Revisiting "The Irving Judgement"

The ongoing stealing of memory:

In 2000, Penguin published the transcript of the judgement (David Irving vs Penguin Books and Professor Deborah Lipstadt) by British High Court judge Justice Gray. David Irving elected trial by judge and conclusively lost his case.

I have read a number of David Irving's books but found that his presentation of historical material appeared as it did to justify the Nazi era and Hitler and co as just another set of political leaders and soldiers, unpalatable. It was also apparent he was selective with his use of historical data. His view seems to be Hitler never ordered the liquidation of all Jews*(1). It was a few fanatics trying to second guess and appease their warlord which resulted in a few such as Heydrich and Himmler in a two hour meeting planning and then setting up death camps*(2). It feeds into the revisionists world view that the Jewish Shoah has been exaggerated; both in the numbers of those murdered and the manner in which this was achieved throughout Nazi occupied Europe. It frequently minimises the numbers of Jews who died as a direct result of Nazi orders and actions. It makes claims 'many' were enemies of state dying of natural causes in prison camps for unspecified crimes against the government of the day-just like Stalinist Soviet Union. They even questioned the existence of death camps and the apparatus of execution using science and maths to argue the impossibility of conducting such wide scale killing. Irving, their poster boy, their historian, balances the scales in their minds with Dresden, the loss of civilian life in Germany immediately following the end of the Second World War. The demonisation of Hitler, the vilification of the vanquished Nazis and somewhere is always a breath of by dint of being well Jewish, that Jews bought this terrible war on themselves. Irving, has not distanced himself from this view of history; a calculated revisionism so sordid it almost defies comprehension. 

It was anticipated, this trial and findings would put a stake through the heart of using history to justify barbarity of extreme fascism. Certainly the trial and Irving's justifications, prevarications tore his reputation as a historian apart. To read a legal judgement that provided justice as well as an ethical legal verdict was both inspiring and uplifting. I think the seperation of Irvine the historian from Irvine the revisionist was accomplished with judicial clarity.

Sadly rather than put an end to the revisionism debate-it has resulted in Irving's fellow travellers and supporters becoming more subtle in pursuing their agenda. At a recent Sydney Reclaim Australia rally some of the speakers while attacking Muslims and Islam made it clear Jews were also not a welcome part of Team Australia. Something along the lines of Jewish=Zionist=Lackey of the State of Israel=Jewish rather than true blue Aussie. New Matilda an Australian independent electronic media site has just been threatened with legal action by a commentator because he was called a holocaust denier. From other postings by this character he is not so much a denier as a 'minimiser' using freedom of speech as a call to debate the Shoah using understatements and within the context of attacking zionism and particularly the existence and actions of the State of Israel.

In 2015 it seems a small and persistently vocal network and sometimes individual bloggers and media commentators still treat Irving as a martyr. Still think of him as a credible historian, and see their view of events as being the truth attacked and undermined by the evil Zionists and its puppet state Israel-not to mention world conspiracy aka modern day protocols of Zion. If it was not discussed so earnestly and seriously it would be as a theory, laughable.

What I find ugly in these arguments is that the majority of those murdered are unable to defend themselves due to being exterminated. Think: by the mere fact of being Jewish and this could be having one Jewish grandparent, you are taken from your everyday life, your identity as a citizen of a country stripped, humanity degraded and then regardless of age or sex-exterminated. What you were was not important, what you became was death. The bleakest part of our humanity is the ability to justify acts of great evil. And at the time of this disintegration of a people labelled Jewish, the State of Israel did not exist. And if it did there would still be no grounds for the isolation and systematic slaughter of a people based on ethnicity. There was and still is no justification for this. It defies comprehension as much as understanding how Germany, Germans allowed it to happen in its midst and then like a cancer let it spread throughout Europe to accelerate feeding people to oblivion in numbers so large as to become incomprehensible.

As the last people to survive this genocide die away it is for us to continue to give witness to those whose voice and lives were obliterated and lost in this terror.

*1: In the 628 pages of "Mein Kampf"written by Hitler in 1924-Jews-and Hitler's view of the Jewish problem takes up over 150 pages. It makes clear his personal and political views on Jews in tirades which are vitriolic; openly scornful and clearly identifying his hatred of Jews and that he saw them as a significant and a major threat to his ambition and world view.
*2: "The Villa, The Lake, The Meeting: Wannsee and the Final Solution". Mark Roseman. (2002). The author suggest the Wannsee Protocol was, in effect, merely a typewritten digest of Mein Kampf.