Editing David Irving (section)

==Revisionism and Denialism==

===''Hitler's War''===
{{main|Hitler's War}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-C16768A, Hans Heinrich Lammers.jpg|thumb|200px|In ''Hitler's War'', Irving used an undated memo written by [[Hans Lammers]] (pictured), the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, to the Justice Minister, saying: "The Führer has repeatedly pronounced that he wants the solution of the Jewish Question put off until after the war is over."]]
In 1977 Irving published ''[[Hitler's War]]'', the first of his two-part biography of [[Adolf Hitler]]. Irving's intention in ''Hitler's War'' was to clean away the "years of grime and discoloration from the facade of a silent and forbidding monument" to reveal the real Hitler, whose reputation Irving argued had been slandered by historians.<ref name="Craig 72">{{Harvnb|Craig|1982|p=72}}.</ref> In ''Hitler's War'', Irving tried to "view the situation as far as possible through Hitler's eyes, from behind his desk".<ref name="Craig 72" /> He portrayed Hitler as a rational, intelligent politician, whose only goal was to increase Germany's prosperity and influence on the continent, and who was constantly let down by incompetent or treasonous subordinates.<ref name="Craig 72" /> Irving's book faulted the Allied leaders, especially [[Winston Churchill]], for the eventual escalation of war, and argued that the [[Operation Barbarossa|German invasion of the Soviet Union]] in 1941 was a "[[preventive war]]" forced on Hitler to avert an impending Soviet attack.<ref name="Evans 1989 166">{{Harvnb|Evans|1989|p=166 n. 20}}.</ref> Irving also argued that Hitler had no knowledge of [[the Holocaust]]: while not denying its occurrence, he argued that [[Heinrich Himmler]], the ''[[Reichsführer-SS|Reichsführer]]'' of the ''[[Schutzstaffel]]'' (SS), and his deputy [[Reinhard Heydrich]] were its originators and architects. Irving made much of the lack of any known written order from Hitler ordering the Holocaust; he offered to pay £1,000 to anyone who could find such an order.<ref name="Guttenplan 46">{{Harvnb|Guttenplan|2001|p=46}}.</ref>

==== Reception ====
Critical reaction to ''Hitler's War'' was generally negative. Reviewers took issue with Irving's factual claims as well as his conclusions.

In ''Hitler's War'', Irving quoted an undated memorandum by [[Hans Lammers]], the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, to the Reich Justice Minister [[Franz Schlegelberger]], saying: "the Führer has repeatedly pronounced that he wants the solution of the [[Jewish Question]] put off until after the war is over". Irving took this as proof that Hitler ordered not to exterminate the Jews.<ref name="Evans 2002 89">{{Harvnb|Evans|2002|p=89}}</ref> Later, Irving falsely claimed that "no other historians have quoted this document, possibly finding its content hard to reconcile with their obsessively held views" about Hitler's responsibility for the Holocaust.<ref name="Evans 2002 89"/> However, the interpretation of the document is not as simple as Irving made it out to be in his book.<ref name=Evans1>{{cite web |title=Evans: David Irving, Hitler and Holocaust Denial |website=Holocaust Denial on Trial |url=https://www.hdot.org/evans/ |access-date=28 October 2020 |archive-date=22 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221222031824/https://www.hdot.org/evans/ |url-status=live }}</ref> The memorandum has no date and no signature, although historians estimate that it was issued at some point between 1941 and 1942 by looking at the other documents where the memorandum is located. They have concluded that the memorandum was more than likely from late 1941 when Hitler was still advocating the expulsion of the Jews, rather than later when he advocated their extermination.<ref name=Evans1 />

