Holocaust denier jailed for three years

[Pharaoh]

A British pensioner, David Irving has been jailed for three years in Austria, for denying the Holocaust 17 years ago, even though he now admits he was wrong.

'The jail sentence was imposed despite a last-minute about turn by the author in court: he conceded that he had been mistaken when he claimed in two speeches in 1989 that gas chambers at Auschwitz were a "fairytale".
Irving appeared visibly stunned by the verdict. As he walked out of court after the seven-hour hearing to begin his sentence he could only say: "I’m very shocked and I’m going to appeal."
"I am not a Holocaust denier. My views have changed," he said outside court. "History is a constantly growing tree: the more you learn, the more documents are available, the more you learn, and I have learned a lot since 1989.
"Yes, there were gas chambers," Mr Irving added. "Millions of Jews died, there is no question. I don’t know the figures. I’m not an expert on the Holocaust."
Link here (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2049360,00.html)

I think this law only makes Holocaust history look weaker. If it's the truth that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis, then you shouldn't need a law to protect it. Stopping free speech by jailing people will only make people suspicious that it's not completely true.

[mburbank]

You have to remeber though, that jailing this guy not only brings Jews back from the dead, it prevents future stupidity on the part of Historians.

jailing this guy is horrible.

But... Uh... "Pharoah"... Makes holocaust history look weaker?

Isn't that saying there is a legitimate debate bout if it happened? Not that you don't have every right to question it and in no way should you be jailed, but... Weaker? Seriously? That's what you think?

[Pharaoh]

I've always believed that the Holocaust happened and that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis, but this jailing makes me wonder why they have to protect that history so much. The majority of people believe that 9/11 happened even though there are plenty of 9/11 deniers. We don't need to jail them, just laugh at them. So what's the difference?

[mburbank]

Huh. I thought this stupid ass anti-free speech law was an Austrian law. I didn't realize Jew laws could be so far reaching.

I kind of figured this Austrian law was based in Austrian shame over austrian actions.

I just want to be clear that while I don't think anti-semitisim should be illegal, it does exist. But I'm sure some of your best friends are Jews.

[Pharaoh]

One of my best friends is Jewish actually, and I support the Israelis against Palestinian terrorism. But I don't think this sort of nonsense does Jews any good.

[mburbank]

Well I'm just personally relieved that you like Jews.

[Emu]

One of my best friends is Jewish actually, and I support the Israelis against Palestinian terrorism. But I don't think this sort of nonsense does Jews any good.

Isn't this the response everybody gives? "One of my best friends is black/asian/jewish/etc."

[Dole]

So...in 1989, Irving is convinced the holocaust was a myth - but somehow, some irrefutable evidence that has appeared since then changed his mind.
So the evidence of the holocaust from 1945-89 was completely worthless, but in the last 17 years some proof miraculously appeared to change his mind! What a coincidence, and just in time for Irving's trial!
Fucking laughable -
The guy is a complete wanker, and I am glad they locked the fucker up.

[Abcdxxxx]

They created these laws for the same reason they left the concentration camps in place. The type of denial we're talking about, isn't meant to stifle debate, so much as target any attempts to rewrite history to cast blame on innocent parties. Why is that such a concern? Because the revitionism actually started while the Holocaust was still underway, and it was a matter of holding people accountable, to the point where it had to be illegal to deny it when they went to round up the Nazis. So much of the Holocaust was as a result of the propaganda campaigns to begin with. Who would have ever thought Holocaust revitionism would be making it on to best sellers lists, or that Jews on University campuses would be harrassed by students wearing Swastika armbands in public ? So yeah, in places like Austria, it hits to close to home, and they consider that criminal behavior rather then free speech.

Now, let me try to explain it a different way. After WW2, Germany and the other Nazi States wanted to move on, start fresh and forget what had happened. They needed to reinvent themselves, and erase the past. The last thing they wanted was open discourse on the Holocaust or to even stay associated with it. You see, this wasn't for the sake of tolerance, or hurting a Jews feelings, they just did it because they were guilty, and needed to cope.

