In this post I have followed some of the trails and links criticising the work of David Irving as suggested by Godot in his posts. I have to agree with Godot on David Irving not being accurate.
The Holocaust and the history of WW2 are still relevant, because some of what happens today is like flavours of WW2 transposed in time. Today as then one meets the concept of creating the good guys, creating the bad guys, misrepresenting what takes place to the eyes and ears of the public, forgetting about International conventions when need is, etc. It is happening now. In front of our eyes and ears and the governments several of us live in support these abuses directly or diplomatically, just like they did before or during ww2.
Excuse me, we are not supposed to do that. At least some think like that, just read Deborah Lipstadt on http://lipstadt.blogspot.com/ she is the one with whom David Irving had a court-case, [a three month long affair in early 2000]. In her blog she writes:
Katrina vanden Heuvel in Washington Post:"Stop Using Hitler analogies" A group of scholars of the Holocaust -- myself included -- have sent a letter : http://www.americangathering.com/?p=1032
I have inserted it here:
SCHOLARS TO PUNDITS: STOP USING HITLER ANALOGIES HOLOCAUST SCHOLARS URGE PUNDITS TO STOP USING HITLER ANALOGIES
Prominent Holocaust scholars have appealed to politicans and writers to stop comparing their opponents to the Nazis.
The scholars' action came in response to a recent op-ed in the Washington Post by Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the liberal political newsweekly The Nation, who offered what she called "A modest proposal for improving national political discussion": a "cease-fire" on Nazi analogies.
Vanden Heuvel cited numerous recent examples of such "demonizing rhetoric," including a Democratic Senator comparing Guantanamo Bay interrogators to the Nazis and a Republican Congressman comparing the Guantanamo detainees to the Nazis; entertainer Harry Belafonte calling the Homeland Security Department "the new Gestapo"; NAACP chairman Julian Bond saying Republicans want "the American flag and the swastika flying side by side"; and conservative activist Grover Norquist equating some tax laws with "the morality of the Holocaust."
Continuation of Lipstadt:
to the Washington Post supporting an
op-ed by Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the liberal political newsweekly The Nation, who offered what she called "A modest proposal for improving national political discussion": a "cease-fire" on Nazi analogies."
I understand that Katrina vanden Heuvel published her letter on the 26 of January and that the Holocaust scholars and The Washington Post publish their views on the 29th. First The editor of Washington Post CHRIS CASTLE McLean responds to Katrina vaden Heuvel and the scholars:
... "Many reasonable people are concerned, even frightened, by government infringement on civil liberties in the name of security: reprisals against political opponents (the outing of Valerie Plame); spying on U.S. citizens without warrants; condoning torture; intimidating the press and government employees against whistle-blowing; and sifting through the Library of Congress to reclassify declassified documents. Similarities between these actions and the tactics of "domestic security" police such as the Gestapo and the KGB used to squelch public debate and political opposition are worrisome."... ... "I am not ready for a ban on the "H-word," but I am ready to ask public officials to refrain from being careless and vindictive."
Next the the entry from the Holocaust scholars:
"As historians of the Holocaust, we applaud the appeal by Katrina Vanden Heuvel for an end to the use of Hitler analogies by public figures and pundits. Such analogies trivialize the Holocaust and undermine efforts to educate the public about the real nature of Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany and the murder of 6 million European Jews.
Comparing one's opponents to the Nazis has become all too prevalent in contemporary discourse, whether by politicians or writers trying to score rhetorical points or by political partisans or government officials trying to delegitimize Israel. We agree with Ms. Vanden Heuvel that the time has come to "declare a ceasefire on such demonizing rhetoric." - RAFAEL MEDOFF, Director"
Godot said:
"Irving as one of it's main proponents in the present day is simply not to be trusted as anything but a far right spinmeister IMO. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving gives an otline of his life and works.
It is also salutary to read History On Trial by Deborah Lipstadt, review here http://dir.salon.com/story/books/review ... index.html "
Before we carry on, one needs to know that in the court case between Prof Deborah Lipstadt and David Irving a key witness was Professor Richard J Evans who testified for Prof Deborah by creating a thorough analysis of David Irving's work. Of which you can see the content on http://www.holocaustdenialontrial.org/evidence/evanscontent.asp and his conclusion on http://www.holocaustdenialontrial.org/evidence/evans006.asp
I followed the link above from Godot and came to: http://dir.salon.com/story/books/review/2005/02/07/lipstadt/index.html?pn=3 which has
Charles Taylor writes:
"Eminent historians defended Holocaust denier David Irving in the name of free speech and scholarship. Deborah Lipstadt's account of her libel trial with Irving proves how colossally wrong they were." Taylor concludes: "And that risks obscuring one of the most important lessons to be gleaned from Irving's unsuccessful libel case against Lipstadt, namely that intellectual accountability entails moral accountability. The work of Keegan and Watt, and of other historians who have more tentatively applauded Irving's "scholarship," should not be dismissed because of that praise. But now that Irving's mendacity has been revealed, and his research proven thoroughly and irrevocably worthless, those who have praised him have a choice to make. If they choose to stand by their view of Irving, they must, in this at least, be judged as having abandoned the very concept of historical fact, which Richard Evans defined as "something that happened in history and can be verified as such through the traces history has left behind." It is not a simplification but the essence of this case to ask how you can trust any historian who defends a Holocaust denier."
