Problems, problems, problems!

Okay, so after quite a bit of Irving searching these are my discoveries.

1. Irving mostly uses his website for publishing:

a) links to online newpaper articles and making one or two sentence snide comments about them.
b) old documents he has produced eg. one chapter of Destruction of Dresden or a letter to the editor he wrote in 1989
c) a series of articles by other revisionists that have originally been posted elsewhere

What is clearly lacking from this list is new historical material, which is really what I need for my essay. Such material is really only found in his Radical's Diary which ceased in 2007. This diary is a series of posts from his day-to-day life ie. "dropped Jessica at the school gates at 7:55" or "had trouble parking at the barbers". But in amongst all this daily minutiae is tidbits of historical information. I have found a few passages regarding Dresden. The issue here is there any expectation he would maintain historical credibility in what is most appropriately described as a journal of mindless and unconnected thoughts? I am going to say yes because, to be honest, I'm a little bored of reading about the hilarity of his Tahitian holiday with his daughters (he accidentally booked a flight to Haiti instead, "comedy" ensues).

This is one Dresden passage I found:

AS THE day draws on I come across a document which I only half-suspected I might ever find. In 1961, when I was writing my first book "The Destruction of Dresden", I was confidentially approached by a German schoolteacher, Hanns Voigt; he said that after the horrific British air raid, he was put in charge of Dresden's Missing Persons Bureau, Abteilung Tote - the Deceased Section. He built an immense card index, and he kept a diary; and he estimated for me that the final death toll in Dresden would have reached 135,000. This was the figure that I, and after me Kurt Vonnegut and others, always used.

Other city officials gave the same kind of estimates. (Later this year I shall post on my website a full dossier on the Dresden death toll.)

Voigt's estimate was a thorn in the side of both German Governments -- both east and west. They had always played down, even trivialised, the air raid casualty figures caused by the British saturation bombing (even as they hyped the numbers killed in the Jewish tragedy).

Only last year a German Government commission consisting of, not just conformist but kow-towing, line-toeing, bowing-and-scraping historians and Nickeseln, agreed that the death roll in the two hour man-made 1945 holocaust in Dresden was far lower, "only 25,000" (or, if possible, even less).

Without doing any in-depth research -- such scholars are far too important for that -- they relied on the police chief's early March 1945 report (which in fact I was the first to find), because it indicated lower figures than Hanns Voigt's for dead and missing.

In the Deborah Lipstadt Trial, her highly-paid chief expert Professor Richard "Skunky" Evans (left) vilified Voigt; he implied that Voigt was a liar, he questioned whether the Missing Persons bureau had ever existed, and he called him a Nazi with an agenda. (Voigt had, we now know, been given a good post-war position in the Soviet Zone before emigrating legally to the West, so the "Nazi" allegation seems unlikely.) Aping Evans, Mr Justice Gray accused me in his 333-page Judgment of falsifying history.

I was not invited to make any submissions to the Dresden Commission. No surprises there. This afternoon, my quiet patience is rewarded. I have come across this new secret document, signed by the police chief of Dresden, and decoded by the British some weeks after the war.

At 5:55 p.m. on March 24, 1945 -- the day in fact when I turned eight, I remember it vividly -- the Dresden Polizeipräsident reported in code to SS Oberführer Dr. Dietrichs:

Re: Missing Persons Situation in Dresden Air Raid Defence region.

The Lord Mayor of Dresden City has established (a) a Central Bureau for Missing Persons and nine Missing Persons registries; (b) eighty- to one-hundred thousand missing-person notifications are estimated to have been registered so far; (c) 9,720 missing-person notifications have been confirmed as fatalities; (d) to date, information on twenty thousand missing person cases has been given out; (e) accurate statistical data possibly only later.

So Voigt was telling the truth.

Even the "hundred thousand" figure for those reported missing must be an under-estimate. There were over half a million homeless refugees in the streets of Dresden, fleeing the Red Army siege of Breslau to the East. Whole refugee families must have been engulfed by the Dresden holocaust, with nobody surviving to report them as "missing".

Another thing seems brutally clear: those listed as "missing" -- in addition to those bodies formally identified and buried or incinerated by this date -- were never going to return. To use the words of the telegram I found yesterday (see above) they were dead, "carbonised," and unidentifiable.

