David Irving facts for kids

Quick facts for kids David Irving
Irving in 2012
Born	(1938-03-24) 24 March 1938 (age 87) Hutton, Essex, England
Occupation	Author
Language	English German
Education	Brentwood School, Essex
Alma mater	Imperial College London University College London
Years active	1962–present
Notable works	The Destruction of Dresden The Mare's Nest Hitler's War
Spouse	María del Pilar Stuyck ​ ​ (m. 1961; div. 1981)​
Partner	Bente Hogh (since 1992)
Children	5

David John Cawdell Irving (born 24 March 1938) is an English author. He wrote books about the military and political history of World War II, especially about Nazi Germany. In 2000, a British court found him to be a Holocaust denier. This happened during a lawsuit he brought against an American historian.

Irving's books include The Destruction of Dresden (1963) and Hitler's War (1977). In his writings, he made false claims that Adolf Hitler did not know about the plan to kill Jews, or that he was against it. Many historians have said that Irving's claims about German war crimes and Hitler's role were wrong.

For a time, Irving was known for his knowledge of Nazi Germany. He was also known for finding new historical documents. However, by the late 1980s, his views became more extreme. He began to openly deny the Holocaust, especially the idea that Jews were killed by gas at Auschwitz concentration camp.

In 2000, Irving's reputation as a historian was further damaged. He sued the American historian Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books for libel, but he lost the case. The judge, Charles Gray, ruled that Irving had purposely twisted historical evidence. He did this to promote Holocaust denial and to make the Nazis look better. The court found that Irving was an active Holocaust denier, antisemite (someone who is prejudiced against Jewish people), and racist. The judge said Irving "persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence."

Early Life and Education

David John Cawdell Irving was born in Hutton, Essex, England, on 24 March 1938. He has a twin brother named Nicholas, an older brother, John, and a sister, Jennifer. His father, John James Cawdell Irving, was a commander in the Royal Navy. His mother, Beryl Irving, was an illustrator and wrote children's books.

During World War II, his father was an officer on the ship HMS Edinburgh. The ship was badly damaged in 1942 and later sunk. After this, Irving's father left his wife and children.

Irving described his childhood as difficult because of the war. He said that he had held views denying the Holocaust since he was a child. He claimed this was because he disliked how Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders were shown in British wartime newspapers.

Student Years and Early Controversies

Irving in 1955

After finishing school at Brentwood School, Irving studied physics at Imperial College London. He left after his first year due to money problems. He tried to study again later but had to stop for the same reason.

In 1959, Irving was an editor for Carnival Times, a student magazine at the University of London. He added a "secret supplement" to the magazine. In this part, he called Hitler the "greatest unifying force Europe has known since Charlemagne". He also wrote that the British press was controlled by Jewish people. This caused a lot of controversy, and volunteers had to remove the supplements before the magazine was given out.

Irving later said the criticism was "probably justifiable." He explained that he wanted to stop the magazine from making money that would go to an anti-apartheid group in South Africa, which he called a "subversive organisation."

Early Books and Research

Irving tried to join the Royal Air Force (RAF) but was not allowed due to health reasons. Instead of doing national service, he moved to West Germany in 1959. He worked in a steel factory and learned German. Then he moved to Spain and worked as a clerk at an air base.

By 1962, Irving was writing a series of articles about the Allied bombing campaigns for a German newspaper. These articles became his first book, The Destruction of Dresden (1963). The book looked at the bombing of Dresden in February 1945. At the time, there was a lot of interest in the bombing of German cities. Irving's book, which included graphic pictures, became a very popular international book.

In the first edition of his book, Irving estimated that between 100,000 and 250,000 people died in Dresden. These numbers were much higher than most other figures. However, in later editions, he slowly lowered the number to 50,000–100,000. Historian Richard J. Evans later said that Irving's estimates were based on unreliable sources and a forged document. An investigation by the Dresden City Council in 2008 estimated the deaths to be between 22,700 and 25,000.

Irving had used a document that was later found to be a fake created by the Nazis. In 1966, he admitted in a letter to The Times that his estimates were wrong. However, in the late 1980s and 1990s, he again claimed that the death toll in Dresden was much higher. He also suggested that the bombing was similar to the Nazis' killing of Jews.

