The Troubled Path
of this Project since 1988:
IN 1993 David Irving completed work on an
edition of the top-secret CSDIC [Combined
Services Detailed Interrogation Center]
interrogation transcripts on senior Nazi prisoners,
and of the Farm Hall transcripts -- hidden-microphone
recordings of the German atomic scientists in British
captivity, for the release of which latter documents
he had actively campaigned since 1966. The book can
now be downloaded here free:
(1.6MB pdf
file).
Mr Irving began researching this CSDIC book in
1988. The book was taking shape in draft in 1989 and
selected passages were submitted to the publisher
Langen-Müller in Munich. Over dinner on November
2, 1989 in Munich, the publisher's CEO Dr Herbert
Fleissner remarked to Mr Irving that his chief
editor Rochus von Zabüsnig was only
lukewarm about the project, having read some of the
sample manuscript, as he thought it was
"Nestbeschmutzung" -- fouling their own nest -- as
some of the overheard remarks by Nazi prisoners like
General
Walter Bruns revealed unwelcome details of
atrocities).
Mr Irving's Diary: "I disagree. Fleissner feigns
greater interest, has not read it yet, may well ask to
see the whole thing." Lunching with a German in Madrid
on December 16, 1989 Mr Irving learned from him that
Fleissner had told him a few days earlier that he did
not want to publish the CSDIC book, "as he believes
the reports are forgeries (!!), and turn against
Germany. I told [him] my suspicions about
Fleissner's royalty-accounting practices" (Diary).
Work on the CSDIC project proceeded only slowly, as
the major project in hand was the Goebbels
biography, "Goebbels. Mastermind of the Third
Reich".
Mr Irving first found some of these scattered
TOP SECRET CSDIC reports among
papers of historian Hugh Trevor-Roper in 1968.
He found more among US National Archives files
although these had concealed the origins; there were
long series of transcripts with numbers like A-357 or
B-567. Learning that I had obtained copies of some,
the UK government of Harold Wilson wanted my
arrest and prosecution for possessing them (the file
on this is in the British government archives).
Mr Irving used many of them in writing "Hitler's
War" and in all subsequent books especially the
Goebbels and
Göring
biographies and now Dresden.
The book, now called in German ABGEHÖRT,
overheard, was essentially completed in summer 1992,
and taken to Munich. Publisher Langen-Müller
Verlag now formally accepted the manuscript and paid
the DM25000 advance.
On January 14, 1993 -- the day after Germany fined
him $25,000 for a lecture -- Mr Irving visited the
publisher and noted in his diary: "Zabüsnig says
he's disappointed slightly by ABGEHÖRT, he had
wanted the manuscript themenmäßig
gegliedert. He volunteers, "Es sind aber doch
einige Hammer drin." I explain the problem:
organise (a) the conversations chronologically by
date? or (b) by topic? In fact, I say, I have struck a
middle course, and I hope he'll be satisfied." For
several months there was silence. On July 23, 1993
Zabüsnig's secretary said that the ABGEHÖRT
manuscript was im Satz - being typeset.
After several months, in November 1993, on what was
to prove Mr Irving's last day in Germany, Editor
Zabüsnig informed him that the book was not
acceptable, as it was Nestbeschmützung --
his original objection made four years earlier. His
firm now illegally and in violation of contract law --
as the book had been formally accepted -- began to
deduct the DM25,000 advance from incoming royalties,
and Mr Irving separated from them.
Discouraged, for a year or two after that Mr Irving
desultorily showed the project to his former German
publishers, including the new Siedler Verlag, headed
by Wolf Jobst Siedler, and Albrecht
Knaus of Bertelsmann. All shied away from
publishing the explosive book, although he showed them
the most chilling chapters on, for example, Bruns.
The
manuscript itself was returned by Zabüsnig only
years later and in a state of great disarray. After
the 2000 Lipstadt trial the typescript manuscript was
seized with Mr Irving's entire archives, and it has
evidently been destroyed. The MS was now incomplete
with some pages missing and others out of sequence. In
the 1990s he had however fortunately digitally scanned
the pages. The pdf file presented
here is a reconstruction, as best as is possible,
from the digital file.
There will be the customary (OCR) scanning errors,
and Mr Irving invites readers to report them using the
link at the foot of each page; of course comments and
additions are also welcomed. Although this is an
unpublished work, it is still protected by Copyright.
Readers who wish to contribute to the lost royalties
may wish to use this
link.
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