Ronald Rosenbaum (born November 27, 1946) is an American literary journalist , literary critic , and novelist .
155-410: David John Cawdell Irving (born 24 March 1938) is an English author who has written on the military and political history of World War II , especially Nazi Germany . He was found to be a Holocaust denier in a UK court in 2000 as a result of a failed libel case. Irving's works include The Destruction of Dresden (1963), Hitler's War (1977), Churchill's War (1987) and Goebbels: Mastermind of
310-659: A Neutrality Pact in April 1941, and Japan adopted the doctrine of Nanshin-ron , promoted by the Navy, which took its focus southward and eventually led to war with the United States and the Western Allies. In Europe, Germany and Italy were becoming more aggressive. In March 1938, Germany annexed Austria , again provoking little response from other European powers. Encouraged, Hitler began pressing German claims on
465-578: A cautious French probe into the Saarland . The Western Allies also began a naval blockade of Germany , which aimed to damage the country's economy and war effort. Germany responded by ordering U-boat warfare against Allied merchant and warships, which would later escalate into the Battle of the Atlantic . On 8 September, German troops reached the suburbs of Warsaw . The Polish counter-offensive to
620-515: A kosher butcher". In 1982, Irving described himself as an "untrained historian" and argued that his lack of academic qualifications did not mean that he could not be considered a historian. He listed Pliny the Elder and Tacitus as examples of historians without university training. In 1983, Stern , a weekly German news magazine, purchased 61 volumes of Hitler's supposed diaries for DM 9 million and published excerpts from them. Irving played
775-536: A "secret supplement" to the magazine. This supplement contained an article in which he called Hitler the "greatest unifying force Europe has known since Charlemagne ". Although Irving deflected criticism by characterising the Carnival Times as " satirical ", he also stated that " the formation of a European Union is interpreted as building a group of superior peoples, and the Jews have always viewed with suspicion
930-702: A 1986 speech in Australia Irving argued that photographs of Holocaust survivors and dead taken in early 1945 by Allied soldiers were proof that the Allies were responsible for the Holocaust, not the Germans. Irving claimed that the Holocaust was not the work of Nazi leaders, but rather of "nameless criminals", and claimed that "these men [who killed the Jews] acted on their own impulse, their own initiative, within
1085-560: A BBC1 television programme, he said that Hitler "became a statesman and then a soldier ... and the Jewish problem was a nuisance to him, an embarrassment." In 1983, Irving summarised his views about Hitler and the Jews when he said that "probably the biggest friend the Jews had in the Third Reich, certainly when the war broke out, was Adolf Hitler. He was the one who was doing everything he could to prevent things nasty happening to them." In
1240-554: A Holocaust-denial conference, which he refused on the grounds that his appearance there would damage his reputation. In a letter, Irving stated his reasons for his refusal as: "This is pure Realpolitik on my part. I am already dangerously exposed, and I cannot take the chance of being caught in flak meant for others!" Though Irving refused at this time to appear at conferences sponsored by the Holocaust-denying Institute for Historical Review (IHR), he did grant
1395-582: A burglary by three men who had gained access to his Hornsey flat in London by claiming to be General Post Office engineers. Anti-fascist activist Gerry Gable was convicted in January 1964, along with Manny Carpel. They were fined £20 each. After the success of the Dresden book, Irving continued writing, including some works of negationist history , although his 1964 work The Mare's Nest – an account of
1550-584: A degree in Economics in the department of Political Economy at University College London . He again had to drop out due to lack of funds. During this period at university, he participated in a debate on Commonwealth immigration, seconding British Union of Fascists founder Sir Oswald Mosley . Irving's time as an editor of the Carnival Times , a student rag mag of the University of London Carnival Committee, became controversial in 1959 when he added
1705-401: A document promulgated by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels , and on claims made after the war by a former Dresden Nazi functionary, Hans Voigt , without verifying them against official sources available in Dresden. Irving's estimates and sources were first disputed by Walter Weidauer , Mayor of Dresden 1946–1958, in his own account of the Dresden bombing. When it was later confirmed that
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#17327974769321860-579: A footnote." Irving was present at a memorial service for Hans-Ulrich Rudel in January 1983 after the latter's death, organised by the DVU and its leader Gerhard Frey , delivering a speech, and was given the Hans-Ulrich-Rudel-Award by Frey in June 1985. Irving was a frequent speaker for the DVU in the 1980s and the early 1990s, but the relationship ended in 1993 apparently because of concerns by
2015-473: A forgery, to which a reporter replied that he was also the last to call them genuine. By the mid-1980s, Irving had not had a successful book for some years and was behind schedule in writing the first volume of his Churchill series, the research for which had strained his finances. He finished the manuscript in 1985, and the book was published in 1987, as Churchill's War, The Struggle for Power . In 1989, Irving published his biography of Hermann Göring . Over
2170-482: A major role in exposing the Hitler Diaries as a hoax. In October 1982 Irving had purchased from the same source as Stern' s 1983 purchase, 800 pages of documents relating to Hitler, only to conclude that many of the documents were forgeries. Irving was amongst the first to identify the diaries as forgeries, and to draw media attention. He went so far as to crash the press conference held by Hugh Trevor-Roper at
2325-585: A mention of 363,211 Russian Jews executed by the Einsatzgruppen between August and November 1942. Sydnor remarked that Irving's statement that the Einsatzgruppen were in charge in the death camps seems to indicate that he was not familiar with the history of the Holocaust, as the Einsatzgruppen were in fact mobile death squads who had nothing to do with the death camps. Months after the release of Hitler's War , Irving published The Trail of
2480-573: A potential friend in Irving and donated diaries and other material. Irving described his historical work to Rosenbaum as an act of "stone-cleaning" of Hitler, in which he cleared off the "slime" that he felt had been unjustly applied to Hitler's reputation. In 1969, during a visit to Germany, Irving met Robert Kempner , one of the American prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials . Irving asked Kempner if
2635-524: A pretext to initiate the invasion. The first German attack of the war came against the Polish defences at Westerplatte . The United Kingdom responded with an ultimatum for Germany to cease military operations, and on 3 September, after the ultimatum was ignored, Britain and France declared war on Germany. During the Phoney War period, the alliance provided no direct military support to Poland, outside of
2790-781: A pretext to worsen relations. On 29 August, Hitler demanded that a Polish plenipotentiary immediately travel to Berlin to negotiate the handover of Danzig , and to allow a plebiscite in the Polish Corridor in which the German minority would vote on secession. The Poles refused to comply with the German demands, and on the night of 30–31 August in a confrontational meeting with the British ambassador Nevile Henderson , Ribbentrop declared that Germany considered its claims rejected. On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland after having staged several false flag border incidents as
2945-447: A provocateur and prankster since his youth. Nicholas Irving has said that "David used to run toward bombed out houses shouting 'Heil Hitler! ' ", a statement which Irving denies. Irving went on to say to Rosenbaum that his negationist views about World War II dated to his childhood, particularly due to his objections to the way Adolf Hitler was portrayed in the British media during the war. Irving asserted that his sceptical views about