Later Works and Legal Challenges

After the success of The Destruction of Dresden, Irving continued to write. His 1964 book, The Mare's Nest, about Germany's V-weapons program, was praised for its detailed research. However, it was criticized for downplaying the Nazi slave-labor programs.

Irving once said he works to remove the "slime" applied to the reputation of Adolf Hitler (pictured).

In 1967, Irving published Accident: The Death of General Sikorski. In this book, he claimed that the plane crash that killed Polish leader General Władysław Sikorski in 1943 was actually an assassination ordered by Winston Churchill. This view was criticized, and Irving lost a lawsuit he brought against a critic.

Also in 1967, Irving published The Destruction of Convoy PQ-17. In this book, he accused a British commander, Jack Broome, of being a coward. Broome sued Irving for libel and won in 1970. Irving had to pay a large amount of money in damages. The court found that Irving had purposely caused harm to make money.

After this, Irving mostly wrote biographies. He claimed his historical work was to "clean" Hitler's reputation. He said he wanted to remove the "slime" that he felt had been unfairly put on Hitler.

In 1975, in the German edition of Hitler's War, Irving attacked Anne Frank's diary. He falsely claimed it was a fake. The publisher later had to pay damages because of this claim.

Views on the Holocaust

Hitler's War and Early Claims

In Hitler's War, Irving used an undated memo written by Hans Lammers (pictured), the Chief of the Reich Chancellery, to the Justice Minister, saying: "The Führer has repeatedly pronounced that he wants the solution of the Jewish Question put off until after the war is over."

In 1977, Irving published Hitler's War, a biography of Adolf Hitler. In this book, Irving tried to show Hitler as a rational and intelligent leader. He claimed Hitler's main goal was to make Germany stronger. Irving also argued that Hitler did not know about the Holocaust. He suggested that Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich were the ones who planned and carried out the killings. Irving often pointed out that there was no known written order from Hitler for the Holocaust. He even offered money to anyone who could find such an order.

Historians generally criticized Hitler's War. They found many errors and disagreed with Irving's conclusions. For example, Irving used a memo that said Hitler wanted to delay the "Jewish Question" until after the war. Irving used this as proof that Hitler did not want to kill Jews. However, historians have shown that this memo was likely from a time when Hitler was still thinking about expelling Jews, not later when he ordered their extermination.

Historian Charles W. Sydnor Jr. pointed out many mistakes in Irving's book. He noted that Irving incorrectly stated that Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had many weapons from Germany's allies. Sydnor also mentioned that Hitler received reports about the killing of Jews by special Nazi groups.

Shift to Open Holocaust Denial

A note in Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler's telephone log on 30 November 1941 stating "no liquidation" was later used by Irving as his central argument in trying to prove that Hitler was ignorant of the Holocaust.

Over the years, Irving's views on the Holocaust changed. Since the late 1970s, he questioned or denied Hitler's involvement. He also questioned whether the Nazis had a plan to kill all European Jews.

Irving always claimed Hitler was not prejudiced against Jewish people. He said Hitler only used such ideas for political reasons. In 1977, he stated that Hitler "became a statesman and then a soldier... and the Jewish problem was a nuisance to him." In 1983, Irving claimed Hitler was "probably the biggest friend the Jews had in the Third Reich." He also said Hitler was "completely in the dark about anything that may have been going on" regarding the mass killing of Jews.

In his 1977 book Hitler's War, Irving argued that Hitler was against the killing of Jews in Eastern Europe. He even claimed Hitler ordered a stop to it in November 1941. However, historians have shown that a note Himmler made about "no liquidation" was not a general order from Hitler to stop killings. It was a specific instruction about a particular group of Jews.

From 1988, Irving began to openly deny the Holocaust. Before this, he had not fully denied it, which made some Holocaust deniers unsure about him. They admired his work but wished he would be more open about his denial. In 1980, he refused to speak at a Holocaust-denial conference, saying it would harm his reputation.

After 1988, Irving became more public with his denial. He was influenced by the 1988 trial of Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel and a report by Fred A. Leuchter. This report falsely claimed there was no evidence of gas chambers at Auschwitz. Irving said reading this report "converted" him into a "hard-core disbeliever."

In 1989, Irving told an audience that "there is not one shower bath in any of the concentration or slave labour camps that turns out to have been some kind of gas chamber." He also called Jewish Holocaust survivors "liars, psychiatric cases and extortionists." In 1990, he claimed that "30,000 people at the most were murdered in Auschwitz... all just dummies." He said the gas chambers shown to tourists were "fakes."

