Funke: David Irving, Holocaust Denial, and his Connections to Right Wing Extremists and Neo-National Socialism (Neo-Nazism) in Germany

1. Introduction

1.1 Professional qualifications of the author

1.1.1 I am professor of politics and culture at the Political Science Institute [Otto-Suhr Institute] of the Free University of Berlin.

1.1.2 I was born in 1944 in Guhrau in Silesia. High school completed in 1964, I served my military service from 1964 to 1966. In 1971 I gained my diploma in political science at the Free University, where I became a part-time teaching assistant at the Political Science Institute from 1971 to 1976. I gained my Ph. D. on the political sociology of work-conditions, with special reference to Frederic W. Taylor [summa cum laude].

From 1977 to 1983 I was awarded a research fellowship at the Science Centre, Berlin to undertake empirical research on industrial relations.

1.1.3 In 1984 I took the German postdoctoral thesis [‘Habilitation’], with a lecture on the theory and history of German anti-Semitism.. From 1983 to 1986 I undertook further research and held guest-professorships at the Technical University of Copenhagen [Tekniske Hojskole], the University of Linz in Austria, and the Darmstadt College [Fachhochschule]. From 1986 to 1988 I researched the conditions of Jewish emigration from Nazi-Germany.

From 1988 to 1989 I held a guest-professorship [Vertretungsprofessur] of the Alexander Schwan chair of political philosophy, the Free University Berlin. From 1989 to 1992 I was the German Academic Exchange Service [Deutsche Akademische Austausch Dienst] professor of German Area Studies at University College Berkeley, California, specialising on modern history, German literature, and politics.

1.1.4 Since 1993 I have held my current chair as professor of political science (politics and culture) at Free University Berlin. My main fields of interest are right-wing extremism, ethno-centric nationalism, and social prejudice with case-studies of Bosnia and Kosovo, Southeast Europe.

1.1.5 I reconstructed and analysed the ideology of the right-wing oriented German political party the ‘Republicans’ particularly in reference to its hatred of foreigners, its anti-Semitism, and its ultra-nationalism. I have also analysed the ideas and roots of ethno-centricity within German nationalism. Since 1993 I have been engaged in researching the sociological, ideological, and political dynamics of right-wing extremism following German unification.

I have also examined the ideological roots of right-wing extremism, for instance the anti-democratic ‘conservative revolution’of the Weimar Republic. Since 1995 My research and published work has concentrated on the sociological and ideological aspects of violence within right-wing and left-wing extremist movements, especially amongst the younger generation in east-Germany.

I have written on the neo-Nazi network, and the role played in them by radical revisionism and social prejudices, especially anti-Semitism and a hatred of foreigners. My most recent publication examines the Southeast European crisis and the ideology and the political causes of ultra-nationalism in that region.

1.1.6 I am author or co-author of

1.1.7 I am the editor or contributor to the following:

1.1.8 I am likewise the author of various articles on nationalism, RWE, right-wing extremism including:

1.2 Scope of the report.

1.2.1 The following expert opinion is given in the suit David Irving has brought against Deborah Lipstadt, especially with reference to the ‘defence of the second defendant'(1996 I. NO. 1113). In particular it will be examined that,

and that,

1.2.2 And to the plaintiff’s ‘reply to the defence of second defendant’ that

6. (i) it is denied that the plaintiff has denied the holocaust; it is denied, that the plaintiff has denied that gas chambers were used by Nazis as the principle means of carrying out that extermination…

(ii) it is denied that the plaintiff holds extremist views. He has on occasion taken issue with both, Faurisson and Zündel and with their views, and they have taken issue with him…

6. (i) it is denied that the plaintiff has denied the holocaust; it is denied, that the plaintiff has denied that gas chambers were used by Nazis as the principle means of carrying out that extermination…

(ii) it is denied that the plaintiff holds extremist views. He has on occasion taken issue with both, Faurisson and Zündel and with their views, and they have taken issue with him…

1.2.3 And further

(15) (ii) it is admitted that the plaintiff is currently banned from entering Germany… it is denied that the plaintiff has extremist views, and also that he has connections with any extremist German group. The DVU (German People’s Union) is a long standing democratic and lawfully constituted German political organization which has competed in the national and municipal elections.

