Earlier this year, on April 11th, David Irving lost the libel action he had instigated against Professor Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books. Lipstadt, in her 1994 book Denying the Holocaust, had classified Irving as an out-and-out Holocaust denier who falsified historical evidence to serve his own ideological ends. Irving took umbrage - and set in motion lengthy and costly legal proceedings. The trial was unique in British legal history. It generated acres of newsprint, and inspired intense debate about freedom of speech and the thorny issue of Holocaust denial. Irving conducted his own defence and portrayed himself, as he has tended to do, both as a seeker after the truth and more sinned against than sinning.
He is, according to his own light, a man who has written acclaimed military histories and who has been hailed by some as possessing unparalleled knowledge of the military campaigns of the second World War. He has also gained a reputation as an intrepid archival gumshoe, ferreting out sources that others have missed. However, if there were any harbouring doubts about Irving, the trial's outcome and course - as described in the 330-page legal transcript - should leave the reader in little doubt as to the motives which drive Irving. When he refers to a "well funded and unscrupulous conspiracy on the part of `our traditional enemy'," Irving is clearly tapping into centuries-old anti-Jewish rhetoric.
Although this is essentially a rather dry legal document, nonetheless a sense of Irving's peevishness, obstinacy and sense of aggrievedness come out clearly in the text. The case for Lipstadt and Penguin Books was supported by a distinguished panel of historians and academics. Based on their appraisals of Irving's work, Mr Justice Gray concluded that whilst there was some substance to Irving's claim of prowess in military history, this was not mitigated by his work specifically on Hitler. Examining minutely each instance where Irving had distorted, obfuscated or blatantly lied about evidence or sources, the learned men found and described Irving's interpretative manipulations.
Dealing principally with Irving's biography of Goebbels and his book Hitler's War, Justice Gray found, in most examples chosen, that Irving was wanting in impartiality. More alarmingly, Irving persisted in twisting the evidence to portray Hitler in a favourable light - even after the error of his ways was pointed out to him. Irving goes so far as to suggest that Hitler was "a friend to the Jews" who tried on many occasions to prevent his zealous minions from carrying out extermination policies.
A great deal of his intellectual energy seems to be expended in this argument that Hitler was protective of Jews. This is only one step away from the proposition that the murder of millions was a clumsy and unfortunate blunder. Indeed in Irving's world, misunderstanding, mistakes and misinterpretation of orders are the foundations of the Final Solution: it was all a ghastly mistake, undertaken by over-enthusiastic underlings to impress their Fuhrer. Except, of course, that isn't true.
In its categorical condemnation of Irving and his activities, this is an important book for all those interested in human rights issues.
Katrina Goldstone is a researcher and critic who has written and lectured on attitudes to ethnic minorities