It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy: David Irving was arrested in Austria on charges of Holocaust denial.
The irony is rich, but damn, I’ve got a major case of schadenfruede here.
VIENNA, Austria (AP) – Right-wing British historian David Irving, who once famously said that Adolf Hitler knew nothing about the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews, has been arrested in Austria on a warrant accusing him of denying the Holocaust.
Irving, 67, was detained Nov. 11 in the southern province of Styria on a warrant issued in 1989 under Austrian laws making Holocaust denial a crime, police Maj. Rudolf Gollia, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said Thursday.
Austrian media said the charges stemmed from speeches Irving delivered that year in Vienna and in the southern town of Leoben.
In a statement posted on his Web site, Irving’s supporters said he was arrested while on a one-day visit to Vienna, where they said he had been invited “by courageous students to address an ancient university association.”
Despite precautions taken by Irving, he was arrested by police who allegedly learned of his visit “by wiretaps or intercepting e-mails,” the statement alleged. It said that en route to Austria, Irving had privately visited German playwright Rolf Hochhuth, a friend he had not seen in 20 years.
Gee, sucks to be you, Irving. And by the way, it takes no courage at all to hate Jews. It’s all the rage, dontchaknow. It takes far more courage to denounce Jew-hatred. Not that Irving would know about that.
On the other hand, is it my imagination, or is there a stink to the entire AP article? I mean, it goes on and on about the lies he spreads, listing them in detail, while describing the libel suit he lost against Deborah Lipstadt like this:
In March, more than 200 historians from around the world petitioned C-SPAN to cancel a project that would have included a speech by Irving as a counterpoint to a lecture by Deborah Lipstadt, a renowned Holocaust expert at Emory University.
Irving once sued Lipstadt for libel for calling him a Holocaust denier, but his lawsuit was dismissed in 2000 by a British court, which ruled that Irving was anti-Semitic and racist and misrepresented historical information.
Something stinks about this entire article. Time to call in the yourish.com mantra, though: Anti-Semites of the world, just die already.
Woohoo!
While the old saw says “never ascribe to malice that which can be accounted for by common stupidity,” Irving strikes me as too well educated (or at least elitist) for common stupidity.
Malice it is then. Enjoy jail in Austria, David. We’ll enjoy you being in it.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Oh dang, I didn’t read what you wrote. Now I look like a plagiarizer.
Irving is neither educated, or particularly elitist. He has a schoolgirl crush on Adolf Hitler. That in addition to the racism, anti-semitism and the Holocaust denial that accompanies them. He passed for a historian until he mistakenly sued one. It will be interesting to see him alter the evidence he gave in the High Court in London to try to escape an Austrian jail