The Cheering of the Prisoners of Dachau

Here's one for holocaust deniers and blinkered fantasists with warped minds and big sticks.

Martha Gellhorn, famously honest reporter and writer of the last century was there when Dachau concentration camp was liberated:

"In their joy to be free, and longing to see their friends who had come at last, many prisoners rushed to the fence and died electrocuted; there were those who died cheering, because the effort of happiness was more than their bodies could endure; there were those who died because now they had food, and they ate before they could be stopped, and it killed them."

You can hear her report in this obituary called 'All Things Considered'.

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David Irving

Having posted the above, and seeing its relevance to David Irving's case, I thought I'd have a look at what he's written to see if he convinces me.

Reading extracts from his writings, one quickly sees his sympathy for Hitler, who he is quick to exonerate with any new evidence he can find. He seems equally quick to knock Churchill down with any evidence he can find to do that.

Commenting on reception to his book 'Hitler's War', Irving closes with this highlighted paragraph:

"The matter of profoundest regret to me is that nearly all the reviewers have caught on to my refutation of the most durable legend about Hitler - his involvement in the liquidation of the Six Million - and overlooked the far more serious question* raised by the body of the book: what on earth were we, the British, doing to fight this man after June 1940, when as we now find to be true he at no time posed a real threat to the British Empire or the British Isles? When we research at Hitler's own level, from 1933 right through to 1945, there is not a scrap of evidence to the contrary."

This reminded me of a day in Weston-Super-Mare some years ago. I spent the afternoon at a table outside the Harbour inn drinking many pints of beer with an eighty-year old German man called Günther. He had been a prisoner of war and had stayed in Britain afterwards. We got on extremely well. During the conversation he explained with some feeling that he could not understand why the British had fought Germany. Günther believed that Hitler would not have attacked Britain: that he wanted friendship.

I could see why Günther would not understand.
However, I would have thought that David Irving would know.
I do.

If you don't, then, for a start, make friends with people from Holland, France, Belgium, Poland or another occupied country, and see what they think. Next, consider whether you would trust any human in a position of absolute power, with a mobilised military and a proven will to aggression, extolling racial purity, being hailed by followers as 'The Leader' and having carried out seven years of intensifying persecution of a resident minority. Marvel Comics wouldn't buy it. If such a one is looking for 'Lebensraum' (living space) you best watch your arse.


* "...the far more serious question..." What an insight into David Irving's mind.