David Irving, Exposed

by K. M.

A student essay from Dr. Elliot Neaman's History 210 class (historical methods - spring 1998)

In the late nineteen-eighties considerable attention was drawn to a covertly anti-Semitic group calling themselves "revisionist historians." The group professes that the Holocaust never occurred and it is a Zionist lie, created in order to financially benefit the state of Israel. These "revisionists" who claim to be committed to exposing the truth for the sole purpose of validating history, are actually part of a much broader political agenda. Holocaust denial was formulated as a political tool of the radical right in order to resurrect National Socialism. Since the end of World War II, Nazism has been synonymous with the genocide of the Jews. The Holocaust has marred National Socialism, making it no longer a conceivable political system in the eyes of the public. As a result, the radical right must revive National Socialism by first convincing the public that the Holocaust never happened. (Lipstadt 103-104)

To achieve their goal, Holocaust deniers prey on the public’s distrust of authority, respect for objectivity, and lack of intimate knowledge about the Holocaust. In an age when distrust of authority is encouraged and conspiracy theories are embraced, the fact the deniers are refuting the status quo brings some degree of validity to their argument for many readers. In addition, the effort to suppress denier material allows them to become soldiers of truth, sacrificing everything, including their reputations, in order to expose the truth. As the seekers of truth, they portray themselves as objective historians basing their arguments solely on fact. As a result, they discard eyewitness testimony and non-rational events as possibly inaccurate and tainted. However, they also disregard facts and evidence that counter their arguments as forgeries, choosing to make their arguments out of selective evidence, half-truths, fabrications, and lies. To a reader lacking detailed knowledge about the genocide, the deniers arguments seem feasible, if not believable. (Najarian 74)

Many of the individuals who write Holocaust denial material are not actually trained in history and publish pseudo-scholarly material. However, there is a minority of the them who are trained historians and have considerable academic credentials. Those with academic standing use their skill and prestige to add an element of credibility to their arguments. David Irving is part of this ominous minority. Deborah Lipstadt, a Holocaust denial expert, labels him as "one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial" (Lipstadt 181). He uses his extensive knowledge about twentieth century history in order to manipulate facts to conform to his ideological tendencies, often elaborating on small and dubious pieces of evidence while discarding far-more-substantial evidence that contradicts his thesis. In spite of accusations exposing Irving as an ultranationalist sympathizer of Hitler’s, Irving’s influence has remained unhampered and has continued to grow. In a June 1996 issue of Vanity Fair, Christopher Hitchens attacked Irving’s critics as "hysterical and oldmaidish" (Heilbrunn 14). Considerably more surprising, Gordon Craig, history professor at Stanford University, depicted Irving as a serious historian and a key figure in new scholarship in a September 1996 issue of the New York Review of Books (Heilbrunn 14). (Lipstadt 161)

According to Focal Point, a right wing organization dedicated to Holocaust denial, Irving has well over twenty publications in both English and German. His most recent books include Churchill’s War, an effort to portray Churchill as the culprit behind the war, and Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich, an attempt to transfer blame for Nazi atrocities from Hitler to Goebbels. Irving’s most widely sited book, Hitler’s War, was published in 1977. This particular publication is an intricate part of infrastructure of Holocaust denial, primarily because it was originally acknowledged by scholars as having merit due to the seeming scholarship of the work and the subtleness of his thesis. By originally being received as a scholarly work, Hitler’s War brought Holocaust denial into the academic sphere giving the movement some degree of credibility and a great deal of exposure.

In Hitler’s War, Irving makes a whole hearted attempt to normalize Hitler and remove him from any association with the Holocaust. Through misrepresentation of facts and selective representation of evidence, Irving tries to blur the lines between Hitler and the decision to exterminate European Jewry. This paper attempts to expose Irving’s argument as flawed and misrepresentative of evidence. In order to truly scrutinize his work, I have selected for examination the introduction along with the first two chapters and selected pages throughout the book dealing with Jewish Question. I hope to expose Irving as a pseudo-historian attempting to deceive readers by portraying Hitler as a moral man who did not play a part in the exterminationist policy of the Third Reich.