(15) (ii) it is admitted that the plaintiff is currently banned from entering Germany… it is denied that the plaintiff has extremist views, and also that he has connections with any extremist German group. The DVU (German People’s Union) is a long standing democratic and lawfully constituted German political organization which has competed in the national and municipal elections.

1.2.4 The following text will address in particular the plaintiff’s denial that he holds extremist views and that he has connections to extremists in Germany.

To address these points, it is necessary, to refer to the definition and concept of right-wing extremism [henceforth RWE] within the German official institutions responsible for the defence of the constitution, in particular the office responsible for defending the constitution [Bundesamt für Verfassungschutz, henceforth OPC, i.e. office for the protection of the constitution] and the definition within the social and political sciences.

1.2.5 We will first describe and analyse the peculiarities of RWE in Germany after 1945, in keeping with the definition of right-wing extremism outlined. In the second part of the first chapter we will reconstruct the development of the organizations and persons with RWE views in Germany, in so far as it is of importance to understand with whom David Irving has connections and with whom he co-operates.

1.2.6 We will further address the ideas and the strategy of the German People’s Union [Deutsche Volksunion – DVU] and of its leader Dr. Gerhard Frey, as one of the central representatives of RWE in the 1980s, and further the specifics of David Irving’s connections with the DVU. We will also look at the DVU in the context of the development of RWE in this period and beyond.

1.2.7 In the third chapter we will describe the changes within, and the radicalisation of RWE in the 1980s and early 1990s. We will outline the connection between these groups and the role of radical revisionist ideology in mobilizing their supporters.

In the second part of the third chapter we will reconstruct the connections David Irving has had with these radicalized extremists and especially with Germany’s neo-National Socialists [henceforth neo-Nazis] in the early 1990s, such as the National Offensive [Nationale Offensive – NO], National List [Nationale Liste – NL], or Ewald Althans and the Althans Sales and Publicity Organisation / Office for People’s Enlightenment and Publicity [Althans Vertriebswege und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit

/ Amt für Volksaufklärung – AVÖ].

1.2.8 We will also illustrate how in the late 1980s David Irving decisively took on extremist views on Auschwitz and the Holocaust, and moved into the radical revisionist camp around Robert Faurisson, Ernst Zündel, and Fred Leuchter. Together they constituted the core international propagators of the so-called ‘Auschwitz lie'[‘die Auschwitz Lüge’1].

It is also important to consider the structural confluence of interest that bound the denialist or revisionist upsurge of the 1990s with the resurgent neo-Nazi movement in Germany.

1.2.9 Finally the report will discuss how Irving knowingly and wilfully violated the current laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, not in his self-appointed capacity as an historian, but as a political agitator for the revisionist cause, RWE, and neo-Nazi groups.

This will involve an analysis of why the German authorities fined David Irving, banned (partially or fully) his speeches, and finally asked him to leave Germany and banned him from re-entering in 1993 – measures that give empirical weight to the OPC’s analysis of Irving’s political activities in Germany.

1.2.10 The main body of the report will concentrate on the years 1988/9 -1993, as these are the years involved in most of the accusations concerning David Irving’s political activities. There would be much to say about the overlaps between David Irving’s political activities in Germany and those in Austria, but by necessity I have chosen to deal exclusively with Germany. Persons named in the body of the text can be referred to in the appendix.

1.2.11 In the conclusion we attempt to answer the question posed in the introduction, especially if David Irving has connections with extremists in Germany and to what degree he co-operated with them? Does David Irving hold extremist views and in what form has he presented them to the German public?

1.3 Sources.

1.3.1. The arguments and opinions set out below have relied on those set out by the Plaintiff and the Defendant as set out their respective pleadings. In the course of writing I have relied mainly on the documents and materials released in the Plaintiff’s further discovery2.

1.3.2. It is important at this juncture to comment on two items in the further discovery. David Irving’s diaries, although named such, are not what one would consider diaries in the normal sense. Only rarely does David Irving comment on political activities or political issues. Much more they constitute a listing of daily occurrences and business (political or domestic). References in the diaries indicate that Irving at times gave copies to friends or used them to substantiate legal issues.

This would suggest that they have been ‘sanitised’ for other readers, and thus do not constitute a private but rather a public diary. As will be set out below important passages in Irving’s diaries have not been released to the defence, sometimes consisting of a few days, sometimes weeks or even months. David Irving has also released many hours of video and audio material.

