Irving v. Lipstadt

1. Irving claims that Hitler acted to protect Jewish property during the putsch in November 1923. In reality, the exact opposite happened. On Hitler's orders, a squad of SA men forced their way into the printing and publishing house of the Jewish brothers Parcus on Promenadenstraße early on 9 November, and under the threat of violence stole a large sum of money, which was later distributed as 'payment' amongst the members of the SA.11 Hitler openly admitted this at his trial. When asked whether he ordered this particular raid, he replied in the affirmative: 'I did it in memory of the Revolution, which confiscated hundreds of billions in gold from the German people. I felt I had the right to do it.'12

2. Irving mentions this incident in his book on Göring. His account of the raid on the Jewish printers is as follows: 'Hitler...sent armed men into the city to requisition funds; they took 14,605,000 billion Reichsmarks from the Jewish bank-note printers Parvus and Company, and gave a Nazi receipt in exchange, Meanwhile, Hitler acted to maintain order.'13 There then follows the story of the attack on the Jewish delicatessen.

3. Irving's account of the robbery of the printing establishment gives the impression that it was not a robbery at all but a 'requisitioning' which happened in an orderly manner and was above-board. If Hitler acted to maintain order, it was not in respect of this action, but with regard to the attack on the delicatessen, which, as we have seen, did not in fact take place during the putsch, if indeed it actually happened in the way claimed by Hofmann at all.

4. Thus Irving's account of the robbery waters down its illegality and violence and is immediately relativised and undermined in its significance by the following description of Hitler's alleged action in the earlier case.