FOR THIRTY-FIVE years author David Irving has kept a private diary. It has proven useful in countless actions. For the information of his many supporters he publishes an edited text in his irregular newsletter ACTION REPORT.

arch 1999
Key West, Florida

FOUR wieners for supper. Disgusting. Up at 2, 3, and four during the night; lying awake worrying about expert witnesses: How many will agree to stick their necks out?

I decide to ask Otto Günsche if he will come over and testify: but he must now be very old. What a challenge, to have one of Hitler's staff, facing up to the David Cesaranis and the other liars. I last saw Günsche at Hoffnungsthal in Nov. 1982. Would they stage violent street riots against him: probably, because that is the way they work. But for the sake of Real History, it is worth a shot. Finally asleep around 5:30 a.m., and up at nine a.m. The headaches that have plagued me all month appear to have receded.

Cycle out to the Rusty Anchor for fish and chips. A threatening E-mail from [Canadian agitator] Warren Kinsella, saying HarperCollins had not paid libel damages to Racon either -- their insurers had. Yeah, and HarperCollins had not paid premiums for that? Right. I post his response on the Website without comment.

Fax from London, the latest from Gitta Sereny's lawyers Lovell White Durrant: clearly very angry about my new moves for directions ("and don't post this on the Internet!"). I respond sweetly.

This letter then to my legal friends:

The last two weeks the e-mail has produced letter after letter from around the globe of an evident agent-provocateur nature.

Previously there is nothing like this. I do hope that, in their desperation, the lawyers opposing me are not stooping to such methods. Today's offering is an apparent world-wide inquiry: "Who is the most important man of the 20th Century?" I do not answer. Other strangers over the past few days have inquired, "Who is responsible for World War II?" "Is the 1939 Gleiwitz incident real, or staged by the SS?"

At K-Mart, I search for a Tie-Dye Barbie for Jessica.

This e-mail comes:

Could you pls inform me if there are any publications dealing with the duties and or activities of Dr Rudolf Brandt or Karl Wolff. Regards -- Richard Parkes

I note that both characters figure in the Lipstadt Defence, and I reply:

Very sorry, I know of no such publications. Rudolf Brandt was hanged after the war; Wolff struck a no-prosecution deal with the Americans, in return for ending the fighting in Italy in 1945; the deal did not spare him from the German courts however. You'll find bits of Brandt's stenographic diary on my Website. . .

A quiet day, editing Churchill's War, vol. ii, thank goodness. I work on the garden table until one a.m., with a table-lamp on a long cord.

This e-mail comes (from Stavros Elias, another a.p.?) --

"I am an A-Level Student studying History at Southgate School. I study history and must produce an individual assignment mine is entitled, "Was there a systematic Nazi Plan to exterminate the Jewish race from 1933 and how significant is Hitler in this?" . . .Etc.

Work until midnight bitten to pieces by mosquitoes. Benté sends a message scornful of one of our friends. I reply:

Gosh what a wimp he is. [. . .] I repeat, what a wimp. Jessica has more guts than he has (and she's only five). Her Barbie has more guts than he has. You have more guts than he has. Etc etc. Lots of love D.

Pensive most of the night. What my opponents indulge in is Virtual History, as opposed to Real History. That phrase, it really describes the antics of the opposition "scholars." Finally up at seven a.m. Terrific rainstorm begins, I just manage to get things inside in time.

I leave Key West tomorrow with no debts here, which is nice. Gradually emerging from the dark forest of the threat of insolvency; in one or two months we'll have the new Hitler's War out and cash flow again. Down to Higgs Beach, but cafe deserted in the rain.

Pick up a Buick at the airport.

I leave for Miami airport at eleven; at Toys R Us near Homestead, I find the requisite Barbie backpack and lunchbox for Jessica; at Computer Village I buy two Mac games for her. Running-costs of an infant, around $100.

