David Irving |
Documents on the International Campaign for Real History
Posted Thursday, November 15, 2007
© Focal Point 2007
Today I must drive into London for a haircut, and to get some balls. I shall need them for Monday.
November 16, 2007 (Friday)
Windsor (England)JOHN the Gardener says not to walk on frosted lawns, it kills the grass.
Hans, the publisher from Austria, arrives from Dover surprisingly fast, around eight pm, and we drive into Eton at once for supper. Not bad food, and cheaper than London. Reminds me of our well-educated Great-Great Uncle Alfred Dolman, who was eaten by a Hottentot cannibal named Wolhuter in the 1800s; Wolhuter was violently sick after this desert meal. I used to tell South African audiences of our great-uncle who "was brought up at Eton in England, and eaten and brought up in South Africa." The heartless beasts all laughed. A large, jolly, slightly overweight German (born in Cuxhaven), Hans knows the publishing scene in both countries inside out.
November 17, 2007 (Saturday)
Windsor - London - Windsor (England)WE talk all morning, and he leaves around 12:15 pm. He makes brutally plain that no publisher in Germany or Austria now dare publish my new works; the enemy are Angstbeisser, he says, [little dogs that snarl and yap, and finally dash forward to bite and hang on without knowing why] but they still bite. He agrees with my diagnosis that Germany has become overrun with former Stasi and left-educated children who are now grown to adult estate. He calls modern Germany "DDR-Lite," which is spot on.
November 18, 2007 (Sunday)
Windsor (England)JESSICA empties the shampoo and gel out of my bathroom (although I have provided it in hers as well). A stroll round the "estate" before lunch with Jessica. Pity it is only rented. It is a chilly morning. We strip the cover off the big trampoline we find next to the orchard, and she astounds me with her acrobatics. Very graceful, and full of fun.
After lunch she walks over the bridge into Windsor to shop for birthday presents for a friend.
November 19, 2007 (Monday)
Windsor (England)
WE leave at 7:19 a.m. to take her to Hammersmith for school. I've been doing the school run for forty years now, and love every moment of it even though Jessica insists on listening to Black Rap Crap; she'll grow out of it. Very slow traffic, it takes an hour instead of the seventeen minutes I measured earlier. Then on to the archives to work for the first time since August; I am still ploughing through the hundreds of thousands of police and SS decodes for Himmler. I resume at volumes HW16/40 and /41.
I work reading through the decodes until three pm, finishing these two volumes. As I leave the Public Record Office today, a stranger walks over to me, aged about thirty I would guess, and says: "Excuse me, are you David Irving? Do you mind if I shake your hand" (or did he say pump?), "I admire your courage immensely." That's nice, as Johnnie Depp would say. Beyond revealing that he comes from Manchester, he gives no identity. How different is vox populi from public opinion as published by our stinking British press.
Back at the Windsor house at 3:30 pm, with the dusk -- and heavy rain -- already falling.
Robert Fisk has ended his latest article in The Independent about President George W Bush with these words, as one correspondent writes to me: "Who would have thought that the leader of the Western world -- he who would protect us against "world terror" -- would turn out to be the David Irving of the White House?" What on earth can that mean? Silly man: flailing at me is not enough to save your own soul; Robert, you have joined us in the ranks of the Undead.
November 20, 2007 (Tuesday)
Windsor (England)AT the archives from 11:45 to 4 pm.; Steve Tyass, an excellent Himmler researcher, comes over we chat for half an hour. He is somewhat sarcastic in a supercilious, humorous way, and very gullible. He refuses to believe that the Höfle telegram is suspiciously convenient: he cites the identical figure contained in the Korherr report as being the most convincing proof of authenticity.
"And suppose whoever faked the Höfle telegram -- if it is a fake -- simply worked backwards from the Korherr report?" I ask.That has obviously not occurred to him.
He was at a Berlin historians' conference in September, and volunteers that one German historian said he admits that few German historians are as thorough in their research as I am. I am sure that praise is genuine; but then of course, I would be.
November 21, 2007 (Wednesday)
Windsor (England)THE Associated Press reports that there is a boycott demand against Oxford Union if I speak next week. It contains several libels. The world's press repeats the story unquestioningly. The Jewish Telegraph Agency also reports: "IRVING CAUSES OXFORD FORUM COLLAPSE." That's one way of putting it.
November 22, 2007 (Thursday)
Windsor (England)A STRANGER Max Nicholson emails in an overfriendly way: "Hi, you mention on [your website] that Clifford L[...] was involved in a paedophile scandal. Are you at liberty to give details of this incident? A friend of mine is in close contact with L., staying at his house, and I would like to be assured of his safety." I suspect that this message is not what it seems. I shall therefore not reply.
