More extractions from “Religion and the Origins of the Death Camps:  A Psychoanalytic Interpretation” by Professor Richard L. Rubenstein in the 1992 edition of his book “After Auschwitz”. 

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This analysis immediately follows the posting above.

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When the anti-Semite accuses the Jew of ritual murder, he accuses him of the very crime that he himself intends to commit. 

At the same time, he fails to comprehend the inherent gratuity of the whole business.  The death of the sacrificial victim solves no problem in the real world.

___________________

An aside:  Freud noted that Christianity begins with such a crime—and that the cannibalistic aspect of the primal crime are repeated in the Mass....

Extractions from “Religion and the Origins of the Death Camps:  A Psychoanalytic Interpretation” by Professor Richard L. Rubenstein in the 1992 edition of his book “After Auschwitz”.

I am on my umpteenth reading of “Religion and the Origins of the Death Camps:  A Psychoanalytic Interpretation” by Professor Richard L. Rubenstein in the 1992 edition of his book “After Auschwitz”. 

The original book was published in 1966.  He made revisions between the two editions.  For those who would like to read the entire article, the pages in the paperback edition are 29 - 61.  The book is readily available at Amazon and other websites.

Although I am certainly no Freudian, Rubenstein’s insights are most interesting using a semi-Freudian frame of view.  For awhile I’ll be quoting extracts from the article, leaving out most of the Freudian conclusions as the other content in the article I find more significant. 

Much of the following is nothing new to Holocaust and Nazi scholars, but may be new to others:

The Nazis:  “Had their first priority been to win the war, they would never have made the extermination camps so central a concern.  They would have used every available talent, Jewish or gentile, in the war effort.... 

The sheer need for a compliant labor force in wartime should have dictated an entirely different approach, not only to the Jews but to the subject nations as well.  Had final victory really been the Nazi aim, their whole conduct of the war would have been different.... 

The Nazis often seemed far more intent upon achieving irrational victories over defenseless Jews and Gypsies than a real victory over their military opponents.

They won the war that really counted for them, the war against the Jews.  Eichmann’s alleged statement that, though all else fail, he would go to his grave content in the knowledge that he had helped to kill more than five million Jews is very much to the point.

Absent normal motives and given the mystique and ritual of National Socialism, it is impossible to avoid the question of religious origins.

Although the Nazis have been called pagans, they were never genuine pagans like the ancient Greeks.  They were satanic anti-Christians, saying no to much that Christianity affirmed and saying yes to much that was absolutely forbidden by Christianity....  The Nazis were religious rebels rather than genuine unbelievers.

In one area the Nazis took Christianity very seriously.  They did not invent a new villain, but took over the ancient Christian tradition of the Jew as villain and epitome of the darkest evil.  Nor did the Nazis create a new hatred.  Folk hatred of the Jews is at least as old as Christianity....  The Nazis intensified what they found.”

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More extractions from “Religion and the Origins of the Death Camps:  A Psychoanalytic Interpretation” by Professor Richard L. Rubenstein in the 1992 edition of his book “After Auschwitz”.

“In one area the Nazis took Christianity very seriously.  They did not invent a new villain, but took over the ancient Christian tradition of the Jew as villain and epitome of the darkest evil.... 

[German] folk hatred of the Jews is at least as old as Christianity.  Creating very little de novo, the Nazis intensified what they found.....

They transformed a theological conflict, normally limited in its overt destructiveness by religious and moral considerations, into a biological struggle in which only one conclusion was thinkable - the total extermination of every living Jew....

[W]ithin a hundred years, the split between Judaism and Christianity had become bitter and irrevocable.  Historical events exacerbated theological differences. 

The Jews fought two wars against the Romans in 66-70 and 131-135 C.E.  As a result of the first war, the Jerusalem Temple, the center of Jewish life, was destroyed.  The young Church took this as double confirmation of Christian truth....

The development of the bitter religious antagonisms is plainly visible in the writings of Justin Martyr (ca. 100 - ca. 165 C.E.), a Palestinian Christian apologist who flourished in the second Christian century....

In Justin’s writings an old Jewish idea - God’s punishment of sinful Israel - has been combined with a new sin, the murder of Christ.  This murder was soon regarded as the murder of God. As we shall see, the Christian conception of the Jew as deicide is a most significant component of the religious origins of the death camps.

In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin frequently expressed the conviction that Jewish disaster is nothing more than what the Jews deserve.  A frequently quoted passage indicates how violent these feelings had become. 

Referring to circumcision, Justin declared that it ‘was given for a sign ... that you alone suffer that which you now justly suffer; and that strangers may eat your fruit in your presence, and not one of you may go up to Jerusalem.’

Justin understood that Judaism and Christianity are religions of history and that a principal validation of their claims must be the evidence of history....

The Romans were God’s retributive instruments against a sinful Israel.  They played the same role in Justin’s interpretation of history as the Babylonians in the theology of the prophets....

In the extermination camps Jews were murdered, not for what they did, but who they were.”

More extractions from “Religion and the Origins of the Death Camps:  A Psychoanalytic Interpretation” by Professor Richard L. Rubenstein in the 1992 edition of his book “After Auschwitz”.