I LAND at Heathrow at eight a.m.; taxi to Duke Street. Alexis lets me in, photocopying documents for Penguin's lawyers, Davenport Lyons. How depressing: London in March, gloomy, cloudcovered and only 5 or 6� C.

Bed at three a.m. Terrible pains during the night: I wake, the room is reeling, when I roll over I black out, become nauseous, I stagger to the front door, clutching at walls and doors and furniture, to unlock it in case I have to phone for help. Then I throw up (first time in fifteen years or so). Horrid feeling. I narrow it down to the raw sausage roll from the corner-store which I ate unheated as a snack. I fall asleep, wondering if I will wake.

Somebody rings the doorbell, but as they do not show on the monitor I do not respond.

Work until four a.m. Up at midday, and at six p.m. I commence work on Lovell White Durrant's latest list [the Sereny libel action], a huge job. Work until five a.m. I find a lot of items, easier now the files are organised. Mishcon have trampled on a lot of the box contents, unfortunately: Index cards ruthlessly shuffled, inverted, turned round, etc. I work until five a.m. (spending the last two hours scanning a 1970 article I wrote on the PQ.17 libel action, for the Website).

Dawn and Alexis appear around 9:30 a.m. Alexis copies around five thousand pages, and I take them by cab to Davenport Lyons at five p.m.

Post list to Lovell White. Phone their Mr Tench; he's still foot-dragging, so I may go ahead with that Friday summons after all. Then down to the High Court, to try for a date for the summons against them.

Peter Stanbridge comes for lunch to pick my brains about Hitler's bunker. Up at five and seven a.m., can't sleep. It's the seventh anniversary of the day I returned from South Africa in 1992, and found this fair Danish girl living here (Benté).

It appears that the Nicholas Fraser television programme will be transmitted by BBC-2 this Saturday. No doubt the stunt with the Pogromly board will feature prominently.

The Times publishes my job advert, and the phone is ringing all day. I start interviewing at 2:45 p.m., a Pakistani girl, Romany S.; sharp, but does not excite. Asked if she smokes, she answers, "Not really -- occasionally." The sallow skin and sunken eyes unfortunately tell another story.

Air Commodore Probert comes at three to talk about "Butcher" Harris; that throws our timetable of interviews into confusion. Elaine P. comes at four p.m., left no impression. Then Claire H., very blonde and brassy, PR-orientated, currently in the pop music industry, aaargh, not a whisper of finesse. Very talkative, gesticulates a lot.

At six I interview Rebecca Wallersteiner, who turns out to be the comely daughter of the Wallersteiner who beset me in Vancouver in 1986. I thought the name had a familiar ring (he claimed to be SIS, etc). She begins by saying she had a maternal grandfather in the SS, a Sturmbannführer whom the Czechs liquidated after May 1945; her paternal side is all Jewish -- she has a real Barry-Scheck nose.

She herself is Catholic, raised in a Convent. She is followed by Ravinder Kaur, a diminutive, muscular Punjabi, at 6:45 p.m. Perhaps she should not have said "martial arts" when I ask her sporting activities. Gaunt, smokey eyes; I suspect she smokes too. These Asians are going to take over this country, with their brains and bustle.

Message comes from D:

I have just noticed a trailer for something called Fear and Loathing, a series on BBC2 that is to be broadcast on Saturday evening I believe at 6.05 pm. The subject is supposed to be the Far Right in Britain. There is a 5--10 second sequence of film of you. . .

This is interfaced with a riot scene and a full screen swastika. I just wondered whether you knew?

I did not. At all. Long live the traditional enemies of free speech!

I continue interviewing all day and into the evening. Eventually, as usual, I start telling phone callers that the position is taken. None really stands out apart from one garlicky French girl, but her qualifications are mostly negative.

Prof. Donald Watt writes me, via Key West: is too ill and old and beaten to give evidence for me; a very friendly letter, though; he would swear an affidavit. At 4:13 p.m. I take a phone call from a man to the unlisted line which I use exclusively for the advertisement: "Is this the phone number of David Irving."