The American historian [[Charles W. Sydnor Jr.]] noted numerous errors, such as Irving's incorrect statement that the Jews who fought in the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising]] of 1943 were well supplied with weapons from Germany's allies.<ref>{{Harvnb|Sydnor|1979| p=179}}</ref> Sydnor also pointed out that Hitler had received an SS report in November 1942 which contained a mention of 363,211 [[Russian Jews]] executed by the ''[[Einsatzgruppen]]'' between August and November 1942.<ref>{{Harvnb|Sydnor|1979| pp=182–183}}</ref> Sydnor remarked that Irving's statement that the ''Einsatzgruppen'' were in charge in the [[Extermination camp|death camps]] seemed to indicate that Irving was not even familiar with the history of the Holocaust, as the ''Einsatzgruppen'' were in fact mobile death squads who had nothing to do with the death camps.<ref>{{Harvnb|Sydnor|1979 |p=176}}</ref>

[[Martin Broszat]] wrote that: "He [Irving] is too eager to accept authenticity for objectivity, is overly hasty in interpreting superficial diagnoses and often seems insufficiently interested in complex historical interconnections and in structural problems that transcend the mere recording of historical facts, but are essential for their evaluation".<ref>Broszat, Martin "Hitler and the Genesis of the 'Final Solution': An Assessment of David Irving's Theses" pp. 390–429 from ''Aspects of the Third Reich'' edited by H.W. Koch pp. 392–393.</ref>  Broszat argued that in ''Hitler's War'', Irving was too concerned with the "antechamber aspects" of Hitler's headquarters, and had distorted historical facts in Hitler's favor.<ref>Broszat, Martin "Hitler and the Genesis of the 'Final Solution': An Assessment of David Irving's Theses" pp. 390–429 from ''Aspects of the Third Reich'' edited by H.W. Koch pp. 393, 413–419</ref> Broszat also exposed factually incorrect interpretations by Irving, such as accepting at face value the Nazi claim that the T4 "euthanasia" program was launched in September 1939 to free up hospital spaces for wounded German soldiers, when in fact, the [[Action T4]] program was launched in January 1939.<ref>Broszat, Martin "Hitler and the Genesis of the 'Final Solution': An Assessment of David Irving's Theses" pp. 390–429 from ''Aspects of the Third Reich'' edited by H.W. Koch p. 394.</ref> In particular, Broszat criticised Irving's claim that a single note written by Himmler, supposedly transcribing a telephone call from Hitler, stating "No liquidation" (with respect to a train convey of German Jews, passing through [[Berlin]] to [[Riga]] on November 30, 1941) was sufficient proof to establish that Hitler did not want the Holocaust to happen.<ref>Broszat, Martin "Hitler and the Genesis of the 'Final Solution': An Assessment of David Irving's Theses" pp. 390–429 from ''Aspects of the Third Reich'' edited by H.W. Koch pp. 413–415</ref>

===Irving's work in the late 1970s and early 1980s===
Months after the release of ''Hitler's War'', Irving published ''The Trail of the Fox'', a biography of ''Generalfeldmarschall'' [[Erwin Rommel]]. In it Irving attacked the members of the [[20 July plot]] to assassinate Hitler in 1944, branding them "traitors", "cowards", and "manipulators", and uncritically presented Hitler and his government's subsequent revenge against the plotters, of which Rommel was also a victim. In particular, Irving accused Rommel's friend and Chief of Staff General [[Hans Speidel]] of framing Rommel in the attempted coup. The British historian [[David Pryce-Jones]], in a book review of ''The Trail of the Fox'' in the edition of 12 November 1977 of ''[[The New York Times Book Review]]'', accused Irving of taking everything Hitler had to say at face value.<ref>{{cite news |last=Pryce-Jones |first=David |title=With Apologies to Adolf Hitler |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1977/11/20/archives/with-apologies-to-adolf-hitler-hitler.html |date=20 November 1977 |archive-date=13 November 2020 |access-date=11 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201113015438/https://www.nytimes.com/1977/11/20/archives/with-apologies-to-adolf-hitler-hitler.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="adl profile"/>

