← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Valley Forge
Thread ID: 11740 | Posts: 7 | Started: 2004-01-04
2004-01-04 21:44 | User Profile
WHY I ADMIRE DAVID IRVING By Nick Herbert
Recently a colleague wrote me asking why I had expressed an interest in historian David Irving who everyone knows was convicted in a British court of being an antisemite, holocaust denier and blatant apologist for Adolph Hitler. This is my reply.
Thank you for asking if I find anything of value in David Irving. I am pleased to share my impressions of Irving plus my sources of information. I ask that if you disagree with me you do so also on the basis of your own experience.
I am not a professional historian and my knowledge of what went on in WW II is not extensive but for most of my life I have been trained in the methods of rational thinking and can follow an argument like a rat terrier. I recognize a good argument when I see one and have familiarized myself with most of the rhetorical counterfeits of reasoning. I consider myself an expert truth-seeker.
As a scientist, seeking truth is part of my profession but I also consider truthseeking a sport--I love to witness and participate in good debates. My favorite pieces of literature are the speeches of Brutus and of Marc Antony in Shakepeare's "Julius Caesar"--in high school I memorized large sections of these speeches which I regard as some of the most beautiful examples of persuasive speech in the English language.
You can imagine my delight when I read of David Irving's upcoming trial in the SF Chronicle and in a long magazine article (Guttenplan in the Atlantic Monthly). The prospect of an active debate by expert historians about some of the most important historical events in the Twentieth Century hit me like a jolt of acid.
I spread the news to all my friends about what I called "the thinking man's O.J. Simpson Trial." Certainly the subject matter of this debate is up there with the Lincoln-Douglass debates about slavery or the William Jennings Bryan/Clarence Darrow debate about evolution. And as a sport for truthseekers I envisioned the Irving trial as the modern equivalent of some great boxing match like the Joe Louis fights my father & I listened to on the radio in the 40s. I was not disappointed.
Jesus! I imagined that every newspaper in the civilized world would print front page accounts from ring side of the Colossal Debate of the Century! Was I ever disappointed to find that American newspapers maintained a virtual blackout on the details of the debate--all that I managed to find in the American press was the verdict!
David Irving is a British historian, author of more than 30 best-selling books including "Hitler's War" and a recent biography of Churchill. He is the son of a British Navy Commander and military historian and financed his college education by working as a laborer in the steel mills of the Ruhr Valley where he acquired a first hand knowledge of the German language and its people. Irving is no stranger to controversy but was unprepared for the disproportionate attack on his reputation he suffered after publishing the Leuchter report (see below) which presented physical evidence that seemed to cast doubt on the official holocaust story. Rather than responding to Leuchter's evidence with reasoned examination and debate, Irving was assaulted instead by an avalanche of defamation, demonization and dirty tricks which continues to this day.
This relentless campaign to discredit Irving rather than debate him included the publication of a book "Denying the Holocaust" by Deborah Lipstadt, a scholar at Emory University in Georgia in which Lipstadt accused Irving of, among other things, distorting history to exonerate Hitler, denying the holocaust and consorting with the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
An edition of Lipstadt's book was published in England whose libel laws require the accused to demonstrate that what they say is actually true.
Exonerating Hitler, consorting with terrorists and denying the holocaust--could Lipstadt's lawyers actually prove that David Irving was guilty of all these charges?
Television is banned in British courts so news about a British trial would normally be filtered thru the eyes of print journalists--but not this time. Thank Allah for the Internet! After each day's trial, the court presents a transcript of the day's proceedings to each of the parties allowing them to review their arguments and to prepare their next day's rebuttals. The court supplies these transcripts in the form of floppy disks and David Irving took the unprecedented step of publishing each day's raw transcripts on his web site.
As an avid fan of free and open debate I was delighted with this open-handed move on David Irving's part and was disappointed when Deborah Lipstadt's legal team tried every trick in the book to prevent the transcripts from reaching the public eye. For a few terrible days during the trial Lipstadt's lawyers managed to stop Irving's postings--and on those days I almost wept, deprived of my daily hit of high-class, industrial-strength intellectual combat.
But then--Hooray!--Irving's legal arguments prevailed--and the transcripts were released. Now I fortified myself with pots of black coffee and glut-read myself silly on three straight days of Irving-Lipstadt debate, scrolling down my computer screen long into the night, getting up only to pee.
In the daytime I would meet at the gym or in the Blue Sun Cafe with my friends who were also reading the transcripts and we would discuss every detail of the ups and downs of the Great Debate. Some of my friends who have spent their lives studying history added their expertise to the mix and I shut up (for a change) and listened, hoping to fill the many gaps in my education concerning the details of the Second World War.
