David Irving |
Documents on the International Campaign for Real History
First posted Friday, July 22, 2011
© Focal Point 2011
There is only a quarter-inch of very stale coffee at the bottom of either flask, and when I ask if it is fresh I am told yes, it was made "today." Five hours ago.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Madrid, SpainOVERSLEPT again. Tiring dreams all night, including having won a Maserati in a lottery which I never entered. So now we get spam dreams too?
Ed writes: "You should look into making your books available on Kindle. . . have you given it thought?" I reply: "I have examined eBooks and am very unimpressed. They totally destroy the typography so far as I can see."
I hear from Réka, who is back flying with Malev. She is the girl who drove over to visit me once a month when I was a political prisoner in Vienna, although it involved a three a.m. start in Budapest each time. I reply: "How is Hunor?" -- her little son. Unexpectedly she announces, "Are you still in Madrid because I'll spend this evening there?"
I reply that we are just ten minutes from Madrid's Terminal Four. We arrange to meet after eleven p.m. outside her hotel. -- First I drive out to Zanadu with daughter Paloma, a ghastly shopping mall twenty miles south-west of Madrid. My idea of Hell. Back to Madrid at 10:30 p.m.
I WAIT in the restaurant outside the hotel and Réka duly appears on her crew bus, fit and smart in her uniform, trots upstairs and re-emerges twenty minutes later wearing a tight pink dress that . . . is truly no hardship to behold. Hard to believe she has a four year old boy. A man called Imre is interested in her, she hints. That's good.
We chat about everything under the sun for nearly two hours. Once her eyes flood with tears as she remembers her husband's unusual death, and people at the other tables must have wondered what I have done as she cries for two or three minutes after that and keeps mopping her eyes. A real mess. She is astonished to hear that I am temporarily homeless but I tell her I am relishing it for a while. . .
She has an eight a.m. flight back to Budapest tomorrow.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Madrid, SpainI TAKE the little Skoda for an eight a.m. service appointment. The Indian publisher who wants to do a deal with me, and is pressing me to renege on a very small contract made just last week with a rival, gets slightly nasty: "Dear Sir, But we have stock. And paid for rights to your original publisher, and investing in huge legal fee to fight the [anti-piracy] case for you, and have done publicity for the same all these years. Can you not withdraw the rights in light of some legal issue? You can consider returning the fee paid and we will of course pay a higher fee for a total of more titles. I look forward to hearing from you soon."
I reply: "I did not even know of your existence, unfortunately, very unfortunately, as Weidenfeld [the English publishers of Rommel] did not tell me about any Indian deal! You will find that I keep to my contracts very honourably."
More to-ing and fro-ing follows all day with India.
From Indiana, Jaenelle asks: "Have you had a snoopy [siesta] today?" I reply: "Just about to when your email interrupted my intent. Réka looked really, um, fetching yesterday."
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Madrid, SpainA VERY peaceful night, with pleasant dreams -- a visit to Her Majesty, getting flustered over how to address her -- as Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness or Ma'am?, and her expressing total private support for me -- I am not sure what in. I am a monarchist, and not ashamed.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Madrid, SpainNOTHING in the emails of interest. Resume work on Himmler at nine-fifty a.m.
I phone Bente in London briefly. She says Jessica did very well in her exams, three A-stars! Chip off the old block (I eventually amassed ten A-levels, I think). I pass this on to Jessica -- that her mother is full of praise for her. "Did she, what did she say," asks Jessica, and I tell her.
A slew of texts, emails, and phone calls from [ex-wife] Pilar, which I finally answer (as I am in the middle of very detailed work on the catalogue). She has found her father's crypt and there is room for Josephine's ashes. . . I agree at once to this solution.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Madrid, Spain -- Morcencx (France, nr Bayonne)THERE is one email, beginning, "Dear Mr Irving, You don't know me," which normally causes me to scrap the email as spam: However,
. . . I know that you have been in contact with Bishop Williamson. I have also been through your Website, and it's awesome. I have to hand it to you -- despite all the trouble you've had you have never given up. We are now in the times when telling the truth is a punishable offence. I am a traditional Catholic from Ireland, and my friend and I have been very concerned about Bishop Williamson. Would you please tell him that there are two "remnant faithful" who have been praying for his protection, and success in his battle for justice. We need him as he appears to be the only Bishop who has been true to the teaching of the Apostles and Archbishop Lefebvre's stance against the destruction of the Catholic Church. I have seen all his lectures on YouTube. We will continue to ask Our Blessed Lady to look after him. Tell him he should appeal against that unjust fine and to stand firm against those who are seeking to over-throw him. The Catholic remnant need at least One True Bishop. May Jesus and His Holy Mother look after him, and thank you for helping him.Angry that I was not picking up the phone last night, Pilar has sent a brief (five word) message: "You are very, very, RUDE." That is sometimes true, and I am often told it.
