David Irving on Late Late

Mike...

I missed the start of this section,David Irving is discussing the lack of evidence to support the alledged holocaust in Germany, I must say David Irving is coming across very clearly and makes valid points has anyone seen this?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

of course he is making valid points, if he actually started talking about what he really believed he'd never get on television again outside of alabama.

Mike...

He does back up alot of what he says.
Pity the Cork debate was cancelled due to the Stop Irving morons

XJR

I didn't see the late late but heard him on the Right Hook and to be honest I thought he put up some reasonable questions.

I always thought he was a w***ker but listening to what he had to say I actually thought he has got a raw deal. He has not denied that the holocaust happened he seems to be questioning the details of it.

I've still not made my mind up about him but I would listen to what he has to say and then make up my mind.

As an aside I don't in general agree with censorship, let the people make their minds up.

Mike...

XJR wrote: »

He has not denied that the holocaust happened he seems to be questioning the details of it.

I've still not made my mind up about him but I would listen to what he has to say and then make up my mind.

As an aside I don't in general agree with censorship, let the people make their minds up.

Good point how can people determine history is they are not allowed to challenge the held or popular viewpoints...
without such challenges we might still believe the world is flat

csm

I'm intrigued.

What were his arguments with respect to the holocaust?

I was under the impression he used uncertainties in the magnitude of it to undermine it's impact, although I have never looked into it in any detail.

XJR

csm wrote: »

II was under the impression he used uncertainties in the magnitude of it to undermine it's impact, although I have never looked into it in any detail.

I think that's the problem. If one questions a singular point then it is portrayed as questioning the whole of the argument and from what I heard him say that wasn't the case.

For example he questioned who knew what and who sanctioned what. He also seemed to be questioning where the (undisputed) holocaust took place. What part did Auschwitz play in this - his argument was that it was less than is popularly portrayed and that most of the killing was done in other death camps.

I'm no expert on this but I'd like to hear more to either totally debunk what he has to say or else listen to a different (but cogent) argument and then make up my mind.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

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.

he's just trying to push all the right buttons so he looks like a historian who just got 'a raw deal' as someone said above. He is what he is, although people like him shouldn't just be ignored. This is why we have a sense of humour.


rofl

another quick quote

I am a Baby Aryan
Not Jewish or Sectarian
I have no plans to marry an
Ape or Rastafarian.

such a rogue scholar

AckwelFoley

Hes a scumbag.

Nothing more. Ive heard what he has to say. Ppl like this runt could make a case to prove Alaska does not exist. Well does it? How many of us have been there? Should we believe wat we are told?

silverharp

snyper wrote: »

Hes a scumbag.

Ppl like this runt could make a case to prove Alaska does not exist. Well does it? How many of us have been there? Should we believe wat we are told?

I like that, its like the , did the US go to the moon arguments. you can't fake/hide the big events in history for long, all I would say is that the other minorities stories have been underplayed in the story and the holocausts under stalin never got the same coverage if you go by body count

lostexpectation

i didn't understnad what irving was trying to say,

he said it wasn't hitler fault/plan and
he said it was hitler fault/plan

who cares whether him or his generals signed the order, hitler was the leader, i saw couple of comments around this, as above, how certain people admired irving for sticking to detailed historical discussion while anti-nazis were emotive, but irving picks out one detail here one detail there, says it was and wasn't hitler fault, this isn't an argument for anything, there was still mass orchestrated genocide, and a big bloody war. what more do we need to know. I don't need to know whether this letter or that letter had its I's dotted by hitler, to have good idea of history.

all i can see is he's hero worshipped on storm front...

XJR

lostexpectation wrote: »

who cares whether him or his generals signed the order, hitler was the leader, .... I don't need to know whether this letter or that letter had its I's dotted by hitler, to have good idea of history.

Fair enough and we probably all have a good idea of history and the fact that millions of people were murdered. I wonder however is this a case of if you question specific details you are seen to be questioning the whole of the issue?

Personally I don't have an opinion on him one way or the other as I haven't heard of him or read enough of his stuff. However I'm a firm believer in letting people have their say so that others can make their own minds up.

is_that_so

Irving's problem is that he has always been unapologetically outspoken. Furthermore he saw nothing wrong with associating with groups who embrace his perception of what happened. Nevertheless he does run the risk of damnation by ever challenging the idea of Shoah in any way.

Were he less of an apologist for the extreme right and strident holocaust denial, his views might get more credence. Invariably this make people enormously hostile to him, and instantly dismiss him. He argues that he never actually denied anything and that he has been misunderstood over the years.

I am not convinced by very much he says but as posted above he does ask some questions. Conveniently some of those questions still maintain the Hitler worship he has indulged in since the 70s.

There is a Damascene conversion about him , mostly since the Austrians locked him up and he got to write his own version of Men Kampf. His views these days are far softer and more reasoned.

I think he could have been a respected historian. He did have some ability but his racist and fascist leanings and his approach to his favourite subject matter, has meant that he has ended up deserving much of the opprobrium he gets.

