David Irving: A Radical’s Diary

outsider some traditional enemies of Free Speech: Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai Brith, USA Australian Government Australian B'nai Brith Anti-Defamation Commission Board of Deputies of British Jews Center for Democratic Renewal, Atlanta Canadian Jewish Congress Canadian League of Human Rights of the B'nai Brith Coalition for Human Dignity, Oregon Community Security Trust of Board of Deputies German Government Jewish Telegraph Agency Searchlight and Gerald Gable Simon Wiesenthal Center Surfwatch Internet censorship A Prison Diary David Irving wrote in ACTION REPORT in 1994: I have received many letters from well-wishers about my sudden imprisonment in February [1994]. I was taken without warning and without trial from my home and family and driven straight to the Victorian prison in Pentonville, north London, to be locked away "for three months."

Ostensibly my offence was contempt of court: but I had received no court papers, no notification of any hearings, and the cause — a dispute involving the German liberal leftwing publishing house Rowohlt — was the thinnest of possible pretexts. Publishers owe money to authors: authors owe money to publishers: publishers never, ever, ask for best-selling authors (Rowohlt have published half a dozen of my titles) to be cast without trial into prison. In the 1980s Rowohlt's director, Michael Naumann [*], had purchased from me the rights to my biography Churchill's War . Naumann was well aware of the left-wing onslaught against my reputation, but he told me when I visited Hamburg: "I wouldn't care if you were the Gauleiter of Vienna, I would still want this magnificent work." Rowohlt's unionized labour force threatened a walk-out if their firm printed my new book.

Two years passed without publication — volume one had already been delivered to them — and the firm was in breach of the contract. My lawyer, Dr Michael von Sprenger , one of the finest