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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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 Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 11:41 am Post subject: Irving on trial in Austria |
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I am absolutely amazed that igothisguitar didn't see fit to start a thread on this subject...
| Globe and Mail wrote: |
Hitler's defender gets some unlikely allies
Historian's trial widens Europe's divide over acceptable limits to free expression
DOUG SAUNDERS
LONDON -- When the world's best-known Holocaust denier goes on trial in Vienna today, he will have some surprising defenders: his most outspoken opponents.
Six years ago, British historian David Irving launched a libel suit in London against a historian whose books accused him of being one of the world's leading defenders of Hitler's regime. Deborah Lipstadt's works showed that Mr. Irving, a biographer of Hitler and a renowned scholar of the Nazi era, was a defender of the Nazi dictator and a denier of the mechanized killing of six million Jews under Hitler's orders.
The result was devastating for him: The judge ruled that Ms. Lipstadt, a U.S. historian, was right, and that Mr. Irving is "a racist, an anti-Semite and an active Holocaust denier." Mr. Irving was also forced to pay the cost of the trial, estimated at $6-million.
It reduced the historian, who had been the author of bestselling works about the Third Reich in the 1960s and 1970s, to a fringe figure in the world of scholarship. From that point on, he issued only self-published books, and spoke only to groups on the extreme neo-Nazi right in Europe.
It was on such a speaking tour in November, when he travelled to Austria to visit young Hitler sympathizers, that Mr. Irving was arrested under a 1947 law that outlaws any utterances that "deny the National Socialist [Nazi] genocide or other National Socialist crimes, minimizes them, gives them approvals or seeks to justify them."
Mr. Irving, who has argued that the Holocaust is a lie and part of a Jewish plot, was warned in the 1980s by Austrian officials that he would be arrested if he entered the country. The threat was often questioned, since Austria failed to bring charges against major Nazi figures from within its own borders (Hitler was Austrian-born, as were several high-ranking Nazis). But Mr. Irving, who has recently described the pleasure of speaking to crowds of Nazi sympathizers, was arrested and jailed without bail.
During the past three months, he has become a minor celebrity in prison, writing his memoirs and entertaining interviews from the European media.
Today's trial is likely to be closely watched across Europe, a fact that horrifies many of his outspoken opponents. Even more offensive, for many, is the law that is likely to land him a 10-year prison sentence.
Laws that ban ideas, no matter how vile the ideas, are distasteful to academics, and even those academics who ended Mr. Irving's mainstream career have come out to defend him today.
"If you had told me, a few months ago, that I would be demanding David Irving's release one day, I would have called you insane," Ms. Lipstadt told the German magazine Der Spiegel this week.
But she is defending him. "I'm against censorship -- no one stands to benefit from the throwing of this guy into prison."
The trial occurs at a moment when Europe is concerned with fundamental questions of freedom of speech. The attack by fundamentalist Muslims on Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed has raised a question that has long dogged the German and Austrian anti-Nazi laws: If you prohibit certain topics of speech, can you really say you have a free society?
For English-speaking scholars, the question became even more pointed last week when Britain, which does not have an anti-Nazi law and had allowed the publication of Mr. Irving's books, passed a law that bans the "glorification" of terrorism. Many scholars fear that this law, aimed at the backers of terrorism, could end up silencing legitimate scholarship.
Mr. Irving's trial comes at a moment when state limits on freedom of speech have become more disreputable, and even outspoken anti-fascist scholars are more interested in attacking the law than they are in prosecuting Mr. Irving. He is unlikely to make this argument easy.
Mr. Irving has long relished any statement that offends or provokes people, and he has proven ready to make such statements in court.
He once argued that "more people were killed in the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car in Chappaquiddick than in the gas chambers at Auschwitz." He regularly draws huge crowds of young Hitler sympathizers at his speeches.
This has led many observers to defend the Austrian laws. They note that Mr. Irving was in Austria only a few years after an extreme right-wing party held power in the country, and conclude that Mr. Irving himself is proof of the laws' necessity.
