Customer Reviews

The Holocaust on Trial

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Over Christmas I took this book and "Lying about Hitler " by Professor Richard J Evans with me to read whilst on vacation. I also had with me a copy of the judgment delivered by Justice Charles Gray in the case: "Irving v Lipstadt and ano." Whilst on vacation, other members of my household " looking for something to read " picked out this book for perusal. As a result I now find that most of my library on the Holocaust has disappeared and I have had a number of rivetting discussions with younger members of my household who have become interested in the Holocaust as a consequence of reading this book.

It is important to acknowledge what this book is not. I suspect the book has been deliberately called " The Holocaust on Trial" rather than " The David Irving Trial". Whilst much of the book provides an entertaining description about the David Irving trial the book does not investigate the primary source material of the trial itself. American readers may not be familiar with a tradition of English trial reporting as in such series as Notable British Trials . In those books extracts from the transcripts, speeches by Counsel and final judgment are reproduced. You will not find that type of detailed treatment here. What you will find, however, is sufficient information for the lay reader to understand the issues that were involved with the trial.

What the book does provide, however, are thought provoking questions about the Holocaust, about the study of history and the application of the law to resolve complex historical disputes. These questions, which must have been formulated by the author after much thought and research, are in my view the great strengths of the work.

One of the earlier reviewers suggested that the David Irving trial will not be relevant in 10 years time. That might be so but I suspect that the questions asked by Mr Guttenplan will remain relevant a century from now.

Another reviewer was critical that Mr Guttenplan did not deal more extensively with the questions raised. The author has been careful to identify the origins of his questions. If the reader so desires the reader can investigate further using the information the author has provided.

The other members of my household who have also read "Lying about Hitler" by Richard Evans and "The case for Auschwitz" by van Pelt have nominated this book to be the best of the three. This book therefore appears to be a good entree for the novice to understand the issues involved with the Holocaust debate and the David Irving trial.

What I admire most about the author is his courage in acknowledging that some sections of the Jewish community have exploited for their own purposes the memory of the Holocaust. One rarely sees comments like this committed to print.

A test I sometimes use to rate a book is to ask myself: `would I ask the author to a dinner party - is the author that interesting ?' In this case the answer would be a resounding yes!

IRVING v. PENGUIN and LIPSTADT (2000) was a remarkable law suit, pitting Holocaust denier David Irving against the noted scholar Deborah Lipstadt (author of DENYING THE TRUTH) and her publisher. Under the British law of libel, Irving could force Lipstadt and Penguin to prove the truth of their claims that he was a Holocaust denier who distorted history in the service of his racist agenda, instead of a respected historian who dared to take a revisionist view of Hitler's responsibility -- or lack of responsibility -- for the Holocaust.

The story that D.D. Guttenplan tells is often informative and occasionally riveting, but unfortunately it does little more than what you'd get from a thorough journalistic account of the case, which is what this book originally was. Guttenplan does not do an adequate job of assessing the phenomenon of Holocaust denial -- or of the laws that several European nations and Canada have passed making Holocaust denial a crime. He is usually good on the cut-and-thrust of the trial, but, having actually read Judge Charles Gray's mammoth and devastating opinion, I wish that Guttenplan either had given more room to analyzing it or had reprinted it as an appendix for the reader.

In sum, there are other, better books on the phenomenon of Holocaust denial, and I regret that this book was not better.

-- R.B. Bernstein, Adjunct Professor of Law, New York Law School

For those who like gripping court dramas that touch on historiography, epistemology, WWII history, and politics, D.D. Guttenplan has written your kind of book. "Holocaust on Trial," is a 'gavel to gavel' account of the David Irving v. Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Book Co. trial.

Irving, a non-PhD'd historian, writes books purporting to show that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz, that far fewer Jews died there than is thought, and that Hitler had no knowledge of the 'final solution to the Jewish question.' Lipstadt is an Emory University professor of Jewish Studies who wrote a book, called "Denying the Holocaust," in which she brands Irving as a 'dangerous' holocuast denier. Upon the release of Lipstadt's book Irving sued Lipstadt for libel in his home country of England where the libel laws are such that (contra US law) it is the defendent that must prove that libel did NOT occur and that everything she said was accurate. Thus, to show that she didn't libel Irving, Lipstadt must show that everything she writes about him is accurate. In order to do that, she has to, in a court of law, prove that the holocaust happened the way most historians believe - gas chambers and all. And, she must prove that Irving knowingly distorted evidence to arrive at a contrary conclusion.

