David Irving

David John Cawdell Irving (born March 24, 1938) describes himself as a self-taught historian who, from the late 1960s to the mid-1980s, was a leading British author on World War II with works such as Hitler?s War and The Destruction of Dresden. Irving is also one of the most accomplished and successful proponents of Holocaust denial. In the mid-1980s, he started openly associating with neo-Nazi and extremist groups, and his reputation began to wane. In the late 1990s, he sued the prominent Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt for having listed him as a Holocaust denier in her book Denying the Holocaust. After a much publicized trial, Irving lost the case and was found to be a Holocaust denier by the court.

Persona non grata

By the late 1980s, Irving was barred from entering Austria because of his neo-Nazi ties and hate speech. In the early 1990s, a German court found him guilty of breaking laws forbidding the denial of the Nazi extermination of Jews, and he was subsequently fined and barred from entering Germany. Other governments followed suit. In 1992, he was barred from South Africa and Canada, where he was arrested in November 1992 and deported back to the United Kingdom. In an administrative hearing surrounding those events he was found by the hearing office to have engaged in a ?total fabrication? in telling a story of an exit from and return to Canada which would have, for technical reasons, made the original deportation order invalid. This was not the first time that Irving had been found to be duplicitous during a legal proceeding, concerning his loss in a libel suit against him—nor was it to be the last. He was also barred from entering Australia in 1992, a ban he fought four unsuccessful legal attempts to overturn.

Related Topics:
Austria - Nazi - Germany - 1992 - South Africa - Canada - United Kingdom - Australia

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Early in September 2004, Michael Cullen, the deputy prime minister of New Zealand, announced that Irving would not be permitted to visit the country, where he had been invited by the National Press Club to give a series of lectures under the heading ?The Problems of Writing about World War II in a Free Society.? The National Press Club defended its invitation of Irving, saying that it amounted not to an endorsement of his views, but rather an opportunity to question him. The intended visit provoked an outcry among Jewish groups, who were not appeased by Irving?s promise not to speak about the Holocaust.

Related Topics:
2004 - Michael Cullen - Deputy prime minister - New Zealand - National Press Club - Jewish - The Holocaust

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Irving had visited New Zealand twice before, in the 1980s. His intended 2004 visit was refused on the grounds that he had been convicted of offences by a German court, and that at various times had been deported from, and/or refused entry to, Canada, the United States, Italy, and South Africa. ?Mr Irving is not permitted to enter New Zealand under the Immigration Act because people who have been deported from another country are refused entry,? government spokeswoman Katherine O?Sullivan had told The Press earlier. Irving rejected the ban and attempted to board a Qantas flight for New Zealand from Los Angeles on 17 September, 2004. He was not allowed on board. ?As far as I?m concerned, the legal battle now begins,? he was quoted as saying.

Related Topics:
United States - Italy - The Press - Qantas - Los Angeles - 17 September

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