3100-667: A rational, intelligent politician, whose only goal was to increase Germany's prosperity and influence on the continent, and who was constantly let down by incompetent or treasonous subordinates. Irving's book faulted the Allied leaders, especially Winston Churchill , for the eventual escalation of war, and argued that the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 was a " preventive war " forced on Hitler to avert an impending Soviet attack. Irving also argued that Hitler had no knowledge of
3255-475: A secret protocol that defined German and Soviet "spheres of influence" (western Poland and Lithuania for Germany; eastern Poland , Finland, Estonia , Latvia and Bessarabia for the Soviet Union), and raised the question of continuing Polish independence. The pact neutralised the possibility of Soviet opposition to a campaign against Poland and assured that Germany would not have to face the prospect of
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#17327974769323410-713: A similar pact and rejected ceding part of its territory to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union invaded Finland in November 1939, and was subsequently expelled from the League of Nations for this crime of aggression. Despite overwhelming numerical superiority, Soviet military success during the Winter War was modest, and the Finno-Soviet war ended in March 1940 with some Finnish concessions of territory . In June 1940,
3565-510: A steelworker in a Thyssen AG steel works in the Ruhr area and learned the German language . He then moved to Spain, where he worked as a clerk at an air base. By 1962, Irving was engaged to write a series of 37 articles on the Allied bombing campaign , Und Deutschlands Städte starben nicht ("And Germany's Cities Did Not Die"), for the German boulevard journal Neue Illustrierte . These were
3720-545: A torpedo from HMS Foresight . Irving's father survived but severed all links with his wife and children after the incident. Irving described his childhood in an interview with the American writer Ron Rosenbaum as: "Unlike the Americans, we English suffered great deprivations ... we went through childhood with no toys. We had no kind of childhood at all. We were living on an island that was crowded with other people's armies". According to his brother, Nicholas, David has been
3875-531: A two-front war, as it had in World War I. Immediately afterwards, Hitler ordered the attack to proceed on 26 August, but upon hearing that the United Kingdom had concluded a formal mutual assistance pact with Poland and that Italy would maintain neutrality, he decided to delay it. In response to British requests for direct negotiations to avoid war, Germany made demands on Poland, which served as
4030-482: A view shared by many prominent historians. The English court found that Irving was an active Holocaust denier, antisemite and racist , who "for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence". In addition, the court found that Irving's books had distorted the history of Hitler's role in the Holocaust to depict Hitler in a favourable light. David Irving and his twin brother Nicholas were born six months before
4185-402: A way as to bring himself maximum publicity. Irving stated that: "I have at home... a filing cabinet full of documents which I don't issue all at once. I keep them: I issue them a bit at a time. When I think my name hasn't been in the newspapers for several weeks, well, then I ring them up and I phone them and I say: 'What about this one, then? ' " A major theme of Irving's writings from the 1980s
4340-478: A writer of children's books. During World War II, Irving's father was an officer aboard the light cruiser HMS Edinburgh . On 30 April 1942, while escorting Convoy QP 11 in the Barents Sea , the ship was badly damaged by the German submarine U-456 . Two days later, the ship was attacked by the German destroyers Hermann Schoemann , Z24 and Z25 , and now beyond recovery was abandoned and scuttled by
4495-474: Is easy to see why ... full of excesses, inconsistencies and omissions ... seems completely unaware of recent work done on the subject ... It is not merely that the arguments in this book are so perversely tendentious and irresponsibly sensationalist. It is also that it is written in a tone which is at best casually journalistic and at worst quite exceptionally offensive. The text is littered with errors from beginning to end. In 1981, he published two books. The first
4650-524: Is talking nonsense and of course Adolf Hitler must have known about what was going in Auschwitz and Treblinka, and then in the same breath to claim that, of course our beloved Mr. Begin didn't know what was going on in Sabra and Chatilla ". During the same speech, Irving proclaimed Hitler to be the "biggest friend the Jews had in the Third Reich". In the same speech, Irving stated that he operated in such
4805-604: The Anglo-German Naval Agreement and the German–Polish declaration of non-aggression . The situation became a crisis in late August as German troops continued to mobilise against the Polish border. On 23 August the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Germany, after tripartite negotiations for a military alliance between France, the United Kingdom, and Soviet Union had stalled. This pact had
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4960-568: The Auschwitz concentration camp . Irving's reputation as a historian was further discredited in 2000, when, in the course of an unsuccessful libel case he filed against the American historian Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books , High Court Judge Charles Gray determined in his ruling that Irving willfully misrepresented historical evidence to promote Holocaust denial and whitewash the Nazis,
5115-689: The British Empire , with fighting in the Balkans , Mediterranean, and Middle East , the aerial Battle of Britain and the Blitz , and naval Battle of the Atlantic . Through a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany took control of much of continental Europe and formed the Axis alliance with Italy , Japan , and other countries. In June 1941, Germany led the European Axis in an invasion of
5270-466: The Führer had told him that he could not marry because Germany was "his bride". Irving then claimed to have asked the naval adjutant when Hitler made that remark, and upon hearing that the date was 24 March 1938, Irving stated in response "Herr Admiral, at that moment I was being born". Irving used this alleged incident to argue that there was some sort of mystical connection between himself and Hitler. In
5425-581: The German Revolution of 1918–1919 , and a democratic government, later known as the Weimar Republic , was created. The interwar period saw strife between supporters of the new republic and hardline opponents on both the political right and left. Italy, as an Entente ally, had made some post-war territorial gains; however, Italian nationalists were angered that the promises made by the United Kingdom and France to secure Italian entrance into
5580-801: The German invasion of Poland and the United Kingdom and France 's declaration of war on Germany two days later on 3 September 1939. Dates for the beginning of the Pacific War include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or the earlier Japanese invasion of Manchuria , on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor , who stated that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously, and
5735-583: The Hamburg offices of Stern magazine on 25 April 1983 to denounce the diaries as a forgery and Trevor-Roper for endorsing the diaries as genuine. Irving's performance at the Stern press conference where he violently harangued Trevor-Roper until ejected by security led him to be featured prominently on the news: the next day, Irving appeared on the Today television show as a featured guest. Irving had concluded that
5890-523: The Italian mainland , and Allied offensives in the Pacific—cost the Axis powers their initiative and forced them into strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France at Normandy , while the Soviet Union regained its territorial losses and pushed Germany and its allies westward. At the same time, Japan suffered reversals in mainland Asia, while the Allies crippled
6045-553: The Japanese Navy and captured key islands . The war in Europe concluded with the liberation of German-occupied territories ; the invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the fall of Berlin to Soviet troops; Hitler's suicide ; and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945 . Following the refusal of Japan to surrender on the terms of the Potsdam Declaration ,
6200-695: The League of Nations as a force to preserve peace. Both Italy and Ethiopia were member nations, but the League did little when the former clearly violated Article X of the League's Covenant . The United Kingdom and France supported imposing sanctions on Italy for the invasion, but the sanctions were not fully enforced and failed to end the Italian invasion. Italy subsequently dropped its objections to Germany's goal of absorbing Austria . When civil war broke out in Spain, Hitler and Mussolini lent military support to
