Deborah Lipstadt is calling for David Irving (see left) to be released from prison in Austria. Given that Irving, unsuccesfully, sued her for libel (and provided superb proof of the adage that 'he who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client'), I'd bet that Professor Lipstadt was probably deeply amused at this turn of events. The website where I found this photo has an interesting article about Irving.
7 comments:
The website you link to is a hatchet-job on Irving intended for the legions of "monkey sees - monkey does" posters helping to wreck Irving's reputation. The site is composed only of three pages sequentially linked, not visibly integrated in any wider context:
http://www.davidirving.8m.com/
The author of the text, obviously intended on destroying Irving's reputation, signs as "Dr. Karl Kolcheck". This is apparently either one of the myriad pseudonyms of the falsifier that also uses the name of "Peter Stahl" or the name of someone associated with him. Consider the following quote from Germar Rudolf, who, unfortunately, seems to have placed some trust in Stahl:
http://www.vho.org/GB/c/GR/StahlDouglas.html#ftnref45
"A charge which is frequently made against Stahl is that he writes under various pseudonyms; and whoever has read this far is already acquainted with several of these: Gregory Douglas, Freiherr von Mollendorf, Mike Hunt, Friederich Hasek. We can also add names from the website where articles as well as extracts from controversial documents have been published, which allegedly came from the private files of Robert T. Crowley. Formerly an assistant director of the CIA, Crowley died in October 2000. Stahl has repeatedly stated that he possessed these documents and had posted them on his website. The names appearing there are: Walter Storch,[33] Karl Kolcheck,[34] George S. MacAlister.[35].[...]"
[...]
"Stahl's eternal game of hiding behind infinite pseudonyms is getting ridiculous. If he can bring himself to publish all his writings under the name of Gregory Douglas and stay on the trail he has blazed for himself, it will be a very welcome development. It is simply ridiculous for him to try to hide behind the narrow back of his son when he cannot resist constantly identifying himself."
[...]
"Stahl has a terrible reputation for dealing ruthlessly with those who make his life difficult. He has ways of ruining their economic and social lives by means which are legal and yet very effective. As a trained secret agent with many influential connections he has both the abilities and opportunities to do this. He seems to derive real pleasure from carrying on private feuds."
Now see the following excerpt from Mark Weber on the subject of the "Gestapo Müller" forgeries.
"The man who crafted this series of books is a known fabricator of documents who has used a variety of names over the years, including Peter Stahl, Samuel Prescot Bush, and Freiherr Von Mollendorf. His real name, apparently, is Peter Norton Birch or Peter Norwood Burch.
"His son, with whom I have also spoken, sometimes fronts for his father as the author of the Gestapo Chief books. For more than a year the son has been living and working in Rockford, Illinois, under the name Gregory Douglas Alford. He is also a former staff writer for the Sun-Star newspaper of Merced, California, and the Journal-Standard of Freeport, Illinois. Apparently he has sometimes used the name Gregg Stahl.
"David Irving, who is probably more familiar with wartime German documents than any other living historian, dismisses Gestapo Chief as "a carefully crafted historical novel." Some years ago, Irving says, "Peter Stahl" tried to sell him forged documents. Another British historian, John Costello (author of Ten Days to Destiny and other works), whom I knew rather well until his death in August 1995, told me that Douglas/Stahl similarly tried to sell him wartime documents of dubious authenticity.
"Perhaps the most obviously suspect feature of the Gestapo Chief series is that the author will not permit any independent examination of his "original" documents. (To be sure, not all the documents he presents are fraudulent. To add credibility to his book, "Douglas" includes, among his forgeries, a number of indisputably authentic wartime documents.)
"During one telephone conversation, "Douglas" told me with some pride that his book would soon be coming out in German, and that the 1948 Müller interrogations were being translated into German. But how, I asked, was that possible, given that (as Gestapo Chief readers are told) these interrogations took place in German and the "original" transcripts are already in German. The normally suave and loquacious "Douglas" was at a loss for words.
"Characteristic of this entire series is the clearly fraudulent "facsimile document" of April 20, 1945, presented on page 275 of Gestapo Chief. This is actually the author's second, "corrected" version. The first appeared with an article he wrote for the spring 1990 issue of The Military Advisor, a magazine issued by the same firm that publishes Gestapo Chief. But whereas the "SS" characters are rendered in this earlier "facsimile" as normal typescript letters, they are rendered in Gestapo Chief as "lightning bolt" runes.
