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See also:- David Irving's letters to US newspapers protesting |
Dear Sirs, John Lukács: The Hitler of History I have read pages of the above book published by your firm, and am bound to state that I consider it libellous. (A major British Sunday newspaper was obliged to pay me very substantial damages for similar libels eighteen months ago, and I am currently and vigorously pursuing libel actions in our high court against Deborah Lipstadt and Viking Penguin and against Gitta Sereny and The Observer.) Mr Lukács accuses me of twisting and manipulating documentary evidence; of being an apologist, rehabilitator, and unrepentant admirer of Adolf Hitler (pages 26, 29n); of falsifying citations and references (page 27n); of inventing historical sources or printing non-existent archival numbers, and of making up quotations (pages 229-30, 230n, 231n). This is certainly how an English libel jury would read his imputations. He also accuses me of "many errata in names and dates" (without offering even one example). Had Mr Lukács had the integrity to ask me for my sources, I would have told him. I would have shown him my correspondence with Christa Schroeder, Hitler's secretary 1933-45, which would have given the lie to your author's note on page 232 (her "memoirs" were ghost-written by another, complete with the smear on my name which your author quotes; her true feelings about my works can be judged by the fact that at the end of her life she gave me from her collection a, to her, priceless Hitler self-portrait). Had your author researched in the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich, he would have found half of my document collection archived there (which makes the reference to the Institut für Zeitgeschichte on page 27 particularly libellous), along with a manuscript containing the full (extended) source apparatus of the original 1977 (The Viking Press) edition of Hitler's War to which he refers. Had he inquired further, he would have learned that in 1990 and 1991 I issued completely revised and updated editions of the book (USA: Avon Books Inc.; U.K., with complete annotations, 1991), so his remarks are not only reckless and malicious but long out of date. On page 27 Lukács implies (in a chapter entitled "Historiographical Problems") that I invented the Forschungsamt (German signals Intelligence) documents which I quote in various works, remarking in what can only be regarded as the most defamatory manner "like almost all of Irving's references, they must be considered with caution." Mr Lukács' principal Historiographical Problem is that he failed to contact me while writing his book. I would then have provided chapter and verse for each document, and drawn his attention to two full-length books which I have written on the Forschungsamt, and which seem to have eluded his attention, namely
I have been aware from a certain document that since March 1972 at least Mr Lukács has nurtured a malicious grudge against me because no US publisher was keen to touch his then project for a Hitler biography, as my own biography (publisher, The Viking Press) was in the offing. You should therefore take this letter very seriously. Please let me have your comments upon it by return. Meanwhile I shall reserve all my legal rights in the matter. Yours sincerely, David Irving FOCAL POINT PUBLICATIONS
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Dear Mr Simon
John Lukács: The Hitler of History (Knopf, 1997). I understand that you are acting on behalf of Mr John Lukács in the sale of rights or licences in his new book. I draw your attention to my enclosed letter to Mr Lukács' New York publisher, and would ask that you keep it on file and, in their own interests, inform any prospective U.K. publisher of the risks attendant on publishing this work in an unamended form. I put you, and through your agency any such publisher, herewith on notice that I shall immediately commence libel proceedings against any publisher who is foolish enough to repeat these libels within the jurisidictions of our courts. May I ask you to be so good as to send a brief acknowledgement of receipt of this letter and its enclosure? Yours sincerely, David Irving FOCAL POINT PUBLICATIONS ENCLOSURE
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Dear Ms Solomon John Lukács, The Hitler of History. Further to your letter of November 12, I understand from articles in the German press, which have reprinted the review by Gordon A Craig, that the above title is to be published in Germany. Will you be so good as to identify to me which German publisher has obtained rights in this work? Since the laws of defamation in the Federal Republic of Germany are, again, different from those prevailing in the United States it is important that I give them to chance to amend the defamatory passages in the work before they incur unnecessary litigation. Yours sincerely, David Irving FOCAL POINT PUBLICATIONS
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Dear Ms Solomon John Lukács, The Hitler of History. Thank you for your letter of November 12, faxed to me today. I am well aware that since New York Times vs. Sullivan there is virtually no protection in the United States for the reputation of public figures. The concern which I expressed in my letter of October 28 was that any firm intending to publish the above work within the jurisdiction of the English courts be made aware of the risks they will run if the libels and defamatory innuendoes about my own person are not first expunged or corrected. Notwithstanding what you write, I have no obligation or duty in law to inform your author in detail what those libels are, nor to assist him in writing his book. There is no defence under English libel law that the author was making "statements of pure opinion". The defence of "fair comment in a matter of public interest," of which you may be thinking, is always destroyed when there is evidence of malice, as there clearly is in the case of Mr Lukács. It is up to Random House, Inc. whether they draw my written warning to the attention of any firm who may wish to publish the work within this jurisdiction. If they decide not to, they and the English firm will be the architect of their own misfortune, as I shall immediately institute proceedings for libel, backed by a full statement of claim. Yours sincerely, David Irving FOCAL POINT PUBLICATIONS
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Dear Ms Solomon John Lukács, The Hitler of History. Thank you for your letter of January. I can only repeat the position in law, as I understand it, in this country where I shall bring the action to which I referred if the above book is published in unamended form. As I wrote, "It may be that these subsidiary publishers will look to you to indemnify them in that event, and if you have failed (a) to identify those publishers to me, as requested, and (b) to advise them that I consider the book to be libellous you will be the architect of your own misfortune." My correspondence with your firm will be part of my Discovery in the action, and your house's foreign licensees will no doubt feel most aggrieved to learn that you were warned in good time that the book was held to be libellous and actionable. In those circumstances they would most certainly be able to seek an indemnity, and the costs of actions in the English courts are, as you will know, not small. Your reckless, and in any other circumstance admirable, defence of your author will not come cheaply to Random House, Inc. You may wish to know that [... rest of sentence removed at the request a firm of lawyers]. Yours sincerely, David Irving FOCAL POINT PUBLICATIONS
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Dear Ms Solomon John Lukács, The Hitler of History. I do hope that I can shortly expect a reply to my letter of December 15. 2. I see that the above work has also been published, unamended, by The History Book Club, which exposes them to the same risks of libel action to which your sale of rights to publishers in the U.K., Germany and elsewhere will expose those publishers. It may be that these subsidiary publishers will look to you to indemnify them in that event, and if you have failed (a) to identify those publishers to me, as requested, and (b) to advise them that I consider the book to be libellous you will be the architect of your own misfortune. Yours sincerely, David Irving FOCAL POINT PUBLICATIONS
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Dear Ms Solomon John Lukács, The Hitler of History. Thank you for your letter, of which I have taken note. Please therefore forward the enclosed letter dated October 25 to your author Mr Lukács, in order that he can be in no doubt as to my intentions should he seek to publish this work unamended within the jurisdiction of the English courts. Yours sincerely,
David Irving FOCAL POINT PUBLICATIONS
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