Diary: August 7, 2012

Real History, and a Radical’s Diary

Documents on the First
BOTH
historians earned the undying hatred of
the Jewish community for raining on its
well-oiled victory parade — the kind
of parade in which gloats predominate,
rather than
floats.

[Previous
Radical’s
Diary]

Saturday,
July 28, 2012
London,
England

JOSEPH De R. has written:

Re-your
latest Radical’s Diary on the opening
ceremonies of the Olympics: right on! I
pointed out the ad nauseam Black close-ups to
my wife. So obvious! Is Britannia really
going down the drain?? pathetic.

I thank him for those kind words of support.
“The world seems to agree. See the San
Francisco Chronicle comments today!”

Sunday,
July 29, 2012
London,
England

K. and the Doc come to pick us up for lunch in K’s Bentley; we drive out to the Palmer Arms in Dorney, then coffee afterwards at Eton.

One of my Himmler editors comments:

I’ve
belatedly re-read chapters 23 and 24 looking
for material to cut. Himmler never completely
disappears from view but there are long
paragraphs relating events in which he seems
to have no direct role, as on pages 324, 325,
331 and 333 and 335 – 338. . . But
it is all so fascinating that I would be
reluctant to lose too much of it. I have read
other accounts of June 30 and your work is as
usual full of revelations.

I reply: “Yes, that is a concern of mine always, we must never drift too far from our main subject, and I shall make cuts accordingly when the book is finished.”

Bed at ten pm as Hugo and Jessica have started watching The Promise, a bloodthirsty docudrama about Israel and
Palestine. Jessica sketches two still-lifes, an apple and a pepper, very well. It’s in our
Irving blood.

Monday,
July 30, 2012
London,
England

WRITER Richard C. comes at nine-thirty and stays two hours. Most enjoyable. A tall, urbane
Englishman born in Birmingham, he has lived for twelve years in 83rd Street, New York. His father a North London Jew, a boxer; his mother a
Catholic. We find we have a lot of mutual friends. When I mention Robin Denniston
who signed up Hitler’s War for Hodder
& Stoughton in the 1970s, despite everything, he says to my great sorrow that
Robin died four months ago.

He adds that historian Sir John Keegan has had a stroke and is in a bad way.

For his forthcoming book History of
Historians he has visited Richard J
Evans in Cambridge, who stoutly defends his (in C.’s view “indefensible”) position that
David Irving is not an historian. . .

I tell him I have used a different soubriquet for
Evans, “skunk,” for the past ten years on my website, which seems very fair, as he pissed on all the greatest contemporary historians at the
Lipstadt trial. And as for Cato,
Thucydides, Gibbon, Churchill — I point out, none of them was an ademic historian, had a degree, or studied history.

On the Himmler MS, which he has read, he thinks that the suicide/death chapters should all come at the end of the book, and I should start it with the great fencing match which launched Himmler into the Apollo fraternity. I politely disagree. He himself is a fencer, nearly made an Olympic team, and is wearing an Olympic tie as he is doing a commentary this afternoon.

I told him the Weidenfeld/Genoud story (how they signed up Hitler’s Table
Talk). He knew that my first lawyer was
Michael Rubinstein, and grimaced when I mentioned Felicity R.’s name. He also knew that
I had done the Rommel tour for Weidenfeld with Alexandra “Gully” Wells.

As Director of
Publishing at Hutchinson’s he had cleansed their backlist of all but four books, including
Mein Kampf, but inserted the word evil, later changed to vile, on the dustjackets.

Reverting to the interview for his own book, he asked me what I consider were my greatest achievements: I mention the Dresden decode, March 24, 1945; and the Cadogan diary entry for Dec 7, 1941. He says that
Piers Brendon of the Churchill archives disagrees with me about the importance of “winds.” (I explained why it was not a routine weather-reference.)

I said that thanks to Martin Gilbert‘s selfish hogging of the Winston Churchill papers in the 1970s and
1980s I had had no choice but to go beyond that
“trough,” e.g., to the Paul Reynaud and
Edouard Daladier files in Paris, and the
Mary Borden diary in the University of
Boston Mass., and Mackenzie-King‘s papers and those of Robert Menzies.

