Editing David Irving (section)

==''The Destruction of Dresden''==
{{Main article|The Destruction of Dresden|Bombing of Dresden in World War II}}

Irving tried to join the [[Royal Air Force]] (RAF) but was deemed to be medically unfit.<ref>{{cite web |title=Profile: David Irving |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4449948.stm |website=BBC |author=Andrew Walker |date=20 February 2006 |access-date=31 July 2011 |archive-date=28 January 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070128005937/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4449948.stm |url-status=live }}</ref>

After serving in 1959 as editor of the University of London Carnival Committee's journal, instead of doing [[national service]], Irving left for [[West Germany]], where he worked as a steelworker in a [[Thyssen AG]] steel works in the [[Ruhr]] area and learned the [[German language]]. He then moved to [[Francoist Spain]], where he worked as a clerk at an air base.<ref name="Craig"/>

By 1962, Irving was engaged to write a series of 37 articles on the [[Allies of World War II|Allied]] [[Strategic bombing during World War II|bombing campaign]], ''Und Deutschlands Städte starben nicht'' ("And Germany's Cities Did Not Die"), for the German [[boulevard journalism|boulevard journal]] ''Neue Illustrierte''. These were the basis for his first book, ''[[The Destruction of Dresden]]'' (1963), in which he examined the Allied [[Bombing of Dresden in World War II|bombing of Dresden]] in February 1945. By the 1960s, a debate about the morality of the [[carpet bombing]] of German cities and civilian population had begun, especially in the United Kingdom. There was consequently considerable interest in Irving's book, which was illustrated with graphic pictures, and it became an international [[best-seller]].<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Packer |first=George |title=Embers |magazine=The New Yorker |date=1 February 2010 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/02/01/embers-2 |access-date=2 January 2020 |archive-date=6 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190706191918/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/02/01/embers-2 |url-status=live }}<!--for the best-seĺler fact, not the illustrations--></ref>

In the first edition, Irving's estimates for deaths in [[Dresden]] were between 100,000 and 250,000 – notably higher than most previously published figures.<ref>{{Harvnb|Guttenplan|2001|pp=225–226}}.</ref> These figures became widely accepted in many standard reference works. In later editions of the book over the next three decades, he gradually adjusted the figure downwards to 50,000–100,000.<ref>{{Harvnb|Guttenplan|2001|p=43}}.</ref> According to the historian [[Richard J. Evans]], at the 2000 libel trial that Irving brought against [[Deborah Lipstadt]], Irving based his estimates of the dead of Dresden on the word of one individual who provided no supporting documentation, used a document forged by the Nazis, and described one witness who was a [[urologist]] as Dresden's Deputy Chief Medical Officer. The doctor later complained about being misidentified by Irving, and further, that he, the doctor, was only repeating rumours about the death toll.<ref>{{Harvnb|Guttenplan|2001|p=225}}.</ref> According to an investigation by Dresden City Council in 2008, casualties at Dresden were estimated as 22,700–25,000 dead.<ref>Seeking to establish a definitive casualty figure, an independent investigation (commissioned by the Dresden city council), ended in 2010 drawing a conclusion that a maximum of 25,000 people were killed, of which 22,700 deaths have been positively identified—20,100 named and a further 2,600 unnamed ({{Citation |date=10 January 2008 |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna26977893 |title=Report: Dresden bombing deaths overestimated |work=NBC News }};  {{in lang|de}} {{Citation |date=15 April 2010 |url=http://www.sz-online.de/Nachrichten/Freital/?etag=15.04.2010 |title=Mindestzahl der Dresdner Bombenopfer nach oben korrigiert (lowest number of Dresden raids casualties corrected upwards |newspaper=[[Sächsische Zeitung]] |access-date=10 July 2012 |archive-date=17 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210217014054/https://www.saechsische.de/?etag=15.04.2010 |url-status=live }}{{subscription required}}).</ref>

Irving had based his numbers on what purported to be ''Tagesbefehl 47'' ("Daily Order 47", TB 47), a document promulgated by Nazi Propaganda Minister [[Joseph Goebbels]], and on claims made after the war by a former Dresden Nazi functionary, [[Hans Voigt]], without verifying them against official sources available in Dresden. Irving's estimates and sources were first disputed by [[Walter Weidauer]], Mayor of Dresden 1946–1958, in his own account of the Dresden bombing. When it was later confirmed that the TB 47 used was a forgery, Irving published a letter to the editor in ''[[The Times]]'' on 7 July 1966 retracting his estimates, writing that he had "no interest in promoting or perpetuating false legends". In 1977, the real document TB 47 was located in Dresden by Götz Bergander.<ref>{{harvnb|Evans|2001|pages=148–184}}</ref><ref>{{citation|first=Walter|last= Weidauer|title=Inferno Dresden. Über Lügen und Legenden um die Aktion "Donnerschlag."|publisher= Dietz Verlag|year=1965|isbn= 3-320-00818-8|pages=6, 132}}</ref><ref>{{citation|title=A German Catastrophe?: German Historians and the Allied Bombings, 1945–2010|series=UvA Proefschriften Seris|first=Bas |last=Von Benda-Beckmann|publisher=Amsterdam University Press|year= 2010|isbn=978-9056296537|page=150}}</ref>

Despite acknowledging that the copy of "TB 47" he had used was inaccurate, Irving argued during the late 1980s and 1990s that the death toll at Dresden was much higher than the accepted estimates: in several speeches during this period, he said that 100,000 or more people had been killed in the bombing of Dresden. In some of the speeches Irving also argued or implied that the raid was comparable to the Nazis' killing of Jews.<ref>{{Harvnb|Evans|2001|pp=179–191}}.</ref>

===1963 burglary of Irving's flat===
In November 1963, Irving called the [[Metropolitan Police]] with suspicions he had been the victim of a burglary by three men who had gained access to his flat in [[Hornsey]], London, by claiming to be engineers from the [[General Post Office]]. The [[Anti-fascism|anti-fascist]] activist [[Gerry Gable]] was convicted in January 1964, along with Manny Carpel. They were fined £20 each.<ref>{{cite book |last=Copsey |first=Nigel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gxgxDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT194 |title=Anti-Fascism in Britain |publisher=Routledge |year=2016 |page=194 |isbn=9781317397618}}</ref>