Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial

Media:	Paperback
Author:	Richard J. Evans
Publisher:	Basic Books
Release date:	16 April, 2002
List price:	~~$16.95~~
Our price:	$11.20 that is 34% off!

Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial

Average rating: Stars

Lying About Irving

The expected lies from the traditional enemies of free speech and truth...read Irving for yourself, people, don't trust what his enemies say he said. They lie and Evans is one of the biggest liars. He will be a mere footnote a century from now when irving's works will be read as standard texts.

Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial - Richard J. Evans

The Truth About David Irving.

This book has two parts: The first is the Evan's meticulous examination, as an expert witness for the defense, of Irving's books and public statements, analyzing their value (or lack thereof) as historical research. The second is a more personal account of his experiences during the trial and how it felt to confront Irving face to face.

The first part is excellent. It proves that Irving consistently, indeed almost invariably, bends every tiny detail he can to make Hitler look good and the jews (or allies, or Soviets, etc.) look bad. Every excuse, justification, propaganda, or denial made by the nazis is accepted as gospel truth. On the other hand, all evidence for nazi crimes, including contemporary admissions by the perpetrators, is suddenly subjected to "skeptical analysis" in the name of "historical truth", and then instantly rejected if it doesn't fit Irving's worldview (e.g., that the holocaust didn't happen).

For example--one of numerous ones--when a certain nazi general denied knowledge of the holocaust after the war, that statement is believed implicity; but when the same general admits to other war crimes, Irving writes that he was "afraid" of torture or otherwise coerced into saying it. Or, Irving accepts as gospel truth the claim that "30,000" jews were involved in insurance fraud in 1932, before Hitler came to power--a claim based on nothing more than an antisemitic propaganda speech by a nazi functionary (the real number of ALL those prosecuted for such fraud in 1932, jews and non-jews, was less than 100); but he glibly rejects all surivor's testimony as coming from "ASsociation of Survivor of AuscHwitz and Other LiarS", or "ASSHOLS". Ha-ha.

Such examples can--and are--multiplied indefinitely. This is, in fact, the most important contribution this book makes: it is a thorough analysis of Irving's historical research and conclusions, and a definitive proof that it is totally worthless, not much more than neo-nazi antisemitic propaganda in the garb of "historical research".

The second part of the book is the one that got all the media attention: Evan's experience in the dock as he confronted Irving, and his impressions of the trial, Irving, the media circus around it, and so on. This part is less impressive, for an obvious reason: while, as an historian dealing with the documents, he is in his element as an expert, on the trial and the media around it he is writing as a layman.

Evans is intelligent and articulate as a layman, to be sure, and his observations on the trial and the media coverage are often worth reading. But here he does not tell us something that is really new or could not be skimmed from the (better) newspaper reports of the trial.

So read the book--and read both parts of it. Only remember that the first part is the real "meat" of the book, while the second, his experiences in the dock, is somewhat disappointing and polemical--although understandably so.

Richard J. Evans - Lying About Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial

Two Books in One

This is a marvelous book based on the author's work as an expert witness in the David Irving libel trial. Irving is a non-academic historian of Nazi Germany, and the author of numerous popular World War II histories based on "extensive" and "original" research in German archives. Super-litigious, in the late 1990s he sued an American academic who had accused him of admiring Adolf Hitler and of conducting sloppy and biased historical research. Cambridge historian Evans was hired by the defense to compare Irving's claims with the historical record, to see if the books could stand up to scholarly scrutiny. The results were devastating. In this book (which is based on Evans' expert report to the court), Evans simultaneously demolishes Irving's pretensions to objectivity while delivering a primer on historical methodology. Anyone interested in history -- or in seeing a fraud get his just deserts -- will enjoy it.

Best Buys Bookstore