Oliver Kamm had an interesting piece on Saturday about Kurt Vonnegut. Knowing nothing about him, and never having read a word of his (to my shame), I have no view about Oliver's assertions about Vonnegut and his work.

There is, however, a typically disgusting afterthought to Oliver's piece from the holocaust denying liar and antisemite, David Irving. I've pondered at some length whether to provide a link to his site, and have concluded that it is necessary and that no normal person who looks at it would be other than disgusted by it. So...

Irving's assertions about Oliver's piece are of no interest. What is of interest, however, is the clear illustration of the way the man thinks.

Oliver's piece includes this reference to Irving:

Deadeye Dick (1982) depicts the accidental destruction of an Ohio town by a neutron bomb — a US one, so it was no big news story as it did not start WWIII.

The novel’s closing words are: “You want to know something? We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages — they haven’t ended yet.” To coin a Vonnegut-ism: so it goes. But ultimately the simplicity is not deceptive. Vonnegut’s philosophy and history are simplistic. Dresden was hellish — but there were not 135,000 deaths. The true figure was probably no more than a fifth of that. Vonnegut’s number came directly from the now discredited work of the Holocaust denier David Irving. (In Slaughterhouse-Five, Irving is cited by name, and a long passage, by a retired air marshal, from the foreword to Irving’s book The Destruction of Dresden is reproduced.)

Irving comments on this on his site. He introduces his comments thus:

Evidently yesterday the Board of Deputies of British Jews sent a literary fire-engine rushing down Pennington Street to the newspaper building, bell clanging and bile spewing.

In Irving's mind, any piece which takes issue with him must have been the result of an instruction from Jews. He goes on:

Kamm (like Coren) is Jewish and obsessively concerned with Jewish interests.

And there's more:

Oliver Kamm: I am informed that Kamm has a history of obsession with Noam Chomsky whom he believes to be a closet denier too, and he habitually defends the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was made a Times columnist by Comment editor Daniel Finkelstein. Need we say more?

Irving is beyond parody in his peddling every antisemitic trope going. I wouldn't be surprised if he believes Jews drink the blood of Christian and Muslim babies. Not that one should be surprised that someone who habitually fakes source material makes entirely false assertions on his site, but Oliver Kamm is not Jewish. Not that it would make the slightest difference to his argument or his right to make whatever argument he chose, of course, if he was, but it's a fascinating glimpse into the mindset of a rabid Jew-hater such as Irving.

UPDATE: A couple of commenters make entirely valid criticisms of my decision to provide the link. I'm still not sure if I have done the right thing. But it has to be said that I have in the past provided a number of links to another writer whose views are, in my mind, similarly beyond the pale in their support of a genocidal murderer.

FURTHER UPDATE: Oliver Kamm has his own post on this here.