6355-552: The Memoirs of Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel in 1965 (edited by Walter Görlitz) and in 1967 published Accident: The Death of General Sikorski . In the latter book, Irving claimed that the plane crash which killed Polish government in exile leader General Władysław Sikorski in 1943 was really an assassination ordered by Winston Churchill , so as to enable Churchill to betray Poland to the Soviet Union . Irving's book inspired
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6510-731: The Nationalist rebels , led by General Francisco Franco . Italy supported the Nationalists to a greater extent than the Nazis: Mussolini sent more than 70,000 ground troops, 6,000 aviation personnel, and 720 aircraft to Spain. The Soviet Union supported the existing government of the Spanish Republic . More than 30,000 foreign volunteers, known as the International Brigades , also fought against
6665-690: The Rome–Berlin Axis . A month later, Germany and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact , which Italy joined the following year. The Kuomintang (KMT) party in China launched a unification campaign against regional warlords and nominally unified China in the mid-1920s, but was soon embroiled in a civil war against its former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) allies and new regional warlords . In 1931, an increasingly militaristic Empire of Japan , which had long sought influence in China as
6820-535: The Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1941. By contrast, the Germans were steadily making preparations for an attack on the Soviet Union, massing forces on the Soviet border. Hitler believed that the United Kingdom's refusal to end the war was based on the hope that the United States and the Soviet Union would enter the war against Germany sooner or later. On 31 July 1940, Hitler decided that
6975-598: The Stresa Front in April 1935 in order to contain Germany, a key step towards military globalisation ; however, that June, the United Kingdom made an independent naval agreement with Germany, easing prior restrictions. The Soviet Union, concerned by Germany's goals of capturing vast areas of Eastern Europe , drafted a treaty of mutual assistance with France. Before taking effect, though, the Franco-Soviet pact
7130-709: The Sudetenland , an area of Czechoslovakia with a predominantly ethnic German population. Soon the United Kingdom and France followed the appeasement policy of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and conceded this territory to Germany in the Munich Agreement , which was made against the wishes of the Czechoslovak government, in exchange for a promise of no further territorial demands. Soon afterwards, Germany and Italy forced Czechoslovakia to cede additional territory to Hungary, and Poland annexed
7285-428: The Tanggu Truce was signed in 1933. Thereafter, Chinese volunteer forces continued the resistance to Japanese aggression in Manchuria , and Chahar and Suiyuan . After the 1936 Xi'an Incident , the Kuomintang and CCP forces agreed on a ceasefire to present a united front to oppose Japan. The Second Italo-Ethiopian War was a brief colonial war that began in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war began with
7440-466: The Trans-Olza region of Czechoslovakia. Although all of Germany's stated demands had been satisfied by the agreement, privately Hitler was furious that British interference had prevented him from seizing all of Czechoslovakia in one operation. In subsequent speeches Hitler attacked British and Jewish "war-mongers" and in January 1939 secretly ordered a major build-up of the German navy to challenge British naval supremacy. In March 1939, Germany invaded
7595-506: The Treaty of Craiova . The loss of one-third of Romania's 1939 territory caused a coup against King Carol II, turning Romania into a fascist dictatorship under Marshal Ion Antonescu , with a course set towards the Axis in the hopes of a German guarantee. Meanwhile, German-Soviet political relations and economic co-operation gradually stalled, and both states began preparations for war. In April 1940, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway to protect shipments of iron ore from Sweden , which
7750-401: The United Kingdom and France to declare war on Germany. Poland was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , in which they had agreed on " spheres of influence " in Eastern Europe. In 1940, the Soviets annexed the Baltic states and parts of Finland and Romania . After the fall of France in June 1940, the war continued mainly between Germany and
7905-426: The Wehrmacht rapidly advanced to the Channel and cut off the Allied forces in Belgium, trapping the bulk of the Allied armies in a cauldron on the Franco-Belgian border near Lille. The United Kingdom was able to evacuate a significant number of Allied troops from the continent by early June, although they had to abandon almost all their equipment. On 10 June, Italy invaded France , declaring war on both France and
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#17327974769328060-451: The aftermath of World War I and the rise of fascism in Europe and militarism in Japan . Key events leading up to the war included Japan's invasion of Manchuria , the Spanish Civil War , the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War , and Germany's annexations of Austria and the Sudetenland . World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany , under Adolf Hitler , invaded Poland , prompting
8215-402: The great powers —participated, with many investing all available economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities in pursuit of total war , blurring the distinction between military and civilian resources. Tanks and aircraft played major roles , with the latter enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and delivery of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II
8370-404: The reunification of East and West Germany to take place and resolved most post–World War II issues. No formal peace treaty between Japan and the Soviet Union was ever signed, although the state of war between the two countries was terminated by the Soviet–Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956 , which also restored full diplomatic relations between them. World War I had radically altered
8525-413: The "official record of the Nuremberg Trials was falsified", and told him that he was planning to go to Washington, D.C., to compare the sound recordings of Luftwaffe Field-Marshal Erhard Milch 's March 1946 evidence with the subsequently published texts to find proof that evidence given at Nuremberg was "tampered with and manipulated". Upon his return to the United States, Kempner wrote to J. Edgar Hoover ,
8680-407: The 1980s, Irving started researching and writing about topics other than Nazi Germany, but with less success. He began his research on his three-part biography of Winston Churchill . After publication Irving's work on Churchill received at least one bad review from Professor David Cannadine (then of the University of London ): It has received almost no attention from historians or reviewers ... It
8835-405: The Allied bombing raids on Germany had made non-Germans to be antisemitic that: the Jews were the victims of a large number of rather run-of-the-mill criminal elements which exist in Central Europe. Not just Germans, but Austrians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, feeding on the endemic antisemitism of the era and encouraged by the brutalization which war brought about anyway. These people had seen
8990-409: The Allies were attempting to cut off . Denmark capitulated after six hours , and despite Allied support , Norway was conquered within two months. British discontent over the Norwegian campaign led to the resignation of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain , who was replaced by Winston Churchill on 10 May 1940. On the same day, Germany launched an offensive against France . To circumvent
9145-400: The Axis war against the Soviet Union, in Romania's case partially to recapture territory ceded to the Soviet Union . In early June 1940, the Italian Regia Aeronautica attacked and besieged Malta , a British possession. From late summer to early autumn, Italy conquered British Somaliland and made an incursion into British-held Egypt . In October, Italy attacked Greece , but the attack
