HOLOCAUST
DENIAL David Irving
A POPULAR lecturer and revered "authority"
within the Holocaust-denial movement, Irving
established a reputation as a chronicler of World
War II history before adopting the extreme tenets
of Holocaust denial. At the CODOH
site, visitors can find portions of several of
Irving's books, information about how to purchase
them, and issues of his "Action Report" newsletter.
Now Irving has a Web
site of his own, listed under the name of his
British publishing company, Focal Point
Publications (FPP). Echoing the depiction of
Bradley Smith at CODOH's site, the FPP site
presents Irving deceptively as a historian fighting
for intellectual freedom. The FPP site contains a biography
of Irving, copies of his correspondence,
and transcripts of his speeches.
His biography paints him as an intellectual, the
author of over
30 books. He is pictured as a father figure,
sitting with the youngest of his five daughters.
The text of over 20 letters penned by Irving to
various newspapers, published and unpublished,
appears in the correspondence
section. Of the seven transcripts of his speeches
at the site, two record talks Irving gave at IHR
conferences. At a 1989 IHR convention, Irving
announced to loud applause his total "conversion"
to Holocaust denial, declaring "I too now believe
fully in the myth of the Holocaust!"  Sections
of the site entitled "The
Legal Battles" and "The Controversies" offer a
biased account of Irving's conflicts with
organizations that he feels have violated his
rights. He provides extensive documentation of his
libel
action against Penguin Books and Holocaust
historian Deborah Lipstadt, his "illegal
expulsion" from Canada, and the attempts of
"German
Public Prosecutors" to jail him for denying the
Holocaust. Irving also devotes space to the
"St.
Martin's Press Scandal," in which that
publisher cancelled its contract to publish his
1996 book
Goebbels: Mastermind of
the Third Reich in the United States
after his ties to the Holocaust denial movement
were
publicized. Chapters from this book and some of
Irving's other works, such as the as-yet
unpublished second
volume of Churchill's War, can also be found at
his site.
The Focal Point Publications site includes a
book
catalog that sells "rare books": titles by
Irving such as Apocalypse
1945: The Destruction of Dresden and
Nuremberg: The Last
Battle. As with many other Internet book
sellers, customers need only specify the books they
want from a menu on their computer screen; type in
an address; provide a credit card number and click
on a hotspot to submit this information. Irving's
book catalog highlights the importance of the
Internet to extremists as a way to sell items that
would not normally be available in mainstream
stores.[*]
OTHER
items in the latest ADL expose:
The Institute of
Historical Review (IHR)
Campaign for Open
Debate on the Holocaust
|
Website
comments: * As the ADL is aware, if they had only visited
their local Barnes & Noble, or clicked on
www.amazon.com,
Mr Irving's books are freely available over the
counter in thousands of US bookstores (despite
their efforts). |
write to David Irving