A miserable article

Prior experience told me that this journalist had an agenda. I knew it, and worried about the result of his bias, but felt determined to prove that I have done nothing to be ashamed of. I agreed to be interviewed.

Sunday Star-Times

27 July 2003, pages C4, C5

Death threats and breakdowns — the Holocaust thesis destroyed my life

Joel Hayward s old Website. Dr Joel Hayward s home pages. Dr Joel Hayward is a military author, scholar and analyst.

Joel Hayward Joel Hayward Joel Hayward Joel Hayward Joel Hayward Joel Hayward Joel Hayward Joel Hayward

[JH's] controversial thesis about the Holocaust is in the news again. In his first extended interview on the affair, the historian talks to Anthony Hubbard.

[JH's] idol is Lord Nelson, the maimed hero of Trafalgar. Hayward’s Palmerston North house has pictures of Nelson on its beige walls. There is even a portrait of Hardy, his loyal lieutenant, in the toilet.

The former Massey historian identifies with the British admiral, and not just because he has written a book about him.

Hayward believes he lost his job and his career because of the row over his notorious 1993 "revisionist" thesis about the Holocaust. When he quit Massey last year, "I felt a bit like Lord Nelson after he lost the sight of his eye and the use of his arm", he says, sitting in his lounge beneath an etching of Napoleon, Nelson's great rival.

"Nelson did some dumb things. He had to overcome some dumb decisions. He went through some very, very black and depressing periods in his life, and yet he overcame them and as a human I can relate to him … I've had the same life's roller coaster as he had."

Hayward’s critics will have none of this. The historian may cast himself as a martyr in the cause of free speech. He may make unblushing comparisons between himself and the great naval leader. But, to them, Hayward has aided the cause of tyranny. As a student at Canterbury he not only wrote an MA thesis belittling key aspects of the Holocaust, they say, but he continued to associate with Holocaust revisionists and deniers long afterwards. He may have publicly recanted and disowned parts of the thesis — but they are not convinced.

No issue is more fraught or more explosive. Hayward is accused, in effect, of helping to whitewash genocide. His defenders say he merely raised genuine questions about limited aspects of it.

Last week historian Thomas Fudge resigned from Canterbury after the history department destroyed copies of a departmental journal in which Fudge defended Hayward.

Hayward is a short, slightly pudgy man in blue tracksuit pants. His dark hair bristles like a bottlebrush from above a smooth bland face. He sits with his head down and his shoulders slumped, a figure of dejection. Only towards the end of a long interview, and in response to his critics' claims, does he become animated.

Nobody doubts that Hayward has fallen into wretchedness. He lives on the dole and has been unable to find other work. Employers, he says, are spooked by his reputation. He has had to sell most of his beloved book collection in an attempt to provide for his wife Kathy and his daughters. He has suffered death threats and humiliation. He has twice suffered mental collapse.

But whether you sympathise with the man depends on how you view his history. If the young scholar merely blundered or overstated his case, as his defenders allege, then his downfall is a scandal. His enemies — the word is not too strong — have a different view.

Hayward emailed all members of the Canterbury history department after he heard about the burning of History Now, the journal containing Fudge's article.

"I warned them that regardless of the merits or demerits of that article, the destruction would be seen as book burning and New Zealanders aren't book burners."

Fudge says he wanted to draw attention to the fact that Hayward had been unjustly punished. Hayward says the department didn't like it "because it makes clear for the first time that many members of the department believe I had been treated unfairly and the grade I received — an A-plus — was indeed appropriate".

If the article had been critical of him, he says, "they would have published it with no problems". Department members, he suggests, "are scared. Well, I'm scared. I'm scared. I've had years of being scared so I understand they were scared to be supportive of a thesis that has been so roundly condemned by people who haven't read it I can understand that. But at what point does fear become more powerful than academic principle?"

Hayward says he left the university in mid-2002 because "I just broke down". Trouble began as soon as word leaked out in late 1999 about the thesis, which he had deposited in Canterbury University library under a six-year embargo. "There was an obvious change in my colleagues' attitude towards me," he says. "I felt they were believing the reports in the newspapers even though they knew I was a prolific, hardworking and popular colleague — and that hurt me.