In 1978, Irving released ''The War Path'', the companion volume to ''Hitler's War'' which covered events leading up to the war and which was written from a similar point of view. Again, professional historians such as [[Donald Cameron Watt]] noted numerous inaccuracies and misrepresentations. Despite the criticism, the book sold well, as did all of Irving's books up to that date. The success of his books enabled Irving to buy a home in the prestigious [[Mayfair]] district of London, own a [[Rolls-Royce]] car and enjoy an affluent lifestyle.<ref>{{Harvnb|Guttenplan|2001|p=52}}.</ref> In addition, Irving, despite being married, became increasingly open about his affairs with other women, all of which were detailed in his self-published diary. {{Harvnb|Guttenplan|2001|p=51}}. Irving's first marriage ended in divorce in 1981.<ref name="Independent Duff 2006">{{cite news |last1=Duff |first1=Oliver |title=David Irving: An anti-Semitic racist who has suffered financial ruin |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/david-irving-an-antisemitic-racist-who-has-suffered-financial-ruin-346741.html |access-date=9 March 2025 |work=The Independent |date=21 February 2006}}</ref>

In the 1980s, Irving started researching and writing about topics other than Nazi Germany, but with less success. He began his research on his three-part biography of [[Winston Churchill]].<ref name="Southern Poverty Law Center">{{cite web |title=David Irving |url=https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/david-irving/ |publisher=Southern Poverty Law Center |access-date=9 March 2025}}</ref> After publication Irving's work on Churchill received at least one bad review from Professor [[David Cannadine]] (then of the [[University of London]]):

{{blockquote|It has received almost no attention from historians or reviewers ... It is easy to see why ... full of excesses, inconsistencies and omissions ... seems completely unaware of recent work done on the subject ... It is not merely that the arguments in this book are so perversely tendentious and irresponsibly sensationalist. It is also that it is written in a tone which is at best casually journalistic and at worst quite exceptionally offensive. The text is littered with errors from beginning to end.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/i/irving-david/ |title=David Irving: Britain's Holocaust "revisionist" |publisher=Nizkor.org |access-date=2 September 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110812023313/http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/i/irving-david/ |archive-date=12 August 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref>}}

In 1981, he published two books. The first was ''The War Between the Generals'', in which Irving offered an account of the Allied High Command on the Western Front in 1944–45, detailing the heated conflicts Irving alleges occurred between the various generals of the various countries and presenting rumours about their private lives. The second book was ''Uprising!'', about the [[1956 Hungarian Revolution|1956 revolt in Hungary]], which Irving characterised as "primarily an anti-Jewish uprising", supposedly because the Communist regime was itself controlled by Jews. Irving's depiction of Hungary's Communist regime as a Jewish dictatorship oppressing [[Gentiles]] sparked charges of [[antisemitism]].<ref name="Guttenplan 47">{{Harvnb|Guttenplan|2001|p=47}}.</ref> In addition, there were complaints that Irving had grossly exaggerated the number of people of Jewish origin in the Communist regime and had ignored the fact that [[Hungarian people|Hungarian]] Communists who did have a Jewish background like [[Mátyás Rákosi]] and [[Ernő Gerő]] had totally repudiated Judaism and sometimes expressed antisemitic attitudes themselves.<ref name="observer 1981"/> Critics such as [[Neal Ascherson]] and [[Kai Bird]] took issue with some of Irving's language that seemed to evoke antisemitic imagery, such as his remark that Rákosi possessed "the tact of a [[kosher]] butcher".<ref name="Guttenplan 47" />

In 1982, Irving described himself as an "untrained historian" and argued that his lack of academic qualifications did not mean that he could not be considered a historian. He listed [[Pliny the Elder]] and [[Tacitus]] as examples of historians without university training.<ref>{{Harvnb|Evans|2002|pp=11–12}}</ref>