Irving begins the book with an attempt to humanize Hitler by describing his commitment to Germany in overly glorified terms. In Irving’s eyes, Hitler was a man who carried the hopes and dreams of a nation on his shoulders. He was admirably committed to overturning the injustices of the Versailles Treaty, knowing that only "death awaited him if he failed to restore pride and empire to post-Versailles Germany" (Irving xxiii). For Irving, Hitler was a man pushed into war when he tried to reverse the injustices aimed at his nation.

Irving continually emphasizes Hitler’s peace efforts with the Allies. It is his conclusion that the Allies prevented peace in Europe and perpetuated World War II. According to Irving, following the German takeover of Poland, Hitler was teetering between continuing the war and suing for peace with the Allies. Hitler would only attack the west as a "necessary evil if the French and British failed to see reason" (Irving 30). Irving quotes Weizsacker, who wrote in early October of 1939, "the attempt to wind up the war now is for real. I myself put the chance at 20 percent, [Hitler] at 50 percent; his desire is 100 percent" (Irving 29). This desire, testified to by Weizsacker, is what drove Hitler to exhaust all "unofficial channels for negotiation with the West" (Irving 31). According to Irving, Winston Churchill was the main source of the "stubborn anti-German line" in the West and it was Churchill who thwarted Hitler’s peace effort, giving him no other alternative than to proceed with the war (Irving 31).

Irving’s presentation of the possible peace is a prime example of his fact selecting tactics. There is evidence that Hitler was truly suing for peace with the Allies. However, Irving completely misrepresents the attitude of the Allies towards a possible peace with German. He portrays them manipulating the peace effort in order to extended the time needed for further military build up, while maintaining their determination to proceed with the war. On the contrary, in September of 1939 the British government entered the war with an apparent lack of enthusiasm. They wanted to avoid war particularly because of their weak strategic and financial positions. Actually the British waited two days after the Germans invaded Poland to declare war, hoping the Germans would agree to withdraw and an agreement could be reached. Reluctantly, the British finally committed to war feeling that a deal with Hitler was improbable. This is not surprising, considering his failure to adhere to the agreement reached at the Munich Conference only twelve months before. Though neither side completely made the effort to achieve peace, it is obvious Irving has misrepresented the history surrounding the event. (Ponting 96-97)

Irving continues his Pro-Hitler rendition of the events surrounding World War II when he considers a lesser know atrocity of the Third Reich, the euthanasia program. Irving maintains that the decision to engage in euthanasia resulted as a war necessity. Entering war, Hitler had to maximize his resources, which included medical staff and supplies normally received by the mentally insane in Germany. Irving writes, "They occupied bed space and the attention of skilled medical personnel which Hitler now urgently needed for the treatment of the casualties of his coming campaigns" (Irving 20). For the National Socialists it was a matter of redistributing scarce resources to "patients with a greater national priority" (Irving 21). Realizing the intimate connection between the euthanasia program and the Holocaust, Irving writes, "The ‘mercy killing’…was but a platform for far wider campaigns of extermination on which the Reich was to embark now that it was at war" (Irving 23). As a result, Irving must cleanse Hitler of any involvement with the program in order to fully distance him from the exterminationist policy of the Third Reich. He does so by writing, "It was not until the end of 1938 that Hitler was directly involved in any euthanasia decisions, and then it was in ‘mercy killing,’ rather than the infinitely more controversial blanket program to eliminate the insane" (Irving 23).

