EXCLUSIVE Historian who exposed Holocaust denier David Irving makes startling admission about landmark libel case dramatised in 2016 Rachel Weisz film Denial

Daily Mail​

14-05-2025

He is the rampant anti-Semite obsessed with Adolf Hitler and 'proving' that the Nazis were not nearly as bad as right-thinking people would have you believe.
She is the respected academic who was forced into defending historical truth itself - and won.
But now, 25 years on from her victory in the landmark libel trial brought by Holocaust denier David Irving, Deborah Lipstadt has admitted that she almost threw in the towel.
Professor Lipstadt, now 78, spoke to the Mail from the offices of law firm Mishcon de Reya with two of the star lawyers who plotted her original defence, Anthony Julius and James Libson.
The drama of the trial was depicted in 2016 film Denial, in which Lipstadt was portrayed by Rachel Weisz and Irving by Timothy Spall.
Irving, who dismissed the gas chambers at Auschwitz death camp as a 'fairytale', sued Professor Lipstadt after she referred to him as a 'Holocaust denier' in her 1994 book.
But the judge ruled against the once-respected historian, branding him 'anti-Semitic and racist'.
'Early on in the trial I called James [my lawyer] and asked him, should I be doing this?' Professor Lipstadt admitted.
'But he told me I had no choice, that I had to fight this.
'Because if we didn't fight it then I would have had to acknowledge that I'd libelled [Irving] and he [and his followers] would have been emboldened.
'I don't think I would have been able to look any survivor in the eye ever again if that had happened.'
Before the trial kicked off, Professor Lipstadt and her publishers, Penguin, were being pushed to settle the case rather than face Irving in court.
Some British Jews were concerned that the case would just give Irving publicity.
And the stakes involved were huge. Had the case gone Irving's way, Holocaust denial would have been legitimised.
'When people were pushing me to settle, I used to ask them what should I settle for - that three million Jews died during the Holocaust? Four million Jews? Two million Jews? That there was only one camp? Two camps?
'There are just some things you can't settle,' Professor Lipstadt said defiantly.
Irving's demise as a reputable historian began in 1977 when he published his biography of Adolf Hitler.
It referenced death camp Auschwitz just four times and barely touched on the Holocaust.
He also claimed that Hitler had no intention to wipe out the Jewish people.
Professor Lipstadt had labelled Irving a Holocaust denier in her book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory.
Irving, who represented himself in the High Court and therefore spoke directly to Professor Lipstadt while cross-examining her, claimed it destroyed his livelihood and generated hatred towards him.
After the verdict in April 2000, judge Mr Justice Charles Gray said Irving was 'an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-Semitic and racist and that he associates with Right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism.'
Irving had claimed that Jews deserve to be disliked and that they brought Nazi persecution on themselves.
The judge added: 'A ditty composed by Irving for his daughter is undeniably racist in putting into her mouth the words "I am a baby Aryan... I have no plans to marry an ape or Rastafarian."'
Irving was ordered to pay up to £2million in costs, his home and assets were seized and he was later jailed in Austria for denying the Holocaust.
Professor Lipstadt was represented in court by leading libel barrister Richard Rampton, who died aged 81 just before Christmas in 2023.
Rampton, portrayed by Tom Wilkinson in Denial, immersed himself in the facts of the case.
As well as visiting Auschwitz, he went as far as teaching himself German to familarise himself with wartime papers.
His opening line in the High Court proved damning. He said: 'Mr Irving calls himself a historian.
'The truth is, however, that he is not a historian at all, but a falsifier of history. To put it bluntly, he is a liar.'
Rampton pointed out more than 30 examples of historical distortion in Irving's work.
Irving became so flustered that he addressed the judge as 'Mein Führer' by mistake.
Born in 1947 to Jewish parents Erwin and Miriam Lipstadt, Deborah grew up in Queens, New York.
She studied political science and history at the City College of New York before gaining a PhD in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies in 1976 at Brandeis University.
After graduating, she began working as a Professor of modern Jewish history and Holocaust studies at Emory University in Atlanta, where she founded the Institute of Jewish Studies.
For Professor Lipstadt's return, a room in the offices of Mishcon de Reya was arranged to re-create how the space looked 25 years ago.
Coffee stained court papers and newspaper clippings lay strewn on the floor and red folders were piled high on desks alongside bulky 90s-style computers displaying Irving's discredited research.
'Well this is a trip down memory lane,' Professor Lipstadt announced as she entered the room.
'I think this would have been your desk, James' she joked as she pointed to the messier of two.
Asked if she had any contact with Irving after the trial, Professor Lipstadt said: 'No, I mean we were hardly pen pals.'
Irving, who was once a respected academic, remains unrepentant to this day.
Last year it emerged that the now-87-year-old was gravely ill after becoming unwell in Florida.
Following his release from prison in Austria, Irving made headlines for taking tourists on £2,000-a-time trips marketed towards Holocaust deniers to visit the sites of Nazi concentration camps in Latvia and Poland.
And the Mail revealed in 2016 how Irving was making money giving talks in Britain.
At an event in Gateshead attended by undercover reporters, he branded the word Holocaust a 'slogan' invented by 'marketing men'.
Professor Lipstadt joked that people are usually 'disappointed' when they see that she does not look like Rachel Weisz.
Becoming such a public anti-racism campaigner has not been without its consequences.
'I stop keeping track of all the anti-Semitism' she said.
'During the trial his supporters would say a lot of ugly things to me when I was walking in and out of the courtroom.
'The challenge with fighting these people is working out how you fight them without giving more oxygen.'
She added: 'There is now a historical record - that proves the Holocaust categorically did happen - fully documented by a dream team of historians.
'I have to give credit to my lawyers Anthony and James that we stood up and we said this is going to be long and difficult but we're going to do it,' the academic continued.
'I think fighting is exceptionally important.
'Standing up for your beliefs is important. Because if you don't stand up, it just encourages them.'
In 2022, Professor Lipstadt was appointed as the United States Special Envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism.
The following year, Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7 took place. It marked the largest number of Jews killed on a single day since the Holocaust.
Asked about comparisons between the Holocaust and the recent rise in anti-Semitic attacks amid Israel's ongoing military action against Hamas, Professor Lipstadt said: 'As a historian I get nervous with the easy comparisons because I think it's quite different.
'Anti-Semitism can be very bad and very troublesome and very worrisome without it having to be akin to the Holocaust.
'And if you always use the Holocaust as your measure then in essence you're saying well unless it's as bad as the Holocaust it's not important.