbeliever". In addition, Irving was influenced to embrace Holocaust denial by the American historian Arno J. Mayer's 1988 book ''Why Did the Heavens Not Darken?'', which did not deny the Holocaust, but claimed that most of those who died at Auschwitz were killed by disease: Irving saw in Mayer's book an apparent confirmation of Leuchter's and Zündel's theories about no mass murder at Auschwitz. After the trial, Irving published Leuchter's report as ''Auschwitz The End of the Line: The Leuchter Report'' in the United Kingdom in 1989 and wrote its foreword. Leuchter's book had been first published in Canada by Zündel's

Samisdat Publishers Samizdat (russian: самиздат, lit=self-publishing, links=no) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the document ...

in 1988 as ''The Leuchter Report: The End of a Myth: An Engineering Report on the Alleged Execution Gas Chambers at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek''. In his foreword to the British edition of Leuchter's book, Irving wrote that "Nobody likes to be swindled, still less where considerable sums of money are involved". The alleged swindle was the

reparations Reparation(s) may refer to: Christianity * Restitution (theology), the Christian doctrine calling for reparation * Acts of reparation, prayers for repairing the damages of sin History *War reparations **World War I reparations, made from ...

money totalling 3 billion DM paid by the Federal Republic of Germany to Israel between 1952 and 1966 for the Holocaust. Irving described the reparations as being "essentially in atonement for the 'gas chambers' of Auschwitz", which Irving called a "myth" that would "not die easily". In his foreword, Irving praised the "scrupulous methods" and "integrity" of Leuchter. For publishing and writing the foreword to ''Auschwitz The End of the Line'', on 20 June 1989, Irving together with Leuchter was condemned in an

Early Day Motion In the Westminster parliamentary system, an early day motion (EDM) is a motion, expressed as a single sentence, tabled by members of Parliament that formally calls for debate "on an early day". In practice, they are rarely debated in the House ...

of the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

as "Hitler's heirs". The motion went on to describe Irving as a "Nazi propagandist and longtime Hitler apologist" and ''Auschwitz The End of the Line'' as a "fascist publication". In the Motion, the House stated that they were "appalled by he Holocaust denial ofNazi propagandist and long-time Hitler apologist David Irving". In response to the House of Commons motion, Irving in a press statement challenged the MPs who voted to condemn him, writing that: "I will enter the 'gas chambers' of Auschwitz and you and your friends may lob in

Zyklon B Zyklon B (; translated Cyclone B) was the trade name of a cyanide-based pesticide invented in Germany in the early 1920s. It consisted of hydrogen cyanide (prussic acid), as well as a cautionary eye irritant and one of several adsorbents such ...

in accordance with the well known procedures and conditions. I guarantee that you won't be satisfied with the results!".Brinks, Jan Hermann ''Children of a New Fatherland'', London: I.B. Tauris, 2000 p. 107. In a pamphlet Irving published in London on 23 June 1989, he made the "epochal announcement" that there was no mass murder in the gas chambers at the Auschwitz death camp.. Irving labelled the gas chambers at Auschwitz a "hoax", and writing in the third person declared that he "has placed himself rvingat the head of a growing band of historians, worldwide, who are now sceptical of the claim that at Auschwitz and other camps were 'factories of death', in which millions of innocent people were systematically gassed to death". Boasting of his role in criticising the Hitler diaries as a forgery in 1983, Irving wrote "now he rvingis saying the same thing about the infamous 'gas chambers' of Auschwitz, Treblinka and Majdanek. They did not exist – ever – except perhaps as the brainchild of Britain's brilliant wartime Psychological Warfare Executive". Finally, Irving claimed "the survivors of Auschwitz are themselves testimony to the absence of an extermination programme". Echoing the criticism of the House of Commons, a leader in ''

'' on 14 May 1990 described Irving as a "man for whom Hitler is something of a hero and almost everything of an innocent and for whom Auschwitz is a Jewish deception".

Holocaust denial lecture circuit

In the early 1990s, Irving was a frequent visitor to Germany, where he spoke at neo-Nazi rallies. The chief themes of Irving's German speeches were that the Allies and Axis states were equally culpable for war crimes, that the decision of

Neville Chamberlain Arthur Neville Chamberlain (; 18 March 18699 November 1940) was a British politician of the Conservative Party who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. He is best known for his foreign policy of appeaseme ...

to declare war on Germany in 1939, and that of

to continue the war in 1940, had been great mistakes that set Britain on a path of decline, and the Holocaust was just a "propaganda exercise". In June 1990, Irving visited

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In t ...

on a well-publicized tour entitled "An Englishman Fights for the Honour of the Germans," on which he accused the Allies of having used "forged documents" to "humiliate" the German people. Irving's self-proclaimed mission was to guide "promising young men" in Germany in the "right direction" (Irving has often stated his belief that women exist for a "certain task, which is producing us en, and should be "subservient to men": leading, in Lipstadt's view, to a lack of interest on Irving's part in guiding young German women in the "right direction").. German nationalists found Irving, as a non-German Holocaust denier, to be particularly credible. In January 1990, Irving gave a speech in

