David Irving |
Documents on the International Campaign for Real History
First posted Wednesday, June 27, 2012
© Focal Point 2012
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Never mind, because there is no bread to toast anyway, just 'English' muffins. Hmmm. They are about as English as measles is ever German.
- note new cities, dates, and times!
Monday, May 28, 2012
Shreveport -- Covington, Louisiana (USA)
Photo: Hitler consoles the sons of assassinated RSHA chief Heydrich, while Himmler (right) looks on and Heydrich's brother (behind Hitler) look on: the brother killed himself in 1944
CANADIAN Bill Blair sends me a link to the Deutsche Wochenschau newsreel of the aftermath of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich (below), including the June 1942 state funeral in Berlin. He asks:
Were the thousands, as shown in the newsreel, Volksdeutsche, or were there Czechs there as well? Also, note President Hácha bowing and saluting Hitler at the funeral. At 3:08 in the newsreel there is a delegation of miners (you can tell by their caps) paying its respects.
I reply: "Heydrich's son told me in an interview that there were thousands of Czechs lining Prague's Wenceslas Square, 'the women in black and bearing flowers'. He never forget the spectacle."
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Covington, Louisiana (USA)HOTEL breakfast: there is no bread to make toast, so the Ersatz-butter problem does not arise; only sickening, fattening US food including waffles, syrup, cold bacon strips, a rubber-omelette, etc. Hotels, school meals, and the food industry, Big Food: all are to blame for the cruel epidemic of obesity besetting this great country.
I see on the Lighthouse Literature website a Store Closing Announcement posted by Jaenelle Antas: "We have both made the choice to focus on our families for the time being."
I write her: "Very sorry you're closing your store, Jae. I know how important it was to you. Perhaps one day when the storm blows over you will revive it? I hope so."
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Covington - New Orleans - Covington, Louisiana (USA)I WRITE to Jessica: "I hope you're studying hard. I am in New Orleans. Had a good meeting last night. I have written today to the garage and asked them to make sure the Rolls is ready in July. It has been with them for THREE years now!! Lots of love, Daddy."
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Covington, Louisiana (USA)TO see a movie, Men in Black 3, with Will Smith. The movie starts weird and gets weirder, the gory and gooey special effects gradually overwhelming any sense of plot or storyline. But fun all the same. First time I've been to a movie in two or three years.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Covington, Louisiana - Montgomery, Alabama (USA)ARRIVE at our Montgomery location around six p.m. It is in a large house, slightly disheveled but excellent for our purpose . . . we just about break even today with Mna.'s pay, the car rental, hotel etc. She once again performs beyond satisfaction.
L. says that a few months ago Jaenelle suddenly "unfriended" him on Facebook, whatever that means, without reason, which he felt was rather insulting. . .
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Montgomery, Alabama - Atlanta, Georgia (USA)UNLIKE me and others like Susie Töpler, Mna. is a Morgenmuffel. I am always in a sparkling good humour in the morning.
Gerry A. wants to be told the location now, on a plausible pretext. I am strict: "Dear Gerry
In everybody's interest, we do operate a strict notification rule which prevents us releasing the location too far ahead. I will however say it is in S Indianapolis.
Mna. stalks off in a huff after I automatically ask her, yet again, to lower her voice. Poles, like Americans, talk loudly (and seemingly can't stand criticism). Over breakfast N. phones, about New York City. He tries hard to register without going through the hoops, claims he has difficulty with the registration form, claims he was at Cincinnati ten years ago, etc. I cite "security concerns" . . . He then asks if he can send cash to register for NYC meeting, and again I say no.
I check our MAGIC database. He has a record of "problems" and wanting information, so I politely refuse him. P. says he has some Himmler letters to show me. He will come tonight. He is known to me. I email tonight's location to him.
A pleasant day but clouded by the kind of petty mishaps that cumulatively sour the end result. . . We carry on northwards and reach the restaurant in Atlanta only forty-five minutes ahead of our dinner meeting. Some guests already there. The full crowd comes, no omissions, and they choose their dinners from the à la carte menu -- which is, as Mna. later triumphs, a serious mistake: the restaurant bill with tips and taxes more than wipes out every penny we took for registrations.
