TIME EUROPE
APRIL 24, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 16
History Wins, Irving Loses
Controversial historian David Irving loses his libel suit and is branded a pro-Nazi falsifier of history
By HELEN GIBSON London
David irving's reputation as a historian of the Third Reich has been in tatters for years, with publishers refusing to print his books and some countries, including Germany and Canada, refusing him entry. But if he retained any professional credibility it was extinguished last week in a British High Court when a judge branded him an anti-Semitic, racist Holocaust denier who associated regularly with neo-Nazis and deliberately distorted history to serve his own political views.
For Irving, 62, the libel case ruling, which he called "perverse" and will seek to appeal, also threatens financial ruin. Although he pleaded his own case, the two-month trial ran up legal defense costs of more than $3 million, most of which Irving will now have to cover. Probably far worse for this self-taught historian and author of some 16 books is what Richard Evans, professor of modern history at Cambridge University, predicts will now happen: "If there were any publishers left who still took him seriously, they won't any longer."
Irving has only himself to blame for his predicament. It was he who brought the libel case against American professor Deborah Lipstadt, whose book Denying the Holocaust: the Growing Assault on Truth and Memory accused Irving of being "one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial," and her publisher Penguin Books. Irving, who relies on income from self-publishing and from right-wing supporters, maintained he had to sue to protect his livelihood. He says he has never denied that the Holocaust occurred, but he questions the number of Jewish dead and that there was a systematic plan of extermination in the camps. He has stuck by other highly controversial claims, including those that Hitler was unaware of the mass murder of Europe's Jews until late 1943, that the gas chambers at Auschwitz were a myth and that most prisoners died there of disease, starvation or hard labor.
The defendants, who employed a battery of historians, put forward 19 instances in which Irving had distorted the evidence. The judge found that the criticisms were "almost invariably well-founded," that Irving appeared to "take every opportunity to exculpate Hitler" and that "no objective, fair-minded historian would have serious cause to doubt that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz."
Yet the judge also credited Irving with an "unparalleled" knowledge of World War II and for painstaking research that had unearthed many undiscovered documents, an evaluation with which most historians agree. So how did this son of a British naval officer get it so wrong? A long-time admirer of Germany, Irving always enjoyed his role as a provocative historian. But after claiming in Hitler's War, published in 1977, that the Führer was ignorant of the mass extermination of Jews until 1943, he was courted by neo-Nazi groups and his theories and associates became more and more extremist.
Historian Donald Cameron Watt worries that this case could have one undesirable outcome -- to drive the Holocaust deniers underground. "We need to have this stuff out in the open, to thrash out the reality before the witnesses are all dead," he says. Maybe, but for most, Irving as a provoker of debate has been one provocation too far.
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April 24, 2000
COVER STORY
The Incredible Bulk
Testosterone, which can increase libido and help build muscles, will be available soon in easy-to-use gel form. But it can cause liver damage and prostate cancer. Why are people willing to risk their health for it?
Never Too Buff
A new book reveals a troubling obsession: how male self-worth is increasingly tied to body image
Viewpoint
Joel Stein worries about his testosterone
EUROPE
Blowing the Whistle on the Past
A former Czech political dissident hunts down communist-era secret police collaborators
Neither Here Nor There
Serbs who deserted the war in Kosovo are finding no welcome in the West
History Wins, Irving Loses
Controversial historian David Irving loses his libel suit and is branded a pro-Nazi falsifier of history
Viewpoint
Rich Westerners make poor advocates for their friends in the Third World
Viewpoint
Law enforcers must learn to move faster to snare global lawbreakers
MIDDLE EAST
Withdrawal Symptoms
Syria vacillates as Israel seeks world support for a plan to pull its troops out of southern Lebanon
Jews on Trial
An Iranian spy case undermines an ancient minority and a modern President
THE ARTS
The Rem Movement
Architecture is changing. The proof? Its biggest prize, the Pritzker, goes to a thinker rather than a pure designer
Performed with True Passion
The English National Opera brings Bach to vivid dramatic life
The End of Innocence
Ishiguro's new novel, When We Were Orphans, probes the wounds of vanished childhood
DEPARTMENTS
Techwatch
World Watch
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