9300-421: The Blitz , but largely ended in May 1941 after failing to significantly disrupt the British war effort. Using newly captured French ports, the German Navy enjoyed success against an over-extended Royal Navy , using U-boats against British shipping in the Atlantic . The British Home Fleet scored a significant victory on 27 May 1941 by sinking the German battleship Bismarck . In November 1939,
9455-439: The British Embassy in Berlin before 1939 with an introduction by the British historian Donald Cameron Watt . As a result of Irving's success with Dresden , members of Germany's extreme right wing assisted him in contacting surviving members of Hitler's inner circle. In an interview with the American journalist Ron Rosenbaum , Irving claimed to have developed sympathies towards them. Many ageing former mid- and high-ranked Nazis saw
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#17327974769329610-498: The Chief of the Reich Chancellery, to the Reich Justice Minister Franz Schlegelberger , saying: "the Führer has repeatedly pronounced that he wants the solution of the Jewish Question put off until after the war is over". Irving took this as proof that Hitler ordered against the extermination of the Jews. He falsely claimed that "no other historians have quoted this document, possibly finding its content hard to reconcile with their obsessively held views" about Hitler's responsibility for
9765-713: The Communist regime was itself controlled by Jews. Irving's depiction of Hungary's Communist regime as a Jewish dictatorship oppressing Gentiles sparked charges of antisemitism . In addition, there were complaints that Irving had grossly exaggerated the number of people of Jewish origin in the Communist regime and had ignored the fact that Hungarian Communists who did have a Jewish background like Mátyás Rákosi and Ernő Gerő had totally repudiated Judaism and sometimes expressed antisemitic attitudes themselves. Critics such as Neal Ascherson and Kai Bird took issue with some of Irving's language that seemed to evoke antisemitic imagery, such as his remark that Rákosi possessed "the tact of
9920-414: The DVU that Irving's espousal of Holocaust denial might lead to the DVU being banned. World War II Asia-Pacific Mediterranean and Middle East Other campaigns Coups World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers . Nearly all the world's countries —including all
10075-405: The European Axis declaring war on the US. Japan conquered much of coastal China and Southeast Asia , but its advances in the Pacific were halted in mid-1942 after its defeat in the naval Battle of Midway ; Germany and Italy were defeated in North Africa and at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union. Key setbacks in 1943—including German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasions of Sicily and
10230-433: The Fox , a biography of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel . In it, Irving attacked the members of the 20 July Plot to assassinate Hitler, branding them "traitors", "cowards", and "manipulators", and uncritically presented Hitler and his government's subsequent revenge against the plotters, of which Rommel was also a victim. In particular, Irving accused Rommel's friend and Chief of Staff General Hans Speidel of framing Rommel in
10385-453: The Fox, a biography of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel ; and a series in the Sunday Express describing the Royal Air Force 's famous Dam Busters raid. In 1975, in his introduction to Hitler und seine Feldherren , the German edition of Hitler's War , Irving attacked Anne Frank's diary as a forgery, claiming falsely that a New York court had ruled that the diary was really the work of American scriptwriter Meyer Levin "in collaboration with
10540-410: The French possessions of Syria and Lebanon , assisted by the Free French . With the situation in Europe and Asia relatively stable, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union made preparations for war. With the Soviets wary of mounting tensions with Germany, and the Japanese planning to take advantage of the European War by seizing resource-rich European possessions in Southeast Asia , the two powers signed
10695-407: The German V-weapons programme and the Allied intelligence countermeasures against it – was widely praised when published and continues to be well regarded. Michael J. Neufeld of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum has described The Mare's Nest as "the most complete account on both Allied and German sides of the V-weapons campaign in the last two years of the war." Irving translated
10850-426: The Germans, and the last large operational unit of the Polish Army surrendered on 6 October . Despite the military defeat, Poland never surrendered; instead, it formed the Polish government-in-exile and a clandestine state apparatus remained in occupied Poland. A significant part of Polish military personnel evacuated to Romania and Latvia; many of them later fought against the Axis in other theatres of
11005-463: The Hamburg press conference and the attendant publicity it had brought him, and took pride in his humiliation of Trevor-Roper, whom Irving strongly disliked for his sloppy work, in not detecting the hoax, and past criticism of Irving's methods and conclusions. Irving also noted internal inconsistencies in the supposed Hitler diaries, such as a diary entry for 20 July 1944, which would have been unlikely given that Hitler's right hand had been badly burned by
11160-423: The Holocaust : while not denying its occurrence, he argued that SS leader Heinrich Himmler and his deputy Reinhard Heydrich were its originators and architects. Irving made much of the lack of any written order from Hitler ordering the Holocaust; he offered to pay £1,000 to anyone who could find such an order. As of 2019, his offer still stood. In Hitler's War , Irving quoted a 1942 memorandum by Hans Lammers ,
11315-414: The Holocaust. Frost asked Irving whether or not he thought Hitler was evil, he replied, "He was as evil as Churchill , as evil as Roosevelt , as evil as Truman ". From 1988, Irving started to espouse Holocaust denial openly: he had previously not denied the Holocaust outright, and for this reason many Holocaust deniers were ambivalent about him. They admired Irving for the pro-Nazi slant in his work and
11470-406: The Holocaust. However, the interpretation of the document is not as simple as Irving made it out to be in his book. The memorandum has no date and no signature on it, although historians estimate that it was issued at some point between 1941 and 1942 by looking at the other documents where the memorandum is located. They have concluded that the memorandum was more than likely from late 1941 when Hitler
11625-582: The Journalism program at RMIT University 's School of Applied Communication in Melbourne, Australia , called this book "a brilliant piece of research". In 1987, he began writing a weekly column for the New York Observer called "The Edgy Enthusiast". He wrote a column for Slate called "The Spectator"; as of 2024, its last post was in 2016. In 2009, one of Rosenbaum's Spectator columns
11780-512: The Nationalists. Both Germany and the Soviet Union used this proxy war as an opportunity to test in combat their most advanced weapons and tactics. The Nationalists won the civil war in April 1939; Franco, now dictator, remained officially neutral during World War II but generally favoured the Axis . His greatest collaboration with Germany was the sending of volunteers to fight on the Eastern Front . In July 1937, Japan captured
11935-511: The Royal Navy putting three Italian battleships out of commission after a carrier attack at Taranto , and neutralising several more warships at the Battle of Cape Matapan . Italian defeats prompted Germany to deploy an expeditionary force to North Africa; at the end of March 1941, Rommel 's Afrika Korps launched an offensive which drove back Commonwealth forces. In less than a month, Axis forces advanced to western Egypt and besieged
12090-602: The Soviet Union occupied the entire territories of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as the Romanian regions of Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina, and the Hertsa region . In August 1940, Hitler imposed the Second Vienna Award on Romania which led to the transfer of Northern Transylvania to Hungary. In September 1940, Bulgaria demanded Southern Dobruja from Romania with German and Italian support, leading to
12245-815: The Soviet Union , opening the Eastern Front and initially making large territorial gains. Japan aimed to dominate East Asia and the Asia-Pacific , and by 1937 was at war with the Republic of China . In December 1941, Japan attacked American and British territories in Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific , including Pearl Harbor in Hawaii , which resulted in the US and the UK declaring war against Japan, and
