Historian jailed for denying the Holocaust

[casdave]

It’s not an easy distinction, but actually this person is doing something rather more than lying, he is creating a differant reality.

It’s not just a flat out denial of certain events, its actually a carefully crafted alternative truth.

Irving knows that to do this, one has to create differant layers, like one website quoting another and so on so that the information is so widespread it appears to be reality.

When you hear something from one person, you are more sceptical than if you hear it from lots of folk, and then you reapeat it, and by doing so you change reality, and lending more authority to the story.

Its far more than a lie, referance material is being created, onto this are selectively pinned other ‘facts’ which may come from primary sources or taken out of context witness statements.

Irving, as a historian, knows this, history is built upon interpretation.

Irving knows how his work will be used, but is way too clever to link himself to the end product, he merely states that it is not his fault if other folk take a more extreme view.

Irvings view is not an opinion, because an opinion is informed by facts or lack of them, his view is a construct a careful and deliberate one, he has the facts, which are not in any dispute, these facts are not open to interpretation, these things are known and provable.

I can have an opinion, but when presented with other information, I either modify this or discover new facts to back me up, Irving does not do this, he denies factual events.

He is not interpreting them in the way a political spin doctor might, and he is not being jailed for having an opinion, no, not at all.

He is being jailed for denying facts about criminality, the Austrians and Germans have decided that anyone doing this, in the light of the overwhelming evidence, has other motives for doing so, and this in turn means criminal intent - ie overthrow of the state or support of an illegal political organisation.

[jackelope]

@RickJay

The United States does not have an absolute right to free speech, either, unless you’re denying the existence of laws against various sorts of obscenity and pornography.

@ftg

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.

The categories of “unprotected speech” in the U.S. (i.e., speech that’s not protected by the First Amendment and thus can be prohibited by law) include child pornography (not all pornography, as is obvious to anyone who has ever used the Internet), obscenity, fraud, slander, conspiracy, treason, and “fighting words.” The latter are defined as words that are spoken directly to a person, in that person’s immediate presence, with the objective of provoking a physical confrontation and a strong probability of achieving that objective.

Please note: This list is not intended to be exhaustive; I know I’m forgetting a few things, but I don’t feel like going and looking it up just now.

[slaphead]

I think the label ‘holocaust denial’ is unhelpful, because it makes this seem like more of a free speech issue than it really is. I have no idea what the actual translation of the local legislation comes across as, but if I understand its intent correctly it would be better to call it something like ‘genocide belittling’ or ‘nazism justification’.

Prosecuting people who are in effect saying ‘the Holocaust never happened, it’s a myth perpetuated by the international Zionist conspiracy to win sympathy for themselves, better watch out for those yids’ or ‘so what if Hitler slaughtered a few million undesireables, everyone was doing that sort of thing and he was an OK guy really’ isn’t really much different from arresting a cleric who is telling his congregation that it’s perfectly OK and admirable to go out and commit suicide bombings at their local Wal-Mart. An infringement of free speech, certainly, but one which is allowable in the public interest provided there is due process, oversight, etc.

[astro]

@slaphead

I think the label ‘holocaust denial’ is unhelpful, because it makes this seem like more of a free speech issue than it really is. I have no idea what the actual translation of the local legislation comes across as, but if I understand its intent correctly it would be better to call it something like ‘genocide belittling’ or ‘nazism justification’.

Prosecuting people who are in effect saying ‘the Holocaust never happened, it’s a myth perpetuated by the international Zionist conspiracy to win sympathy for themselves, better watch out for those yids’ or ‘so what if Hitler slaughtered a few million undesireables, everyone was doing that sort of thing and he was an OK guy really’ isn’t really much different from arresting a cleric who is telling his congregation that it’s perfectly OK and admirable to go out and commit suicide bombings at their local Wal-Mart. An infringement of free speech, certainly, but one which is allowable in the public interest provided there is due process, oversight, etc.

I think this comparison is somewhat over the top. His views may be wrongheaded and despicable, but if we start jailing people because they are historical contrarians and have views that make us angry we’re indulging in a form of intellectual fascism. Making apologies or justifications for this fascism on the basis that he’s some sort of intellectual super villain and is just too dangerous and powerful to be countered by the normal process intellectual and social debate in a (nominally) free society is facile and disengenous.

[Zebra]

@Revtim

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.