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Resentment against Christianity and its enforced displacement of the Teutonic gods has been a significant motif in German life and letters since the Napoleonic wars....

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Modern German nationalism was first aroused during the War of Liberation against the French, 1806-1813....

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Christianity, regarded as a product and imposition of a foreign Latin culture, was resented in influential German circles.  Nazism grew in part out of this aspect of German cultural history. 

Although Hitler was willing to use the the churches for his own purposes, he was committed to their ultimate elimination. 

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Shortly after his assumption of power, Hitler revealed his intentions to his associate, Hermann Rauschning:  “Neither of the denominations - Catholic or Protestant, they are both the same - has any future left, at least not for the Germans.  Fascism may perhaps have its peace with the Church in God’s name.  I will do it too.  Why not?  But that won’t stop me stamping out Christianity in Germany, root and branch.  One is either a Christians or a German.  You can’t be both”.

Although by no means an anti-Semite, Hegel titled one of his earliest writings, “Is Judea Then the Fatherland of the Teutons?” Hegel complains that Christianity has emptied Valhalla of its gods and forced the German people to accept Jewish gods and fables in place of their own.

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This observation presupposes the concept of Volksreligion in which the religion, mythology, and social organization of an ethnic community (Volk) are regarded as a single organic unity.  When any element in the constitution of the Volk is displaced or discarded, the unity of the whole is broken.

Such a breach in Volk unity occurred when the indigenous Teutonic gods were displaced by the foreign gods and myths of the Jews.  For Hegel, the gods are an objectification of the inner nature of that people.  By rejecting their ancestral gods, the Germans were in the deepest sense rejecting themselves. 

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The young Hegel did not carry his own logic to its ultimate conclusion in action. 

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He was, however, followed by others, such as Erich Ludendorff and Alfred Rosenberg, who were more prepared than than he to enter that realm. 

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They concluded that German alienation and self-estrangement could be terminated only by the end of the Jewish gods of Christianity.

For those with doubts about Adolph Hitler’s agenda:

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“As in every year since 1933, the Reichstag was convened in festive session on January 30, 1939, to mark the anniversary of Hitler’s accession to power. 

Hitler’s speech started at 8:15 in the evening and lasted for more than two and a half hours.... 

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Up to [a] point, Hitler was merely rehashing an array of anti-Jewish themes that had become a known part of his repertory.  Then, however his tone changed, and threats as yet unheard in the public pronouncements of a head of state resonated in the Reichstag:

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Hitler speaking:

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“One thing I would like to express on this day, which is perhaps memorable not only for us Germans:  In my life I have often been a prophet, and I have mostly been laughed at. At the time of my struggle for power, it was mostly the Jewish people who laughed at the prophecy that one day I would attain in Germany the leadership of the state and therewith of the entire nation, and that among other problems I would also solve the Jewish one.  I think that the uproarious laughter of that time has in the meantime remained stuck in German Jewry’s throat.”

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Then came the explicit menace:

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“Today I want to be a prophet again:  If international finance Jewry inside and outside Europe again succeeds in precipitating the nations into a world war, the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth and with it the victory of the Jews, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.”

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From Saul Friedlander’s “Nazi Germany and the Jews:  Volume 1—The Years of Persecution:  1933 - 1939”, (1997), minor extractions from pages 308 - 310.  Friedlander quoted Hitler’s speech from “Hitler, Reden und Proklamationen,” pages 1056 - 1058.

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Also from Adolph Hitler:

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“As a fledgling political agitator (born in 1889), he had defined the goal of systematic anti-Jewish policy in his notorious first political text, the letter on the ‘Jewish question’ addressed on September 16, 1919, to one Adolf Gemlich.  In the short term the Jews had to be deprived of their civil rights:  “The final aim however must be the uncompromising removal of Jews altogether."”

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From Saul Friedlander’s “Nazi Germany and the Jews:  Volume 1—The Years of Persecution:  1933 - 1939”, (1997), page 72, paperback version.  His source is “Nazism 1919 - 1945:  A Documentary Reader. 3 vols. Edited by Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham (1983), vol 1, page 13. 

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And Hitler again:

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In 1933:

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Hitler “avoided public statements on the Jewish issue, he could not restrain himself entirely.  In his closing speech at the September 1933 Nuremberg party rally, called (for the occasion) the Congress of Victory, he launched into disparaging comments about the Jews in his expostulations on the racial foundations of art: 

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Hitler speaking:  “It is a sign of the horrible spiritual decadence of the past epoch that one spoke of styles without recognizing their racial determinants....  Each clearly formed race has its own handwriting in the book of art, insofar as it is not, like Jewry, devoid of any creative artistic ability.”

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From Saul Friedlander’s “Nazi Germany and the Jews:  Volume 1—The Years of Persecution:  1933 - 1939”, (1997), page 71, paperback version.  Quoted from “Die deutsche Kunst als stolzeste Verteidigung des deutschen Volkes,” Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte 4, no. 34 (Oct. 1933), page 437.

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Goebbels noted on December 29, 1939, in his diary: “The Fuhrer is profoundly religious but totally antichristian. He considers Christianity as a symptom of decline. Rightly so. It is a deposit of the Jewish race. One also notices it in the similarity of religious rituals. Both have no relation to animals and this will destroy them in the end.”

