# Historian jailed for denying the Holocaust **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 26, 2005, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775 "2005-11-26T04:04:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mkl12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@mkl12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mkl12)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/21 "2005-11-27T10:20:06Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > I know that Germany doesn’t have a 1st Amendment, That’s only because the German constitution isn’t organized in the same was as the American. But the German and Austrian constitutions do protect the freedom of speech. ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/22 "2005-11-27T18:13:53Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Not that Austria is Germany, but still. One could argue _they_ are more at fault than Germany. It was, after all, a Vienna art school that Hitler didn’t get into. He may not have been a great artist, but I wish he’d have stuck with it. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/23 "2005-11-27T18:35:56Z")
Note that there are a lot of exceptions to free speech _in the US_. E.g., libel, slander, fraud, etc. One of the classic examples is yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. Given the history of Nazism in Europe, trying to forment Holocaust denial there is really like yelling “fire” in the theater. So, even by US standards, I think the Austrians are on pretty solid human rights grounds. Also, in order to qualify as “political speech”, Holocaust deniers would have to admit that it is not history but politics they are spreading. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/24 "2005-11-27T18:52:54Z")
How about we just put people like him in the looney bin. We can a wing for holocaust deniers and one for the ‘moon landing was faked’ people. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/25 "2005-11-27T21:40:27Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > How about we just put people like him in the looney bin. We can a wing for holocaust deniers and one for the ‘moon landing was faked’ people. Because, despite everything, Irving is not insane. He functions rationally in just about every area, and his work on the holocaust, though wrong, is no more wrong that other legitimate scholars who have a pet theory on one issue or another and blind themselves to the evidence. If you put people in the loony bin for that, 90% of all politicians would have to go there. The issue with Hitler is simply that, when you say a lot of terrible things about a person (even if true), a percentage of people reading those things will say, “well, he can’t really be all _that_ bad.” (Fiction writing tip: If you’re writing a story and want people to like a character, have other characters badmouth him before he comes on the scene.) ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/26 "2005-11-27T21:53:31Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Because, despite everything, Irving is not insane. He functions rationally in just about every area, and his work on the holocaust, though wrong, is no more wrong that other legitimate scholars who have a pet theory on one issue or another and blind themselves to the evidence. If you put people in the loony bin for that, 90% of all politicians would have to go there. Help me out here. I’m not seeing a downside to this. ---
**Author:** ![rayh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@rayh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rayh)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/27 "2005-11-27T22:43:01Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > Help me out here. I’m not seeing a downside to this. It’s the other 10% that are the dangerous ones. ---
**Author:** ![garius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e19b73/32.png) [@garius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garius)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2005, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/28 "2005-11-27T23:08:31Z")
> [@](#): > > I doubt he causes much damage at all if he’s just a lone nut running around pushing his agenda. And therein lies the problem - Irving is as close to a respectable face for Holocaust denial as there is. The sad fact is that if he was obviously a “lone nut” then he’d be harmless. Instead he’s a smart, sensible man who lends an air of legitimacy and sanity to a thoroughly insane idea. He is dangerous not because he pushes his ideas down people’s throats or perpetrates violence, but because its his work that allows more extreme elements to do just that with self-professed justification. He provides an intelligent image to barbaric beliefs. Now obviously there have been many other occasions in History where this has happened, and if it were accidental or if he were unaware of the fact that his work strengethened the cause of extreme right-wingers and Neo-Nazis then there’d be some room for saying that he could not be held accountable for the actions of others who have read or use his work as a foundation stone for their beliefs. Sadly, however, this is not the case. He _is_ a smart man, and he knows _exactly_ how his works will be read and used by others. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2005, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/29 "2005-11-28T00:54:16Z")
I deny the fact that Irbing has been jailed. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2005, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/30 "2005-11-28T02:42:42Z")
> [@CynicalGabe](#): > > One could argue _they_ are more at fault than Germany. It was, after all, a Vienna art school that Hitler didn’t get into. He may not have been a great artist, but I wish he’d have stuck with it. Also, Hitler was _born_ in Austria. So they’re pretty much at fault for everything, you could argue. ---
**Author:** ![Stark\_Raven\_Mad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Stark\_Raven\_Mad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stark_Raven_Mad)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2005, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/31 "2005-11-28T03:05:49Z")
> [@garius](#): > > He _is_ a smart man, and he knows _exactly_ how his works will be read and used by others. But surely the solution to that is, like has been done, to publicly sabotage his reputation, and not his incarceration (which will certainly lead to his being martyred, if it hasn’t happened already)? > [@casdave](#): > > Support for Neo-Nazi ideals can and does lead directly to murder, imagine what it would be like if they ever took power in any country. I don’t see a direct link there. Certainly there _is_ one, but it’s a tenuous one at best. His writing neither provides means nor method for racially-motivated violence. One utterly convinced by his version of history might see the Third Reich in a better light and harbor resentment for what Irving says the Allies did, but it’s a quite a leap away from resentment/Nazi sympathy to, you know, murder. ---