As will become apparent Irving and those he associated with were almost obsessive in their recordings of David Irving’s speeches in Germany. The suspicion is that some crucial speeches have not been disclosed. Where this suspicion arises it is noted.

1.3.3. Part of the duties of the German office for the protection of the constitution [Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz – OPC] is to monitor those activities within Germany seen as extra-constitutional and more importantly anti-constitutional (see below). Since the late 1960s the OPC has published their monitoring activities and their judgements on parties, groups, and individuals.

These findings are published in Germany at both a national and state level in the form of annual constitutional reports [Verfassungsschutzberichte, henceforth VSB]. They constitute an invaluable and authoritative source on extremism in Germany and more importantly on what activities and individuals are officially considered extremist in Germany by the authorities. In this sense the VSBs can be viewed as an equivalent in politics to say yearly government economic reports.

The reports are consequently cited frequently in my report.

1.3.4. A certain amount of secondary literature has been relied on, particularly in identifying some of the more obscure figures and organisations Irving came into contact with. Some of it is what David Irving would consider ‘anti-fascist’, although it has mostly been written by experienced and conscientious academics and researchers.

In my own experience I have found that the material contained in such reference books is reliable, and that any short-comings are inherent to the secretive and conspiratorial nature of individuals and groups concerned.

2. The definition and concept of right-wing extremism [RWE], especially in the 1980s.

2.1 What constitutes RWE in Germany is well defined by the official institutions set up to defend the constitution of the Fereral Republic of Germany [Bundesrepublikdeutschland – FRG] and also in the political and social sciences.

2.2. The importance and significance of the official definition of RWE are related to the peculiarities of West Germany’s post-war democratic development to a system of values encompassing human and civil rights.

As opposed to other classic western democracies, with their long tradition of freedom and rule of law, West Germany had to build a new democratic system of liberty, basic human rights, and a democratic political system, following the terroristic and anti-democratic rule of an ultra-nationalistic right-wing extremist regime between 1933 – 1945.

Part of the ideological core of this system had been a deadly friend-foe dichotomy (described amongst others by the professor of constitution and law, Carl Schmitt), and a racist anti-Semitism.

2.3. The Basic Law of 1949 represents the endeavour to return to a (western) liberal tradition of freedom and individual rights. Contrary to some other long-lasting democracies like Britain it laid out explicit standards and values as immediate, direct laws. In other words, basic human rights are legally binding and written into the Basic Law, the constitution of the FRG.

For example the basic human rights of the dignity of man, individual freedom, equality before the law, freedom of belief, conscience and religion, etc. This represents a divergence from some other democratic traditions, but is clearly anchored in the uniqueness of recent German history.

2.4. The constitution’s right to protect itself is also enshrined in the Basic Law. One of the ‘fathers’ of the German constitution, Professor Carlo Schmid, posed a fundamental question during the debates of the Parliamentary Council charged with drawing up the constitution.

Should equality and liberty be granted absolutely and without any restriction? Should it also encompass those who singularly strive to achieve power and then having done so destroy freedom? I personally believe that the principles of democracy in itself cannot nuttier the means for its removal. Democracy rises to more than a mere product of usefulness only where courage is found to believe in it as something that is necessary to preserve human dignity.

Should this courage be found, then so should the courage to be intolerant of those who abuse democratic principles to destroy it3.

Should equality and liberty be granted absolutely and without any restriction? Should it also encompass those who singularly strive to achieve power and then having done so destroy freedom? I personally believe that the principles of democracy in itself cannot nuttier the means for its removal. Democracy rises to more than a mere product of usefulness only where courage is found to believe in it as something that is necessary to preserve human dignity.

Should this courage be found, then so should the courage to be intolerant of those who abuse democratic principles to destroy it3.

2.5. This idea is expressed in the German idea of a ‘militant democracy’ [streitbare Demokratie]. In article 73 of the Basic Law it is stated that the federal government can exclusively legislate in the defence of constitutional rights to ensure their continuity and the security of the German federation and of the individual federal states. According to article 87.1 a federal law can initiate and establish central offices to collect information necessary to uphold the constitution.

Thus state institutions also include a federal office for the defence of the constitution and an executive arm. It aims to guarantee the constitution and protect its enemies. Part of its activities are to monitor extra-constitutional and anti-constitutional activities, individuals, and groups, and to publish its findings4.

2.6. The OPC defines as extremist all endeavours aimed at abusing, fully or in part, constitutional law and all efforts to replace it with a totalitarian nationalistic system, efforts often based on ideas of dictatorial order5. The principles protected are set out are as follows:6

2.1 The question of a ban on extremist activities in the German legal system.

2.1.1. Although the definition applied to the protection of the constitution is very clear, the one applied to banning political parties is more diffuse. This is due to the decisive role political parties play within the political system, as defined by the constitution. According to article 21 of the Basic Law, political parties have a special role to play in the realization of the democratic sovereignty of the people.

As this privilege is guaranteed by constitutional law, only the Federal Constitutional Court [Bundesverfassungsgericht – BVG] can rule on if a political party violates this law. The initiative to ban a political party can only come from a constitutional institution, for example the federal government, or the upper and lower houses of parliament. The constitutional court has decided to ban a political party only twice since 1949.

This was the case with the Socialist Reich Party [Sozialistische Reichsparte – SRP] in 1952 and the German Communist Party [Kommmunistische Partei Deutschland – KPD] in 1956. The argument was essentially that the constitutional law had been infringed by both parties.

2.1.2. To repeat: only constitutional organs are entitled to ask for a ban of a political party. And they in turn are free to decide whether to ask for such a prohibition or not. This means that a party that is not banned, but is nevertheless described as extremist by the OPC, is by no means necessarily democratic. It is therefore wrong to suggest, as Irving does in the case of the DVU, that a party is not extremist if it is not banned.

In the case of the DVU the OPC is absolutely clear that the party is extremist and has extremist views (see below).

2.1.3. The procedure involved in banning political groups and associations (as aposed to parties) is different. In practice it is easier for official institutions to prohibit associations and societies that violate the Basic Law. This can be taken at the initiative of the Interior Ministries or ministers, both at a federal or state level.

For instance in 1980 the militant military sport group ‘Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann’ was banned as was the neo-Nazi group ‘Volkssozialistische Bewegung Deutschlands/Partei der Arbeit’ and it’s youth wing ‘Junge Front’ in 1982. Michael Kühnen’s neo-Nazi National Socialist’s Action Front [Aktionsfront Nationale Sozialisten – ANS, later to become the ANS/NA, NA for National Activists] was likewise banned in December 1983.

There were also a series of bans in the 1990s (see below).7

2.2 Additional definitions from the political and social sciences.

2.2.1 Although there is a debate as to what the definition of RWE legitimately encompasses, there is wide academic consensus that RWE is essentially anti-democratic, in that it stands contrary to the tradition of human rights and the constitutional state. Ethnocentricity, often in the form of overt racism and nationalism, are at the core of an ideology that claims superiority over all other values.

The values of universal human rights (of individual liberty, freedom, equality, respect of human dignity) are despised, rejected, or denied – as well as fundamental rights of freedom of speech, thought, conscience and religion. RWE is directed against parliamentary and pluralistic democratic political values and systems, against the sovereignty of the people and the division of power.

RWE aims to achieve an authoritarian, totalitarian and centralized power system, often in the form of a hierarchical anti-democratic one-party movement, ruled by a strong leader.

2.2.2 Uwe Backes and Eckhard Jesse, prominent academic experts on extremism in Germany, define RWE as a collective name for various anti-democratic beliefs and efforts. The core of this doctrine denies the basic claim of equality represented by equal rights8. These extremists principally advocate inequality and an aggressive nationalism that breeds resentment against ethnically foreign groups; a phenomenon often leading to an advocacy of naked racism.

They seek a strong state that will realize the ‘objective’ interest of nationalist values, even by military means.

2.2.3 This ideological impulse to fight back is often not confined to mere political rhetoric. Within the framework of political culture and political psychology, the aggressive authoritarianism of RWE presents a specific view of perceiving the world as one surrounded by dangerous enemies, so that fighting back is essentially the only solution to survival (although the perceived enemies are merely scapegoats).

As this tendency towards authoritarian aggression against weak scapegoats solves neither the social nor the personal problems of the aggressor, these aggressions have an addictive quality. Consequently right-wing extremists perceive themselves, as recognised by Adorno and Alport, in a paranoid way as ‘persecuted persecutors’9. RWE’s ideology of inequality and denial of human rights leads to advocating violence.