He describes a warehouse between Moscow city and the airport which was under the custody of a
Mr Dove, a truckdriver, who had unofficial access; that it contains inter alia the captured
Rothschild papers, RSHA and SS files, Blum’s and other French government papers captured by the
Nazis, and more; that Norman Stone had twice been called in to review the contents, and
The Sunday Times had signed a deal to exploit them, to the anger of Mr Dove who had then broken the

deal.

C. asks me what I know about Christine
Stoner, a “fabulist” who was Joachim von
Ribbentrop‘s mistress and claimed to have employed Martin Bormann as a butler for three months after the war. I tell him what I know of MB’s death and what
Hugh Trevor-Roper told me about his purported post-war contacts with MB.

Ron G. of Iowa informs me:

On
your Radical’s Diary site, at least for July
11 to 13, in your paragraphs, there are some
underlined words, and when I “mouse over” the
word, it links to “balloons” of odd stuff,
that are “powered by Text-Enhanced”. I don’t
remember right now if that was in previous
editions or not. Is this what you want? or
does some oddity put it in for you? Usually
your links are hidden, not underlined, and in
blue highlight when discovered.

I reply: “That is wierd, Ron. I have checked the HTML and there are no hyperlinks in those three days at all. . . It is malware. See this link:
http://wafflesatnoon.com/2011/10/05/seeing-unwanted-text-enhance-ads.”

I WRITE to M J H., whose garage has spent three years renovating the vintage car I bought from the widow of a supporter: “I would like to come and see the car Wednesday, probably late morning, Michael.” He says that’s fine.

Lynda M emails me:

A
man called me last night around midnight,
saying he was a friend of yours. I was in no
mood to talk to him as he had woken me out of
a deep sleep. This morning he called again
and wanted to make contact. I asked why and
he said “just to talk”. He said you had given
him my number.

It sounds quite suspicious and I told him I was not interested but maybe you can shed some light on who this person is if you even know.
He says his name is Robert Linz.

I check our database and inform her I know no such name.

Tuesday,
July 31, 2012
London,
England

I AM still trying to solve the mystery of ten or twenty boxes of autographed books that went missing last November. Rather unhelpfully Jae is not answering emails. “They are valuable,” I chide her. “I do NOT want to bother your parents with this question. James says he does not have the boxes in the cottage.
You told your shyster lawyer that they were in the storage units. When we finally got the keys we searched them.” The autographed books were not in them.

I tell her this problem is not going to go away.

Wednesday,
August 1, 2012
London,
England

I DRIVE Jessica to her vacation job in a chemist’s shop job in Shepherd’s Bush. She twiddles with the radio knobs and I lose Classic
FM.

A writer, Jonas
A., is researching historians and the
Lipstadt Trial:

I just had a series of email conversations with Lipstadt (left) , and I thought you might want to see her genius:

Hello
Prof. Lipstadt,

I am currently reading some of your work. What is your take on David Irving’s Hitler’s War precisely? Forget about Irving the
“anti-Semite.” He has been praised by a number of historians for digging into the archives and looking into primary sources. I realized that much of what has been written about the Third Reich has been based on secondary sources. You also wrote on History on Trial that John Lukacs and Charles Sydnor challenged Irving on his use of sources and found them inaccurate.

They found his sources as “pretentious twaddle.” Can you tell me where he misused his sources? History on
Trial did not go that far.

I am currently writing a piece on this subject myself and would be honored to send you some preliminary chapters. Thank you so much.

Lipstadt:
I suggest you look at the experts’ reports on www.hdot.org especially Richard Evans’
report. It is all dealt with there point by point. Evans finds Irving’s work to be a
“tissue of lies.” So did the judge.

