Diary: October 22, 2012

Real History, and a Radical’s Diary

bj
Documents on the First
11:58 am
I
have changed my mind: I don’t want to
be a long-haul truck driver when I grow
up, I want to work on an oil
rig.

[Previous
Radical’s
Diary]

Saturday,
September 29, 2012
Sarasota
– Naples, Florida

ALL day long after he arises (fortunately quite late) Mein Host bombards me with conspiracy theories, wildly gesticulating with obscure gestures as he does so: “chem. trails”
— that’s a new one on me –, John Lennon, JFK and Robert Kennedy, Nine-Eleven and so on: there is not one he has not followed avidly, and made videos on. His business was buying up in advance domain names, particularly those of pop stars, and then selling them to the person concerned.
He owns four thousand.

I say, “Isn’t that called squatting?” I get a lot of writing done.

Stewart O. writes:

As
always, I thoroughly enjoyed your
enlightening talk given in Clearwater last
evening. It was good to see you looking fit
and healthy after your surgery. I have been
unable to find the insurance company
reference you made with regard to UA’s Flight
#93 and would appreciate your sending me it,
if possible.

10:07 a.m I reply with this link.

WE have raised the 25,000 euros we needed for our legal battle in Germany and it has been paid into court in Potsdam as a bond. Much to my quiet delight and surprise.

Somebody writes me:

Yesterday,
I watched
on YouTube the video ‘The faking of Adolf
Hitler for
history’,
and I was extremely surprised with the action
of the British government took when they
seized your personal belongings, and had
“misplaced” your research; my question, did
you take legal action against the government?
Or did you receive any compensation or formal
apology?

I enjoyed listening to what you had
to say, and appreciate you to devoting most
of your life to such a matter. If you answer
my question I will be very pleased, from a
fan of your theories and research.

I have replied : “Acting in person, i.e. without lawyers, I did take High Court action against the trustees who had lost or destroyed my archives, and about sixty percent of the possessions were returned [six years later], in total chaos, with forty percent of the archives including most of my Himmler and
Goebbels research missing, and all tapes and videos of my interviews. Very sad.

We settled the High Court action out of court, but under the terms of the settlement I am not at liberty to disclose how much compensation I forced the authorities to pay. It was substantial.”

Sunday,
September 30, 2012
Naples
– Miami, Florida

I WRITE this to Jessica who starts university life tomorrow:

Here’s
Daddy, in Naples, Florida. Big day for you
tomorrow, and I shall be thinking about you
all day. The start of a new life, with many
old friends. Don’t mess it up. That would be
an easy thing to do, and often
irreversible. . . It is possible to
have fun without drinking anything at all:
vide Mummy, and Jae; and I have not touched a
drop for three or four years.

Listen to Hugo when it comes to studying and how.
Discipline! Uni is not like school, you can skive off all day doing nothing, and nobody notices — until exam time comes. Use the card with great moderation, because I cannot get cash to you any other way easily.

Tour is going very quietly indeed. Nobody has any money now. Naples was K.’s (bad) idea. Texas will be better, and then California, but that is three or four thousand miles of driving first.

Monday,
October 1, 2012
Miami
– West Palm Beach – Palm Bay, Florida

COLIN W. sends me comments on my draft memoirs chapters:

I
hope you are going to complete this. Without
making too much of the fact, you (together
with those who harass you) have managed to
make yourself a historical figure in your own
right as well as a historian: in a way, quite
a significant one. . . Then too, good writing
on almost any subject is always a pleasure to
read. At any rate, I for one would definitely
want to read the completed work — and for
that to happen, you’re going to have to
finish it!

Somebody sends me a link to an
Observer review of the Sönke
Neitzel book on the CSDIC transcripts. Grrr.
I write this Reader’s Letter but don’t know if the newspaper published it:

Ben
Hutchinson reviewing Soldaten: On
Fighting, Killing and Dying by Sönke
Neitzel and Harald Welzer uncritically
follows the book-jacket blurb and says that
the (illegal) transcripts of German
prisoner-of-war conversations were
“discovered in 2001 by the historian
Sönke Neitzel.” Wrong.

As
Mr Neitzel and his publishers know, I was the first historian to use them, in Hitler’s
War (1975), and then in
Göring (1987), Goebbels
(1996), Churchill’s War, vol. ii (2000) and several other books. After negotiating with HMSO, the copyright holder,
I released two hundred of the secret conversation transcripts in my online book
Overheard
(1988). My German publisher refused to print the book, as it was “fouling the nest”.

In the 1970s [Prime Minister] Harold
Wilson tried to have me imprisoned for using these transcripts in Hitler’s War. The files on that are in the archives in Kew.
Please give some credit where credit is due.

I stop for the night in a cheap Rodeway motel in St Lucie, room price forty-four dollars.
That’s more like it. (It’s agreeable to have a girl with me as a driver and assistant, but they always want the fancy rooms, fitness centres, pool etc., which licks the cream off any profit.)

Tuesday,
October 2, 2012
West
Palm Beach – Melbourne – Palm Bay, Florida

I DECIDE to write to Snowdrop direct once again:

Hugo
told me of your correspondence; truly sorry
that he inundates you with messages about,
well, us. He shouldn’t. I wish you all the
very best with your life, and always have.
You broke it off the wrong way, and told me a
few porkies (look it up), but that’s how it
goes. . . As for the missing autographed
books, I have written them off. You have more
important things on your mind now. My very
best wishes to you, once again, —
David.”

I plead with a correspondent: “Please keep me out of the Nine-Eleven debate!! I only have so many mental megaytes of space left.” He wants to persuade me that there were no planes.

