"Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

The books speaks of documented organized suicide attacks by german pilots against ground and air targets

I always thought that the Suicide/Rammjager story was a myth. That the idea was abandoned and only individual pilots rammed their fighters into targets.

So what´s the deal with this book. Is it any good??

http://www.fpp.co.uk/bookchapters/Goering/Werwolf.html

Thanks

A

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

Wasn't Irvin convicted fairly recently somewhere in Europe for - here it is - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../wirving21.xml

Jailed for 3 years in Austria for his writing dening the Holocaust.

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

The two issues don't necessarily have a connection...

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

Well, they do sorta. If you have read any of his books, he's always a little short of acceptable documentation and often makes great leaps of faith conclusions based on hearsay or flimsy sources. His earlier works were better, but his later ones are way out in left field.

As for his conviction, I think he was convicted but deported back to Britain w/o actually servicing all the sentence. I think he is severely restricted in his travels.

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

Really??? I was not aware, in that case disregard this post. The book has lost all of my interest. Don´t want to have anything to do with those sort of people.

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

There is still a place for David Irving, although some of his ideas and actions call for some caution. Arguably there is a lot of poiltical correctness behind the motiations to convict, of course the laws in some lands are more strict (B&W) on this subject than others.

Reading his biography on Goering won't taint you, nor would his work on Milch and a number of other subjects. His work varies in quality, but I am not an expert on the subject.

Use your common sense, you can't go wrong.

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

You might want to take a look at this site for a detailed examination of how Irving has used source material.

The argument isn't over "political correctness" (whatever that's supposed to be), it's about standards of historical scholarship.

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

I am not Irving's admirer, being serious critic of his Mare's Nest, which is not politically related book. That said, most of his attackers are similarly biased people, but with politically correct bias. Irving still is a historian and often able to provide interesting insight and documents, and certainly his books are worth of critical reading, especially as they are free on his website. ;)

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

..I agree to a point ..there was a suggestion in a recent discussion elsewhere that his earlier works such as 'Dresden' were 'untainted' but the pages devoted to this work at Nick's link show evidence, even here, of the deployment of forged and manipulated source material to meet an agenda....I doubt that the average reader - even well-informed - is going to have the wherewithal to see through the facade

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

The argument is not about political correctness? Hmm! I took a look at the site referred to. When it has become a sign of historical truth to point to rabbinical sites? When has Deborah Lipstadt become a "distinguished" scholar? Didn´t John Keegan describe her as a mediocity, an also ran? In a world where several countries have specifically rescinded* freedom of opinion on one particular genocide, can a trial on that opinion be really objective and neutral, free from politics? I don´t think it can.

*If Angie Kurva Merkel (all possible insults intended) has her way, denying the holocaust in any EU country would be a felony subject to a penalty (up to 3 yrs in prison) that by Finnish standards is the time served by a felon convicted of manslaughter and higher than the time served by average rapists.

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

Hi,

I would highly recommend this section of the website Nick included in his post: http://www.hdot.org/evidence/evans.asp

Richard J. Evans is a highly respected and very knowledgeable historian of Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries. The case he makes for Irving being a very poor historian is damning.

Evans demonstrates that Irving was making questionable statements based on non-existant or unreliable evidence from his very earliest works.

To quote Evans: "Not one of his books, speeches or articles, not one paragraph, not one sentence in any of them, can be taken on trust as an accurate representation of its historical subject. All of them are completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about."

Cheers,
Andrew A.

"You'll never silence the voice of the voiceless" - Rage Against The Machine

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

Dick Evans highly respected by whom? B'nai B'rith?

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

People like Irving think it makes a difference for the reputation of a political system whether it emprisoned and slaughtered 6 million or merely six people for their origins and beliefs. In fact, even one would be evidence enough for absolutely intolerable barbarism. There is NO denying the fact that many jews, people regarded as racially or mentally inferior fell victim to Nazi terror. That's one side of the coin.

The other is that Irving's Goering biography displays many sources only he had access to (e. g. his close friendship to Erhard Milch). That makes it worthwile reading for unbiased historians. As of now, I could not find a serious mistake or misinterpretation in that book. In other words: the book cannot be blamed for the insanity of its author.

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

Jukka,

Are you kidding? He is a Professor of History at Cambridge, and has written more than 20 books on many aspects of German history. Many of these books are used by universities for their European and German history courses.

Did you actually read the article referred to in my post? Evans has carefully analysed the works of Irving, and came to what seem, to me at least, to be very reasonable conclusions.

