Holocaust denier: 3-year jail term

[Alan Eardley]

Irving's publications

I see a real difference between historians and politicians - that of executive action. A president can order the invasion of a country, a chancellor the genocide of a people. The historian merely presents evidence and may at most seek to make a case from that evidence to form opinion.

I some ways this is like what lawyers do. Every legal case has two sides - prosecution and defence. In most societies every criminal, no matter how guilty and no matter how heinous the crime, is entitled to a defence. The Nazi war criminals who were brought to trial for actual involvement in the 'holocaust' were so represented at Nuremburg. No one (as far as I know) suggested locking up their defence counsel for making a case in their defence. Locking up a historian (in this instance Irving) for the crimes of generals and politicians seems to me to be analogous with that.

I earn my living by doing research and by teaching others to do it. Irving's worst crimes are against research, not against the Austrian state. He started out as a promising researcher (his books on Dresden and Convoy PQ17 in the 60s and 70s were well reviewed by some prominent historians at the time) but he fell prey to most of the faults that can detroy a research practitioner. His real punishment is the ruin of his reputation among historians.

Just my opinion.

 

[jbrown173]

i still think there is a difference between free speech and mouthing offensive, racist garbage without thought as to the effects on others...and they should have to deal with the consequences...he flouted the law and lost.

You're dead right about all of that. He knew what he was doing and he should shut up and take the consequences like a man, or he should have kept his mouth shut in the first place.

But above and beyond that, I also think citizens should oppose laws that can too easily imprison people for speech, even when it incites hatred. Unless an act of speech can be shown to be a direct threat of violence (e.g. saying "hey, [racist epithet]! I'm gonna get you and your whole family!") then I don't see jailing someone for it.

Symbolic acts are the same sort of thing: I don't think burning a flag should be punishable by imprisonment, though if you do it you ought to expect to have to face the consequences in your community. But burning a cross in someone's yard (or burning an American flag in someone's yard, for that matter) is a direct threat, harrassment, trespassing, etc.

I could see where Austria should be able to refuse him entry into their country, just as the U.S. would refuse entry to an Al Qaeda member even if he was just a propogandist.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

The new Iranian president is gaining on him. What a maroon!

Dangerously so.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Stupidity is not a criminal offence. If it is to become a criminal offence there won?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t be enough free people left to staff the jails.

Stupidity causes more harm than intelligent criminality. Take away stupidity, and the intelligent criminals wouldn't have much fodder left to feed on.

 

[Naama]

Ok, well, I'm actually austrian (yes, I'm ashamed ) And I'm just shocked about how you all talk about freedom of right and stuff! I mean, come on, I don't think that a neo-nazi should have the right to go around with his racist propaganda. This people are full of hate, they don't give other people rights, they don't want any right's so why give them any? Those people are the scum of society. And they are really dangerous. I think it's right that they send him to jail. I think it's rather questionable that you can go out in america and buy some swastika flags and other stuff like that. Listen to very, very racist neo-nazi musik reading nazi books.... That's just not right. I'm glad that it's forbidden to buy such stuff over here. There are already enough of those idiots around, and I sure don't need anymore. People are still dying because of stuff like that or get beaton up and I think that's rather scary. There are a lot of young people who can easily get influenced by people like that, you wouldn't belive how many people still don't belive in the holocaust, and still think that Hitler was a great man, so lock him up and throw the key away, who needs people like that anyway? I'm sorry, but people like this just makes me sick! I'm actually not really all that aggressiv, but when I see some skinheads walking around, all I want to do is just to beat the hell out of them. I know, that don't make me any better, but I don't do that, so, I must be better..... A bit at least..... Oh, and yes, there's a different between lying and freedom of speech! I'm sure he knows exactly what happened and what happened not!

Naama

 

[geo]

That's right, you can give freedom of speech to Nazis, as long as they're not dangerous. There's no chance of seeing a Nazi President or a Nazi Congress in the US, so they're not a political force, and they can talk as long as they want, because they'll change nothing. In some countries in Europe, they are a political force or could easily become one, if given the right to free speech.

Also, giving unlimited rights of free speech to the masses is not always a good thing, and free democratic elections do not always turn well (see 1933). The people need a little "guidance".

 

[GA Wildlifer]

I believe in the RIGHT of free speech

I believe that he should have the right to express his beliefs regardless of how wrong or offensive he is. Otherwise, who gets to decide what is offensive and, therefore, illegal to say? The politicians? The clerics? From which religion (or sect)? Joseph McCarthy? The police?

It is a slippery slope to limit freedom of expression.

