Customer Reviews

Nuremberg: The Last Battle

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It was the writer/author Montgomery Belgion, I believe, who first doubted the wisdom and juridical standing of the Nuremburg Trials after World War II (1946/7). Others, including prominent American and British leaders--the jurist F. J. P. Veale (in his ADVANCE TO BARBARISM) and Senator Robert H. Taft--objected to the trials and to the made-up ex post facto categories used to convict the defendants (after all most of the Allied leaders would have been guilty of the same crimes, if not in the same measure). To those who would disagree with the verdict these early critics reached, let me state right away that none of them were "Nazis"--the term that for some seems the best way to counter criticism of the trials. David Irving is a controversial writer, indeed. But that should not blind readers to the material he carefully analyzes in NUREMBERG: THE LAST BATTLE. As noted historians Sir John Keegan, Gordon Craig, and Hugh Trevor Roper have stated, in referring to any number of Irving's books, they are "meticulously researched and very valuable." Dislike the writer or his supposed politics, if you will, but if you plan to comment on this or other Irving books, be prepared to test his notes and scholarly apparatus first (as I have done). Yes, I know, historian John Lukacs in his broadside against 'revisionist' history, THE HISTORY OF HITLER, claims to have found various quotations that aren't quite right or are taken out of context. I have examined almost all of them, and Lukacs is the one who should be checked for accuracy. In almost every case, Irving's citations are correct; additionally, Irving has offered detailed commentary on these pseudo-historical red herrings (on his web site, for instance). Again, I think we can disagree strenously with a person's politics, but simply to dismiss him because of that is wrong and not worthy of a society that supposedly prides itself on "openness" and "free speech." NUREMBERG: THE LAST BATTLE is an significant thrust against the encrusted myths surrounding the Nuremberg Trials. It's high time we looked anew at that painful portion of history....

Highly readable and troubling work - exposing the hypocrisy of the Allied leaders in their "noble" quest to exact justice at Nuremburg. The deep hate vengeful nature of Allied leaders Morgenthau, Churchill, Eisenhower and even Roosevelt are exposed in their full reality. From documented meeting discussions at Yalta, Tehran, Quebec and Washington - Irving reveals the underlying personal agendas of these men. From the Germanophobic vindictiveness of Henry Morganthau (who's infamous "Morganthau Plan " was finally smashed by a more cool headed and straight thinking Truman) - to the historically documented (and long supressed) distastful and disgusting political discussions between Churchill and Stalin ---- Churchill's coziness with "Uncle Joe" and the jocular amnner in which he agreed to the partitioning of Eastern Europe, repatriation of Russian defectors, and the deprotation 5,000,000 Germans as reparation slave laborers is particularly dispicable --- and completely ignored by the current "candy-store" history establishment bent on painting a completely one-sided account of WWII. War is ugly - plain and simple --- and both sides will do whatever it takes to win.
The "establishment" will criticize Irving and this book because it doesn't like the mirror he holds to their faces. I fail to see how publishing verbatim transcripts of meetings and words spoken by these leaders (Irving fully footnotes and sources his quotes) - in which they fully reveal their true feelings and ambitions - is regarded as "garbage analysis." We don't always like the truth - but that never erases it.
My family personnally experienced the repurcussions of Churchill's and Roosevelt's monumental failures at Tehran and Yalta - in which they handed Stalin the easten half of Poland he originally negotiated and waged aggressive war for after the Ribbentop-Molotov pact. While the Nuremburg judgements were justified -- they were also SELECTIVE --- Regardless of what establishement "feel-good" historians want us to believe. At the very least Iving' book makes us think deeper about the command "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Interesting how it was the Stalin's Soviet Union who was most eager to begin flinging the rocks - and the declining British Empire ---- who colonized most of the globe though millitary aggression --- which claimed "moral authority."

Nuremberg, the Last Battle by David Irving is truly the "last" World War II History Book. It sums up current knowledge about Nazi atrocities far more accurately and using far more original sources than anyone else's work. The incredible thing, in this day and age when the world is once again pursuing "world courts" to punish crimes against humanity, is how many of the charges even against the Nazis could not be easily proven, or were crimes also committed by the victors.

This is not a picture of triumph, or of anything a rational person would ever want to see imitated.

Irving, as always, footnotes to an extent unheard of by any other historian, and his footnotes are always where the "juicy", controversial stuff is. That's for you to discover!

