David Irving's Comeback Tour

David Irving is reportedly attempting to rehabilitate himself.

It has been interesting over the years to watch Irving's tergiversations over the holocaust. Irving has been torn between two poles. His desire to be regarded as a credible historian and his view of himself as a future leader of the far right. His position on the holocaust has shifted as to whether which of the two is uppermost at the time.

Irving's first book Hitler's War, published in 1977, maintained that the holocaust had, in fact, happened but that Hitler was entirely ignorant of the fact that it took place. Whether he sincerely believed this at the time is, I imagine, only known by Mr Irving and God. Certainly, according to Ray Hill (former Nazi turned anti-fascist activist) when he met Irving in 1983, Irving told him that only a million Jews had died but that it was impolitic to attempt to establish the fact. 'The time isn't right' he told Hill. (The Other Face of Terror, p245). According to Deborah Lipstadt, in 1988 Irving came out as a fully fledged holocaust denier as a result of Ernest Zundel's trial. He claims to have been convinced by the Leuchter report, a scientifically worthless 'proof' that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz. Why he moved is an interesting question. According to Hill, when not a fully fledged denier he had established fairly strong links with revisionist circles and one wonders whether keeping his credit in those circles meant standing up for Zundel in his hour of need? Despite being hired by Andrew Neil at the Sunday Times to translate the Goebbels diaries, Irving's reputation continued to slide during the 1990s. His publisher dropped him, his books ceased to be prominent in the history section of high street bookshops. In 1996 Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt for libel for claiming that he was a Holocaust Denier. One suspects that his desire for historical credibility was reasserting itself. The mid-nineties was pretty much a dead end for the far right. Perhaps he thought that Lipstadt would be reluctant to defend a libel suit. As the world knows it was a horrible miscalculation. If Penguin had declined to fight their reputation would have taken a permanent knock and, lets face it, being sued by Irving over claims that he was a holocaust denier was a bit like being sued by Alex Ferguson, upset by the claim that he was a football manager, it was eminently winnable. I imagine that Penguin, confident of victory imagined that it would do Lipstadt's sales no harm. The bookshop near my office had a bank of copies eminently displayed throughout the trial and yes, I bought one. Lipstadt was triumphantly vindicated as the judge ruled what everyone knew that Irving was a racist and a holocaust denier.

Irving recanted his views in November 2005, acknowledging that there were actually gas chambers at Auschwitz. It would be nice to report that he did so having genuinely seen the light but, in fact, at the time he was on trial for holocaust denial in Austria. He has now got a speaking tour lined up and plans to publish a series of books. Apparently the gas chambers have gone again, but 2.4 million Jews were killed on Himmler's orders. (Needless to say Irving doesn't have much sympathy.) This looks to me to be a direct triangulation between the kameraden on the far right and the "say what you like, he knows his stuff" position that kept his reputation artificially inflated for so long. The Grauniad seems to think that he' s sufficiently newsworthy to run an article on - there can't be that many apologists for Nazism who get pre-publicity from the mainstream press. I suppose that he is betting that he is deemed suitably newsworthy for his books to at least be reviewed and doubtless he can depend on some bold contrarian to tell us that he is necessary as some sort of gadfly.

Who knows. Hopefully everyone will realise that his historical opinions are based not on a search for truth but on the needs of the moment and are, therefore, entirely worthless. History will regard Irving a colossal narcissist, for spending his life revising the casualty figures of the Holocaust up and down to suit his own needs. But being a colossal narcissist isn't necessarily a bar to being a public figure. Whilst it would be welcome, a long period of silence from Mr Irving seems unlikely.