Stanley S. writes me with helpful advice on my sick Pigmobile, which coughs up blue smoke when it starts:

I
have found in my long experience with
automotive repair that the first thing to
check are the valve guide seals. Unless the
engine has a lot of miles on it I have found
it is not usually the piston rings.

I have also found the valve guides usually (not always) go bad after the engine has experienced engine overheating, often more than once.

Also, valve guide seal replacement is a cheap repair. I’ve done it myself in my driveway with some basic tools and a piece of rope. Of course, I have no idea what they charge over yonder.

THIRD daughter Paloma has emailed from Madrid:
“I opened my business four weeks ago and we are struggling enormously. The crisis in Spain is much worse than anyone realises. I actually don’t know if we can hang on until Xmas or not.
If we don’t get to Xmas, everything I have is lost and I will have nowhere to go as mummy lives in a residence and you travel around the world so I don’t even have a family sofa to crash on if things don’t work out. So, I’m pretty stressed.”

I reply: “Well, I will be returning to the UK mid next year, at the very latest, and looking for a house in Dorney again. Unemployment in
Spain sounds terrible — 25 percent or something. Not as bad as that in the UK. I will be in an apartment here for the first months of next year if all goes as planned, but returning to UK for three weeks over Christmas. I am driving up the east coast of Florida at present, on the start of a 15,000 mile drive round the west, stopping in 45 cities.”

I need somewhere above all to house my archive of around three hundred archive boxes, two or three cubic feet apiece.

She replies. “Dorney is a lovely place.
Unemployment in Spain is abysmal. Businesses are dropping like flies around us. Even though
English is in demand, people have to prioritise.
. .

I say: “Yes, very impressive, but in a downward economy it is hard sledding.”

I WRITE to Hugo about his mischief-making: “I gnashed my tooth a bit. . . No wonder she is fed up with me if she believes half of what you tell her. I sometimes wonder why you do it, as it made me very unhappy all day today and it must unsettle her too.”

Wednesday,
October 3, 2012
Palm
Bay – Orlando, Florida

AUSTRALIAN teacher Robert L. thanks me for explaining the high postage cost he had to pay for Hitler’s War from Atlanta to
Australia.

I
admit I was shocked at the postage cost, but
know that the book is worth it (I have an
earlier edition) — I only regret that the
postage goes to the authority, and not to
you. I am currently writing a school textbook
for use in Australian history in Australian
secondary schools, and I will be
incorporating many of the insights and
understandings that you have provided into
Nazi Germany, and the writing of honest and
evidence-based history, over the years.

I
dislike seeing your occasional disparagement
of Australians, but understand . . . I hope
that a future government will rescind its
travel ban on you and that I get the chance
to hear you in person.

I apologize for the occasional disparagement:

Got
several reasons but I try (unsuccessfully) to
rise manfully above them. Worst one at
present is that a paunchy Australian has
stolen my beautiful personal assistant and
married her, and I am still writhing with
fury at the loss. My own fault. I could have
prevented it, perhaps, but being a gentleman
I stood graciously aside and let him have his
try. Never again.

My fourth daughter Beatrice however is married to a fine Australian guy in Brisbane, which makes me angrier than ever at [Prime
Minister] John Howard‘s mindless ban on my renewed entry into the country. She has two super children; all of them are
Australian citizens, which gives me an automatic right of entry as next-of-kin, but
I am told that Howard boasted in Canberra that they would “change the law if necessary again” to keep me out.

Best of luck with your book project. My book
Hitler’s War is being ordered in larger numbers at the start of each university year, so I think it is creeping onto the curriculum one way or the other.

By six-thirty we have all our Orlando guests assembled, and they stay until late. The first guests come at six p.m., last leaves at ten p.m.
The book sales are less than hoped . . . One guest informs me that he downloaded on his Nook
“tablet,” whatever that is, two of my books including Nuremberg, but without the illustrations; that is of course copyright-theft by Nook.

Thursday,
October 4, 2012
Orlando
– Pensacola, Florida

MY German attorney sends me his latest warning letter to the film production company lawyers. I thank him: “Eine gute Auswahl der
Formulierungen.” — “Danke, zeitlich wird’s jetzt doch etwas eng. “

I text to Jessica: “Six hour drive today.
Florida is very big. Heading to Pensacola. I thought I gave you a pillow. Did you mean pillow case? I gave you that too. You must not squander the card. Want a fullish report on the first days at uni. some time. Make sure you eat properly, No Junk Food. Your brain won’t like it.”

Then my German attorney sends me documents from the Munich courts, where we are fighting the permanent ban on my entry.

I DRIVE off from Orlando around one pm, and arrive at Pensacola at eight pm CDT (clock goes back one hour). The five and a half hour drive expands as usual to around eight. I check into an hotel, which has no record of my reservation.

The girl gives me a ground floor room, No. 503, right round the back, under the wheels of a giant eighteen-wheeler parked there with its engine permanently throbbing. “Been there several says,” says the desk clerk when I go back to complain — as the WiFi at the back is stone dead.

“You can work here in the lobby,” she points out. “It’s working here.”

Uh, no. I check out. She does the paperwork and expresses surprise, “It seems it has not charged you.” I should hope not indeed. I cross the road, and check into a Quality Inn, where the desk girl Kerri expresses convincing disbelief when she hears how many decades ago I was born. That’s more like it. Very nice room, splendid WiFi, and right next to the lobby.

A good friend sends me a little info which may be of use for Himmler.

Many
years ago, when I happened to live in London
and work in the West End, I visited you at
Duke Street, and you very kindly lent me your
files related to the Luftwaffe High Command
from your study. I was and remain grateful to
you. It was the summer and I caught you
decorating your flat, as you answered the
door in shorts, with paintbrush and paintpot
in hand!