12400-641: The Soviet Union and Mongolia . The Japanese doctrine of Hokushin-ron , which emphasised Japan's expansion northward, was favoured by the Imperial Army during this time. This policy would prove difficult to maintain in light of the Japanese defeat at Khalkin Gol in 1939, the ongoing Second Sino-Japanese War and ally Nazi Germany pursuing neutrality with the Soviets. Japan and the Soviet Union eventually signed
12555-756: The Soviet Union should be eliminated and aimed for the conquest of Ukraine , the Baltic states and Byelorussia . However, other senior German officials like Ribbentrop saw an opportunity to create a Euro-Asian bloc against the British Empire by inviting the Soviet Union into the Tripartite Pact. In November 1940, negotiations took place to determine if the Soviet Union would join the pact. The Soviets showed some interest but asked for concessions from Finland, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Japan that Germany considered unacceptable. On 18 December 1940, Hitler issued
12710-511: The TB 47 used was a forgery, Irving published a letter to the editor in The Times on 7 July 1966 retracting his estimates, writing that he had "no interest in promoting or perpetuating false legends". In 1977, the real document TB 47 was located in Dresden by Götz Bergander. Despite acknowledging that the copy of "TB 47" he had used was inaccurate, Irving argued during the late 1980s and 1990s that
12865-649: The Third Reich (1996). In his works, he argued that Adolf Hitler did not know of the extermination of Jews , or, if he did, he opposed it. Though Irving's negationist claims and views of German war crimes in World War II (and Hitler's responsibility for them) were never taken seriously by mainstream historians, he was once recognised for his knowledge of Nazi Germany and his ability to unearth new historical documents, which he held closely but stated were fully supportive of his conclusions. His 1964 book The Mare's Nest about Germany's V-weapons campaign of 1944–45
13020-409: The Third Reich were rooted in his doubts about the cartoonist caricatures of Hitler and the other Nazi leaders published in the British wartime press. After completing A levels at Brentwood School , Irving studied for a physics degree at Imperial College London , leaving after the first year. He did not complete the course because of financial constraints. Irving later studied for two years toward
13175-402: The US dropped the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August. Faced with an imminent invasion of the Japanese archipelago , the possibility of further atomic bombings, and the Soviet declaration of war against Japan and its invasion of Manchuria , Japan announced its unconditional surrender on 15 August and signed a surrender document on 2 September 1945 , marking
13330-581: The United Kingdom and France guaranteed their support for Polish independence ; when Italy conquered Albania in April 1939, the same guarantee was extended to the Kingdoms of Romania and Greece . Shortly after the Franco - British pledge to Poland, Germany and Italy formalised their own alliance with the Pact of Steel . Hitler accused the United Kingdom and Poland of trying to "encircle" Germany and renounced
13485-542: The United Kingdom attacked on 3 July in an attempt to prevent its seizure by Germany. The air Battle of Britain began in early July with Luftwaffe attacks on shipping and harbours . The German campaign for air superiority started in August but its failure to defeat RAF Fighter Command forced the indefinite postponement of the proposed German invasion of Britain . The German strategic bombing offensive intensified with night attacks on London and other cities in
13640-461: The United Kingdom. The Germans turned south against the weakened French army, and Paris fell to them on 14 June. Eight days later France signed an armistice with Germany ; it was divided into German and Italian occupation zones , and an unoccupied rump state under the Vichy Regime , which, though officially neutral, was generally aligned with Germany. France kept its fleet, which
13795-604: The United States was assisting China and the Western Allies, and had amended the Neutrality Act to allow "cash and carry" purchases by the Allies. In 1940, following the German capture of Paris, the size of the United States Navy was significantly increased . In September the United States further agreed to a trade of American destroyers for British bases . Still, a large majority of the American public continued to oppose any direct military intervention in
13950-606: The Yellow River ; this manoeuvre bought time for the Chinese to prepare their defences at Wuhan , but the city was taken by October. Japanese military victories did not bring about the collapse of Chinese resistance that Japan had hoped to achieve; instead, the Chinese government relocated inland to Chongqing and continued the war. In the mid-to-late 1930s, Japanese forces in Manchukuo had sporadic border clashes with
14105-543: The alleged Hitler diaries were a forgery because they had come from the same dealer in Nazi memorabilia from whom Irving had purchased his collection in 1982. At the press conference in Hamburg, Irving said, "I know the collection from which these diaries come. It is an old collection, full of forgeries. I have some here". Irving was proud to have detected and denounced the hoax material and of the "trail of chaos" he had created at
14260-593: The attempted coup. The British historian David Pryce-Jones in a book review of The Trail of the Fox in the edition of 12 November 1977 of The New York Times Book Review accused Irving of taking everything Hitler had to say at face value. In 1978, Irving released The War Path , the companion volume to Hitler's War which covered events leading up to the war and which was written from a similar point of view. Again, professional historians such as Donald Cameron Watt noted numerous inaccuracies and misrepresentations. Despite
14415-467: The authenticity of the alleged Hitler diaries was that the fake diaries contain no reference to the Holocaust, thereby buttressing Irving's claim in Hitler's War that Hitler had no knowledge of it. Subsequently, Irving conformed when the diaries were declared a forgery by consensus. At a press conference held to withdraw his endorsement of the diaries, Irving proudly claimed that he was the first to call them
14570-514: The basis for his first book, The Destruction of Dresden (1963), in which he examined the Allied bombing of Dresden in February 1945. By the 1960s, a debate about the morality of the carpet bombing of German cities and civilian population had already begun, especially in the United Kingdom. There was consequently considerable interest in Irving's book, which was illustrated with graphic pictures, and it became an international best-seller . In
14725-445: The bomb planted in his headquarters by Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg earlier that day. A week later on 2 May, Irving asserted that many of the diary documents appeared to be genuine: at the same press conference, Irving took the opportunity to promote his translation of the memoirs of Hitler's physician Theodor Morell . Robert Harris , in his book Selling Hitler , suggested that an additional reason for Irving's change of mind over
14880-453: The bombing raids begin. They'd lost probably women, wives and children in the bombing raids. And they wanted to take revenge on someone. So when Hitler ordered the expulsion, as he did – there's no doubt that Hitler ordered the expulsion measures – these people took it out on the person that they could. By the mid-1980s, Irving associated himself with the IHR, began giving lectures to groups such as
15035-510: The capital Nanking in December 1937. After the fall of Nanking, tens or hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed combatants were murdered by the Japanese . In March 1938, Nationalist Chinese forces won their first major victory at Taierzhuang , but then the city of Xuzhou was taken by the Japanese in May. In June 1938, Chinese forces stalled the Japanese advance by flooding
15190-560: The catastrophic losses of the Convoy PQ 17 . Amid much publicity, Broome sued Irving for libel in October 1968, and in February 1970, after a 17-day-trial before London's High Court , Broome won. Irving was forced to pay £40,000 in damages, and the book was withdrawn from circulation. After PQ-17 , Irving largely shifted to writing biographies. In 1968, he published Breach of Security , an account of German reading of messages to and from
15345-403: The conflict well into 1941. In December 1940, Roosevelt accused Hitler of planning world conquest and ruled out any negotiations as useless, calling for the United States to become an " arsenal of democracy " and promoting Lend-Lease programmes of military and humanitarian aid to support the British war effort; Lend-Lease was later extended to the other Allies, including the Soviet Union after it