Hmmm. Well, they were my guests, but even so.
Bob P. comes as promised, and brings a folder of Heinrich Himmler items including a good original early-1930s portrait photo (above) and two postcards which Heini wrote to his parents, 1930-1931.
There is also a moving portrait photo of Ilse Stahl, right, Goebbels's old secretary and mistress. She married Gauleiter Josef Terboven on the eve of the Night of Long Knives in June 1934, and was blown up by him in, presumably, a suicide pact, when the war ended. I bring in the scanner and make good scans while M. loads the Expedition. I will use this Ilse Stahl photo in the new edition of "Goebbels. Mastermind of the Third Reich" -- if ever I can raise the capital needed for reprinting it, that is. Demand for it is huge.
Photo: Bob P. brought a bunch of unusual original photos and letters when David Irving hosted a private dinner in Atlanta oe Saturday evening and spoke on "Churchill and Pearl Harbor."
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Atlanta, Georgia (USA)N. TRIES again: [. . .]
I tell Jessica: "I am in Atlanta now. Lovely climate and sunshine. Had our big dinner last night, bad miscalculation: most paid $65 each; but their dinners cost us $75. . ."
L. volunteered two days ago in Montgomery to check up on "suspects" on my list, as he is a lawyer specializing in collections and subscribes to countless databases, but sends me a strange discovery about Jaenelle, quite without my asking him . . . [details omitted here, they are past history]. He knew I'm trying to find ten or twenty boxes of autographed books which have not turned up where she said they are. They have been missing for six months.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Atlanta, Georgia - Knoxville, Tennessee (USA)L. ADDS, again unasked: "There is another report that strongly suggests her last name is T--." I ask him to stop looking; it is all no longer any concern of mine.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Knoxville, Tennessee - Cincinnati, Ohio (USA)WE LEAVE to drive to Cincinnati, stopping twice at McDonalds to handle emails. At 3:20 p.m.. there is a phone call on what we call The Gabriela-Phone from the secretary of a Rabbi Sherman inquiring about my coming Syracuse meeting. Search engines reveal that he comes from a long line of rabbis.
A reader writes:
What I would like to inquire concerns . . . the Reichstag Fire. According to the official story, on the night of February 27, 1933 a squad of SA men acting on orders from Hitler, Goebbels, and Göring met in a passage way leading from Göring's residence to the Reichstag and collected some incindiary equipment and fuel, entered the Reichstag, scattered the fuel about, and ignited it setting the Reichstag ablaze. . . But is that the real story? Is there any reason to question or doubt this version of events or any part of it?I reply: "The communists manufactured evidence to throw the blame off their man Van der Lubbe who started the fire. The Goebbels diary which I found in the Moscow archives in June 1992 proves that he and Hitler were astonished at the news that the building was on fire. The most reliable account of the fire is by Fritz Tobias (below right), who died this year." That is his book The Reichstag Fire.
In June 2011 David Irving, risking prison, visited Fritz Tobias (right) in Hannover, Germany, to take leave of the famous historian, then aged over ninety. Irving is banned from Germany since 1993
BY SEVEN p.m. most of our Cincinnati guests have arrived; we are missing only a few including "Les Courtney" who minces in half an hour later -- bringing a bunch of twenty to thirty louts with banners and so on, to block doorways, shout, and generally cause mayhem. I phone Mna. to [. . .] and she does not even ask why: she knows what to do.
I push my way through the stinking, unwashed throng to [. . .] At first I address them courteously, suggest that if they want to stay and listen quietly without interrupting I am prepared to allow them to do so. Courtney yells that he's staying anyway, as he's paid; I eventually remind him that we reserve the right to refuse admission, and are doing so in his case. The
tallest of the gang, wearing a woolly hat and dark glasses and stubble, cites the conformist Professor Richard "Skunky" Evans (right) as his God. That figures. He forbids his disciples to follow my unexpected invitation. Since they are blocking the hotel doorway, and do not leave voluntarily, I phone the police. Cincinnati's finest clear them out and the talk proceeds after a few minutes.