I later attended one of your drinks invitations there. Anyway, this is just a heads-up to draw your attention to file DEFE3/573 at Kew (in case you are not already aware). It’s
Ultra stuff, but has some quite interesting bits and pieces on Himmler towards the end.
The good old National Archives now allows you to download it free from their website, but it is a 166 MB file.

Not sure if this link will take you there or not, but try
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/Details/AssetMain?iaid=C1910470
You need to skip to the back of the file from about page 500 onwards. It’s not earth-shattering, but it’s not bad.

Elina
Garanca

Friday,
October 5, 2012
Pensacola,
Florida

HUGO writes:

I
delayed my departure for Bonn by one day so
that I could attend a concert by the stunning
Latvian mezzo, Elina Garanca (above).
who went beyond my every expectation, in
voice and in looks. I cannot understand why
you don’t share my view of her unless you
were winding me up. . . I lost
count of the encores she had to give and she
was showered with flowers, many being single
red roses. The audience wouldn’t let her go
and some gave her a standing ovation.

However, you could tell they were the Germans
amongst the audience because Germans give
standing ovations to everything, no matter
how good or bad, because they want all the
world to know how ‘kultiviert’ they
are (Germans spell Kultur with a
capital K) whilst the overwhelming majority
of the audience, being English, remained
firmly seated.

8:14 a.m I tell him: “Göring
said, the more I hear the word Kultur, the more I reach for my Browning.”

The film company’s lawyers are bleating that
. . . and of course they deny any violation of my intellectual property.

Hugo further tells me:

Hi
David, I went to the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz
yesterday . . . Whilst waiting in the
library, I idly took down a list on the
Nachlaß of Hitler, and saw that the
first item on the first page was the
following entry: “Nachlaß Adolf Hitler
im Bundesarchiv, Koblenz Materialsammlung von
David Irving über den Gesundheitszustand
Hitlers (Untersuchungsbefunde, Gutachten,
Aussagen vor amerikanischen
Militärgerichten, u. A.

Der Ärzte
Theo Morell (far left, with Otto
Dietrich), Brandt,
Hasselbach).”

He adds with heavy irony: “It must be very gratifying that the German Government continue to treat you so generously after all the material you have generously presented them!”
Yes, they originally had half a ton of my documents, which they returned after three years. They fill forty big archive boxes.

I HAVE now concluded that if Jae was capable of
“binning” as she allegedly called it a gold fountain pen given her for her birthday, costing hundreds of dollars, she probably binned the boxes of autographed books as well. Eventually she may bin her current beau, her second husband, if she sticks to past form (but she can’t bin the baby when it comes).

The tour is not going financially well so far, but then nor is the economy. — I have now indicated online that I shall be organising a new Wolf’s Lair tour in
September 2013.
[NOTE:
THE PAGE WILL BE UPDATED
SOON]

Saturday,
October 6, 2012
Pensacola,
Florida

A LENGTHY dispatch comes from Jessica at university: “… My loan came through yesterday which was exciting. Budgeting has gone out the window so I should probably sort something out.
My room smells of old people and is stuck in the
1970s. I got a new pillow, as the one you gave me was totally flaccid.

Our halls are soo nice, the people are really nice (although there are a few obnoxiouS types . . . like one guy who likes to walk through the corridors at 4am blaring loud music to wake everyone up (don’t worry, his actions were swiftly curtailed by my rugby-playing neighbour who just completely lost it with him)). Some other types set off a fire extinguisher on our corridor as well and all of us are being fined £160 for letting it happen (WASN’T EVEN THERE —
OUTRAGE).

Lost my room keys last night, which was demoralising and I have to pay
£50 for a new pair.”

I reply to her at 9:17 a.m.: “That was a splendid report Jessica, just what I needed to cheer me up. How could you lose your keys, and why so expensive to replace them? You have to keep a tight watch on money.”

I SEND to Tim Atkins the CEO of
Macmillans, my old publishers, this:

I
could have sworn that I put a stamp on my
letter to you of September 11,
enclosing
a draft [memoirs] chapter about
Albert Speer.
And yet Hugo tells me that no reply has yet
come to the above address. I may presume that
you will, sooner or later, acknowledge or
reply to the letter? It is a courtesy which I
can assure you I myself always
follow.

Stephen
Goodson writes me that Professor
Richard J Evans (right), known to us all as “Skunky”, has spoken to a Holocaust meeeting in South Africa: “You may recall that I chaired your meetings in the Western Cape when you were last here in 1992.

More recently I
featured on your website as the Reserve Bank director who has ‘denied the Holocaust’. If I had known that ‘Skunky’ Evans was in Cape Town, I would have attended the meeting and given him a piece of my mind.”

12:12 p.m I reply, “Well I see that the talk was at the Capetown Holocaust Center, so I guess they were paying his expenses too. These folks just swim in money, but are careful not to invite discussion or opposition speakers.”

British journalist Peter Hitchens has the same idea about Eric
Hobsbawm and myself.

Hugo tells me:

The
day before I came to Bonn, I had lunch with
[the Dowager Lady M.]. There were six
of us altogether and your name cropped up
when Janet asked me how you were. ‘He’s a
charming man,’ she said, ‘Charming! And
frightfully clever!’ Everyone else nodded in
agreement and Janet asked me to send you her
good wishes and looks forward to seeing you
again when you are next back in
England.

He later says he left the less flattering bits out. He is a scamp. I go out for a bite with Mr B., again; better behaved, we go to
Pensacola Beach. Back at the hotel, I find the printer has stopped, the generic inks have been detected by Epson’s software and it is refusing to accept them. Hmmm.