Cheers,
Andrew A.

"You'll never silence the voice of the voiceless" - Rage Against The Machine

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

Jukka,

(Still) friendly reminder that although I welcome a free discussion on the topic, it must still be conducted with restraint. You must be careful not to cross a certain line, beyond which doubt must make room for hard accusation.

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

There was also a famous Cambridge five. ;)
I can comment only on Mare's Nest, and the book is not bad, but as he did not contact any Poles engaged in spying of the weapons (living in England at the time), the overall view is seriously distorted. In my opinion, this has nothing to Irving's political views, just quality of his work. That said, I have seen several worser books, even nonsenses written by renowned professors, so the scientific title means nothing for me, at least in regard of history.
The real problem with Irving is that he has chosen wrong socialist to defend. There are hundreds on similar books about communism, but they do not cause any concern, being politically correct.

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

Irving is the one who propagated the myth of Dresden, stating bluntly and with no evidence available that US escort fighters strafed the population. He also gave a wantonly distorted number of casualties among civilians.
He sort of wanted to prove that the Western Allies were as savage as the Germans.
His writings must be read with great caution. Caveat emptor, as English-speaking people use to say.

He is not welcome in France where laws are very drastic against the negationists.

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

Franek, if you'll please read the Holocaust Denial on Trial site you'll see that being "politically correct" is NOT what the problem was or is. The issue is entirely about Irving's treatment of historical source material and the History on Trial site gives numerous specific and readily checkable examples of how his books have departed from evidence on which he claimed to have been relying.

Deborah Lipstadt criticised Irving's scholarship. He sued her for libel. In the court case the he initiated, his methods were taken apart in great detail by people whose record of scholarship suggests they should be listened to.

I say it again, read the evidence on the HDOT site. The examples given there go back to "The Destruction of Dresden" and "The Destruction of Convoy PQ 17" (the latter led to court case brought by a former Royal Navy officer - Irving lost that one too), so the questions over his methods were never just related to the Nazi extermination programme.

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

Mr. Braatz put it well. However, I hope he extends the same standards to American capitalism that in relatively short (historically speaking) time annihilated hundreds of unique peoples, stole their land and continues to benefit from that genocide. The criminals (e.g. Andrew Jackson) who perpetrated the Indian genocide are still national heroes.

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

Jukka, what on earth has this to do with the original point of the discussion: can Irving be relied on as a historian?

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

Nick, I only mean that such controversial and unfounded views are widely accepted and cause no concern if they concern communism or even several "pro-Holocaust" researchers. Whatever bad Irving is, we have double standards present, that's all.

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

Quite possibly but the original question was Irving's reliability as a historian. I can only repeat that the HDOT website is well worth reading in detail.

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

How can you trust a negationnist?
If he distorts one reality, why wouldn't he distort others?
The Dresden raid being one big case of not trusting him.

But it's up to you. You are a big boy.

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

CJ, for the sake of argument I'd like to pretend for a while that this discussion is not about Irving. Historical writing is much influenced by modern culture, as such it is per definition a distorted reality - we cannot but distort one past reality to fit our present day way of thinking about said reality. This cultural bias goes beyond the standard objective versus subjective argument.

The question remains if an author has an agenda, beyond what we consider to be innocent subjectivity. Many authors start with an agenda, they want to (dis)proof something, hence they will attempt to present (distort) any evidence in their favor. If an author writes about Cuisine, the impact is small, but once they enter politically or culturally sensitive areas, even politicians enter the game (certainly lobbyists).

Even if Irving can be accused of being a true Holocaust denier, that still leaves the question if the topic itself can be discussed at all in a critical manner in our current western society.

What if a scholar has proof that instead of 6 million there were 4 million Jews killed in world war two. Is he allowed to present his case or denounced ASAP. Somehow I don't think that increasing the number will carry the same risks. The less politically correct, the easier it is to find support denouncing heretic ideas.

Back to David Irving, his books on Milch and Goering deserve a read if you are interested in the Luftwaffe at a higher level, if you are interested in operational and technical subjects you can skip this author altogether.

Re: "Göring a biography" by David Irving
 

Irving is an idiot, (in terms of interpretation of historical evidence), but his books contain interesting information. IMHO Mr Evans has gone over the edge with

What about a sentence in his biography of Milch saying that he passed away? LOL!!! :D

An unbiased analysis would be that this would be true in some cases and not true in others.

K