Back in the meeting room I find "Courtney" still sitting down, chanting Nazi slogans, and holding up a large cardboard banner; I rip it from his hands and tear it into shreds, accompanied by his obscene shouts and protests and with much shoving and pushing. Couldn't have done it with the old hip. For those interested in further debate with him, "Courtney's" registration details are these: "Les Courtney, 205 Washington St, Alexandria, KY 41001. Phone 513-305-9515. Email: [email protected]."
Afterwards I necessarily review again the names of all those I have already cleared for tomorrow's Indy talk.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Cincinnati, Ohio - Indianapolis, Indiana (USA)UP by eight a.m. Mna. is out, running in a fitness center somewhere, I guess. She is very keen on keeping trim.
A slew of texts from Bente and Jessica throughout the drive north-west to Indy. I tell Jessica: "Had minor troubles last night here in Cincinnati. Lots of love, Daddy."
2:10 p.m we check into the next hotel in Indianapolis. Seven p.m. we have a full house. Not enough chairs. . . However after fifteen minutes we have the first interruption by management, their bearded front-desk man asking us to close down the meeting, he has spoken with management, etc., etc. I point out that we have legally booked the room. . ., and that we shall claim compensation. The meeting continues under constraints, and we eventually pack up around nine-thirty p.m. as planned. Mna. tells me he had googled my name and his jaw dropped when he read of last year's damage done by "anti-fascists" to an Indianapolis restaurant and subsequent events at the Courtyard Marriott in nearby Carmel.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Indianapolis, Indiana (USA)THE hotel breakfast is meagre. The only "butter" available is either peanut butter spread or Land o'Lakes "Fresh Buttery Taste® Spread", but never mind, because there is no bread to toast anyway, just "English" muffins, etc. Hmmm. They are about as English as measles is German. Eleven a.m as I am downstairs the manageress buttonholes me . . . and "apologises" for last night with many gesticulations characteristic of her type and says she had not realised I write books and . . . [etc].
I reply haughtily that that is what I do, I write books, and we have had meetings in Marriotts up and down this country -- I mention our Cincinnati Marriott Real History weekends -- and she persists, and I persist, and eventually after I say that my guests last night came from five states to meet and hear me, and their front-desk man last night had made me look ridiculous in their eyes with his constant interruptions, she offered to refund our payments, which offer I have graciously accepted.
Mna. says, "After being with you I am now bulletproof" and I laugh out loud. Can't think what she means.
We spend two hours after that packing boxes of books in the storage unit to mail to California. There are many that are seriously mould-damaged from Lance Frickensmith's warehouse. No sign of Jae's boxes of autographed books in any of these units. 4:50 p.m.: We mail eight boxes of books, around 260 pounds, to Los Angeles. One box is too heavy at one hundred pounds; it snaps the wheel off the truck, and I have to load it back into the Expedition and push it to the depths inside, as a reserve supply.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Indianapolis, Indiana - Columbus - Cleveland, Ohio (USA)I TELL K. in London: "It is going up to around ninety degrees here today; we are on the road today from Indianapolis to Columbus, Ohio, (a meeting at three p.m.) then on to Cleveland for the night and tomorrow Niagara Falls for a big meeting and two days' stay. We have installed a mobile fridge in the car. She is quite useful in many ways you would not think of. Pleasant surprise."
We leave Indianapolis promptly at ten-thirty a.m. and drive to Columbus, Ohio. Mna. is now as good as Gold. The Ramada is as sleazy as ever, the carpets stained and smokey. . . Taking into account today's costs, we just about break even: nothing for the author, as usual.
In good mood we drive on to Cleveland, making it about five or six road hours today. Paperwork until midnight, then fast asleep.
David Irving answers questions at Niagara Falls NY on a Sunday afternoon. Many in the audience crossed from Canada - where the government has banned him since 1992, under the usual alien pressuresSunday, June 10, 2012
Cleveland, Ohio - Niagara Falls, New York (USA)
I PREPARE a new tour-image to publicise the autumn USA tour, based on the hostile caricature which The Guardian used when it reviewed Hitler's War in 1977, and which I bought from the artist. I send it to K. for comment:
Title: HITLER AND I. David Irving, British historian and raconteur, talks about Hitler and the men and women closest to him.