Jonas:
Thanks for the quick response. I found Evans’ statement to be somewhat inconsistent. At one point, he declared that Irving “knows an enormous amount about Hitler and his entourage and his immediate circle in the second world war and their conduct of military affairs, and over the years he’s dug up through contacts and through sheer energy and diligence enormous amounts of new documentation of varying interest and importance, but some of it is undeniably important.”

Yet after the trial, he wrote that Irving’s writing as “completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about . . . if we mean by historian someone who is concerned to discover the truth about the past, and to give as accurate a representation of it as possible, then Irving is not a historian.”

I certainly do not know which statement I should take seriously, since the latter was posed after the trial. I have written to
Evans about this and I’m hoping to get a response.

Honestly, historical scholarship should not be solely contingent upon the experts’ opinions but on historical evidence and consistency. We know that Galileo got into trouble largely for similar issues. I would definitely agree that
Irving is on the far-right, but his books surely cannot be dismissed on that issue alone. They have to stand on their own.
Moreover, what about other historians who have found his works to be historical? Can we all dismiss them as well?

Since History on
Trial was purportedly written on the basis of evidence, I definitely believe that you should have given some specifics as to where the other authors disagree with Irving. That would have placed the book on a much rational ground.

Lipstadt:
Forgive me but I don’t have the time to enter into a long discourse on this. Simply put,
Evans came to his conclusions before the trial. [His expert report was given to the court well before the trial.]
Secondly, just because someone knows a tremendous amount about some topic does not mean that the person tells the truth. Every conclusion about Irving’s work is based on evidence. Do the work, read the report, and you will see. Good luck to you on this.

Jonas:
Thank you again for taking time to write. I honestly am doing the work by reading your books as well as others, including Evans’. If
Evans came to his conclusion before the trial, then what does his previous statement mean, where he unequivocally declared that
Irving has done his homework? How do I reconcile that statement with the one he made during or after the trial?

Once again these issues seem to vindicate what Irving has been saying for decades: that “conformist” historians like to cite each other for opinions which have never been verified by the historical data.

I certainly do not want to find myself in this circle, since we all know that we all have our biases and opinions. This is why historians would serve the interest of historical scholarship by digging into the archives and reliable documents, not quoting each other for statements which are disputable. I am also willing to accept that
Irving can be wrong, but he has to be proved wrong by the method he seems to know best: the archives, documentary evidence, etc.

I thank him for having shared this exchange with me. “Very interesting — and amusing. The key lies of course in the money that was paid to
Evans.”

He asks, “How much do you think they paid him? I probably will put this in the book.”

I reply: “Eventually, with the appeal and other matters he took home half a million dollars. He told the press he was building a new wing of his house with the proceeds. For an interim account of how much the “neutral” expert witnesses were paid by the defence, namely the file handed to me at the stroke of midnight before the Judgment was read, go to this table.”

I add: “They received more in subsequent months for the trial and appeal. The Judge was shocked when I told him these amounts; he declared they were ‘obscene’ and indicated that he would not award these costs in their entirety. In the event, Lipstadt’s costs were not awarded to her at all, as her financial backers Steven Spielberg et al. were not party to the action and thus had no claim in law.”

[Tuesday,
August 7, 2012 I add: I forgot to mention
that even while the Trial was on, “Skunky”
Evans agreed a contract with one of the
defendants, Lipstadt’s publisher Penguin
Books, to write a three volume history of the
Third Reich, for which the press reported he
was paid a million pound advance. I guess
some people might think he lost his
neutrality at that moment.

If you can
persuade him to resume corresponding, you
might ask him about the amount he was paid,
and did it not appear to compromise his
objectivity? (Under the Rules of the Supreme
Court in the UK, expert witnesses, regardless
of which side has hired them, are required in
law to be “neutral between the
parties.”)]

ANOTHER historian writes: “I am interested in the successes of the Forschungsamt
[Göring’s wiretap and codebreaking agency]. I see that you recently referred to the codes of the French ambassador in the
1930’s. Unfortunately the FA was not covered thoroughly in the European Axis Signals
Intelligence volumes. . . Is it too much to ask of you that you write down the codes that the FA could read by country and year? I could then compare with the EASI volumes.”