Moers Moers (; older form: ''Mörs''; archaic Dutch: ''Murse'', ''Murs'' or ''Meurs'') is a German city on the western bank of the Rhine, close to Duisburg. Moers belongs to the district of Wesel. History Known earliest from 1186, the county of Mo ...

where he asserted that only 30,000 people died at Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945, all of natural causes, which was equal—so he claimed—to the typical death toll from one Bomber Command raid on German cities.. Irving claimed that there were no gas chambers at the death camp, stating that the existing remains were "mock-ups built by the Poles". On 21 April 1990, Irving repeated the same speech in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

, which led to his conviction for Holocaust denial in Munich on 11 July 1991. The court fined Irving DM 7,000. Irving appealed against the judgement, and received a fine of DM 10,000 for repeating the same remarks in the courtroom on 5 May 1992. During his appeal in 1992, Irving called upon those present in the Munich courtroom to "fight a battle for the German people and put an end to the blood lie of the Holocaust which has been told against this country for fifty years". Irving went on to call the Auschwitz death camp a "tourist attraction" whose origins Irving claimed went back to an "ingenious plan" devised by the British Psychological Warfare Executive in 1942 to spread anti-German propaganda that it was the policy of the German state to be "using 'gas chambers' to kill millions of Jews and other undesirables". During the same speech, Irving denounced the judge as a "

senile Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affe ...

, alcoholic cretin".. Following his conviction for Holocaust denial, Irving was banned from visiting Germany. Expanding upon his thesis in ''Hitler's War'' about the lack of a written ''Führer'' order for the Holocaust, Irving argued in the 1990s that the absence of such an order meant that there was no Holocaust.. In a speech delivered in Toronto in November 1990 Irving claimed that Holocaust survivors had manufactured memories of their suffering because "there's money involved and they can get a good compensation cash payment out of it". In that speech, Irving used the metaphor of a cruise ship named Holocaust, which Irving claimed had "...luxury wall to wall fitted carpets and a crew of thousands ... marine terminals established in now virtually every capital in the world, disguised as Holocaust memorial museums". Irving went on to assert that the "ship" was due for rough sailing because recently the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

government had allowed historians access to "the index cards of all the people who passed through the gates of Auschwitz", and claimed that this would lead to "a lot of people hoare not claiming to be Auschwitz survivors anymore" (Irving's statement about the index cards was incorrect: what the Soviet government had made available in 1990 were the death books of Auschwitz, recording the weekly death tolls). Irving claimed on the basis of what he called the index books that, "Because the experts can look at a tattoo and say 'Oh yes, 181, 219 that means you entered Auschwitz in March 1943" and he warned Auschwitz survivors "If you want to go and have a tattoo put on your arm, as a lot of them do, I am afraid to say, and claim subsequently that you were in Auschwitz, you have to make sure a) that it fits in with the month you said you went to Auschwitz and b) it is not a number which anyone used before". On 17 January 1991, Irving told a reporter from ''

The Jewish Chronicle ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...

'' that "The Jews are very foolish not to abandon the gas chamber theory while they still have time". Irving went on to say that he believed antisemitism will increase all over the world because "the Jews have exploited people with the gas chamber legend" and that "In ten years, Israel will cease to exist and the Jews will have to return to Europe". In his 1991 revised edition of ''Hitler's War'', he had removed all references to

death camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

s and the Holocaust. In a speech given in

in 1991, Irving stated that in two years' time "this myth of mass murders of Jews in the death factories of Auschwitz, Majdanek and

Treblinka Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The cam ...

... which in fact never took place" will be disproved (Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Treblinka were all well established as being

extermination camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

s).. Two days later, Irving repeated the same speech in

Halle Halle may refer to: Places Germany * Halle (Saale), also called Halle an der Saale, a city in Saxony-Anhalt ** Halle (region), a former administrative region in Saxony-Anhalt ** Bezirk Halle, a former administrative division of East Germany ** Hal ...

before a group of neo-Nazis, and praised

Rudolf Hess Rudolf Walter Richard Hess (Heß in German; 26 April 1894 – 17 August 1987) was a German politician and a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Appointed Deputy Führer to Adolf Hitler in 1933, Hess held that position unt ...

as "that great German martyr, Rudolf Hess". At another 1991 speech, this time in Canada, Irving called the Holocaust a "hoax", and again predicted that by 1993 the "hoax" would have been "exposed". In that speech, Irving declared, "Gradually the word is getting around Germany. Two years from now too, the German historians will accept that we are right. They will accept that for fifty years they have believed a lie".. During that speech given in October 1991, Irving expressed his contempt and hatred for Holocaust survivors by proclaiming that:

Ridicule alone isn't enough, you've got to be tasteless about it. You've got to say things like 'More women died on the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.' Now you think that's tasteless, what about this? I'm forming an association especially dedicated to all these liars, the ones who try and kid people that they were in these concentration camps, it's called the Auschwitz Survivors, Survivors of the Holocaust and Other Liars, 'ASSHOLs'. Can't get more tasteless than that, but you've got to be tasteless because these people deserve our contempt.

