"Göring a biography" by David Irving

[John Beaman]

Originally Posted by Dénes Bernád

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

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.

[Anton Verberne]

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 3 years for his writing dening the Holocaust.

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.

[Ruy Horta]

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.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Ruy Horta

There is still a place for David Irving, although some of his ideas and actions call for some caution.

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.

[FalkeEins]

..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

[Jukka Juutinen]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

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.

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.

[Andrew Arthy]

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