David Irving is a key British Holocaust denier, once considered to be one of the most successful and respectable of the “revisionists”. Irving made his reputation as a historian after gaining access to the hitherto unaccessed personal papers of former leading Nazis, some of whom he interviewed. 

In 1988, Irving publicly denied the genocide of the Jews. He gained further public notoriety for launching a failed libel case in 2000 against the academic Deborah Lipstadt, who accused him of Holocaust denial. In the wake of this costly case, he increasingly relied on book tours to the United States, addressing small crowds of neo-nazis, antisemites and anti-immigration activists. 

In September 2010, Irving led a group of devotees to Auschwitz in support of his forthcoming biography of Heinrich Himmler, architect of the Final Solution. The trip also included a visit to Hitler’s bunker where, according to Irving, in 1944 “Germany army traitors” attempted to assassinate the Führer. 

Irving has become increasingly irrelevant. While he remains an internationally recognised name in the Holocaust denial world, Irving is now an elderly man and rarely appears in public. In early 2024 it emerged that Irving is severely ill. On numerous occasions rumours have circulated that he has died which were subsequently denied by his family. However, they have confirmed he is now too unwell to work.