"How did these amazing documents come into the author's possession? In Gestapo Chief, the first volume of the series, "Douglas" tells the reader that "In the early 1980s, by means that are not of concern here, all of Müller's personal files came into private hands." Later "Douglas" claimed that Müller personally gave him these extraordinary documents (Spotlight, Jan. 6, 1997). In another Spotlight interview (Nov. 9, 1998), "Douglas" claimed to have met Müller in 1963, and to have known him well until his death in 1983. Remarkably, no mention of this twenty-year relationship appears in volume one of Gestapo Chief.
"To credit Douglas' fantastic yarns requires one to accept that Hitler's personal and political testaments of April 29, 1945, are phony, and that all those who were with him in the final days in the Berlin bunker, and who survived the war, conspired for decades in a lie to hide the German leader's escape to Spain. These persons include Hans Baur, Hitler' pilot; Traudl Junge, the secretary who typed Hitler's final testament; the pilot Hanna Reitsch; Otto Günsche, Hitler's personal adjutant, who carried the body of Eva Braun from the bunker up to the courtyard where it was burned; Erich Kempka, the chauffeur who helped burn the bodies of Hitler and his wife; Heinz Linge, Hitler's valet; and Artur Axmann, the Hitler Youth leader (Linge and Axmann later testified to having seen Hitler's corpse). Some of these witnesses were questioned by British historians Hugh Trevor-Roper and David Irving; others, during Soviet captivity, by the Russians. Their stories tally.
"Finally, it is utterly implausible to believe that Hitler would have vanished without trace after arriving in Spain, and that not a single one of the many persons who would have noticed his arrival there has ever spoken of it.
"How has "Douglas" gotten away with his fraud? One important factor has been the unwavering support he's received for years from Willis Carto. In spite of repeated warnings that "Douglas" is a liar and that his Gestapo Chief books are frauds, Carto has steadfastly promoted "Douglas" and his books in two periodicals he controls: The Spotlight, the weekly Liberty Lobby tabloid, and The Barnes Review, a bi-monthly history magazine.
"For years Carto has promoted and offered for sale the Gestapo Chief series through the Barnes Review book club. He has arranged for publication of numerous articles by and interviews with "Gregory Douglas." Typical is a Spotlight interview (Jan. 5-12, 1998) headlined "Establishment Can't Keep Lid on Blockbuster Gestapo Books." Another uncritical interview with "Douglas" appeared in the April 1997 Barnes Review. A few months later, the November 1997 issue of The Barnes Review featured a laudatory review of the second Gestapo Chief volume. Written by veteran Spotlight staff writer Fred Blahut, it assures readers that "Douglas proves, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Muller did, indeed, survive [the war] and was, in fact, interrogated by the CIA. Following these extensive sessions, he was employed and moved to Washington ... He was a key player in the Cold War ... Douglas presents the facts and lets the chips fall where they may."
"Gestapo Chief is a fraud nearly as audacious as the notorious "Hitler Diaries" hoax of 1983. For those who care about accurate and honest historiography, the case of Gestapo Chief is an instructive one."
Sorry, I forgot to include the link to the article by Mark Weber that I was quoting. Here it is:
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v20/v20n2p40_Douglas.html
And the IHR is a credible source? Do tell!
Indeed, Mark Weber is a longtime National Socialist, once a member of the NSDAP/AO of Gary Lauck and William Pierce's National Alliance.
These are hardly unbiased observers. They are dyed-in-the-wool Jew-haters who should be ignored.
Anonymous cowards posting in their defense do little to help their credibility.
a.m.
You're absolutely correct, Andrew.
hey Andrew,
"Indeed, Mark Weber is a longtime National Socialist, once a member of the NSDAP/AO of Gary Lauck and William Pierce's National Alliance."
-don't start off the discussion with the guilty presumption on National Socialists. I don't care whether Mark Weber was or wasn't National Socialist. I care whether he is right or not.
"These are hardly unbiased observers"
-come with arguments form the other side to "unbias" it
"They are dyed-in-the-wool Jew-haters who should be ignored."
-Why are Jews hated, for doing good deeds? Do you know even in Bible Jews consider themselves a superior race, and the other people at animal level? Make good deeds if you want to be treated good.
Well, I just got here from STARTING to read 'Kolchek's' piece. I have two observations.
First, whatever Irving's flaws as a historian (and he does have flaws), he looks pretty good in comparison to his critics. 'Kolchek' unconsciously illustrates this point rather well.
Second, I can't resist remarking on 'Kolchek's' claim that 'A fair number of Irving's works could have been found, in palmier days, in many major, and some minor, public and academic libraries but as he has diminished in an accelerated fashion, these books have been removed from the shelves in increasing numbers.'
Sorry to disappoint, but the academic library I patronize still has most of Irving's works on its shelves. Make of that what you will.
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