15500-643: The controversial secret issue of Carnival Times as being to prevent the Carnival from making a profit that would be passed on to a South African group which he considered a "subversive organisation". Irving tried to join the Royal Air Force but was deemed to be medically unfit. After serving in 1959 as editor of the University of London Carnival Committee's journal, instead of doing national service , Irving left for West Germany, where he worked as
15655-526: The creation of a " New Roman Empire ". Adolf Hitler , after an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government in 1923, eventually became the Chancellor of Germany in 1933 when Paul von Hindenburg and the Reichstag appointed him. Following Hindenburg's death in 1934, Hitler proclaimed himself Führer of Germany and abolished democracy, espousing a radical, racially motivated revision of
15810-476: The criticism, the book sold well, as did all of Irving's books up to that date. The success of his books enabled Irving to buy a home in the prestigious Mayfair district of London, own a Rolls-Royce car and enjoy an affluent lifestyle. In addition, Irving, despite being married, became increasingly open about his affairs with other women, all of which were detailed in his self-published diary. Irving's affairs caused his first marriage to end in divorce in 1981. In
15965-648: The danger of nuclear proliferation, and whether the bomb comprises an argument about warfare and genocide. In December 2015, Rosenbaum published the article "Thinking the Unthinkable", in which he expresses his view that there exists a frightening possibility that Israel might not survive as a nation. In it, he writes that, "The Palestinians want a Hitlerite Judenrein state, however much violence it takes to accomplish it. Not separation, elimination." The Palestinians are, he asserts, engaged in incessant state and religious incitement to murder Jews. The "stabbing intifada"
16120-589: The dead of Dresden on the word of one individual who provided no supporting documentation, used a document forged by the Nazis, and described one witness who was a urologist as Dresden's Deputy Chief Medical Officer. The doctor later complained about being misidentified by Irving, and further, that he, the doctor, was only repeating rumours about the death toll. According to an investigation by Dresden City Council in 2008, casualties at Dresden were estimated as 22,700–25,000 dead. Irving had based his numbers on what purported to be Tagesbefehl 47 ("Daily Order 47", TB 47),
16275-475: The death toll at Dresden was much higher than the accepted estimates: in several speeches during this period, he said that 100,000 or more people had been killed in the bombing of Dresden. In some of the speeches Irving also argued or implied that the raid was comparable to the Nazis' killing of Jews. In November 1963, Irving called the Metropolitan Police with suspicions he had been the victim of
16430-1323: The directive to prepare for an invasion of the Soviet Union. Ron Rosenbaum Rosenbaum was born into a Jewish family in New York City and grew up in Bay Shore, New York , on Long Island . He graduated from Yale University in 1968 and won a Carnegie Fellowship to attend Yale's graduate program in English Literature , though he dropped out after taking one course. Rosenbaum began his career as an editor of The Fire Island News and then wrote for The Village Voice for several years, leaving in 1975 after which he wrote for Esquire , Harper's , High Times , Vanity Fair , New York Times Magazine , and Slate . Rosenbaum spent more than ten years doing research on Adolf Hitler including travels to Vienna , Munich , London , Paris , and Jerusalem , interviewing leading historians , philosophers , biographers , theologians and psychologists . Some of those interviewed by Rosenbaum included Daniel Goldhagen , David Irving , Rudolph Binion, Claude Lanzmann , Hugh Trevor-Roper , Alan Bullock , Christopher Browning , George Steiner , and Yehuda Bauer . The result
16585-507: The director of the FBI , that Irving expressed many "anti-American and anti-Jewish statements". In 1971, Irving translated the memoirs of General Reinhard Gehlen , and in 1973 published The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe , a biography of Field Marshal Milch. He spent the remainder of the 1970s working on Hitler's War and The War Path , his two-part biography of Adolf Hitler; The Trail of
16740-757: The dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian Empires. To prevent a future world war, the League of Nations was established in 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference . The organisation's primary goals were to prevent armed conflict through collective security, military, and naval disarmament , as well as settling international disputes through peaceful negotiations and arbitration. Despite strong pacifist sentiment after World War I , irredentist and revanchist nationalism had emerged in several European states. These sentiments were especially marked in Germany because of
16895-447: The emergence of any 'master-race' (other than their own, of course)". Opponents also viewed a cartoon included in the supplement as racist and criticised another article in which Irving wrote that the British press was owned by Jews. Volunteers were later recruited to remove and destroy the supplements before the magazine's distribution. Irving has said that the criticism is "probably justifiable" and has described his motivation in producing
17050-712: The end of May completed the German conquest of the Balkans. Partisan warfare subsequently broke out against the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia , which continued until the end of the war. In the Middle East in May, Commonwealth forces quashed an uprising in Iraq which had been supported by German aircraft from bases within Vichy-controlled Syria . Between June and July, British-led forces invaded and occupied
17205-463: The end of the war. World War II changed the political alignment and social structure of the world, and it set the foundation of international relations for the rest of the 20th century and into the 21st century. The United Nations was established to foster international cooperation and prevent conflicts, with the victorious great powers—China, France, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the US—becoming
17360-461: The extermination of the Jews". In 1982, Irving temporarily stopped writing and made an attempt to unify all of the various far-right splinter groups in Britain into one party called Focus, in which he would play a leading role. Irving described himself as a "moderate fascist" and spoke of plans to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom , but his efforts to move into politics, which he regarded at
17515-465: The fact that he possessed a degree of mainstream credibility that they lacked, but were annoyed that he did not openly deny the Holocaust. In 1980, Lucy Dawidowicz noted that, although Hitler's War was strongly sympathetic to the Third Reich, because Irving argued that Hitler was unaware of the Holocaust as opposed to denying the Holocaust happened at all, his book was not part of the "anti-Semitic canon". In 1980, Irving received an invitation to speak at
17670-462: The failure of Focus, in September 1983, Irving for the first time attended a conference of the IHR. Van Pelt has argued that, with the failure of Irving's political career, he felt freer to associate with Holocaust deniers. At the conference, Irving did not deny the Holocaust, but did appear happy to share the stage with Robert Faurisson and Judge Wilhelm Stäglich , and claimed to be impressed with
17825-472: The far-right German Deutsche Volksunion (DVU), and publicly denied that the Nazis systematically exterminated Jews in gas chambers during World War II. Irving in his revised edition of Hitler's War in 1991 removed all mentions of "gas chambers" and the word "Holocaust". He defended the revisions by stating, "You won't find the Holocaust mentioned in one line, not even in a footnote, why should [you]. If something didn't happen, then you don't even dignify it with
17980-527: The fate of some Berlin Jews was mentioned. At 1.30 pm Himmler was instructed to tell Reinhard Heydrich that the Jews were not to be liquidated. Irving falsely claimed that Himmler telephoned SS General Oswald Pohl , the overall chief of the concentration camp system, with the order: "Jews are to stay where they are" (Himmler actually referred to "administrative leaders of the SS" needing to stay where they were). Irving argued that "No liquidation" ( Keine Liquidierung )
