Witness Statement filed on Monday, February 2, 2004 by David Irving against Deborah Lipstadt's claim against the official Trustee to turn all his possessions over to her | ||||||||||||
NINTH WITNESS STATEMENT OF DAVID JOHN CAWDELL IRVING I, DAVID JOHN CAWDELL IRVING of [...] London W1J 7SE, state as follows: save where the contrary is expressly stated or manifestly implied, the facts and matters to which I depose herein are within my own knowledge. 1. For the last forty years I have made my living solely as a writer, primarily on the history and personalities of World War 2. In the words of Mr. Justice Gray at the end of my unsuccessful but well-known 2000 libel action against Penguin Books & Lipstadt in April 2000: "As a military historian, Irving has much to commend him. For his works of military history Irving has undertaken thorough and painstaking research into the archives. He has discovered and disclosed to historians and others many documents which, but for his efforts, might have remained unnoticed for years. It was plain from the way in which he conducted his case and dealt with a sustained and penetrating cross-examination that his knowledge of World War 2 is unparalleled. His mastery of the detail of the historical documents is remarkable. He is beyond question able and intelligent. He was invariably quick to spot the significance of documents which he had not previously seen. Moreover he writes his military history in a clear and vivid style. I accept the favourable assessment by Professor [Donald Cameron] Watt and Sir John Keegan of the calibre of Irving's military history." 2. Already on March 14, 1971, The Times had stated that with my biography of Erhard Milch, "David Irving takes his place in the first rank of historical chroniclers." I suppose that millions of copies of my books now repose in the shelves of readers around the world. Harvard University alone had 42 in its Widener Library, the last time I checked. Leading magazine and newspapers have serialized my books and articles, including Spiegel, Stern, The Age, Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Express, Sunday Times. 3. My writing career began in 1960, when I researched the Allied air raids on Germany -- and Dresden in particular -- which earned me an accolade from Marshal of the RAF Sir Arthur Harris as the only historical writer he would now trust. (I quote his letter necessarily from memory, as this testimonial and all others like it were seized by the First Respondent in May 2002). A research archive was created. 4. The knowledge to which Gray J referred was self-taught, and derived from years of research in the field, visiting major historical personalities and their next-of-kin, and drilling down deeply into the archives in Great Britain, the Soviet Union, Germany, Australia, Canada, the United States, France, Italy, and elsewhere. In the course of this career, which is still continuing, I built a large research library of sometimes rather recondite history source-books, most of which are long out of print, heavily annotated by myself with marginalia and flagged for personal reference, and I amassed an even larger collection of originals or copies of documents, often exclusive to me. Many of the documents I had properly bound into blue or red volumes. 5. Professor Richard Evans, chief expert witness for Lipstadt in the libel action, who with his hired assistants reviewed all my documentary files both in the UK and in foreign archives, grudgingly conceded on Australian radio in August 2002: ". . . Over the years he's dug up through contacts and through sheer energy and diligence enormous amounts of new documentation of varying interest and importance, but some of it is undeniably important." 6. All these items, on which I was still working when the First Respondent [Louise Brittain, of Bakeer Tilly & Co: Trustee of Mr Irving's seized estate] took them away, have either been seized by her, regardless of the law and in defiance of the clear precedent set by Haig vs. Aitken, or they have been lost and destroyed through her negligence. Microfilm back-ups were made. 7. As each book project was finished, I catalogued and
inventoried many of the relevant files that I had collected
and had
them microfilmed at my own expense by Messrs.
