Irving v Penguin Books & Lipstadt
David Irving sued Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt for libel in 2000. He spent thirty-two days in open court defending his historical writing against six expert reports. He lost. This site is the full record.
On 11 April 2000, Mr Justice Gray found for the defendants. He ruled that Irving had "persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence", that he was "an active Holocaust denier", and that he was "anti-semitic and racist". The Court of Appeal refused permission to appeal on 20 July 2001.
Principal participants
Mr Justice Graypresiding judge
DI
Mr Irvingclaimant, in person
RR
Mr Rampton QClead defence counsel
RE
Richard EvansIrving's method
RP
Robert Jan van PeltAuschwitz
CB
Christopher Browningthe Final Solution
PL
Peter LongerichHitler & the killings
HF
Hajo FunkeIrving's network
The trial — 32 days
If you have heard…
Most readers arrive with a claim rather than a question about archival structure. These five entry points map a common starting point to the trial material that addressed it. Full navigation of the reports, judgment, appeal, witnesses, closing and exhibits is in the Documents tab.
Moments across the trial
Some exchanges in Irving v Penguin are complete in themselves: fifteen to fifty lines that show, in miniature, what was at stake. These are the moments that the trial turns on. Click any card for the full exchange.
The 'baby Aryan' ditty
Rampton cross-examines Irving on the rhyme he wrote for his nine-month-old daughter. Gray cites the exchange in his judgment as direct evidence of Irving holding racist views.
In transcriptAuschwitz: from four million to "approximately 500,000"
Irving's published 100,000 figure does not survive cross-examination of van Pelt; he concedes a number roughly five times higher. Gray cites the concession in the judgment.
In transcriptVan Pelt and the chimneys
Irving argues the four marks on the 1944 aerial photograph of Krematorium II are tar-barrel shadows. Van Pelt produces the construction-period ground photographs of the chimneys themselves.
In transcriptThe Schlegelberger memorandum
Irving asks Longerich whether the March 1942 Justice Ministry note is "a key document in the history of the Final Solution." Longerich walks through what the note is actually about.
In transcriptIrving brings the Bletchley intercepts
Irving reads the wartime decrypts of SS-police radio traffic into the record himself, from counsel's bench. Includes the Höfle telegram with the Reinhard arrival totals.
In transcript"Looking really between the lines"
Irving on the Wannsee Protocol's non-mention of killing. Longerich's reading: the lines say what they say in the period's working vocabulary.
Not in transcriptThe 'mein Führer' slip
Irving addresses Mr Justice Gray as 'mein Führer' during closing. The official transcript reads 'my Lord' — the slip survives only in Lipstadt's first-hand memoir of the trial.
After the verdict
The trial adjudicated Irving. It did not adjudicate Holocaust denial. The postscript page catalogues what followed — the historians' books, Irving's 2006 conviction in Vienna for Holocaust denial, the Denial film, the HDOT project, and how the case is referenced today.
→ Read the postscript After the verdict Ten short entries from the 20 July 2001 appeal refusal to the present.