1990s and Legal Consequences

Interior of the gas chamber of Auschwitz I camp. In a speech in 1990 Irving said, "There were no gas chambers in Auschwitz. There have been only mock-ups built by the Poles in the years after the war."

In the early 1990s, Irving often visited Germany and spoke at neo-Nazi gatherings. He claimed that the Allies and Axis powers were equally responsible for war crimes. He also said that the Holocaust was just "propaganda." In January 1990, he claimed in a speech that only 30,000 people died at Auschwitz from natural causes. He repeated this in Munich, which led to his conviction for Holocaust denial in Germany in 1991. He was fined and later banned from visiting Germany.

During his appeal in 1992, Irving called the Auschwitz death camp a "tourist attraction." He claimed its origins came from a British plan to spread anti-German propaganda. He also insulted the judge.

In a 1991 revised edition of Hitler's War, Irving removed all mentions of "gas chambers" and the word "Holocaust." He said, "If something didn't happen, then you don't even dignify it with a footnote."

In November 1992, Irving was arrested in Canada and sent back to the United Kingdom. He was also banned from entering Australia in 1992, a ban he tried to overturn five times without success.

In 1995, Irving claimed that the Holocaust was a myth created by a "world-wide Jewish cabal" for their own purposes. He also said that "We revisionists, say that gas chambers didn't exist and that the 'factories of death' didn't exist." In 1999, he stated in a TV interview, "I'm a gas chamber denier. I'm a denier that they killed hundreds of thousands of people in gas chambers, yes."

Libel Suit and Aftermath

Irving during his trial in Austria with a copy of his book Hitler's War

In 1996, David Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher, Penguin Books, for libel. Lipstadt's book, Denying the Holocaust, called Irving a Holocaust denier and said he twisted historical documents.

During the trial, Irving claimed that Hitler had not ordered the killing of Jews and was unaware of the Holocaust. Lipstadt's legal team hired several expert historians, including Professor Richard J. Evans. Evans's report was a detailed examination of Irving's work. He concluded that Irving's books were "completely worthless as history" because Irving could not be trusted to give an accurate account.

Irving lost the case. The court found that he had deliberately misrepresented historical evidence to promote Holocaust denial. He was ordered to pay Penguin's legal costs, which were very high. He was declared bankrupt in 2002 and lost his home.

Irving being deported from Canada, 1992

In 2005, Austrian police arrested Irving based on a 1989 warrant. He had given speeches in Austria denying the Holocaust. Irving pleaded guilty to "trivialising, grossly playing down and denying the Holocaust." He was sentenced to three years in prison. He was released in December 2006 and banned from returning to Austria. Upon his return to the UK, he said he felt "no need any longer to show remorse" for his Holocaust views.

Since then, Irving has continued to write and give lectures to small groups. He has also sold Nazi items online.

Personal Life

Irving in 2004

In 1961, Irving married María del Pilar Stuyck in Spain. They had four children and divorced in 1981. In 1992, he started a relationship with Bente Hogh, a Danish model, and they have a daughter.

Irving's twin brother has changed his name to avoid being linked to David Irving.

In February 2024, Irving's family announced that he had become ill in October 2023 and needed constant care. They stated that he is no longer able to continue his life's work.

Works

Books

Translations

• The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Keitel (1965)
• The Memoirs of General Gehlen (1972)

Monographs

• The Night the Dams Burst (1973)
• Von Guernica bis Vietnam (in German only) (1982)
• Die deutsche Ostgrenze (in German only) (1990)
• Banged Up (2008)

Images for kids

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  Irving speaking as the Labour Party candidate during a mock election at Brentwood School, May 1955

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  Irving with Arthur “Bomber” Harris in 1962

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  Ernst Zündel, whom Irving met in 1986 and became good friends with and collaborated with to distribute Holocaust denial

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  Irving on After Dark in 1988, discussing Winston Churchill.

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  Inside a barracks in Auschwitz II Birkenau. In 1992, during appeal of his conviction for Holocaust denial, Irving called Auschwitz a "tourist attraction".

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  Irving at the National Archives of the United Kingdom, 2003

See also

In Spanish: David Irving para niños