"In Germany and Austria, there is a moral obligation to fight the kind of propaganda peddled by Irving. We can't afford the luxury of the Anglo-Saxon freedom-of-speech argument in this regard," Hajo Funke, a German historian who testified against Mr. Irving in his libel trials, told the BBC yesterday. "It's not that I don't understand it, it's just not for us. Not yet. Not for a long time." |
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060220.IRVING20/TPStory/TPInternational/
Last edited by Bulsajo on Mon Feb 20, 2006 11:55 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 11:46 am Post subject: |
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| He pled guilty and got 3 years. Where are the protests for his free speech? |
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 11:57 am Post subject: |
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I expect igotthisguitar will be organizing one (right after he finishes voting).
Personally I'd like to start with my own backyard and see Canada's deeply flawed hate-crimes laws abolished. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 4:53 pm Post subject: |
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Many would view holocaust denial as damaging hate speech. Irving is no humble academic. He stands before neo Nazi groups and claims the Jews are the cause of their own suffering. He wilfully ignores evidence to support a notion that is eagerly gobbled up by violent groups.
If an academic published a paper and said some chemical could lead to weight loss and got his facts wrong, he wouldn't be punished. If a company claimed their product causes weight loss and they wilfully lied to the public, they would be libel. Irving is far more like the company that willfully lies to the public than the humble academic trying to balance facts. You should read the judge's ruling regarding the libel case between Irving and Penguin books. |
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 5:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Hater Depot wrote: |
| He pled guilty and got 3 years. Where are the protests for his free speech? |
He was warned on previous ocassions that he was in violation of Austrian law and he would be prosecuted if he entered the country again. They warned him and then he basically dared them to enforce their laws.
Now maybe this Austrian law is unethical, immoral, and conflicts with the enlightened Western concept of freedom of speech.
Personally, I think the Saudi law of cutting off a thief's hand is much more barbaric and immoral, but you won't catch me going to Riyadh and blatantly shoplifting in the souk in order to make a point. So I guess in that respect Mr. Irving is just a better man than me.
But he didn't just 'plead guilty'.
He RECANTED.
So he didn't just plead guilty, in effect he pleaded for clemency. Fell on his knees and begged the court to show mercy, so to speak.
This is why he got 3 years instead of the maximum 10- the judge ruled that he showed contrition and remorse.
So he threw away his principles and beliefs, beliefs that he had been 'persecuted' for, beliefs that he lost money over.
I wonder what his story will be in 3 years...
Last edited by Bulsajo on Mon Feb 20, 2006 5:52 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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khyber
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Compunction Junction
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 5:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Deborah Lipstadt's works showed that Mr. Irving, a biographer of Hitler and a renowned scholar of the Nazi era |
really????
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"It has received almost no attention from historians or reviewers...It is easy to see why.... full of excesses, inconsistancies 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 a best casually journalistic and at worst quite exceptionally offensive. The text is littered with errors from beginning to end."
(Professor David Cannadine |
regarding his Churchill book.
| Quote: |
| If an academic published a paper and said some chemical could lead to weight loss and got his facts wrong, he wouldn't be punished |
not necessarily.
That would be published in a journal. In follow up journal, his claim would be disproven and disregarded by the scientific community.
| Quote: |
| If a company claimed their product causes weight loss and they wilfully lied to the public, they would be libel. |
The one problem with this is that you're assuming there are NO checks and balances in that system.
Of course, all they have to do is prove someone lost weight while using their product and that's it right? Give a fat guy one candy bar a day. Tell him he'll have to jog three miles and eat no more than two modest (high protien lower carb) meals and he'll lose weight...
COULDA BEEN THE CANDY BAR!
but probably not... |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 6:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
Personally I'd like to start with my own backyard and see Canada's deeply flawed hate-crimes laws abolished.
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One of the things I'm hoping results from this whose "cartoon" fracas is a discrediting of the "hate speech" laws. Because I think that countries which enforce them are going to end up looking a little hypocritical after all the "west has free speech" lectures they've been delivering to the Muslim world. |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 8:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Bulsajo wrote: |
I expect igotthisguitar will be organizing one (right after he finishes voting).
Personally I'd like to start with my own backyard and see Canada's deeply flawed hate-crimes laws abolished. |
Exactly.
As for Irving, he actually did do some ground-breaking archival work that has been of some academic value, despite his over-all presentation of his work being so deeply flawed. For a while I think a lot of academics were resentful of him because he was self-made and could do all the research he wanted with almost unlimited funding.