Guttenplan's book does a good job recounting the trial with journalistic detail. We get a good feel for who David Irving (who argued his case himself) and who the defendants are (though as Lipstadt doesn't speak at all in the trial, she is certainly the most absent of the characters). We get a good feel for the grave stakes each side is playing for. Should the defense lose, shock waves will flow through the entire historical community, who are watching with baited breath. Should the prosecution lose, Irving will prove himself to be a historical quack. This book does well at painting the picture of a tense, yet spectacular, trial.

While Guttenplan tries to be journalistically objective, never dismissing Irving as may be tempting, he certainly doesn't get a good impression of Irving. (Of course, Guttenplan is also quick to point out that just as Irving is not a PhD'd historian, neither is Lipstadt, who's PhD is in Jewish Studies.) Even readers who don't know how the real trial ended are likely to get the continual feeling that Irving is to be outmatched. In this sense, the book is anti-climactic; but just like watching "Titanic," the fun is not in finding out how it ends, but in finding out how it gets there. Basically, Lipstadt wins and exposes Irving as a fraudulent historian with questionable motives and you, the reader, get to see how she pulled it off!

Other readers have noted that this book is long on journalism, and short on philosophical rumination. What is proper historiography? How much of history is evidence and how much is inference? How do we know what 'historical truth' is anyhow? None of these questions are discussed at any length. If that is what you want, Deborah Lipstadt and Richard Evans (a historian the defense used to debunk Irving's historical claims) both have books out that touch on these questions. This book is the journalism; not the philosophy.

Anyhow, this is a very solid book about a tial all of Britian was watching (oddly, it got little publicity in the states). For those concerned with history and the mechanisms by which historians tell the good from the bogus, this is a book worth reading and thinking about.

D.D. Guttenplan's book on the David Irving's lawsuit against Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt proves to be a well written account of this trial where Irving lost his reputation as a respected military historian and gained a new one as an racist, anti-Semitic and a neo-Nazi. This is one major trade-off for any one individual. Mr. Guttenplan's book of the trial provides a clear and easy to followed account of the trial through its many issues and personalities.

However, where Mr. Guttenplan goes wrong in this book was when he insert his own personal opinions on books and issues that were discussed and argued over during the trial. To be real, we readers are not interested in Mr. Guttenplan's opinions on these matter although he inserted it anyway. This colored the writing of the trial. This proves to be an contradiction to the general theme of the book where the author does his best to sound "neutral" when reaccounting the trial.

It would also help if Mr. Guttenplan included some photos of the main characters of this trial as well as some diagrams of some of the areas of dispute. (Like Irving's claims that gas chambers were actually "air raid shelters"....!!??!)

Overall, not a bad book but it could have been better.

D.D. Guttenplan's "The Holocaust On Trial" is an insightful and well-written account of the David Irving--Deborah Lipstadt libel case. The story of the trial would be reason enough to buy the book--this is one of the best descriptions of a real-life legal proceeding that I have ever read. Guttenplan has a good reporter's ability to bring the setting and personalities to life so that the inherent drama of the trial holds the reader's interest throughout.

But of course, this was no ordinary trial. Irving is the author of several books about World War II that some reputable historians have praised. He has long argued that while some "atrocities" were inflicted on Europe's Jews (as they were also visited upon Germans), Hitler did not order any genocide of Jews and Jews were not systematically gassed at Auschwitz. When American scholar Deboral Lipstadt called Irving "one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial," Irving sued Lipstadt for libel in England, where libel plaintiffs enjoy many advantages. Lipstadt and her publisher were forced to spend millions of dollars in a high-risk effort to prove that Irving was a liar and not just a historian with controversial views.

It is here that "The Holocaust On Trial" becomes much more than another good book about an interesting lawsuit with intriguing characters. As Guttenplan explains so well, the trial raised profound questions about the meaning of history and the ways in which the Holocaust has been remembered and understood as well as the ways in which it has been misrepresented and exploited.

It is a remarkable accomplishment that Guttenplan has compelling and thoughtful insights into the Holocaust-- a subject that on the one the one hand is so enormous and profound as to defy representation, and on the other hand has been so written about, depicted and analyzed that one picks up another book wondering if anything new can be said.

"The Holocaust On Trial" meets that exacting test on many levels--as a chronicle of a compelling courtroom drama, but more importantly as a meditation on the enduring impact the Holocaust has had on our culture. I was particularly impressed by Guttenplan's sense of the humanity of the Jewish victims of the genocide and his ability to make the reader appreciate them as human beings rather than abstractions.

We honor the victims of the Holocaust above all by remembering what happened with unsparing honesty. "The Holocaust On Trial" eloquently demonstrates that this difficult goal is a moral imperative. It is a valuable contribution to the literature of the Holocaust and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in historical truth and the sacrifices that are sometimes required in the service of that truth.