[Geggy]

I still fail to see how is it anti-semitic to question the holocaust. It could be the russians, it could be the japaneses and I'd still question the number of people actually killed. I'm having hard times believing 6 million jews were killed, especially after looking at the facts. So far no one has convinced me, instead people called me an anti-semitic like a big fucking baby. But that doesn't mean I don't think the holocaust happened, I know it happened and I think it sucks. I'm an american and america don't have laws for questioning the holocaust. I like this country very much. Very nice...

And Pharoah, I usually laugh at people who believes the official story of 9/11...

[Pharaoh]

One of my best friends is Jewish actually, and I support the Israelis against Palestinian terrorism. But I don't think this sort of nonsense does Jews any good.

Isn't this the response everybody gives? "One of my best friends is black/asian/jewish/etc."

Isn't this the response everybody gives to what? I was asked if any of my best friends were Jewish, and so I answered yes. What do you expect me to say?

[Dr. Boogie]

One of my best friends is Jewish actually, and I support the Israelis against Palestinian terrorism. But I don't think this sort of nonsense does Jews any good.

Isn't this the response everybody gives? "One of my best friends is black/asian/jewish/etc."

"What gives you the right to make fun of black people?"

"Hey, my best friend is Cuban, and that's close enough."

"Oh, I'm sorry."[/Tosh]

[Slinky Ferret]

:( You need to read this book or watch the documentary.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0563521171/ref=pd_ecs_b_d_h__a/026-9985320-2001203

Not only did the producer spend years painfully researching and writing before making the documentary but he also tried to show both sides of the story. To ask the guards why they did, what they thought etc. etc. Mixed with the real life stories are photographs and real film footage.

If anything it makes you think and realise it isn't just stories. People really did live and die in horrific circumstances. We will probably never know exactly how many.

[Abcdxxxx]

Geggy - questioning the numbers is usually a method for questioning the authenticity of the historical accounts in general. When someone tells your 180,000 people died in Darfur, or that the Armenian Genocide produced millions of deaths, is your first reaction to demand proof the death tolls weren't inflated? Do you consult the conspiracy pages or look for holes in the story?

Holocaust revitionism attributes lies the victims, and the majority of the victims were Jews. It's different then questioning a government or the establishment.

What's the implication, if you catch a discrepency in the Holocaust numbers anyway? What does it prove if 3 million died instead of 6? What would it prove if 7 million died instead of 6 ? What are you implying when you infer that Jews intentionally distort facts of the Holocaust?

[Pharaoh]

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.*


*Unless it's denying the Holocaust, or Islamaphobic, or racist, sexist, homophobic, in fact anything I don't approve of.

[Abcdxxxx]

You can do better then that.

Can't you?

[Dole]

I sincerely doubt it.

[mburbank]

hee hee

[Kulturkampf]

Pharoah is right -- ur freedom of speech is merely an orgy for people who are like you. it is not real.

[Abcdxxxx]

i'm american. i don't have any friends. sometimes i like fold an aclu newsletter into the shape of an orgami frog, so i can pretend he's my friend. my frog thinks he's lenny bruce.

[maggiekarp]

This was brought up on another forum I frequent. A girl my age asked what the Holocaust was.

There was a secret meeting of "WTF"s and she was politely told what it was, but it still makes you think.

[Pharaoh]

From what I've read about David Irving, the only thing he denied was that gas chambers were used to kill Jews. He doesn't deny that the Nazis killed Jews but he doesn't believe that Hitler ordered the systematic extermination of the Jews in gas chambers.

It looks to me like he's more objecting to how the German people have been portrayed by other historians, rather than being anti-Jewish. He was a very well respected historian up to about 20 years ago and this jailing is just going to make people wonder what exactly he's written.

Anyway, thank God for the Internet, if it wasn't for that then saying we've got freedom of speech would just be a joke.

[Dole]

Doesnt sound like you've read much about Irving then, does it?