In another 1991 speech, this time in Regina, Irving called the Holocaust "a major fraud... There were no gas chambers. They were fakes and frauds". In November 1992, Irving was to be a featured speaker at a world

anti-Zionist Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palesti ...

congress in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropo ...

that was cancelled by the Swedish government. Also scheduled to attend were fellow Holocaust-deniers

and

, and

Louis Farrakhan Louis Farrakhan (; born Louis Eugene Walcott, May 11, 1933) is an American religious leader, Black supremacy, black supremacist, Racism, anti-white and Antisemitism, antisemitic Conspiracy theory, conspiracy theorist, and former singer who hea ...

, together with representatives of the militant Palestinian group

Hamas Hamas (, ; , ; an acronym of , "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni- Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qas ...

, the Lebanese militant Shiite group

Hezbollah Hezbollah (; ar, حزب الله ', , also transliterated Hizbullah or Hizballah, among others) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group, led by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah since 1992. Hezbollah's parami ...

, and the right-wing Russian antisemitic group Pamyat. In a 1993 speech, Irving claimed that there had been only 100,000 Jewish deaths at Auschwitz, "but not from gas chambers. They died from epidemics".. Irving went on to claim that most of the Jewish deaths during World War II had been caused by Allied bombing. Irving claimed that "The concentration camp inmates arrived in Berlin or

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

or in

just in time for the RAF bombers to set fire to those cities. Nobody knows how many Jews died in those air raids". In a 1994 speech, Irving lamented that his predictions of 1991 had failed to occur, and complained of the persistence of belief in the "rotting corpse" of the "profitable legend" of the Holocaust. In another 1994 speech, Irving claimed that there was no German policy of genocide of Jews, and that only 600,000 Jews died in concentration camps in World War II, all due to either Allied bombing or disease. At the same time, Irving started to appear more frequently at the annual conferences hosted by the IHR.. In a 1995 speech, Irving claimed that the Holocaust was a myth invented by a "world-wide Jewish cabal" to serve their own ends. Irving also spoke on other topics at the IHR gatherings. A frequent theme was the claim that

had advance knowledge of the Japanese plans to attack

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the ...

, and refused to warn the Americans, in order to bring the United States into World War II. In 1995 he stated that, "We revisionists, say that gas chambers didn't exist and that the 'factories of death' didn't exist." In 1999, Irving said during a television interview, "I'm a gas chamber denier. I'm a denier that they killed hundreds of thousands of people in gas chambers, yes." At the same time, Irving maintained an ambivalent attitude to Holocaust denial depending on his audience. In a 1993 letter, Irving lashed out against his former friend Zündel, writing that: "In April 1988 I unhesitatingly agreed to aid your defence as a witness in Toronto. ''I would not make the same mistake again''. As a penalty for having defended you then, and for having continued to aid you since, my life has come under a gradually mounting attack: I find myself the worldwide victim of mass demonstrations, violence, vituperation and persecution" (emphasis in the original). Irving went on to claim his life had been wonderful until Zündel had got him involved in the Holocaust denial movement: van Pelt argues that Irving was just trying to shift responsibility for his actions in his letter. In an interview with Australian radio in July 1995, Irving claimed that at least four million Jews died in World War II, though he argued that this was due to terrible sanitary conditions inside the concentration camps as opposed to a deliberate policy of genocide in the death camps. Irving's statement led to a very public spat with his former ally Faurisson, who insisted that no Jews were killed in the Holocaust. In 1995, Irving stated in another speech that "I have to take off my hat to my adversaries and the strategies they have employed—the marketing of the very word Holocaust: I half expected to see a little TM after it". Likewise, depending on his audience, during the 1990s Irving either used the absence of a written ''Führerbefehl'' (Führer order) for the "Final Solution" to argue that Hitler was unaware of the Holocaust, or claimed that the absence of a written order meant there was no Holocaust at all.

