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David Irving's Hitler: A Faulty History Dissected
Among the dangers facing the Jewish people today is the concerted effort of so-called historical revisionists to deny the reality of the Holocaust. Among the most dangerous of the "revisionists" is David Irving who, with the trappings of the respectable historian--research and sources--has become the darling of neo-Nazi activists. Eberhard Jckel, Professor of History at the University of Stuttgart, has answered Irving's falsehoods. This book has been build around a translation of Dr. Jackel's work.
58 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
13 people want to read
About the author
Eberhard Jäckel
17 books3 followersEberhard Jäckel was a Social Democratic German historian, noted for his studies of Adolf Hitler's role in German history.
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February 25, 2024
TWO CRITICAL ESSAYS DISPARAGING IRVING’S CLAIMS TO BE A ‘HISTORIAN’
The Foreword by Robert Fulford to this 1993 book states, “When David Irving’s first [works] began to appear, it seemed no more than a journalist’s attempt to re-work a few major themes of the Second World War and its background. Today we understand his project as something larger and more sinister: a kind of retrospective moral upgrading of the Third Reich and its leader… We also know that his writings have been flowing in … Holocaust denial… all intended to move a few more readers toward the acceptance of … the relative innocence of the Nazis, or at least, the moral equivalence of the Nazis and their enemies in the Second World War… Jäckel demonstrates, with a scholar’s precision, the ingenious ways in which Irving manipulates evidence, collecting whatever fits his preconceptions, misinterpreting as he chooses, and ignoring whatever fails to support his views.” (Pg. 1)
He continues, “Holocaust denial… profits from a widely held view that if an idea is repeated often enough, and … vehemently enough, then it is probably entitled to ‘a fair hearing.’ Of course, anything like a fair hearing (such as the publication of unedited defense ‘evidence’ … in the first of Ernst Zundel’s trials in 1985) amounts to a wonderful gift to the deniers, who are allowed to spread their poisonous ideas further. Even if eight out of ten readers decide that they are … scoundrels, the deniers still gain. Simply allowing them into … public discussion … gives their ideas a certain validity.” (Pg. 4)
In the first essay (‘Refutation of the absurd thesis that ‘Hitler is innocent in the murder of Europe’s Jews’), German historian Eberhard Jäckel notes, “Himmler … phoned Heydrich… then entered this note: ‘Jewish transport from Berlin, not to be liquidated.’ Note Irving’s interpretation: ‘… Himmler had to pass on to Heydrich the explicit order that Jews were not to be liquidated.’ It takes… only a minimum of good sense and logic to see… [that] Irving concocts a universal order that Jews are henceforth not to be ‘liquidated.’ Actually, exactly the opposite is true. If Hitler had not ordered the general destruction of the Jews, it would have made no sense for him to have forbidden it in a single case. That he did forbid it in this case would seem to be proof of the fact that a general order had been given and that in this case an exception was to be made.” (Pg. 21)
He continues, “It is… a sign of ignorance or bias or most likely of both when, in such matters, the words of subordinates and servants are given credit. Besides, five of Irving’s informants have since declared that they had merely mentioned that Hitler had not in their presence referred to the death camps, but that they did not believe that Hitler was unaware of the Jews’ fate.” (Pg. 22)
He notes, “the war lost but the murder of the Jews accomplished, Hitler became even more explicit… the following utterance from February 13, 1945 is unadulterated …: ‘Against the Jews I fought open-eyed… I did not leave them in ignorance that, should they again manage to drag the world into war, they would not this time be spared… this parasitic vermin in Europe, will be finally exterminated.’ And again Hitler on April 2, 1945, fully aware of defeat: ‘… the National Socialist movement will have earned the world’s undying gratitude, seeing that I had the Jews of Central Europe exterminated.’” (Pg. 33)
In the second essay (‘Once More---Irving, Hitler and the Murder of the Jews’), he quotes a document from the Nuremberg Tribunal, “Reichsminister Lammers informed me that the Führer had repeatedly declared … he wished to see the solution of the Jewish question put on the back burner until the end of the war.” Jäckel asks, “how is it that after and in spite of such an order millions of Jews were in fact murdered? Was Hitler really a powerless phantom whose orders were not obeyed? And there is also the question why Hitler, according to Irving ignorant of it all, would have ordered the matter to be put on the back burner.”” (Pg. 35)
He continues, “Lammer’s report of Hitler’s declaration… did not refer to the bloody Final Solution of the Jewish Question, i.e., the murder of the Jews. Murder was not [at] all within the jurisdiction of [Lammers as] the Minister of Justice… [It] implied the multi-faceted procedures to deprive the German Jews of their civil rights. It was about such issues… that the Führer wished to have the matter put on the back burner until the end of the war… there were for him more urgent matters than the procedures for facilitating divorces in the case of mixed marriages, aside from the fact that all this was going to be superfluous since by war’s end there would be no more Jews.” (Pg. 37)
In Irving’s biography of Göring, “there is a scandalous inversion of the actual events, making it seem as if the murder of [Third Secretary of the German embassy in Paris] von Rath had been in response to Poland’s closing its doors against Polish Jews, rather than in response to Nazi Germany’s having expelled to Poland thousands of former Polish Jews… [That] Nazi Germany DID hold that being a Jew was a crime in itself… [is] not reflected in Irving’s statement.” (Pg. 47)
He concludes, “Lucy Dawidowicz liked to quote Cicero’s laws for historians: ‘The first… is that he shall never dare utter an untruth. The second is that he suppresses nothing that is true.’ Against that standard can David Irving, who wants the world to think of him as a historian, now be evaluated.” (Pg. 54)
This book will be of keen interest to those seeking critiques of David Irving.
