London
David Irving deliberately misrepresented historical evidence and mistranslated documents relating to the Holocaust, a British judge ruled Tuesday here in dismissing a libel action by the independent scholar against Deborah E. Lipstadt, a historian at Emory University.
In a 333-page ruling, Judge Charles Gray said that Ms. Lipstadt and her publishers had proved the statements over which Mr. Irving sued and so were “justified” in their conclusions about Mr. Irving.
In her book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, published in Britain in 1994, Ms. Lipstadt called Mr. Irving a “Holocaust denier.” Using Britain’s tough laws on libel and defamation, Mr. Irving mounted a case against the author and her British publisher, Penguin Books.
After nearly three months of testimony, Judge Gray said Mr. Irving had failed to prove that his reputation had been damaged.
Under British law, Ms. Lipstadt and her publishers had to show they were “justified” in their comments on Mr. Irving, whose books include Hitler’s War and several works of military history that were commended by the judge. The verdict said justification had been proved. The judge said Mr. Irving was “an active Holocaust denier.”
“Irving had for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence,” Judge Gray wrote in his opinion, adding that “for the same reasons, he had portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews.”
During the trial, Mr. Irving admitted that he had taught a young relative racist rhymes and said it was not anti-Semitic to be “critical of the Jews.” He said world Jewish organizations had conspired to bring him down. The court was told that Mr. Irving had attended neo-Nazi rallies in Germany and that the German government had issued a warrant for his arrest for denying the Holocaust, which is an offense in Germany.
On behalf of Ms. Lipstadt and Penguin, a distinguished parade of academic experts from Britain, the United States, Germany, and Israel had wound through the witness box. Total legal expenses, most of which were incurred by the defense, are estimated at $4-million. Under British law, a subsequent legal hearing will assign responsibility for the costs, and those who bring unsuccessful libel suits are typically required to pay all costs.
During the trial, Richard Evans, a professor of modern history at the University of Cambridge and a German specialist, said he had not been prepared for the “sheer depth of duplicity” he had met in studying Mr. Irving’s treatment of historical sources.
Having prepared a 740-page report for the defense, Mr. Evans said during the trial that Mr. Irving had “fallen so far short of the standards of scholarship customary among historians that he does not deserve to be called a historian at all.”
After the verdict, Mr. Irving said at a news conference that he intended to appeal the court’s “perverse” judgment, though he would need to muster funds and win the permission of appellate judges before he could proceed.
Background article from The Chronicle:
For an opinion article by Ms. Lipstadt, see: