Sunday 1 February 2009

Interesting

David Irving, well known Holocaust revisionist, failed libel plaintiff, law breaker and convict's publishing imprint is called Focal Point Publications (1). It's a short and memorable name for a brand.

it's also a phrase used by Hitler in a speech he gave in Berlin in 1943, speaking to the leadership of the Nazi party. In his diary entry for the 8th of May, 1943, Goebbels recorded that

The Fuehrer argued that the anti-Semitism which formerly animated the Party and was advocated by it must again become the focal point of our spiritual struggle (2).
Which might just be a coincidence, but I can't help but think there are few coincidences when Irving is concerned. Particularly as Irving himself declared in 1988, at the trail of fellow denier revisionist Ernst Zundel, that he is "very familiar with the Goebbels diaries" (3).

If this hunch is correct, what does it mean?

Is it possible that his obssessive interest in the career of Hitler and his queer belief (4) that a strange bond exists between them, and his possible mental illness (5), have combined. Perhaps, he imagines himself and his work as the new 'focal point' for a 'spiritual struggle' for modern day Hitlerites and efforts to deny revise the Holocaust and the reputation of the man who has fascinated Irving since he was a schoolboy (6).

1 - The website of Irvings publishing imprint, Focal Point Publications: http://www.fpp.co.uk/homepage.html
2 - My original source for this quotation was Alan Bullock's 1962 biography of Hilter, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, where the Goebbel's diary is quoted on page 703. The quotation, and the precise wording, is confirmed on the Nizkor Project website:
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/g/goebbels-joseph/goebbels-1948-excerpts-02.html. Bullock's version is drawn from the translation of the diaries by Bernd Gisevius, published in 1949, and the Nizkor version from Lochner's 1948 translation. Given both confirm the precise wording, this suggests the original German was a specifi term directly translated as 'focal point,' and in turn, in my mind, reduces the chances of it being a coincidence, somewhat.
3 - Transcript of Mr Irving's testimony at the trial of Ernst Zundel, April 1988, kindly provided by Mr Irving on (oh, the irony!) the website of Focal Point Publications:
http://www.fpp.co.uk/Auschwitz/docs/ZundelTrial.html
4 - As described previously on lefthandpalm: http://lefthandpalm.blogspot.com/2009/01/david-irving-absolutely-stark-staring.html
5 - ibid.
6 - "David Irving: 'I'm Hitler's biographer,'" by Johann Hari, published in The Independent, 15th of January, 2008. (
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/david-irving-im-hitlers-biographer-1366464.html)

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