David Irving film - Should we give the devil his due?

[Liberty Lover]

Ok, I’ll be brief. There’s been a bit of controversy in Australia over the decision of the Melbourne film festival to screen an 80-minute video of David Irving jabbering on about his absurd belief that the holocaust never happened. I think it’s called 'The search for truth in history'.

Irving is a self-professed fascist who deliberately distorts and manipulates historical documents to minimize the Holocaust and Hitler’s role in it. The expert witness of the Irving-Lipstadt libel trial, Richard Evans, revealed this to the court and subsequently wrote a book about his findings, 'Telling lies about Hitler: History, Holocaust and the David Irving trial.'

Under no circumstances can Irving be labelled an historian. He fails to comply with the most fundamental convention employed by historians, i.e. the accurate recording of evidence. So why the film festival chose to screen Irving’s "film" is beyond me.

More to the point however, is the issue of free speech. Personally I believe Irving should be permitted to say what he likes, regardless of how ridicules what he’s saying is, and I think the film festival should be allowed to screen it, regardless of how inane it is for them to do so. As we have no bill of rights in Australia the inalienable right to free speech does not exist (something I hope will be remedied in the near future).

Anyhow, where to you people stand on this issue? Let the ***** talk or shut him up (cage him if you will)?

(Edited by Liberty Lover at 12:14 pm on July 9, 2003)

[Liberty Lover]

Here are some links by the way:

Holocaust denial on trial: Irving vs Lipstadt (http://www.holocaustdenialontrial.org)

SMH article: Film festival to screen Irving film (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/07/1057430132529.html)

Institute for Historical Review (http://www.ihr.org)
Organisation that advocates denial

Good books on the issue that I have read:

Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory

Michael Shermer, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It?

Richard Evans, Telling lies about Hitler: History, Holocaust and the David Irving trial.

(Edited by Liberty Lover at 12:56 am on July 11, 2003)

[Vinny Rafarino]

Irving is a moron. I would not mind clipping him.

[Loknar]

I don’t understand people like this and KKK morons. Aren’t they happy that millions were gassed? Why are they trying to deny it? Maybe they have some of their consciousness still in tact.

[Liberty Lover]

Quote: from Loknar on 6:23 pm on July 9, 2003
I don’t understand people like this and KKK morons. Aren’t they happy that millions were gassed? Why are they trying to deny it?

It’s simple really. Deniers believe, quiet correctly, that if the Nazis are exonerated of ever carrying out the Holocaust, people will find their murderous creed of hatred a lot more convincing. The ultra right-wing agenda of Irving and his friends would be considerably advanced if the Holocaust were removed from the equation.

[Liberty Lover]

It seems I will have to repeat my earlier question:

where to you people stand on this issue? Let the ***** talk or shut him up (cage him if you will)?

[CubanFox]

Let the ***** talk. I'd like to clip him but free speech is important no matter how fucked up the speech in question is.

[Cassius Clay]

I say shut him up. Instead of denying it there should be a film on the causes of why it happened. Films like Schindlers List and others are only good at exposing how cruel the Nazis were and how fanatical their hatred was. It doesn't help explain why they got into power in the first place and the overall motives for the Holocaust and the fact the German people alowed or rather ignored the fact it was happening.

Those who forget history are deemed to repeat it.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

It's doomed.

let him talk. In public. Surrounded by Jews with broken bottles in their hands.

[ArgueEverything]

The question is, is this a freedom of speech issue (as its proponents, and those who screened it claim) or is it a case of inciting antisemitism in the public (in which case it could legally be banned)? The court obviously decided the former.

I think it's a tricky issue, but overall, I probably agree with the court. It seems the best way to screw over morons like Irving is to let them them screw over themselves. They do it everytime they open their mouth! I have confidence that the Australian public are able to recognise him for the bigot he is.

What I'm wondering is how and why a one hour monologue made it into the festival in the first place! It doesn't really seem like 'art' to me...

[Reuben]

Quote: from Cassius Clay on 1:00 pm on July 10, 2003
I say shut him up. Instead of denying it there should be a film on the causes of why it happened. Films like Schindlers List and others are only good at exposing how cruel the Nazis were and how fanatical their hatred was. It doesn't help explain why they got into power in the first place and the overall motives for the Holocaust and the fact the German people alowed or rather ignored the fact it was happening.

Those who forget history are deemed to repeat it.


Agree completely. Interesting that you should mention Schindler's list since his film ocuses on the rare anomoly of a German industrialist fightng against nazism, when so many of his class had supported the fascist rise to power both in Italy and in germany.

[Liberty Lover]

It doesn't help explain why they got into power in the first place and the overall motives for the Holocaust and the fact the German people alowed or rather ignored the fact it was happening.

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen wrote a great book on this called Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679772685/002-5585979-6163212?vi=glance) Definitely worth read.

