[Editor's Note: three responses to this query follow.]


1.
From:  Charles Maier [mailto:csmaier@fas.harvard.edu]

If I recall correctly - and if I understood correctly the situation at the
time - Daniel Goldhagen did not formally introduce a law suit, but his
lawyers
wrote Birn and/or her publishers that she and they might be sued for libel
were her critique to be republished in book form.  The book was published; I
don't think the suit ever followed.  But you could ask Goldhagen or Birn
directly.  Goldhagen felt that the critique was so flawed and so distorted
that it amounted to libel; most historians observing the debate believed
that a recourse to a legal threat was unfair intimidation of a critic and
that the issues merited open debate.

If I recall the action of the ADL, some of its authoritative leaders
questioned (whether in a letter to her Canadian employers or not I don't
recall) whether someone who showed the poor judgment to let her essay be
published together with Finkelstein's critique did not show that she was
unqualified as a historian for public employment. At least one columnist in
the Canadian press certainly suggested as much.  That is, they indirectly
threatened to urge that she be fired, not so much for her own work, but for
lending legitimacy to Finkelstein by consenting to co-publication.

Again, why not speak with Ruth Birn herself, perhaps, too, with Abraham
Foxman, the head of the ADL, and perhaps, too, with Sarah Berschtel (sp.?)
the editor at Henry Holt, the publisher.  So as not to appear too antiseptic
in tone, let me say that I personally had severe misgivings about
Finkelstein's book and my own reservations about Birn's argumentation (as
well as with Goldhagen), but that the pressure not to publish (if my
understanding of the facts is correct) was a tactic both foolish and
reprehensible.

Charles Maier


2.
From:  Dieter Buse [mailto:DBuse@nickel.laurentian.ca]

Why does this person not ask Birn or Goldhagen; neither is deceased.


3.
From:  Thomas Weber [mailto:thomas.weber@lady-margaret-hall.oxford.ac.uk]

1. What was the outcome of the libel lawsuit Goldhagen filed against Birn
(personally) in England?

None, as eventually no libel lawsuit was ever filed. You might want to note
that Goldhagen had threatened both Birn personally and the editors of the
Historical Journal at Cambridge with lawsuits.  What might also be of
interest is that the German History Society at the time discussed at its
annual meeting what it would have done if Goldhagen had gone ahead with his
lawsuit.  You also might want to look through Canadian Jewish newspapers of
the time, as some Jewish interest groups demanded at the time that the
Canadian Dept. of Justice would sack Birn for her co-publication with
Finkelstein (which the Dept. refused to do).

2. The Anti Defamation League tried to boycott the publishing of _A Nation
On
Trial_, which obviously didn't work. But what happened next?  Did they also
start a lawsuit?  Did they fully drop it?  What did they do?

As far as I am aware no lawsuits were ever filed.

Kind regards,

Thomas Weber

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