According to Henry Friedlander, the euthanasia program was much more comprehensive than Irving’s portrayal. The euthanasia campaign was not simply aimed at maximizing the Reich’s resources at the cost of the mentally insane. The program was actually in response to "the eugenic call for a rejuvenation of the [German] race" (Friedlander 81). The program not only included the insane, it encompassed a commitment to the destruction of all persons with mental and physical handicaps, including the blind, the deaf and mute, and the epileptic. The program forged into a utilitarian effort, basing patients fate on their ability to work and produce. Those who could not produce and further the German war effort were considered "burdensome lives" and killed. Eventually German veterans, wounded in World War I, began to fall victim to the Reich’s race cleansing. The adult euthanasia program, known as Operation T4, began to take shape during the summer of 1940 and continually escalated its efforts until Hitler halted the first phase of the program in August of 1941. By that time the program had claimed 70,000 human lives. Even Irving, blundering in his Hitler defense, attests to Hitler’s in the involvement with the program at this time. There is no doubt that Hitler was intimately involved in the Reich’s "mercy killing." (Friedlander 68, 80-85)

It is obvious that Irving has made a conscious attempt to depict Hitler as a man of peace completely disassociated from the Reich’s euthanasia program. However, Irving’s true thesis and most dangerous argument revolves around Hitler’s involvement in the decision to systematically kill European Jews. According to Irving, Hitler was not the force behind the extermination of the Jews. In actuality, the genocide was perpetrated by his subordinates, in particular Himmler, Heydrich, and Goebbels, without the consent of the Fuhrer. Consumed by the war, Hitler was forced to entrust his executives with more autonomy and as a result he was unable to oversee all their functions (Irving xiii). This allowed Himmler, who was "interpreting with brutal thoroughness Hitler’ decree that the Jews must ‘finally disappear’ from Europe", to orchestrate Hitler’s prophecies into realities (Irving 332). According to Irving, Hitler’s true intention was never extermination, only relocation of an obvious Jewish threat to German security.

In September of 1939, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the president of the Jewish Agency, wrote Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain telling him that the Jewish people would side with the democracies against Nazi Germany. Weizmann’s letter was made public on September 9^th. According to Irving, "Hitler no doubt considered it an unorthodox Jewish declaration of war" (Irving 12). Irving considers this "Jewish declaration of war" as an ominous internal threat to the German war effort and uses it to justify the Reich’s seemingly reasonable "relocation" response.

Hitler, with his fears of a Jewish conspiracy confirmed, began to "relocate the Jews in a campaign to rid German of this obvious partisan threat. According to Irving, the Fuhrer’s orders specifically called for a relocation of the Jews, extermination was not an option. Irving mentions the Madagascar Plan to demonstrate the Fuhrer’s "true intentions." The plan called for the relocation of the Jews to the island of Madagascar, off the coast of Africa. While there, Jewish professionals and intellectuals would simply be reduced to common laborers and farmers, eliminating their ability to threaten German security during the war (Irving 330). Only after Hitler received word of the considerable Nazi expansion in the east, did he discard the Madagascar Plan for the more productive option of sending Jews to the east. By deporting Jews to the east, Germany could utilize them as a pool valuable of labor, while at the same time intern them, thus preventing them from sabotaging the war effort.

By placing the blame on the Jews for their own interment, Irving conveniently omits the Nazi Party’s tradition of animosity and hostility towards the Jewish community. As early as 1935, they passed the Nuremberg Laws in their first legislative attempt to exclude German Jews by diminishing their rights as citizens (Goldhagen 97). In November of 1938, approximately a year before Wiezmann’s letter was published, Hitler ordered the instigation of a nation-wide pogrom known as Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass. During Kristallnacht over a hundred synagogues were burned, while Jews were spat on and whipped (Kirk 11). Approximately 100 Jews were killed and thirty thousand were taken to concentration camps (Goldhagen 100). Furthermore in January 1939, eight months prior to Wiezmann’s letter, Hitler gave a prophetic speech threatening the "annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe" upon the advent of war. In light of these facts, there is no wonder that the head of the Jewish Agency would symbolically ally the Jewish people with the democracies.

