Posted on 12/02/2005 12:57:32 PM PST by atomic conspiracy
Nazi historian Irving finds his books in Austrian jail library By Kate Connolly in Berlin (Filed: 02/12/2005)
David Irving, the British historian, has embarrassed Austria's judicial authorities by finding his own books in a prison library while in custody on charges of Holocaust denial.
Irving, 67, who will spend Christmas and the New Year behind bars pending trial, found two of his most contentious books in the Graz prison library after asking for something to read.
He said in an interview he signed both, German translations of Hitler's War and The Destruction of Convoy PQ-17, before returning them to guards.
Josef Adam, the head of the prison, said it was "not possible" to know how the books had ended up in the 6,400-volume library, the contents of which he "could not know exactly".
"Now we will dispose of the books," he said.
An embarrassed justice ministry said it had known nothing about the existence of the books in the prison.
"Revisionists have no place in the libraries of judicial institutes," said Christoph Pöchinger, a spokesman for Karin Gastinger, the justice minister.
Hitler's War was the first volume of Irving's two-part biography of Hitler and sought to describe the war from the dictator's point of view.
The 1977 book prompted huge controversy because it portrayed Hitler in a positive light and claimed he had had no knowledge of the Holocaust.
In The Destruction of Convoy PQ-17, published in 1967, Irving blamed Capt Jack Broome for the loss of life when his convoy was destroyed while taking war materiel to the Soviet Union.
Capt Broome sued Irving for libel in the High Court in 1970 and won. The book was withdrawn from circulation.
Austria issued a warrant for Irving's arrest in 1989 after he delivered two lectures disputing the existence of gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps.
Denying the Holocaust in Austria is a criminal offence. If convicted, Irving could face a sentence of up to 20 years.
He was arrested near Graz on Nov 11 before giving a lecture to a Right-wing student fraternity in Vienna.
As a Jew, I naturally find Irving's views on the Holocaust and Hitler deplorable, but I cannot help but suspect that this campaign against denialist cranks is really a smokescreen for the rabid, and current, antisemitism that infests European society and its American counterparts. The latter, of course, include the academic left and a sizable fraction of the media. In effect, it is a cultural version of "some of my best friends are Jewish," an attempt to generate a high-profile exception that has little relevance to the real issues. The same might be said of the leftist ADL's ongoing campaign of vilification against Evangelical Christians, while Muslim fanatics and their legions of apologists get a pass on daily calls for genocide, lest someone offend them.
How could I be an antisemite? the leftist dhimmi asks, "didn't I support putting Irving in prison and protest those nasty Baptist missionaries? Palestine: from the River to the sea!
A Holocaust denier? I'm a Holocaust denier denier, in that I insist no one denies there was a Holocaust.
Owl_Eagle(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
Gee, I wonder if they'll pour gasoline on them and light them on fire and jump up and down and holler and cheer and wave farming implements.
I totally agree. And the best way to refute these cranks is to let them air their confused ideas as much as they like. It isn't exactly hard to poke holes in their claims. But making it illegal for them to share their views 1) gives them a legitimate claim among their followers and potential followers to being oppressed by the government, and 2) gives them credibility among the same people by implying that the government is worried that the public will "find out" what they know -- if they don't know any real secrets, why would the government be so intent on silencing them? The neo-Nazi movement is much smaller in the U.S., where we let them freely display their idiocy in books, marches, websites, and anywhere else they like.
*ping*
They demand their "freedom of speech" to talk large populations into carrying out another genocide against a religion and its members.
A good analogy to a smaller scale and lesser crime would be talking an individual into committing murder.
And BTW, almost all Holocaust deniers argue that fewer Jews were killed than proven history confirms. Most often, Holocaust deniers (neo-Nazi, Islamist or other fascist) are those who say that fewer than 6 million Jews were murdered. They do so in an incremental effort to victimize the WWII Nazis and further conspiracy story lies about Jews.
The "crime" of denying the Holocaust should be repealed. It is Draconian and is the thin end of a wedge allowing the passage of other PC laws to criminalize the denial of the intelligence of bureaucrats, the integrity of politicians, and the compassion of tax collectors. Let men deny the Holocaust. Let them also deny gravity. Does anyone really listen to these nut cases?
Repeal the law, it is foolish and dangerous.
"and says (falsely) that the number of Jews killed was less than 6 million."
It depends what you call the Holocaust. The number 6 million is correct but that's the number of all Jews killed during WW2, not only those killed in the camps.
Yes, you are correct. The Nazi did not Kill 6 million in the death camps, the 6 million figure relates to all Jewish deaths due to the actions of the Nazis.
Like estimated millions of deaths in Stalins Gulag or the millions killed in the Ukrainian Famine, there are deaths due to direct action, Shooting, etc. AND indirect deaths, due to starvation, lack of medical care, exposure, etc.
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