Blaming the Jews

Already in Hitler's War Irving implied that Hitler's harsh instructions in regard to the evacuation of the Jews eastwards stemmed from his confidence that the Jews would be one of Germany's most determined and dangerous enemies in the forthcoming war. Irving claimed that Hitler's determination to forestall this danger was considerably influenced by a letter from Chaim Weizmann to Neville Chamberlain, published in The Times in September 1939. Weizmann's proclamation that the Jews would stand by the democracies against Nazi Germany, was considered by Hitler as "a Jewish declaration of war."⁵³ The allegation that world Jewry had declared war on Germany and had forced other nations to join, in revenge for Germany's anti-Jewish policy, originated in extreme right-wing and Nazi propaganda before the war. After the war it was raised both in Europe and in the United States by Nazi apologists and revisionists, as well as by Holocaust deniers. In 1974, a few years before Hitler's War, it was brought up again by Richard Harwood (aka Richard Verrall), a leading extreme right activist in Britain, in his well-known and influential Holocaust denial pamphlet Did Six Million Really Die?⁵⁴

By attaching disproportionate importance to Weizmann's statement,⁵⁵ Irving tried to reason that Hitler's hostility toward the Jews stemmed from a deep and not unrealistic fear, based on an actual threat made by the Jews prior to the war. Accordingly, Irving led the reader to speculate that if the Jewish leader had not "declared war" on Germany, Hitler would not have adopted harsh measures against the Jews, such as the deportations, which were escalated later by his subordinates to annihilation. Years after he had raised his concept of "Weizmann's provocation," Irving elaborated this thesis -- or possibly revealed thoughts that at the end of the 1970s he had preferred not to disclose. In 1992, at the eleventh conference of the IHR, he used Eichmann's memoirs to imply that as part of its strategic plan, the Zionist movement sought to motivate the Nazis to adopt an extremist policy against the Jewish population.⁵⁶ The alleged causal link between Weizmann's declaration and "preventive" measures taken by Hitler was adopted in the late 1980s by the German historian Ernst Nolte,⁵⁷ as well as by Nazi apologists and Holocaust deniers.⁵⁸

Another significant example of the link made by Irving between world Jewry's alleged threat of war against Germany and Hitler's decision to escalate the anti-Jewish measures was Hitler's meeting with the Hungarian regent Mikllos Horty in April 1943. Irving could not disregard the murderous language that Hitler used in that meeting concerning the fate of the Jews; he claimed, however, that Hitler was deeply influenced by the Allied bombing of German cities. Documents and target maps found at bomb sites, Irving wrote, proved that British aircrews were instructed to aim only at residential areas, convincing Hitler that this was mainly the Jews' retaliation.⁵⁹ Again, the fact that Irving refrained from any comment, left the impression that Hitler's belief might have been realistic.⁶⁰ It should be noted that years before the publication of Hitler's War, Irving had already raised the possibility that Jewish pressure had been one of the main factors behind the Allied decision to bomb and devastate German cities. In 1961, during his research "into the causation of the bombing of Dresden," Irving wrote provocative letters concerning alleged Jewish involvement in this operation to the curator of the Wiener Library. Based on dubious German testimony, he requested confirmation of the claim that the World Jewish Congress had demanded the liquidation of Dresden in reprisal for the crushing of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and the destruction of the ghetto.⁶¹

Irving denies unequivocally the allegation that he is an antisemite.⁶² However, his antisemitic attitude, and especially his strong belief in a Jewish conspiracy ("our traditional enemies"⁶³) in general, and its role in the "myth of the Holocaust" in particular, are well reflected in some of his books, articles and speeches.⁶⁴ Irving's book Uprising, about the 1956 Hungarian uprising, can serve as an example of his antisemitic outlook. In this book, described by the historian Bela Vago as an "anti Jewish historic forgery,"⁶⁵ Irving claimed that the testimonies and documents he had found proved undoubtedly that the Hungarian uprising was not directed against the Soviet Union and the communist system, but against what the rebels perceived as Jewish domination of Hungary.⁶⁶

The "Jewish conspiracy notion," the "myth of the Holocaust" and the revisionist theories presented by Irving over the years were integrated into a complete thesis: Contrary to British global interests, Churchill, paid and influenced by the Jews,⁶⁷ refused any compromise with Germany. The Holocaust myth was inflated by British intelligence to serve as a "moral alibi" for Churchill's disastrous decision to confront Germany to the bitter end.⁶⁸ To conclude in Irving's own words, in a speech he made at Dresden's Palace of Culture in February 1990:

The Holocaust suffered by the Germans in Dresden was real. The one against the Jews in the gas chambers of Auschwitz is complete fiction.⁶⁹

  Dr. Roni Stauber is the coordinator of the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University