The major component of Irving’s Hitler cleansing involves disassociating Hitler from the decision to begin the Final Solution. He does this by transferring the blame for the Holocaust from Hitler onto other members of the party, in particular Himmler and Heydrich. For Irving, a functionalist, the decision to exterminate the Jews resulted, primarily, from unmet expectations in the German army’s Russian campaign. The Reich originally planed to move the Jews into conquered Russian territories, however they fell short of their proposed territorial gains. Simultaneously, the Reich, counting on their armies success, was shipping large numbers Jews to the east for internment. As a result of the miscalculation, a large backup occurred in the "resettlement" program due to insufficient resources to house and feed the prisoners. In this context, mass extermination emerged as the most efficient solution to the Reich’s dilemma. According to Irving, the decision was made by the Hitler’s subordinates without his consent and the policy was never made known to him. (Irving 330)

As proof, to substantiate the Fuhrer’s innocence, Irving sites two letters. The first letter he sites is dated October 25, 1941and is written by an undisclosed author. According to Irving, the letter states that "Adolf Eichmann had now approved Gauleiter Lohse’s proposal that those [prisoners] arriving at Riga should be killed by mobile gas-trucks." Irving goes on to write, "this initially ad hoc operation gathered momentum." Irving’s wording infers that the extermination of the Jews began as a result of Eichmann’s approval and manifested into large scale extermination from this point. Irving sites a second letter written by Arthur Greiser, who as Reichsstathalter and Gauleiter combined both state and party leadership in the Warthegau. Irving summarizes Greiser’s May 1942 letter, the "current ‘special treatment’ program of the hundred thousand Jews in his own Gau had been authorized by Himmler ‘with agreement of’ Heydrich" (Irving 330). Irving is quick to note that Hitler is not mentioned in either of the letters. In the context presented by Irving, authorization for "special treatment" of Jews was originally given by Eichmann. The program was then placed under the jurisdiction of both Himmler and Heydrich, who orchestrated the genocide without the Fuhrer’s knowledge. (Irving 330)

Irving continues his attempt to substantiate the Furhrer’s innocence by siting a speech Hitler made on the very same evening the letter of approval by Eichmann was dated, October 25, 1941. Irving quotes Hitler’s speech:

From the rostrum of the Reichstag I prophesied to Jewry that if war could not be avoided, the Jews would disappear from Europe. That race of criminals already had on its conscience the two million dead of the Great War, and now it has hundreds of thousands more. Let nobody tell me that despite that we cannot park them in the marshy parts of Russia! Our troops are there as well, and who worries about them! By the way–it’s not a bad thing that public rumor attributes to us a plan to exterminate the Jews. Terror is a salutary thing. (Irving 33)

According to Irving, Hitler is obviously exposing the rumored plan to exterminate the Jews as unsubstantiated, though he admits that the "rumor" holds a certain advantage in discouraging partisan activity amongst the Jews.

The evidence Irving has selected to prove his point is partial, illogical, and suspect to authenticity. The two letters Irving draws upon as proof are open to the most scrutiny. In his text, Irving neglects to note where he obtained the two letters and where they may be located for further investigation. Irving even fails to acknowledge who wrote the letter concerning Eichmann’s approval of the extermination policy at Riga. He simply presents both pieces of evidence as undisputed facts. This lack of proper reference tends to bred skepticism concerning Irving’s interpretation of the two documents. However, even if he does quote the letters in context, his interpretation of them remains severely flawed.