I thought this was one of the best bits of the Late Late in recent times, not that it's competing with much, and he did well enough and made a few interesting points without completely sneering at his detractors.

ojewriej

Don't really know his work, only of it, also heard him on Newstalk.

I'm a Pole with Jewish roots, a lot of my family died during the war, so i did good bit of reading on the subject out of personal interest.

From what i understood on newstalk, he doesn't actually deny the holocaust, he questions some details. As for Auschwitz - it's common knowledge in Poland that it wasn't a death Camp - it was a labour camp. Which doesn't mean people were not killed there - Nazis tried to get us much work as possible out of prisoners before killing them. Thre process sped up towards the end of the war, but still there was a lot of survivors who were there from the opening up until the liberation. In death camps - such as Treblinka or Majdanek - prisoners were killed 2 hours after arrival on average. There was over 300 hundred concentration camps run by Nazis, but people tend to think only about Auschwitz.

Irving is also right about another thing - most of atrocities committed by Nazis happened on territories liberated by Soviets, who were notorious for changing the history - most notable would be the lies about executing over 20000 polish officer in Katyn forest, or the story of the Warsaw uprising in 1944. Soviets are the reason why there is still so many uncertannities regarding an issue of the Holocaust.

That's just two points, As I said i don't know enough his work to form the opinion, but based on what I heard, i'm planning on reading some of his books.

lostexpectation

XJR wrote: »

Fair enough and we probably all have a good idea of history and the fact that millions of people were murdered. I wonder however is this a case of if you question specific details you are seen to be questioning the whole of the issue?

but the people who spend their time on storm front etc, discussing minute details of the war period aren't trying to document history, they trying to find cracks in the general story, trying find out that jews and others weren't killed, or the numbers were slightly exaggerated, so they can prove that the jews are out to get them so they can justify harassing and killing more.

I thought the other historian did pretty well, challenged him on his wierd defence of hitler, and said he was still living off his book from the 70's, how many deaths have you got to be involved in till your reputation is irretrievable...

and the sunday tribune guy nailed it in the audience.

Nordwind

Why, what did he say?

catleugh

I am delighted to see that the shows producers resisted being bullied into pulling David Irving. A victory for common sense.

Cool_CM

On one hand quite amusing, the fact that those anti-Irving idiots threatening a debate on freedom of speech with violence, remind anybody of nazism? They were bringing the guy to UCC for a debate, which entails being able to actually sit and question him about his certain beliefs. But because of some idiots who think its a lot better just to shout abuse and threaten those involved as opposed to listening and confronting people about it head on it"s not going to happen. We mightn't like him or what he is saying, but that doesn't take away from his right to say it, and our right to question it.
Still going to head along, Mick Barry is apparently coming to defend the socialists actions, and theres a lot of angry people waiting to confront him through words rather than violence.

brianthebard

Irving is a cock, he may not have been denying the holocaust lately, but he's been to jail for it. All you have to look at is the wannsee protocol to see he doesn't have a leg to stand on. He's the reason people have such a problem with revisionism (although he is a negationist, not a revisionist) he's a menace to history.

andrewh5

As someone whose father was part of the liberating forces at Bergen-Belsen (he was second in command of the artillary unit) I know the holocaust happened. It affected my father badly and he remained depressed and an alcoholic for the rest of his life. If he saw any footage of the camps his mind flashed back and he saw it all in colour and smelt the stench all over again. He used to leave the room to be sick.

DaveyRyan

I have to say I thought Irving stuttered and stumbled quite a bit... didn't come across as very convincing to me.

andrewh5

ojewriej wrote: »

As for Auschwitz - it's common knowledge in Poland that it wasn't a death Camp - it was a labour camp.

Correct, but Birkenau the adjoining camp WAS a death camp! People were taken straight to the gas chambers from the platform on many, many trains. Sometimes wholesale & sometimes just women with children and the old and infirm.

Gobán Saor

Just watched the program on the RTE website. I thought Irving was pretty piss-poor actually. Not at all convincing and thoroughly out-debated by the historian guy. Irving was reduced to trying to play the victim card - "poor me, I've been silenced, censored, bullied into conformity etc." Best way of dealing with this is to let him say what he wants and put up decent well-informed opponents to systematically refute his errors, omissions, distortions and misrepresentations. Which was precisely what the Late Late did. IMHO the "no free speech for fascists" lobby have got it badly wrong. When he was allowed to speak, his arguments were actually pretty weak.

Sadly, there are all too many people who are all too willing to believe every half-baked conspiracy theory they hear. Couple this with a still prevalent anti-semitism and they end up believing that Irving is a brave man who is being repressed for telling the truth. The more Irving is prevented from speaking, the more they believe he is the victim of some huge conspiracy. Far better to expose the weaknesses in his arguments than to give them some mystique by suppressing them.

ojewriej

andrewh5 wrote: »

Correct, but Birkenau the adjoining camp WAS a death camp! People were taken straight to the gas chambers from the platform on many, many trains. Sometimes wholesale & sometimes just women with children and the old and infirm.

