Review
David Irving, described by a UK judge as the leading expert on World War II, examines the spontaneous 1956 uprising of the Hungarians against rule from Moscow against the faceless, indifferent, incompetent functionaries who had turned their country into a pit of Marxist misery in one short decade: the funkies, Irving calls them, adapting the Hungarian word funkcionariusok. He traced and questioned the men who had been kidnapped, exiled, imprisoned and put on trial with the prime minister Imre Nagy, who was sentenced to death, and members of Nagy s family. It is Irving s assessment of Imre Nagy that will raise eyebrows, together with his discovery among official records of evidence that antisemitism was one of the motors of the popular uprising. The resulting study is an autopsy of a failed revolution, viewed both from inside the council chambers of the powerful and from street level. This is a compelling drama, with a cast of ten million. --The Guardian:
David Irving's book was written in time for the 25th anniversary of the Hungarian Uprising. Now that the 50th anniversary is close at hand, it seemed a good time to re-read it. It stands up well in many respects. At 550 pages in length, it certainly has the scope to be comprehensive. Of course, in 25 years new information has come to light that may call some of Irving's ideas into question, but on the other hand he was able to interview eye-witnesses and participants who have now passed on. The actions of the well-known are juxtaposed against those of ordinary men and women whose oral history finds a place here. We can read about teenagers discussing how to incinerate a tank with a molotov cocktail, and about ordinary people who had been arrested by the AVH and now saw a belated chance for revenge. There is no hagiography of the leading characters either; if Nagy is portrayed as vacillating, Andropov as sly, Maléter as inflexible, so Bibó appears with his apparently futile but inspiring moment of greatness, Kopacsi with his masterly inactivity when the regime called upon him, Dudás with his tireless driving management of his insurgents. Irving wears his heart on his sleeve at times, and some of his prejudices shine forth. He seems preoccupied with telling us which of the participants were Jewish and which were not, and while there is a point to be made about the composition of Rákosi's government, the matter is laboured thereafter. One small gripe: for some reason Irving chose to anglicize the first names of participants, but this is not consistent and some names do not lend themselves to this. It means, for example, that we read about Imre Nagy and Pál Maléter (rather than Paul), but Julius Hay rather than Gyula, and all those named Ferenc become Francis. Those of us familiar with the Hungarian names may find this distracting. And the street names within Budapest appear in their old guise; this is not a criticism because the book was written when they were still used, but if it is ever updated a glossary or map would be useful. As a popular history it stands up well, and Irving's sources are freely available on microfilm to those wishing to use them, a generous practice worthy of commendation. Perhaps a serious historian might quibble with parts, but Irving might wish to revise those himself after 25 years. --By G. Brack
The book was better than what I was expecting. The description was of a paperback version of the book - I got a very decent hard back version. The book, which I read initially from the public library, gives a very detailed description of the 1956 hungarian uprising compared to other books that i've read on the subject. The description of what happened to the humgarian people afterwards was quite harrowing and not detailed in the other books. A great read not only for someone of hungarian descent, which I am. --By MR. S. VON NOVAK
About the Author
A professional historian of noted distinction, David Irving has researched and written about the Third Reich with passionate insight for many years. His first book, 'The Destruction of Dresden', was just one of several startling international bestsellers, which include 'Churchill's War' and 'Hitler's War'. The son of a Royal Navy commander, he was Educated at Imperial College of Science & Technology and at University College London. He spent a year in Germany working in a steel mill, perfecting his fluency in the language. Among his thirty books, the best known include 'Hitler's War'; 'The Trail of the Fox: The Life of Field-Marshal Rommel'; 'Accident, the Death of General Sikorski'; 'The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe', Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich'; 'Nuremberg: The Last Battle'; and 'Goering: a Biography'. He has also translated several works by other authors. He lives in London and is the father of five daughters. He maintains an extensive website, updated daily, dealing with both historical and current events, commenting in his uniquely British way on all matters of import.