RWE is often connected with an ideology and/or a practical tendency towards violence, militancy, and terror (see especially the neo-Nazi groups in eastern Germany).

2.2.4 Thus the belief system inherent in RWE is the perception of dangerous enemies within and without that have to be defeated if their own world and values are to survive. These internal ‘enemies’ are often migrants, foreigners, or others of different opinion who are perceived as threatening their supposed homogenous society and state system. These foreigners are often the scapegoats for the existing social miseries in society, and as such the targets of political violence.

Such racist perceptions of the outer world lead externally to ideas of containing or even conquering this outer world by expansion (a new Reich) or an aggressive foreign policy.

2.2.5 In general RWE tendencies and groups can arise in many forms, not only in Germany, but in Great Britain (the National Front), France (Jean Marie LePen), Austria (Jörg Haider’s Austrian Federal Party – FPÖ) or in Belgium (Vlaams bloc).

2.2.6 However German RWE is particular in its ambivalent relationship to the most extreme form of nationalism in German history – National Socialism [henceforth NS]. Despite the de facto military and moral disaster of NS, the resulting destruction and self-destruction (the genocide of Jews, gypsies and Slavs), many right wing extremists see in NS a point of orientation. In many ways historical NS acts as a model for RWE within the FRG.

NS, although tactically criticised, may be fully identified with, its characteristics applauded, and its symbols used as an efficient means of bringing out confrontational behaviour. To serve this purpose various tactics are used to ‘save’, ‘rescue’, or rehabilitate the NS ideology (sometimes in the Italian version of fascism) by:10

2.2.7. These tactics are of interest when analyzing the shape and the format of post-war RWE in Germany. This ideological affinity with NS and the resulting attempts to free NS of the burden of its crimes is of pivotal importance for national and international ‘networking’ within the RWE scene, both in Germany and elsewhere in Europe and North America.. The revisionist campaign of Auschwitz denial since the late 1980s plays a key ideological and organisational role in this effort.

2.2.8. To summarize. RWE strives towards a hierarchical, anti-democratic, and even totalitarian state, based on cultural or racist subordination, the rejection of ‘others’, especially so-called inferior races, foreigners, and other scapegoats. Implementation of this ideology of subordination often takes the form of advocating and using physical violence.

2.3 ‘Old’ and ‘new’ RWE

2.3.1. The terms old and new RWE are clearly defined in academic literature. Grosso modo the old RWE (sometimes referred to as the ‘ewig Gestrigen’ – literally ‘eternal stick-in-the-muds’) align themselves to more state-orientated modes of extreme nationalism.

They identify with the fascist traditions of authoritarianism that were prevalent for example at the end of the Weimar Republic or with traditions of the Weimar Harzburg front, which combined the ultra-nationalists ‘Deutsche Nationale’ with Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers Party [Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei – NSDAP].

2.3.2. The new RWE presents itself as an updated, so-called ‘modernized’ version of the same basic idea11. They pay lip service to a non-racist recognition of ‘other’ ethnic groups, conceptualized as ‘ethno-pluralism’, which is de facto ethno-pluralistic racism. They de facto also do not accept principles of Enlightenment and the universality of basic human rights.

They have intellectual links to the far right and extreme nationalists within the ‘conservative revolution’ of the late Weimar Republic (with persons like Ernst Jünger, Carl Schmitt, or Möller van den Bruck).12 For some of the new RWE, the belief systems encompassed in Judeo-Christianity, Marxism and the idea of basic equality are themselves eliminatory of the Celtic or Nordic traditions, the ‘justification’ for the ‘greatest genocide’ in history.

Thus the new RWE appeals to the peoples of the world to rejuvenate their unique cultural heritages and demand the basic right to be ‘different’. The belief propagates animosity towards multi-racial society and other cultures and belief systems.13

2.3.3. Parts of the new right try to disguise their RWE affiliations by presenting themselves as the new ‘democratic’ right, in as far as they fear the attentions of the OPC might oust them from the democratic system. Having styled themselves as democratic these groups can broaden their sphere of influence, using this democratic stance to build bridges between national conservatives and RWE.

