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Paul Craig Roberts
Institute for Political Economy
The Case of David Irving Shows that Nothing Is More Dangerous than Telling the Truth
The Case of David Irving Shows that Nothing Is More Dangerous than Telling the Truth
Paul Craig Roberts
David Irving is undoubtedly the best historian of World War II. For decades he relentlessly searched for and found diaries of the main figures, pried loose official documents, tracked down witnesses, searched the war archives of many countries, all of which is the material of his extraordinary histories.
The facts differed from the official narratives. Jews took umbrage and ruined him financially, forcing his publisher to destroy their printings of his histories, which were best-sellers praised by other historians, and by bringing corrupt law suits against which he had to defend, which exhausted his financial resources and left him penniless and homeless.
He managed to keep going with proceeds from his well-attended lectures whose locations had to be kept secret to prevent Jews from having thugs break up the gatherings. Eventually Jews were able to get some governments to ban him from the country in order to block his lectures. Invited to speak in Austria, he was falsely arrested and imprisoned. The stress of his life has resulted in a stroke that has disabled him.
You might imagine from my account that Irving wrote against Jews. But that is not the case. He documented the slaughter of several hundred thousand Jews by German political functionaries in conquered parts of Russia. He got in trouble with the Jews because he reported that his 50-year search of the world’s war archives, including the Soviet and Israeli archives, failed to turn up a single document supporting the existence of an organized holocaust. He offered a monetary award to anyone who could help him find evidence of an organized holocaust. None did.
Irving makes it clear that Jews suffered persecution under the Nazis. Hitler’s position, stated repeatedly by Hitler was that the “Jewish question” would be settled after the war. Initially Hitler’s plan was to settle the Jews in Madagascar. After his initial victories against the Soviet Union, he talked of sending the Jews to their Bolshevik friends in the rump part of Russia that he intended to leave to Stalin.
The massacres of Jews seem to have been the ad hoc actions of political administrators of conquered Soviet territory who found themselves recipients of Jews sent by functionaries in anticipation of them being forwarded to the part of the Soviet Union that was to remain. Not having any means of holding them the territorial administrators shot them.
This seems to be the holocaust story that is real, but instead of debating it and trying to prove it wrong, the Jews attacked Irving personally.
It is important to understand that Irving did not set out to disprove the holocaust. He set out to gather the facts about the causes of the war and the behavior of the participants in order to write a factual history instead of a self-justifying one written by the victors. The holocaust occupies only a few lines in Irving’s massive work.
Irving’s third volume of his study of Churchill is completed and needs to be published. The family is exhausted of resources, and publishers are too afraid of the Jews to sign a contract and advance money. Consequently a work of a decade might be lost, and Irving’s health left unattended from lack of resources.
Truth is the most important value. Without it there can be no justice, no freedom, no scholarship, and no science. David Irving has been the greatest truth-teller of our time, and the consequence is his ruin.
When we think of what has happened to David Irving, to Julian Assange, and to what may yet befall Tucker Carlson, we can safely conclude that in the Western world today nothing is more dangerous than to tell the truth.
Here is the statement from his family:
Last October, after arriving in Florida, David Irving fell ill and has been in declining health ever since. He is now back in the UK and requires round-the-clock care, a demand we’ve had to arrange privately due to constraints with NHS services. He was hospitalised for nearly two months, enduring the kind of challenges we never anticipated he would face.
It is with sadness that we must accept that David is now unable to engage in his life’s work. His unwavering dedication to unveiling Real History has not only defined his career but also enriched the minds of readers worldwide. David’s situation, however, has placed us at a crossroads where the path forward demands collective support.
This is an appeal to safeguard the essence of a man whose life’s work has been to bring us closer to the nuanced truths of our past. Your donations will be pivotal in two primary areas:
Medical Care and Support: Your contributions will ensure that David receives exemplary care to manage his condition and uphold the highest quality of life.
Preservation and Continuation of His Work: Financial support is also imperative to safeguard David’s extensive body of work.
To participate in this crucial effort please donate. Here, you’ll find all the necessary information to make your contribution. https://irvingbooks.com/donate/
Regardless of size, every contribution is a step towards sustaining David’s impact on historical literature.
Your support and solidarity in this challenging time are invaluable. We will keep you informed of his health and well-being as he faces this stage of his life with dignity. He is in good hands.
David Irving’s family