The Foreword by Robert Fulford to this 1993 book states, “When David Irving’s first [works] began to appear, it seemed no more than a journalist’s attempt to re-work a few major themes of the Second World War and its background. Today we understand his project as something larger and more sinister: a kind of retrospective moral upgrading of the Third Reich and its leader… We also know that his writings have been flowing in … Holocaust denial… all intended to move a few more readers toward the acceptance of … the relative innocence of the Nazis, or at least, the moral equivalence of the Nazis and their enemies in the Second World War… Jäckel demonstrates, with a scholar’s precision, the ingenious ways in which Irving manipulates evidence, collecting whatever fits his preconceptions, misinterpreting as he chooses, and ignoring whatever fails to support his views.” (Pg. 1)
He continues, “Holocaust denial… profits from a widely held view that if an idea is repeated often enough, and … vehemently enough, then it is probably entitled to ‘a fair hearing.’ Of course, anything like a fair hearing (such as the publication of unedited defense ‘evidence’ … in the first of Ernst Zundel’s trials in 1985) amounts to a wonderful gift to the deniers, who are allowed to spread their poisonous ideas further. Even if eight out of ten readers decide that they are … scoundrels, the deniers still gain. Simply allowing them into … public discussion … gives their ideas a certain validity.” (Pg. 4)
In the first essay (‘Refutation of the absurd thesis that ‘Hitler is innocent in the murder of Europe’s Jews’), German historian Eberhard Jäckel notes, “Himmler … phoned Heydrich… then entered this note: ‘Jewish transport from Berlin, not to be liquidated.’ Note Irving’s interpretation: ‘… Himmler had to pass on to Heydrich the explicit order that Jews were not to be liquidated.’ It takes… only a minimum of good sense and logic to see… [that] Irving concocts a universal order that Jews are henceforth not to be ‘liquidated.’ Actually, exactly the opposite is true. If Hitler had not ordered the general destruction of the Jews, it would have made no sense for him to have forbidden it in a single case. That he did forbid it in this case would seem to be proof of the fact that a general order had been given and that in this case an exception was to be made.” (Pg. 21)
He continues, “It is… a sign of ignorance or bias or most likely of both when, in such matters, the words of subordinates and servants are given credit. Besides, five of Irving’s informants have since declared that they had merely mentioned that Hitler had not in their presence referred to the death camps, but that they did not believe that Hitler was unaware of the Jews’ fate.” (Pg. 22)
He notes, “the war lost but the murder of the Jews accomplished, Hitler became even more explicit… the following utterance from February 13, 1945 is unadulterated …: ‘Against the Jews I fought open-eyed… I did not leave them in ignorance that, should they again manage to drag the world into war, they would not this time be spared… this parasitic vermin in Europe, will be finally exterminated.’ And again Hitler on April 2, 1945, fully aware of defeat: ‘… the National Socialist movement will have earned the world’s undying gratitude, seeing that I had the Jews of Central Europe exterminated.’” (Pg. 33)
In the second essay (‘Once More---Irving, Hitler and the Murder of the Jews’), he quotes a document from the Nuremberg Tribunal, “Reichsminister Lammers informed me that the Führer had repeatedly declared … he wished to see the solution of the Jewish question put on the back burner until the end of the war.” Jäckel asks, “how is it that after and in spite of such an order millions of Jews were in fact murdered? Was Hitler really a powerless phantom whose orders were not obeyed? And there is also the question why Hitler, according to Irving ignorant of it all, would have ordered the matter to be put on the back burner.”” (Pg. 35)
He continues, “Lammer’s report of Hitler’s declaration… did not refer to the bloody Final Solution of the Jewish Question, i.e., the murder of the Jews. Murder was not [at] all within the jurisdiction of [Lammers as] the Minister of Justice… [It] implied the multi-faceted procedures to deprive the German Jews of their civil rights. It was about such issues… that the Führer wished to have the matter put on the back burner until the end of the war… there were for him more urgent matters than the procedures for facilitating divorces in the case of mixed marriages, aside from the fact that all this was going to be superfluous since by war’s end there would be no more Jews.” (Pg. 37)
In Irving’s biography of Göring, “there is a scandalous inversion of the actual events, making it seem as if the murder of [Third Secretary of the German embassy in Paris] von Rath had been in response to Poland’s closing its doors against Polish Jews, rather than in response to Nazi Germany’s having expelled to Poland thousands of former Polish Jews… [That] Nazi Germany DID hold that being a Jew was a crime in itself… [is] not reflected in Irving’s statement.” (Pg. 47)
He concludes, “Lucy Dawidowicz liked to quote Cicero’s laws for historians: ‘The first… is that he shall never dare utter an untruth. The second is that he suppresses nothing that is true.’ Against that standard can David Irving, who wants the world to think of him as a historian, now be evaluated.” (Pg. 54)
This book will be of keen interest to those seeking critiques of David Irving.
Displaying 1 of 1 review