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The Times
26 June 1999
Can a writer who thinks the Holocaust was a hoax still be a great historian?
Irving’s claim to historical seriousness rests largely, in Craig’s phrase, on “his energy as a researcher.” An indefatigable documents man, Irving spent years poring over Nazi archives, rooting out long-lost diaries and private correspondence and presenting his findings in vivid, readable narratives aimed at conveying World War II from the German point of view.
Hilberg is well aware of the pressure to conform to an approved Holocaust narrative. His own work has been attacked in some quarters for the minimal role he allots to Jewish resistance. But while Hilberg defends Irving’s right to publish, he distinguishes Irving’s writing from “legitimate controversy.”
Asked if he felt awkward about resorting to the courts to silence his critics after he had been the cause of a free-speech campaign, Irving replied, “It may be unfortunate for Professor Lipstadt that she is the one who finds herself dragged out of the line and shot.”
DAVID IRVING, a writer who focuses on the German side of World War II, has brought a libel suit against a critic who described him as dangerous.