David Irving masterthread

jonniebgood1

OS119 wrote: »

Originally Posted by xflyer View Post
...This is a sick forum.

indeed - there's more than a whiff of tight black trousers lingering in this corner of the forum.

they can dress it up as much as they like - 'just addressing this particular technical issue', 'shouldn't all be judged to the same standard?' - but the direction of travel, and the intended destination is blindingly obvious.

i know what these people are, and fearless servants of truth they ain't....

A bit like Irving, huh!!! lol.

In all seriousness there are issues here. I think the best way to expose any prejudice or bigoted views is to question them. This usually shows how ridiculous certain views are with an inability to engage in a rational discussion http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056354790
The problem of course is that it turns people off posting so I would encourage you and others to engage on the forum rather than avoiding it. There are several rational but opposing views here also (see tony eh above) as well as the 'tight black trousers'. So join in, free speech etc, etc.

Tony EH

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

No argument in general on this. There was attention on him from the inaccuracies in 'Hitlers war' but what we are discussing here is his reputation which withsttod that (I am mid way through it and it is an interesting read although knowing there are problems with its accuracy is devaluing it for me).

I enjoyed 'Hitler's War' for what it was. An attempt (and a difficult one at that) to write about the war from Hitler's perspective. Such an undertaking had never been done before and one can only imagine the obstacles in producing such a work. It's also the book, I believe, that started him on his path in believing that Hitler had less to do with the holocaust than was first assumed, due to the extreme lack of primary evidence supporting that stance. Events sort of snowballed from there, as far as I am bothered to make out.

As far as inaccuracies are concerned, I was surprised to find that out of the (quite literally) millions and millions of words that Irving had written, the stuff he was "caught out" on was rather minimal. I believe it was (perhaps) Ian Kershaw who said that he shuddered at the thought of somebody going through his work with such a fine-tooth comb and wondered what could be pulled out of his words.

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Again I would agree with most of this. The main issue then is his opinions on the different issues about the holocaust. He has made various claims about this that seem to be against all evidence. In any case he put his reputation as a historian on the line with his libel trial against lipstadt. He lost and his reputation was ruined. He will always have fans in the same way as there will always be extremists of all persuasions. I think this is reasonable to most people.
So I suppose the debate could be is it fair that a historian (WWII historian in this case) can be totally disregarded because they are wrong about one issue?

On a side note can anyone tell me what Irvings current view on Auschwitz or the Holocaust is? I know he revised it at the end of Lipstadt trial (or other recent trial) but have not seen any confirmation of this revision since?

As far as I know (and I don't claim to be any expert on this matter) Irving has never "denied" the holocaust outright, but has said on various occasions that parts thereof either did not happen or were not supported by factual evidence. He says (or my reading of it) that there was no coordinated or documented plan by nazi Germany to exterminate the Jews of Europe in their entirety and that while he accepts today that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz, he doesn't accept the notion that they were in use in the constant manner, which others suggest. He has no issue with the Einsatzgruppen's activities on the Eastern front, or the numbers attributed to them. i'm sure there's more, but I really don't care too much.

As far as it being "fair" to attribute the falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus tag to an historian for having controversial opinions on a given matter, of course I would have to say no, even in the case of Irving. Do we throw out everything Martin Gilbert has written, because he falsely claimed that 4 million people died at Auschwitz in his 'Auschwitz and the Allies'? Do we lock up Reitlinger or Hilberg, because they said that 6 million Jews didn't die in the holocaust? No, of course we don't. Many an historian has erred in their work, or have very different views on the historical record. Many will continue to have strong and controversial opinions on a great deal many matters, yet this particular matter (that of the holocaust) has been deemed by certain quarters to be untouchable. One must obey to a very large degree or face disgrace it seems.

As I said earlier, Irving is at times his own worse enemy. I believe he wished to use the holocaust as a prop for his own publicity, but never reckoned on the house of cards he was playing with. He should never have sued Lipstadt and the result would probably have been that she would have remained in obscurity as a lecturer in some 3rd rate college, while his books would have continued to be in circulation.

I wonder did it ever cross his mind that a Judge would actually be willing to risk the wrath of the "outraged", if he ruled in favor of Irving? One can only imagine the headlines.

OS119

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

...The problem of course is that it turns people off posting so I would encourage you and others to engage on the forum rather than avoiding it....

while i have long believed that the best disinfectant is sunlight, personally i'm not going to lie down (or wrestle) with dogs for the fear of getting fleas.

this, sadly, nasty little corner of the forum already has a reputation for the type of peole who hang out here - by spending any time here i might become associated with them...

Fuinseog

OS119 wrote: »

indeed - there's more than a whiff of tight black trousers lingering in this corner of the forum.

they can dress it up as much as they like - 'just addressing this particular technical issue', 'shouldn't all be judged to the same standard?' - but the direction of travel, and the intended destination is blindingly obvious.

i know what these people are, and fearless servants of truth they ain't....

I think this thread was reopened for academic debate not hysterical whining so please offer something constructive.

Jaafa

OS119 wrote: »

while i have long believed that the best disinfectant is sunlight, personally i'm not going to lie down (or wrestle) with dogs for the fear of getting fleas.

this, sadly, nasty little corner of the forum already has a reputation for the type of peole who hang out here - by spending any time here i might become associated with them...

Seeing yourself as superior/better than some eh? Ironic....

OS119

Fuinseog wrote: »

...so please offer something constructive.

what, like collaboration?

there's no academic debate here - your mate got his arse handed to him by two different Mods because of his refusal to debate in a constructive, critical manner. personally i don't think that a couple of old fruits dressing up as Kommondant Herman von Ubermensch and who go on, ad nauseum, about how the poor old Wermacht were just misunderstood as they went round helping with the Russian harvest - or just did the driving for some genocidal maniacs - add an awful lot to the sum of human knowledge.

Fuinseog

OS119 wrote: »

what, like collaboration?

there's no academic debate here - your mate got his arse handed to him by two different Mods because of his refusal to debate in a constructive, critical manner. personally i don't think that a couple of old fruits dressing up as Kommondant Herman von Ubermensch and who go on, ad nauseum, about how the poor old Wermacht were just misunderstood as they went round helping with the Russian harvest - or just did the driving for some genocidal maniacs - add an awful lot to the sum of human knowledge.

????
hard to figure what you are on about here, bu you seem to have the eloquence of someone from the anti nazi league in other words something of a rant that could turn aggressive, the standard form of debate among the extreme left, which is why its nice to have cyberspace between us .
so why do you not like Irving? Is it because you regard him as a poor historian or because someone somewhere said he was a baddy?

jonniebgood1

Fuinseog wrote: »

????
hard to figure what you are on about here, bu you seem to have the eloquence of someone from the anti nazi league in other words something of a rant that could turn aggressive, the standard form of debate among the extreme left, which is why its nice to have cyberspace between us .
so why do you not like Irving? Is it because you regard him as a poor historian or because someone somewhere said he was a baddy?

More pertinent to OS119's point would be why you are such a fan of Irving. What other literature do you garner your 'opinions' from? Do you use material from people who still have credit?