"Slowly through 2000 fewer people would speak to me and the tearoom became a very uncomfortable place for me to go. The threats against me, my feeling of ruined collegiality and just the stress of the working party (Canterbury's inquiry team into the affair) drove me to the first breakdown of the two that I've had."

Sometimes colleagues would walk out of the room if he entered. More commonly, if it was "a choice of sitting down at the table with Joel Hayward or sitting at another table, they would sit at the other table". One day "a middle-aged man walked into my office — my door was always open, I had an open-door policy with the students — he walked in and said 'you'll get yours mate'. And I said Ooh really, what will I get?' And he passed me a live bullet and turned and walked out."

He got hate mail including death threats. 'Die, you evil scumbag, you don't deserve a long life and ain't going to have one'. That sort of thing. Sometimes, and I laughed about this with Kathy sometimes, I would get hate mail or death threats with the sender's name and address on the back.

"An anonymous caller rang Kathy and said 'well, where are your kids now? And she said 'they're at school'. And the person said 'well, how do you know they're there? And how do you know they're safe?' Click — and then hung up."

By the end of 2001 "my nerves were broken, I felt physically and emotionally ill. I began making what I see now to be erratic decisions.

"And I felt the university ignored my health because I told them 'I can't cope'. I told one of my lecturers that I felt suicidal and I watched him write it in his desk diary. And his response was, 'look, you're just going to have to buck up and get past this'."

He resigned in early 2002, partly because he thought he had another job lecturing naval officers. But then the job fell through, apparently because the person who offered it was not authorised to do so. He asked to withdraw his resignation a week later but it was refused.

Massey, he believes, was glad to get rid of him because he was an embarrassment, despite the fact that he was a prolific author — writer of six books, including a critically-acclaimed book on Stalingrad. Whereas most scholars produced only one article a year in academic journals, he says, he averaged four. And he was popular with students. Some have publicly supported him in letters to the newspaper.

But he cannot even get shortlisted for jobs. In one case — he had a job at Fonterra — the job was withdrawn on his first day.

Hayward says his thesis contained "some errors of interpretation". But he points out that he wrote it before he did his master's papers — the reverse of the usual order. He had asked to do this because his baby daughter was sick and he wanted to work from home. But if he had followed the usual route by doing papers first — on historical research and methodology — he might have done a better thesis.

He is reluctant to blame his thesis supervisor, Canterbury historian Vincent Orange, now retired from the university. Orange also supervised his PhD on Stalingrad and became his friend. But Hayward does suggest the department let him down by allowing him to tackle too difficult a topic and by failing to see the political ramifications.

Orange, who until now has remained publicly silent, told the Sunday Star-Times:

"I'm not going to deny I made mistakes, several mistakes, in my supervision. I could have done, and should have done, a better job."

Hayward says he particularly regrets the part of his thesis casting doubt on the numbers of Jews killed in the Holocaust. He suggested that the number was more than one or two million, but much less than the symbolic figure of six million. He admits he had not properly investigated those figures in the body of his paper.

"It was dumb. It was dumb. That's the line I've regretted making in the thesis more than any other line. Now where were my supervisors when I made that?" Hayward says he learned more about the Holocaust later and came to see that "perhaps I'd made — or been allowed to make — some boo-boo".

The working party into the affair decided the thesis was flawed and should have been resubmitted, but that it should not be revoked because Hayward had not acted dishonestly.

Waikato University political scientist Dov Bing, who first revealed the thesis to the world, has a different view. Hayward published an article in the Jewish Chronicle in 1990 denouncing British historian David Irving and other Holocaust deniers. But, a few months later, in his thesis, Hayward took the opposite view. "How could he possibly have changed his mind in such a short time?" asks Bing.

In 2001, a photograph appeared on a revisionist website showing Hayward shooting a handgun on the property in Alabama of Robert Countess, an activist revisionist. The photograph dates from 1994, Countess says in the German-language website. He refers to Hayward as "my friend". In 1998, Hayward published a defence on a website of David Irving as a military historian. And in 1999 he published an article about Hitler's campaign in the Crimea in a neo-Nazi magazine edited by a well-known Holocaust denier, says Bing.