10:09 a.m I reply: “In Hitler’s War I reference a ledger kept by Walther
Hewel (above with Hitler)
Ribbentrop’s liaison officer to Hitler, of all intercepts placed before Hitler (Vorlagen beim Führer) 1940 to 1942, and if you can get my 1967 book Breach of Security
you will see I have appended a translation of key Forschungsamt items in that list, i.e. those with a register number like N.12345.

The ledger is in the Politisches Archiv des Ausw. Amtes and you can find a file number for it in the George
Kent finding aid to the Politisches Archiv files.
I did have it microfilmed in the 1960s, but those films are currently away in storage. If you can’t retrieve it, let me know and I will have a think.”

Thursday,
August 2, 2012
London,
England

JONAS A. sends me an email conversation he is currently having with Professor Richard “Skunky”
Evans.

Jonas to Evans: I am currently reading some of your work. What is your take on David
Irving’s Hitler’s War precisely? He has been praised by a number of historians for digging into the archives and looking into primary sources. I realized that much of what has been written about the Third Reich has been based on secondary sources. I also discovered that you seem to present two contradictory views on
Irving.

At one point, you declared that Irving
“knows an enormous amount about Hitler and his entourage and his immediate circle in the second world war and their conduct of military affairs, and over the years he’s dug up through contacts and through sheer energy and diligence enormous amounts of new documentation of varying interest and importance, but some of it is undeniably important.”

Yet after the trial, you wrote that
Irving’s writing as “completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about if we mean by historian someone who is concerned to discover the truth about the past, and to give as accurate a representation of it as possible, then Irving is not a historian.” Can you clarify those statements?

I am currently writing a piece on this subject myself and would be honored to send you some preliminary chapters. Thank you so much.

Evans: Thanks – there is really no contradiction. He did dig up a lot of valuable material but what he did with it was worthless.

Jonas: Thanks for the response. If he actually “did dig up a lot of valuable material,” then everything he ever wrote could not possibly be “worthless.” That would be an obvious contradiction, and I’m sure you would agree with me here. Some of his stuff could be demonstrably false-and I think he should be willing to conceive that point. However, one should be able to disprove his claims by what he seems or claims to know best: the archives, documented accounts, etc.

I have carefully read
Lying About Hitler and you seem to rely heavily on what other historians have said about Irving, which again is an appeal to authority. Moreover, if that is not ad hominem, it is close enough.
Should serious historians be willing to take this route?

I really enjoy reading your work In Defense of History, in which you argue quite rightly that there was a community of historians in the
1920s in Germany who agreed on similar issues but we today would consider those issues to be quite wrong. If that is the case, it is not historically sound to summon the opinions of the experts in order to dismiss Irving. Is it possible to challenge Irving on his own ground?

He has been saying for decades that he is more than willing to change his mind if someone would prove him wrong from the archives. If not, he will then continue to marshal his claims that
“conformist historians” have no interest in real history, most particularly when it comes to making extraordinary claims with regard to Nazi
Germany and providing little archival evidence for those claims.

He certainly would be right in line with rational and historical thought if he backs his claims with documents straight from the archives as opposed to relying on the opinions of like-minded historians. Would you not agree?

Evans: Sorry, you do not seem to have grasped my point. He has discovered some valuable documents, but in presenting him in his work he has frequently manipulated them by adding words, leaving words out, changing the order, and so on. My book does not rely on what other historians have said. The first chapter analyses their views in order to establish his reputation.

All the rest is based on a thorough analysis of his own work compared to the sources on which it claims to rest. You need to read my book and the notes more carefully. Irving has never changed his mind in the light of criticism. Read the trial transcripts and the High
Court judgement for many many examples of his refusal to do so when presented with incontrovertible evidence.

The archival evidence presented by serious historians of the Holocaust is massive, many thousands of times more than anything Irving has put forward. His charge that historians are ‘conformist’ is fantasy, especially since he also says he never reads other historians! We are perfectly capable of making up our own minds

Jonas asks me: “Would you like to say something to his last message before I send him a response?”