Emails: one from Hugo, still twisting the knife:

Sunday,
October 7, 2012
Pensacola,
Florida – Biloxi, Mississippi

SPENT a miserable night brooding, once again.
Yesterday’s mailout has produced a slew of orders and bookings.

Bruce … has noticed that www.onread.com
has some of my pdf books online. It is theft, and there is not much I can do about it.

Rob MacP. writes from Calgary, ordering some five hundred dollars of books. I write thanking him at once. “I’ve never ordered books online,” he replies, increasing his order, “and then received a personal email from the author.
I’ll see you in Coeur d’Alene, you can sign them all for me in a few weeks. PS It is Coeur d’Alene, Idaho? I’ll have a nice seven-hour drive down from Calgary Canada.”

A good customer. I reply, “Yes, Idaho. And I have a nice one-month drive up round the west coast from here, Florida.”

Before leaving I write to Jessica at university: “Hello Jessica, how’s it going? Off to Mississippi today, Biloxi, on the Gulf. Only an hour and a half from here along Interstate-10
to the west.
I put your film online
and I will try and embed the other one in a day or two. We must make several more. Next week your first lectures, right? Keep me informed.

Monday,
October 8, 2012
Biloxi,
Mississippi – Houston, Texas

JESSICA has emailed, and I reply: “… I had a long dream about poor Josephine this morning, getting a tearful phone call from a boyfriend, and her saying repeatedly I love you, I love you, I love you, and bursting into tears. It was very disturbing. I am still upset by it. —
Daddy.”

I SET out from Biloxi at midday, and drive all afternoon and evening to Houston in Texas, ever westwards, and into a gorgeous sunset. It is about 450 miles.

Hugo writes:

I
spent today at the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz
going through Darré’s diary together
and various other papers from his
Nachlaß which mention Himmler. I also
found Hedwig Potthast‘s Sportausweis
photograph which was on microfilm. The
Darré diary was massively edited in
1972 in co-operation with Darré’s
widow. Apparently, after this massive act of
vandalism, his diaries were burnt.

I tell him that Elke Fröhlich
told me this was because the original R Walther
Darré diaries, like mine, contained a lot of X-rated stuff.

Hugo, slyly: “All the more reason why they should have been made available for posterity —
as I hope yours will be!”

The German court officers (the bailiffs) have actually refused to recognise our injunction against TeamWorkx. Are the German courts really stacked that high against me?

I advise Jessica, “Money burns a hole in your pocket. You’ve inherited that trait from me. I am on the road, heading west. . . This is where I need a co-driver. “

Tuesday,
October 9, 2012
Houston,
Texas

A WAKEFUL night: fretting, then dreams about family. As for our injunction against the film company, it is by no means cut and dried, and the legal costs are mounting. The opponents are digging in their heels to waste time and prevent us seeing the TV film Rommel before its broadcast.

I acknowledge my German lawyer’s latest effort: “Weiter so; sehr interessant. Die
Fristsetzung ist richtig, denn der Gegner will
Zeit vergeuden. Hoffentlich sitzen wir noch am längeren Hebel.”

He sends me Stage 2, taking injunctive action against SWR: This is stacking up ominously for the other side. Threats of criminal proceedings, and even a warning to cancel the film’s premiere, etc.

A “Christian Smith” writes me: “You bunch of
Nazi f*cking cows. You are the filth of the earth. Pure evil. Bastards, cowards, butt f+cking cock sucking faggot baby f*ckers. Do you f*ck your own children?”

As something of a linguist, I recognise the obscene-obsessive language. Middle-East origin, or Brooklyn perhaps? I am guessing the writer is not a Christian after all. He gets our standard reply: “This is an automatically generated response. We regret that we receive up to 300
emails a day and cannot undertake to read them all.

If you wish your recent email to be considered for posting in our hate-mail section, please ensure that you have thoroughly checked its spelling and grammar, and resubmit. Focal
Point Publications”

I have got a lot of Himmler drafting done during the day, at last converting my
Vienna prison writings into typescript.

Wednesday,
October 10, 2012
Houston
– Elgin – Austin, Texas

Rob MacP. writes again from Canada:

Dear Mr. Irving:

I
feel so ashamed that my country has banned
you. I feel even more ashamed that I didn’t
even know who you were up until a few weeks
ago. Thank God I stumbled across an old
(about 1996 I think) video of Christopher
Hitchens defending you. As I said when he
said you were one of the “necessary
historians” I knew I had to check you out. So
thank god for YouTube as I’ve been watching
you lectures over and over. I look forward to
meeting you in Coeur d’Alene.

I’ve already
booked a motel and I’ll spend a day just
wandering around the city.

I’m shocked at how effective the other side is at keeping you hidden. They really are effective; I’m not the best read person in the world, but I can’t believe it’s all my fault I never even heard of you. They’re doing a pretty good job at keeping you shut out. When I found out Norman
Finkelstein
despises Deborah
Lipstadt,
I knew I had to help you out with more than the postage saved on my books.

I intend to send help regularly; I wish I were brave enough to put more on the line. I’m just not that brave.

This is not relevant, but I like the [May
2004] photo of you and your young daughter in her school uniform on you website. It’s very endearing. So all the best my friend. I look so forward to meeting you and getting you to sign my giant pile of your books! Keep fighting the good fight. I’m sure there’s more people that care for you and believe in what you’re doing than you can ever know.

I DRIVE over to Elgin, and Sandy Snelson Yaklin has brought her father Wallace “Pete”
Snelson (above) to meet me. The former Texas
Senator is 89, and turns ninety on March 28 next year. He is the American soldier photographed (see below) holding up the uniform which
Adolf
Hitler sent to Eva Braun after the murder attempt of July 20, 1944. Where is that uniform now!