Peter Hoffmann emails from McGill University, Montréal: "The other day in Munich I met Peter Longerich who is preparing a book on Himmler, he may be close to completion." I reply: "Longerich has of course had complete privileged access to all my records collected for my project. Not fair. However his books are as dull as ditchwater. He is a conformist historian."
Longerich was the German historian -- now working in Britain -- who famously refused, before the conference at the German Institute began, to answer "any questions that Mr Irving might put to him." When I asked about the Schlegelberger Document, the chairman, red-faced, rose and revealed this cowardice to the audience, who booed and whistled. Giving evidence at the Lipstadt Trial, this "neutral expert" denied on oath that he was negative toward me. Now that certainly has the smell, colour, and taste of perjury, even if it might be libellous to say so. [See transcript, Day 24, Feb 23, 2000, page 22]
SADLY Private Eye has refused to carry our Irvingbooks.com advert. They thus join the ranks of the journaille.
On November 5, 2007 we sent this letter to Private Eye: Advertising our online bookstore
"We wish to start inserting the following advertisement on a regular basis, every two or three weeks, depending on results:
IRVINGBOOKS.COM for all David Irving's works. Bookshop prices, shipped free. Autographed books make ideal Christmas gifts
Thursday, November 22, 2007
I am writing to you in regards to the advertisement you placed in Private Eye. Unfortunately, management have taken the decision not to run your proposed advert for Irving Books. I have cancelled the order and have arranged for a refund to be sent to you in the form of a cheque.
- Kind regards
- Robert Angullia
- Sales Executive
I reproach them:
This is very sad. The bookstore in question stocks only books sold freely by the major bookstores and chains in this country, particularly Waterstones, and the biggest distributors; they include titles published by the world's leading publishers and given without exception brilliant reviews by British and international newspapers and real experts on history. See [link]
May we take it that you have no objection to our publicising your refusal to carry an advertisement? We would certainly welcome a full explanation of your current stance, which seems incompatible with all that Private Eye used to stand for.
I particularly note the number of occasions over the last forty years on which the Eye has felt free to launch ad hominem attacks on me; now it seems that the Eye is frightened of allowing response in any form.
November 23, 2007 (Friday)
Windsor (England)GORGEOUS sunshine this morning; the lawns which John raked clean only yesterday are once again covered with leaves from the oaks, hazelnuts, horse chestnuts, bay, and magnolia; only the willows lining the stream at the end of the paddock are still covered -- they are always the last to surrender to the approach of winter, says John. As I leave for London, he is still raking, while Susie, his spaniel, runs around the herbaceous jungle, nose close to the ground like a Hoover, on the scent of rabbits.
A correspondent emails more welcome flattery, and inquires what I am writing now. I thank him for asking: "I am working, with stiffening joints (the product of the solitary confinement in a tiny cell) and limited resources as more and more bans pile on top of me, on three terminal projects, and I am eying a fourth whose subject I will not disclose here, as that would really bring down the house on me. 1: "Churchill's War", vol. iii: "The Sundered Dream"; 2: memoirs; 3. a Himmler biography."
Hear David Irving speak in British cities. Register interest
Next city Halifax: buffet and talk 7-10 pmA Moscow publisher writes that they are inclined to publish my Churchill but ask whether it would be possible to print it in one big volume.
"I am preparing," I reply, "with assistance that I shall now hire, a much-abridged version of the three Churchill volumes for publication in one volume, with the foreign translation market in mind. This will concentrate on the more controversial issues, where I have had access to exclusive materials not available to other historians."
Aleksei, their translator, also asks: "Just have re-read Alan Clark's The Donkeys. What do you think of him as an historian?"
Ah, Alan! I answer:
Alan Clark was a good friend, and he lost his job as Defence Minister when he attended a November 1991 cocktail party which I threw in my Mayfair apartment to celebrate the launching of our new edition of Hitler's War. A journalist arriving early spotted him carrying a cocktail sausage on a miniature flagpole -- we had had a number made for the event -- it was Hitler's personal standard.The Jewish Chronicle, which has not always been an ardent admirer of mine, threw up, and demanded that Mrs Thatcher dismiss him. The rest is history. Ion Trewin, another good friend, former CEO of the Orion Group and before that of Weidenfeld & Nicolson, is writing Ian's biography, based on his papers. As an historian? Clark was a good writer, but ... let's say he did not do the kind of research that I do and am known for.
Today I must drive into London for a haircut, and to get some balls. I shall need them for Monday.
[Previous Radical's Diary]