Racism and antisemitism

Although Irving denies being a racist, he has expressed

and antisemitic sentiments, both publicly and privately. Irving has often expressed his belief in the conspiracy theory of Jews secretly ruling the world, and that the belief in the reality of the Holocaust was manufactured as part of the same alleged conspiracy. Irving used the label "traditional enemies of the truth" to describe Jews, and in a 1963 article about a speech by Sir Oswald Mosley wrote that the "Yellow Star did not make a showing". In 1992, Irving stated that "the Jews are very foolish not to abandon the gas chamber theory while they still have time" and claimed he "foresees a new wave of antisemitism" the world over due to Jewish "exploitation of the Holocaust myth". During an interview with the American writer Ron Rosenbaum, Irving restated his belief that Jews were his "traditional enemy". In one interview cited in the libel lawsuit, Irving also stated that he would be "willing to put issignature" to the "fact" that "a great deal of control over the world is exercised by Jews".Interview for ''This Week'', 28 November 1991. pp. 7–8. Cited by ''David Irving v. Penguin Books and Sarah Lipstadt''. IX: JUSTIFICATION: THE ALLEGATION THAT IRVING IS AN ANTI-SEMITE AND A RACIST. After Irving was sacked by ''The Sunday Times'' to help them with their serialisation of the Goebbels diaries, he described a group of protesters outside of his apartment as, "All the scum of humanity stand outside. The homosexuals, the gypsies, the lesbians, the Jews, the criminals, the Communists..." Several of these statements were cited by the judge's decision in Irving's lawsuit against Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt, leading the judge to conclude that Irving "had on many occasions spoken in terms which are plainly racist." One example brought was his diary entry for 17 September 1994, in which Irving wrote about a ditty he composed for his young daughter "when half-breed children are wheeled past":

Christopher Hitchens Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British-American author and journalist who wrote or edited over 30 books (including five essay collections) on culture, politics, and literature. Born and educated in England, ...

wrote that Irving sang the rhyme to Hitchens's wife, Carol Blue, and daughter, Antonia, in the elevator following drinks in the family's Washington apartment.

''Persona non grata''

After Irving denied the Holocaust in two speeches given in Austria in 1989, the Austrian government issued an arrest warrant for him and barred him from entering the country. In early 1992, a German court found him guilty of Holocaust denial under the ''Auschwitzlüge'' section of the law against '' Volksverhetzung'' (a failed appeal by Irving would see the fine rise from 10,000 DM to 30,000 DM), and he was subsequently barred from entering Germany. Other governments followed suit, including Italy and Canada, where he was arrested in November 1992 and deported to the United Kingdom. In an administrative hearing surrounding those events, he was found by the hearing office to have engaged in a "total fabrication" in telling a story of an exit from and return to Canada which would, for technical reasons, have made the original deportation order invalid. He was also barred from entering Australia in 1992, a ban he made five unsuccessful attempts to overturn. Irving

In 1992, Irving signed a contract with

Macmillan Publishers Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the 'Big Five' English language publi ...

for his biography of

titled ''Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich''. Following charges that Irving had selectively "edited" a recently discovered complete edition of Goebbels's diaries in Moscow, Macmillan cancelled the book deal. The decision by ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...

'' (who had bought the rights to serialised extracts from the diaries before Macmillan published them) in July 1992 to hire Irving as a translator of Goebbels's diary was criticised by Austrian-British historian Peter G. J. Pulzer, who argued that Irving, because of his views about the Third Reich, was not the best man for the job.. Andrew Neil, the editor of ''The Sunday Times'', called Irving "reprehensible", but defended hiring him because he was only a "transcribing technician", which others criticised as a poor description of translation work. On 27 April 1993, Irving was ordered to attend court to be examined on charges relating to the '' Loi Gayssot'' in France, making it an offence to question the existence or size of the category of crimes against humanity. The law does not extend to

extradition Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdi ...

, and Irving refused to travel to France. Then, in February 1994, Irving spent 10 days of a three-month sentence in London's

Pentonville prison HM Prison Pentonville (informally "The Ville") is an English Category B men's prison, operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. Pentonville Prison is not in Pentonville, but is located further north, on the Caledonian Road in the Barnsbury ar ...

for

contempt of court Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the crime of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice, and dignity of the cour ...

following a legal wrangling over publishing rights. In 1995, St. Martin's Press of New York City agreed to publish the Goebbels biography: but after protests, they cancelled the contract, leaving Irving in a situation in which, according to D. D. Guttenplan, he was desperate for financial help, publicity, and the need to re-establish his reputation as a historian. The book was eventually self-published.

Libel suit

On 5 September 1996, Irving filed a libel suit against

and her British publisher Penguin Books for publishing the British edition of Lipstadt's book, '' Denying the Holocaust'', which had first been published in the United States in 1993. In the book, Lipstadt called Irving a Holocaust denier, falsifier and bigot, and said that he manipulated and distorted real documents. During the trial, Irving claimed that Hitler had not ordered the extermination of the Jews of Europe, was ignorant of the Holocaust and was a friend of the Jews. Lipstadt hired the British solicitor

Anthony Julius Anthony Robert Julius (born 16 July 1956) is a British solicitor advocate known for being Diana, Princess of Wales' divorce lawyer and for representing Deborah Lipstadt. He is a partner at the law firm Mishcon de Reya. He holds the chair in Law ...

to present her case, while Penguin Books hired Kevin Bays and Mark Bateman, libel specialist from media firm Davenport Lyons. They briefed the libel barrister

Richard Rampton Richard Rampton KC (born 8 January 1941) is a British libel lawyer. He has been involved in several high-profile cases including '' Irving v. Penguin Books and Lipstadt'', where he defended Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books against David Irvin ...

