By Pam Robinson
Hooray--a book that looks at the record, and proves that history can be established, factually and without question.
All those who imagine the Holocaust to be an invention of the Jews, Communists or bleeding hearts should just stop, read and apologize. Right this minute would be fine.
That there are misbegotten people, a fair number of them, who buy into the idea that the Holocaust was a myth (or exaggerated or wasn't Hitler's idea) is still a surprise, because the record is so clear.
"Lying About Hitler" was written by Richard Evans, a professor of Modern History at Cambridge and a specialist in modern German history. Evans was an expert witness for the defense in the libel trial brought by the self-styled historian David Irving against Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books over her description of Irving as a Holocaust denier in her book "Denying the Holocaust."
That Irving's entire career rests on his claims of special access to, and interpretation of, Nazi documents has given him a certain patina of legitimacy that ordinary anti-Semites might not be granted. Evans says Irving seems to moved closer and closer to his subject over the years, unable to separate himself and his causes from that of the Nazi murderer.
Reading Evans' book is like watching an autopsy--he takes the book apart, bit by bit, "fact" by "fact" and presents the facts, on paper, not only his interpretation. As he removes each bit from the book, he examines it, weighs it, prods it and declares it dead. Then he proves why.
Evans is not content to just blast away with facts of his own. He uses Irving's own writings over the years--material which often has gone through strange evolutions in tone and style and interpretation by Irving--and piles on the facts culled from documents that Irving has twisted, ignored, misinterpreted, or, excuse me, simply invented.
Evans is no wild-eyed hired gun. Quite the contrary. Those looking for harsh language, ringing denunciations of Irving, will have to read carefully and go through Evans' step-by-step process to feel the sting of his outrage that history could be so badly rendered.
It takes the historian Evans a while to state things as baldly as others might want to do; this passage, for example, appears on p.95 of my edition and is perhaps the strongest statement of the book:
"I could not avoid the conclusion that Irving, to use some of phraseology employed by Lipstadt in her general criticism of his and the Holocaust deniers' work, bent this reliable source to suit his argument, misrepresented the historical data, and skewed the documents on which he relied, by placing quotations in a false context, removing part of the record to a footnote, and mixing up two different connotations in the text so that it looked as if Hitler was telling Horthy that the Jews should not be killed, only interned in camps."
(This particular paragraph refers to meetings of Admiral Horthy, leader of the pro-Nazi Hungarian regime, who, despite his own severe anti-Semitic actions, wanted to keep the Germans from meddling too much in Hungarian affairs. )
This is strong language from a Cambridge historian brought in to defend someone in a libel case.
Evans can back up his statements.
Here is just one example
that Evans reports on Irving's writings:
According to Hitler,
the Jews had started the war and said, 'Let nobody tell me, Hitler added,
'that despite that we can't park them in the marshier parts of Russia!'
'By the way,' he added, "it's not a bad thing that public rumour attributes
to us a plan to exterminate the Jews.' He pointed out however that he had
no intention of starting anything at present. 'There's no point in adding
to one's difficulties at a time like this!'
Here's what Evans reports
the documents actually report Hitler saying:
'In the Reichstag, I
prophesied to Jewry, the Jew will disappear from Europe if war is not avoided.
This race of criminals has the two million dead of the [First World] war
on its conscience, and now hundreds of thousands again. Nobody can tell
me: But we can't send them into the morass! For who bothers about our people?
It's good if the terror that we are exterminating Jewry goes before us...I'm
forced to pile up an enormous amount of things myself; but that doesn't
mean that what I take cognizance of without reacting to it immediately,
just disappears. It goes into an account; one day the book is taken out.
I had to remain inactive for a long time against the Jews too. There's
no sense in artificially making extra difficulties for oneself; the more
cleverly one operates, the better..."
Evans has caught Irving watering down Hitler's words--he wasn't talking about being glad that a mere RUMOR of terrorism was abroad, and therefore, as a rumor, was possibly not true. He was applauding the fact that word of the very real violence was out, as a way of terrorizing the people who had not yet been conquered.
Dozens of Irving's statements are challenged in a similar manner. Evans doesn't just rebut--he refutes them at every turn and provides detailed footnotes and citations to support his statements.
He also takes on the odd situation that preceded the libel trial, which Lipstadt and Penguin Books ultimately won.
Lipstadt's book was published in 1993, and according to Evans, had sold just 2,000 copies in Britain when Irving brought suit in 1996, claiming defamation.
In his complaint, he accused Lipstadt of involvement in a wider conspiracy to deny him the right to publish his views, or 'Real History' as he saw it.
Evans saw an odd pattern develop: various intellectuals rushed in to defend Irving's right to publish; others seemed to be under a misimpression that somehow Lipstadt and Penguin Books had brought the case. It's an excellent example of spin control that Irving almost won, and probably did win in some minds.
The debate didn't end, of course, with the trial. Some continue to believe that Irving's approach is mere scholarship, one that ought to be allowed to continue without challenge.
Others are uncomfortable with laws against Holocaust denial, and the refusal of some countries to grant Irving a visa.
Evans also assesses the historians,
some of whom spoke up for Irving's research abilities, while others denounced
Irving as a total fraud. There are hints of old battles between old historians
lurking in this book, but nothing should detract from the facts as Evans
reports them.
David Robson of the Daily
Express, said it best:
Irving was "not, as he pretends
to be, a controversial historian posing difficult questions that need to
be addressed, but a propagandist and liar, masquerading as a historian
who needs, once and for all, to be exposed."
Please note: This book is
sold under two titles: Lying About Hitler and Telling Lies About Hitler.
Pam Robinson is a news editor with the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service and a co-founder of ACES.
Posted Dec.3, 2002
