Holocaust Denial v.

The Truths of History

Aminta Perka
Anglo-American University
The Holocaust and Jewish Cultural Destruction

The Holocaust was the cause of 6 million deaths during World War II. Under the reign of
Adolf Hitler, the Nazis were instructed to carry out “The Final Solution” which was the Nazi
plan to eradicate all Jews. The Holocaust remains one of the largest stains on the moral
background of our world, However, though all the testimonies and physical proof that we have
today proving the Holocaust, some people still refuse to believe that it ever happened.
The biggest argument that Holocaust deniers choose to rely on is the argument that Hitler
never ordered the final solution, nor did he know what the Nazis were doing to the Jews. Hitler
spoke publicly about his anti-sematic views and the “survival of the fittest,” however, historians
can find no written evidence of Hitler ordering the final solution or destruction of Jews. After the
war, the Nazis destroyed most of the evidence that proved the extermination of Jews. This likely
contained documents from Hitler ordering the Final Solution. According to historians Christian
Gerlach and Peter Monteath, Hitler held a secret meeting revealing his plan for the Final Solution
on December 12, 1941. One of the Nazis in attendance of this meeting, Joseph Goebbels
described the meeting in his private journal the next day in 1941. He wrote,
“With respect of the Jewish Question, the Führer has decided to make a clean sweep. He
prophesied to the Jews that if they again brought about a world war, they would live to
see their annihilation in it. That wasn’t just a catchword… If the German people have
now again sacrificed 160,000 dead on the eastern front, then those responsible for this
bloody conflict will have to pay with their lives.”1
Additionally, a few days later, Otto Braughtigam, a German diplomat, said when writing about
the Final Solution wrote, “oral discussions have taken place [that] have brought clarification.”2
Not to mention that when the Nuremberg trials took place in the years following the war, many
of the upper-level Nazi officials blamed their actions on the Fuhrer, stating that they just were
doing their jobs and following his orders. Hitler and two of his other top associates, Heinrich
Himmler and Joseph Goebbels, had committed suicide before the trails even took place. During
the Nuremberg trials the defense attorneys used the German phrase “Befehl ist Befehl” to
describe the actions of the Nazis under Hitler’s operation. This phrase, in English, means simply
“an order is an order.” This phrase can be used in the court of law in a defense called “Superior
orders” in which a member of the military, law enforcement or other civilian role cannot be held
guilty because of the orders of their superior.3 This defense has seen a vast array of
inconsistencies in rulings since its first implementation in court. Before the Nuremberg trials
took place, the Allies issued the London Charter of the International Military Tribune which

1
Boissoneault, Lorraine. “The First Moments of Hitler's Final Solution.” Smithsonian.com,
Smithsonian Institution, 12 Dec. 2016, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/first-moments-hitlers-
final-solution-180961387/.
2
ibid
3
“Superior Orders.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 May 2018,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior orders.
prohibited the use of the superior orders defense when a war crime is on trial. The Nuremberg
Principle IV under the London Charter of International Military Tribunal states, “The fact that a
person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from
responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."4 To
the Nazis on trial, this was a death sentence. Although Hitler had clearly ordered the Final
Solution and the killings of so many Jews, the Nazis were still also largely responsible for the
actions of the Holocaust. However, with all the evidence coming from Hitler’s close
commandants it would be impossible to agree that Hitler had no idea about the Final Solution.
David Irving, infamous British Holocaust denier wrote in his book titled Hitler’s War
about Hitler’s ignorance to the Final Solution and the murder of Jews,
“in wartime, dictatorships are fundamentally weak – the dictator himself, however alert,
is unable to oversee all the functions of his executives acting within the confines of his
far-flung empire; and in this particular case, I concluded, the burden of guilt for the
bloody and mindless massacres of the Jews rests on a large number of Germans (and non-
Germans), many of them alive today, and not just on one ‘mad dictator,’ whose order had
to be obeyed without question.”5
However, by definition of the word dictator, Irving is undoubtedly incorrect. Google dictionary
defines the word dictator as “a ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has
obtained control by force.”6 This means that by default, Hitler knew what was happening in
Germany during the time of the Holocaust and because he had ‘total power’ over the country, he
is by default to blame for the horrors of the Holocaust. Now, I agree with Irving when he states
that it was not just “one ‘mad dictator’”7 to blame for the Holocaust, however, a culmination of
everyone who contributed to the destruction caused by the Holocaust. Ultimately though, it is the
one who ordered the entire solution who is most to blame, which brings the blame back to Hitler.
In 1933, Dr. Deborah E. Lipstadt wrote the book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing
Assault on Truth and Memory. This book denoted many Holocaust-denier’s ideas and she
referenced many famous Holocaust-denier historians in her own book. One of the historians
called out was none other than David Irving. Lipstadt wrote of Irving in her book,
“Irving is one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial. Familiar with
historical evidence, he bends it until it conforms with his ideological leanings and
political agenda. A man who is convinced that Britain's great decline was accelerated by
its decision to go to war with Germany, he is most facile at taking accurate information
and shaping it to confirm his conclusions. A review of his recent book, Churchill's War,
which appeared in New York Review of Books, accurately analyzed his practice of
applying a double standard of evidence. He demands "absolute documentary proof" when
it comes to proving the Germans guilty, but he relies on highly circumstantial evidence to
condemn the Allies. This is an accurate description not only of Irving's tactics, but of
those of deniers in general.”8