What do these decoded messages tell us about our own lazy and conformist historians, and about "Skunky" Evans in particular? He, and they, would never have found them. It has taken me these many years. Go the extra mile. Eventually, as this morning's Welshman said, "You will be proved right in the end".

GAH!

I'm feeling like I'm in a bit of a rutt.

So, I've gotten to a point in my essay, and I just don't know where to go.

I've written the stuff on internet theory and Irving's background, but I'm struggling to pinpoint specific issues to analyse.

I might try and sit down with Mr Wright tomorrow and have a chat.

There was no point to this post, just a bit of a whinge and a potential solution.

Over and out.

Struggling!

So I am in the midst of writing my essay, and I've run into a problem. I am up to the point in my essay plan where I analyse three specific blog posts so as to display Irving's selection criteria, material, rhetoric and causation but the question arises, which posts to choose?

My initial thought was to analyse some of his posts about the Lipstadt trial for these reasons:

1. Evans makes mention of them
2. They are full of rhetoric eg. "traditional enemies"
3. I know a bit about the trial

But ....

Is this even history? Given my question is "Evaluate David Irving's use of the internet for historical publication" should I be focusing on an actual historical issue eg. Hitler's knowledge of the 'Final Solution' or Aushwitz instead of his posts about a legal battle?

Any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks everyone :)

The essay keeps on coming

History Extension Report

Evaluate David Irving’s use of the internet for historical publication.

As Dr. Carl Smith writes, “Has the unregulated culture of the Internet made cyberspace a bloated refuge for work of questionable value that otherwise couldn't–and shouldn't–see the light of day? .... Is it possible, in short, to do “serious” history on the web?", this question challenges the very nature of historical publication online. Prominent historical publications such as Trenches on the Web have gained reputation due to their acceptance by the wider historical community, yet lesser known historians, or historians who do not work in a professional context struggle to gain recognition. One such historian is rogue revisionist David Irving, who was shunned from the credible stream of historical publication after his failed libel case against Deborah Lipstadt and connections to the Holocaust denial movement.

The reliability and benefit of digital history is only a modern historical debate, but one which divides the discipline. Some, such as Smith, see it’s merit in presenting historical material on a larger scale than that which is possible in a museum or book. Such a medium saw successful online exhibitions such as the British Museum’s Cleopatra of Egypt: From History to Myth and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian’s Infinity of Nations. These works are both backed by credible institutions, and are interested in a branch of history deemed acceptable by both the historical community and society. Yet the unmonitored nature of the internet leaves room for criticism, as Daniel Cohen and Roy Rozenwig stressed, “With Google now indexing more than eight billion pages, a full qualitative assessment of historical information and writing on the Web is well beyond the ability [of] any person or even team of people.” Yet even Cohen and Rozenwig note the benefits, “A much deeper and denser historical record, especially one in digital form, seems like an incredible opportunity and gift.” The question must be asked however, while established and distinguished institutions such as the British Museum and the Smithsonian may be aiming to add to a corpus of reliable historical information, can Irving be considered to be pursuing a similar path?

David Irving is a British author whose works are primarily concerned with the German perspective of the World War II conflict, especially the involvement of the Third Reich. He began his collection of over thirty works with The Destruction of Dresden (1963) which garnered both critical and historical acclaim, despite it’s anti-Allie standpoint. Yet as his works ventured further from mainstream opinion regarding the events of World War II and entered the territory of Holocaust Denial, as in his 1977 book Hitler’s War wherein he attempted to explain Hitler’s ignorance of the ‘Final Solution’, much of the historical community began to view his work with a sense of skepticism. Jerome De Groot says of Irving, “[He] is in some ways the epitome of the public historian - not part of the academy ... a maverick, looking to a wider public audience rather than the circumscribed elite”. However most historians and historical commentators express a far less romantic view of Irving, Anthony Lewis calling him “a racist faker.” Much of Irving’s widespread opposition is a product of the libel case he brought against Deborah Lipstadt, a prominent academic of Jewish studies, after she referred to him as a “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”, in her book Denying The Holocaust. The trial that proceeded discredited both Irving and his historical method, leaving him little standing in the historical school. This forced him to create his own publishing house, Focal Point Publishing, and he kept an online blog which chronicled not only his interpretation of the legal battle, which spanned a four year period, but also continues presently as a avenue for his assessment of current world events.

