David Irving

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David Irving

David John Cawdell Irving (born 24 March 1938) is a British writer specializing in the military history of World War II. He is the author of 25 books, including The Destruction of Dresden (1963), Hitler's War (1977), Churchill's War (1987), and Goebbels — Mastermind of the Third Reich (1996).


  • “There is no doubt at all that the Nazis in their twelve-year rule inflicted nameless horrors on large segments of their population, including the Jews, and other people whom they disliked. There's no doubt about that at all. What I do question are the methods...”
  • “If the Jews were killed at Auschwitz or Treblinka or anywhere else...it wasn't a crime because they were Jews, it was a crime because they were innocent Jews who were being killed. It was their innocence that made...it a crime and not their Jewishness that made it a crime.”
  • “I'm not going to say it was 'only' a hundred thousand Jews that were killed in Auschwitzs because even if one Jew is murdered that's a crime. ”
  • The Nazis quite clearly killed millions of Jews...
    • Interview with John Humphrys on The Today Program (23 December 2006)
  • The interesting questions are what did Hitler know, did Himmler conceal it, did he keep it from Hitler, where was the killing done, was it Auschwitz, was it the Reinhard camps and that's what people are frightened to research, because they go to prison for it.
  • I am not anti-coloured, take it from me; nothing pleases me more than when I arrive at an airport, or a station, or a seaport, and I see a coloured family there — the black father, the black wife and the black children… When I see these families arriving at the airport I am happy, and when I see them leaving at London airport I am happy.
    But if there is one thing that gets up my nose, I must admit, it is this — the way… the thing is when I am down in Torquay and I switch on my television and I see one of them reading our news to us. It is our news and they’re reading it to me. If I was a chauvinist I would say I object even to seeing women reading our news to us.
    But now we have women reading our news to us. If they could perhaps have their own news which they were reading to us, I suppose [laughter], it would be very interesting.
    For the time being, for a transitional period I'd be prepared to accept that the BBC should have a dinner-jacketed gentleman reading the important news to us, following by a lady reading all the less important news, followed by Trevor McDonald giving us all the latest news about the muggings and the drug busts…
  • When I get to Australia in January I know what is going to happen. They are going to wheel out all the so-called eyewitnesses. One in particular, Mrs. Altman, I've clashed with once or twice. She is very convincing. They can be very convincing. Because they have to do it so often over the years. They've had a free run. We're going to meet because she has that tattoo. I am going to say,'You have that tattoo, we all have the utmost sympathy for you. But how much money have you made on it! In the last 45 years! Can I estimate! Quarter of a million! Half million! Certainly not less. That's how much you've made from the German taxpayers and the American taxpayers.' Ladies and gentlemen, you're paying $3 billion a year to the State of Israel. Compensation to people like Mrs. Altman. She'll say,'Why not, I suffered.' I'll say you didn't. You survived. By definition you didn't suffer. Not half as much as those who died.... They suffered. You didn't. You're the one making the money. Explain to me this. Why have you people made all the money, but Australian soldiers who suffered for five years in Japanese prison camps haven't got a bent nickel out of it!

Quotes about Irving[edit]

  • A man for whom Hitler is something of a hero and almost everything of an innocent, and for whom Auschwitz is a Jewish deception.
    • The Times on David Irving, quoted in Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. 1993, (p. 180).
  • Mr. Irving's constant references to archives, diaries and letters, and the overwhelming amount of detail in his work, suggest objectivity. In fact they put a screen behind which a very different agenda is transacted… Mr. Irving is a great obfuscator…Distortions affect every important aspect of this book to the point of obfuscation… It is unfortunate that Mr Irving wastes his extraordinary talents as a researcher and writer on trivializing the greatest crimes in German history, on manipulating historical sources and on highlighting the theatrics of the Nazi era.
    • Peter Hoffmann, quoted in Richard J. Evans, Telling Lies about Hitler, London: Verso, 2002 p. 17.

External links[edit]

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