4
ibid
5
Irving, David. Hitler's War. The Viking Press, 1977.
6
“Dictator.” Google.
7
Irving, David. Hitler's War. The Viking Press, 1977.
8
Lipstadt, Deborah E. Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory.
Penguin Books, 1994.
Because Irving felt his reputation had been defamed because of Lipstadt’s book, on September
5th 1996 Irving filed a libel lawsuit against Lipstadt and Penguin Books, her publisher. Lipstadt is
an American author, but since Irving is a British historian, he filed his suit under English High
Court. In America, the burden of proof in a libel case is on the plaintiff, however, in the U.K., the
burden of proof lands on the defendant. This means that because Lipstadt and Penguin Books
were being sued, they had to prove that Lipstadt’s comments about Irving were not libelous and
that the statements were substantially true. However, when reading Lipstadt’s comment above, it
is clear that her statement about Irving is defamatory and could hurt his reputation. However, if
she could prove that her statement was true, she would not be guilty of libel. Irving chose to
testify for himself during the trail and he told the court that “there was no ‘overall Reich policy
to kill the Jews,’ that ‘no documents whatsoever show that a Holocaust had ever happened,’ and
gas chambers were an impossibility.”9 So in defense, Lipstadt was forced to provide evidence
that the Holocaust was directed by Hitler, used gas chambers and even happened in the first
place.10 Although Irving offered to settle with Penguin books if they would take all copies of
Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory out of the U.K., Lipstadt
chose to pursue the trail further. Although it would be hard to find hard evidence on the existence
of Hitler’s orders and the gas chambers, because they had all been destroyed, Lipstadt knew that
she couldn’t let Irving spread historical lies about one of the biggest mass murders in the history
of the world. Not to mention that Irving was much more dangerous than other Holocaust-deniers
because of his reputation. Irving wrote,
“Other deniers are publicly known only for being deniers. Irving, on the other hand, had a
reputation as a writer of historical works that long predated, and was independent of, his
activities as a denier. Consequently, his pronouncements about Holocaust denial garnered
far more attention than they would coming from other deniers.”11
This case went down in history because it was the first case ever on the topic of the Holocaust
where a denier was the plaintiff and a scholar was the defendant. This trial went far beyond just
Lipstadt’s book, this was about proving the entire Holocaust.
The trail took years to prepare for because of the nature of the burden of proof that fell on
Lipstadt and Penguin books. There were six expert witnesses hired to cross-examine Irving. All
of whom were historians and experts on the Holocaust. Three of the six provided evidence that
the Holocaust happened, with architectural and historical evidence. One examined Irving’s
political views and his associations with neo-Nazi groups. The last, most important expert
witness examined Irving’s work for historic falsities. The last expert mentioned, hired to
examine Irving’s historical discrepancies was Richard J. Evans, an established historian. After
two years examining Irving’s work, Evans concluded,
“Not one of his books, speeches or articles, not one paragraph, not one sentence in any of
them, can be taken on trust as an accurate representation of its historical subject. All of
them are completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in
any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about. It may seem
an absurd semantic dispute to deny the appellation of 'historian' to someone who has

9
David Irving's 1988 Testimony, R v. Zundel, [1992] 2 S.C.R. 731.
10
“Irving v Penguin Books Ltd.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 14 May 2018,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_v_Penguin_Books_Ltd.
11
Lipstadt, Deborah. Irving v. Penguin UK and Deborah Lipstadt: Building a Defense. 2nd ed.,
vol. 27, Nova Law Review, 2002.
 written two dozen books or more about historical subjects. But if we mean by historian
someone who is concerned to discover the truth about the past, and to give as accurate a
representation of it as possible, then Irving is not a historian.”12
Since Evans is known as a highly reputable historian himself, his analysis of Irving’s work had
extreme merit. Evans would not have been able to bolster his claims against Irving if he hadn’t
had such a reputation as he did. Not to mention two years of examination gives one more than an
adequate amount of time to make a sound analysis. Evan’s cross-examination would come to be
known as a turning point during the trial of Irving v. Penguin Books because it discredited
Irving, the most influential Holocaust-Denier for everything that he had ever written. He
discredited not only the position that Irving took during the trial, but every book and piece of
literature he had ever written.
Once all arguments were heard, Judge Charles Gray considered the case for four weeks
before ruling in favor of Lipstadt and Penguin Books. Irving was forced to pay all substantial
costs of the trial which resulted in a sum between one and two million pounds, which would
bankrupt him.13 After winning the trial, Lipstadt said,
“I see this not only as a personal victory, but also as a victory for all those who speak out
against hate and prejudice. It was a struggle for truth and for memory and a fight against
those who sow the seeds of racism and anti-semitism. They have pursued justice not just
on my, but on many people's behalf.”14
Irving v. Penguin Books has come to be known as one of the biggest milestone cases
surrounding the Holocaust. This case took extreme levels of merit away from the Holocaust-
Denial argument and it took down one of the biggest deniers of the Holocaust in history. Lipstadt
and Penguin Books were able to provide evidence, that would be etched in legal documents and
transcripts for the rest of history that proved that the Holocaust did indeed happen, and that
Holocaust-Denial arguments warrant no merit when compared to the facts provided by historians
who have studied the Holocaust for their entire lives. Not only was this a win for Lipstadt and
Penguin books, this was a win for all victims, survivors and remembers of the Holocaust. Irving
v. Penguin Books guaranteed that the Holocaust will never be able to be forgotten or reputably
denied again.

12
“Evans: David Irving, Hitler and Holocaust Denial.” Holocaust Denial on Trial, Holocaust
Denial on Trial Https://Www.hdot.org/Wp-
Content/Themes/Osmosis/Images/Empty/Thumbnail.jpg,
www.hdot.org/evans/#note_evans6_n12.
13
“Irving v Penguin Books Ltd.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 14 May 2018,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_v_Penguin_Books_Ltd.
14
Busfield, Steve. “Irving Loses Holocaust Libel Case.” The Guardian, Guardian News and
Media, 11 Apr. 2000, www.theguardian.com/books/2000/apr/11/irving.uk.