h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There are several issues involved in this case. Challenging historical facts, the right to free speach, libel and I am sure there are more.
I think the main issue is free speach, we can all do our own research and check the figures after all there are plenty of pre war publications with quite detailed demographics such as Chambers Gazeteer of The World.
The point is that the man is allowed to challenge the estalished truth and let's face it there are plenty of occasions that the establishment has hoodwinked Joe public.
In this instance I believe Irving is wrong, I think the data though debateable is still quite convincing and he also gets emotive when he should be objective.
As for the holocaust, which even Irving is convinced did happen what seems to mark it out is the the sheer scale of it and the planning and organisation involved, it was actulally an industry all of its own to free the world of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, criminals and disenters. I do not doubt that if the Nazis had been triumphant then this would have been the model for removing others such as the Slavs. This marks it out as different, there are many cases of progroms and ethnic cleansing but in my mind the holocaust was quantum leap.
The arguments about how many died, trying to create league tables of the dead, who put up the best fight, they all just distract us from the key facts. A miority political party was able to take control of a poweful state and use its apparatus to attempt genocide on a global scale.
Regarding David Irving, my belief is that you have to let the turkeys raise their heads so we can shoot them down, you have to allow opinions to be aired so they can be argued against. If we impose censorship we stifle debate and then we forget and then it can happen again.

Yup, I think I pretty much agree with you entirely. But do remember that nobody threatened Irving's free speech. It's *utterly* pathetic that he should repeatedly make such a claim when of course it was *he* who sued Lipstadt, not the other way round, to try to prevent her from saying the truth (he's a holocaust denier) as opposed to his total lies....