Kodak-Recordak Ltd., and I then donated the original hard
copy, insofar as I was not likely to need it for future
projects, to the appropriate archives. For example I donated
my files on the air raids on Dresden
to the Dresden City archives in about 1965; those on the
Hungarian
Uprising of 1956 I donated to the Schweizer Osteuropa
Institut in Berne; and 8. I donated other files, of higher-level interest, to the Bundesarchiv, the German Federal Archives -- for example Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's diaries, and the original papers of Adolf Eichmann which were entrusted to me when I visited Buenos Aires in October 1991. The Bundesarchiv finally received nearly one tonne of such records from me (for no recompense). The Microfilms were retained. 9. In most cases, as said, I retained personal microfilm copies before parting with the originals, so that even this given-away material would be available to me for future book projects. The First Respondent has seized this unique archive of my own research microfilms, a filing cabinet holding some 500 items. She has also removed my printer-reader, the essential tool for reading the microfilms. Strings were attached. 10. As is customary, there were occasions where widows, other next-of-kin, or the officers themselves, attached strings, provisos, and user-restrictions when providing copies of their papers to me -- e.g., the private 1941 diary of Ambassador Walther Hewel, Ribbentrop's liaison man on Hitler's staff; and the 1938 private diaries of Wolf Eberhard, the adjutant of Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, or the diaries and letters of Helmut Greiner, the war diarist of the Wehrmacht High Command, or the diaries and letters of Colonel Nicholas von Vormann, General Staff officer attached to Hitler in August 1939. For example, the late Sir John Martin, Churchill's principal private secretary, made available a complete copy of his private diaries to me on strict undertakings about their usage. The point is, these sources trusted me to make proper use of the papers, where they had not so far felt able to trust others. Where I made copies of these papers available to archives like the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, I imposed the same conditions relating to access: thus researchers have to consult Blanda Benteler, the widow of Hewel (she is still alive) for permission before they are allowed to read his 1941 diary. My books were well reviewed. 11. William Kimber Ltd published my book THE DESTRUCTION OF DRESDEN in April 1963. It was serialized in The Sunday Telegraph and became a best-seller. It was praised across the political spectrum, by Left and Right: glowing reviews by Mr. Richard Crossmann MP, and by "Cassandra" (William Connor) in The Daily Mirror stick in my mind. All of these files of book reviews and articles have either been seized by the first Respondent, or lost and destroyed through her negligence. 12. Almost at once, in April 1963, a perplexing campaign
of sniping and vilification against me began, which has
continued to this date, and which certainly has not abated.
13. I do not claim to have been the only high-profile British author to have been subject to these unsavoury attentions by the BoD. To my knowledge the late Mr. Auberon Waugh has written of how they kept (and circulated) secret dossiers on him too. Secret address lists were sought. 14. In November 1963, one of the BoD's criminal
offshoots, a gang of three burglars and arsonists headed by
one Gerald
Gable, broke into my then North London apartment
disguised as Post Office engineers; I caught them red-handed
in their burglary effort, they were arrested
and subsequently convicted for housebreaking. 15. The campaign against me intensified after the publication in 1977 by Hodder & Stoughton Ltd (UK) and The Viking Press (New York) of the first editions of my well-known major biography of Adolf Hitler, HITLER'S WAR. This book too went into The Sunday Times's best-seller list. The USA vendetta started. 16. In the United States, the long-established, wealthy and influential New York body known as the Anti-Defamation League of the B'nai Brith ("the ADL") at once approached television and radio producers behind the scenes, and no doubt newspapers as well, to urge them not to allow any promotion of, or programmes on, my book. I have copies of the relevant 1977 memoranda. In 1983 they circulated a smear dossier on me to all their operatives in the United States, asking them to keep an eye out for my activities: "British author David Irving has been of concern to ADL, as well as to the Jewish community generally, since the 1977 publication of his book Hitler's War, in which he promoted the outrageous notion that Hitler was unaware of the existence of Nazi death camps and did not order the genocidal "Final Solution" carried out against European Jewry. [… ] It is not yet clear whether Irving will make other public appearances. Should he surface in your region, please notify the Fact Finding Department and your Civil Rights Coordinator. […]." 17. Since the ADL has an annual budget of $60 million, they are financially well placed to prevail. The Vendetta spreads to the Internet. 18. The campaign
of these bodies to silence me and destroy my career has
continued without let for the last thirty years. By circular
