"he Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial" by R. J. Van Pelt, Robert Jan Van Pelt
"Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly "More people died in the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car in Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz." These are the words of David Irving, who made history himself when he lost a British libel trial against Deborah Lipstadt for labeling him a Holocaust revisionist in her 1993 book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. This dense, fact-filled but always compelling volume not only details Irving's libel suit (van Pelt testified against him at the trial), but collects and documents the plethora of historical and scientific evidence that proves he was wrong. While Irving's claim astonishing for a historian who had received praise for works such as The Destruction of Dresden (1963) and Hitler's War (1977) is overtly ludicrous, the power of this book resides in van Pelt's broad analysis of Holocaust revisionism or "negationism," as van Pelt more accurately labels it and its myriad manifestations. He discusses Irving's gradual emergence from respected historian to full-fledged negationist; the career of French professor Dr. Robert Faurisson, a "hard-core negationist" who managed to elicit intellectuals Noam Chomsky and Jean-Fran‡ois Lyotard to defend his "academic freedom"; and the "scientific" testimony of Fred Leuchter (the subject of Errol Morris's 1999 film, Mr. Death). The bulk of the book is the methodical and chilling presentation of materials presented at the trial first-person accounts, photos, historical documents, diagrams, scientific evidence, testimony of former SS guards interwoven with Irving's testimony and defense. Van Pelt (Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present) has arranged an enormous amount of complex material succinctly and to great effect. Read as a whole, the book is a stunning courtroom drama and a vital document of historical evidence. This is an important addition to Holocaust literature and 20th-century history. 130 b&w illus. ""
I can provide more info if you need it. I find it fascinating that apparently the defense found it necessary in this trial to prove that Jews were actually exterminated at Auschwitz. It only shows how far we have fallen as a civilization.
Having read some of his earlier histories, I was deeply impressed by the man's apparant love of the truth. As I recall from transcript excerpts from the trial, the greatest point of controversy was the dispute over the gas chambers, the introductions of Cyclon B through special vents in the roof, that were never located, and the still controversial question of where the bodies went, how such a volume of human remains could have so thoroughly disappeared, etc.
If Irving is claiming these days that the Holocost did not indeed happen, he has indeed gone thoroughly round the bend.
His opponant did indeed accuse him of being a Nazi based on his inability to find references to the exterminations in his research into what Hitler knew and when he knew it etc, but he was very foolish indeed to have sued her for this slander in England, where their libel laws have teeth that can grind a person up and ruin them forever.
Hitler's War was an impressive document, IMHO, although no American publisher had the guts to publish it. Nowhere in it was there anything that would cause one to think that Irving was anti-semitic, much less a Nazi or Holocost denier or anything like that.
There are a lot of outright lies on this issue and honorable people who question the six million number who are not anti-Semitic or anything like it. There were six million Jews in Europe before the war by the count of Jewish scholars of that period themselves. Most of the Jews of Europe got out before the war. Nowhere in the last years have I ever heard any reference to the five and a half million non-Jews who were also exterminated, but that figure alone can get you into hot water as being anti-Semitic.
It is a fact that the Germans slaughtered two million Poles before they actually got started on the Jews, according to Goldhagen in his book Hitler's Willing Executioners.
But regardless of where and by what means, anyone who denies that the Jews were slaughtered by the millions is guilty of wilful lying or wilful ignorance, no matter what.
I'd personally like to see somebody mention, just once in a while, the 20-30 millions of Ukranians, etc. murdered by Stalin before and during the war, and of course the forty plus Chinese wilfully murdered by Mao before and during the cultural revolution, etc.
But the Left don't like the fact that Bolshivism, in all its different forms, murdered at least a hundred million souls during the 20th century. You have to special order any books dealing with this since it's considered the sign of a Fascist to even note these facts.
Thanks again and all the best...