This guy is a level above Moore or Coulter. But I think those ‘Swift Boat Veterans for Truth’ guys should face some sort of criminal prosecution.

[casdave]

A historical contrarian is one who takes undisputed facts and interprets them from another point of view, but does not rewrite history.

This person is not a historian, he just dresses up in the clothes of one, by changing undisputed facts and this has been taken to court and proven against him, once in a libel trial and once in a criminal trial.

His views are not just despicable, his views are part of a political statement and a movement designed to attempt to rehabilitate the Nazi state, or to make others look so bad, such as Churchill and Roosevelt, that he can claim a moral equivalency - neglecting to mention of course that no matter how good or bad anyone else happens to be, such as Stalin, it still cannot change the evil that Nazism happens to represent.

It’s so much more than saying ‘the Holocaust didn’t happen’ because of the reasons for denying it in the first place, and this is why mid European nations have deemed it a crime.

[Plynck]

The article didn’t say (or else I missed it) whether the two lectures took place in Austria. I’m assuming that he did, and he was breaking the laws there (knowingly or not).

If not, are the Austrians arresting him for something he did in another country? That would bring to mind Salman Rushdie’s *“The Satanic Verses”, * and the death sentence that Iran passed on him for what they considered to be sacrilege.

[Northern_Piper]

@Ice Wolf

The study of history is usually the pursuit of facts and interpretation of these. Some historians, however, interpret facts into the patterns they want to see, rather than what is actually there. I see Irving as one of these.

That wasn’t the conclusion reached by the trial judge in the English libel case. He found that the defendants, on whom lay the burden of proof, had proved that Irving “persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence.”

The key portion of the decision in Irving v. Penguin Books Ltd. and Lipstadt is in Part XIII: Findings on Justification. First, Grey J. defined the issue:

13.136 After that brief digression to Moscow, I return to the central issue of Irving’s historiography. As I have already held, the passages in Denying the Holocaust of which Irving complains include as an important part of their defamatory sting the meaning that he has deliberately falsified and distorted the historical evidence because he is an apologist for and a partisan of Hitler and on that account is intent on exonerating him.

13.137 Irving considers, rightly, that this is a grave imputation because it reflects on his integrity as an historian. It is an imputation which the Defendants have sought to justify. Because of the seriousness of the charge, the standard of proof required is, in accordance with the approach which I have outlined in paragraph 4.10 above, commensurately higher. It goes without saying that it is an issue which requires anxious consideration.

[my emphasis]

And then, after reviewing the evidence, Grey J. concludes that the defendants did in fact prove their defence of truth as justification. He accepts that they did not prove every aspect of it, but that they did substantially prove it:

13.167 The answer to that question requires me to decide whether (I am paraphrasing section 5 of the Defamation Act 1952) the failure on the part of the Defendants to prove the truth of those charges materially injures the reputation of Irving, in view of the fact that the other defamatory charges made against him have been proved to be justified. The charges which I have found to be substantially true include the charges that Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-semitic and racist and that he associates with right wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism. In my judgment the charges against Irving which have been proved to be true are of sufficient gravity for it be clear that the failure to prove the truth of the matters set out in paragraph. 13.165 above does not have any material effect on Irving’s reputation.

13.168 In the result therefore the defence of justification succeeds.

So it’s not simply a disagreement about interpretation.

[slaphead]

@astro

I think this comparison is somewhat over the top. His views may be wrongheaded and despicable, but if we start jailing people because they are historical contrarians and have views that make us angry we’re indulging in a form of intellectual fascism. Making apologies or justifications for this fascism on the basis that he’s some sort of intellectual super villain and is just too dangerous and powerful to be countered by the normal process intellectual and social debate in a (nominally) free society is facile and disengenous.

@English Judge

The charges which I have found to be substantially true include the charges that Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-semitic and racist and that he associates with right wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism.

Given that people who held similarly ‘wrongheaded and despicable’ views managed to murder six million people within living memory, some European countries are a little bit less generous about free speech in this particular area.
Having said that, I’m not sure that the normal process of intellectual and social debate is that forgiving when it comes to groups who effectively advocate violent crime. I would imagine that even in the US, if you were to spend some time publicising a platform such as ‘rape doesn’t exist, women are just making it up’ or ‘homos aren’t popular anywhere, so killing one should be a misdemeanour not a felony’, your lawyer would have to work pretty hard to keep you from being silenced.