===Hitler Diaries===
In 1983, ''[[Stern (magazine)|Stern]]'', a weekly German news magazine, purchased 61 volumes of [[Hitler Diaries|Hitler's supposed diaries]] for [[Deutsche Mark|DM]] 9 million and published excerpts from them. Irving played a major role in exposing the Hitler Diaries as a hoax. In October 1982 Irving had purchased from the same source as ''Stern''<nowiki/>'s 1983 purchase, 800 pages of documents relating to Hitler, only to conclude that many of the documents were forgeries.<ref name="Evans 2001 19">{{Harvnb|Evans|2001|p=19}}.</ref> Irving was amongst the first to identify the diaries as forgeries, and to draw media attention. He went so far as to crash the press conference held by [[Hugh Trevor-Roper]] at the magazine's offices in [[Hamburg]] on 25 April 1983 to denounce the diaries as a forgery and Trevor-Roper for endorsing the diaries as genuine.<ref>{{Harvnb|Guttenplan|2001|p=48}}.</ref> Irving's performance at the ''Stern'' press conference where he violently harangued Trevor-Roper until ejected by security led him to be featured prominently on the news: the next day, Irving appeared on the ''Today'' television show as a featured guest.<ref>{{Harvnb|Harris|1986|pp=320–323}}.</ref> Irving had concluded that the alleged Hitler diaries were a forgery because they had come from the same dealer in Nazi memorabilia from whom Irving had purchased his collection in 1982.<ref name="Evans 2001 19" /> At the press conference in Hamburg, Irving said, "I know the collection from which these diaries come. It is an old collection, full of forgeries. I have some here".<ref name="Evans 2001 19" /> Irving was proud to have detected and denounced the hoax material and of the "trail of chaos" he had created at the Hamburg press conference and the attendant publicity it had brought him, and took pride in his humiliation of Trevor-Roper, whom Irving strongly disliked for his "sloppy" work, in not detecting the hoax, and past criticism of Irving's methods and conclusions.<ref name="Pelt 22">{{Harvnb|Van Pelt|2002|p=22}}.</ref> Irving also noted internal inconsistencies in the supposed Hitler diaries, such as a diary entry for 20 July 1944, which would have been unlikely given that Hitler's right hand had been badly burned by the bomb planted in his headquarters by Colonel [[Claus von Stauffenberg]] earlier that day.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lipstadt|2005|p=19}}.</ref>

A week later, on 2 May, Irving asserted that many of the diary documents appeared to be genuine: at the same press conference, Irving took the opportunity to promote his translation of the memoirs of Hitler's physician [[Theodor Morell]].<ref name="Pelt 22" /> [[Robert Harris (novelist)|Robert Harris]], in his book ''Selling Hitler'', suggested that an additional reason for Irving's change of mind over the authenticity of the alleged Hitler diaries was that the fake diaries contain no reference to the Holocaust, thereby buttressing Irving's claim in ''Hitler's War'' that Hitler had no knowledge of it.<ref>{{Harvnb|Harris|1986|pp=338–339}}.</ref> Subsequently, Irving conformed when the diaries were declared a forgery by consensus. At a press conference held to withdraw his endorsement of the diaries, Irving proudly claimed that he was the first to call them a forgery, to which a reporter replied that he was also the last to call them genuine.<ref name="Pelt 22" />

===Other books===
By the mid-1980s, Irving had not had a successful book for some years and was behind schedule in writing the first volume of his Churchill series, the research for which had strained his finances.<ref name="Guttenplan 56">{{Harvnb|Guttenplan|2001|p=56}}.</ref> The book was published in 1987 as ''Churchill's War, The Struggle for Power''.<ref>{{cite web |title=Churchill's war |url=https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/2204026 |website=Catalogue |publisher=National Library of Australia |access-date=9 March 2025}}</ref>

In 1989 Irving published his biography of [[Hermann Göring]].<ref>{{cite web|title=HITLER'S GOOD RIGHT ARM|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/28/books/hitler-s-good-right-arm.html|newspaper=The New York Times|first=Peter|last=Hoffmann|date=28 May 1989}}</ref>