Snelson is very fit, going a bit deaf, and a good safe driver too. He waves a copy of the
Avon edition of Hitler’s War at me; I now give him the latest millennium edition.

He clearly remembers his immediate CIC chief
Robert
A Gutierrez, had a letter from or referring to Lieutenant Gutierrez (which I did not get to read), and tells me that the Eva
Braun items — her diary, silverware, and the
Hitler uniform items were housed in the CIC headquarters at Heidelberg for a time, along with her photo album(s) and a thick stamp album.
He has no recollection of seeing other papers.

He was a German linguist with the CIC, learned the language at University of Nebraska at
Lincoln. Has a clipping from Stars & Stripes about the cache, however, which his daughter has scanned for me.

He recalls Gutierrez as leaving for the USA some time before he did and agrees that August
1945 is possible. He was also involved in the arrest of Dr Klaus Schilling (who conducted crucial malaria experiments at Dachau, later hanged) and a 19 year old, “Maus”,
Operation Danube, one of many young German
Hitler Youth men who worked for the US in infiltrating Werwolf units after 1945.

The names Johannes Göhler,
Schloss Backnang, and Franz Konrad mean nothing to him. He is sad that Gutierrez made no effort to contact him after the war; he knew that Gutierrez lived in Albuquerque, but was not aware he was dead.

He himself returned to the USA in January
1946. The Eva Braun items were taken out of the safe and forwarded to Seven Army’s G2 (General
Edwin Sibert?); before that Snelson asked a friend to photograph him holding them outside the Heidelberg headquarters, and the items were then locked back in the safe — anyway not to his knowledge burned. The name William
Conner was known to him, but no more than that.

He finds it hard to believe that any GI would actually have burnt the uniform items; more likely, he agrees, he would have taken them home as souvenirs.

His only souvenirs are an original Himmler picture postcard autographed by the
Reichsführer; a blank sheet of very white paper with a Hitler signature; a Hitler invitation to a February 1939 meeting; two original formal half-plate photos of Hitler with an unidentified female; half a dozen original
CIC photos of corpses heaped up under a carport-like shelter at Dachau, one including a helmeted GI, and his own wartime
IDs.

He has a few pages of 1940-onwards military personnel documents, and his honorable-discharge certificate. His daughter filmed our whole interview.

I check into an Embassy Suites in Austin, but only with difficulty, as they are full tonight.

7:06 p.m I tell Jeannie. “Tour going better now, as you will notice from the increased registrations. I have three days off, which is a drain on the resources, in Austin, but I will get some writing done. G. [the Piranha]
is still angling to come.”

Thursday,
October 11, 2012
Austin,
Texas

HEAVY dreams. I go down for breakfast but find that breakfast here has finished at nine. The chef makes an omelette for me. I chat with the general manager.

I write to Jessica: “In a few days, if you give me a suitable time or text it to me, I can phone you for a chat. I am following your progress closely. Next year: rent a house, get the Rolls out of the workshop, finish the book.”

James Lander asks for assistance for a book on Max Wachtel, wartime commander of the V1 flying-bomb regiment. I reply:

Well,
I presume you have located the very bulky war
diary of Flak Regiment 155W; it was provided
to me by the Air Historical Branch of the Air
Ministry in the 1960s, it should now be in
the Public Record office at Kew or perhaps
restituted to Germany (Militärarchiv in
Freiburg). I had correspondence with Wachtel,
but my files are in storage in Slough, UK,
and I am in Texas at present on a tour. I
interviewed W. in Hamburg, where he was
airport manager.

Jeanette writes: “I’m glad [Canadian]
Robert MacP will pick up his 2 orders from you.
It works out better all the way around, I won’t have to fill out those damned forms, and you get an extra $126 from the shipping, as a donation.
I’m not all bad.”

I reply: “The Curate’s Egg (look it up).”

Wikipedia:
Origin of phrase Curate’s egg: The bishop says
“I’m afraid you’ve got a bad egg, Mr Jones”.
Apparently trying to avoid offence or curry favor, the curate replies, “Oh, no, my Lord, I assure you that parts of it are excellent!”

Friday,
October 12, 2012
Austin,
Texas

A long and fascinating letter from Michael
Montgomery about the mysterious sinking of HMAS
Sydney in November 1941. And an inquiry then comes from England about the Dresden air-raid casualties figure.

I
am sure you are tired of this question so I
don’t expect you to write anything new, but I
wanted to ask if you have a standard response
to the question regarding the figures of the
Dresden bombing. Do you have anything that
covers this as a full answer that you could
send me please, both for my own interest and
for that of anyone that may ask me.

I understand that you have answered this question to Tom Robertson here on
February 11
and here on January 17,
2012.

But
I wondered if you had a reply that covers all points as a kind of final answer in this that will put it to bed.

— to which I have replied: “Best thing to do is to browse my online dossier on this.. I will also post in the next half-hour a
12-megabyte dossier for you at this location. All the items on it are copyright-protected, and you should ask me before reproducing any.”

SWR SENDS my lawyer the usual, but lengthy, rejection letter of our demands. Their counsel beefs about our giving short notice periods, etc. The stakes are getting higher, and they know it.

12:25 p.m to Jessica: “Tell me when you’d like me to phone this weekend. A landline phone would be nice, and much cheaper to phone.”

I HIRE a meeting room at a hotel in Anaheim in
Orange County.

There is a score of Facebook friends of
Jaenelle’s on this tour – they ply me with her latest news when they come to my talks, unaware that she is in the past now, our partnership in ruins. She says on Facebook she is down in
Australia with the new husband.

He’s her second, an Australian. He was a guest on our Wolf’s
Lair tour last year. When I saw him in
Poland I thought him paunchy and unfit, but on the plus side he’s wealthy, and a would-be triathlon competitor (aren’t we all!); at least somewhat fitter than the average Houstonian or
Hoosier. To the folks in Houston, in fact —
Obesity Capital of North America — he might even appear quite slim.

A student from Waco, attending my talk this evening with a friend, says he too is friends with Jaenelle on Facebook. I thought she had de-friended just about everybody, on her new hubby’s orders. The two students help me pack and load the car.

I hope she has kept up her singing — that was one of the things she was so good at. She was training a lovely contralto voice. She was just about the finest personal assistant I had, if one overlooks her own taste in music. Oh, and her short fuse too, as evidenced by the emails between us which the enemy hacked into and published. The more cerebral her companion, the shorter her fuse: so her new hubby should be okay for a while.

Her image continues to haunt this tour. Many of the guys who come to hear me speak look around for her, and ask when she is coming back.
“Eventually,” I promise, but I know it is a lie.
I am capable of raising the dead, as the reincarnation of the Piranha has shown, but
Jaenelle? That is altogether another matter.

Saturday,
October 13, 2012
Austin
– Dallas – Weatherford (on Interstate 20), Texas

I TELEPHONE Jessica before leaving Austin, for a five minute chat; she says something about reading up on her lectures, which sounds more promising

Onwards in intermittent drizzle with leaden grey skies on the right, and bright sunshine to the left, toward Arlington, halfway between
Dallas and Forth Worth. At first Susie’s
Café seems invisible, but then I detect it — a grubby little Mexican watering hole. As
I park I realize however that I have used it before, and the meeting room is large and well appointed. One of my guests thinks we were here last in about 2003 — i.e. before prison.

The owner Silvia has no knowledge of my booking. The Latina I gave the order to two days ago has evidently forgotten to pass it on. No matter, I slip her boss fifty dollars and we set up rapidly. Jon Gentry the videographer and his pal John S. make a video of my ninety-minutes talk plus twenty minutes of discussion afterwards. Sales are enough to pay for the gas, the car, the hotel and this room. I am glad to see that everybody orders a meal.

Not much profit, however, and onward I go for an hour at ten thirty p.m. to Weatherford, on the I-20 heading south-west again. The distance
I have covered since this tour started is only about four inches on the map I use, with several feet to go, and one of my smallest meetings yet,
El Paso, seven hundred miles ahead.

I tell Hugo: “Jessica told me that her lost wallet (!) had been found and that the place where she had been had found two keys which she hopes are the missing ones. Tomorrow I have a seven hundred mile drive to the next location,
El Paso.”

Sunday,
October 14, 2012
Weatherford
– Pecos (still on Interstate 20), Texas

BRIGHT sunshine, clear skies over Texas. Just as well that I haven’t got another Bright Young
Thing with me on this tour, she would not stand the pace. Paperwork for an hour, and I write more Himmler based on the prison drafting.

10:46 a.m Hi Jessica

Lovely
weather in Texas today, clear blue skies, and
I am about to set off for El Paso which is
where I turn north after speaking to about
three people. Hmmm. Cost in petrol today and
tomorrow about 200 pounds.

So far this journey is trouble free, but the
Pacific Northwest has a history of trying for violence against me, with mounted police, and so on. Maybe it was Jaenelle they were really gunning for!! Everybody asks me where she is, which is annoying.

I SET out at midday, pausing once or twice to check emails, as the road gets emptier and the buildings thin out. I listen to the “Prairie
Home Companion” uninterrupted, and then at the end of the afternoon to the whole of Madame
Butterfly from the New York Metropolitan Opera as Interstate 20 rolls out ahead and astern, and the prairies slide past. Talk about a feast of fine music.

West of Lubbock the oilfields begin to thicken; since I last travelled this highway it is now a scene of immense activity, Sunday or not, trucks with oil-rigs thundering past, pumps nodding and sucking as far as the eye can see, the scent of crude oil and hot tar in the air, drilling-platforms and occasionally towering oil-rigs littering the prairies and dunes, vast acres of dumps sprawling along the Interstate, with parades of new drilling equipment, cranes, bulldozers and steelware testifying

to the rise in crude oil prices.

All preparing perhaps for Israel’s next bloody adventure in the Middle East and the seemingly inevitable closing of the Straits of
Hormuz, after which only the rich will be able to find gas at prices they can afford.

I have changed my mind: I don’t want to be a long-haul truck driver when I grow up, I want to work on an oil rig. They are all paunchy and wealthy, and that’s what it takes. I halt for the night at Pecos, and go online in the hotel lobby as the Wifi does not reach as far as my room, not even a whisper:

Tuesday,
October 15, 2012
Pecos
– El Paso, Texas

WEST TEXAS is one vast, empty state. I authorise My German attorney to ask the German courts to grant an injunction against SWR. The odds are steepening.

Another YouTube fan contacts me from
Greece:

I
am a great supporter of your cause and would
like to know if there is any chance you will
ever come to Europe because in your speaking
program Europe is not mentioned anywhere. I
really like the dozens of Youtube videos with
your speeches but i guess that being present
s a whole different story. Angelos
Berberakis.

A REPORTER from the Mesa Legend newspaper phones, saying it is all over everywhere that I am speaking soon in Phoenix. I explain we have a
“no reporters” rule. “Oh, I am sorry, perhaps I can catch you next time.”

Sales today do not cover the costs. I seriously think this will be the last Grand Tour for a year or two. The Depression is hitting everybody.

