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LONDON W 1 TELEPHONE 01 499 9404 London, May 21, 1989
Dear Herr Dr Zitelmann: We spoke today. Probably too late for your Hitler work, I enclose the transcript of the Hitler--Scharrer conversation of 1922. Pages are, as you see, missing, but I know who has them. I read with interest your Vorwort. I do not think anybody has given me enough credit for having augelöst the earlier Historikerstreit by my Hypothese in Hitler's War on the Endlösung. As you say, the academics seem to be frightened of my research. I have found this all round the world - some students are forbidden to use my books, others are encouraged to. But I have used sources that no other historian has troubled to find; they do not even use them now, when I have given them to the Inst. f. Zeitgeschichte! On the Endlösung, my own view has crystallized a lot since 1975, when I delivered Hitler's War to the publishers. It is clear to me that no serious historian can now believe that Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, were Todesfabriken. All the expert and scientific (forensic) evidence is to the contrary. To state this in the BRD [Federal Republic of Germany] is now, of course, problematisch. I am immensely sorry for what [Professor Ernst] Nolte has suffered; if it proves anything, it is the cowardice and indefensibility of his opponents. As for what did unquestionably happen to the Jews, the CSDIC report of which I also enclose a copy shows, with a reliability beyond question, the manner in which the killings occurred:* random, haphazard, criminal in nature, occurring without Hitler's knowledge and immediately forbidden by him when he learned of them (but going unpunished by him, too). CSDIC reports were transcripts of prisoners'-of-war war conversations; they were unaware that hidden microphones were listening. Walther Bruns gave perjured evidence afterwards at Nuremberg. Let's meet in Berlin in early July. Yours sincerely, David Irving Herrn * Z.B. bei Riga am 30. November 1941 | |||
This letter is a clear exposition of David Irving's early views on the Holocaust and its sub-divisions. |
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