and newspaper campaign they have laboured to smear my name;
and more recently on the Internet, through such well-built
Internet websites as (a) Nizkor, which the ADL has operated
through front organizations since the early 1990s, and (b)
http://www.holocaust-history.org, and (c)
www.holocaustdenialontrial.com, The further role of the Board of Deputies. 19. Behind Mishcon de Reya [London solicitors acting for Lipstadt] stand not only Lipstadt, their client on this application (and in the 1996-2000 defamation action) but Mishcon's long-term clients the BoD. From its headquarters in London, the BoD has also orchestrated a thirty-year global vendetta designed to discredit myself and all my books, and to pressure publishers into ceasing the publication of my works in general, and HITLER'S WAR in particular. 20. In this connection, on December 12, 1991 the BoD
hosted a secret meeting of the Holocaust Educational Trust,
a political pressure and lobbying group [a transcript is
reproduced on the Internet on http://www.fpp.co.uk/BoD/docs/
HET121291.html]. Point 5 on the agenda of this
secret meeting was an explicit discussion of how to
"approach" Macmillan Ltd., i.e. to intimidate them, and to
procure them to break their contracts with me. 21. When it became known in June 1992 that I had gained exclusive access to the missing diaries of Dr Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, by visiting the KGB archives in Moscow, the BoD or its offshoots organized street protests and other campaigns to bludgeon The Sunday Times into violating its publishing contract with me, resulting in a loss to me of royalties of over £50,000 after editor Andrew Neil decided that he could not take the heat any longer. He said at the time that he had never experienced a campaign of such venom and fury in his entire editorial career. 22. The BoD made no secret of this campaign in their own press, expressing their outrage when my book-publisher Macmillan had initially refused to be bowed (see The Jewish Chronicle, June 30, 1989: "IRVING PUBLISHERS WON'T DROP HIM.")
24. Until May 2002 I had photocopies of the relevant internal Macmillan memoranda; they were in the discovery which solicitors produced for my concurrent action in defamation against Gitta Sereny and Guardian Newspapers Ltd, all which files have either been seized by the First Respondent, or caused to be lost and destroyed through her negligence, so causing me to suffer the loss of a chance of winning that case. My address lists were somehow purloined. 25. On March 3, 2002, The Observer published an article written by the journalist D D Guttenplan; this article revealed detailed, up-to-date, and accurate knowledge of the contents of one of my most confidential address lists, namely that of my higher financial contributors and supporters; the newspaper published the names, addresses, and actual contributions of several of these people. I was shocked, since this address list is held in only one location, on my private computer. Guttenplan, with whom I entertained friendly relations both then and now, declined to disclose how the newspaper had obtained this information. He did inform me that he had collaborated closely with the BoD. Computer experts whom I consulted informed me that my computer must have been "hacked into." 26. I mention this as further evidence of the interest of the BoD and the British media in obtaining possession of such confidential data, if they can, by whatever means and whatever the price, as a means of intimidating and discouraging people from supporting me in my single-handed legal battles for Real History. The campaign to have me banned worldwide. 27. Concurrently with these campaigns in New York and
London against my publishers, the BoD, the ADL, and their
overseas affiliates including the South African Jewish Board
of Deputies ("the SAJBOD"), and the Australian Jewish
Congress and the Canadian Jewish Congress ("the CJC") began
networking closely in countries around the world to ensure
that I could no longer travel and research freely in
them. 28. In November 1992 I was formally expelled from Canada [right, in manacles], a country I had freely visited -- without any legal difficulties -- scores of times since 1967. I discuss the origins and relevance of this event below (para. 31). 29. Through litigation initiated by me in those countries and elsewhere, or via the Access to Information Act in Ottawa, I was able to build up largely complete dossiers which threw light retrospectively on this campaign. E.g., in the files of the Canadian government I found letters written by SAJBOD to the BoD, conspiring to get me banned from Canada, and from Professor Gerald Fleming to Michael Whine of the BoD in June 1992 on the need to procure my expulsion from Germany. In the files of the Australian prime minister my Australian solicitor found inter alia the court transcript of a 1994 hearing held -- unbeknownst to me -- in the High Court, which led to my imprisonment later that day for an alleged contempt, at the request of a German publisher, Michael Naumann (later the German Minister for Culture). It was all part of the same global vendetta. 