The Holocaust on Trial

by D. D. Guttenplan

Overview

The account of a trial in which the very meaning of the Holocaust was put on the stand.

D. D. Guttenplan's The Holocaust on Trial is a bristling courtroom drama where the meaning of history is questioned. The plaintiff is British author David Irving, one of the world's preeminent military historians whose works are considered essential World War II scholarship and whose biographies of leading Nazi figures have been bestsellers. Irving refuses to admit to Hitler's responsibility in the extermination of European Jewry, replying that the Holocaust as we know it never happened. The defendant is Deborah Lipstadt, who blew the whistle on Irving, calling him "one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial." Irving sued for libel, and under English law, it was up to Lipstadt to prove the truth of her writings, and the falseness of Irving's views.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393322927
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	04/17/2002
Pages:	354
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

D. D. Guttenplan, journalist and essayist, lives in London. He has written on the Irving trial for Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, and The Guardian.

Editorial Reviews

When American scholar Deborah Lipstadt denounced British historian David Irving as a right-wing extremist who denigrated the memory of Hitler's Holocaust victims, Irving sued her for libel. Although the suit was pursued in England, where libel laws are weighted heavily toward the plaintiff, Lipstadt welcomed the public airing, and fellow academics, angered by years of Irving's pronouncements, rushed to her support. The trial that followed was, by any standard, a landmark. Lipstadt was required to do nothing less than to prove that hundreds of thousands of Jews had indeed been gassed at Auschwitz. This inside account of the proceedings shows that, however tragic history may be, it must not be buried.

London-based journalist and essayist Guttenplan describes British military historian David Irving's libel suit against American academic Deborah Lipstadt. In her , she accused him of perverting historical evidence to suit his ideological ends of defending Nazi Germany. She also showed that his conclusions were wrong, and that in fact hundreds of thousands of Jews were gassed at Auschwitz. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews