David Irving in Athens, Greece, October 24-25, 2005

At the invitation of publisher Constantinos Coridis (below), David Irving (left) visited Athens October 24-25, 2005, to present the Greek edition of The War Between the Generals, and for talks with leading publishers and newspaper and television interviews.

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 The visit went ahead despite weeks of intimidation by Communist bodies and KIS, the Greek Jewish Association, and an appeal to the Greek prime minister to prevent Mr Irving from visiting the country.

 

publisher Constantinos Coridis »»» 

On the afternoon of October 24, 2005 a film crew arrived from Mega TV. Their Scots-born TV presenter Themie Kamtsiori, 29, interviewed Mr Irving for an hour about The War Between the Generals, and about revelations in "Churchill's War", vol. ii: "Triumph in Adversity" for a film project on Pearl Harbor to be broadcast in their "Warzone" series.

For two hours in the evening John Papadopoulos of Agelioforos, the largest newspaper in Thessaloniki, Greece, interviewed Mr Irving.
   At one stage he invited comment on half a dozen original and gruesome photographs; they had been taken, seemingly in the closing stages of WW2, by former Greek partisan and saboteur Christos Manolis, of Salonika, while imprisoned in the Nazi camp at Mauthausen, Austria. Mr Irving's comment was that while he himself was not qualified to judge, a pathologist viewing the photographs would probably conclude that the emaciated bodies seen piled up and being handled by (well fed) prisoners in the photos had all died of starvation and disease: and that while they had all died at the hands of criminals, it was unlikely that the Nazis had first emaciated these victims and then gassed them, as history implied.

The gruelling round of newspaper interviews in Athens continues.

10 a.m. Theodoros Antonopoulos arrive sto interview Mr Irving for Vima magazine; its Sunday edition, which will carry the long interview in two weeks' time, has a 200,000 circulation.

Afterwards skilled professional photographer Les -- of New York City wields his professional 12 megapixel Canon camera, aided by a lighting technician.

A Greek newspaper has reported today that Mr Irving was banned from Athens; another announces that he has cancelled the visit. Not so. The Greek journaille!

12 pm Nikos Hidiroglou, a leading journalist of Metro magazine, interviews Mr Irving. Educated at Essex University in Colchester, England, Nikos speaks fluent English, has a Portuguese mother, and fiery views on just about everything.

2 pm Constantine Kokorogiannis comes to question Mr Irving on his beliefs, on behalf of Greece's History Illustrated magazine; he is a private school teacher now as well as a journalist.  

Final interviews in Athens are conducted by George Pissalides for Eleftheros Kosmos, Giannis Theodoratos for the Military History magazine, and Costas Papapanagiotu for Eleftheri Ora.

To be continued