David Irving - Reception By Historians

Reception By Historians

Irving, once highly regarded for his expert knowledge of German military archives, was a controversial figure from the start. His interpretations of the war were widely regarded as unduly favourable to the German side. At first this was seen as personal opinion, unpopular but consistent with full respectability as a historian. By 1988, however, Irving had begun to reject the status of the Holocaust as a systematic and deliberate genocide; and he soon became the main protagonist of Holocaust denial. This, along with his association with far-right circles, dented his standing as an historian. A marked change in Irving's reputation can be seen in the surveys of the historiography of the Third Reich produced by Ian Kershaw. In the first edition of Kershaw's book The Nazi Dictatorship in 1985, Irving was called a "maverick" historian working outside the mainstream of the historical profession. By the time of the fourth edition of The Nazi Dictatorship in 2000, Irving was described only as a historical writer who had in the 1970s engaged in "provocations" intended to provide an "exculpation of Hitler's role in the Final Solution". Other critical responses to his work tend to follow this chronological pattern.