**Author:** ![Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helen_s_Eidolon)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2005, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/32 "2005-11-28T04:54:14Z")
> [@Stark Raven Mad](#): > > And someone please educate me (I say this without irony or sarcasm; I grew up in Asia, where little attention is paid to this kind of thing, save the two pages on WWII in my tenth-grade history textbook) - what’s so thoroughly rotten about the version he’s pushing (other than that he knowingly used forged documents, which though dishonest, doesn’t make him anything but a fraud)? I’m not sure I’ll be able to elucidate this very well, but I’ll give it a try. What Hitler and the Nazis did is something that we have collectively decided must not be forgotten, ostensibly because, if we do forget, something that awful could happen again. What Hitler did was not only kill people, but he tried to eliminate whole strains of people - Jews, gays, the handicapped and Gypsies (that I can recall) - from the world by an organized campaign of death. It is quite possibly the most extreme version of racism/anti-semitism the Western world has faced, and stands as a symbol for our current intolerance of such attitudes. To deny the Holocaust happened is to deny the evil of racism, in practice. ---
**Author:** ![garius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e19b73/32.png) [@garius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garius)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2005, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/33 "2005-11-28T05:39:25Z")
> [@](#): > > But surely the solution to that is, like has been done, to publicly sabotage his reputation, and not his incarceration (which will certainly lead to his being martyred, if it hasn’t happened already)? yeah, in a perfect world that’s how it would work. In a perfect world there would probably be a fight between him and Batman that ended with David Irving almost falling into a pit of acid only to be caught at the last minute by Batman. Irving would then either repent his ways or quietly spend the rest of his life in an asylum whilst humanity in general took the warm, fuzzy moral high ground. Sadly that’s not how real life works. I’ve been in Pubs where the old “I’m not a racist _but_…” conversation has kicked off and Irving has been quoted. The problem is not that Irving is hard to refute, its that he’s _complex_ to refute. Its like arguing against the Da Vinci Code. Of _course_ its a load of bollocks, but that doesn’t mean its easy to convince Joe Public that thats the case. **Casdave** (who i admire greatly) has already explained far better than i could just how difficult it has been for British academia to even _begin_ to sabotage his reputation. That’s why Irving is incredibly dangerous, and that’s why whilst the deeply British\* part of me remains uncomfortable with the idea that the man can be prosecuted for his beliefs, the pragmatic part of me is grateful that the laws of one European nation allow him to be held accountable for those very beliefs. \*And lets remember that Britain was never really affected by the Jewish Holocaust that swept through Europe from 1940 - 1945. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2005, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/34 "2005-11-28T16:58:33Z")
> [@Gangster Octopus](#): > > I deny the fact that Irbing has been jailed. Heh. Good one. ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2005, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/35 "2005-11-28T18:03:56Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > He really is a very special case, and deserves to rot in prison for the rest of his life… I don’t follow how you come to that conclusion. > [@ftg](#): > > Given the history of Nazism in Europe, trying to forment Holocaust denial there is really like yelling “fire” in the theater. Nor do I follow that conclusion. The thought of locking up a Klan leader for denying the horror of slavery in America, for instance, is sickening. The biggest danger here is not from Irving denying the holocaust, it’s the discrediting of his valid work, which **casdave** points out is of very high quality. They guy has some hypothesis about a historical event, and that’s a criminal offense? His standing and reputation gave him more credibility, and that makes it more criminal? Damn, that may the first crime in history where being a poor, anonymous loser is an advantage in criminal court! ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2005, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/36 "2005-11-28T18:29:13Z")
To me personally, the very best part if this story is that this man is jailed and in serious trouble, but the thread is placed in “Mudane Pointless Stuff”. It’s like saying, “because he’s a Holocaust denier, and therefore a direct contributor to the amount of evil in the world, his being in jail isn’t a cause celebre’, it’s just a mundane occurrence”. Good people are jailed for advocating ideas all around the world; I won’t shed a tear for this particular one. Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2005, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/37 "2005-11-28T21:39:05Z")
> [@js\_africanus](#): > > The guy has some hypothesis about a historical event, and that’s a criminal offense? He doesn’t just have “some hypothesis”, his work is being used to incite for racist attacks and he KNEW when he wrote it that it would be used that way. In Spain that falls under the “aiding terror” laws. Since I’ve been in the death list for our most popular homegrown terrorist band since I was born or thereabouts, just for being part of my family, I’m not particularly happy with anybody giving those idiots excuses. And yes, the good old boys of ETA have been known to have a racist streak the width of the Atlantic ocean (even though most of them aren’t genetically Basque). PS: no, I’m not royalty or anybody particularly important. But for some reason the whole family is in the death list; the youngest member of my family to appear on the lists was 10 weeks old at the time. My cousin, born last October, probably appears already. We sometimes joke that if we ever want to find a long-lost cousin we should just hop over by the boys’ haunts and ask them. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2005, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/38 "2005-11-28T21:40:28Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > My cousin… uh, nephew. We do need an edit button, you know :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2005, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/39 "2005-11-28T21:51:10Z")
The facts of the Holocaust are clear. Denying the Holocaust isn’t a wrong interpetation of the facts, it is a deliberate lie. The reason for this lie is _at best_, an attempt to make money off being controversial. He tells this lie, not out of a misunderstanding of the facts, but with a diliberate attempt to cause controversy. This leads to racial tension. He is not in jail for having an unpopular opinion. He is in jail for lying. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2005, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775/40 "2005-11-28T22:03:44Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > He is not in jail for having an unpopular opinion. He is in jail for lying. Many think that’s also an insufficient reason to jail somebody (unless they lie under oath). I think Ann Coulter lies in her books, but it never occurred to me that she should do time for it. Replace “Ann Coulter” with “Al Franken” or “Michael Moore” if that’s your political leanings; the same applies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historian-jailed-for-denying-the-holocaust/332775.md?page=3)