QC and Penguin also briefed junior barrister Heather Rogers. The defendants (with Penguin's insurers paying the fee) also retained Professor Richard J. Evans, historian and Professor of Modern History at

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, as an expert witness. Also working as expert witnesses were the American Holocaust historian

Christopher Browning Christopher Robert Browning (born May 22, 1944) is an American historian who is the professor emeritus of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). A specialist on the Holocaust, Browning is known for his work documenting ...

, the German historian Peter Longerich, and the Dutch architectural expert Robert Jan van Pelt. The last wrote a report attesting to the fact that the death camps were designed, built and used for the purpose of

, while Browning testified for the reality of the Holocaust. Evans' report was the most comprehensive, in-depth examination of Irving's work: The BBC quoted Evans further: Not only did Irving lose the case, but in light of the evidence presented at the trial a number of his works that had previously escaped serious scrutiny were brought to public attention. He was also ordered to pay all of Penguin's trial costs, estimated to be as much as £2 million (US$3.2 million), though it is uncertain how much of these costs he would ultimately pay. When he did not meet these, Davenport Lyons moved to make him bankrupt on behalf of their client. He was declared bankrupt in 2002, and lost his home, though he has been able to travel around the world despite his financial problems. Irving subsequently appealed to the Civil Division of the

Court of Appeal A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much ...

. On 20 July 2001, his application for appeal was denied by Lords Justices Pill, Mantell and

Buxton Buxton is a spa town in the Borough of High Peak, Derbyshire, England. It is England's highest market town, sited at some above sea level.EWCA Civ 1197
/ref> The libel suit was depicted in a 2016 film, '' Denial.''

Life after the libel suit

Early in September 2004, Michael Cullen, the

Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand The deputy prime minister of New Zealand ( mi, Te pirimia tuarua o Aotearoa) is the second most senior member of the Cabinet of New Zealand. The officeholder usually deputises for the prime minister at official functions. The current deputy p ...

, announced that Irving would not be permitted to visit the country, where he had been invited by the National Press Club to give a series of lectures under the heading "The Problems of Writing about World War II in a Free Society". The National Press Club defended its invitation of Irving, saying that it amounted not to an endorsement of his views, but rather an opportunity to question him. A government spokeswoman said that "people who have been deported from another country are refused entry" to New Zealand. Irving rejected the ban and attempted to board a

Qantas Qantas Airways Limited ( ) is the flag carrier of Australia and the country's largest airline by fleet size, international flights, and international destinations. It is the world's third-oldest airline still in operation, having been founde ...

flight for New Zealand from Los Angeles on 17 September 2004. He was not allowed on board. On 11 November 2005, the Austrian police in the southern state of

Styria Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered ...

, acting under the 1989 warrant, arrested Irving. Irving pleaded guilty to the charge of "trivialising, grossly playing down and denying the Holocaust". Irving stated in his plea that he had changed his opinions on the Holocaust, "I said that then based on my knowledge at the time, but by 1991 when I came across the Eichmann papers, I wasn't saying that anymore and I wouldn't say that now. The Nazis did murder millions of Jews." Irving had obtained the papers from Hugo Byttebier, a Belgian who had served in the SS during the war and had escaped to Argentina. Irving was sentenced to three years' imprisonment in accordance with the law prohibiting Nazi activities (, "Prohibition Law"). Irving sat motionless as judge Peter Liebetreu asked him if he had understood the sentence, to which he replied "I'm not sure I do" before being escorted out of the court by Austrian police. Later, Irving said that he was shocked by the severity of the sentence. He had reportedly already purchased a plane ticket home to London. In December 2006, Irving was released from prison and banned from ever returning to Austria. Upon Irving's arrival in the UK he reaffirmed his position, stating that he felt "no need any longer to show remorse" for his Holocaust views. On 18 May 2007, he was expelled from the 52nd Warsaw International Book Fair in Poland because the books he took there were deemed by the organizers as promoting

Nazism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) i ...

and antisemitism, which is in violation of Polish law. Since then, Irving has continued to work as a freelance writer, despite his troubled public image. He was drawn into the controversy surrounding Bishop Richard Williamson, who in a televised interview recorded in Germany in November 2008 denied the Holocaust took place, only to see Williamson convicted for incitement in April 2010 after refusing to pay a fine of €12,000. Irving subsequently found himself beset by protesters on a book tour of the United States. He has also given lectures and tours in the UK and Europe; one tour to Poland in September 2010 which led to particular criticism included the

death camp as an itinerary stop. During his 2008 tour of the US, Deborah Lipstadt said Irving's audience was mainly limited to like-minded people. Irving and

Nick Griffin Nicholas John Griffin (born 1 March 1959) is a British politician and white supremacist who represented North West England as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2009 to 2014. He served as chairman and then president of the far-righ ...