The young Hayward had also claimed to be Jewish or of Jewish heritage when writing his thesis, but this claim now seemed doubtful. His mother's mother was Jewish, he says, "but I have never pretended to be Jewish, and I have never pretended to be not Jewish". His religion was a private matter between him and his creator. Hayward says Countess had invited him to meet the family of the great athlete Jesse Owens, a long-time hero of his. Countess had heard that Hayward was studying on a fellowship at an Alabama airbase.

Hayward says he had known Countess was a revisionist, "but he was a nobody in the revisionist world. He wasn't like David Irving". After the visit to the Owens' family — "one of the greatest days of my life", says Hayward — he had fallen into a debate with Countess about handguns and accepted his invitation to fire the gun because as a defence specialist he was interested in such things.

Does he now regret it? "Of course I do. But all I thought I was going to do was meet the family of a great man."

His public defence of David Irving concerned only his reputation as a military historian, not as a Holocaust denier. And he had not known that the magazine that published his 1999 article was a revisionist one. Its editor had used a pseudonym when inviting him to submit the article.

At the very least, all of this shows poor political judgement. But Hayward says he has been hoodwinked by neo-Nazis and revisionists desperate to use his academic good name to boost their cause. He had spent years trying to remove his thesis from neo-Nazi websites.

He is, he says, a liberal Labour voter — "I voted for Helen Clark twice before and I will do it again" — who loathes racism. "If I could go back in H G Wells' time machine," he says, "I would never do that thesis". It had been a catastrophe for him and his family, but once again he finds comfort in his hero. Nelson overcame his mistakes and his depressions, and so, he says, will he. After years of silence, he has resolved to come out and defend himself. "I refuse," he says, lifting his head from its habitual bowed position, "to be a victim."

Hmm?

Do you think that Mr Hubbard's article contains an undemocratic and murky moral position?

He seems to be suggesting that, even in a liberal democracy, "Holocaust deniers" fully deserve persecution including vilification, hate mail, loss of employment, broken publishing contracts, threats of violence, and worse.

Given that Mr Hubbard apparently sees this alleged heresy — Holocaust denial — as deserving of active retribution, I wonder where he places it in terms of other offenses. Is it worse than white-collar crime, tax evasion, driving under the influence, car theft, burglary, assault with intent, rape, murder?

I have never elsewhere read a New Zealand journalist expressing sympathy with any vigilante justice.

How very strange for a journalist in a liberal democracy to suggest that any thought crime is as injurious to society as these other grave injustices.

It was also a little unkind, in my view, of Mr Hubbard to describe me uncharitably as a "short, slightly pudgy man". I am 5 feet 7 inches, which isn't terribly short, and I am hardly pudgy, as the photo that accompanied his story revealed. I weigh 77 kilos!

And no, Mr Hubbard, I do not make any unblushing comparisons between myself and the great Lord Nelson. I merely stated that Lord Nelson (like cancer-sufferer Lance Armstrong) overcame serious obstacles and depression to make a worthwhile contribution to society, and that I gain inspiration from this.

Still, although I'm in no hurry to be interviewed again by Mr Hubbard, I hold no negative feelings towards him. He works for a glorified tabloid and has a certain readership to consider. He's probably a fine fellow.

Letters to the Editor, Sunday Star-Times, 3 August 2003, p. C9:

Sir,

Those who criticise Joel Hayward’s stand and the action of Thomas Fudge (July 27) will probably not appreciate the intellectual depth of the overall dichotomy to see the position from a more penetrating angle.

In his play An Enemy of the People Henrik Ibsen pens several lines very relevant to this whole situation. Dr Stockman asks: "Is it not the duty of a citizen to let the public share in any new ideas he may have?" To which his conformist brother, intent on subduing information about the safety of the local baths replies: "The public does not require any new ideas; it is best served by the old established ideas it already has."

This has nothing to do with the Holocaust discussion but does it ring any bells? A teacher of history has an obligation more to stimulate ideas and opinions than to teach dates and so-called facts. He should let the students identify for themselves which is which.

Whether Hayward is right or wrong is beside the point; a fact that thinking people will acknowledge. He has performed the ultimate function of a historian admirably.