In the summer of 1941, Hitler brought up his theory about religion and world history: “The worst blow to have hit humankind is Christianity; Bolshevism is a bas.tard child of Christianity; both are the monstrous product of the Jews.”

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From Saul Friedlander’s “Nazi Germany and the Jews: 1939 - 1945—The Years of Extermination (2008 paperback), pages 17 and 203.

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Enough Already! The Holocaust was a dark entry into the history of man! But I for one, am tired of hearing about this event in history! One thing that the Jewish point of view about the history of the Holocaust rarely mentions is that millions of non-Jewish people also were lost during the Holocaust! Its all about the Jews only! Although I support the existence of the Jewish state, I am also of the opinion that they have used the Holocaust to “soften” the non-Jewish supporters to obtain massive amounts of foreign aid, world wide, and have used it to obtain a carte blanch political backing from the USA. I for one, think that there is no stragic value for the US from Israel. Israel has betrayed our military secrets with our enemies more than a few times. Goggle “U.S.S. LIBERTY” to read how Israel deliberately shot up, and tried to sink, a well marked, well flagged, completely unarmed American intelligence ship, cruising at 4 knots IN INTERNATIONAL WATERS! The Israels attacked this ship with F4 Phantoms; torpedo boats (2 direct torpedo hits), armed helicopters, strafed American life boats, all with American supplied war machines, and would have sunk this ship if it were not for the heroic efforts of American sailors! I believe 137 American sailors were killed by the Isreali Defense Forces. AT NO TIME DID THIS SHIP POSE ANY THREAT OF ANY KIND to its attackers! I think that the strong support from AIPAC has not really served USA interests, most of the time! In closing, I ask: “do you think the the Palestinian’s have been treated fairly and humanly”? I think not. The oppressed have now, imo, become the oppressor!

TOM JOHNSON - 20 April 2010 12:39 PM

Enough Already! The Holocaust was a dark entry into the history of man! But I for one, am tired of hearing about this event in history!

If you don’t want to hear about the event, then ignore others’s discussions, books, articles, films, etc. 

One thing that the Jewish point of view about the history of the Holocaust rarely mentions is that millions of non-Jewish people also were lost during the Holocaust! Its all about the Jews only!

Not true. Read the literature written by Jews about the Holocaust.

The literature regularly also discusses the other mass murders and other forms of harm during the Nazi era, e.g. Stalin’s murder of Nazis, other Germans, and other peoples. And Nazi extermination of the Gypsies and Slavs, as well as the Nazi’s extermination of other populations like the impaired. As excellent examples are the books and articles cited in this thread.

You may be tired of hearing about this event in history, but many others are not or have not heard about it, meaning in particular younger generations.

Consider how many of all ages have very little knowledge of even the names of the fifty states. A good number of Americans in polls believe that the Constitution is a radical, leftist document. David Letterman and Jay Leno have demonstrated how little Americans know about the basics.


Although I support the existence of the Jewish state, I am also of the opinion that they have used the Holocaust to “soften” the non-Jewish supporters to obtain massive amounts of foreign aid, world wide, and have used it to obtain a carte blanch political backing from the USA.

I for one, think that there is no strategic value for the US from Israel.

Obviously since 1948, American policy makers disagree with you on the strategic value of Israel to the United States.....both Republicans and Democrats.

Jews in the USA constitute only 2.2% of the USA population: 6,452,030 out of 296,410,404.


http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/usjewpop.html

Israel has betrayed our military secrets with our enemies more than a few times.

Which enemies and when?

Goggle “U.S.S. LIBERTY” to read how Israel deliberately shot up, and tried to sink, a well marked, well flagged, completely unarmed American intelligence ship, cruising at 4 knots IN INTERNATIONAL WATERS! The Israels attacked this ship with F4 Phantoms; torpedo boats (2 direct torpedo hits), armed helicopters, strafed American life boats, all with American supplied war machines, and would have sunk this ship if it were not for the heroic efforts of American sailors! I believe 137 American sailors were killed by the Israeli Defense Forces. AT NO TIME DID THIS SHIP POSE ANY THREAT OF ANY KIND to its attackers!

I think that the strong support from AIPAC has not really served USA interests, most of the time!

In closing, I ask: “do you think the the Palestinian’s have been treated fairly and humanly”? I think not. The oppressed have now, imo, become the oppressor!

The rest of your comments I leave to others to respond to as this goes beyond my area of expertise.

The Palestinians have certainly been treated poorly by Israel and vice versa.