What I'm wondering is how and why a one hour monologue made it into the festival in the first place! It doesn't really seem like 'art' to me...

What makes it even more bizarre is that someone who has been proven to distort, misinterpret and fabricate historical documents made it in 1993. I can only think that the festivals organisers just wanted to bring some attention to their event.

Anyway, I saw on the news this morning that the film has been pulled by the organisers after a 'peaceful protest'.

[TouCHE]

Quote: from Liberty Lover on 2:45 am on July 10, 2003

Quote: from Loknar on 6:23 pm on July 9, 2003
I don’t understand people like this and KKK morons. Aren’t they happy that millions were gassed? Why are they trying to deny it?

It’s simple really. Deniers believe, quiet correctly, that if the Nazis are exonerated of ever carrying out the Holocaust, people will find their murderous creed of hatred a lot more convincing. The ultra right-wing agenda of Irving and his friends would be considerably advanced if the Holocaust were removed from the equation.


I don’t think they want to remove the Holocaust from the equation, just their obvious role in it. They like to pawn it off as a demonic Jewish conspiracy, sometimes holding that the Jews fabricated it to gain sympathy for their plan to establish the Jewish state of Israel. As if everyone didn’t already know, the humiliation and degradation of the Jews is central to Nazi politics.

David Irving is a devout Hitler admirer. From what I understand he doesn’t so much deny the Holocaust, only Hitler’s specific part in it. Since Hitler never actually sighed any of the documents approving the Final solution, Irving feels Hitler should be absolved of any and all guilt or accountability. I think he also contests some of the figures, arguing that far less then 6 million Jews were exterminated or some sorry shit.

Liberty, I know he was tried for some of his blatantly unfounded rhetoric -- there's a video re-enactment of the whole trial -- did he ever do any time for that shit?












(Edited by TouCHE at 12:35 am on July 16, 2003)

[mentalbunny]

Let him talk, but the festival should ensure that people know they do not endorse what he says. I too doubt the film's artistic merit but I'm not running the festival!

[Liberty Lover]

TouCHE,

David Irving is a devout Hitler admirer. From what I understand he doesn’t so much deny the Holocaust, only Hitler’s specific part in it. Since Hitler never actually sighed any of the documents approving the Final solution, Irving feels Hitler should be absolved of any and all guilt or accountability. I think he also contests some of the figures, arguing that far less then 6 million Jews were exterminated or some sorry shit.

Initially this is what Irving contended, calling Hitler "the best friend the Jews had in the third Reich" while blaming any massacres on the likes of Himmler. However, early in the 1990's he switched from this 'soft-core' denial stance to full on 'hard-core' denial.

Liberty, I know he was tried for some of his blatantly unfounded rhetoric -- there's a video re-enactment of the whole trial -- did he ever do any time for that shit?

Irving was the one actually doing the suing. In her book, Denying the Holocaust, Deborah Lipstadt accused him of being "An ardent admirer of the Nazi leader" and of "distorting evidence and manipulating documents to serve his own purposes." These are the comments Irving claimed were defamatory and initiated a libel suit over. The case was dismissed and Irving had to pay some two million dollars in legal fees to the defendant. I think it sent him bankrupt.

[Liberty Lover]

Irving on Holocaust survivors:

The only way to overcome this appalling pseudo-religious atmosphere that surrounds the whole of this immense tragedy called World War II is to treat these little legends with the ridicule and bad taste that they deserve. Ridicule isn’t enough, you’ve got to be tasteless about it. You’ve got to say things like: “more women died on the back seat of Senator Edward Kennedy’s car at Chappaquiddick than died in the gas chamber at Auschwitz.” (Laughter in the audience.) You think that’s tasteless? What about this: “I’m forming an association especially dedicated to all these liars, the ones that kid people that they were in these concentration camps. It’s called ‘The Auschwitz Survivors, Survivors of the Holocaust and Other Liars’- ‘A.S.S.H.O.L.E.S.’ (laughter in audience.)

[CubanFox]

Perhaps we should make this guy the exception to the rule and beat his face in with a goddamn crowbar.

[Cassius Clay]

While we are on the subject of decent books, ofcourse 'The Nazis a Warning from History' is very good.

David Irving may be right when he questions the number of dead in the Holocaust. It could well be more, afterall it wasn't just Jews. The Mentally disabled/handicaped, Slavs, Poles, Marxists and Gays. Irving may also be right in pointing out that not all died through 'delibarate' killing, eg through the natural conditions that reigned in the trains and slave-labor camps. What kind of a argument this is I don't know, maybe if the SS Guards provided better condidtions than those given to animals then it these 'accidents' may not of happened.

From what I know of David Irving it would seem his argument is 'Find me a document with Hitler's Signature on it'. First he should realise that it's a known fact the Nazis reffered to the final solution in language which was toned down to say the least, Himmler even changed 'Transport to the East' to 'Settlement'. Second of all he should check out the Goebbels diarys.