I reply: “You are making some good points.
You might put to him some of the quotations at link. and ask if they are ALL wrong and he is the only one in step? He pissed on ALL of the authorities, which is why he earned the nickname
Skunky. Another historian, Richard C., who spoke with him told me a few days ago that
Evans’s colleagues call Evans (above, in his new dignity as Regius Professor of History at
Cambridge) “the ++++”.

[Click
for the brief continuation of the Jonas/Evans
dialogue. Evans declares: “This
correspondence is now closed.”]

Friday,
August 3, 2012
London,
England

Emails, finished by nine am.

Sir
John
Keegan (right) has died. Today’s
Telegraph has the obituary.

No mention of the Lipstadt trial, as Dean A. points out. But Keegan was better than most historians. No conformist, he. He wrote in his review of another book in The Times Literary
Supplement, April 24, 1980: “Two books in
English stand out from the vast literature of the Second World War. Chester Wilmot’s The
Struggle for Europe, published in 1952, and
David Irving’s Hitler’s War, which appeared three years ago.

They do so because, from exactly opposing angles of vision, each tackles the strategy of the whole war and makes impressive if doctrinaire sense of it.

The
second book [Hitler’s War] has
not yet worked its way into our general
understanding of the conflict, though it
undoubtedly will do so when controversy over
its sensationalist elements is
exhausted.

I asked him to come to the Lipstadt trial in
January 2000 and repeat those words as a witness, and he declined. I had to sub-poena him, and in the witness box he rather ungraciously confirmed that he had written that but followed, before I could stop him, with savage criticism of my views on the Jewish
Holocaust (which he did not know).

I will add however that on the very day after the Lipstadt Trial ended, Keegan wrote a half-page article praising my work in the
Daily Telegraph, as did Professor D C
Watt in the Evening Standard, and that both historians earned the undying hatred of the Jewish community for raining on its well-oiled victory parade — the kind of parade in which gloats predominate, rather than floats.

Reviewing historians’ recommendations later,
Scott Manning commented:
“Hitler’s War and the War Path by David
Irving is an interesting recommendation by
Keegan. The book has been criticized for years as being ‘pro-Hitler’, yet Keegan recognizes it as one of the most import books on the time period.

In a later book, Keegan acknowledges the criticisms of the book, but he also says it ‘is unique in that it recounts the war exclusively from the German side’. Irving’s portrayal of
Hitler is that of a man trying to do the best for his country. Keegan sees value in the book because of Irving’s work ‘in all the major
German archives,’ interviews with many survivors, and personal discovery of important documents. The major flaw Keegan sees in the book is ‘it is untouched by moral judgment’.”

JAENELLE has written to Hugo, and denies having retained any of the missing autographed books.
The mystery thus remains. I am so glad at this sign of life, I was beginning to fear she was hidden in a shallow grave in the Australian
Outback already.

I tell Hugo that she is wrong of course about those final days in DC. There was not a hint of grumpiness on my part, just great sadness when she left to return to Indianapolis. Hugo says how could I prove that “in a court of law” and I say quite simply, “the diary”. It is plain enough, written up day by day. I send her this message: “Dear Snowdrop

Hugo
has told me the outlines of your reply, and I
shall drop the matter as of today. Your
memory is wrong . . . I have only
the most pleasant memories (Pentagon Mall).
Nietzsche once wrote, roughly, “My
memory tells me this happened. My conscience
says it should not have. Gradually, Memory
yields to Conscience.” . . . Hugo has now
watched the film on the Anni Derwani murder
. . ., and he thinks I am wrong.
Time will tell.

Of course in those final weeks of November
2011 the pain from my leg was approaching its maximum volume, so that may have shown through.

I draft more Himmler, milking the 1935
diary (which I have spent three days transcribing, then find I already transcribed it in 1977. I forgot. Have I really been working on him since then? I have today posted the transcript in the Himmler dossier on my website.