It is obvious to me after reading your strongly held, strongly reinforced, somewhat well researched answer to my original posting that it would be futile to take issue with some of your observations! I state this without any rancor or in a noncombative intellectual frame of mind. However, for someone so knowledgeable of the Jewish stand on things, it is amazing to me that you never heard of, say, the Rosenburgs treasonus acts of giving the secrets of our A-bomb development to the Russians, for a monetary reward. As to the wilful attracking of the USS Liberty...all you had to do was Goggle the suggested web site and read a full accounting of the whole act of war against the USA! Convenient ommission on your part! The myth of a strategic value of Israel to the USA has been perpetuated by Israel and its legions of lobbyist, fortified by weak American politicians that have received favorable publicity and sizeable funding, and other backing by the Israeli American Political Action Committee (IAPAC). Modern warfare has negated any Israeli advantage for us. Israel has never had a great track record in humanitarian efforts in other non-Jewish areas of interest. As a matter of fact, where has been Jewish physical support in our diasterious wars such as Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afganistan, the Jews have been remarkably unconcerned with helping us with these problems. Where has there been any humanitarian aid to the world natural diasters that stalk the world’s populations? None that I am aware of! But again on subject, all this silence, and no help at all, to a country that has supplied billions of dollars in free military supplies, medical supplies etc., and also supplies 1/3 of the GNP of the nation of Israel! Ever since we supported the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948. As the old saying goes; “with friends like these, who needs enemies”! Hard times in the USA, will by its very nature, might cut off a lot of the free flow of monies and military goods to Israel, dispite your well financed, magnificently organized efforts of the Jewish state citizens and the USA state Jewish following, I believe. If this is an accurate portrayal of the immediate things to come, I wonder who the Jewish state will feret out to replace the vacuum coming from the USA?  My curiosity begs just one last question...going far, far back into human history, why have the Jewish people attained the extreme dislike of their customs, and practices against non Jews? Greeks, Romans, and almost all ancient civilizations eventually came to mistrust and dislike the Jews. None of these aforementioned civilizations had much in common as to every day existences or political structures, so why did they have the universal attitude against the Jews? Interesting observation, and question, is it not?

TOM JOHNSON - 24 April 2010 10:38 AM

It is obvious to me after reading your strongly held, strongly reinforced, somewhat well researched answer to my original posting that it would be futile to take issue with some of your observations! I state this without any rancor or in a noncombative intellectual frame of mind. However, for someone so knowledgeable of the Jewish stand on things, it is amazing to me that you never heard of, say, the Rosenburgs treasonus acts of giving the secrets of our A-bomb development to the Russians, for a monetary reward. As to the wilful attracking of the USS Liberty...all you had to do was Goggle the suggested web site and read a full accounting of the whole act of war against the USA! Convenient ommission on your part! The myth of a strategic value of Israel to the USA has been perpetuated by Israel and its legions of lobbyist, fortified by weak American politicians that have received favorable publicity and sizeable funding, and other backing by the Israeli American Political Action Committee (IAPAC). Modern warfare has negated any Israeli advantage for us. Israel has never had a great track record in humanitarian efforts in other non-Jewish areas of interest. As a matter of fact, where has been Jewish physical support in our diasterious wars such as Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afganistan, the Jews have been remarkably unconcerned with helping us with these problems. Where has there been any humanitarian aid to the world natural diasters that stalk the world’s populations? None that I am aware of! But again on subject, all this silence, and no help at all, to a country that has supplied billions of dollars in free military supplies, medical supplies etc., and also supplies 1/3 of the GNP of the nation of Israel! Ever since we supported the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948. As the old saying goes; “with friends like these, who needs enemies”! Hard times in the USA, will by its very nature, might cut off a lot of the free flow of monies and military goods to Israel, dispite your well financed, magnificently organized efforts of the Jewish state citizens and the USA state Jewish following, I believe. If this is an accurate portrayal of the immediate things to come, I wonder who the Jewish state will feret out to replace the vacuum coming from the USA? My curiosity begs just one last question...going far, far back into human history, why have the Jewish people attained the extreme dislike of their customs, and practices against non Jews? Greeks, Romans, and almost all ancient civilizations eventually came to mistrust and dislike the Jews. None of these aforementioned civilizations had much in common as to every day existences or political structures, so why did they have the universal attitude against the Jews? Interesting observation, and question, is it not?

Lets take this all the way back to Esau & Jacob and when we study there brotherhood we will also see why there is such a hatred towards the Jews

Richard Evans, David Irving and the Holocaust

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Richard Evans: Defining historical scholarship
- De-constructing the works of David Irving

Richard Evans’ 2001 publication, Lying about Hitler, is the first truly academic study into the works of David Irving in regards to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Prior to his critical examination and, essentially, his de-construction of the lies and fabrications employed by Irving, there was very limited, and in some cases, mixed reviews of Irving’s work. A number of academics gave praise to Irving for his “ingenuity and persistence” in regards to his research.[1] However, as Evans points out, few historians had actually taken the time embark on any detailed analysis of Irving’s work.[2] One of the few examples I came across was the 1979 review of Hitler’s War, by Charles W. Sydnor, Jr. wherein he describes a “less conspicuous mistake” involving Irving’s interpretation of the SS and their function,[3] potentially suggesting some intention to Irving’s fabrications, however, it is done so in a far less determined manner than Evans. Evans appears to be the first to critically analyze the work of David Irving, breaking down the self-proclaimed historian’s methods of research, cross-checking his footnotes in order to prove, or more often than not, disprove their authenticity, ultimately resulting in the complete destruction of David Irving as a reputable historian rather than a propagandist, advocating holocaust denial. Evans, in the role of a historian, goes to the archives, studying and researching (or perhaps re-researching). Re-tracing the steps of Irving, piecing together his tapestry of lies and falsifications in conjunction with his association with right-wing neo-Nazi organizations, as well as his own speeches that harboured blatant feelings of anti-Semitism and holocaust denial, Evans is able to successfully defend fellow historian Deborah Libstadt in court, but perhaps more importantly, in this book, he is able to lay down the principles of proper and improper historical methodology as practiced within the modern discipline of history.