That's true, but that's not really my point.

What I was trying to say is that a lot of people in the West tend to see Auschwitz as a only death camp there, not realising that it was just a part of a huge network. And this is just one example of misinformation about what actually happened during WWII - especially on the territories liberated, and than taken over by Soviet Union.

Gobán Saor

ojewriej wrote: »

..... of misinformation about what actually happened during WWII - especially on the territories liberated, and than taken over by Soviet Union.

True. For instance the Soviets portrayed the victims of the Holocaust as essentially victims of fascism and never acknowledged that Jews were specially targeted for extermination.

brianthebard

Gobán Saor wrote: »

Sadly, there are all too many people who are all too willing to believe every half-baked conspiracy theory they hear. Couple this with a still prevalent anti-semitism and they end up believing that Irving is a brave man who is being repressed for telling the truth. The more Irving is prevented from speaking, the more they believe he is the victim of some huge conspiracy. Far better to expose the weaknesses in his arguments than to give them some mystique by suppressing them.

That's the real danger that Irving presents; he might not be right, but how many people could he convince he is if he wasn't given the freedom to spread his bull?

ojewriej

brianthebard wrote: »

That's the real danger that Irving presents; he might not be right, but how many people could he convince he is if he wasn't given the freedom to spread his bull?

You have to remember, that the history we know very often has very little to do with what actually happened. It's good that there are people who are trying to question official versions, because we can learn something new.

If they are "spreading bull", sooner or later hey will be proven wrong. Other researchers will be able to defeat their arguments. But if they are not allowed to explain their theories to the wider audience, this won't happen. Instead, their arguments will remain unchalenged, and there will be a lot of people who will believe them.

Freedom of speech is always a first target of a totalitarian systems. We shouldn't go down the same road.

brianthebard

I'll give you a fairly innocuous example of something that historians have gotten wrong-a vomitorium was first believed to have been a room where Romans went to throw up during a large feast so they could make more space. This seemed to make sense and stuck. however a vomitorium is actually a passageway. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vomitorium ) So even though history has been corrected, you will still find lots of books which use the first meaning, and many people do too. The point is the damage is done once a person puts out a false message, regardless of whether they are later shown to be wrong.

Also, just so you know there's no such thing as free speech in this country. And even in countries that have free speech, there are sometimes holocaust denial laws, which make it illegal to say what Irving and others say.

ojewriej

brianthebard wrote: »

I'll give you a fairly innocuous example of something that historians have gotten wrong-a vomitorium was first believed to have been a room where Romans went to throw up during a large feast so they could make more space. This seemed to make sense and stuck. however a vomitorium is actually a passageway. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vomitorium ) So even though history has been corrected, you will still find lots of books which use the first meaning, and many people do too. The point is the damage is done once a person puts out a false message, regardless of whether they are later shown to be wrong.

Well, you just proved my point didn't you? We all thought they were vomitoriums, but someone kept digging and found out that is not the case. That's what I said we (or historians rather) should be doing.

brianthebard wrote: »

Also, just so you know there's no such thing as free speech in this country.

I disagree. You can say whatever you want, if nobody wants to listen is a completely different issue. You won't get killed or thrown to jail for your beliefs.

brianthebard wrote: »

And even in countries that have free speech, there are sometimes holocaust denial laws, which make it illegal to say what Irving and others say.

I know that - that's why Irwing went to jail - but I think it's wrong. That's my whole point.

To be honest I'm a little bit confused - i thought you said that Irwing and people like him shouldn't be allowed to publish his theories, and now you are complaining that there is no free speech n this country? Unless you are not complaining, then it makes sense.

PHB

Oh my good lord, everything he says is a lie. Literally, everything!!

There's a reason why people don't want him speaking, because he appears to make 'good points' to people who are easily swayed.

In his book, everything he said was proven untrue by historian Richard Evans. Everything! The only things he had left to defend himself on were private discussions that he had which he obviously can't reveal.

Late Late are ****ing idiots. I'm not saying we should ever say you can't say these things, but ****ing inviting him onto the show in order to boost ratings is just un-****ing-real. There is no need to give his hate speech a platform, anymore than there is a need to give Osama Bin Laden a chance to explain his actions. We're not gona stop them from doing it, but we're not gona give them a bloody spot on national TV.

I loved the fact that he sued somebody for calling him an utterly baseless racist historian. When it went to court, instead of the publishers settling, they employed a couple of hundred historians at huge costs to go through every single thing in his book and show how all his allegations were utterly baseless. They ripped his book apart footnote by footnote. Because he had made the accusation, when the judge saw this, saw he had no basis, he decided in favour of the defendent, and ordered Irving to pay the legal costs, which went into the millions. It made him bankrupt! Fantastic stuff.

Jesus christ, don't listen to a bloody word he says, pretty much everything he says is a lie.

PHB

Oh, and the reason for his new conciliatory approach is just money btw. He's flat broke, and owes the people he tried to sue a couple of million.