I hope you cannot tell my political or religeous persuasion from this reply. I think thought crimes universally harmful to all.

Personally, I don't think it is right for protesters to burn our national flag (US) but believe it lessens what the flag stands for to make burning it a crime.

 

[minus_273]

Sir:

The religious and political ideas in Communism, Catholicism, and Judaism are not inherently hateful or disrespectful.
Fu Manchu

you obviously havent lived in a communist country or seen people get killed by communists. Fascism is bad in all its forms. Communism included.

 

[Lincsong]

Putting stupid people in jail

Would require a whole lot of jail space. I'm glad I'm living in America where even an idiot like this can roam free, says his filth and be laughed off the soap box.:fing28: "Go home you nut!"

 

[Fedorista]

Also, giving unlimited rights of free speech to the masses is not always a good thing, and free democratic elections do not always turn well (see 1933). The people need a little "guidance".

Did you immigrate to Canada from North Korea or was it China?

 

[Lincsong]

Wow!

This is turning into a discussion between American and other world views concerning freedom of speech. Keep it going. I want all the Loungers who were afraid what the rest of the world would think of Biltmore Bob and his thoughts to get in on this. Let's keep it civil.:arated:

 

[Alan Eardley]

David Irving - 'holocaust denier'

This thread has gone a long way from its original theme and I'm still not convinced that many of the people who have posted in it are at all familiar with the case of British 'holocaust denier' David Irving. But then why let lack of knowledge stand in the way of expressing an opinion?

This case is not about 'freedom of expression' - it's originally about libel. I believe you have that in the US?

Irving was accused of being a 'holocaust denier and falsifier of history' by Professor Deborah Lipstadt in her book 'Denying the Holocaust'. He took her to the High Court in London in 2000 to prove that he wasn't and lost.

He was jailed in Austria last week for breaching a statute law of 1945 (to prevent the rise of Naziism) for a speech he made on a visit there in 1989. Having lost the case in London, he had little alternative but to plead guilty.

To give him his due, Irving admitted after the trial that he was wrong in how he interpreted the evidence that he used to make out that the the holocaust was exaggerated by 'conventional' historians. He now accepts that the more generally-accepted version of the Holocaust is 'the truth' (whatever that means). He has never claimed that it did not take place.

People who are genuinely interested in what was called 'the trial of the century' in England may want to listen to the BBC documentary on:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/progs/listenagain.shtml

Click on Sunday's choice.

 

[Burma Shave]

Alan Eardley said...

..."This case is not about 'freedom of expression' - it's originally about libel. I believe you have that in the US?"

Yes, we do. But libel is defined as "false and defamatory statements about a person which cause harm," according to my media law training, and "cause harm" usually is interpreted to mean financial harm. Libel, by definition, must be in print -- not spoken. Slander, on the other hand, refers to spoken comments about a person, with similar restrictions. It must be false and defamatory, must be about a particular person, and must cause harm.

In my opinion, this guy is guilty of neither -- though he is guilty of being an ill-informed git with no sense. That is not, fortunately for most Americans, a punishable offense in the U.S.

 

[Alan Eardley]

David Irving - 'holocaust denier'

I think most of us know the definition of libel. Irving is not guilty of libel - he accused Prof. Lipstadt of libelling him in a book.

The defamation was of his character as a researcher and the financial harm was that it would affect his trade as an author.

Irving was himself accused of libel in the early 1970s for another book, but that's another story and nothing to do with the Holocaust

The speech he made in Austria has nothing to do with slander. That's a civil offence and this was a breach of Austrian statute law.

US law has nothing to do with either of these cases.

 

[nightandthecity]

Alan, it is matter of free expression pure and simple. He has been imprisoned for expressing unacceptable ideas.

You are quite right of course that he has never denied the holocaust. I was going to raise this issue myself in earlier posts but decided it would simply confuse a simple issue. That is, it shouldn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t matter exactly what he said, because the issue is everybody?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s right to say whatever they like.

For the record: Irving attempted to minimize Hitler?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s personal role in the holocaust and he claimed that certain aspects of the holocaust have been exaggerated and even falsified - in particular the use of gas chambers at Auschwitz. These seem to me acceptable lines of enquiry in anybody?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s terms. He raised valid questionss, he got carried away by his own prejudices, his arguments and evidence were thoroughly trashed, he recanted, that should have been that.