Anthony Lloyd Wallis writes:

I
just thought you may be interested in a
conversation I had a few days ago with a
veteran from WW2. He is 94 years old and
served in the signals regiment in North
Africa after discussing his service
decorations and listening to his stories of
his survival and the loss of his comrades he
went on to say how all the sacrifices he made
he wondered if it had all been worth it.

This
reminded me me of your statement that if the
soldiers who landed on the Normandy beaches
[in June 1944] would have advanced a
few yards up those beaches if they knew how
it would turn out today. The more I learn
about the second world war the more I
understand what you are saying.

I reply: “Thanks Tony, I was very moved by your letter. David Irving.”

Another long haul tomorrow up to Tucson in
Arizona, with around four hours on the highway.

Wednesday,
October 15, 2012
El
Paso, Texas – Tucson, Arizona

LETTER from a stranger, living in
Pennsylvania, who wants to write my biography; it will go nowhere in the long run:

I reply:

7:47
a.m Difficult to know what to say. That time
is approaching, but you’d have to line up a
prospective publisher first I think. And it
could not be done by email, as that would
amount to my writing the book. Tell me what
mainline publishers say, and we will see if
the idea should be taken further.

Breakfast at 8:30 a.m. I will not stay at this El Paso Embassy Suites hotel again. The only coffee is Ersatz, from liquid concentrate in a machine — the cheapest gas station does better than that; the only “butter” is margarine; the only bananas are brown and soggy. There are no oranges. The staff pretend to understand English, but don’t.

When I mention this at the front desk, saying that this is the second worst of all the hotels of this otherwise excellent chain that I have ever stayed at, the man says with a shrug that it will cease to be an Embassy Suites hotel after November 1.
Comment superfluous.

IN the Rommel film case, my German attorney sends me two endless letters from the opposing lawyers, trying to get our injunction overturned. I fear they may succeed.

I write Himmler for a while from my prison drafting about Marga and her diary. I also print fifty letters to my friends in
British Columbia, and invite them to my northern
USA talks, and mail them before leaving El
Paso.

FROM twelve noon until five pm I drive north-west to Tucson. Into yet another time zone.

5:52 p.m to Jessica: “Had a lovely four or five hour drive across the Arizona desert to
Tucson this afternoon, listening to Debussy and
Ravel on the super satellite radio in the truck.
The audiences so far are not big, but that pays for petrol and hotel. I hope you are meshing your gears with other students and lectures and getting involved. I am now on Pacific Coast time. Eight time zones distant from England. I have turned north and now go to Phoenix, Las
Vegas, and California this week.

My legs are stiff from all the sitting in the driving seat!
Lots of love from Daddy.”

A very thinly attended meeting here at
Tucson. Too late I realized that we rather clash with this evening’s televised U.S. Presidential
Debate Number Two. I make a loss on the day, if
I disregard the exhilarating drive across the
Arizona desert.

A veteran History Teacher at a Massachusetts
High School has written me:

I
have been a WW2 buff since I was in
elementary school, and a keen researcher of
the who’s what’s where’s and why’s of
Germany’s expansion and ultimate destruction.
Fast forwarding to this era, our school
teaches a Holocaust class. I mentioned David
Irving to the teacher, and he responded with
a measure of disdain and hint of vitriol that
caught me off guard.

Shortly after, I
purchased the three book compilation, Hitlers
War, read it quickly, and reported to the
history teacher that it was very erudite and
relied heavily on primary sources–many
unpublished to date. I was dismissed with a
hand wave.

Now…it is ten years later, and I have just finished my second read of the same text. I am quite perplexed at the brickbats, literally and figuratively, that have been tossed your way.

The intervening ten years have expanded my research, and I have some ideas as to why there has been such a negative reaction to this work. (the single sentence dedicated to the liberation of Auschwitz has to be the big one…) But the vividness of the writing, the humanization of the subject are quite gripping. And therein lies the likely problem.

A tale that tells more than a modicum of truth bucking the wave of global demonization and semi slanderous versions of what history is….would be considered dangerous by those who value an opinion over truth.

11:22 p.m I send the above letter to Jessica:
“I thought you’d be proud to read this kind of letter, which I now often get. Just in case you wonder…”

I reply to him with a broad hint: “May I say what would most please me: if you or some other teachers would say, “Mr Irving, would you like to come one day or evening to talk to my history classes? After all you personally knew Hitler’s private staff and interviewed them at length.” I would come like a shot. I shall probably be in
New England this spring.

At present only one university, in Denver, dares invite me to come and talk to their classes, twice a year, which I am happy to do without fee.”

Wednesday,
October 17, 2012
Tucson
– Phoeix – Glendale, Arizona

JESSICA reports from western England: “Hi, sorry for the silence on my end. I’ve been obscenely busy. I’m still really all over the place!”

Also
look at this assignment I’ve been set
[she continues]. I’m totally over my
depth with world politics help. I have no
idea how to even write this kind of essay let
alone structure it and coherently argue it!
I’ve ordered a few books on international
relations which I plan to get stuck into
today but there’s just NO time.

Today
I don’t have any lectures so I’m doing a kickboxing class (to keep fit, I’m getting so chubby here) and then after I have to take part in a psychological experiment (it’s compulsory for experimental psychology students to take part in at least 4 hours worth of these, any hours after that are paid
10 pounds an hour). Dinner here is at 5.30.
If you thought psychology here would be a mickey mouse degree you’d be extremely surprised, it’s VERY neuro-sciency and quantitative.

I’m doing a module this term on statistics which is so so so boring.