During the Irving trial I talked about nothing else. I must have appeared to outsiders like a convert to Hari Krishna. But for intellectual sports fans like myself and my friends, those days were pure bliss. Shouting and arguing with my pals over each attack Irving would make, and the merits of each punch and counterpunch was for me like living on Mount Olympus--I felt truly in the presence of Gods.
NEXT PAGE [url]http://members.cruzio.com/~quanta/irving2.htm[/url]
One of the most unusual features of the trial was that David Irving chose to defend himself--no lawyers--against one of the most powerful and expensive legal teams the other side could put together. Princess Diana's own law firm assembled the Lipstadt team--it was truly a David and Goliath scenario--one brave little man striding naked into the ring against the biggest legal guns and armor that the deep-pocket defense team could fit into one courtroom.
Another David-Goliath detail was that both sides called upon expert witnesses who are required by law to be scrupulously neutral--in a British court an expert witness takes oath to provide expertise from their specialty without prejudice to either side. The experts that Irving called to the stand--some of them hostile to his cause!--were unpaid. The experts employed by Lipstadt & Company were paid--big bucks!. For instance, in addition to his academic salary, Professor Richard Evans, the primary expert witness called to the stand by Lipstadt & Company, pocketed more than $140,000 -- which financial windfall must surely have laid a heavy burden on Evans's moral struggle to provide under oath an expert testimony unprejudiced to either side. Lipstadt's primary expert on the holocaust, Professor Robert Jan Van Pelt, received more than $200,000 for his testimony.
The many millions of dollars amassed by Lipstadt's legal defense team to fight the lawyerless Irving were supplied by film-maker Steven Spielberg and financier Edgar Bronfman. Many of Spielberg's popular movies celebrate the triumph of the underdog but in real life Spielberg threw his weight on the side of the mighty Empire against the skillful lone rebel.
Another detail: Throughout the trial, which lasted two months, Deborah Lipstadt sat in silence--letting her large and impressive legal team do the talking for her. David Irving reports that Lipstadt refused to even meet his eye whenever he glanced in her direction.
As an intellectual sports fan it seemed to me that Irving's advantage was his immense knowledge of history, his lightning quick wit, and his formidable power to clarify complex issues. The main tactics of the Lipstadt crew seemed to be obfuscation, misdirection and the rhetorical fallacy of "asserting the consequent"--for instance "proving" that Irving was an antisemite by merely saying so repeatedly. "Bait and switch" and "straw man" fallacies were also shamelessly deployed by Lipstadt's lawyers with predictable regularity.
Because of the blizzard of irrelevant facts and opinions generated by Lipstadt & Company, one is apt to experience painful snowblindness after reading a few pages of transcripts. My advice to anyone entering the Irving-Lipstadt snowstorm is to read Irving's final statement first (DAY 32: PAGE 49--PAGE 221 "May it please the court") from beginning to end, compare Irving's summary with Richard Rampton's which precedes it, and then dive into the trial itself.
For those considering truth-seeking as a possible career, I recommend reading Irving's account of his unpleasant experiences at the hands of certain truth-haters (DAY 32: PAGE 110--PAGE 144). These people who will not stoop to debate Irving in public will yet stoop in private to planting false evidence against Irving in immigration computers, resulting in his enforced deportation from Canada. And that's not the least of the dirty tricks "these people" have worked on Irving for daring to speak his own version of the truth.
Don't get me wrong. By "these people" I mean ANYONE who suppresses another's speech in foul and underhanded ways, no matter what their race, creed, color or country of origin. In denouncing those lower life forms who are the enemies of free speech, Nick Herbert is an equal-opportunity castigator.
One of the biggest surprises for Nick in this trial was his discovery of media bias. Although the American papers did not cover the trial--assuming no doubt correctly that the spiritual heirs of George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were more interested in game shows and fictitious violence than a dull historical debate on the issues for which more than a million American fathers and brothers shed their blood--the Irving-Lipstadt trial was dutifully covered in England and in the foreign press. Moreover David Irving took the trouble to publish in full on his web site every press account he could get his hands on. ("Where does this man get his energy? He works like a bull. And still has time to flirt with the ladies." The members of our Olympian Club were constantly astonished at David Irving's great stamina both in and outside of the courtroom.)
So in addition to the daily transcripts--which were mirrored on other websites with running commentary by webmasters like Rae West (see below) who attended the trial in person--one had the opportunity to witness how the world's major print media (America excepted) presented this important trial to their readers.
