The
Sunday Observer
London
March
19, 2000
The
world according to David Irving
The judge will soon give his verdict on one of the most bitter libel trials in recent memory. Last week David Irving took time off to give this revealing and disturbing interview to celebrated American author Gerald Posner. He remains defiant, unapologetic and more outspoken than ever
by
Gerald Posner
“THOSE ARE Adolf Eichmann’s personal papers and diaries, the ones
the Israelis didn’t find when they kidnapped him,” says David Irving,
casually pointing to a stack of papers strewn on his kitchen table. His flat is
overflowing with books, documents, files, as well as World War II memorabilia.
“They are more interesting than the Eichmann papers Israel just released to help the defence. They are desperate and clutching at straws.”
Irving, 62, relishes the limelight and tweaking his foes. He is
thoroughly enjoying the fallout from his high-profile libel lawsuit against
Penguin publishers and American Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt.
After much prodding, he has agreed to a rare break in his round-the-clock
trial work to see me in his sprawling Mayfair townhouse flat.
“After my closing argument in the trial,” he declares, “I shall
give no further interviews. This is probably the last one. I need to get back to
my writing after a three-year hiatus.” Irving remains unrepentant. In three
weeks’ time he will discover if his libel action will salvage his reputation
or mark him as permanently ruined.
Following closing arguments last week, and while the judge considers his
verdict, one might expect Irving to be circumspect and politically correct. But
that is not his style. Instead he seems determined to take on his foes and to
reiterate his strident views.
The man known for his formal pinstriped suits is today casually dressed
in light trousers and a dark open-necked shirt. His once-boyish face is now
crossed with wrinkles, and his thick mop of hair is peppered grey.
After making me a cup of coffee that could rival the bottom of the pot
from any military outpost, he leads me into his study. There, he sits directly
in front of a large colour aerial photograph of Crematorium Two at Auschwitz:
“That’s
the holy of holies,” says Irving, jabbing a finger toward the photo.
“No one was gassed there. The stories from survivors where someone says
they used to take off the manhole covers and then the gas poured in, it’s all
false.”
Irving seldom makes eye contact, instead staring constantly just to the
left of the desk. Once seated, his slight military bearing gives way to a more
relaxed conversational style. He enjoys, as he puts it, “deglamourising and
deromanticising” the Holocaust.
“The Poles have admitted that the only gas chamber at Auschwitz is a
reconstruction built by them in 1948. It’s only a damn tourist attraction.”
The charges start coming rapid fire. Although Irving relishes his status
as a contrarian and historic mischief-maker, he desperately wants to be accepted
as a serious historian. And he is anxious to demonstrate that instead of being
cowed by the battery of legal talent defending Lipstadt, he is defiant and
unbowed.
For the next hour, he launches into a rather remarkable defence of his
own conclusions as well as an extraordinary attack on the foundations of the
Holocaust. In a virtual monologue, peppered occasionally with German phrases, he
rattled off contentions almost faster than I could type them into my notebook
computer.
“All Auschwitz survivors are now useless witnesses at any trial since
they have all seen Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, and can recite from memory
where the supposed shower heads with gas were.” When he says something he
particularly likes, his yellow teeth flash as his thin lips part in a devilish
grin.
And he does not back away from some of the extreme statements and acts
attributed to him, although he often tries to deflect their importance by
casting it as prankish humour. Yes, there were swizzle sticks adorned with
little swastikas at his 1991 book party, but “those were really nothing more
than copies of Hitler’s personal standard that my publisher had made up for
the launch of my book.” (The late Alan Clark was according to Irving, “a
great admirer of Hitler. He sat in that very chair that you are in right before
my party started and told me in depth about his admiration for Hitler.”
What
about a little ditty found in the voluminous personal diaries produced in the
trial:
“I am a Baby Aryan,
Not a Jewish or sectarian,
I have no plans to marry,
An Ape or Rastafarian.
“Yes, that was mine. But I wrote it because of the bounce of the words
and the rhyme, not the content. They say it makes me a racist. Well, that is all
they got from my diaries. There are 20 million words in those diaries, and these
are 20. So that makes me what 0.0001 per cent racist?” After a moment’s
hesitation, he adds, “But I do now wish I had used vegetarian instead of
Rastafarian.”