(then the

British National Party The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Wigton, Cumbria, and its leader is Adam Walker. A minor party, it has no elected representatives at any level of UK gover ...

leader) were invited to speak at a forum on free speech at the

Oxford Union The Oxford Union Society, commonly referred to simply as the Oxford Union, is a debating society in the city of Oxford England, whose membership is drawn primarily from the University of Oxford. Founded in 1823, it is one of Britain's oldest ...

on 26 November 2007, along with Anne Atkins and

Evan Harris Evan Leslie Harris (born 21 October 1965) is a British Liberal Democrat politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Oxford West and Abingdon from 1997 to 2010, losing his seat in the 2010 general election by 176 votes to Conservati ...

. The debate took place after Oxford Union members voted in favour of it, but was disrupted by protesters. Irving was lecturing to small audiences at venues disclosed to carefully vetted ticket-holders a day or two before the event on topics, including antisemitic conspiracy theories, and at one such event, claiming to write the truth unlike "conformist" historians while asserting fabrications about leading Nazis, the life and death of Heinrich Himmler and the saturation bombings during World War II. Irving established a website selling

Nazi memorabilia Nazi memorabilia or Third Reich collectibles are items produced during the height of Nazism in Germany, particularly the years between 1933 and 1945. Nazi memorabilia includes a variety of objects from the material culture of Nazi Germany, espe ...

in 2009. The items are offered by other people, with Irving receiving a commission from each sale for authenticating them. Irving stated in 2009 that the website was the only way he could make money after being bankrupted in 2002. Items sold through the website include Hitler's walking stick and a lock of the dictator's hair. Irving has also investigated the authenticity of bones purported to be from Hitler and

Eva Braun Eva Anna Paula Hitler (; 6 February 1912 – 30 April 1945) was a German photographer who was the longtime companion and briefly the wife of Adolf Hitler. Braun met Hitler in Munich when she was a 17-year-old assistant and model for his ...

. In 2009, during an interview with

Johann Hari Johann Eduard Hari (born 21 January 1979) is a British-Swiss writer and journalist who has written for ''The Independent'' and ''The Huffington Post''. In 2011, Hari was suspended from ''The Independent'' and later resigned, after admitting to ...

, Irving claimed that Hitler appointed him to be his biographer: During the same interview, Irving claimed that various Nazis hid what was happening to the Jews from Hitler because he was "the best friend the Jews had in the Third Reich".

2009 Norwegian Festival of Literature

In October 2008, controversy arose in Norway over Irving's invitation to speak at the 2009 Norwegian Festival of Literature. Several of Norway's most distinguished authors protested against the invitation. The leader of the board for the festival, Jesper Holte, defended the invitation by stating: "Our agenda is to invite a liar and a falsifier of history to a festival about truth. And confront him with this. Irving has been invited to discuss his concept of

truth Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as belief ...

in light of his activity as a writer of historical books and the many accusations he has been exposed to as a consequence of this." Although Irving was introduced in the festival's webpages as "historian and writer", the board chair leader defended the more aggressive language being used to characterise Irving in connection with the controversy that had arisen.

Lars Saabye Christensen Lars Saabye Christensen (born 21 September 1953 in Oslo) is a Norwegian/Danish author. Saabye Christensen was raised in the Skillebekk neighbourhood of Oslo, but lived for many years in Sortland in northern Norway; both places play a major ro ...

and

Roy Jacobsen Roy Jacobsen (born 26 December 1954) is a Norwegian novelist and short-story writer. Born in Oslo, he made his publishing début in 1982 with the short-story collection ''Fangeliv'' (Prison Life), which won Tarjei Vesaas' debutantpris. He is winne ...

were two authors who had threatened to boycott the festival on account of Irving's invitation, and

Anne B. Ragde Anne Birkefeldt Ragde (born 3 December 1957) is a Norwegian novelist. Ragde was born in Odda and made her literary debut in 1986 with the children’s book ''Hallo! Her er Jo!'' Since then, she has written several books for children and young ad ...

stated that Sigrid Undset would have turned in her grave. As the festival has as its subsidiary name "Sigrid Undset Days", a representative of Undset's family had requested that the name of the Nobel laureate be removed in connection with the festival. Also, the Norwegian

free speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recog ...

organization Fritt Ord was critical of letting Irving speak at the festival and had requested that its logo be removed. In addition, Edvard Hoem announced that he would not attend the 2009 festival with Irving taking part.

Per Edgar Kokkvold Per Edgar Kokkvold (born 26 March 1946) is a Norwegian journalist, former editor and secretary-general of the Norwegian Press Association, and current chair of the Norwegian Broadcasting Council. Kokkvold was born in Røros. He spent most of his ...