Doug Taylor, Napier

Sir,

Your article on me was generally fair and accurate. I am grateful to Anthony Hubbard. But might I respectfully make an observation or two.

First, even if I were a right-winger — which I am not — should a free, liberal democratic society watch my maltreatment with acceptance, considering it merely my "comeuppance"?

That is not the New Zealand way, and it certainly does not seem fair, especially when no one has ever accused me of that vilest of vices: racism.

Are not tolerance of differing views and the overlooking of unintended mistakes the hallmarks of a mature democracy and a fair and considerate people?

If my mistakes have been in the realm of "politically poor judgement", as Hubbard offers, should my punishment — three years of pariah status, death threats and hate mail, two emotional breakdowns and a year so far of unemployment and poverty — have been so severe?

That the punishment must fit the crime is a central feature of our justice system. Hubbard reveals that my punishment greatly outweighed my purported "crime," which was, after all, some "intellectual mistakes" in an inexperienced masters student's research written in 1991.

Well, I refuse to be a victim any longer, and offer the six books and countless peer-reviewed articles I have subsequently written as firm and incontestable proof that I am a decent enough, conscience-driven Kiwi with at least something to offer my beloved society as well as to that marvellous thing called "the wider body of knowledge".

If a few nasty fanatics don't like me and still want to keep throwing muck at me, I can easily use the pages of my successful books, articles and specialist encyclopedia entries, and their favourable reviews by experts, to wipe of all that thrown muck and show that, underneath, I am clean.

Joel Hayward, Palmerston North

Sir,

It is with a sense of disbelief that I have followed the latest controversy surrounding Joel Hayward.

I first encountered him in my first year at Massey University and made sure I was back in his classroom the following year. He was a remarkable teacher with confidence and immense knowledge.

I feel fortunate and proud to have been one of his students. His paper was one of few I took that was packed with students right to the end of the semester — and no snores were heard.

Hayward never encouraged extremism of any kind. He encouraged us to think for ourselves, to ask our own questions and draw our own conclusions and he steered us in the right direction when we went off course.

He did his absolute best to nurture ideas and foster success among his students.

The working party established by Canterbury University to "try" him was no better than a heresy trial and I challenge anyone to suggest he is not being persecuted.

Hayward’s treatment in recent years is a poor reflection on the academic community which has failed to provide him with adequate support and protection in this witch hunt.

How much and for how long must one man suffer?

Simonne Walmsley, Auckland

Sir,

My Father is Jewish and I take great interest in matters dealing with Jewish history.

While I agree that debate is healthy in a democratic society, such debate should be based and facts and not simply some academic writing a contentious thesis based on his shallow understanding of history.

I take specific issue with a number of Joel Hayward’s writings. To state Hitler did not know about "the final solution" is wrong. It is well documented that he was involved in the planning of the final solution — an example was the Wannsee Conference which mapped out the process in intricate detail.

Hayward stated that the figure of six million Jews murdered by the Nazis cannot be verified. This is also wrong. The number of Jews living in Europe prior to World War II was well known and so were the numbers surviving at the end of the war.

So, for Hayward’s benefit, you subtract one number from the other to get the number murdered.

— John Edilson, Christchurch

Note: I dearly wish Mr Edilson was right. But alas, things are not as simple. His letter is unfortunately mistaken.

1. Scholars cannot yet demonstrate conclusively when, where and how Hitler explicitly ordered the extermination of European Jewry.

Still, the fact that no conclusive "smoking gun" source(s) exists is good evidence that international Jewry has not conspired to falsify the historical record. If Jewry is as evil and calculating as antisemites claim, Jewry could easily have faked a "smoking gun" document or set of documents that "proves" that Hitler ordered all Jews killed.

2. Scholars are mostly agreed that the protocol of the Wannsee Conference does not reveal, let alone in "intricate detail," the "process" whereby Europe's Jews would be exterminated.

If only such a document could be found!

3. Post-war census figures for Eastern (and even Western) Europe do not shed enough light on the number and fate of missing Jews. Regular, systematic and reliable census figures are still hard to make sense of for that calamitous period of Soviet expansion, mass refugee problems, the re-drafting of borders, etc.

I sure wish that a simple subtraction sum could give a clear answer, but alas such a task is inconceivable.