This is the second Irving history I've read and I continue to be impressed by his writing ability and his reliance on primary sources. In my opinion, he is one of the most interesting and informative WW II historians working today and I've been happy to find his works still available in libraries and on the internet, despite the smear campaign designed to suppress them. Nuremberg, the Last Battle, is the detailed history of a political show-trial which was condemned even at the time by the United States military, among others. An arbitrary collection of Germans with varying degrees of involvement were charged with war-crimes using ex-post facto laws - the winners sat in judgement on the losers, charging them with atrocities which they themselves had also committed during the war. The outcome of the trials was never in doubt - the only question was who, in the end, would be hanged. The Russians, in particular, tried to use Nuremberg to deflect guilt onto the Germans for some of their own atrocities, such as the massacre at Katyn Forest. Irving brings the whole sordid story to life: the trial conducted in a bombed city in which thousands of bodies still lay buried under the rubble of unrestricted Allied attacks (a war-crime in itself); the selection and treatment of the prisoners; Goering's defiance and "redemption", followed by his suicide which made a mockery of Allied security; Speer's maneuvering; the executions -- the story is fascinating and, in my opinion, well balanced throughout. The origin for the figure of six million Jewish dead is explained (a figure that MUST be wrong, now that the Auschwitz death count has been officially reduced from 4 million to around 1.5 million). The attempted suppression of this book and all of Irving's works is absolutely unconscionable - in the long run, it can only weaken the consensus version of the Holocaust. The attacks made against Irving on this site, for instance, are long on rhetoric and short on particulars. Personally, I was born long after World War II ended. Everything I know about it comes from texts. I cannot say whether Irving has made errors in fact or has distorted the sources. I can say, having read this book, that I found it convincing, always interesting, and difficult to put down. I highly recommend it.

A very interesting-unparallel book. I can still be sincere to my Jewish personal friend when I beg to differ when I say that Irving was dealt with unfairly. Free Speech gentlemen. Free Speech takes place when we let people we disagree with express their opinion. The Holocaust is such a sacred cow that any discussion of it where the standard orthodox version of events is not maintained is seen as in some way or another defamatory. Mr. Irving at no stage has ever denied the Holocaust; he has simply stated that many of its key elements are fundamentally flawed and what happened in Nuremberg. This does not constitute wholesale denial. Neither, however crass it may have been, does his comparison of the Auschwitz I 'gas chamber' to something one could find in Disneyland . As a student of the History, I have always found it difficult to understand why we should be prevented from opening a civilized debate on the Holocaust issue, and why we haven't been allowed to get to grips with really happened during those dark years. Justice Gray has not only attempted to silence David Irving, but all of those who dare to upset the applecart driven by the historical orthodoxy. Irving books reach to issues that we always question. I find Howard Zinn also fascinating. We - the readers- want to know the other side of all historical events. This is what freedom of speech means. Why not? Are you afraid of something? Signature: An American who is afraid to sign his name in the land of the free.

Though familiar with David and his books, I had never read one. I thought it was going to be dry. Not so. The book is very pleasant to read and understand. Jacksons' battle with Goring was very interesting and Speer's turning surprised me as he never sounded like this in his book (written in Spandau I believe). I recommend this to history buffs regardless of their revisionist or, lack thereof, leanings. Well documented and interesting expose' on international and retroactive legal ideas!

It is astonishing to me how David Irving can take us back in time, over fifty years back, and allow us to feel in our souls the happenings at Nuremberg, the sounds, sights and smells of a destroyed city where the victors prepared for peculiar reasons to torment their enemy captives before killing them. We wanted men like Goering to be killed, but did not expect such a trial. I was in the British army in Germany at the time and the minute details of behavior that Irving records ring absolutely true to me, though as a common soldier I, of course, knew nothing of the junkets and gambols of powerful military and juridical elites. What struck me most vividly in David Irving's book was the role played by personal ambitions. "Hitler's War" and "Churchill's war" are in my opinion more vivid books, dealing with the petty chicaneries of powerful men while the populations of Europe suffered and died, essential reading for sure, but "Nuremberg" completes them as a capstone finishes an entrance way.

David Irving is the foremeost historian of our time regarding WWII. The man documents literally EVERYTHING. If you want the TRUTH about WWII and the aftershocks then I suggest Mr. Irving.

This must be considered David Irving's best researched books. It is most interesting to note how in Chapter 8,he relates how a delegation of American jews tried to persuade Justice Jackson to accept the figure of six million victims of the Nazi persecution. This figure has now become a dogma with which the non-jewish world is besieged and which has been legislated into law in all European nations with the exception of Great Britain where the Right of Free Speech still reigns supreme. The jewish delegation which approached Justice Jackson could not possibly have had the data to make such a horrendous claim which created in the world's consciousness the greatest crime of the 20th century. The only sad statistics we have for sure are the number of Jews so cruelly deported to the occupied Western fringes of the Soviet Union and Poland. Everyone knows their terrible fate. But their number was limited to about 6-700.000. I take this figure from Jewish historians. All other pretended victims must have come from the Pale of Settlements and the Eastern Ghettos. But is that possible to accept without proper evidence? How could then 5.300.000 people be moved and disposed of in a period which only lasted for some 1000 days?

Any guy who gets banned in 20 countries just for speaking the truth is OK with me.

This is the only David Irving book I've read and in some ways I was very VERY impressed but in others disapointed.

I was impressed by Irving's first hand research. True to his reputation, Irving bases his books on first hand rare documents. But Irving's first hand anyalisis is stunning. Mainly Robert Jackson's diary.

I was let down by the book's format. The information is not layed out well and hard to follow. The facts are great but they do not read well.

I've heard some moan "It's Holocaust denial." I guess they haven't read the book since Irving never says any such thing.