Through his wording, Irving makes it sound as if the whole extermination policy resulted from Eichmann’s approval. He does not explore the possibility that the order was handed down to Eichmann. He does mention the letter from Greiser, which places Himmler and Heydrich at the center of distributing the new decision to engage in mass killing. However, Irving infers that, because Greiser received authorization from Himmler in conjunction with Heydrich, Hitler could not have played a role in the decision. Irving concludes that, because Hitler did not confer the order directly to Greiser himself, he must have been oblivious to the extermination. Irving’s interpretation is severely flawed. The secretive nature of the whole undertaking would make it seem odd if Hitler had actually given the order himself. Even Irving acknowledges Hitler’s desire to avoid giving "foreign countries a peg for ‘atrocity propaganda’" (Irving 15). In the unlikely event that Hitler wanted to give the order for extermination himself, he would have done so orally in order to avoid leaving any material evidence that could fall into the hands of the Allies. This means that Hitler would have traveled to Riga to recite the order to commence extermination of the Jews. This element of secrecy coupled with the fact that the Fuhrer was in the mist of fighting a war, exposes the absurdity of Irving’s logic. It seems unthinkable that Hitler, completely consumed by the war effort, would take the time to deliver an order personally, when it could easily be done by a subordinate.

By theorizing that Hitler would have been too busy with the war effort to directly give the order to exterminate the Jews, actually lends itself to Irving’s theory that Hitler was too concerned with war to be able to oversee all the functions of the Reich. However, a closer look at how decisions concerning racial policy were implemented by the Third Reich is needed to examine the plausibility of Irving’s thesis. In May of 1940, Himmler submitted a memorandum summarizing his proposal for the treatment of "alien populations" in the east. His proposal included a "screening and sifting" of the "ethnic mush" in the east. Himmler wanted to identify the racially valuable and bring them back to Germany for assimilation. The leftovers would become a labor pool for the Nazi war machine. Hitler agreed to the initiative presented by Himmler and authorized its distribution to eastern Gauleiters and Goring. However, the initiative was not a precise plan; it was a set of objectives. The actual implementation would be left up to Himmler. Hitler simply approved the proposal and dictated to who the information would be sent. He gave no specific orders to Goring or any of the eastern Gauleiters. It seems highly probable that the proposal to exterminate the Jews would have happened in much the same way and, in light of the evidence, it is no surprise that Greiser’s approval to begin extermination came from Himmler. (Browning, The Path to Genocide 16-17)

Aside from his questionable interpretation of evidence, Irving completely omits evidence that would support claims that Hitler was intimately involved with the decision to exterminate the Jews. On November 29, 1941 at the Wannsee Conference, Heydrich invoked on a July authorization given to Goring and upon "previous approval through the Fuhrer" to prepare a "total solution" to the Jewish problem (Browning, Fateful Months 33). Heydrich announced that all Jews would be deported to the east for labor. In the east the Jews would be "treated accordingly." No Jew was to survive "as a germ cell of a new Jewish reconstruction" (Browning, Fateful Months 33). The participants at the conference understood the goal of the deportation program was destruction of the Jews and not labor. Evidence of this is seen in the request made by State Secretary Buhler of the General Government to start the Final Solution in Poland because most of the Jews there were already incapable of work. (Browning, Fateful Months 33)

The same speech Irving sites as proof of Hitler’s innocence, is turned against him by Sarah Gordon. In her quotation of Hitler’s October 25^th speech she is more thorough than Irving, and adds this part of the speech:

…I have numerous accounts to settle, about which I cannot think today. But that doesn’t mean I forget them. I write them down. The time will come to bring out the big book! Even with regard to the Jews, I’ve found myself remaining inactive. There’s no sense in adding uselessly to the difficulties of the moment. One acts shrewdly when one bides one’s time. (Gordon 131)

Gordon also adds that the speech was given in front of what she calls his "normally shielded inner circle of secretaries, aides, servant, and personal staff" (Gordon 131). This new addition to the evidence paints a more probable picture of Hitler. The Fuhrer, probably ordering the commencement of the genocide in July with Goring’s authorization, was not referring to relocation in the speech. Relocation was already heavily underway, and yet Hitler says he has remained "inactive" with regard to the Jews. He is obviously referring to his non-activity with regard to extermination. He sounds devious in his last line, as though he knew implementation of the genocide was already underway though he did not want to reveal this to his those in his presence.