When I saw the picture of the trial presented by the press and compared it to my picture of the trial gathered from reading the transcripts and long conversations with members of the Olympian club, I was flabbergasted. It became obvious to me that the world press was reporting on a different trial going on in some alternative universe, not the trial I was watching (via the Internet) going on in London. The world press was obviously biased against Irving and was setting him up for a big fall.
One example of how this bias appeared to me. "Neutral expert" Evans would lay out his charges purporting to show how shoddy a historian David Irving could be. Under cross-examination by David Irving, the foundations of Evans's accusations would crumble away, and it would slowly become obvious that the historical methods of Evans and his cronies were at least as shoddy as those supposedly practiced by Irving. Even Judge Gray, the man who was to later to render the verdict, was moved to admire David Irving's skill at cross examination.
Judge Gray also admitted how surprised he was at the failure of historians to produce a single unambiguous document clearly linking Hitler to a Jewish extermination program out of millions of German documents including secretly decoded intercepts between principles in the concentration camps.
After a day of such accusations and cross-examinations, one of the papers would report that Richard Evans had accused David Irving of such and such malfeasance--but neglect to report Irving's masterful rebuttal. So reading only the newspapers one got the impression that David Irving was being exposed as a lousy historian where from my point of view (as a spectator in the stands) it was clear that David Irving was not only defending his reputation but hitting back hard.
Irving estimated that on days when he was being questioned, eight times as many news reports appeared compared to reports on the days when Irving himself was doing the questioning. So what seemed like a fair fight on the Internet, appeared to newspaper readers like a one-sided gang bang.
NEXT PAGE [url]http://members.cruzio.com/~quanta/irving3.htm[/url]
In her book, Lipstadt had accused Irving of distorting history to exonerate Hitler. Here is how Irving describes his attitude towards Hitler's guilt:
I have always accepted that Adolf Hitler, as Head of State and government in Germany, was responsible for the Holocaust. I said, in the Introduction to my flagship biography, "Hitler's War": " If this biography were simply a history of the rise and fall of Hitler's Reich, it would be legitimate to conclude: "Hitler killed the Jews". But my years of investigations suggested that many others were responsible, that the chain of responsibility was not as clear cut as that." Nothing that I have heard in this Court since January 11th has persuaded me that I was wrong on this account. <<
This hardly sounds like Irving is exonerating Hitler. But Judge Gray ruled otherwise.
So despite David's winning (in my opinion) most of his battles, it was Goliath that won the war.
In his final judgement Judge Gray ruled that David Irving 1) had distorted history to exonerate Hitler, 2) was a "holocaust denier" and 3) an antisemite. Lipstadt had falsely accused Irving of consorting with Hamas and Hezbollah but this libel was ruled to be minor compared to the other charges the judge had sustained. (The Irving trial was pre-911, so the charge of "consorting with terrorists" was also less libelous then than it would appear today.)
Even in defeat, Irving achieved a victory of sorts, for now every word of Irving's battle is recorded for posterity at various locations on the Internet, opening the debate to professional historians who can form their own judgements based not on newspaper accounts but on the actual events themselves. Teachers, students and mere intellectual sports fans have now available a rich source of unfiltered first-hand information from which they can draw their own conclusions. For students seeking to understand how free speech can be silenced in modern times there is material here for a thousand PhD theses.
For me and for most of the members of the "Olympian Club", the Irving trial was nothing less than a Salem witch hunt, with one difference. The Salem trials produced no transcripts.
Here, like a spectator interviewed in the aftermath of a championship boxing match, is one Olympian's opinion of Judge Gray's decision against Irving:
"Because of the blatant anti-Irving media coverage, Judge Gray had no choice but to find Irving guilty. Had he done otherwise he would not only have rendered a highly unpopular verdict, but a verdict, that based on media reports would seem to fly totally against what every newspaper reader would have thought the evidence to be. This would have been the end of his legal career, and Judge Gray clearly did not want to be a martyr for the cause of justice, preferring to ruin Irving's career rather than his own."
In other words: "We was robbed!"
Whatever the reason, David Irving lost the war.
Irving was convicted, among other things, of being a "holocaust denier". I think that, in this matter Judge Gray's decision was correct, but not in the sense that the judge intended.
One of the most bizarre aspects of this trial was that when one is convicted of a crime, one has a right to expect that there exists some legal definition of that crime, and that a trial consists of discovering whether or not the actions of the accused fit that legal definition (guilty) or do not fit that legal definition (not guilty). In a post-trial scenario that George Orwell or Franz Kafka could have scripted, the appeals judges summarily rejected Irving's appeal for a new hearing and admitted that although no one had actually defined what it meant to be a "holocaust denier", it was certain that David Irving is one.
