The History Revisionists and Holocaust Deniers

Many thanks. BTW, your screenname is a Polish version of the name George; are you from Poland?

Yes, I'm from Wroclaw, Poland.

Jerzy

Dear members,
for some time I follow the discussions about Jürgen Friedrichs book not only in this forum and I am becoming increasingly annoyed about the way it is discussed. So maybe it will help if I summarise my personal view on Friedrichs book.
Friedrichs argumentation is based on the thesis that "guild" is always something personal. Especially in British publications guild and moral seems to be more "genetic" than connected to individuals. With the result, that what ever was done on allied side was excused because "after all the Germans started it". The reaction to Friedrichs book in a lot of English speaking newspapers (mirror, daily mail, and the times) seems to me quite typical for this kind of thinking. The question Friedrich raising in his book is: can the mass bombing of a militarily and strategic unimportant town like Pfortsheim (and this town is just one of a list of dozens), in a stage of the war were it is more or less clear that the fighting will only last for no more than a few weeks, be morally right? Especially if it's clear that the victims are just entirely civilians. And why is the bombing of Rotterdam, Bath, and Warshow a war crime, and Dresden, Würzburg and Peenemünde not? Is it just because the killed women and children got the misfortune of having a German citizenship? To make clear: his book is not about denying or revising what Germans have done in the war, its about the question when military action for a good case is turning into something "wrong" and should recognized as such.
Personally I think that the allied bombing in the first stage of the war had still some military use and were therefore legitimate. Where the last phase of the bomb raids was unquestionable just pure revenge. If the aim of military action is to kill as much civilians a possible it can undoubtly be called a crime. And it doesn't matter if its committed in Guernica, Wielun or Dresden

Welcome to A2K, Lars.

And thanks for giving a summary here as your first response on this site!

Not only started but also continued till 1945. What about V-1 and V-2
and the deportations of starving prizoners in Winter 1945. In August
1944 the Germans murdered about 50 000 Warsaw civilians
and later destroied the city without any military reason, to 'punish'
the Poles.

The WWII wasn't a German-British game. Even if you will kiss
each other you are in some way responsible for Communist
rules in Central Europe till 1990, the results of which will be still visible
in 100 years.

Warsaw in English.
I don't know if the bombing of Warsaw in 1939 was a crime,
Warsaw was fighting.
The bombing of Wielun was certainly a crime because there was
no military target in the city and the Luftwaffe destroied
the correctly marked hospital and the city seeing what they
were doing. The book without Wielun (and probably Sulejow)
is less credible for me.

The book is also a media and marketing success.
Now - how many of the hundreds of thousands of readers
who buy the 'We were the victims' story will read something
about the victims of the Nazis, let even German victims of the Nazis?
10 000?

At least Klemperer had different opinion.
Jerzy

Hello Jerzy,
sorry for the delayed answer, but I havened looked in the forum for a longer time. Thanks to your respond, but I don't really get your point: So is guild in your opinion not personal but just genetic? If somebody from a group (or nation) did you wrong it is right to do the same to anybody from the group? Do me this sounds more like biblical blood-revenge than the moral foundations on which the 21 century legal system is (or at least should be) build on. Its also the foundation on which the EU is build on and the reason why most people in France and Germany oppose the war in Iraq.
And by the way: after reading quite a lot of comments from Poland like yours, it increasingly seems to me that the polish sight of history is somewhat restricted on the events in Poland. It also seems that there is a tendency of exclusively seeing Poles as victims and Germans (or Russians) as villains. From my families history I can tell you that this was not the case.
To your quote: Now - how many of the hundreds of thousands of readers
who buy the 'We were the victims' story will read something about the victims of the Nazis, let even German victims of the Nazis? 10 000?
- In Germany it is very much known what happened in the time between 1933 and 1945. It is an important subject in school teached in the university and nearly daily shown on television. And I can promise you, that the absolute majority of people reading Friedrichs book are well aware what caused the bombing in the first place.

I am sorry, mate: but if most polish people think like you, I can't think anything else but that Poland is not quite fit yet for entering the European Union. You see, its not just about money from Brussels, its about a common ethic base as well.

Lars

Bad Poles and good Europeans. The same since ages.

Ulster: IRA + Protestants
Southern Italy: Mafia
Corse: Separationists
Germany: Neonazis

We aren't fit yet, we must train our terrorists and nazis
to become Europeans.

Jerzy

I read the posts from the beginning and must say they are by and large pretty cool for such a hot topic. (hot to handle)
Some comments and observations:

The book about David Irving is called "Lying About Hitler." The author is Richard Evans. David Irving is a historian and a holocaust denier who claimed he was libelled by the historian Deborah Lipstadt. She accused him of falsification and manipulation of the historical record.

Back to the trial in a moment.

David Irving wrote about forty history books. His most famous book is "The Bombing of Dresden." He claimed that 250,000 civilians were killed in the bombing of Dresden. One of the chapters of Richard Evan's book deals with that claim. Now, Evans was appointed to be the "expert witness" for the libel trial and he spent two years preparing for the trial.

German historians generally accept a much lower death count from the bombing -- about 35,000. Evans says it is odious to debate the issue.
Here's the wild card! The best way of dealing with Irving's version of the destruction of Dresden was found in 1985 by his German publishers, who appended to the title page of Irvng's book (The Destruction of Dresden) a little description, "a novel."

Irving lost his libel suit and the trial utterly destroyed his reputation as a genuine historian.

Nontheless, the killing of about 35,000 people in a hellish bombing is horrible enough and does not need hyperbole to make it so.

David Irving lost his libel suit against Lipstadt.