Thus in the late 1980s the RWE parties of the so-called ‘Republicans’ [die Republikaner] and the German People’s Union [Deutsche Volksunion – DVU] positioned themselves accordingly. Nevertheless they are perceived as anti-constitutional by the OPC.14

2.3.4. Part of RWE supports national revolutionary politics, often arguing and agitating for a third way between capitalism and socialism, that of nationalist liberation and a corresponding movement (like the neo-Nazis in the 1990s in eastern Germany). These groups often see parallels between themselves and similar groups in the NS movement of the 1930s, and are avid exponents of a socialist version of a nationalist, racist movement.

Examples of this are the present neo-Nazis, the revitalized neo-Nazi youth organization of the German National Democratic Party [Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands – NPD] the Young National Democrats [Jungen Nationaldemokraten – JN] or the NS-oriented groups centred around Michael Kühnen, Christian Worch and Ewald Althans, with whom Irving had strong ties in 1990 -1993 (see below).

2.3.5. This process of radicalisation within RWE has been particularly militant in the former German Democratic Republic [Deutsche Demokratische Republik – GDR] immediately prior to, during, and after German reunification. This opened a ‘space’ for neo-Nazi agitation and propaganda. The male youth of eastern Germany has proven particularly recipient to such ideas.

2.4 Features and peculiarities of old and new RWE in Germany after 1945.

2.4.1. After 1945 the RWE world was inhibited for decades by the total political, moral and military defeat of NS. But despite the Allied repression of extremist attitudes in post-war west Germany the west-German population continued to display anti-Semitic prejudices in one way or another15. According to first polls taken by the American occupying forces up to 40 % of the population identified with right-wing, anti-Semitic attitudes16.

In the late 1970s the well-known Sinus-study considered 13 % of the population as having a full scale RWE belief system17. Similarly in the late 1990s according to different polls up to 30 % of the population identified with anti-foreigner sentiments or anti-Semitic beliefs.

2.4.2. Politically the FRG has experienced at least three waves of RWE:18

2.4.3. According to Richard Stöss RWE secured 1.4 million votes in the 1949 election (that is 5.7 % of the population). During the second RWE-wave in the late 1960s RWE secured 1.4 million votes (that is 4.3 % of the votes).

The NPD narrowly failed to get into parliament because of the 5 %- hurdle in the German voting system .19 In 1989 during the third RWE wave the Republicans, together with the DVU and NPD secured 2.5 million votes (that is 8.8 % of the votes in the European parliament’s election).

2.4.4. Official membership of the ‘organized’ RWE went through ups and downs. First counts in 1954 registered 80,000 persons as members of organized RWE. By the early 1960s this membership had decreased to 20,000, before the numbers increasing again to 40,000, boosted by NPD memberships. The late 1960s saw an ebb back 20,000. In the early 1990s RWE membership was reckoned at some 40.000 again.20

3. David Irving and the right-wing extremist German People’s Union [Deutsche Volksunion – DVU 21], the German National Newspaper [Deutsche Nationalzeitung – DNZ], Dr. Gerhard Frey.

3.1 Irving’s earlier activities in Germany, 1978 – 1981.

3.1.1. Based on his publishing (particularly his biographies of Hitler and Field Marshall Erwin Rommel) Irving’s earlier tours in Germany and Austria had involved such bodies and organisations as banks, bookshops, student fraternities [Burschenschaften], US-Army Corps stationed in Germany, and so on. At the same time Irving became increasingly feted by national-conservative and right-wing individuals and organisations in Germany, some of them RWE.

3.1.2. Foremost was Dr. Gert Sudholt, head of the Druffel Verlag, and his Society for free Communication [Gesellschaft für freie Publizistik – GfP].22 Sudholt was at the time a member of the NPD in Munich and owner of the Druffel Verlag, that in turn specialised in publishing important NS figures. 23 The GfP had been set up in 1960 by the former Reich deputy-spokesman of the NSDAP, Helmut Sündermann.

Although ostensibly a cultural organisation to allow former NS authors an open forum, the GfP vehemently combated what it saw as the ‘untrue descriptions of the causes and backgrounds to both world wars and the defamation of German soldiery’.24

3.1.3. Irving also spoke to other organisations with connections to the GfP, such as the ‘Collegium Humanum’ in Vlotho,25 the ‘Deutsches Kulturwerk Europäischen Geistes’,26 the ‘Bund Heimattreüer Jügend’,27 the ‘Verein für Kultur und Zeitgeschichte’, and Dietmar Munier of the Arndt-Verlag and his group ‘Sturmwind’.28 All these groups and individuals can be counted likewise as right-wing and/or with links to the right-wing extremist circles.