18135-531: The first edition, Irving's estimates for deaths in Dresden were between 100,000 and 250,000 – notably higher than most previously published figures. These figures became widely accepted in many standard reference works. In later editions of the book over the next three decades, he gradually adjusted the figure downwards to 50,000–100,000. According to Richard J. Evans at the 2000 libel trial that Irving brought against Deborah Lipstadt , Irving based his estimates of
18290-575: The first step of what its government saw as the country's right to rule Asia , staged the Mukden incident as a pretext to invade Manchuria and establish the puppet state of Manchukuo . China appealed to the League of Nations to stop the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Japan withdrew from the League of Nations after being condemned for its incursion into Manchuria. The two nations then fought several battles, in Shanghai , Rehe and Hebei , until
18445-864: The former Chinese imperial capital of Peking after instigating the Marco Polo Bridge incident , which culminated in the Japanese campaign to invade all of China. The Soviets quickly signed a non-aggression pact with China to lend materiel support, effectively ending China's prior cooperation with Germany . From September to November, the Japanese attacked Taiyuan , engaged the Kuomintang Army around Xinkou , and fought Communist forces in Pingxingguan . Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek deployed his best army to defend Shanghai , but after three months of fighting, Shanghai fell. The Japanese continued to push Chinese forces back, capturing
18600-579: The general atmosphere of brutality created by the Second World War, in which of course Allied bombings played a part." In another 1986 speech, this time in Atlanta , Irving claimed that "historians have a blindness when it comes to the Holocaust because like Tay–Sachs disease it is a Jewish disease which causes blindness". In 1986, he told reporters in Brisbane, Australia, without explaining how
18755-500: The girl's father". In 1977 Irving published Hitler's War , the first of his two-part biography of Adolf Hitler . Irving's intention in Hitler's War was to clean away the "years of grime and discoloration from the facade of a silent and forbidding monument" to reveal the real Hitler, whose reputation Irving argued had been slandered by historians. In Hitler's War , Irving tried to "view the situation as far as possible through Hitler's eyes, from behind his desk". He portrayed Hitler as
18910-461: The highly controversial 1967 play Soldiers by his friend, the German playwright Rolf Hochhuth , where Hochhuth depicts Churchill ordering the assassination of General Sikorski. Also in 1967, Irving published two more works: The Virus House , an account of the German nuclear energy project for which Irving conducted many interviews, and The Destruction of Convoy PQ-17, in which he blamed British escort group commander Commander Jack Broome for
19065-451: The institute the right to distribute his books in the United States. Robert Jan van Pelt suggests that the major reason for Irving wishing to keep his distance from Holocaust deniers in the early 1980s was his desire to found his own political party called Focus. In a footnote in the first edition of Hitler's War , Irving writes, "I cannot accept the view ... [that] there exists no document signed by Hitler, Himmler or Heydrich speaking of
19220-525: The invasion of the Ethiopian Empire (also known as Abyssinia ) by the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy ( Regno d'Italia ), which was launched from Italian Somaliland and Eritrea . The war resulted in the military occupation of Ethiopia and its annexation into the newly created colony of Italian East Africa ( Africa Orientale Italiana , or AOI); in addition it exposed the weakness of
19375-409: The killing of Jews. Historian Eberhard Jäckel wrote that Irving "only ever sees and collects what fits his story, and even now he will not let himself be dissuaded from understanding what he wants to by the phrase 'postponement of the Jewish question'." In June 1977, British television host David Frost aired a debate. During the debate, Irving argued that there was no evidence Hitler even knew about
19530-584: The killings of the Jews in the East. He claimed that Hitler even ordered a stop to the extermination of Jews in November 1941 (British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper noted that this admission blatantly contradicted Irving's claim that Hitler was ignorant about what was happening to Jews in Eastern Europe). On 30 November 1941 Heinrich Himmler went to the Wolf's Lair for a private conference with Hitler and during it
19685-502: The permanent members of its security council . The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers , setting the stage for the Cold War . In the wake of European devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia . Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery and expansion . World War II began in Europe on 1 September 1939 with
19840-589: The political European map with the defeat of the Central Powers —including Austria-Hungary , Germany , Bulgaria , and the Ottoman Empire —and the 1917 Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia , which led to the founding of the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the victorious Allies of World War I , such as France, Belgium, Italy, Romania, and Greece, gained territory, and new nation-states were created out of
19995-599: The port of Tobruk . By late March 1941, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact ; however, the Yugoslav government was overthrown two days later by pro-British nationalists. Germany and Italy responded with simultaneous invasions of both Yugoslavia and Greece , commencing on 6 April 1941; both nations were forced to surrender within the month. The airborne invasion of the Greek island of Crete at
20150-496: The pseudoscientific allegations of neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier Friedrich "Fritz" Berg that mass murder using diesel gas fumes at the Operation Reinhard death camps was impossible. At that conference, Irving repeated his claims that Hitler was ignorant of the Holocaust because he was "so busy being a soldier". In a speech at that conference, Irving stated: "Isn't it right for Tel Aviv to claim now that David Irving
20305-722: The remainder of Czechoslovakia and subsequently split it into the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and a pro-German client state , the Slovak Republic . Hitler also delivered an ultimatum to Lithuania on 20 March 1939, forcing the concession of the Klaipėda Region , formerly the German Memelland . Greatly alarmed and with Hitler making further demands on the Free City of Danzig ,
20460-404: The same year, he further declared about Hitler and the mass killing of Jews, "There is a whole chain of evidence from 1938 right through to October 1943, possibly even later, indicating that Hitler was completely in the dark about anything that may have been going on." Irving boasted that he had not been disproved. Irving in his first edition of Hitler's War in 1977 argued that Hitler was against
20615-462: The significant territorial, colonial, and financial losses imposed by the Treaty of Versailles . Under the treaty, Germany lost around 13 percent of its home territory and all its overseas possessions , while German annexation of other states was prohibited, reparations were imposed, and limits were placed on the size and capability of the country's armed forces . The German Empire was dissolved in
20770-529: The start of the undeclared German–Czechoslovak War , as Nazi Germany moved towards its opening of World War II . The family lived in Hutton , near Brentwood , Essex , England. They had a brother, John, and a sister, Jennifer. Their father, John James Cawdell Irving (1898–1967), was a career naval officer and a commander in the Royal Navy . Their mother, Beryl Irving ( née Newington), was an illustrator and
20925-498: The start or prelude to World War II. The exact date of the war's end also is not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 15 August 1945 ( V-J Day ), rather than with the formal surrender of Japan on 2 September 1945, which officially ended the war in Asia . A peace treaty between Japan and the Allies was signed in 1951. A 1990 treaty regarding Germany's future allowed
21080-593: The strong Maginot Line fortifications on the Franco-German border, Germany directed its attack at the neutral nations of Belgium , the Netherlands , and Luxembourg . The Germans carried out a flanking manoeuvre through the Ardennes region, which was mistakenly perceived by the Allies as an impenetrable natural barrier against armoured vehicles. By successfully implementing new Blitzkrieg tactics,
