Do you think David Irving is the most hated historian ever?

Answer 1

Not at all. Is there a particular reason he should be so hated? Does he write revisionist history??

Chow!!

Answer 2

Hello,

His big problem was getting involved with the holocaust deniers like Zundel and others. which is a crime in a few European countries; Germany and Austria.
I do not like history revisionsits on any particular agenda but would rather see people judge a society by standards and knowledge of their times, not ours.

To me Irving has been playing the Devil's advocate and getting into the heads of the nazi minds and their sympathizers and trying to discuss the war from their perspective. I wish all historians would do just that when writing about characters good or imfamous from Julius Caesar to Tamerlane. He gets a big thumbs up from me here!

On the other hand many historians have criticized his methods, figures, sources etc saying he distorts the truth, inflates his figures has questionable methods of research etc. I am not a historian and not qualified to do critiques at these academic levels but if this is true, I'd give him a thumbs down in that department.

Be that as it may, like many controversial figures he certainly is hated by many yet loved by others; especially in Germany outside the confines of the courts.

Cheers,

Michael Kelly

Answer 3

He should be.

He deliberately over stated the death figures for the Dresden raids by a factor of ten, at a time when most of the German officials involved in the aftermath of the raids were still alive. (although in East Germany, and - as he thought - out of sight and out of mind.)

People such as the following:

The Police chief who organised the search teams who went through the ruins, and who matched the victims to the street registry books.

The Superintendent of Dresden's main cemetery who buried the victims, and kept records of everything he did.

Instead he publicised a figure made up by an SS officer for propaganda purposes, which was almost immediately disowned by the Nazi authorities in Berlin, as being likely to discredit their normal propaganda.

Irving did this because he was keen to depict the allies in World War II as the evil aggressors of the Germans. He preferred to use propaganda spread by the East German Communists and the Neo Nazis, and malign the memories of those who died in their hundreds of thousands freeing Europe.

Answer 4

No.I found his works interesting by a hand, by other hand.....