I reply at length:
I am not rude, but unlike you I am not retired, Pilar. I am writing full time, to a schedule, and as you know from the old days I cannot be interrupted. That is what emails are for. You phoned a dozen times as though it was a matter of great urgency. It is not. I am glad you have found such a very good resting place for Josephine, and when the time comes I will come back and visit her there. . . I am leaving Madrid today midday and will be back in London, God willing, in two or three days, depending on the weather.
Excited text messages from Jessica on hearing of my early return. Bente asks if it is true, she has had a bad day at hospital. . . I wonder what that was.
I drive around San Sebastian for an hour in appalling traffic at about seven p.m., looking for a parking spot, and phone Jaenelle briefly in Indianapolis; then give up on San Sebastian, and drive over to Biarritz in France, meaning to spend the night there. But the cheapest hotel I can find is eighty euros, plus breakfast, so I speed on and eventually stop at Morcencx after Bayonne, after a sign on the N-10 promises that a Hotel Bellevue there is "4km" from the exit. After ten kilometres I eventually find it. A disgusting and sinewy entrecôte at the nearby Café de la Paix -- which I leave almost untouched, as the knife can't even cut it and it is certainly not bien cuit -- and some cooling glasses of plain water from the jug and some crusts of bread comprise supper.
Bastille Day: the revolutionaries disposed of the wrong people.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Morcencx -- Poitiers (France)I GO downstairs for breakfast, but there is only a quarter-inch of very stale coffee at the bottom of either flask, and when I ask if it is fresh I am told yes, it was made "today." Five hours ago. Looking around the rest of the breakfast fare, I decide it is not worth nine euros, and get my money back. They seem amazed, and I hear the granite-faced madame who owns the hotel loudly exclaiming to the staff in another room about this English guest who will not touch their breakfast. It is like a scene from 'Allo, 'Allo.
Coffee in the Place de la Paix in bright sunshine, I buy a case of water for Bente, then set off around eleven a.m. Jessica texts once or twice, and in the evening she phones from Kew, to say delightedly that Hugo has got a dog and they are playing with it in the park now.
A dog? What was he thinking of? I arrive at Poitiers at three-thirty p.m. and check back into the same hotel as a month ago, a different room fortunately, but the whole hotel is pervaded by the smell of poo. I open the window wide, then decide that all of France is where the smell is coming from; I close the window, and finally have to realize that it is coming through the ventilator in the bathroom from every other toilet in the hotel. Not good.
I ask what time is dinner in the restaurant, and they look at me as though I am stupid: it is the weekend m'sieur, no restaurant at the weekend. I drive round into the commercial suburb, find two or three fast-food joints but leave each in turn in disgust at their plastic offerings. A Hotel de France has a big Restaurant sign. But it is not open until 7:30 p.m. m'sieur. Oh well, another hungry evening ahead.
I work until midnight on completing the catalogue. It has turned out very nicely but I still spot two or three things I need to tweak before uploading it. It may increase rights sales significantly.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Poitiers -- Calais (France) -- Dover -- Kew (England)UP at 8:50 a.m. Excellent breakfast, that is the only thing that redeems this Poitiers hotel. An hour's writing on Himmler at ten a.m.
I drive all day from Poitiers through Paris, without stopping, to Calais. There are now Blacks everywhere. The American debit card stops working on the autoroute south of Paris, but still works everywhere else. I arrive at Calais but the boat is late and does not sail until 8:30 p.m. I get to Hugo's eleven minutes after the projected 11 p.m. time, after a 1,500 mile drive. Chat for a while, then straight to bed.
I joke to Hugo that they are taking a risk -- we might implant a listening-chip in this MI6 dog before returning it. … At any rate his owners won't be meeting George Tenet, the chief of the CIA at the time of the September 11 affair. Not the brightest plate in the crockery cupboard, he wasn't. The dog would have run rings round him.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Kew (England)THE newspaper phone-hacking scandal is at its height. I cannot get very worked up about it, I confess, and I suspect that even government ministers must find it baffling -- after all, to them hacking phones and reading mails is all in a day's work. Readers of "Churchill's War", vol. i: "Struggle for Power" will recall that Sir Joseph Ball, chief of the Conservative Party Central office, had Winston's phone tapped in 1938, along with those of Anthony Eden and Harold Macmillan, to find out what the old rogue was up to.
Today's Sunday Times and other newspapers carry whole-page adverts announcing that Rupert Murdoch's News International have set up [in fact as long ago as June 17] a compensation scheme adjudicated by a retired former High Court judge Sir Charles Gray -- none other than our friendly judge in the Lipstadt Trial -- to offer fair settlement to those affected by the phone hacking scandal. Around £15m has been set aside to pay compensation.