21235-492: The time as very important, failed due to fiscal problems. Irving told the Oxford Mail of having "links at a low level" with the National Front (NF). Irving described The Spotlight , the main journal of the Liberty Lobby , as "an excellent fortnightly paper". At the same time, Irving put a copy of Hitler's " Prophecy Speech " of 30 January 1939, promising the "annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe" if "Jewish financiers" started another world war, onto his wall. Following
21390-415: The two wars became World War II in 1941. Other proposed starting dates for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939. Others view the Spanish Civil War as
21545-407: The war were not fulfilled in the peace settlement. From 1922 to 1925, the Fascist movement led by Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy with a nationalist, totalitarian , and class collaborationist agenda that abolished representative democracy, repressed socialist, left-wing, and liberal forces, and pursued an aggressive expansionist foreign policy aimed at making Italy a world power, promising
21700-475: The war. Germany annexed western Poland and occupied central Poland ; the Soviet Union annexed eastern Poland ; small shares of Polish territory were transferred to Lithuania and Slovakia . On 6 October, Hitler made a public peace overture to the United Kingdom and France but said that the future of Poland was to be determined exclusively by Germany and the Soviet Union. The proposal was rejected and Hitler ordered an immediate offensive against France, which
21855-404: The west halted the German advance for several days, but it was outflanked and encircled by the Wehrmacht . Remnants of the Polish army broke through to besieged Warsaw . On 17 September 1939, two days after signing a cease-fire with Japan , the Soviet Union invaded Poland under the supposed pretext that the Polish state had ceased to exist. On 27 September, the Warsaw garrison surrendered to
22010-483: The world order , and soon began a massive rearmament campaign . France, seeking to secure its alliance with Italy, allowed Italy a free hand in Ethiopia , which Italy desired as a colonial possession. The situation was aggravated in early 1935 when the Territory of the Saar Basin was legally reunited with Germany, and Hitler repudiated the Treaty of Versailles, accelerated his rearmament programme, and introduced conscription. The United Kingdom, France and Italy formed
22165-553: The years, Irving's stance on the Holocaust has changed significantly. Since at least the 1970s, he has either questioned or denied Hitler's involvement in the Holocaust and whether or not the Nazis had a plan to exterminate the Jews of Europe. Irving always denied Hitler was antisemitic, even before he openly denied the Holocaust. Irving claimed Hitler only used antisemitism as a political platform, and that after he came to power in 1933 he lost interest in it, while Joseph Goebbels and other Nazis continued to espouse antisemitism. In 1977 on
22320-444: Was The War Between the Generals , in which Irving offered an account of the Allied High Command on the Western Front in 1944–45, detailing the heated conflicts Irving alleges occurred between the various generals of the various countries and presenting rumours about their private lives. The second book was Uprising! , about the 1956 revolt in Hungary , which Irving characterised as "primarily an anti-Jewish uprising", supposedly because
22475-554: Was invaded by Germany. The United States started strategic planning to prepare for a full-scale offensive against Germany. At the end of September 1940, the Tripartite Pact formally united Japan, Italy, and Germany as the Axis powers . The Tripartite Pact stipulated that any country—with the exception of the Soviet Union—that attacked any Axis Power would be forced to go to war against all three. The Axis expanded in November 1940 when Hungary , Slovakia , and Romania joined. Romania and Hungary later made major contributions to
22630-411: Was "incontrovertible evidence" that Hitler ordered that no Jews were to be killed. However, although the telephone log is genuine, it provides no evidence that Hitler was involved at all, only that Himmler contacted Heydrich and there is no evidence that Hitler and Himmler were in contact before the phone call. This is an example of Irving's manipulation of documents since there was no general order to stop
22785-411: Was a lengthy sardonic critique of pop music icon Billy Joel entitled "The Worst Pop Singer Ever." In The Shakespeare Wars , he wrote about recent controversies among literary historians, actors, and directors over how the works of William Shakespeare should be read, understood, and produced. His book How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III , addresses the paradoxes of deterrence,
22940-427: Was his 1998 book, Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil . In Explaining Hitler , Ron Rosenbaum also recounted in detail the previously little-reported story of the efforts of anti-Hitler journalists at the Munich Post who, from 1920 to 1933, published repeated exposés on the criminal activities of the National Socialist German Workers Party (i.e. the Nazis). Matthew Ricketson, coordinator of
23095-409: Was his belief that it had been a great blunder on the part of Britain to declare war on Germany in 1939, and that ever since then and as a result of that decision, Britain had slipped into an unstoppable decline. Irving also took the view that Hitler often tried to help the Jews of Europe. In a June 1992 interview with The Daily Telegraph , Irving claimed to have heard from Hitler's naval adjutant that
23250-403: Was postponed until the spring of 1940 due to bad weather. After the outbreak of war in Poland, Stalin threatened Estonia , Latvia , and Lithuania with military invasion, forcing the three Baltic countries to sign pacts allowing the creation of Soviet military bases in these countries; in October 1939, significant Soviet military contingents were moved there. Finland refused to sign
23405-516: Was praised for its deep research but criticised for minimising Nazi slave labour programmes . By the late 1980s, Irving had placed himself outside the mainstream of the study of history, and had begun to turn from " 'soft-core' to 'hard-core' Holocaust denial", possibly influenced by the 1988 trial of Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel . That trial, and his reading of the pseudoscientific Leuchter report , led him to openly espouse Holocaust denial, specifically denying that Jews were murdered by gassing at
23560-657: Was repulsed with heavy Italian casualties; the campaign ended within months with minor territorial changes. To assist Italy and prevent Britain from gaining a foothold, Germany prepared to invade the Balkans, which would threaten Romanian oil fields and strike against British dominance of the Mediterranean. In December 1940, British Empire forces began counter-offensives against Italian forces in Egypt and Italian East Africa . The offensives were successful; by early February 1941, Italy had lost control of eastern Libya, and large numbers of Italian troops had been taken prisoner. The Italian Navy also suffered significant defeats, with
23715-441: Was required to go through the bureaucracy of the League of Nations, which rendered it essentially toothless. The United States, concerned with events in Europe and Asia, passed the Neutrality Act in August of the same year. Hitler defied the Versailles and Locarno Treaties by remilitarising the Rhineland in March 1936, encountering little opposition due to the policy of appeasement . In October 1936, Germany and Italy formed
23870-573: Was still advocating the expulsion of the Jews, rather than later when he advocated their extermination. Critical reaction to Hitler's War was generally negative. Reviewers took issue with Irving's factual claims as well as his conclusions. For example, American historian Charles W. Sydnor Jr. noted numerous errors, such as Irving's unreferenced statement that the Jews who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 were well supplied with weapons from Germany's allies. Sydnor pointed out that Hitler had received an SS report in November 1942 which contained
24025-480: Was the deadliest conflict in history, resulting in 70 to 85 million deaths , more than half being civilians. Millions died in genocides , including the Holocaust of European Jews, as well as from massacres, starvation, and disease. Following the Allied powers' victory, Germany , Austria , Japan , and Korea were occupied, and war crimes tribunals were conducted against German and Japanese leaders . The causes of World War II included unresolved tensions in
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