Letters
Versions of history
Sir: I am certainly not going to let Patrick Cosgrave, of all people, lecture me on objectivity, if his review of The War Path is typical of his work (24 June). If we disregard his colourful language ('notorious', 'vicious libel', 'fantasies', 'prejudices') there is little evidence that he has read any of my other books of which he is also so critical.
Take PQ17. Messrs Cassell's and myself are branded 'vicious libellers' for publishing what Vice-Admiral Sir N.E. Denning described to me as a fine history of a convoy operation (I know, I know — his brother, Lord Denning, used rather less flattering language); what does it avail if I point out that six QCs, three firms of solicitors, and co untlessother farmore eminent brains than mine, gave their opinion, after consulting the Admiralty documents which I had used, that probably no libel action against us could ever succeed; you will recall, Sir, that Cassell's and I confidently went on in the same — admittedly naive — belief in our guiltlessness to the Court of Appeal and thereafter to the House of Lords. Had the issues been as clear-cut as Mr Cosgrave suggests by that easy token, 'vicious libel', I do not think the first case would have lasted three weeks, or that any of us would have gone on to such costly legal procedures.
lam not going to rise to his suggestion that I also libelled Sir Winston Churchill. Mr Cosgrave probably knows the definition of libel, and I stand by what I wrote. I too remember A.J.P. Taylor's fine debating point during my televised chat with him last June: but the point which Mr Cosgrave misses, in my view, and which Professor Taylor with his usual wit and charm flannelled round so neatly, is this: we do not expect to find any written order by a prime minister for the elimination of a friend and ally who has become a nuisance; but we do certainly expect to find either a written Fiihrer order or reference to such an order, for the systematic liquidation of the European Jews: after all, all Hitler's other grisly crimes are documented in writing in this way —e.g. the euthanasia order, the liquidation of the Russian commissars and British commandos, and the lynching of allied airmen. The truth is, I suggest, that there is a large criminal stratum in allE urope an nations that is prepared, given the proper conditions and the opportunity, to harass, persecute and even kill Jews. The Holocaust was not the result of one lunatic's order, as people so comfortably believe, and it is time that the Jews faced up squarely to it. For Patrick Cosgrave to claim vaguely, 'actually, the weight of all the circumstantial documentary
evidence is against Mr Irving on this' overlooks one irritating feature of this con troversy: I have publicly and repeatedly offered to pay $1,000 to any person or institution who can produce even one line of explicit ;wartime documentary evidence indicating that Hitler ordered the liqui dation, or was even aware of it while it was going on. And today, fourteen months later, that offer still stands.
David Irving 181 Duke Street, London W1
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