But on David Irving's site I also found:
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Letters/trial/Evans_lied160104.html : "THIS was from Professor Richard Evans in an interview with Philip Adams in Australia, August 2002:
"Well, yes, he knows an enormous amount about Hitler and his entourage and his immediate circle in the second world war and their conduct of military affairs, and over the years he's dug up through contacts and through sheer energy and diligence enormous amounts of new documentation of varying interest and importance, but some of it is undeniably important."
For more on Richard John Evans: http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,5500,1102384,00.html :
"So is there anything left for us still to discover? "Oh yes," he enthuses. "We still know very little about the concentration camps - especially the satellite camps, the German economy and the criminal justice system. I've plenty of ideas if anyone is stuck for a PhD topic."
Professor Richard J Evans later published a book: "Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial (Paperback) For all publications see his website: http://roundyourway.com/r/richardjevans/productservice.php?productserviceid=563 The above book has by the date of posting 40 reviews on Amazon.com. I went through them all and some were very interesting.
Next Godot mentioned http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Irving which has:
"Ruling: Irving unsuccessfully represented himself and his work during the trial. The Court found that Lipstadt did not libel Irving when she called him a Holocaust denier in her book. Gray, who sat without a jury, praised Irving's "thorough and painstaking research into the archives" and commended his discovery and disclosure of many historical documents. He also noted Irving's intelligence and thorough knowledge of World War II history. However, as stated at paragraph 13.167 of his judgment, he found the following claims against Irving to be 'substantially true': Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-Semitic and racist, and that he associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism.
Irving lost subsequent attempts at appeal."
On the above issue see also: http://www.fpp.co.uk/trial/judgment/index.html which has: http://www.fpp.co.uk/Legal/Penguin/Appeal/judgment.html
"We are not persuaded that the expression can be given any precise technical meaning or that 'Holocaust denier' defines a class of persons precisely. Having regard to the views expressed by [David Irving] about a range of events in the history of the Third Reich, we agree with the Judge that the applicant may be described as a Holocaust denier." -- Lord Justices Pill, Mantell, and Buxton in July 2001, explaining their reason for refusing the Irving Appeal."
For the whole judgment go to: http://www.fpp.co.uk/Legal/Penguin/Appeal/judgment.html
I kept looking for more information about the trial and there is a lot. All books listed below have reviews on Amazon.com: "History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving" by Deborah E. Lipstadt Amazon review average is currently 3,5 stars. One reviewer says:
"There are some interesting allusions to the differences between selective interpretation (Irving) and convergence of evidence (everyone else) in the art of history, but this is mostly lost under Lisptadt's frequent self-aggrandizement about the righteousness of her struggle."
"Beyond Belief : The American Press And The Coming Of The Holocaust, 1933- 1945" (Paperback) by Deborah E. Lipstadt. T: Actually a good illustration that the American Medias have not changed too much.
"Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory" (Paperback) by Deborah E. Lipstadt
"The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial" (Hardcover) by Robert Jan Van Pelt
"The Holocaust on trial: History, justice and the David Irving libel case" by D. D Guttenplan
Having read many of the reviews and opinions I come to the conclusion about David Irving that the way he deals with his material is like a person who has a mask of sanity.
