November 3, 2002 (Sunday),
London

SOMEBODY told me a few days ago that Germar Rudolf has now published in his otherwise estimable quarterly VffG a defence of Gregory Douglas alias Peter Stahl. The world is full of weird natural phenomena, and this just adds another, albeit minor one, to their list.

Stahl is beyond defending. He once published a magazine article reproducing a "Gestapo" Müller document illustrating his contention that Adolf Hitler had escaped to South America by plane, or submarine -- I forget which (I did not even read it with even half an eye, as I have interviewed myself in 1967 the people who burned Hitler's body of whom one, Otto Günsche, is I am glad to say still very much alive). The Müller document, alas, had no SS runes. When later Stahl obtained a genuine wartime Nazi typewriter with runes, he retyped the document with the runes and used that "original" as the illustration the next time he wrote on Hitler's escape.

Twenty years later he was still taking in the gullible. He deceived even Gitta Sereny, but only for a short time, with a fake document about the end of Odilo Globocnic, Himmler's chief mass-murderer, in Austria.

Mark Weber of the Institute for Historical Review in California is more concerned about the Rudolf article than I am:

I entirely understand your attitude [he writes]. For months I similarly refrained from responding. However, you may wish to consider writing something, given that you will almost certainly be asked about all this.

I reply:

Like Gitta Sereny (Globocnic) I am in the fortunate position of having had Peter Stahl actually try to palm off a fake document (Heinrich Himmler to Oswald Pohl letter, October 1943) onto me. Germar Rudolf has apparently not had this pleasure.

I marvel, but only briefly, at what has led Germar Rudolf into this particular cul-de-sac in his career. He is in a wretched position: thanks to the machinations of the traditional enemies in Germany, he has lost his home, wife, and future, as well as his professional career and children -- unable to pursue the one, or to return home to see the other.

For a while he had to write under pseudonyms, which led to the anomalous position that in the otherwise highly useful expert report he wrote for my appeal in the Lipstadt case, refuting the facts and arguments of the non-chemist Robert Van Pelt, he was to be seen quoting himself under these various different names as his authorities; this might have been acceptable in the circumstances, had he not also thrown in muted praise for these "other authors" in his report as well -- which alas rendered the whole document unusable in Court. More recently he entered a brief but useful relationship -- with a woman whose number he accidentally dialled when telephoning -- but I believe that too has petered out.

OTHER correspondents ask me about the progress of The Final Gavel, the ultimate appeal we are bringing against the consequences of the Lipstadt trial. (Thanks to the incompetence and sloth of the solicitors I instructed in the appeal against Mr Justice Gray's Judgment, who failed to make the necessary applications in time, permission for that appeal was refused: I can only warn the unwary from ever instructing the firm of Nigel Adams & Co in any matter involving applications or, for that matter, correspondence and phone calls either).

Amhurst, Brown, Colombotti, the law firm I instructed in their place, have now agreed terms for The Final Gavel, but have asked for £3,800 more than we have in the kitty: more delay, but we shall prevail in the long run, of that I am sure. Penguin Books Ltd, who could have escaped upon payment of five hundred pounds to a charity, are to be hoist on their own petard.

[Previous Radical's Diary]

German Rudolf: Searching for the Truth

David Irving wrote to Penguin Books on Sept 18, 1998, offering to release them from the action

Professor Richard Overy (editor) admits: Penguin Books Ltd have published a Third Reich Atlas riddled with inaccuracies and errors | readers spot still more howlers in the Atlas | Penguin Atlas lies about the number of air raid deaths in Germany | Penguin's Atlas of the Third Reich (ed: Richard Overy) is full of howlers, says Gerhard Rohringer | William Blair suggests the errors follow a conformist pattern | Both readers spot still more howlers in the Atlas | Max Hastings gave the true data