To commence his investigation of David Irving’s historical works, Richard Evans interpreted Irving’s relationship to the realm of history as a profession. Irving, unlike most historians, did not possess any institutional training and thus did not complete the traditional rites of passage. This disparity between Irving and modern historians prompted Evans to compare Irving’s enthusiasm with research and the discovery of sources more closely to a “journalist pulling off a scoop” than with a professional modern historian.[4] Furthermore, it became clear to Evans that Irving did not consult or refer to the studies of other historians, which Evans found disturbing.[5] Irving posed a considerable risk to modern history as Evans understood and respected it. History as a profession was a communal enterprise with previous works of historians being built upon, debated, elaborated or simply re-written based upon new evidence, source or simply by the emergence of a new interpretation. Irving’s refusal to conform and integrate himself into this community separated him from historians; he was not a historian by Evans’ definition, but rather an author of past events, and once his study was completed, Irving would be officially given another title.

Ultimately, Evans assumes his role of historian when investigating and dismantling the work of David Irving. His skills of research, interpretation and analysis were transferred from his regular field of historical study into a study of the history of David Irving as a history. This type of strategy is evident in how Evans structures his argument. He examines and contrasts the two editions of Hitler’s War, 1977 and then a second edition released in 1991. Though a number of controversies and new evidence had been produced between these two publications, Evans found that Irving ignored new evidence that refuted some of his claims in the 1977 edition, but subsequently utilized any documentary evidence revealed since 1977 that could be manipulated into aiding his argument. This selective tendency towards the sources and blatant manipulation was Evans’ prime argument against Irving.[6] To summarize Evans’ opinion of Irving’s use of historical record and documentary evidence, Evans states, about Irving:

He relied on material that turned out directly to contradict his arguments when it was checked. He quoted from sources in a manner that distorted their author’s meaning and purposes. He misrepresented data and skewed documents. He used insignificant and sometimes implausible pieces of evidence to dismiss more substantial evidence that did not support his thesis. He ignored or deliberately suppressed material when it ran counter to his arguments. When he was unable to do this, he expressed implausible doubts about its reliability.[7]

Evans quotes Irving’s argument that all historians must be selective in presenting documentary evidence, labelling Jewish historians as being selective in order to further their own political agenda and then going on to deny that he possessed any political agenda of his own when writing.[8] Clearly Irving’s selection of documents was dependent on how they fell into what can be called his “criteria of manipulation or falsification”. And in all instances, there is little doubt that his method of selection entirely paralleled his obvious agenda of holocaust denial and anti-Semitic sentiment. Arguments such as this from Irving were likely infuriating to Evans, an established scholar in the profession of history. He would concede that facts are selected and that “every historical account is in some sense moulded by the aesthetic and political preferences of the writer.”[9]

However, when directly confronted with this argument from Irving, Evans is quick and brutal in his dismantling of Irving’s claim as being a historian:

“if you are simply a sloppy or bad historian, the mistakes you make will be all over the place[...] if all the mistakes are in the same direction in the support of a particular thesis, then I do not think that is mere negligence. I think that is a deliberate manipulation and deception.”[10]

Evans’ complete opinion of Irving can be summarized with a quote from Richard Rampton: “The truth is, however, that he is not an historian at all but a falsifier of history. To put it bluntly, he is a liar.”[11] The historical enterprise is a community established between scholars of a certain calibre, properly trained and integrated into the profession through the utilization of respectable research techniques and historical authorship. Throughout Evans’ utter destruction of Irving’s methods and self-proclaimed reputation as a respected and competent historian, Evans separates Irving from the other scholars, not through direct comparison between Irving and individual historians, but rather by presenting Irving next to the expectations and academic quality of truly respected historians within the historical community.

David Irving’s tendency to distort all statements, facts, documents or other forms of evidence to suit his needs was a uniform characteristic in his operations far outside his body of historical work. Even when confronted with dialogue between individuals or in the court room, there is evidence of Irving’s inability to utilize what was actually available. Instead, he perpetually modifies and distorts statements, facts and even written reports, such as Richard Evans’ throughout the trial outlined in Lying about Hitler.[12] All of these traits of Irving separate him from modern historians. An historian has a duty to not falsify documentation. An historian is not attempting to get away with anything or sway his audience to “his side” of an issue, but rather to present documentary evidence and then put forth an analysis of it. If the evidence does not coincide with the original thesis or perception of the historian, he will modify his argument, not modify the documents or intentionally misinterpret, or mistranslate the findings. Particularly when later documents emerged that directly contradicted past arguments offered by Irving, he refused to reassess his initial position. These are not traits of an historian, as there is no shame in needing to re-write your position or reassess your previous statements in light of new evidence brought into the historical field. Ultimately, the pursuit of a proper and educated interpretation and presentation of the past should be an essential requirement of any respectable historian. Indeed some seek to present a lesson to his or her readers, but this should not compromise the integrity of the profession, nor should this be achieved through a malpractice of the basic principles of research and analysis that all historians are supposed to be educated in and thereby experts of the given field. Evans damning analysis of Irving’s work re-enforced the importance of the high standard of scholarship within the field of historical study.