I reply: “Statistics are fun. I can help you with that too. More later. Just got up, very glad to hear you’re getting stuck in. How are the boys? Any WAMPAN’s? White Aristocrat
Millionaires Princes and Nonsmokers?” — I should have added, Avoid paunchy Australians no matter how seemingly wealthy. Wealth is no subsitute for character. But then, like most folks I am a hypocrite.

Her essay questions are:

1. To what extent is the United States an
   empire, a hegemon or both?
2. How neoliberalised is world
   politics?
3. What are the determinants of success and
   failure in cases of humanitarian intervention
   using armed force?
4. It is often said that economic sanctions
   do not work and yet they are used often.

   Explain this apparent contradiction.

5. Who are the winners and the losers from
   Britain’s arms sales?
6. What emancipatory opportunities are
   created by seeing world politics as socially
   constructed?
7. Drawing on historical materialist theory,
   explain how states and transnational
   capitalism relate to each other.
8. Drawing on liberal IR theory, discuss the
   extent to which there is an international
   society.
9. Does the invasion of Iraq in 2003
   vindicate

   realism?

10. Are environmental problems taken
    sufficiently seriously in world
    politics?

In my reply I also comment on these questions: “Weird questions indeed, and written in a kind of civil service gobbledegook with little relationship to the English language that we have learned. Can you risk actually saying so? ‘Before tackling this question, I would really like it to have been written in Plain
English, using words that real people understand.’

That is at the heart of the political problem — professional politicians using their own jargon (rather as doctors use their own kind of Latin), in order to retain their fateful monopoly on world politics. The
Calculated Unintelligibility Syndrome, I could call it.

I add: “I could attempt intelligent answers to questions 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10. And so could you if you had listened to more world news and less
Black Rap Crap. The others contain buzz words and meaningless jargon which nullify the question, so tell them so, Jessica! To hell with the score. Neoliberalised, determinants, socially constructed, emancipatory, historical materialist, liberal IR: what on earth do these words and phrases mean to us real people?”

She replies 9:12 a.m: “He tried to teach us what neoliberal meant but I zoned out.
Historical materialism is another way of saying Marxist theory. My new buzzwords I’ve picked up are ‘unilateral hawks’ and ‘pragmatic multilaterals’ (who knows what they mean?).”

9:14 a.m “I think you should stand up to him and ask why they use this jargon-speak instead of commonly available language used by normal people.”

P.S. a few minutes later “I liked the phrase
zoned out. Very descriptive.”

I see that Portland is already gearing up for my arrival.

Holocaust-denier
David Irving to visit Portland, OR on
Nov.3– Anti-fascists Will Confront Event
10/15/2012: David Irving, Holocaust-denier
and neo-fascist, is coming to Portland, OR on
Saturday, November 3rd, giving a speech at a
presently-unknown location. According to
Irving’s website, this event is scheduled for
3PM. Portland anti- racists are determined to
locate, confront and if possible shut down
this event.

Rose City Antifascists ask that
local anti-racists organize now in
preparation for Irving’s visit, which is only
weeks away. Please keep the date free and be
ready to respond at short notice.

Hugo reports on Himmler letters he has found in the German archives for me –

written
in November 1944 and January 1945 and signed,
not with a name but with a large asterisk as
follows: ‘Bleib gesund und [word
illegible] nicht. Deine *’. One written
in January 1945 ends: ‘Vergiß mich
nicht wieder! Ich halte den Daumen. Deine * ‘
Do you know if they are letters from
[Hedwig] Potthast to Himmler?

I reply: “Normally Himmler signed his letters to Potthast — like the one I attach — with a large runic *.” I add: “Just on the road going into Phoenix, hope we have no violence tonight.
Need Jae, she saved me before.”

I add: ” THIS was Jae at our Phoenix talk last time, photographed by the enemy. She went out to photograph them! Unable to force their way in, they slashed the tyres of the cars parked outside.”

I set out from Tucson at 1:30 p.m. On the road, the “disabled” applicant Johnston phones again asking for tonight’s Phoenix location,
“even if only approximately”(!). Not very bright. When I point out that he could have registered properly at any time these last few months, and he has yet to do so, he says he does not want to lose money.

I say we will make a refund if he cannot attend for reasons of his “disability”. He pleads for the location or area, and again I say he must register first. “I am sure you will understand our security concerns.” He does not register, so he is evidently their mole. Their only one?

The Massachusetts history teacher has replied. “Hello Mr. Irving,

I
have broached the subject at school today,
and received quite polarized responses. The
second in command of the History Department
is quite open minded and intrigued, and
compared the pervasive brick batting of your
work with the widespread violence in response
to the YouTube video of Mohammed across the
Muslim world . . . I.e. no one has
seen it but are very upset. I thought this to
be quite apropos.

I feel that a visit would be overwhelming for our small performing arts charter school, but
. . . I am still going to broach it with the department chair, an admitted non fan of your work, although I have come very close to getting him to admit that he has read none of your works.

A quick perusal of the Wikipedia page devoted to you is somewhat ingenuous, and sometimes borders on calumny. The portion devoted to
‘Holocaust denial’ is definitely the portion that will blind many to the research that you have done, and the primary sources you have at your disposal. Be that as it may, this is part of the legacy that taints many before they have even turned a single page.

For many, the primary source education on the
1933-1945 period rely on few sources. Albert
Speer and William Shirer (an insider and a journalist) and Trevor-Roper and Joachim
Fest. I again have to say that there are so many tidbits you have unearthed that bring a richness to the tale, which again probably rubs many the wrong way-those who only wish to see a condemnation of evil, not a studied objective view that leaves the reader the right to decide what actually was happening.

And that is the job of a good historian.

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