"Yes." (He then hangs up). Now what can that be? The advert did not mention my name.

At 5:15 p.m. Tanya D., an Indian girl born in Kent, arrives for interview; 22, solicitor, finished training, excellent schools, well spoken. I warm to her, and decide to hire her and a Liverpool girl as assistants until the Lipstadt trial begins. She is giggly and over-enthusiastic, but if I use them in tandem they will encourage each other, I hope. I send out letters to the unsuccessful interviewees.

Phone call from historian Peter Witte, Germany. Friendly discussion of sources on Heinrich Himmler. He will now edit the Himmler pocket diary for 1943--4. He regrets the campaign against me, is a believer in free speech, even though he admits he does not share some of my opinions. Meinetwegen.

Saturday evening. Brother John phones to say "well done". Uh--oh. He has just watched the BBC2 television programme -- I did not watch, having other things to do. He says he's left the Liberal Party since Paddy Ashdown came out for lowering the homosexual age of consent.

At 10:16 p.p. an anonymous Hungarian phones the unlisted number to say he agrees with me about Auschwitz. (How has he got the number?) Would very much like to talk to me "for a couple of hours". I groan, and ask him to phone again in three or four days' time. (He never does).

I have resigned myself to losing Duke Street. What a pity. Another month and it would have been much easier. Still, I shall fight to the last moment.

A Mark S. sends me this message about the BBC programme:

What a pompous, jumped-up little arse he [Nick Fraser] is! Really, what with all his puppet-like movements and gesticulations, he is quite a sight!

I send this letter to Fraser and the BBC's Director-General:

When you approached me eighteen months ago, on Oct. 20, 1997, you asked for my co-operation in your projected programme for "Storyville" about, you said, the suppression of free speech, with emphasis on the number of bans imposed on me by countries around the world. You interviewed me late last year, and it struck me that your interview had no connection whatever with that topic.

Last night, I am told, you screened on BBC2 at nine pm a programme about the Far Right, in which you used this material, and which had nothing whatever to do with the subject you told me about. (I did not myself see it, but I have read the news reports). I do not consider myself a member of the Far Right; and I would not have agreed to participate in such a programme, as was probably clear to you. Can you please elucidate when the switch was made in the project -- and why I was not informed?

Long day, harrowing problems to deal with.

Birthday. Eleven a.m. at the High Court. Master Hodgson is quite harsh, refuses to hear the summons for [Sereny] directions as it is too long; he adjourns it, allows a day's costs against me assessed at £100. Tough. I say: "It is worth it if it makes the point to the defendants that I will not allow this to be protracted much longer by them."

At one p.m. Benté phones, and puts Jessica on the line to sing Happy Birthday to me. A packet arrives with original photos from Himmler's private family album (in private US hands). A ten-year old Himmler [left]. Blinking owlishly through spectacles. Mass-murderer to be. And an SS Reichsführer, visiting a Jewish home in Russia in 1941. Sensational.

I take Jessica over the road to Selfridges to buy stickers. I give her a few coins as pocket money. She carefully sorts out the pennies from the pounds, and gives the former back to me saying, "I can't use these."

E-mail from Daniel Dees, who's organising a phone-talk by me to Canadian college students in Ontario tomorrow afternoon. He says:

I must admit my asking you to speak with us has caused a great deal of emotion among our school. I have gotten a lot of rude comments, and angry opinions directed towards me. I understand, to an extent, how you feel. I find it so upsetting that one cannot discuss these topics in an open environment. I (and others in the school) simply want to hear what you have to say. I hope it will go well. We all look forward to it.

Message from former Imperial College contemporary Douglas Owen, to whom I reply:

There were ten of us in that Year, called the Preliminary Year, at the Royal College of Science. Several of my best friends are already dead -- Roger Loveman of cancer many years ago; Mike Gorb [a Jewish student] was killed mountaineering a year or two after he left Imperial College.

I lost touch with almost everybody. Occasionally some pop up, like you! I am still very much in harness, as you'll see from the Website.