30. The successful expulsion from Canada enabled these unsavoury bodies to draw it to the attention of every other Commonwealth country. It obliged, or at least encouraged, these Commonwealth countries to prohibit my future entry -- which step was duly taken by Australia, South Africa, and divers other countries that I had freely visited and in whose archives I had previously researched. Under pressure from the BoD both Germany and Austria banned my entry -- I later saw copies of the letters written by the Board to their respective ambassadors in London -- in the hope that this would totally prevent my further research into the events of World War 2. I am not even able to use my own papers, donated to Germany's archives (para. 8 above). Board of Deputies and Michael Whine engineered the bans. 31. What had first triggered this landslide? Not until late 1995 did I learn that Canada had taken its fateful step on the basis of two evil and defamatory dossiers on "David Irving" infiltrated into Ottawa ministerial files by the CJC; the dossiers had initially been supplied to the CJC by a UK body whose identity was masked-out in the Canadian files. This body turned out to be the BoD, as the Board's solicitors, Mishcon de Reya eventually conceded in a letter to me and in an affidavit submitted to the Court. 32. The BoD dossiers were defamatory and untrue, and often extremely libellous: e.g. they alleged that in 1959 I had married the daughter of one of Generalisimo Francisco Franco's generals to ingratiate myself with the fascist Falange, for some unstated but implicitly murky reason. (My ex-wife confirmed to me that her father had never been a soldier, but was an industrial chemist, and was politically opposed to the Caudillo not least because two of his brothers had been assassinated during the Civil War by Franco's hoods.) Action in defamation against the Board. 33. I at once initiated action against the BoD: I did not claim damages, as that was not my wont; but I did insist on a written retraction of this and the other libels. The Board's director Michael Whine, who managed these secret smear-dossiers, instructed Mishcon de Reya to reply. 34. As stated, it had already taken several months for Mr. Anthony Julius of Mishcon de Reya to admit that it was in fact the BoD which had authored these despicable dossiers; Mr. Julius now dragged his feet for many more weeks -- agreeing in principle to the retraction, but drawing out the correspondence on the details, and asking me to set out in full what the truth of each allegation was. Since time was running out, I eventually applied to Mr Justice Toulson in chambers for permission under the then Rules of the Supreme Court to issue a writ out of time, given that my claim for libel was prima facie time-barred. Julius now argued that, whereas I had not been out of time at the start of my negotiations with him, I now was, a view in which Toulson J reluctantly concurred: I should already have issued, but not served, the writ. At one point Julius feebly argued before Toulson J that the libel, if it were such, was only very minor, because the dossiers had been published to only one party. "Yes," replied Mr. Justice Toulson sharply: "To one party. To the Canadian Government, with catastrophic consequences for Mr. Irving." 35. It is noteworthy that the BoD which had peddled these libellous dossiers to their accomplices, the CJC in Ottawa, did not attempt to justify their defamations before Toulson J, but based their argument solely on the defence of limitation. Action under Data Protection Act against the Board. 36. It was manifest from these two "David Irving" dossiers found by my Canadian solicitors in the Ottawa government files, and from other items I had collected through my litigation, that the BoD was in the business of assembling, compiling, and selling dirt, in dossiers on personalities in the UK, and that this was being done in probable contravention of the Data Protection Act of 1986 which specifically enjoins passing such data to parties overseas. As provided under the Act, I challenged the BoD in writing to provide access to their "David Irving" dossier. Waiting until the last day when such denial was permitted, Mr. Michael Whine denied in writing that there were any such dossiers. This was an obvious lie. 37. I therefore called upon the Registrar, as I was entitled to, to take the appropriate enforcement steps. The Registrar sent investigators to the BoD, by appointment, and the BoD and Mr Whine repeated their denial. Under the Act, the Registrar has to be content with such a denial: there was at that time little else he could do. In my view it is self-evident from the terms of the BoD's registration under the Act, of which I obtained a copy, that they do in fact collect voluminous data on everybody in the UK whom they consider to be a danger to their special interests. 38. These interests are stated by the Board to be specifically to
39. It is plain from the Board's registration under the Act that this Gestapo-like data-gathering activity on behalf inter alia of a foreign state explicitly includes information on the target person's banking, criminal, financial, marital, and economic affairs, and on his sexual, nutritional, and other preferences among many other categories of data. I again call attention to the involvement of Michael Whine and the BoD in the current application by Lipstadt, which has the evident purpose of the acquisition of all my private files. My publishing career in USA is finally killed.