, leader of the Norwegian Press Confederation, advocated cancelling Irving's invitation. Days after the controversy had started, the invitation was rescinded. This led to the resignation of Stig Sæterbakken from his position as content director as he was the person who had invited Irving to the event. The head of the Norwegian Festival of Literature, Randi Skeie, deplored what had taken place: "Everything is fine as long as everyone agrees, but things get more difficult when one doesn't like the views being put forward." Sæterbakken called his colleagues "damned cowards", arguing that they were walking in lockstep. According to editor-in-chief Sven Egil Omdal of '' Stavanger Aftenblad'', the opposition to Irving's participation at the festival appeared as a concerted effort. He suggested that campaign journalism from two of Norway's largest newspapers, ''

Dagbladet ''Dagbladet'' (lit.: ''The Daily Magazine'') is one of Norway's largest newspapers and is published in the tabloid format. It has 1,400,000 daily readers on mobile, web and paper. Traditionally ''Dagbladet'' is considered the main liberal newsp ...

'' and ''

Aftenposten ( in the masthead; ; Norwegian for "The Evening Post") is Norway's largest printed newspaper by circulation. It is based in Oslo. It sold 211,769 copies in 2015 (172,029 printed copies according to University of Bergen) and estimated 1.2 milli ...

'', and Norway's public service broadcaster

NRK NRK, an abbreviation of the Norwegian ''Norsk Rikskringkasting AS'', generally expressed in English as the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, is the Norwegian government-owned radio and television public broadcasting company, and the largest ...

was behind the controversy. David Irving commented that he had not been told that the festival was going to present him as a liar, and that he was preparing a lecture about the real history of what took place in

Norway during World War II The occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany during the Second World War began on 9 April 1940 after Operation Weserübung. Conventional armed resistance to the German invasion ended on 10 June 1940, and Nazi Germany controlled Norway until th ...

, contrary to what official historians have presented. Irving stated that he had thought the Norwegian people to be made of tougher stuff. Only days after the cancellation Irving announced that he would go to Lillehammer during the literature festival and deliver his two-hour lecture from a hotel room.

Reception by historians

Irving, once held in regard for his expert knowledge of German military archives, was a controversial figure from the start. His interpretations of the war were widely regarded as unduly favourable to the German side. At first this was seen as personal opinion, unpopular but consistent with full respectability as a historian.. By 1988, however, Irving had begun to reject the status of the Holocaust as a systematic and deliberate genocide. He soon became the main proponent of Holocaust denial. This, along with his association with far-right circles, dented his standing as a historian. A marked change in Irving's reputation can be seen in the surveys of the

historiography of the Third Reich The historiography of Germany deals with the manner in which historians have depicted, analyzed and debated the history of Germany. It also covers the popular memory of critical historical events, ideas and leaders, as well as the depiction of those ...

produced by

Ian Kershaw Sir Ian Kershaw (born 29 April 1943) is an English historian whose work has chiefly focused on the social history of 20th-century Germany. He is regarded by many as one of the world's leading experts on Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, and is pa ...

. In the first edition of Kershaw's book ''The Nazi Dictatorship'' in 1985, Irving was called a "maverick" historian working outside the mainstream of the historical profession. By the time of the fourth edition of ''The Nazi Dictatorship'' in 2000, Irving was described only as a historical writer who had in the 1970s engaged in "provocations" intended to provide an "exculpation of Hitler's role in the Final Solution". Other critical responses to his work tend to follow this pattern. The description of Irving as a historian, rather than a historical author, is controversial, with some publications since the libel trial continuing to refer to him as a "historian"e.g
The Guardian
/ref> or "disgraced historian",Philippe Naughton and agencies in Vienna

''

,'' 20 February 2006. while others insist he is not a historian, and have adopted alternatives such as "author""In 1969 ''

'' determined 'It is incorrect to describe David Irving as a historian. In future we should describe him as an author. or "historic writer"."...Irving is not a historian. Those in the know, indeed, are accustomed to avoid the term altogether when referring to him and use some circumlocution such as 'historical writer' instead." Irving vs. (1) Lipstadt and (2) Penguin Books
Expert Witness Report
by Richard J. Evans FBA, Professor of Modern History,

, 2000, Chapter 6. The military historian John Keegan praised Irving for his "extraordinary ability to describe and analyse Hitler's conduct of military operations, which was his main occupation during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

".. ''The Daily Telegraph'' (UK). 12 April 2000 Donald Cameron Watt,

Emeritus Professor ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

of Modern History at the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 milli ...

, wrote that he admires some of Irving's work as a historian, though he rejects his conclusions about the Holocaust. At the libel proceedings against Irving, Watt declined Irving's request to testify, appearing only after a subpoena was ordered.. He testified that Irving had written a "very, very effective piece of historical scholarship" in the 1960s, which was unrelated to his controversial work. He also said that Irving was "not in the top class" of military historians.

