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I am never entirely clear what David Irving is saying about the holocaust. Is he saying that between 1942 and 1945 there was no attempt to exterminate the jewish population in those parts of Europe which fell under German control? Is he claiming that a) Hitler had a limited knowledge of that extermination, or b) that the number killed was not 6 million?

If he is claiming there was no mass extermination of Jews and others, clearly he is talking nonsense. If however he is querying the six million figure he is on firmer ground. The figure was quoted at the trial in 1960 of Karl Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. The figure is questionable. It may be an overestimate, it may be an underestimate or it may be accurate. I can see nothing wrong with an historian examing the figure.

Irving is technically correct that there is no evidence that Hitler knew about the final solution, although it seems extremely unlikely that he did not. Heydrich was the planner of the final solution. It was planned at the Wansee Conference under the chairmanship of Heydrich. I believe the minutes of that conference still exist.

Irving examines the Third Reich in a much more favourable light than most other historians. Whether he deserves the contempt this has earned him, is open to question.

There is little doubt that you are right, Warren. Nevertheless there seems to be no actual evidence that he did authorize it. It is this fact that the 'holocaust deniers' use to cast doubt on the whole thing. Until the term holocaust was dreamed up by the Americans, the pogrom was known as the Final Solution. This originates from Goering's direction to Heydrich which said, "I hereby commission you to find a solution, a final solution, to the Jewish question in those parts of Europe which fall under German control". Goering subsequently claimed his order was for the deportation of the Jews and not their extermination. There is equally no doubt that Heydrich set about an extermination programme which resulted in the murder of a vast number of jews and other minorities. Therefore Irving's claims are nonsense.

I think it is a fact that there is no piece of paper signed by Hitler ordering the Holocaust. Of course that doesn't mean he didn't order it, just that he didn't put it in writing. Remember Tony Blair and his sofa government? Same principle, verbal orders with no minutes kept.

The odd thing is that Stalin had no problems with giving orders in writing to execute any number of people, or to deport whole populations to Siberia, which was tantamount to genocide. If Hitler and Stalin had ever stood before a court as war criminals, and they both should have, it would have been easier on the evidence of the paper trail to convict Stalin than Hitler.

Being of Jewish blood and having met several Nazis and listened to their stories it seems clear that the Jews were robbed of all their property and possessions and then used as slaves by the Nazis. This is why the labour camps had brick buildings to house the slaves.

The extermination theory of the "final solution" is suspect insofar as the burning of six million people is physically impossible. There were furnaces but then they could have used to prevent the spread of disease. Why burn people why not starve them to death?

The hate of the German people was used in a racist programme to make the Jews responsible for all society's ills then after they were robbed they were used as slave labour. This is what I believe.
Mike Freeman

I agree entirely, Mike.

I always wondered as a kid trying to figure out how they burnt so many in so short a time, and why. I do think that the diseased were burnt, and it seems obvious that if the Nazi's wanted to use the Jews as slave labour, they wouldn't want them dying of disease, and so burning was more desirable to the German machine, rather than burial where it was much more likely the 'grave diggers' would catch whatever killed the person they were burying.

Question is what were the students political leanings?

Far left as seems to be the norm for most Universities

So ensues the age old battle between communist & fascist

Several people in this forum have just expressed their views and there's been no need for megaphones or riot police.....so far.