This book is a very well written account of the trial which decimated David Irving and helped to fight against the growing threat of Holocaust denial. Overall, the book keeps you "in the middle of it all," as if you are really there, which makes for a very good read. He gives an excellent amount of background into all the important characters so you feel like you know them while you read. He uses metaphors often to help the reader understand what the trial seemed like from the spectator's point of view. My only reservation is that there are definitely a few ways in which the book could have been improved.

D. D. Guttenplan did an excellent job of recounting the story in a journalistic style, using as little personal opinion as possible and making it clear when he does include his own beliefs. The only problem with this is that he accomplished the task almost too well, which makes the story a little boring at times. Sometimes it is only the desire to know more that keeps you turning the pages. Guttenplan also did not do a very good job of explaining the historical background. For someone who is reading the book without any previous knowledge of the Holocaust, especially about the people involved, it can be easy to be confused by the sheer number of characters and historical figures that play a role in the trial and the period in history with which it was concerned. Finally, when dealing with the trial proceedings themselves, Guttenplan uses ellipses a lot, almost too much. It's hard to read the conversations shared between Irving, the expert witnesses, and Richard Rampton, the defense attorney and see so many ellipses and not feel like you're missing something (However, I wouldn't recommend looking for the transcript from the trial, the book says it's several hundred pages long).

Despite these weaknesses, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Holocaust history or the Holocaust denial movement (I myself picked up the book while doing research for a paper on the dangers of Holocaust denial). Guttenplan is obviously concerned about the "revisionist history" movement that David Irving represents. Throughout the book he makes blatantly obvious the methods used by David Irving to bend the truth to suit his needs. And, to wrap up the book, he spends the last chapter by reinforcing the point that David Irving is only the tip of the iceberg. He makes it clear that the trial was not the end of the Holocaust debate, but merely one incident in a struggle against ignorance that does not apply only to Jews and Holocaust, but to anyone who takes pride in their history. For this reason, this eye-opening book is well worth the read, even if you're not a history buff.

...BR>Mr. Guttenplan is a very good writer and he manages to actually bring the reader into the trial, and compels you to keep reading, almost by a sheer force of will. His writing style is very dramatic and extremely vivid. Most importantly since this book is about a REAL trial, he is about as fair and detached as one could be considering the subject and the despicable nature of David Irving. Mr. Guttenplan goes out of his way, almost as if he doesn't want to be the next person hauled into court, to be very fair and give the pseudo-historian David Irving the benefit of the doubt. Make no mistake, he finds Irving repellant and his position on the holocaust abhorrent and unconvincing. Despite this he tries to be fair, and he does a good job.
If people like history mixed with some flair, some drama, and some excellently written plot devices, you will love this book and actually LEARN something!!
I read it in 4 days, and I was thinking about it when I wasn't reading the book. It will stay with you. Despite his misguided introduction on the nature of history and his questionable conclusion on the same subject, the trial part (over 90% of the book) is fabulous.

Guttenplan writes a fair and thoroughly readable account of the Libel trial that smashed David Irvings's already shaken professional reputation. _The Holocaust on Trial_ exposes Irving as a shoddy historian with a malicious and myopic anti-Semitic agenda. Guttenplan grapples with the larger issues and meanings of the trial; anti-Semitism, Holocaust history, the history of Holocaust denial, and indeed the very nature of writing history itself. Ultimately reconciling the fact twisting tendencies of Holocaust Deniers with Jewish extremists proves too great a challenge for Guttenplan. Indeed, he comes close to splitting the world scholastically, politically and culturally, into an us-them, Jew-Non Jew, dichotomy. This is an uncomfortable intellectual relativist position which, as he acknowledges, is the exact isolationist strategy of both deniers and extremists. Sadly, he unwittingly and implicitly attributes more value to Jews speaking on Holocaust issues than Non-Jews speaking on the same topic. (pg. 295, note) The potential consequences of his intellectual posture threaten historical facts considerably less than the deliberate manipulation of David Irving, but here an unresolved danger lurks. The horror of the Holocaust belongs collectively to our Century. Allowing it to be solely a Jewish possession marginalizes it, and once marginalized, it is on its way to being trivialized, or indeed worse, Irvingized.

In short, while many thorny issues are underdeveloped, the bulk of Guttenplan's effort results in an enjoyable and interesting read. Recommended.

