Irving blitzes Churchill

Press, 27 March 1986, Page 4

Irving blitzes Churchill

By

PETER LUKE

A cynic, an opportunist, a coward and a drunkard — that is the verdict of the English historian, David Irving, on Sir Winston Churchill.

Because of these views, Mr Irving was unable to publish his forthright study of Churchill in the United States or Britain. He was forced to resort to a West German publisher. Mr Irving was in Christchurch yesterday promoting the paperback edition of his study of the 1956 Hungarian uprising.

He outlined his criticisms of Sir Winston Churchill, a man revered by most as a great wartime leader and believed, in the words of one of Britain’s best historians, A. J. P. Taylor, to have been “the saviour of his nation” in World War 11.

Churchill prolonged the war, according to Mr Irving. A peace deal with Hitler was on the cards in June, 1940, but Churchill "knew it would be the end of the Churchill legend.” Mr Irving believes Churchill should have got out of the war at that point. Hitler, he said, wanted nothing from Britain or the Empire, and the decision by Churchill to fight on was only in the long-term interests of the United States and Japan.

Even blame for the blitz on London could be laid at the feet of Churchill. A solitary German bomber dropped a few ineffectual bombs on London on August 24, 1940, and the Prime Minister’s reaction was to send 100 bombers over Berlin.

Mr Irving has said Churchill wanted the Germans to bomb London because this would create sympathy in the United States and destroy any remaining peace sentiment in England.

And * where was Mr Churchill when Coventry was bombed. He learnt from British code-break-ers that the Germans would be mounting their heaviest raid so far and fled Downing Street “heading by fast car for his pre-arranged funkhole 100 miles away.” Intercepted by another message that Coventry — not London — was the target, he drove back to London "to await the oncoming bombers.” Mr Irving is no stranger to controversy. He was a leading figure in the discovery that the Hitler diaries were faked, after they had been authenticated by the British historian, Hugh TrevorRoper. An earlier work on “The Destruction of Convoy P.Q. 17” led to a libel action and huge damages against him from the convoy commander.

Most criticism has centred on his interpretation of Hitler. Mr Irving repeated yesterday his view that Hitler knew nothing of the extermination of Jewish people before and during World War 11. Hitler was a "softie” on an individual level, and actually protected Jewish people from attack on at least one occasion, Mr Irving said. Mr Irving said he himself was Right-wing but certainly not a racist. His conclusions differed from other historians, who were “too lazy” to hunt out original documents, and relied on publishedsources and documents which had been edited.

Mr Irving is above all an Englishman. He laments the loss of Empire, but rues even more the fact that "the door was left open” for immigrants from the Caribbean and West Africa.

English people today felt "humiliated by the

black mobs throwing petrol bombs at the London bobbies.”

Mr Irving’s solution is “benevolent repatriation,” restoring, the economies of the former colonies to encourage migrants to return. Emgire is not a dirty

word to Mr Irving. Britain’s entry to the European Economic Community was “the greateat betrayal of Britain’s longterm interests” and had also led to economic ruin for thousands of farmers in Australia. British people hadfisjo

need to feel ashamed - of their colonial past. “Compare what we have done in South Africa where the whites carried forward the blacks and civilised them. Compare that with the way the Americans treated their natives.”