Personal life

In 1961, while living in Spain, Irving met and married a Spaniard, María del Pilar Stuyck. They have four children. They divorced in 1981. In 1992, Irving began a relationship with a Danish model, Bente Hogh. They have a daughter, born in 1994. Irving's daughter Josephine suffered from schizophrenia. She was involved in a car crash in 1996 which resulted in her having to have both of her legs amputated. In September 1999, at the age of 32, she committed suicide by throwing herself out of a window of her central London flat. One of the wreaths sent to her funeral contained a card which stated, "Truly a merciful death,

Philipp Bouhler Philipp Bouhler (11 September 1899 – 19 May 1945) was a German senior Nazi Party functionary who was both a (National Leader) and Chief of the Chancellery of the Führer of the NSDAP. He was also the SS official responsible for the euthanas ...

and friends". The reference to Bouhler was a reference to the Nazi who was in charge of Hitler's euthanasia programme. Irving described it as a "very cruel taunt".

In popular culture

* In 1982, Irving appeared on '' In Search of...'' (TV Series) Season 6, Episode 20, Eva Braun, offering his commentary on the episode's exploration of whether or not she died in the Bunker with Hitler. Irving explained the testimony by

Otto Gunsche Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', ''Odo'', ''Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded fro ...

Hitler's Adjutant, whom Irving had interviewed in his research. * In 1988, Irving made an extended appearance on the Channel 4 discussion programme '' After Dark''. * Irving was portrayed by Roger Lloyd-Pack in the 1991 ITV series '' Selling Hitler''. * Irving was portrayed by John Castle in courtroom dramatizations of the Lipstadt case for the PBS ''

Nova A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramat ...

'' episode "Holocaust on Trial" (2000). * Irving is portrayed by

Timothy Spall Timothy Leonard Spall (born 27 February 1957) is an English actor and presenter. He became a household name in the UK after appearing as Barry Spencer Taylor in the 1983 ITV comedy-drama series '' Auf Wiedersehen, Pet''. Spall performed in '' ...

in the 2016 film '' Denial'', based on

's 2005 book ''History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier''. Hare, David (3 September 2016
"David Hare on writing nothing but the truth about a Holocaust denier"
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...

'' *Irving is portrayed in the alternate universe novel '' The Mirage'' as the Prime Minister of the Anglican Kingdom of Britain.

Works

Books * '' The Destruction of Dresden'' (1963) , updated and revised 1995 as ''Apocalypse 1945, The Destruction of Dresden'', further revised for 2007 * '' The Mare's Nest'' (1964) * ''The Virus House'' (1967) * ''The Destruction of Convoy PQ17'' (1968), reprinted (1980) , updated in 2009. * ''Accident – The Death of General Sikorski'' (1967) * ''Breach of Security'' (1968) * ''The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe'' (1973), a biography of

* ''The Night the Dams Burst'' (1973): (in 3 parts). * ''

'' (1977), updated in 2000 as a millennium edition * ''The Trail of the Fox'' (1977), a biography of

, reissued 1999 in Wordsworth Military Library, * ''The War Path'' (1978) * ''The War Between the Generals'' (1981) * ''Uprising!'' (1981), * ''The Secret Diaries of Hitler's Doctor'' (1983) * ''The German Atomic Bomb: The History of Nuclear Research in Nazi Germany'' (1983) * ''Der Morgenthau Plan 1944–45'' (in German only) (1986) * ''War between the Generals'' (1986) , updated in 2010. * ''Hess, the Missing Years'' (1987) Macmillan, * ''Churchill's War'' (1987) : (in 4 parts). * ''Göring'' (1989), biography of

, updated in 2010. * ''Das Reich hört mit'' (in German only) (1989) * ''Hitler's War'' (1991), revised edition, incorporating ''The War Path'' * ''Der unbekannte Dr. Goebbels'' (in German only) (1995) * ''Goebbels – Mastermind of the Third Reich'' biography of

(1996) , cleaned-up and corrected in 2014 * ''Nuremberg: The Last Battle'' (1996) * ''Churchill's War Volume II: Triumph in Adversity'' (1997) : (in 3 parts) * ''Hitler's War and the War Path'' (2002) * ''True Himmler'' (2020) Translations * ''The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Keitel'' (1965) * ''The Memoirs of General Gehlen'' (1972) Monographs * ''The Night the Dams Burst'' (1973) * ''Von Guernica bis Vietnam'' (in German only) (1982) * ''Die deutsche Ostgrenze'' (in German only) (1990) * ''Banged Up'' (2008)

References

Explanatory notes

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *'' Wikisource:David Irving v Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt''

Reviews

* *

News articles

* * * * *

Film

Errol Morris Errol Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of its subjects. In 2003, his documentary film '' The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNama ...

(1999). '' Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.''
Transcript

External links

* * at Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (archived from th

from The Holocaust History Project * {{DEFAULTSORT:Irving, David 1938 births Living people Alumni of Imperial College London Alumni of University College London Antisemitism in England British Holocaust deniers English conspiracy theorists English biographers English male journalists People from Hutton, Essex People educated at Brentwood School, Essex Holocaust denial in Canada People convicted of Holocaust denial People deported from Canada English people imprisoned abroad Prisoners and detainees of Austria Prisoners and detainees of England and Wales English neo-Nazis 20th-century British writers 21st-century British writers Criminals from London 20th-century biographers 21st-century biographers Historical negationism Male biographers