Irving’s net gain

You might have hoped you’d heard the last of David Irving, says Carole Cadwalladr in The Observer. In 2000, the British historian lost a landmark libel case against Penguin, which had published a book by Deborah Lipstadt accusing him of being a Holocaust denier. The judge concluded that Irving was indeed a racist and anti-semite, peddling lies about the Holocaust. His academic reputation was shattered, and his legal costs left him bankrupt. Yet some 16 years on, Irving is enjoying an alarming renaissance. “Interest in my work has risen exponentially in the last two or three years,” he boasts. “And it’s mostly young people. I’m getting messages from 14-, 15-, 16-year-olds in America. They get in touch because they want to find out the truth about Hitler and the Second World War.” His fans also send donations: Irving, 78, now drives a Rolls-royce and lives in a 40-room mansion in Scotland, thanks to the largesse of his admirers.

All this has been made possible by the internet – the perfect platform for spreading lies, conspiracy theories and anti-semitic hatred. Of course, Irving sees it rather differently. “History evolves. The truth about the Holocaust is gradually coming out. There’s a general feeling among people out there that they are being misled. The people I’ve called the traditional enemy [Irving’s term for Jews] are very worried about this phenomenon. They don’t have a handle on it. Newspapers are dying. And the internet is suddenly there. And they don’t have an answer for it. It’s like some ugly weed they don’t know how to deal with. Eventually they will hack it down, but by then it may be too late.”