[Pharaoh]

I never said I had read much about him. Have you? Go on then Dole, inform me, what do you know about what he's said? Don't just tell me I don't know something, tell me what you know. All you ever do is write pathetic little insults at anybody you don't agree with, but you really say nothing at all.

[sadie]

quit yer whinin'.

i have to say that regardless of what this man has said or why he's said it, i don't agree with his being jailed because of it. a state's taking away basic freedoms, like that of expression, it seems to me, is as wrong as the holocaust was, regardless of the intent.

[Dole]

All you ever do is write pathetic little insults at anybody you don't agree with, but you really say nothing at all.

Its..its like you've known me all my life!

Okey doke, here a few choice little tidbits about Irving to start with:

This poem he wrote for his daughter came to light in the libel court case he fought unsuccessfully againt a journalist who accused him of holocaust denial:

"in a 1994 diary entry, Irving wrote about a ditty he composed for his young daughter "when halfbreed children are wheeled past":

I am a Baby Aryan
Not Jewish or Sectarian
I have no plans to marry an
Ape or Rastafarian."


This quote from Irving is from an interview with the Guardian:

"The Jewish élite in America is filling the same positions they held in the Weimar republic during the 1920s and 1930s - controlling the big banks, the film business, media, and the like. The Jews disproportionately held all these big positions in Germany. It's a mirror image in the US. And it will evoke howls of rage from the ordinary citizens who are kept out of the power élite.'


Another part of the same interview:
"And he does not back away from some of the extreme statements and acts attributed to him, although he often tries to deflect their importance by casting it as prankish humour. Yes, there were swizzle sticks adorned with little swastikas at his 1991 book party, but 'those were really nothing more than copies of Hitler's personal standard that my publisher had made up for the launch of my book.' (The late Alan Clark was according to Irving, 'a great admirer of Hitler. He sat in that very chair that you are in right before my party started and told me in depth about his admiration for Hitler.') "


More from that libel case:

Prominent British historian Sir John Keegan wrote in 1996 in his book The Battle for History, "Some controversies are entirely bogus, like David Irving's contention that Hitler's subordinates kept from him the facts of the Final Solution, the extermination of the Jews…" During the libel trial, Keegan - who had been subpoenaed by Irving to appear as a witness - lambasted Irving by saying: "I continue to think it perverse of you to propose that Hitler could not have known until as late as October 1943 what was going on with the Jewish people" and, when asked if it was perverse to say that Hitler did not know about the Final Solution, answered "that it defies common sense".

There is plenty more where this came from if you want it....the guy is just an out-and-out Hitler-loving racist, who has always attempted to rationalise his paranoiac hatred and prejudice under the veneer of respectable historical research. And only with the threat of prison, after 40 years of spouting this crap does he say 'Oh hang on...turns out I was wrong all along!". Fuck him.

[Abcdxxxx]

Keep in mind it took over 20 years for this guy to be convicted. You have to really be working at. When Holocaust denial becomes your life, then the Government there starts to take a self-interest in proving they're never gonna let that happen again. It's not a free speech issue, it's a hyper sensitive country trying to save face in the eyes of a world community that rides their ass anytime anything vaguely sympathetic comes about.

[Pharaoh]

All you ever do is write pathetic little insults at anybody you don't agree with, but you really say nothing at all.

Its..its like you've known me all my life!

Okey doke, here a few choice little tidbits about Irving to start with:

This poem he wrote for his daughter came to light in the libel court case he fought unsuccessfully againt a journalist who accused him of holocaust denial:

"in a 1994 diary entry, Irving wrote about a ditty he composed for his young daughter "when halfbreed children are wheeled past":

I am a Baby Aryan
Not Jewish or Sectarian
I have no plans to marry an
Ape or Rastafarian."


This quote from Irving is from an interview with the Guardian:

"The Jewish élite in America is filling the same positions they held in the Weimar republic during the 1920s and 1930s - controlling the big banks, the film business, media, and the like. The Jews disproportionately held all these big positions in Germany. It's a mirror image in the US. And it will evoke howls of rage from the ordinary citizens who are kept out of the power élite.'


Another part of the same interview:
"And he does not back away from some of the extreme statements and acts attributed to him, although he often tries to deflect their importance by casting it as prankish humour. Yes, there were swizzle sticks adorned with little swastikas at his 1991 book party, but 'those were really nothing more than copies of Hitler's personal standard that my publisher had made up for the launch of my book.' (The late Alan Clark was according to Irving, 'a great admirer of Hitler. He sat in that very chair that you are in right before my party started and told me in depth about his admiration for Hitler.') "


More from that libel case:

Prominent British historian Sir John Keegan wrote in 1996 in his book The Battle for History, "Some controversies are entirely bogus, like David Irving's contention that Hitler's subordinates kept from him the facts of the Final Solution, the extermination of the Jews…" During the libel trial, Keegan - who had been subpoenaed by Irving to appear as a witness - lambasted Irving by saying: "I continue to think it perverse of you to propose that Hitler could not have known until as late as October 1943 what was going on with the Jewish people" and, when asked if it was perverse to say that Hitler did not know about the Final Solution, answered "that it defies common sense".

There is plenty more where this came from if you want it....the guy is just an out-and-out Hitler-loving racist, who has always attempted to rationalise his paranoiac hatred and prejudice under the veneer of respectable historical research. And only with the threat of prison, after 40 years of spouting this crap does he say 'Oh hang on...turns out I was wrong all along!". Fuck him.

I agree he doesn't believe Hitler ordered the systematic extermination of the Jews in gas chambers. But he isn't denying the Holocaust happened at all. You haven't shown anything to prove he's a Holocaust denier and that's specifically what he was jailed for.

And by the way, Dole, I expect you're also pleased that London Mayor, 'Red' Ken Livingstone (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17129-2057545,00.html) has been given a four-week suspension and £80,000 costs for his anti-Jewish Nazi outburst. Well I am anyway. It's very satisfying to see a self-righteous leftie getting a taste of his own medicine. :lol

[Abcdxxxx]

Wait, huh?

He was found guilty. I thought you were just questioning his right to free speach. Now you're claiming his innocence?

[Pharaoh]

I know he was found guilty and that he even pleaded guilty. So, yes, he was guilty of Holocaust denial, but I'm puzzled as to what exactly Holocaust denial entails, because I haven't read that he denies large numbers of Jews were killed by the Nazis, he just argues over the details. It seems a historian doesn't even have to completely deny Nazis killed Jews to be found guilty and jailed.

[sadie]

Keep in mind it took over 20 years for this guy to be convicted. You have to really be working at. When Holocaust denial becomes your life, then the Government there starts to take a self-interest in proving they're never gonna let that happen again. It's not a free speech issue, it's a hyper sensitive country trying to save face in the eyes of a world community that rides their ass anytime anything vaguely sympathetic comes about.
regardless of the country's motivations, and though it may not be solely a free-speech issue, it most certainly is a free-speech issue.

[Abcdxxxx]

When you disseminate materials for purposes beyond inquiry, intentionally for the purposes of subverting facts, it becomes a tool of aggression. You have to understand the roll of propaganda, and revitionism specific to the Holocaust to understand why these laws are addressing issues beyond free speech. Of course on a very simplistic naive level, there is a free speech aspect to this which is a no brainer...but it's far more complex then that.

You can't understand what crosses the line, unless you understand the history well enough to know the implications of what you're writing.

Look at what happened in Rwanda, for example, where language was key to inciting the violence on a level which will take generations for them to really heal from. Can you understand how there will be certain ways of discussing Hutus and Tutsis that will be off limits, because of the connotations it has?

[sadie]

you make it very difficult to discourse, abcd, with your condescending tone. perhaps that's the purpose of it.

you say these laws are addressing issues beyond free speech; i say that reeks of propaganda in itself.

i think open discussion and open minds are the only ways out of the cycles of the past. and a crackdown on open expression breeds subversive activity.

