I just read in today's paper that British "Historian" (and I say that word very loosely) David Irving has received a sentence of 3 years in an Austrian Prison.
His charge was giving lectures and writing books claiming that the holocaust never occured and it was a propoganda act to gain sympathy for the Jews.
His trial only lasted one day as he was in a "Damned if you do and Damned if you don't" catch 22 of Austrian laws. His supporters claim his right of "free speech" was denied. On the other hand, Irving himself confessed that the sources of his history was flawed.
Either way, in MY mind, he was guilty of trying to rewrite history to satisfy his own fantasy of what history SHOULD have been. It lessened the horrible treatment and executions of Jews (and others that disagreed with the paper hanger) and elevated the roll of the SS that they weren't such bad guys after all.
I think a 3 year prison sentence is a bit too short though he faced up to 10 years. Ironically in a country that itself was Nazi.
As somewhat of an historian myself, I absolutely abhor people who try to rewrite history by inserting their own fantasies. Another example is that ding-a-ling who wrote a treatise that the ammo ship explosion at Port Chicago in WW II was actually a test of a Uranium bomb.
His charge was giving lectures and writing books claiming that the holocaust never occured and it was a propoganda act to gain sympathy for the Jews.
His trial only lasted one day as he was in a "Damned if you do and Damned if you don't" catch 22 of Austrian laws. His supporters claim his right of "free speech" was denied. On the other hand, Irving himself confessed that the sources of his history was flawed.
Either way, in MY mind, he was guilty of trying to rewrite history to satisfy his own fantasy of what history SHOULD have been. It lessened the horrible treatment and executions of Jews (and others that disagreed with the paper hanger) and elevated the roll of the SS that they weren't such bad guys after all.
I think a 3 year prison sentence is a bit too short though he faced up to 10 years. Ironically in a country that itself was Nazi.
As somewhat of an historian myself, I absolutely abhor people who try to rewrite history by inserting their own fantasies. Another example is that ding-a-ling who wrote a treatise that the ammo ship explosion at Port Chicago in WW II was actually a test of a Uranium bomb.
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