Some of them were to remain loyal supporters of Irving in the 1990s.29

3.2 Irving’s activities for the DVU, 1981 – 1987

3.2.1. After the SRP was banned in 1952, RWE had fallen into disarray until in the early 1960s a new collective organisation, the NPD, was formed. The NPD had appointed a moderate leader, Friedrich Thielen, so as to appeal more to national conservatives, although the cadre itself was in fact far more right-wing. Subsequently in state elections they made relative gains (in the mid 1960s up to 9.8 % of the votes).

However in 1969 they failed to take any seats in the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament. After this defeat the NPD faltered despite a change of leadership.30

3.2.2. As a result of the NPD’s defeat in 1969 the DVU was formed in 1971, with the aim of gathering together the splinter group’s alienated from the NPD and in an attempt to galvinize a fragmented RWE. The DVU thus constituted a collecting tank for the remnants of the NPD, particularly the so-called ‘ewig Gestrigen’, the national conservatives and old Nazis who partially or fully still identified with the ideals, ideas, and even practices of NS. Thus this organization led by Dr.

Gerhard Frey had within it far right-wingers, and since the 1980s has been considered to constitute the hardcore of old RWE in Germany

3.2.3. The DVU’s effectiveness lay in organizing their members through subscription to Frey’s newspapers, especially the German National Newspaper [Die Deutsche Nationalzeitung – DNZ] which by 1980 had 10,000 subscribers. Another effective organizational instrument was their annual rally, normally in Passau.

3.2.4. In 1986 the DVU and NPD formulated a common election strategy and put forth a joint list for the Bavarian state election and the federal election in 1987. It then became known as the DVU – Liste D [List Germany]. The OPC described this list as having an anti-constitutional goal because the organizations concerned and Dr. Gerhard Frey’s magazines were considered RWE.

According to the office, Frey, through his publications, incited anti-Semitism and hatred against foreigners, distorted historical truths about NS, glorified the leading persons of the NS-system, and defamed the present day representatives of democratic parties. In their opinion the party merely paid lip service to its declared belief in democracy and in the constitutional and free democratic basis of the Federal German [‘freiheitlich demokratische Grundordnung’] for tactical reasons.31

3.2.5. This should be matched against Irving’s statement that the DVU is a long standing democratic party. Neither the OPC nor academic social-science research would accept this opinion. The DVU as well Dr. Gerhard Frey’s DNZ has for decades been declared RWE (or radical right wing) by the OPC. 32 As early as 1971 the OPC stated in a report that Dr. Gerhard Frey’s DNZ had maintained a leading position in radical right-wing journalism.

For example the 1985 VSB of Lower Saxony outlined the party platform and its profile as ‘Hatred against foreigners, anti-Semitism, playing down of the national socialist terror regime and disparagement of democratic institutions and persons.’33

3.2.6. The contents of the DNZ can be described as a ‘secondary anti-Semitism’, designed to address the ‘ewig Gestrigen’ mind-set.34 For instance Jewish representatives are held responsible not only for the widespread stories about alleged atrocities committed against the Jews, but also for the fact that the Germans have to continually pay a financial, moral, and political price for the Holocaust.35 This variant of anti-Semitism is often fused with the ‘old’ one.

3.2.7. So-called revisionism was also identified by the OPC as playing a strategic part in DVU propaganda. Long before the debate on the ‘Auschwitz-lie’ was intensified by the Leuchter Report, Frey tactically relativised or even denied major NS crimes.

As early as 1977 the radical revisionist Arthur Butz, who denied the existence of gas chambers in his denialist classic ‘The hoax of the 20th Century’ was presented with the DNZ honorary award for political victims of persecution.36 The book was also serialized in the DNZ in the same year. In 1979 the book was officially labelled as one that invoked racial hatred and played down the atrocities of the Nazi regime.