Action in defamation against Lipstadt. 41. This was one reason why I instituted proceedings in libel against her later that year, 1996. From documents disclosed in the course of Discovery, I discovered that she had left no stone unturned in her efforts to dig up dirt against me including from the BoD, the Jewish Telegraph Agency (which at one stage in 1995 had even publicly accused me of providing the trigger mechanism for the Oklahoma City bomb!), and the Institute of Jewish Affairs in London, and that she had been commissioned first by the late Mr Robert Maxwell and then by the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem to mount this smear attack on my name and reputation in her book. 42. Lipstadt did not give evidence during the trial of my libel action, and thus did not make herself available for cross-examination on her actions. Full discovery included my diaries. 43. In the run-up to this failed action against Penguin Books & Lipstadt, I made full disclosure of my files, as required by the Rules. In several hearings before Master Trench in 1998, strict terms were drawn up under which I would make available all my private diaries and telephone logs and telephone tapes for the defendants' perusal -- an estimated 50 million words of highly personal and confidential materials. Since the Order by Master Trench determined that all extracts were to be destroyed after the trial was over, and specifically stated that under no circumstances were they to be made available to the BoD or their agents, I had few compunctions in making such sweeping disclosure; in fact I saw advantages, since it enabled me to state in Court that the defendants had literally seen everything, but had found nothing (other than a 19-word nonsense-poem, of which in their desperation they made repeated use). 44. Among the unnamed people who thus drifted in and out of my apartment, reviewing documents made available by way of Discovery in the Lipstadt defamation action, was, it seems, Dr [Tobias] Jersak, one of Professor [Richard] Evans's hired hands. On the basis of that Discovery Dr Jersak has now expressed an opinion for Mishcon de Reya for the purposes of this current action in bankruptcy. I would respectfully observe that I have not waived privilege in these papers in their entirety, and the Court has not granted him permission to use his knowledge of the Discovery given in the libel action for a different matter. 45. Anthony Julius, James Libson, Laura Tyler, and
other members of Lipstadt's solicitors Mishcon de Reya spent
days, if not weeks, Lipstadt has published thousands of pages of my Discovery on her website. 46. Moreover I have learned and confirmed for myself a few days ago that in clear violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 of the United States the applicant Lipstadt or her agents have posted in facsimile form thousands of documents including my private diaries and other items obtained from my Discovery on her Internet website www.holocaustdenialontrial.com which has been created for the sole purpose of defaming me further ("the pro Nazi historian"). Her website controller has ignored (indeed not even acknowledged) my written request that these privileged and copyright materials should be taken off the Lipstadt website immediately. I mention this as further indication of what motivation really underlies the application made by Lipstadt and what is to be expected of her if the application succeeds. 47. One's appetite grows with eating, as the proverb has it: Mischon's staff have evidently appreciated during their visits to my now-seized apartment that there was much, much more that they would like to lay hands on, to fatten up the salacious and politically dangerous "smear dossiers" of the BoD, an agency which is also among Mishcon's permanent clients. I mention this too to indicate what motivation really underlies the application made by Lipstadt. Lipstadt is not a genuine creditor. 48. I deny that Lipstadt is my creditor, and say that she was wholly maintained throughout. I would challenge any proof that she were to submit. At no time between the failure of the action, four years ago, and the lodging of her current application with the Court has Lipstadt approached me or my solicitors for payment of any costs. To the best of my knowledge and belief, she has not yet submitted a proof. 49. The Hon. Mr Justice Gray concluded in his Judgment that the defence offered by Penguin Books Ltd & Lipstadt had succeeded. I attended in court as he read out his Judgment on April 11, 2000. At Gray J's direction, no transcript was taken, but I have a clear recollection that Richard Rampton, QC, counsel for Penguin, rose at the end of this session to ask for an immediate order for costs on behalf of Penguin Books Ltd; and that before I myself rose to submit my objections to the making of an immediate order, Rampton mentioned that he was not appearing on behalf of Lipstadt, and that he was not asking for an order for costs on her behalf. To this the Hon. Mr Justice Gray remarked to the effect that it was unlikely that the Court would have made an order for costs in her behalf "in the circumstances" -- (these circumstances were well known from press reports, though not explicitly stated at this session -- namely that she had been maintained throughout the action by people who were not party to the action). 