I lecture by phone to the Canadian college class in Ontario. A caustic and incorrigible history teacher called Rita, with all the usual legends. An almost inaudible male lecturer. Several good questions from the pupils, e.g. why not believe the Auschwitz eye witnesses, as I used eye witnesses in writing the Dresden book, etc. Later this e-mail comes from Daniel Dees:

I think you'd be interested in a poll that we conducted after class. Before we spoke to you, 85% of the students dismissed what you had to say. After our conversation, believe it or not, 95% of the students felt you were on to something, and that your knowledge warrants more research on the " holocaust " topic. We only had one teacher totally dismiss you.

I thought you should know this because you have had a great effect on the way we perceive the holocaust. Your comment on how the holocaust should be remembered as innocent people dying, and not because they were Jews, really stuck with a lot of people.

So did your comments on the so called "death camps". For all it's worth, you've been very effective.

A Mr Gregory Livschutz [of [email protected]] sends this one-word welcome to my e-mail: "Lier." I reply, "Learn to spell."

S. READS the Lipstadt pleadings all day. Says that Victoria Sharp's Defence would have been thrown out in Bar School for its length.

Easter Sunday. Up at 8:10 a.m., resumed work on the backlog at 9:10 a.m. E-mails have poured in now from North American pupils assigned to write about Anne Frank. Whatever her tragic fate, there is something obscene about this brainwashing now going on in schools all over the world. I doubt that Anne herself would have approved of it. It is Orwellian, Goebbelsian, -- it is Nazi in style and method. All of the messages are composed in the same slightly illiterate style.

Today there is this message from a Samantha, evidently in the eastern USA:

Dear Dave, -- Hello my name is Samantha and I am doing a report on Anne Frank and I am wondering if you have a timeline that you could send me.

She gets what is now my standard response.

I am not an expert on her, and I cannot provide a timeline (try one of the Holocaust Websites); she died in the typhus epidemic that ravaged the Nazi concentration camps in eastern Europe at the end of the Second World War. [. . .] With best wishes for your paper, and don't forget to keep me informed of what mark you get.

Needless to say, they never do. . .

In the evening, an e-mail from Scout Productions about their film of Leuchter:

We are very close to finishing the movie about Fred. We screened the movie for Fred in December and he is very pleased. We also had a screening in January at the Sundance Film Festival, where it is well received.

We are now trying to clear the various film clips that we would like to include in the film. One of the clips is of you and Fred at the hall in London where Fred is scheduled to speak.

Thames Television, which has the rights to that clip is asking for thousands of dollars for a (9) second clip. We would like to include this event in the film, but we cannot pay a ridiculous fee. Would you have any footage of that event?

I reply:

I am shocked to hear that Thames TV is asking for a fee from you. They flatly refused our request for a fee for the exclusive right to film the event, which we granted to them in return for a strict undertaking not to reveal details of the location or event to anybody else. Their producer Sushma Puri promptly notified the police about the event, with the desire of securing better newsworthy material, namely Leuchter's arrest and deportation.

I write to Dr Joel Hayward in New Zealand about his statement. He responds with an unhelpful e-mail having clearly had second thoughts -- and having read mine:

My guess is that you think I am trying to worm out of testifying at your trial. This disappoints me, especially in light of the flak I have taken from Jewish groups in recent months after posting to the Wehrmacht Discussion Group a letter defending your WW.II scholarship. I have always told you that my ability to testify is determined by my teaching, admin. and research workload here at Massey University, which is currently very high. My original "yes" -- and I still have that e-mail -- is a tentative yes, not a firm yes.

I send him this well earned response:

May I take it therefore that your tentative Agreement has at the last moment turned into a firm No. I say "at the last moment," because these witness statements are due on April 28, and I had had no alert in the intervening months from you to suggest that you were pulling back.

I must be able to plan clearly. This is a lawsuit with multi-million-pound costs at stake.

Another David Cole, it seems.

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