Goebbels completely articulates the Third Reich’s Jewish policy while placing Hitler as its driving force in a diary entry dated March 27, 1942:

Starting in Lublin, the Jews in the area of the Generalgouvernement are to be removed and pushed eastward. That requires pretty barbarous actions which cannot be described here; little will remain of the Jews themselves. It can be said in general that some 60% have to be liquidated and only 40% can be put to work. The former Gauleiter of Vienna and now Higher SS and Police Leader in Lublin, who is in charge of this action, is carrying it out quite carefully and without attracting too much attention. To the Jews there is being meted out a criminal-court judgment, which, while barbarous, is fully deserved. The Fuhrer’s prophesy about their future, which he made in case they instigated a new war, that prophesy is now beginning to become real in utterly horrendous dimensions. But sentimentality must not be allowed to interfere in such matters. If we were not fighting them off, the Jews would destroy us. Ours is a life and death struggle between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus. No other government or regime has been able to rouse itself sufficiently to tackle and solve this conundrum. Here too the Fuhrer has shown himself to be the unflinching pioneer and spokesman of a radical solution, one that fits the circumstances and is therefore unavoidable. Fortunately, this war has provided us with a series of opportunities that would have been unavailable to us in peace time. These we must now utilize. (Jackel 29-30)

The entry is so unique because it directly links the Fuhrer to the genocide, while demonstrating the Reich’s interpretation of the Jewish Question. For the Reich it was a "barbarous" necessity to rid themselves of Jews, but it was vital to the German security. The quote also reinforces the idea that the Nazis made a conscious effort to keep the genocide a secret. Obviously this is a piece of evidence Irving must have overlooked.

Despite his obvious misinterpretations and selective research, Irving claims that he has one piece of evidence that irrefutably proves that Hitler was not involved in the genocide. Irving sees all other evidence pointing to his involvement as circumstantial and subjective. Irving rests his argument on this tell-all piece of evidence, which clears Hitler of mastering the greatest crime in human history. Irving writes:

On November 30, 1941, he [Himmler] was summoned to the Wolf’s Lair for a secret conference with Hitler, at which the fate of Berlin’s Jews was clearly raised. At 1:30 P.M. Himmler was obliged to telephone from Hitler’s bunker to Heydrich the explicit order that Jews were not to be liquidated; and the next day Himmler telephoned SS General Oswald Pohl, overall chief of the concentration camp system, with the order: ‘Jews are to stay where they are.’ Yet the blood purge continued. (Irving 332)

For Irving, the evidence obviously displays Hitler’s true opposition to the extermination of the Jews. This lends proof to Irving’s contention that it was Himmler, Heydrich and others who perpetrated the Holocaust without the knowledge of the Fuhrer. Thus, in Irving’s eyes, the guilt from the Holocaust has been lifted from Hitler.

The basis to refute Irving’s argument is actually found within the text of Hitler’s War. As proof that Himmler’s notes concerning November 30^th do exist, Irving displays a facsimile of them in the origin form in which Himmler wrote them. Most notably, the notes are in German; and for a non-German speaking reader, the fact he actually displayed the evidence tends to validate his interpretation of them. However, Eberhard Jackel reveals the truth about what is written in Himmler’s notes concerning his conversation with Heydrich. Jackel writes, "about the conversation Himmler entered this note: ‘Jewish transport from Berlin, not to be liquidated’" (Jackel 21). It is obvious that Hitler was ordering a certain transport of Jews to be spared, not all Jews. It was later deciphered by Lucy Dawidowicz that Himmler called Heydrich to instruct him to take into custody a certain Dr. Jekelius, thought to be a Soviet Foreign Minister’s son, who was within the transport of Jews referred to in Himmler’s notes (Jackel 52).