50. At paragraph 2 of his Supplemental Judgment on Costs of May 5, 2000 the Hon. Mr Justice Gray pointedly observed that there was no application on behalf of Lipstadt for an interim payment on account of costs. 51. It is noteworthy that Mr Julius (whose name is mistranscribed in the Smith Bernal report of this hearing of May 5, 2000 as "Tulins", but who was present in Court on that day, as he had been throughout the trial) made no such application on Lipstadt's behalf, but his firm now suggests that she is a creditor. 52. As the Hon. Mr Justice Gray said when dismissing my defence of maintenance as against Penguin Books Ltd: - " . . . it may well be that the sort of application that we have heard being made this morning by Mr [Adrian] Davies would have greater force when it comes to her, [i.e. Lipstadt], and I think I have got to make every assumption in favour of Mr Irving on that. Am I making myself reasonably clear?" I respectfully submit that Gray J. could not have made himself clearer. 53. 54. On or about May 5, 1998 Mr. Julius issued an appeal for financial support to a circle of millionaire supporters and through Lex Garages chief executive Sir Trevor Chinn to other millionaires like Octav Botnar, who had fled overseas to avoid tax-fraud charges. 55. The American Jewish Committee and the billionaire Edgar J Bronfman, then head of the World Jewish Congress, also made financial contributions of unspecified size. 56. In a broadcast on BBC Radio Four, entitled "The Irving Trial", broadcast on Thursday November 8, 2001, the following exchange occurred: Michael Cockerell: So the lengthy preparations for the case began. Penguin had their own in-house lawyers, and would use the services of an outside firm of solicitors and a leading libel QC to defend themselves and Deborah Lipstadt in Court. Lipstadt decided that she should have her own independent Legal Advisor, and turned to the solicitor, Anthony Julius, who had successfully handled Princess Diana's divorce. 57. Full disclosure of Lipstadt's contemporary financial records and those of Mishcon de Reya will reveal the truth about who paid what to whom. 58. To my certain knowledge, until lodging the current application Lipstadt has made no claim to have incurred any costs in the action; nor was she represented at any of the subsequent hearings and appeals on the costs issue; nor did she submit any claim for costs to the First Respondent before the current application, which is late to say the very least. I therefore ask this Honourable Court to dismiss Lipstadt's application, with costs. Statement of truth. I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true.
David Irving London, Monday, February 2, 2004
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I
donated most of the Third Reich research files, year by year
from 1963 onwards, to the 
The
first item to come to my attention was an unreasonable ad
hominem attack in 1963 by a journalist, Arthur
Pottersman, published in the Mirror (I think). It
seems evident to me now that the attack was orchestrated by
Jewish bodies in the UK, for whatever reason. I mention that
fact because of the involvement of Michael Whine
(left) and his employers, the 
They
told police, as the police informed me on the day of the
break-in, that it had been their intent to steal my address
books to identify my contacts overseas -- these demented
hoodlums even mentioned the name of Reichsleiter Martin
Bormann (who had in fact committed suicide on May 1,
1945). I mention this as evidence of the concern of these
bodies to come into possession, among other things, of my
confidential address lists, by hook or by crook. Gable was
convicted of entry by artifice as a result of this
episode.
the latter two run respectively by Henry Mazal, who
is mentioned in the Witness Statement of David Davis
as having shown a keen interest in buying my confidential
files from the First Respondent, and by Deborah
Lipstadt, (right), the applicant herein.
23.
Under this relentless pressure however, as my editor at
Macmillan's, Roland Phillips, expressly 
as
guests in my Mayfair apartment trawling through all my files
and photocopying huge swathes of my private papers, tens of
thousands of pages, which -- as now turns out -- they sent
across the Atlantic and thus out of the jurisdiction. In
defiance of Master Trench's Order, these papers have since
been shown to unauthorised parties. To my certain knowledge
parts of the private diaries have been quoted in articles
published in the United States, among others by Kenneth
Stern (left), of the American Jewish
Committee.
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