I felt at the time of the Lipstadt trial, probably quite wrongly, that this judge was in the pocket of the media, but this seemingly puts him at least indirectly in Murdoch's pay. "News Group [a News Corp subsidiary] established the compensation scheme after admitting liability in a number of claims brought in relation to newspaper-sanctioned hacking into the voicemails of celebrities by investigators and other third parties. News Group expressed the hope that victims in cases where liability is admitted will apply to the compensation scheme rather than resorting to the courts for a determination of their compensation. As an incentive, independent adjudicator Sir Charles Gray will assess how much the court would have paid in damages and add a 10% uplift." Yes, that's law-speak for you.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Kew (England)ALL afternoon looking for an Olympus camera cable for Jessica. Finally buy one (for thirty pounds!) at a shop in Artillery Row; and it is the wrong one. I pick her up at Bente's and we drive to Kew. I find that our now resident MI6 dog has taken advantage of my absence to conduct an in-depth survey of the contents of my suitcase: and I thought rifling through bags was the job of MI5.
He has scattered the Himmler manuscript into random piles of varying depth, distributed evenly around the floor in his hunt for whatever he expected to find. Gefilzt, is the verb used in Austrian jails to describe the sudden tornado-like search of your possessions for contraband -- for drugs, cellphones, or (in my case) non-fiction books. The dog will have found lots of stuff on the SS and Final Solution. No bones or biscuits however.
One of my children did the same to The Mare's Nest manuscript in 1966.
Not a trace of guilt on the hound's face when we next meet, just cocks his head to one side, twinkles at me with one pink eye and one blue, and looks harmless -- like Tintin's pooch Snowy.
Reminds me of the time in March 1995 when my big trunk mysteriously vanished off my plane to Miami, disappeared for five days and had an exciting trip all on its own up to Washington DC -- as I learned five years later -- where it was opened in the presence of Customs agents and the FBI, according to the classified TEC-II computer print-out I later accidentally had sight of, and "examination revealed materials that were pro-Nazi and Right wing propaganda." Yes, there would have been. They were all dated before May 1, 1945.
I was writing the biography of Nazi propaganda minister Dr Goebbels at that time.
Monday, July 19, 2011
Kew -- Gatwick -- Kew (England)To Jaenelle about the catalogue:
In response to your criticism I have changed the opening option, to show the thumbnails too. Is that better? No longer full-screen view. Want to get this rightI drive Jessica to Gatwick for her week with the girls in Malta. Her best friend, Rachel Johnson's daughter, has gone elsewhere this time -- to Paris for a "fitting," whatever that is. I have long ceased trying to prise these girl-groups apart.
After that I squelch over to the Public Records Office (PRO) for an hour to check that Höfle document, the confirmatory file that Steve Tyas has finally identified to me.
I begin turning its pages and copying extracts. Shortly there sits at the same table across from me a beautiful apparition, a girl who is the spitting image of Indiana Jaenelle , with the same thought-provoking figure and blonde hair, wearing a white top of studied tightness. Perhaps even better: unlike Jaenelle, she is silent.
Is this His way of saying thankyou? Probably not, as there's not much I can do about it. Silence reigns in that Reading Room. Thankyou, God. Apparition shortly rises anyway, having finished reading her file, packs up papers and glides away, followed by most eyes in the room.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Kew (England)SOME concern as Hugo's sister is coming today to collect the dog and it seemed for a moment that her husband might be with her. H. suggests I watch a video of latter's evidence to the Iraq War inquiry just in case.
I email to Hugo afterwards:
I thought his presentation was very impressive, he had total command of his subject and his delivery was word perfect, druckreif as the Germans say, without an um or ah to pause his thoughts. Your sister must be very proud of him, and she is lucky to have snared him. What a contrast to George Tenet, George W Bush's man at the CIA. Tenet's jaw appeared to have one default position: "sag - open."I knew Bill Casey, Reagan's CIA director, as I think I told you -- he was a great fan of mine and my books, he said -- and he was really on the ball; but nothing like as coherent as Sir John Sawers. He [Casey] spent a whole afternoon showing me over Mclean.
Jessica emails from Malta: "Have run out of credit, so use email. Really fun here but absolutely BOILING and sooooo muggy. We got tear-gassed sitting outside our restaurant last night which was really unpleasant, still coughing :( xx"
I go to the PRO at one-thirty p.m. again, this time to photograph the pages which Steve Tyas identified (or rather did not: he just gave me the piece-number).
It really does seem to clinch the matter of whether the Höfle document is authentic or not: always assuming that this second document is not also a fake (like the Franke-Griksch document produced at Nuremberg); but I think that unlikely.
My brief examination of the paper and typewriter-face and the pencil jottings strongly suggests that it is contemporary with the other documents in that file.
[See my extended discussion of this examination]
As am I, I reply. When the Telegraph drops its prurient love-affair with Israel, no doubt commercially driven (advertising), I shall revert to them.
The Guardian: News of the World asks ex-Judge to run compensation scheme
Brochure: Our tour of the Wolf's Lair, Hochwald, and Treblinka. Apply now to earn special rates for the 2011 tour: two places left
to support this website's work