And he is.
David Irving is a holocaust denier for maintaining that the standards of historical research on the holocaust do not measure up to the standards of historical research demanded of scholars in less controversial fields. See for instance Irving's cross examination of holocaust historian Robert Jan Van Pelt (DAYS 9-12) in which one has the opportunity to compare the methods and standards of historical research employed by both men.
David Irving is a holocaust denier because of his insistence that research on this tragedy called "holocaust" should be just as exacting, just as open to questioning, just as open to many-sided debate as research into other historic tragedies such as the Sinking of the Titanic--listen carefully to survivor stories, for sure, but supplement their testimony by documents, scientific evidence from all branches of forensic science, add in chemistry, metallurgy, bring in the deep-sea divers. Making clear sense of a human tragedy of this magnitude demands no less than the best research tools our modern science can muster. So sayeth David Irving.
David Irving is a holocaust denier because he challenges the keepers of the official holocaust story to demonstrate that they have left no stone unturned, that they have left no voice unheard in humanity's curiosity to discover what actually happened in that immense human tragedy.
Before the Irving trial I was not aware that every country in Europe has quietly passed laws against so-called "holocaust denial"-- stunningly ambiguous laws under which thousands of men have been fined, imprisoned and financially ruined for holding opinions and presenting facts that run contrary to the official holocaust story. How can holocaust research be taken seriously if historians can be jailed for coming to the wrong conclusions?
Judges who try such cases are no better than the Holy Inquisitors who burned alive Jews and other "heretics" for "thought crimes" against The Faith. Not yet in America do such laws exist but pressure to pass such laws is building under the deceptive rubric of "hate speech".
Hate speech, indeed! And who, may I ask, gets to decide whose speech qualifies as "hate"?
I say the truth does not need the protection of legislation--only falsehoods do--something I might have stolen from Thomas Jefferson who said: "I swear eternal enmity against any tyranny over the mind of men." The freedom to say what you think is the heart of all good science and is the heart of what it used to mean to be a good American.
Listen. Here's what REAL hate speech sounds like:
"Shut up." "Shut up or we'll hurt you."
That's the kind of speech Nick Herbert wants to censor.
On the subject of hate speech, you might ask your local hate-site-filter provider if any of the websites listed below are blocked by their hate-sensing software, and, if so, for what reason?
NEXT PAGE [url]http://members.cruzio.com/~quanta/irving4.htm[/url]
A few years ago the so-called Shroud of Turin was front-page news. An image of a naked man impressed upon a linen cloth had been traced by historians as far back as the 14th century, and was rumored to be the actual burial cloth of the Son of God. Scholarly opinion on ancient crucifixion and burial customs, and the almost magical nature of the image itself convinced many people that in touching this cloth they were touching material that had contacted the body of Jesus Himself. Because of the holiness of this relic, it seemed almost sacrilegious to submit a part of the shroud to radio-carbon dating. So partly for technical reasons and partly from religious inertia, scientific requests for shroud material were refused by its custodians. No science please.
The advent of more sensitive techniques that used smaller samples to make an accurate dating changed things. In 1988, samples of the shroud were sent to three separate labs, and the results came back, substantially the same, that the linen in the cloth dated from 1260-1390 AD, giving credence to the hypothesis that the shroud was a medieval forgery. That's what we think now. But scholars are free to question this conclusion (and some do)--that's the way science works. Questioning authority is not only permitted in science--it is mandatory.
I say that David Irving is a holocaust denier not because of his low standards of historical research but, on the contrary, because he insists on impeccably HIGH STANDARDS of historical research. David Irving is a "holocaust denier" in the same sense as the bishop of Turin who dared to submit the holy shroud to carbon-14 dating was a "Shroud of Turin denier".
I have yet to read one of David Irving's best-selling books. Neither do I know enough history to properly criticize David Irving's version of the facts. But I do know, after watching this man in action, that he embodies the intellectual virtues that make good science possible--curiosity, honesty, fearlessness, and a willingness to challenge any position no matter how entrenched plus the ready granting of that freedom to others.
Like Galileo, like Bruno, like Baruch Spinoza and Thomas Jefferson, I consider David Irving a bold gladiator of the intellect. All who think otherwise, I welcome your best arguments. But don't bore me with uninformed prattle. Not me, not you, not his critics, but Dame History herself, of whom David Irving has been a faithful and passionate lover, will decide how this remarkable man shall be remembered.
David Irving, I salute you.
