Friday, March 14, 2008

Irving at Bletchley Park Lecture

David Irving showed up at a lecture on the Bletchley Park intercepts, the British successful effort to break the German codes and its uncovering of a telegram sent to Eichmann regarding the fact that hundreds of thousands of people were being "processed" at Treblinka, Sobibor, Lublin, and Belzec.

Irving says this material proves that Jews were being murdered at these camps.

When a reporter asked Irving about his views on the Holocaust, the following occurred:
After the meeting, the reporter asked Mr Irving about his views on the document and the holocaust. Mr Irving said he has to be careful what he says as free speech is under threat and he was nearly jailed for 20 years in Austria.
Irving's claim that he had "to be careful" is ridiculous and an attempt to cast himself as a martyr. No one can prosecute him for what he says in England.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Basically I have found that I’m not allowed to post here anyway for reasons that elude me but on the whole issue of Bletchley Park and the holocaust there are a couple of points that I’m afraid make the murderous anti-semitic Poles look not so bad.

Firstly you describe the “British successful effort to break the German codes”. Well without the oft ignored headstart given to them by the Poles the British would have struggled to get anywhere. Furthermore Polish cryptographers subsequently broke around 43% of the German code that was de-crypted.

As for the allies not revealing that they knew about the holocaust when reading the telegram well this might have been justified – they could not let the Nazis know that they were reading their codes. However they did not need to worry about that – the evil anti-semitic Polish government in exile had already broadcast about the holocaust based on information they had independently received from the Polish courier Jan Karski.

As for David Irving, I realise he played a big part in your life but basically he is a publicity seeking self-contradictory celebrity and an irrelevance. I’m sorry but for most of us we don’t care.

Don’t know why I bother attempting to post here but it gets it off my chest......

FAIIRPLAY said...

The Bletchley Code Breaker telegram interecept/s, coincide with that of the Korherr Report/s to Himmler, which openly admitted that the reductions in the Jewish population were caused by Nazi policy.

David Irving chose to disguise the killings by saying that the Jewish population had fled into Russia, and had not been killed'. Part of the Irving trial Court transcript cover this point: [the following is a brief synopsis from 4 pages of Court transcript] ]

MR IRVING: My Lord, I am unhappy about this introduction
Of documents in this way when I have no chance to re-examine on them.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You will be offered the opportunity to
Follow up any new points, but this is entirely legitimate re-examination.

MR RAMPTON QC: Indeed. It arises, if I may say so, in relation to what information Hitler was being given, about [the killings] ... and arises in relation to the disappearing Jews that [Irving claims] ran [away] across the Urals.

Link: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day017.21

Link: http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/2007/04/richard-i-didnt-know-korherr.html

One needs to remember that Irving knew full well of the importance of German statistician Dr. Richard Korherr, who is known for his statistical reports [delivered to Himmler] about "The Final Solution of the European Jewish Question". The English translation can be found on the RODOH thread (posts nos. 8594, "long" version, and 8595, "short" version. The "long" version, with 16 pages, was for the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, while the "short" version, with 7 pages, was for Hitler himself.

Footnote: The Korherr Reports are considered important documents for historical research about their subject matter, the "Final Solution of the European Jewish Question". Dr. Korherr was an actuary, employed by Himmler to compile a balance-sheet from the resettlement lists as kept in Eichmann’s office. He described himself [then] as ‘Inspector for Statistics to the Reichsführer SS’. Dr. Korherr concluded: Since the seizure of power, the number of Jews in Europe, which was over ten million in 1933, has been halved; the decline of over-four million is due to German influence.’ Richard Korherr sent detailed reports to Himmler on the progress of the exterminations being carried out, and Himmler took these reports to Hitler personally, so they could discuss the genocide taking place and the number of Jews killed.

* The Poles did play an important part in getting infornation to Bletchley and one wonders how many Polish subjects worked there during the war.

hockey hound said...

"I’m sorry but for most of us we don’t care."

Imagine how much safer the world would be if only "most of us" really did care. You are disjointed from reality.

Unknown said...

According to the following article, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE3DF143EF930A25754C0A965958260 "Capt. Eric Nave, an Australian who broke Japanese codes for Britain during World War II" died in June 1993.

Anonymous said...

I'm no more claiming that as my real name than Hockey hound or Faiirplay....

But an interesting character. I'm glad I enticed someone to look him up.

David Lieberman said...

ericnave said, "Don’t know why I bother attempting to post here but it gets it off my chest......"

So I'm confused. Why do you spend your time looking at web sites devoted to issues you don't care about? Is there really so little content out there that interests you, or have you so thoroughly exhausted the possibilities the internet has to offer that you're left with no other pastime than to randomly visit sites that bore you?
And if you don't care, why should you feel the to get something off your chest?

And why, by the way, should people who read this site because the issues discussed here are of interests to them care whether or not you care?

David Lieberman

Anonymous said...

Bletchley Park interests me. The reason for my aggressive tone in the first post was because on other occasions on this blog my posts have been blocked. That is Deborah's right but rather annoying when you don’t know why. (and I doubt she could claim my posts were anti-semitic in case you’re wondering).

The main reason for posting was to point the omission of Polish when talking about de-coding efforts. I would have done so more politely had previous posts not been blocked and if indeed I really expected her to allow my post.

The reason for needing to get it off my chest was to see her review of “Fear” and then this accidental (or otherwise) omission . Normally I would not have even mentioned David Irving but ok I got carried away.

s.Manowitz said...

Point one:I'm a great admirer of Prof. Lipstadt work and found the "History on Trial" book very moving.
Point two:In the Lipstadt blog on Bletchley ,I did want to point out what I think is a typo.This accidental mistake changes the meaning in an important way if I'm correct.Line5 in the blog summary states"Irving says this material proves that Jews were being murdered ...."Surely the word "not' is missing?Sydney