This is a solid book about the now famous Irving-Penguin Books/Lipstadt libel trial. The well known writer and free lance historian David Irving sued Penguin Books and the historian Deborah Lipstadt for libel. In a book published by Penguin, Lipstadt claimed that Irving was a Holocaust denier using deliberate distortions of the past to advance an anti-semitic agenda. Irving sued for libel in the English courts, a venue where the defense has the burden of proof. Evening out the contest was the fact that Irving acted as his own counsel, while Penguin and Lipstadt hired skilled professionals. Penguin and Lipstadt (the latter supported by a variety of generous donors) spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending themselves. In addition to retaining first rate legal talent, the defense team also obtained the services of a number of first rate academic consultants and paid for extensive research into Irving's work and methods.

Guttenplan provides a nice description of the trial itself and the structure of this type of proceeding in England, which is quite different than the US. He is good at describing the major protagonists and provides useful background on many of the important background issues. He touches usefully on Holocaust historiography and the phenomenon of Holocaust denial. I am not sure that Guttenplan is entirely fair, however, to at least one of the major figures in the trial, the historian Richard Evans. Evans, a prominent specialist on modern Germany, though not on the Holocaust, was retained by the defense to analyze Irving's work and claims. Evans and his students uncovered Irving's systematic deceptions and misuse of primary documents. Guttenplan's description of Evans' testimony presents him as an unattactive and somewhat truculent figure. I suspect that Evans was actually enraged by Irving's conduct and stuggled mightily to control himself during Irving's cross-examination.

I think the book is misnamed. The title should be Irving on Trial. Through Guttenplan's account, Irving emerges clearly as the major figure of the whole story, and the trial becomes essentially centered on his integrity, methods, and motivations. It is technically correct that the defense had to 'prove' the existence of the Holocaust to attack Irving's outrageous claims but this has less to do with the nature of the Holocaust and its historiography than with the peculiar character of English libel law. In any case, the defense team were able to substantiate all of Lipstadt's claims. Irving is shown to be a devious anti-semite misusing the historical record. Defense witnesses were able to show that Irving's disregard for the truth extended well beyond issues related directly to the Holocaust. Irving's first and best known book, The Destruction of Dresden, generally regarded as a minor classic in the WWII literature, is shown to contain substantial misrepresentations.

The major defect of this book is that Guttenplan attempts to use the trial as a point of departure for refecting on a series of important issues including the perception and political use of the Holocaust, the phenomenon of Holocaust denial, and even the epistemological nature of historical investigation. None of these relatively brief discussions are particularly satisfactory. They are fairly superficial and seem to be additions to, as opposed to components of, the trial story. Guttenplan wanted to produce something more than a journalistic account of the trial but the structure of a trial based book is not very suitable for these kind of digressions. Another problem is that for Guttenplan's reflections on many of ambiguities inherent in treatments of the Holocaust to be effective, the issues in front of the court would have to be ambiguous and they were not.

David Irving self styled historian and author of numerous books on Nazi Germany is best known for HITLER'S WAR which at the time it came out in 1977, was hailed as a great scholarly work by historians such as Hugh Trevor Roper and John Keegan. This and two earlier books: THE DESTRUCTION OF DRESDEN and THE DESTRUCTION OF CONVOY PQ17, best summarize Irving's career. Rich with source documents his work is invariably called "detailed"; it is also always controversial. Indeed Irving was sued because of his assertion in CONVOY PQ17 that there was cowardice on the part of a British officer. It is therefore ironic that this book by D.D. Guttenplan - THE HOLOCAUST ON TRIAL should be about a suit brought by Mr Irving against Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin books for libelous remarks in Ms Lipstadt's book DENYING THE HOLOCAUST. As shown by Mr Guttenplan though, the greater irony is that as a result of the outcome of the trial - in favor of Lipstadt and Penguin - and with the Judges condemnatory words about Mr Irving, this book could justifiably have been titled 'The Destruction of David Irving'. For that is exactly, and deservedly, the impact the following words by Judge Charles Gray at last year April's ruling, will have on Mr Irving's career: "Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence [he is] an active Holocaust denier [who] associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism."

THE HOLOCAUST ON TRIAL is about more than Mr Irving; the principal characters involved in the suit are profiled, especially Anthony Julius, lawyer for the defense and Richard J Evans, a historian and expert witness. Mr Guttenplan goes into the background of the libel law in Britain, which is fundamentally different to ours. The onus is on the defense. A consequence of this, only tangentially touched on here, is that other books on the same subject have been affected. John Lukac's book THE HITLER OF HISTORY, friends in the UK tell me, is only recently out and they understand that it is not as complete as my US edition.

Mr Guttenplan also mentions some of the reactions to the courts decision. John Keegan it seems is still a defender; he writes that Irving has "many of the qualities of the most creative historians. He is certainly never dull." Ms Lipstadt on the other hand is "as dull as only the self-righteously politically correct can be." True, perhaps, but she is not "an active Holocaust denier" and she at least has a history career to continue with.