From what I have read on his web site, from how I have watched him behave at his trial, I have formed the impression that David Irving is a brilliant and courageous champion of truth willing to wager, win or lose, "his life, his fortune and his sacred honor" on his words and work. And to those of you who still recognize where that quote comes from--I urge you not to rely on the opinions of others--including myself and the newspapers--but study the man's own works and judge for yourselves the character of David Irving and the character of those who oppose him.
[url]http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=42116[/url]
2004-01-04 21:54 | User Profile
One of the most bizarre aspects of this trial was that when one is convicted of a crime, one has a right to expect that there exists some legal definition of that crime, and that a trial consists of discovering whether or not the actions of the accused fit that legal definition (guilty) or do not fit that legal definition (not guilty). In a post-trial scenario that George Orwell or Franz Kafka could have scripted, the appeals judges summarily rejected Irving's appeal for a new hearing and admitted that although no one had actually defined what it meant to be a "holocaust denier", it was certain that David Irving is one.
This article is one of the best I've read in a long time. I hope everyone makes time for it.
2004-01-06 01:36 | User Profile
Here's an article written by a man who had recently seen Mr. Irving speak for the first time:
[url]http://www.nationalvanguard.org/story.php?id=1422[/url]
2004-01-06 23:23 | User Profile
All,
NICK HERBERT HOME PAGE [url]http://members.cruzio.com/~quanta/[/url]
2004-01-06 23:45 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Before the Irving trial I was not aware that every country in Europe has quietly passed laws against so-called "holocaust denial"-- stunningly ambiguous laws under which thousands of men have been fined, imprisoned and financially ruined for holding opinions and presenting facts that run contrary to the official holocaust story. How can holocaust research be taken seriously if historians can be jailed for coming to the wrong conclusions?[/QUOTE]
That's not true. Denmark comes to mind. It's a good article, but it's a shame that Herbert didn't get it peer reviewed.
I will gladly review anything that the man has to write in the future, if anyone wants to contact him. He wont be taken seriously though if he doesn't get advice, because as he admits, he doesn't know anything about the subject.
2004-01-08 11:20 | User Profile
[QUOTE]This article is one of the best I've read in a long time. I hope everyone makes time for it.[/QUOTE]
I doubt it.
[QUOTE]The American papers did not cover the trial--assuming no doubt correctly that the spiritual heirs of George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were more interested in game shows and fictitious violence than a dull historical debate on the issues for which more than a million American fathers and brothers shed their blood....[/QUOTE]
This yahooism taken by so many foreigners to be an American tradition is in truth a result of mass-media conditioning. When Americans appear shockingly misinformed on topics known to European or Asian [I]schoolchildren [/I] - and moreover, when they appear defiant in this ignorance and suspicious of anyone more learned thanthey - they are responding [I]exactly [/I] the way media, academia and industry have [I]trained[/I] them to respond, right down to jamming their fingers in their ears when the unpleasant truth can no longer be shouted down. And I have bad news for Herbert, though I'm sure he's caught on by now after following the trial in the European press- Europe is quickly following our lead.
On the other hand, it was like a floodlight snapped on when I read that the operating capital for [I]Operation Get the Goy [/I] came from Saint Steven Spielberg. NOW St Stevie's simultaneous underwriting of the WW2 Memorial makes perfect sense. After all, who ever heard of a Jew going into his pocket out of [I]gratitude [/I] to heroic gentiles? But the whole point of that Greatest Generation scam was obviously to get glassy-eyed, Ritalin-becalmed schoolchildren asking "But WHY were they the Greatest Generation?" Why, because they saved the blameless Jews from the Worstest Evil Ever Perpetrated In History[TM]. In fact since St Stevie began pimping that memorial, WW2-aka-the-Holocaust has become the default event by which America has defined itself for the past ten years or so, stopping "Hitlers" - domestic and imported - in their tracks wherever media Jews and their multinational tools thoughtfully point them out for us. Nobody bothers citing the need to avoid another Vietnam any longer, or worries over the blowback effect of fighting war after war for the benefit of others....the moron mantra is [I]here's our chance to go back in time and kill Hitler [U]before [/U] he invades Poland![/I] (If I close my eyes, I can picture the set of the O'REILLY REPORT: the emaciated last living survivor of Dresden, hooked up to IVs, cowering in terror; Bill taking off his shoe to bang on the table as he barks "Well, wasn't it worth it to stop Hitler? Wasn't it? You are a disgrace to the memory of the fine bombing crews who bravely incinerated your city and you should be thanking them for saving you from Naziism!")
2004-01-11 04:43 | User Profile
Great post, but scientists seek facts not truth.
Truth is for philosophers.