Richard Evans, expert witness in the Lipstadt-Irving trial wrote of Irving’s website, “Throughout the trial, Irving posted more or less daily reports on the case on his website. These seldom bore close relationship to what had gone on in court.” Irving currently maintains on his website for Focal Point Publishing, his newsletter Action Report Online, information about his book tours, archives of his blog posts and an online bookstore among a host of other internet facilities. 

^^^ This paragraph will keep on going.

Also my essay has footnotes, but they won't show up?

Planning to have finished a draft by Thursday's lesson.

How does this all look? I think this is where I will start getting into some in depth analysis into Irving's method, rhetoric, selection criteria etc, going to work on it tomorrow during my study periods.

Self-assessment

Feeling quite happy at the moment, feels like its coming along quite well. My sources are coming together, but I feel like maybe I keep repeating the same source, maybe need to expand my horizons in that department. I am thinking of my analysis mostly looking at his chronicling of the trial, as this is an area with which I am very familiar, whereas my knowledge regarding say the bombing of Dresden is a little rougher.

Thanks guys :)

Bit more of my draft done, slowly but surely.

History Extension Report

Evaluate David Irving’s use of the internet for historical publication.

As Dr. Carl Smith writes, “Has the unregulated culture of the Internet made cyberspace a bloated refuge for work of questionable value that otherwise couldn't–and shouldn't–see the light of day? .... Is it possible, in short, to do “serious” history on the web?”, this question challenges the very nature of historical publication online. Prominent historical publications such as Trenches on the Web have gained reputation due to their acceptance by the wider historical community, yet lesser known historians, or historians who do not work in a professional context struggle to gain recognition. One such historian is rogue revisionist David Irving, who was shunned from the credible stream of historical publication after his failed libel case against Deborah Lipstadt and connections to the Holocaust denial movement.

The reliability and benefit of digital history is only a modern historical debate, but one which divides the discipline. Some, such as Smith, see it’s merit in presenting historical material on a larger scale than that which is possible in a museum or book. Such a medium saw successful online exhibitions such as the British Museum’s Cleopatra of Egypt: From History to Myth and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian’s Infinity of Nations . These works are both backed by credible institutions, and are interested in a branch of history deemed acceptable by both the historical community and society. Yet the unmonitored nature of the internet leaves room for criticism, as Daniel Cohen and Roy Rozenwig stressed, “With Google now indexing more than eight billion pages, a full qualitative assessment of historical information and writing on the Web is well beyond the ability [of] any person or even team of people.” Yet even Cohen and Rozenwig note the benefits, “A much deeper and denser historical record, especially one in digital form, seems like an incredible opportunity and gift.” The question must be asked however, while established and distinguished institutions such as the British Museum and the Smithsonian may be aiming to add to a corpus of reliable historical information, can Irving be considered to be pursuing a similar path?

Other bits to include:

Jerome De Groot says of Irving, “[He] is in some ways the epitome of the public historian - not part of the academy ... a maverick, looking to a wider public audience rather than the circumscribed elite” 

Richard Evans - "Throughout the trial, Irving posted more or less daily reports on the case on his website. These seldom bore close relationship to what had gone on in court." (pg 225)

Drafting, drafting, drafting on a river :)

Today I am making a commitment and that commitment is to blog at least once a week.

Today I started my draft.

This is my introduction:

As Dr. Carl Smith writes, “Has the unregulated culture of the Internet made cyberspace a bloated refuge for work of questionable value that otherwise couldn't–and shouldn't–see the light of day? .... Is it possible, in short, to do “serious” history on the web?”, this question challenges the very nature of historical publication online. Prominent historical publications such as Trenches on the Web and Spartacus Educational have gained reputation due to their acceptance by the wider historical community, yet lesser known historians, or historians who do not work in a professional context struggle to gain recognition. One such historian is ‘rogue revisionist’ David Irving, who was shunned from the credible stream of historical publication after his failed libel case against Deborah Lipstadt and connections to the Holocaust denial movement.

It is 147 words that is 5.88% of my final product ... EXCITING!

I also talked to Mr Wright, he said the following things:

- I need a synopsis ... who knew! About 300 words which can act as an introduction of sorts

- That I need to follow this method: Irving's purpose, method, purpose, method

Am going to keep writing my draft now :)