Godot mentions http://www.niskor.org as his source on Holocaust, then I began to look to other sites related to the issues David Irving has interest in:
Report of the Red Cross on the situation in Germany during ww2 including Jews: http://christianparty.net/holocaustredcross.htm
How many Jews there were in Europe at the time of the ww2: http://christianparty.net/jewsevacuated.htm
The number varies as to how many died in the Holocaust: http://christianparty.net/holocaust.htm
Ebook on Holocaust research by Jurgen Graf with the title: "With Feet of Clay, Raul Hilber and his Standard Work on the "holocaust"" http://vho.org/dl/ENG/Giant.pdf :
Two different opinions about a website: http://www.jewwatch.com/ which has something on the Holocaust are http://www.nationalvanguard.org/story.php?id=2712 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew_Watch
Another site similar to jewwatch is http://litek.ws/k0nsl/detox/?do=home
While looking at the holocaust-history controversy I found on the forum of http://www.codoh.com a link to http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/dth/fndvalue.html#ftnref26 which has:
"3.3. Methods of Obtaining Testimony
3.3.1. Allied Post-War Trials
In order to assess the value of eyewitness testimony and confessions relating to the Holocaust, one must first examine the conditions prevailing in the Allied post-war trials in Nuremberg and elsewhere. For it is the verdicts handed down in these trials which recorded, in sketchy outlines, the accounts of the Holocaust given by eyewitness testimony and putative confessions. These Allied trials may be roughly divided into two types, namely those carried out by the respective occupying powers as these saw fit, and those carried out with at least initial co-operation between the victorious powers within the framework of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in Nuremberg.[25]
3.3.1.1. American Trials
Immediately after the end of the war the Americans placed all Germans who held leading positions in the Party, the state or the economy under "automatic arrest" without trial.[26] In this way hundreds of thousands ended up in prison camps consisting in the main only of fenced-in meadows. Shortly after the end of the war all German prisoners were stripped of their status as prisoners-of-war.[27] The Allies considered civilian internees to have no rights whatsoever; particularly in the American and French spheres of influence, these prisoners lived mostly in burrows in the ground, received insufficient food, were denied all medical assistance, and neither the International Red Cross nor other organizations nor even private individuals were allowed to help. In this way the prisoners in the American run camps died like flies by the hundreds of thousands.[28] Military Government Ordinance No. 1 required every German, on pain of lifetime imprisonment, to give the Allies any and all information they required.[29] Thus German witnesses could be forced to give evidence by imprisoning them for years, subjecting them to hours of interrogation, or threatening to hand them over to the Russians.[30] A separate department, "Special Project", was responsible for obtaining incriminating evidence against reluctant witnesses. The material obtained in this way was used to bend the witnesses to the Allies' will, since this information was used to threaten them with prosecution if they refused to give incriminating evidence against others.[31]"
For more on that "Reinhard" from the forum at http://www.codoh.com suggested to his forum buddy from where I got the above to read James Bacque, "Other Losses: The Shocking Truth Behind the Mass Deaths of Disarmed German Soldiers and Civilians under General Eisenhower's Command", Stoddart, Toronto 1989 (ISBN 0773722696)
On Amazon I looked for reviews and found the average to be four stars. Here are two from people who pretend to know the subject:
"5 STARS. Valuable addition to WWII history, July 4, 2001, Reviewer: Ernst Rodin M.D. (Sandy, UT United States)
Mr. Bacque is to be congratulated for publishing this book which describes the fate German soldiers who had surrendered to General Eisenhower's forces at the end of WWII. They had expected to be treated according to the Geneva Convention governing the conduct of armies in regard to captured enemy personnel. This was not to be the case. As Mr. Bacque points out an entire new category of "Disarmed Enemy Forces", DEF, was created. Its only purpose was to avoid having to feed and house these millions of ex-soldiers and thereby bypass the Geneva Convention to which America was a signatory. One may argue about the precise numbers of ex-soldiers who died in these "temporary enclosures" but the fact that inhuman treatment did exist cannot be denied. Neither can the fact that a considerable percentage of them was subsequently given to the French for what is called today "slave labor," albeit this term refers nowadays only to non-German nationals. Readers who may feel negatively about Bacque's revelations should be aware that this treatment of former members of the German army was not just happenstance but the execution of the Morgenthau plan to render Germany harmless forever. The plan was not directed against the German leadership or Nazis, but the German people at large. Mr. Baque makes frequent reference to this unfortunate document but readers, who cannot conceive that U.S. personnel may also carry out atrocities should look at the Document section of Warren F. Kimball's "Swords or Ploughshares? The Morgenthau plan forDefeated Nazi Germany."The book clearly shows that Roosevelt had endorsed a policy of "being hard on Germany" and Eisenhower was in full accord. That you cannot be "hard" on a country but only on its people and that this policy is bound to involve cruelties was not a consideration. The conditions changed only after Eisenhower's return to the U.S. and the appointment of Lucius D. Clay as High Commissioner. He clearly saw that the existing situation, even for the civilian population, made neither military nor political sense. It would merely turn the population to communism because even the Russians fed the people in their zone better than the Americans did. It is also to President Truman's credit that he quietly dropped the Morgenthau plan soon after the Potsdam meeting. As a former member of the Wehrmacht I had become aware of the Morgenthau plan in the winter of 1944-1945 but had regarded it as Nazi propaganda. I had always had high admiration for the principles America stood for and the Morgenthau plan seemed to be in total contradiction to those ideals. As mentioned in my book War and Mayhem I had intended to surrender to the U.S. forces towards the end of the war, but changed my mind on VE day and through the grace of God managed to avoid American as well as Soviet captivity. Having read Mr. Bacque's book I am even more grateful for the good fortune which kept me out of DEF status and instead allowed me to go to medical school within about six weeks after Germany's capitulation. I had no idea about the conditions German ex-soldiers were exposed to in those days, just as I had no idea about what really went on in the Nazi concentration camps until after the war. There are things people just didn't talk about. To "let it all hang out" became popular only in the late sixties and thereafter. But for the sake of historical accuracy both sides need to be heard and Mr. Bacque has done us this service for which he deserves our gratitude.