At ten-thirty a.m. we leave Cleveland for Niagara Falls, and arrive at the meeting venue at two p.m.; and by three p.m. we have all chairs filled. So Mna., my assistant, will get paid this week, even if I will not. This time we have filmed the proceedings, and I give the camera-man a DVD with pictures and movies of Himmler's death-house etc., to embellish the movie; it will be edited by September and on sale through our bookstore.
Afterwards I take Mna. to see the Falls, as the sun begins to set. How many times I have stood there since 1976! She professes herself disappointed, she had imagined it bigger. Took a raft of photos, none of which pleases her of course.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Cleveland, Ohio - Niagara Falls, New York (USA)I SEND Jessica a couple of photos from the Niagara Falls: "What do you think?" -- Jessica replies: "You're looking very skinny! have you lost weight? You should try smiling in photos!" -- "She bought me tight new trousers."
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Niagara Falls - Syracuse, New York (USA)FIRST message I open is from S. of Atlanta, an obituary for our old friend Tony Hancock who died of heart failure yesterday. That is so unexpected and sad. He was always putty-faced and mildly overweight, but -- to quote Himmler (diary, January 12, 1922) -- "even so." He was a good friend, with a wry sense of humour. His cover name amongst us was The Joker, and he unaccountably called me God. One never quite knew where one stood with him. He organised a few Sussex meetings for me, but regularly failed on the security side, often with near-disastrous consequences for me.
We load the books to the meeting room upstairs and have extra chairs brought in. Gregory P., the priest, is already there at six p.m., apologising that he is (an hour) early. Aaargh. Then Yan L., the Chinese, from Montréal, arrives. I sit on the bench in the warm, clammy air, directing guests to the meeting room. Two fat black-haired women, lesbian types, one perhaps even wearing a wig, waddle past me into the foyer. Eventually all our guests come, only one is missing: Scott David of 5446 North Main, North Syracuse, NY13212.
Hmmm. Shortly Professor McG. comes back out and warns me that he knows the two Ugly Sisters: "They are Jews from the SPLC [the communist 'Southern Poverty Law Center'] and they are badgering the front desk." I am told they are also photographing everybody arriving, and a young man is taking videos. Not good. I phone Mna. to come out and [. . .]
The meeting proceeds quietly. Management does not disturb us, we hear distant police sirens, and after half an hour R's wife -- who has fidgeted throughout the talk, leaning forward to whisper to with him -- asks if she may leave as she is nervous.
Scott David is evidently the mole. Once again the enemy has failed, and they have not laid a glove on me so far. I write to him at eleven-thirty p.m: "Sorry you could not come this evening Scott, we had a great meeting." There is no reply.
Robert R. has registered for tomorrow's meeting in New Hampshire, a late entry. I write him: "Dear Robert
thank you for your booking payment, which we have received safely. Have you a contact phone number please? I notice that you demanded on December 12, 2011 to be removed from our mailing list and I am wondering whether you want to remain on it after all.He replies: "My telephone number is 917 [--- ----] and no thank you, I don't want to be on the mailing list." That clinches it. Out!
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Syracuse, New York - Manchester, New Hampshire (USA)ANOTHER long drive, 370 miles, ahead today. I tell our bookstore to refund the Robert R. registration payment. "We will have a few [cases] over the next few days whom I shall have to refuse and refund their payments."
We at first take the wrong road out of Syracuse, as I mistakenly key in the address for New Haven instead of New Hampshire. Could have been awkward.
We drive all day, Mna. first then I, from Syracuse to Manchester, five and a half hours of interstate, and get to the location a few minutes after five p.m. and at once trundle the boxes of books into the big meeting room upstairs.
