David
Irving held in Austria
November 11, 2005
THE historian David Irving has been
arrested while on a one-day visit to Vienna. An
expert
on Hitler's Third Reich, he
had been invited by courageous students to address an
ancient University association in the Austrian capital.
He chose as his subject the secret
negotiations between Adolf
Eichmann and the Jewish leaders in Budapest,
Joel
Brand and Rezsö Kasztner, the
so-called "trucks for Jews" deal, and British knowledge
of the scheme from codebreaking. He has researched the
topic extensively in Allied archives for both his
Churchill and
his Himmler
biographies.
Despite precautions, the Austrian political police are
believed to have learned of the visit by wiretaps or
intercepting e-mails. Mr Irving had privately visited his
embattled friend the German playwright Rolf
Hochhuth on the way to Austria; they had not met
for twenty years because of travel restrictions imposed
on each of them.
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