5 STARS. The truth about Other Losses, January 9, 2006 Reviewer Spk Rhein-nahe (Frankfurt, Germany) - The Book "Other Losses" tells the same story my father told. He was an ambulance driver in the war. After WW2 was over and his unit found out, the entire unit surrendered to the Americans who in turn sold(!) him and all others of his unit to the Russians for slave-labor in siberian coal mines. He managed to escape in 1951, but almost all others of his unit died of hunger and lack of food and medical help. He never recovered physically or mentally. My Father-in-Law survived an American POW-Camp, being just a pen in the open field with barbed wire and guards around it. No buildings, no food no nothing! He also told of the prisoners were just left to die. A very good book."
Returning to the generally accepted version of the WW2:
"The Holocaust Websites - Crimes, Heroes And Villains" a few sites that look related.
www.oskarschindler.com
[ http://pub50.bravenet.com/guestbook/show.php?usernum=4244340804&cpv=2 is
about osckar schindle also, there is a short summary of his deeds followed by 3100 reader comments.]
www.emilieschindler.com
www.deathcamps.info As a curiosity on http://www.deathcamps.info/Nazis/Default.htm a little down there is a link to something called Hitler's Artworks. It opens up and plays like a Powerpoint presentation.
www.auschwitz.dk
www.oskarschindler.info/
www.shoah.dk
www.annefrank.dk
www.fatherkolbe.com
www.canaris.dk/
www.mengele.dk/ and http://www.mengele.dk/Courage/index.htm has:
The Holocaust is a history of enduring horror and sorrow. It seems as though there is no spark of human concern, no act of humanity, to lighten that dark history. Yet there were acts of courage and kindness during the Holocaust - this site focus attention on five men, who risked their lives to help Jews escape the Nazi genocide: Wilm Hosenfeld, Oskar Schindler, Raoul Wallenberg, Kurt Gerstein and Albert Goering. Today their names are known to millions as household words for courage.
Their stories are interesting.
And last but not least on a site I mentioned in the beginning: http://www.americangathering.com/?p=1032 there are a hundred(s) of links to sites that study or present the Holocaust history. Godot's http://www.nizkor.org is also there.
Richard J Evans in http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,5500,1102384,00.html says
"Research has gone in three phases: in the 50s and 60s West German historians tried to understand how fascism arose from the Weimar democracy, then in the 70s and 80s historians worked on the structures of the Reich between 1933-39, and since the 90s the main focus has been the war and the Holocaust."
Now that we have a few Holocaust deniers "safely behind bars" what is next?
Some final remarks:
As for how much of the Holocaust is history and how much is hi-story I can only say what I learned in School is 6 million. It is one of the most significant numbers from WW2, a Sign of the Times. Six relates to Star of David, and in the New Testament they triple it, so it is easy to remember.
Another way of using the Holocaust history is as suggested in the beginning to forbid people making parallels between what happens now and what happened then. So we should not make correlation between Israel's way of treating Palestinians, or the American way of treating Iraqis or prisoners and the Nazi way of treating Jews. In this way one can create a historical dissociation in our culture retarding our attempts to learning something from history and thus invite a greater number of us to repeat past failures with a higher degree of probability.
A third manner of perceiving the Holocaust is as a means to divert people into researching something which is of less importance than some other subjects like the overall situation the planet is placed in now. While making this post I thought at times it is waste of time to go into the details. Now I do not really regret the effort, if I did not reach a conclusion I did at least visit the subject.
A fourth way is to consider that some of what is written about the holocaust is not really that accurate. I for one did find the words of
Richard J Evans: "We still know very little about the concentration camps - especially the satellite camps" rather interesting. What if some of what is told to be the truth is not so, like the six million figure or the 12 as nizkor.org has. Then people are believing in a partial truth/lie with all that this entails.
A fifth use of the Holocaust is to associate a collective global failure with a limited group, in this case the Jews and the Nazis thus making sure the majority will not relate it to themselves, and consider it a part of their history and responsibility.
Possibly the real holocaust is to leave our soul behind, to let it down. to give in to gravity, apathy and entropy. For more on the soul consider the small SOTT books soon to come out as one volume.
Thorbiorn
