| | Some
documents on David Irving's Persecution by
the German authorities
1989-2003 |
WHEN
Mr Irving first began lecturing in Germany,
touring bookstores for his publishers Hoffmann
& Campe in the late 1970s, all went well.
But then the Far Left began to object. Together
with trades unionists and thugs funded by the
Soviet puppet regime in East Germany, they
staged increasingly violent demonstrations to
silence him. German police acted uniformly and
courageously to protect the freedom of speech
enshrined in Clause One of the Federal German
Constitution. In the mid-1980s there was a
sudden shift. The police no longer protected Mr
Irving and his audiences, they now began to
harrass them. Freedom of speech ebbed until it
receded out of sight. Instigated often by
fee-hungry television camera crews, violence
began. On April 21, 1990, after he
addressed a large audience at the
Löwenbräukeller in Munich, he was
arrested on trumped-up charges; these were later
dropped, and replaced with more sinister ones
under Germany's new laws for the suppression of
free speech. He was accused of having
said:"So wie die
Gaskammer in Dachau in den ersten
Nachkriegsjahren eine Attrappe war, so sind
die Gaskammeranlagen, die man jetzt als
Tourist in Auschwitz sehen kann, von den
Polen nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg errichtet
worden. Die Beweise liegen vor, die Anlagen
sind chemikalisch untersucht worden, die
Dokumente haben wir jetzt in der ganzen Welt
veröffentlicht -- ich kann Ihnen sagen,
meine Damen und Herren: Das wirbelt einen
Staub auf, da wird unseren Feinden das
Hören und Sehen vergehen. Denn die
deutschen Steuerzahler haben ja eine runde 16
Milliarden Deutsch Mark als Strafe für
Auschwitz zahlen müssen. . . für
eine Attrappe...." The Polish government
has since then admitted that the gas chamber
shown to the tourists is a fake, built in
1948. On January 13, 1993 he
was fined DM 30,000 (about $20,000); on July 1,
1993 he was banned from the German archives,
upon which he relied for his research (and which
housed a major part of his own research
collection); on November 13, 1993 he was banned
from German territory altogether. In Germany,
which prided itself on its post-Nazi
enlightenment, the lights had finally gone out
again. | Index The
Legal Actions
[
most of these documents are in
German]: - Germany's
measures to silence David Irving
culminate in secret entry ban on March
9, 1990.
- Police
transcript of David Irving's Talk in
Weinheim September 3, 1990
- David Irving's Weinheim speech of
1990:
- Bavaria's ministry of the interior
justifies
its ban on freedom of speech, Jan
1, 1991: "David Irving is an
extremist"
- 1991: Frankfurt's police chief
reveals: TV
journalists paid youths to stage "neo
Nazi" incidents for their
cameras
- Since his Munich arrest was
illegal, Mr Irving demands
return of cash bond, April 1,
1991
- How Germany first fined him a small
fortune for having told the truth about
Auschwitz in Munich in 1990: the
1991
Strafbefehl (Indictment): DM 7,000
fine
- Munich
"conviction" in absentia, July 17,
1991: fined DM 7,000.
- Verdict
of the Munich District Court, May
5, 1992: increased to 10,000 DM fine
[English translation]
- The Daily Telegraph, London, May 6,
1992: "German
court rejects Irving appeal"
- His diary
of his May 1992 Munich trial under
Germany's laws for the suppression of
free speech [CLICK
for German text]
- Secret tape transcript of David
Irving's May 1992 closing speech to
Munich court (Schlusswort
vor dem Münchner Landgericht
am 5. Mai 1992, in German)
- Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung is angry (July 1992)
that Germany has been unable to stop
David Irving coming and going and
speaking
- September
1992: Judge fixes secret date for
January 1993 trial, fearing
demonstrations
- On Nov 9, 1993, Munich political
police handed him an expulsion order,
giving him three days to leave Germany
for ever: German
(54K) | English
translation
- February 1994: German Publisher
Rowohlt Verlag asks for David Irving to
be Committed
to Prison for two years for
Contempt of Court: the
role of Michael Naumann (today,
2000: Kultusminister)
- German Ministry
of Justice explains in 1995 that it
does not know how many died in the "gas
chambers", and it is not yet a criminal
offence to talk about that
- German
Publisher Dr Herbert Fleissner no
longer feels he has to pay David Irving
royalties
- The German communist newspaper
Antifaschistische
Nachrichten, No. 6/1997,
repeats the Board of Deputies of
British Jews allegations.
- Central Criminal Records office in
Berlin secretly
advises the Weinheim court that
David Irving has "No Criminal Record"
in Germany, December 9, 1996.
- Jun 11, 1997: The German Secret
Service (BND)
refuses to join in the operations
against David Irving
- Dec 22, 1997: David Irving writes
to British Home Secretary Jack
Straw
- New German
ambassador thanks David Irving,
April 9, 1998
- Jan 12, 2000: German
press reports attempt to extradite
Irving as his trial of Lipstadt action
begins
- Oct 11, 2003: Germany
has lifted the ban on David Irving's
entry
- Oct 17, 2003: Berliner
Morgenpost announces that the ban will
be restored
- Mar 1, 2012: Germany
extends the ban until Mar 2, 2022
(ten more years)
- Then Mr
Irving's lawyer gets the ban overturned
by the courts, citing European EU
law
- May 23, 2012: But the Lüneburg
prosecutor has meanwhile ordered Mr
Irving fined 4,200 euros, around
$7,000, without trial [document
not yet posted]
Other
Related Items For
more on the legal struggle go
to the full-length draft
brochure which Focal Point
Publications are
preparing:- [175K] |
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