[Abcdxxxx]

Yeah I'd agree with that as an idealism. Free speech should be an absolute. On the other hand, if someone starts abusing that right, and we know people died the last time someone said certain things in a specific manner, then ...well what's that yelling fire in a movie theater cliche? This guys wasn't engaging in open discussion.

These laws are meant to crack down on something entirely different, and I keep trying to explain why and how this goes out of the realm of free speech. Anyway, call me crazy, but I'd much rather this stuff stay subversive then sit on the best sellers list in France.

[Dole]

And by the way, Dole, I expect you're also pleased that London Mayor, 'Red' Ken Livingstone has been given a four-week suspension and £80,000 costs for his anti-Jewish Nazi outburst. Well I am anyway. It's very satisfying to see a self-righteous leftie getting a taste of his own medicine.

I couldnt give a shit what happens to ken livingston. I have no more respect for him than any other politician. That said, I dont blame him for calling someone from the Daily Mail a nazi, jewish or not.

[Pharaoh]

You couldnt give a shit for free speech then, Dole. You say you don't blame him for calling someone from the Daily Mail a Nazi, but then you don't care if he gets suspended for it. So don't complain when one day someone you do respect gets arrested for something they've said.

[Dole]

You seem completely obsessed with this fictional notion that we in the UK are living in some sort of 50s style 'Red China' where 'speaking out' is prohibited by death or something- its absolute bollocks, and pretty fucking insulting to the places where there really IS no freedom of speech.

Ken livingston was suspended for what he said - not sacked, shot or chemically castrated but suspended from his job for a month. Big fucking deal!

Was he making a pertinent political statement at the time? Was he trying to inform the electorate about some information that has been kept from us? Was he expressing an unpopular political opinion?

NO- he got into a fight with a fucking daily mail journalist and insulted him using a pretty tired, cliched analogy that the recipient took major offense over because of the nature of the insult and because he was Jewish - and subsequently Livingston was punished. Was his punishment over the top? Arguably, yes. But he was ONLY FUCKING SUSPENDED FROM HIS JOB for a MONTH.

[Pharaoh]

The leader of the British National party, Nick Griffin, is still on trial for things he said at a private meeting which was secretly filmed.

No doubt you don't give a shit about him either, but where's our freedom of speech when he's facing up to seven years in prison just for saying in a speech that Islam is a "vicious, wicked faith"?

[Abcdxxxx]

freedom of speech, and accountability are two different things.

[Pharaoh]

Yes, they obviously are, but I'm not sure about what you mean by that statement. Are you referring to the Nick Griffin case? Because that's not about accountability it's about the government gagging the BNP and stopping any criticism of Muslims and Islam.

[Abcdxxxx]

Politicians are held to a higher standard, and being outspoken can get you in trouble.

What worries me more, are cases like the one in Germany where someone got convicted of a year in jail for printing toilet paper with the word "Koran" on it, that he offered for sale to mosques.

[Pharaoh]

What worries me more, are cases like the one in Germany where someone got convicted of a year in jail for printing toilet paper with the word "Koran" on it, that he offered for sale to mosques.

:loo Yes, and no doubt Dole 'couldn't give a shit' about that either.

I think the guy should have offered churches some 'Holy Bible' toilet paper too, and then it would clearly show that Muslims are getting special treatment, because there's no way he would be jailed for that.

Anyway do Muslims use toilet paper? I thought they used their left hand and water or something.

[Emu]

I think you're talking about a bidet.

Speaking of which, we need an emoticon for that.

[Dole]

The leader of the British National party, Nick Griffin, is still on trial for things he said at a private meeting which was secretly filmed.

Yep - ON TRIAL. Already acquitted of some of the charges. He is going through the legal process where a jury will determine if his words were 'intended or likely to stir up racial hatred'. The first Jury could not decide on 2 of the 4 charges, so a retrial is occurring.

What draconian oppression!