F.A TO DEPT OF IMMIGRATION RECEIVED FROM:

 15-NOV 1993

 FAIM702

 0.B01355 1528 12.11.93 CLA FOREIGN

 TO.

PP CANBERRA/

RP.

PP OTTAWA/ LONDON,

FM. BONN/ FA REF O.B01320

 

INCONFIDENCE

 

DAVID IRVING: STATUS IN GERMANY 

FROM 800/69 92/1388

 

FOR DIEA (ENTRY CONTROL, VLS) AND SCORPION

 

Start of summary

Munich authorities issued British rightwing author David Irving with an expulsion order from Germany on 9 November.

End of summary

The Bonn daily newspaper general Anzeiger, drawing on a Reuters report, refers to a spokesperson of the Munich district administration aliens' office confirming that that office has issued an entry ban for David Irving. We followed up with the Munich office in view of the current interest in Australia in Irving's. Status and to reconcile this information with previous advice that an entry ban has been in force for several years.

2. In fact, the Munich aliens' office issued an expulsion order against Irving on 9 November, giving him until 2400 on. 10 Nov to leave Germany or face deportation at his own expense, and confirming the public speaking ban issued on 11 Jan 1993.

3. We spoke to Brettraeger, relevant desk officer in Munich, about the order. She understood Irving to have arrived in Munich only on 9 Nov or shortly before, as part of a speaking tour in various German centres, organised by rightist groups. The order was served on him during his first engagement in Munich. He is assumed to have left Germany in accordance with the order, inter alia to avoid actual deportation. He has not appeared at subsequent scheduled events.

4. This week's expulsion order is based on two provisions of the

aliens law authorising expulsion where (embassy synopsis): (a) art. ... A person's stay undermines public security and order, or other significant national interests, and (b) art. 46(2), in particular where a person has repeatedly and/or seriously violated laws, court orders or administrative orders or, has committed a crime outside Germany which would be regarded as an intentional crime in Germany.

5. The detailed reasoning accompanying the expulsion order gives a detailed account of his activities in Bavaria, including political meetings he has attended and court and administrative orders issued. It includes reference to newspaper reports that he reentered Canada just three days after his expulsion in. Late Oct 1992, and to advice that he was banned from entry into Austria from 1984 to 1986 (for trying to revive nationalist socialism) and that a warrant for his arrest was issued there in. Nov 1989.

Comment

 6. The case illustrates only too well the extreme decentralisation in German interior affairs administration, and the difficulty in implementing effectively entry bans and the like. Brettraeger was only vaguely aware of the federal entry ban (violation of which we would have thought could put Irving in the same category as other illegal arrivals who are officially recorded in criminal statistics), and it is interesting to note that the supporting documentation appears to have been based on the Munich office's own research rather than information-sharing from federal authorities. This decentralatisation. Plus an acute sensitivity to freedom of speech issues, go some way to explain why the Munich authorities chose to focus not on implementing the federal ban but rather on justifying the expulsion on security grounds.

 XC. O.B01355 1528 12.11.93

 

CM . JS

 

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