All historians are not created equal, and all published works on the past are not all of the same quality. Their points and arguments are not necessarily as valid as one another and readers must be very careful and wary of the quality of scholarship taken in the construction of the effort. Unfortunately, most readers would not be in the position, nor have the time to critically analyze the work of David Irving as Richard Evans did. The casual reader of history will not likely check the footnotes, fearing that they would become lost in the block of text involving numbers, citations and references, and for the few who do read the lengthy notes, it is unlikely they would possess the means or ability to properly investigate the authenticity of these notations, citations and quotes from the massive quantity of sources that Irving has reproduced. It is in this sense that David Irving became such a danger to the community of historical scholarship. He needed to be criticized and exposed to the public so that all readers, not only the academic community of historical scholars, could realize the difference between “real history and politically motivated propaganda.”[13]

Aside from Richard Evans’ considerable work in exposing David Irving and rigidly defining the nature of proper academic scholarship within the field of history, Evans, both through his book and his testimony in the David Irving trial, considerably affected the future of the study of the Holocaust. He initiated questions to be asked of this realm of history and furthermore, he inspired very important questions to be raised. Some critics wrote that they were concerned for the future of Holocaust scholarship, possibly restricting debate between historians over the issues; either due to the subject being “untouchable” now, or simply because future scholars may fear criticism in the same vein as Irving.[14] However, Evans quickly dismisses this view along with many other critics. Genuine historians with proper research methods would not befall the same fate as Irving.[15] The de-construction of Irving’s work was not a battle against holocaust denial; it was a battle against falsifying history and manipulating documents to suit a political agenda. On the contrary to many commentators, particularly journalists who did not fully understand the difference between “free speech” and the employment of proper historical methodology, some commentators, Thomas Kielinger for one, considered that in drawing the distinction between “genuine historical research and propaganda, the case underlined the right of serious historians of the Nazi period to ask difficult questions.”[16]

Indeed, the research of Richard Evans and court-ruling against David Irving defeated the realm of historical propaganda in the face of true historical scholarship. Marking the territory outside of just the academics who devote their lives to it and into the public sphere where fabricators such as Irving would not receive the respect and support that only true historians would be worthy of.

By utilizing his extensive experience and training in the field of history, Richard Evans was able to successfully dissect the work of David Irving, using historical methods of research and evaluation to evaluate his work and ultimately prove in court, to the academic community as well as to the general public that David Irving was not an historian and should not be considered amongst the ranks of scholars who tirelessly devote themselves to pursuit of history; free from the fabrication, falsification and manipulation of documentary evidence in order to pursue ulterior motives. As Richard Evans presents to use through simile, historians are like:

“figurative painters sitting at various places around a mountain. They will paint it in different styles, using different techniques and different materials[...] They may even disagree about some aspects of its appearance, or some of its features. But they will all be painting the same mountain.”[17]

Some facts or historical truths are not debatable; one being the existence, in some form, of genocide against the Jews during World War II as enacted by Nazi Germany, which is historically titled the Holocaust. True historians will not deny this event, but rather seek to understand it and interpret it by the analysis of the documentary evidence. These debates will continue between respectable historians who are all painting the mountain from different angles. Richard Evans separated the true historians from the propagandists, outlining the crucial components and methods of historical scholarship. With men like David Irving no longer able to hold any sway in the historical community, historians can once again resume analyzing and researching the Holocaust and Nazi Germany in hopes of achieving a greater understanding of this period in human history.

Works Cited

Evans, Richard. “Lying about Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial.” New York:

Basic Books, 2002.

Sydnor Jr., Charles W. Review of Hitler’s War, by David Irving, Central European History 12,

no. 2 (1979): 169 – 199.

Tosh, John. “The Pursuit of History: Aims, methods and new directions in the study of modern

History” Fourth ed. Harlow: Pearson Books: 2006.

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[1] Richard Evans, Lying about Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial (New York: Basic Books, 2002): 10.

[2] Ibid., 33

[3] Charles W. Sydnor, Jr, review of Hitler’s War, by David Irving, Central European History 12, no. 2 (1979): 177 – 178.

[4] Evans, 18.

[5] Ibid., 18 – 19.

[6] Evans, 69.

[7] Ibid., 70.

[8] Ibid., 21.

[9] John Tosh, The Pursuit of History: Aims, methods and new directions in the study of modern History Fourth ed. (Harlow: Pearson Books: 2006): 206.

[10] Evans, 205.

[11] Evans, 205.

[12] Ibid., 203.

[13] Evans, 266.

[14] Evans, 252 – 253.

[15] Ibid., 253.

[16] Ibid., 256.

[17] Evans, 250.

http://acannell.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/richard-evans-david-irving-and-the-holocaust/

Holocaust denier David J. Irving’s trial in England in 2000. 

