⚠️ Historical Documentation Notice
This document is part of a historical archive and is presented for scholarly research and educational purposes.
The content reflects historical perspectives and should be understood within its historical context.
Don
MacAnguswrites from
Salt Lake City, Utah on
In
the recent British case David Irving vs. Penguin
Books, the court ruled that Irving, a controversial
historian, had, in his books, skewed the events of
history in order to bring them in line with his personal
views.Those views, in the opinion of some of his
critics, were portrayed as pro-Hitler, pro-Nazi, and
anti-Jewish. Irving, of course, denied that this was the
case, which was the basis for his bringing the suit at
the outset.Not all historians, however, are as critical of Irving.
Those who support him do so (in part) on the basis that the standards of scrutiny which were applied to Irving in order to discredit him, if applied to most or all other historians, would reveal one of the dirty little secrets of historians: the history we accept as reality is actually just the version of events which have been embraced by the majority of people.The lesson we learn from Irving (if it can be said in this way) is thus; in war, only the losers have to face the
Nuremberg trials, in spite of the fact that there are plenty of war crimes to go around — Axis or Allied alike.