What about the woman who recently approached him outside the courtroom
and told him that both her parents had been gassed at Auschwitz had he told her
“You may be pleased to know that they almost certainly died of typhus, as did
Anne Frank”?
“Yes,
but what’s wrong with that? It’s hard, but true.”
He comes alive when he talks about the trial, the forces he sees arrayed
against him, and what he believes he is accomplishing in courtroom 73 of the
High Court.
“I have been singled out,” Irving says as he sets forth a grand
conspiracy he believes operates against him. “There has been, for years, a co-ordinated
effort to demolish my legitimacy as a historian. It is an international
endeavour. It is the international network of the Anti-Defamation League, the
Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the South
African Jewish Board of Deputies, the Austrian Jewish Congress, the American
Jewish Committee, and a number of others. These are some of the traditional
enemies of truth. These are all bodies that Lipstadt thanks in her book. They
always use the slime defence against me. It is expensive for them, with so many
It is vintage Irving. He deflects the query about why many respected
organisations have taken such a keen interest in his handling of history and
instead turns the discussion into a rhetorical question about the nature of
Jews, one that he is prepared to answer. Although he is adamant that he is not a
racist or anti-Semite, no sooner had he posed the question than he provided an
answer that is chillingly reminiscent of the anti-Semitic themes that have
persisted for centuries.
“Greed.”
He pauses, letting the word virtually hang in
Irving’s charge about the “Jewish elite in America” sounds
remarkably similar to that made by the most extreme right-wing race baiters in
the US, and it is surprising to hear him say it publicly, especially since his
courtroom persona has been that of the measured historian who only has a
difference of opinion with other historians.
Although he has been forced to admit at trial that he greatly
underestimated the number of Jews killed in mobile gas vans (97,000 died that
way), he finds solace in his belief which almost no courtroom observer shares
that he has made great strides in demonstrating that Auschwitz’s Crematorium
Two, the site of half a million deaths, is “a mere legend.”
“It is the geocentre of the supposed death factory,” says Irving, his
voice rising slightly as he becomes more excited. “But I have pictures that
show there were no holes in the ceiling, so there was no place for the gas to
come from.“
“What about the large quantities of Zyklon B gas that were shipped to
Auschwitz?” I ask.
His answer is the classic defence of hardcore revisionists. “Yes, huge
quantities of Zyklon B were shipped there. The appropriate quantities for
fumigation, especially with the camp’s typhus epidemics and problems with pest
control.” My expression shows my scepticism.
“Look,” he continues. “Zyklon B may have been used against
prisoners. I don’t know. But I know Crematorium Two was not an enormous gas
chamber.”
Although he
says the debate over how many were killed by the Nazis is not important, he
enjoys contending that “only 100,000 Jews may have died at Auschwitz,” most
from diseases, and the rest from shootings and hangings.
Then, as though his very minor concession about the possible use of gas
ran against his spirit, he picked up again in a vitriolic mode. Jewish leaders
have hijacked the word “holocaust.” It’s even spelt everywhere with a
capital H. My Jewish editor in New York would not let me use the word in my book
Hitler’s War to describe the Allied bombing of Dresden.
“Another writer could not use it to describe the Irish potato famine.
It’s like it’s a registered trademark. You can’t open it or tamper with
it. You either have to buy it or not, and if you don’t buy it what a
headache.”
Now Irving’s face is flushed red. His speech is rapid. There is an
anger against the forces he thinks are operating against him. Now it seems to
boil over as his rhetoric hits new highs.
“The factory of death legend,” he waves his hand dismissively.
“They have hijacked the entire media with their holocaust story. Nobody
suffers from it except for me on who they pour their slime.”
He slumps back as though the outburst tired him.
“What if you are completely proven wrong one day?” I ask him.
“Proven wrong even to your satisfaction.”
He sits quietly for a moment. “I’ve said it before, and will again
with a sheepish grin, I’ll admit I was wrong, but you will have to give me
credit for having given them a great run for 40 years.
“But I certainly don’t expect that to happen.”