Irving was the moving party, having sued Ms. Lipstadt and Penguin Books for libel.  The burden of proof in England is on the defendants rather than on the plaintiff, in this case David Irving.

The 355 page decision by the judge so destroyed Irving’s credibility that the case also destroyed the credibility any other Holocaust deniers, including the Institute for Historical Review, which ceased publishing the Journal of Historical Review in 2002.

The trial provided an excellent venue to conclusively demonstrate the lies and distortions of Irving regarding his books, articles, as well as interviews on television, the radio and newspapers.  Ample opportunity was provided in the nearly three month non-jury trial for every relevant issue and some nonrelevant ones to be fleshed out fully by both sides in front of the judge.

The evidence, briefly, consisted of all of Irving’s published books and articles, and the documents that entered the public domain through the discovery process in the court case, and their citations in court in the expert reports, the defense statements, and the judgment.  They included consecutively numbered videotapes and audiocassettes of Irving’s speeches and correspondence, various numbered sequences of documents in separate collections, and numbered folders belonging to the original discovery list and supplementary discovery lists.  In addition, a series of documents was submitted to the court during the trial by both sides in the case.

The court was supplied with transcriptions of the proceedings on a daily basis as well as opening and closing statements, as well as the considerably longer written closing statement. 

Both sides issued written questions to each other, requiring written and documented responses.

The defense (Deborah E. Lipstadt and Penguin Books) documentation eventually was close to one hundred linear feet. 

The Judge’s 355 page order: 

Judge Gray found that Irving had “significantly misrepresented what the evidence, objectively examined reveals.” Judge Gray’s choice of words to describe Irving’s writings about the Holocaust were unambiguous:  “perverts,” “distorts,” misleading,” “egregious,” “unjustified,” “travesty,” “misrepresentation,” “misconstruction,” “omission,” and “unreal.”

The judge stated that Irving’s “falsification of the historical record was deliberate and ... motivated by a desire to present events in a manner consistent with his own ideological beliefs even if that involved distortion and manipulation of historical evidence.”

Referring to defense expert witness Richard J. Evans the judge noted a “meticulous report.” “Evans justified each and every one of the criticisms on which the Defendants have chose to rely.”
Regarding Irving’s claim that during the 1924 Putsch Hitler sought to maintain order, the judge stated that Irving had “embroider[ed] the incident” in order to depict Hitler as “behav[ing] responsibly.” He criticized Irving’s reliance on Kurt Daluege’s summary of Jewish criminal statistics.  Daluege’s “enthusiastic membership” in the Nazi Party and his role in the shootings on the Eastern Front, should have made Irving “doubt any pronouncement of his affecting the Jews.”

Irving’s rendition of Hitler’s role in Kristallnacht was “at odds with the documentary evidence.” His claim that “Hitler bore no responsibility” for starting the pogrom and that, upon learning of it, intervened to halt the violence, “seriously misrepresents the available contemporaneous evidence” and was “based upon misrepresentation, misconstruction, and omission of the documentary evidence.” Irving’s account of the trials of the culprits who participated in Kristallnacht “fails lamentably” to reveal what a “whitewash it was.”

Regarding Himmler’s November 30, 1941, diary entry about his meeting with Hitler, there was “no evidence” that Hitler “summoned” Himmler to his headquarters or “obliged” him to telephone Heydrich ordering Jews not to be “liquidated.”

Irving “perverted” General Bruns’s account of the shooting of Jews in Riga.  Bruns did not say that instructions had come from Hitler that the shootings were to stop, as Irving had claimed.  Bruns had said that he had received orders that there should be no more shootings “on that scale” and those that did occur were to be carried out “more discreetly.” In other words, Judge Gray observed, “the shooting was to continue.”

Irving’s contention that Hitler did not know or approve of the “wholesale shooting of Jews in the East” and was not complicit in the gassing of Jews in death camps had “a distinct air of unreality.” Judge Gray was convinced that the shootings were coordinated and sanctioned by the leaders of the Third Reich.  “Irving was misrepresenting the historical evidence when he told audiences in Australia, Canada, and the US ... that the shooting of the Jews in the east was arbitrary, unauthorized, and undertaken by individual groups or commanders.”

Irving “materially pervert[ed] the evidence” of the Hitler-Horthy meeting.  Irving’s claim that Nuremberg judge Francis Biddle thought Marie Vaillant-Couturier a “ ‘bloody liar’ is a travesty of the evidence.”

Regarding Dresden, Judge Gray found that Irving’s comments about the authenticity of TB-47 were “reprehensible.” Irving charged that Miller, the Dresden resident who participated in the burning of the bodies and who concluded that the death toll was approximately thirty thousand, was “fantasizing.” Judge Gray dismissed this as “absurd.” He concluded that Irving’s treatment of the historical evidence “fell short of the standard to be expected of a conscientious historian” and that his estimate of “100,000 and more deaths [in the Dresden bombings by the Allies] ... lacked any evidential basis and were such as no responsible historian would have made.”

Judge Gray found that the “cumulative effect of the documentary evidence for the genocidal operation” of the gas chambers at “Auschwitz [to be] considerable” and “mutually corroborative.” He found it “striking” that the eyewitness and documentary evidence was “so consistent.”

