El Mundo Commemorates 70th Anniversary Of WWII By Interviewing Holocaust Denier David Irving

Spanish newspaper El Mundo had decided to go ahead and publish an interview with controversial English historian David Irving, a Holocaust denier who has drawn the ire of Israel and many in the Jewish and academic communities. The interview is being included as part of El Mundo’s coverage marking the 70th anniversary of WWII. It’s like commemorating your parents’ anniversary by informing your mother that your dad is actually her brother. And that he doesn’t exist. Irving’s revisionist stance postulates that Nazi leader Adolph Hitler was unaware of the genocide that occurred throughout the war and that many of the atrocities we know associate with the Holocaust were either created or exacerbated after the fact.

Irving’s fellow historians have come forward saying they would not have participated in El Mundo’s commemorative coverage of WWII had they known the newspaper was planning to hit it off with Irving. In a piece tagged as “Controversy,” El Mundo listed some of the backlash it had received due to the decision to feature Irving’s interview: “Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos criticizes El Mundo!” “Israeli media blasts El Mundo and Irving!”

El Mundo defends the interview as an expression of freedom of speech. Avner Shalev, director of Israel’s Holocaust Museum, explains why this is about something other than freedom of opinion. In a letter quoted by the Spanish paper, Shaley writes:

There are subjects about that don’t permit a ‘for’ and ‘against’. The paper gives legitimacy to a man who doesn’t deserve it… It is inconceivable that a serious newspaper should provide a platform for anti-Semitism.

Among the more controversial points Irving discusses in El Mundo’s pages is his idea that the atrocities committed during the Holocaust were created and/or exacerbated after the fact. He tells the paper:

Until the 1970s it was just a speck of dust on the horizon. The proof is that it doesn’t appear in any of the biographies of the great leaders of the Second World War. But from then on it became fashionable. The Jews turned it into a brand, using the same technique as Goebbels. They invented a slogan… and repeated it ad nauseam.

Irving, who has made a name for himself because of his take on the Holocaust and was even placed in an Austrian prison for eleven months due to denying that Nazis killed millions of Jewish individuals, says the doesn’t really take much interest in it:

I’m not interested in figures. I don’t count bodies. I’m not all that interested in the Holocaust.

Perhaps most interesting to us, however, is how Irving’s stance on Hitler differs so drastically from that of fellow historian and pop culture icon, Aubrey O’Day. She thinks he was a brilliant man, Irving begs to differ, saying “Hitler was a simple man constantly deceived by his subordinates” and, thus, not the mastermind behind the genocide and gruesome experiments we know associate with the Holocaust.

El Mundo’s decision to interview Irving as part of a series on WWII made us wonder whether this would ever occur in a mainstream U.S. publication and, if so, how it would deal with the inevitable backlash and controversy. Is it the result of a wide spread cultural insensitivity? A survey conducted earlier this year by the Anti-Defamation League shows that Spanish survey-takers - and many other Europeans surveyed - held what can be described as anti-Semitic views:

In responding “probably true” to the statement, “Jews are more loyal to Israel than their own country,” the 2009 survey found:

Austria – 47%, down from 54% in 2007
France – 38%, down from 39% in 2007
Germany – 53%, up from 51% in 2007
Hungary – 40%, down from 50% in 2007
Poland – 63%, up from 59% in 2007
Spain – 64%, up from 60% in 2007
The United Kingdom – 37%, down from 50% in 2007

In responding “probably true” to the statement, “Jews have too much power in the business world,” the 2009 survey found:

Austria – 36%, down from 37% in 2007
France –  33%, up from 28% in 2007
Germany – 21%, unchanged from 2007
Hungary – 67%, up from 60% in 2007
Poland – 55%, up from 49% in 2007
Spain – 56%, up from 53% in 2007
The United Kingdom – 15%, down from 22% in 2007

In responding “probably true” to the statement “Jews have too much power in international financial markets,” the 2009 survey found:

Austria – 37%, down from 43% in 2007
France – 27%, down from 28% in 2007
Germany – 22%, down from 25% in 2007
Hungary – 59%, down from 61% in 2007
Poland – 54%, unchanged from 2007
Spain –74%, up from 68% in 2007
The United Kingdom – 15%, down from 21% in 2007

In responding “probably true” to the statement “Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust,” the 2009 survey found:

Austria – 55%, up from 54% in 2007
France – 33%, down from 40 % in 2007
Germany – 45%, unchanged from 2007
Hungary – 56%, down from 58% from 2007
Poland – 55%, down from 58% in 2007
Spain – 42%, down from 46% in 2007 
The United Kingdom – 20%, down from 28% in 2007

But maybe this controversy isn’t so much about Irving’s controversial - but lucrative - views, or Spain’s supposed take on the Holocaust and Jewish people in general. Maybe this is a case of a steadily dying member of print media gurgling out its swan song, like a graceless, aging Norma Desmond slitting her wrists for a little last bit of attention. 

David Irving sparks row over Holocaust ‘propaganda’ [The Independent]