Nor, as many seem to believe, is he a neo-Nazi. He has described himself as a ?¢‚Ǩ?ìmoderate fascist?¢‚Ǩ?. This was said tongue in cheek but it isn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t far off the mark. I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢d describe him as an unreconstructed pre-war British Conservative. Most of them were authoritarian racists. Many of them admired Hitler, Mussolini and Franco and were sympathetic to our indigenous Fascist movements. Since WW2 British conservatism has slowly cleaned up its image in such matters but Irving is someone still stuck in 1938, in the world of golf-club anti-Semitism and Tory fellow-travelling.

As you say, he has been convicted under a law of 1945 allegedly designed to prevent a Nazi resurgence. These laws were largely window dressing, in reality thousands of Nazis continued to work (and often hold high places) in the civil service, police, military and politics in both Germany and Austria, and they did so until old age and death took its toll. All holocaust denial laws have ever done is suppress free and open debate, allow those who are fundamentally opposed to democratic values to throw our arguments back in our faces, and make martyrs out of stupid people, and it?¢‚ǨÀús time all such laws were abolished.

 

[geo]

Did you immigrate to Canada from North Korea or was it China?

Why, you say that because you don't agree with my opinions, but you're defending the right to free speech? Also, the events of 1933 I quoted happened in Germany. Thirdly, people immigrating from those countries do so because they don't agree with their government's policies; it's wrong to identify them with the very things they ran away from.

 

[nightandthecity]

you obviously havent lived in a communist country or seen people get killed by communists. Fascism is bad in all its forms. Communism included.

I know what you mean, but I think you have probably misunderstood Fu Manchu?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s posting. I think the key word is ?¢‚Ǩ?ìinherently?¢‚Ǩ?. As I read it, I think he is trying to say that at their core these belief systems are not evil. Communism, for example, originally set out to create a world without governments and hierarchies in which people can live their lives as they choose. This - and the quest for social justice in the here and now - is the reason it attracted so many people. You couldn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t call that vision inherently evil. The ways they tried to reach this utopia and what it led to is another matter of course.

Fascism, however, is consciously and centrally about things like the cult of power, the sublimation of the individual to the state, absolute authority, the suppression of free thought, the persecution of entire groups for simply being different in some way or for not accepting aforementioned cult of power etc. In my definition that makes it inherently evil.

You could say that what Communism ended up doing is what Fascism was about doing from the start.

 

[Alan Eardley]

Night and the City,

What you say is true. David Irving is an 'unreconstructed conservative'. He shows characteristics and holds views that would not have been untypical for a middle- or upper-class person in a previous era. You have only to read the journals of some members of famous families (including royalty) to see the reluctance that such people had to recognise the true nature of Naziism. And, yes, some leading people in the US (including at least one 'captain of industry') continued to express similar views well after WW2 had begun in Europe.

Irving is also an example of what I call an 'alternative theorist' - (usually) an amateur researcher who develops a 'pet theory' that runs counter to the 'received wisdom' held by (usually professional) academics. For such people what we now call 'conspiracy theories' and alternative histories (usually alleged to be supressed by mainstream politicians and historians) are irresistably seductive.

The following examples of 'alternative history' spring immediately to mind, but there are many others:
1. English writer Robin Gardiner has a theory that the Titanic did not sink and has a number of publications based on a dossier of evidence to support this;
2. US authors David Percy and Mary Bennett (based on the work of Rocketdyne scientist David Kaysing) have a 'compelling' body of evidence to show that the Apollo moon landings did not take place;
3. Virtually the whole of evolution has been questioned. Swiss hotelier Erich Von Daniken has done 'research' for over 30 years suggesting that alien astronauts influenced the evolution of mankind and there is a body of 'research' suggesting that men and dinosaurs lived together (e.g. see http://www.creationevolution.org/dinosaurs/dino.htm)
4. There are several versions of the assassination of JFK etc., etc., etc.

For the people who undertake this type of 'research' it is often a serious business, but for most of the readers it is a light-hearted distraction. a kind of relaxation from reality. Placed in this context, and given Irving's character and 'non-PC' way of expressing his ideas, he could be seen as a 'crank' who defines the outer limits of rationality in an important area of WW2 research.

What distinguishes Irving's from these other alternative theories, however, is the sensitivity of the issues that he addresses. I don't think that the descendants of the 1,500 people who died on the 'Titanic' (or Olympic, depending on who you believe) will sue. NASA only commissioned a book as a low-level rebuttal to the 'hoax' accusations and I'm convinced that the dinosaurs wouldn't give a damn. The Holocaust, however, is something else.

Oh and Night and the City, thanks for expressing an informed opinion...

 

[jake_fink]

fftopic:

So this is what it looks like when (intelligent, informed) people disagree respectfully.

Nice.