Re: German raider boasts of machine-gunning English women?
 

I think we need to convene a court of inquiry to establish whether or not this merits a war crimes tribunal.

Re: German raider boasts of machine-gunning English women?
 

AFAIK, the recording was done in wartime, and Allied authorities did not decide to start a war crime trial. The issue of air attack on civilian targets was sensible enough to not start such a trial, with thousands of Allied airmen prisoners for both sides, and both sides attacking civilian targets since 1940. So the risk of reprisals war too high. Even if such attacks were forbidden according to international texts between both World Wars, but these texts were just forgotten during the war.

Re: German raider boasts of machine-gunning English women?
 

Hi Steve

Why should David Irving's reputation as a historian be doubted? Have you not read his 'Destruction of Convoy PQ17'? IMHO the finest of the many publications dealing with that particular ill-fated convoy.

Added to which he has generously allowed me to extract information for my own work.

Cheers
Brian

Re: German raider boasts of machine-gunning English women?
 

Brian, it was a long time ago and you may not recall that that particular book resulted in Irving being successfully sued for libel by Capt. Broome, the escort commander. Further, in the action that Irving initiated against Deborah Lipstadt ...

“The judge summarised his findings as follows: 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... therefore the defence of justification succeeds...”

Hence the reservations expressed in the earlier post.

Re: German raider boasts of machine-gunning English women?
 

Hi Nick

Yes, I'm aware of the controversy caused by David Irving's book 'The Destruction of Convoy PQ17' and the outcome of the court case, but surely that does not make him a disreputable historian - IMHO, just the opposite.

In this day and age, a good investigative journalist would surely follow the same procedures. The outcome would probably be the same, but the said journalist wouldn't/shouldn't be criticised for conducting a thorough investigation which, IMHO, Irving did. Maybe his conclusions were muddled and after all he lost the case, but ...........

David Irving's racial and right-wing views are something totally different but I was not referring to these later controversies. However, in a democracy, isn't he entitled to his own views?

I've probably put my foot in it once again, but.............

Cheers
Brian

Re: German raider boasts of machine-gunning English women?
 

His views aren’t the issue, rather what the court found he did to further them. As far as I’m concerned, no one is entitled deliberately to misrepresent or falsify their source material and still be considered a historian.

Re: German raider boasts of machine-gunning English women?
 

Slightly offtopic, but here's an interesting Twitter thread on "The idea that the Luftwaffe of WW2 was somehow not involved in the atrocities and politics of Nazi Germany is a popular one but also complete fiction."

https://twitter.com/MilAvHistory/sta...92973583159303

Re: German raider boasts of machine-gunning English women?
 

LOL, my comment was made with tongue firmly in cheek. Anyway, the 'historian' in question should be investigated a bit more thoroughly before giving any credibility to this nonsense. As an aside, I was having a martini with W\C Rod Smith, former CO of 401 RCAF, and he recounted how, during late 1944, he deliberately strafed a woman pushing a baby carriage, an incident caught on his gun camera footage. No 'court of inquiry' was convened.....

Re: German raider boasts of machine-gunning English women?
 

Why? He's made a valid case and backed it up with evidence.