Almost at once our guests arrive, and the meeting room is full. I talk two hours. Mna. is such a pleasant companion and a safe driver too, that it is a pleasure to be with her. The men cluster around her like moths round a candleflame. Commander Randy H., USN, tells me he went to school with Peter Stahl at San Jose in California. Stahl is the guy who has published the faked diaries of Gestapo-chief Heinrich Müller. Stahl's was a very untidy room, reminisces Randy. I say I met Stahl at a Howard Johnson's in San Jose in the 1980s, and S. told me of his counterfeiting exploits. A Schaumschläger, an attention-seeker, that is my diagnosis.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Manchester, New Hampshire - New Haven - Groton, Connecticut (USA)I HAVE work to do before we leave. I ask my bookstore: "Please refund his registration payment to Erik B. . . He is proving obstinate."
I add: "We had a good meeting. The cash melts away on gas, hotel, her pay etc. Nothing left for the author ever. But a very pleasant road trip (six hours on the road yesterday, same the day before)."
A reader in New Britain, Connecticut, thanks me:
I have just found your free download site, thank you for this wonderful opportunity to read about a great General from WW2: Rommel and Patton are my two favorites.We set out for New Haven, drive four hours and arrive at the house after lunching at a Red Lobster at five p.m.. The dinner guests are already there. The house is in a wealthy neighbourhood, and the guests include … who used to be the New York Times Books publisher. We have a lot of mutual friends whom he knows or knew, or professes to have known, - Max Becker [my first literary agent], God rest his soul; Ladislas Farago; David Kahn; Tom Congdon, and others. I could have spent the whole evening chatting with him. He has written a stage play based on Hess and Colonel Eugene Bird, US Army, chatting in Spandau. He knows almost as much as I do. He says he will look for a literary agent for me, and will stay in touch. ¡Vamos a ver!
Excellent evening talk in the open around their long garden table. Mna. thaws, looks very fetching . . . and sells a lot of books. Real estate lawyer Peter V., our second host, is here, handsome as ever, and Mna. arranges for us to stay with him from tonight in his beautiful beach house, as Dan M. tells us the sleeping arrangements he has made are rather primitive, a sofa in one room, etc. A fine new arrangement. A cute ex-wife of somebody, a doctor called Elise, is there: very slim . She goes off with a fat guy in a blue shirt who drank so much he kept toppling over in his chair during my presentation. Grrr.
We set out up I-95 around ten-thirty p.m., with Mna. driving, at her own insistence, and me fitfully sleeping, and we arrive at the beach house site in Groton, Fisher Island Sound, at midnight. We shall stay four nights here. Thanks to the Austrians, and the traditional enemies, I have been homeless now for two years. One day I hope to have a permanent roof over my head again. The house is on the sea shore, with waves lapping on the beach all night. Mna. grabs a big beachfront room for herself. The staircase is very polished and steep.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Groton, Connecticut (USA)IT IS sometimes hard sledding with her.
I spend all day linking up the ticketing pages for the autumn USA tour. I have taken a hard decision and increased the registration price from $19 to $30.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Groton, Connecticut (USA)I AM hoping that the replacement laptop will arrive at Mahoney's tomorrow. This one now has three or four defects, all major; it is like a dying man. I shall cannibalise it into the replacement when I get to Washington: a heart transplant.
Sergio Roedner, a History teacher in Milan, Italy, writes: "Mr.Irving,
What do you think of the "Goering Tunnel" theory about the Reichstag fire? Do you still believe that Goebbels's diary testifies that Hitler was not involved in the action and totally unaware of it until he and Goebbels received that telephone call?My reply is once again: "I think that the late Fritz Tobias, a very good German historian, discredited the popular Marxist version of the Reichstag fire, including the Göring tunnel theory."
I tell my organiser in Ohio: "I have reinstated Cleveland, though reluctantly. It will involve an 800 mile detour for us by road, a three-day journey. Hmmm."
He is unrepentant: "Thanks, David, I'll do whatever I can to ensure the event's success." I reflect: I have never yet voluntarily let an audience down. If they come, then so will I.
Our Index on the origins of anti-Semitism
Fritz Tobias: The Reichstag Fire (pirated edition)
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Wartime German newsreel: Prague in mourning
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