Key West, Wednesday, April 14, 2004 - I am currently three years into a definitive
biography of SS chief Heinrich Himmler, for which
of course I shall need to use all the same archival
files, books, microfilms, and documents which I collected
for my biographies of Adolf Hitler, Rudolf Hess,
Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels and other top
Nazis, and the evidence files amassed for the Lipstadt
trial, which bore so heavily on the Holocaust and
Himmler's other negative "achievements." These materials
were, and are, indispensable for my work. But all of
these have been wrongfully seized by the Trustee, and she
has refused or ignored on several occasions my written
requests for their return.
- I am currently two-thirds of the way through my
lifetime project, a Winston Churchill war biography, for
which the original contract was signed in 1972 with
Michael Joseph Ltd. Volume
1 appeared in 1986, volume
2 in 2001, volume
3 should appear in 2005.
- From the mid 1960s onward I visited the archives of
the world collecting the source materials for these
biographies of Churchill and the Nazi leaders.
Specifically, I worked in archives in Canberra, Moscow,
Ottawa, Washington, Berlin, Koblenz, Paris, Rome, New
York, Abilene in Kansas, California, and elsewhere, often
being away from England for months at a time.
- As many of the principal characters were alive, I
interviewed them and compiled transcripts of the
interviews. I submit that these notes, drafts, and other
such compilations -- along with all the resulting
typescripts and bound manuscripts resulting from them --
were and are my intellectual property and not subject to
seizure.
- Many of the papers were given to me by either the
surviving top Nazis or Churchill's own staff to copy in
confidence. As described in a previous
witness statement, some of the papers were bound into
blue volumes, others microfilmed before being donated to
archives, while still others were housed in ring binders
in my study.
- I also collected a well-thumbed private library of
hundreds of war-reference books, as stated, which I read
and often annotated in the margin, or which I
card-indexed (see my next para). Most of these
indispensable source books (official histories, war
diaries, printed documentations, etc.) are now long out
of print. Still others, like the hideously expensive
multi-volume printed edition of the Goebbels diaries,
bought in for the Himmler project, I have not yet had
time yet to unpack.
- As a primary tool to exploit this vast archive I
spent forty years compiling the requisite finding aids,
microfilm catalogues and, as the most immediate research
instrument, a chronological card-index of tens of
thousands of cards, backed up by separate topic-indices
and name-indices. The cards were keyed to the specific
volumes on my shelves, or to the correspondence, or to
the interview notes, or to the page numbers of the paper
documents, or to the roll- and frame numbers of the
microfilms.
- White cards were source-references, pink cards
contained text extracts, green cards were text extracts
from the 90-volume typescript German Naval Staff war
diary (held in Washington's classified naval archives,
where my then wife and I spent a month reading every
volume), blue cards were air force references, yellow
cards were Judenfrage citations, orange cards were
those subsequently collected for the Goebbels
biography. At least half of these cards (roughly,
1942-1944) were seized by, and are currently held by, the
Trustee, unless destroyed by her or illegally disposed
of. She has refused my requests that she return
them.
- The archive contents consist of documents and sources
in English, German, French, Russian, Polish, Romanian,
Czech, Italian, Hungarian, and other languages.
- The unique value of this personal archive collection
to me as a tool of historiography is evident. Reviewers
have consistently commented on the resulting quality of
my archival research. Its value to me is beyond price: it
is an indispensable historiographical tool, which I have
spent forty years constructing.
- Its value to any other author would be limited,
perhaps only a fraction as much. If he or she cannot read
those languages, it is useless to him: moreover, he would
need to be working on the same subjects, from the same
viewpoint, and allowing himself the same time frame of
years to write the resulting books. Authors don't do that
nowadays. The late Lord Halifax can count himself
lucky that Andrew Roberts granted him 18 months of
his life, part-time at that, for a biography.
- Besides, these opponents have loudly proclaimed that
I manipulate and distort to write my history, and how can
they now purport to place any monetary value on the
archive compiled by such a person?
- It might be said that many of the documents are also
theoretically available to me in Munich, or Koblenz, or
Dresden, because I donated the originals to those
archives; as said, that might seem to be true.
- The truth is different. Thanks to the agitation of
the Applicant Lipstadt and organisations associated with
her since 1990, I find myself banned permanently from
Germany
(the eleven-year old ban was reiterated only a few months
ago), Canada,
Australia,
and several other countries; I am told that for a similar
reason (agitation against me by opponents in the
Institut
für Zeitgeschichte in Munich) I am now
persona non grata in the KGB archives in Moscow,
though I have not been able to test that; and the last
time I tried to enter Italy in June 1992 I was turned
back there as well. Three years ago, David, the son of
the former Lord Chancellor, Derry Irvine, was hauled out
of bed in Vienna by the local police, because he was
thought to be me and they had had orders to arrest me if
I visited Austria [The
Times, Nov 20, 2001].
- These entry-bans should make no difference, as I had
the foresight to complete most of the requisite research
in those archives before the bans were pronounced,
unbeknownst to Lipstadt and her allied organisations. My
archival research was complete. By seizing my completed
archives, they believe that they can effectively put a
halt to the completion of my remaining projects.
- I would also respectfully point out that in my Answer
No. 117 (to the Trustee's request that I list all those
items that I identified as tools of the trade or Haig
vs. Aitken items), I listed among said tools the
equipment needed to read the microfilms; the shelves,
cupboards, etc., needed to house the books and archives;
and my chair, desk, and table, the Trustee having seized,
together with literally the entire contents of my study,
my only chairs, my only desk, and our only table, on
which I wrote, namely the octagonal one in the dining
room (which was our only table).
- I ask that the Court make an Order specifically
declaring that these above mentioned items were and are
also tools of my trade as a writer; or in the alternative
that Bente Hogh, as my partner for the last twelve
years, and our daughter Jessica had an equitable interest
in these items
David Irving
Our dossier: The fight
over Mr Irving's seized possessions and
archives-
An
arresting story: Lord Irvine's son held in Vienna in
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