Austria's laws may be very outdated, but what Irving did was the equivalent of going to Thailand and pissing on a photo of the king in public. It's hard to feel sorry for anyone so stupidly stubborn, even if I still support his right to say whatever he likes. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 9:23 pm Post subject: |
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| khyber wrote: |
| Quote: |
| If an academic published a paper and said some chemical could lead to weight loss and got his facts wrong, he wouldn't be punished |
not necessarily.
That would be published in a journal. In follow up journal, his claim would be disproven and disregarded by the scientific community.
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Errr. So how would he be punished, exactly? Lots of scientists get it wrong but it doesn't destroy their careers. Stephen Hawking comes to mind and his first solution to the Information Paradox which was later disproven. |
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Wangja
Joined: 17 May 2004
Location: Seoul, Yongsan
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| Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2006 10:19 pm Post subject: |
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I did not know that "holacaust denial" was - broadly -a view he held until 1991 when he researched Eichmann's papers. This changed his view. 15 years ago.
| Quote: |
During his one-day trial in Vienna, the 67-year-old historian admitted that in 1989 he had denied that Nazi Germany had killed millions of Jews.
He said this is what he believed, until he later saw the personal files of Adolf Eichmann, the chief organiser of the Holocaust.
"I said that then based on my knowledge at the time, but by 1991 when I came across the Eichmann papers, I wasn't saying that anymore and I wouldn't say that now," Irving told the court.
"The Nazis did murder millions of Jews."
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4734648.stm |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 2:54 am Post subject: |
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Holocaust Denier Gets Three Years in Jail
By VERONIKA OLEKSYN, Associated Press Writer
Mon Feb 20, 6:24 PM ET
VIENNA, Austria - Right-wing British historian David Irving was sentenced to three years in prison Monday after admitting to an Austrian court that he denied the Holocaust — a crime in the country where Hitler was born.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial
Irving, who pleaded guilty and then insisted during his one-day trial that he now acknowledged the Nazis' World War II slaughter of 6 million Jews, had faced up to 10 years behind bars. Before the verdict, Irving conceded he had erred in contending there were no gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
"I made a mistake when I said there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz," Irving testified, at one point expressing sorrow "for all the innocent people who died during the Second World War."
Irving, stressing he only relied on primary sources, said he came across new information in the early 1990's from top Nazi officials — including personal documents belonging to Adolf Eichmann — that led him to rethink certain previous assertions.
But despite his apparent epiphany, Irving, 67, maintained he had never questioned the Holocaust.
"I've never been a Holocaust denier and I get very angry when I'm called a Holocaust denier," he said.
Irving's lawyer said he would appeal the sentence.
"I consider the verdict a little too stringent. I would say it's a bit of a message trial," attorney Elmar Kresbach said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060220/ap_on_re_eu/austria_holocaust_denial;_ylt=ApMF14Y3L9qe7cl0KUartuIDW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 4:24 am Post subject: |
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IGTG:
That picture of David Irving adds absolutely nothing to the debate. Was it REALLY neccessary to screw up the positioning of the whole thread just to post it? |
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 8:40 am Post subject: |
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Why stop at just the picture?
| On the other hand wrote: |
| IGTG: adds absolutely nothing to the debate. |
Par for the course.
Any new info in IGTG's news posting?
No.
Any personal comments/observations from IGTG on the issue?
No.
Once again IGTG proves himself to be as useful as tits on a bull.
But at least you can't say he's not consistent.
He should treasure that.
| Quote: |
| "I've never been a Holocaust denier and I get very angry when I'm called a Holocaust denier," he said. |
But didn't he just admit in court to being a Holocaust denier prior to 1991?
He seems top be holding two opposing views of his beliefs.
Is the quote below (in my sig) the words of a man who has never been a holocaust denier? |
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dulouz
Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Location: Uranus
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| Posted: Tue Feb 21, 2006 9:59 am Post subject: |
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| I don't know what the point of denying The Jewish Holocaust of WW II is. I really don't. Its better to debate the the significance of the The Jewish Holocaust of WW II because it was one of many during the era but yet it is refered to "THE" holocaust, like it was the only one that ever happened or it is the most important. Irving needs to shut up. |
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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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