The Leuchter Report was insufficient reason for “dismissing or even doubting” the existence of homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz.  Judge Gray concluded that “no objective, fair-minded historian would have serious cause to doubt” the existence of the gas chambers at Auschwitz that were used on a substantial scale to kill Jews.”

Judge Gray declared it “incontrovertible that Irving qualifies as a Holocaust denier.” He had denied the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz frequently and “in the most offensive terms,” including in his telephone-booth-cum-gas-chamber anecdote, comments about Senator Edward Kennedy’s car containing more dead people than the Holocaust, dismissal of eyewitnesses as liars, ASSHOLS, and the question to Mrs. Altman about earning money from her tattoo [of her number at the death camp.]

Irving had “repeatedly crossed the divide between legitimate cricitism and prejudiced vilification of the Jewish race and people.” His comments confirmed he was an “antisemite” and a “racist.” His statements about minorities “provide ample evidence of racism.” The ditty he composed for hsi daughter—“I am a Baby Aryan”—was “undeniably racism,” while some of his other statements --- is reference to “one of them” reading “our news to us”—were racism of a more “insidious kind.”

Irving’s appearances at gatherings such as the Halle rally demonstrated his “willingness to participate in a meeting at which a motley collection of militant neo-Naizs were also present.” The “regularity” of his contacts with the National Alliance [British neo-Nazi political party] confirmed his “sympathetic attitude towards an organization whose tenets would be abhorrent to most people.”

Judge Gray’s critique became even more pointed when he addresses Irving’s claim that, at worst, he had made some inadvertent historical mistakes:

“Irving’s treatment of the historical evidence is so perverse and egregious that it is difficult to accept that it is inadvertence on his part ... Mistakes and misconceptions such as these ... are more consistent with a willingness on Irving’s part knowingly to misrepresent or manipulate or put a “spin” on the evidence so as to make it conform with his own preconceptions ....  He has deliberately skewed the evidence to bring it in line with his political beliefs.”

.......

In nineteen critical and separate instances, the defense had proved that Irving had misrepresented the evidence. 

The judgment had a good deal to say about what an objective historian should do.  “Whilst I accept that an historian is entitled to speculate, he must spell out clearly to the reader when he is speculating rather than reciting historical facts.” Irving had not done this.  “An objective historian is obliged to be even-handed inn his approach to historical evidence: he cannot pick and choose without adequate reason.” Irving was not even-handed.  Objective historians had to take account of the circumstances surrounding the production of a document, and Irving had not.  “I accept that historians are bound by the constraints of space to edit quotations.  But there is an obligation on them not to give the reader a distorted impression by selective quotation.” “Irving treated the historical evidence in a manner which fell far short of the standard to be expected of a conscientious historian.”

Irving “misrepresented and distorted evidence which was available to him.” It was also “incontrovertible” that “Irving qualifies as a Holocaust denier.” His denial of the gas chambers and of the systematic and centrally directed nature of the mass shootings of Jews was “contrary to the evidence.”

‘Historians are human.  They make mistakes, misread and misconstrue documents and overlook material evidence.” But in all instances in which Irving had done these things, the effect was to cast Hitler in a favorable light.  There were no instances in which Irving’s errors worked in the opposite directions.  His mistakes were thus “unlikely to have been innocent.” His explanations for such errors in his work as he did concede were “unconvincing.”

Moreover the judge stated:  “In the course of these proceedings Irving challenged the authenticity of certain documents, not because there was any substantial reason for doubting their genuineness but because they did not fit in with his thesis.” “His attitude to these documents was in stark contrast to his treatment of other documents which were more obviously open to question.” There was “a comparable lack of even-handedness when it comes to Irving’s treatment of eye-witnesses.”

The judge considered that Irving’s change of stance on a number of issues during the trial when he was confronted with the documents showed his earlier “willingness to make assertions about the Nazi era which, as he must appreciate, are irreconcilable with the available evidence.”

Moreover, the fact that Irving withdrew some of these concessions indicated to the judge his “determination to adhere to his preferred version of history even if the evidence does not support it.”

“Irving is antisemtic.  His words are directed against Jews, either individually or collectively, in the sense that they are by turns hostile, critical, offensive and derisory in their references to semitic people, their characteristics and appearances.”

Over the past one and a half decades, he had become more active politically:

“The content of his speeches and interviews often displays a distinctly pro-Nazi and anti-Jewish bias.  He makes surprising and often unfounded assertions about the Nazi regime which tend to exonerate the Nazis for the appalling atrocities which they inflicted on the Jews.  He is content to mix with neo-fascists and appears to share many of their racist and antisemitic prejudices.  The picture of Irving which emerges from the evidence of his extra-curricular activities reveals him to be a right-wing pro-Nazi polemicist.  In my view the defendants have established that Irving has a political agenda.  It is one which, it is legitimate to infer, disposes him, where he deems it necessary, to manipulate the historical record in order to make it conform with his political beliefs.”

The above quotations are directly from the Judge Gray’s 355 page order --and extracted from Lying about Hitler:  History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial (2001) by Richard J. Evans.