The Jackel interpretation of Himmler’s notes not only disproves Irving’s "piece de resistance," but it also raises an interesting question. From his interpretation of Himmler’s notes, Irving derives a universal order not to "liquidate" the Jews. This piece of evidence is the corner stone to his contention that Hitler was in no way involved in the mass extermination of Jews. However, this piece of evidence actually provides a foundation to refute Irving’s entire thesis. If Hitler was unaware of the killing of Jews, there would be no reason for him to think that the transport he was interested in was going to be "liquidated." If Hitler had not ordered the extermination of the Jews and knew nothing of the events, hidden from him by Himmler and others, it would not have been necessary for him to send an order not to exterminate a single transport of Jews. The fact that he did forbid the liquidation of Jew in this instance further solidifies the argument that Hitler was the driving vigor behind the exterminationist policy of the Third Reich. These facts seem to reveal Hitler at the helm of the genocide and not merely, as Irving portrays him, an innocent man convicted of the great crime in history.

In Hitler’s War, Irving attempts to discredited what he calls "accepted dogma" and expose the legends that have been perpetuated about Hitler for so many years. Irving contends that during wartime, dictators are fundamentally weak and Hitler was no exception. Hitler’s weakness allowed Himmler and others within the Reich to perpetrate the Holocaust. Irving’s pseudo-history based on innuendo, selective evidence, and half-truths forms the foundation for his argument that allows him to transfer the burden of guilt for the Holocaust from the Fuhrer onto a larger number of German participants. Despite his efforts, Irving falls considerably short of his aim to cleanse National Socialism.

It seems unnecessary to critically examine Irving’s obvious manipulation of history. However, Irving is considerably dangerous. He poses a serious threat to the validity of history. As Holocaust denial’s most reputable "scholar", Irving plays an overwhelming role in the perpetuation of denial rhetoric. Irving’s extensive schooling and academic writing style, characterized by footnotes and primary documents, has brought denial from the fringes of the historical sphere by validating it as historical revision. This readjustment of Holocaust denial persona has allowed deniers to expose their arguments to a new group of people who pride themselves on academic freedom and freedom of speech, namely university students and faculty. Attacks on Holocaust denial have thus propelled deniers to the forefront of the battle over freedom of speech. Irving has personally launched a freedom of speech campaign and has declared himself a victim of a "global vendetta" resulting from his efforts to reveal the truth about the Holocaust. By appealing to an entity as powerful as free speech, deniers have tapped into a new group of sympathizers that further denier arguments because of their commitment to free speech. This brings exposure and credibility to Holocaust denial, which is exactly what the deniers are looking for. It is essential to realize the deniers motives. They have committed themselves to rewriting history to serve their political agenda. Holocaust deniers must be prevented from corrupting history and exposed for what they really are, Fascists.

Works Cited

1. Browning, Christopher R. Fateful Months: Essays on the Emergence of the Final Solution. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1985.
2. Browning, Christopher R. The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
3. Friedlander, Henry. The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. Chapel Hill Press, 1995.
4. Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Vintage Books, 1996.
5. Gordon, Sarah. Hitler, Germans and the "Jewish Question." New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1984.
6. Heilbrunn, Jacob. "Out to lunch: meet the real David Irving." The New Republic Oct. 1996: 14.
7. Irving, David. Hitler’s War. New York: The Viking Press, 1977.
8. Jackel, Eberhard. David Irving’s Hitler: A Faulty History Dissected. Translation and comments H. David Kirk. Washington: Ben-Simon Publications, 1993.
9. Lipstadt, Deborah. Denying the Holocaust. New York: Plume, 1994.
10. Najarian, James. "Gnawing at history: the rhetoric of Holocaust denial." The Midwest Quarterly Autumn 1997: 74.
11. Ponting, Clive. 1940: Myth and Reality. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1990.
12. Unknown author. "The Focal Point Home Page." Internet. 20 May 1998. Available: www.fpp.co.uk/page3html.