3.2.8. Finally Frey partially co-operated with more militant and extremist fringes of the RWE scene, groups whom in public he criticises for tactical reasons, namely the NPD and even RWE terrorists. 37 For example Frey co-operated with the terrorists of the Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann, whom he used as body guards at DVU rallies in 1977.

Roland Tabbert, who co-ordinated the DVU’s 1987 election campaign, was later president of the anti-Semitic Anti-Zionist Action [Anti-Zionist Action – AZA] within the neo-Nazi movement. Members of the militant neo-Nazi Free German Workers’ Party [Freiheitliche Deutsche Arbeiter Partei – FAP, banned in 1995] were present at the DVU annual meeting in Munich in 1986. Violent rightwing attacks against foreigners were also executed by DVU members.

3.2.9. Irving’s ‘soft’ revisionist themes of the 1980s (Winston Churchill as a warmonger, 100,000 to 250,000 dead in Dresden, the debunking of the ‘myth’ of Erwin Rommel as a hero of the resistance against Hitler, the stylising of Rudolf Hess as a martyr for freedom etc.38) were all themes which exercised the German public mind, but in particular found a resonance in national-conservative and RWE circles.

This corresponded with the DVU’s political attempts to relativise the crimes of NS, particularly the question of Germany’s war guilt and the Holocaust, and overlapped with the DVU’s latent anti-Semitism. In short Irving was an important spokesman for the DVU to win over to their party.

3.2.10. Irving was first informed that he would be welcome to address DVU meetings in 1981, and by 1982 had managed to win Irving’s services as a star speaker for the DVU.39 In that year Irving spoke for the DVU in 10 German cities on ‘the unatoned Holocaust – the expulsion of the Germans’ [‘Der ungesühnte Holocaust – die Vertreibung der Deutschen’].40 On 9 May 1982 Irving received the DNZ’s European Freedom Prize [‘Europäischen Freiheitspreises der Deutschen National

Zeitung’].41 By the end of 1982 the DVU had apparently paid Irving somewhere in the region of DM 100,000 for his speeches and ‘services’ [‘Verdienste’].42 A model of blocks of 10 speeches, initially at a fee of DM 2,000 per speech, later reduced to DM 1,500, was to continue until 1987.43

3.2.11. Irving later wrote that he ‘always spoke as an historian, never as a politician‘ to the DVU.44 Although in the strictest sense Irving spoke on ‘historical’ topics, the very platform he spoke on (DVU meetings and rallies) gave them an explicitly political character. Added to this is the convolution between the attractions of Irving and his topics to old RWEs and that these same people constituted the bedrock of DVU support.

The topics Irving was requested to talk on were both historically and politically tendentious, in the sense stated by the OPC when they talked of the DVU’s playing down of the crimes of National Socialism.

3.2.12. For instance Frey wrote to Irving on 23 July 1983, giving him precise instructions for his forthcoming lectures.

… we agreed during our phone-call yesterday, that you should tackle the topic of the guilt of aerial terror in your September lecture series. You might perhaps take the occasion in the various towns to briefly go into the corresponding attacks. Regarding the topic as a whole there is a general interest everywhere in who began when and where with aerial terror and in what way? Which related planning occurred from what reasons and under what conditions when and where?

What aerial attacks were allowed for in international law and which break international law? How are the three main accusations against the Germans since then [World War II], namely Warsaw, Rotterdam and Coventry, to be judged? […] Why were attacks preferred on working-class areas to attacks on exclusive residential districts?

What was the German answer and how did it correspond to the bombardments of allied planes in terms of the number of bombs dropped, the intensity of detonation, the loss of housing and the death rate? How are the Allied bombardments of 1945 to be classified, for example Dresden, when the war had long been decided? How many deaths did the Allied attacks on concentration camps and ships with concentration camp prisoners cause?

Perhaps the lecture should finish with an examination of the Nuremberg trial and Rudolf Hess. […] Please leave Hitler and the Jews unmentioned.45

… we agreed during our phone-call yesterday, that you should tackle the topic of the guilt of aerial terror in your September lecture series. You might perhaps take the occasion in the various towns to briefly go into the corresponding attacks. Regarding the topic as a whole there is a general interest everywhere in who began when and where with aerial terror and in what way? Which related planning occurred from what reasons and under what conditions when and where?

What aerial attacks were allowed for in international law and which break international law? How are the three main accusations against the Germans since then [World War II], namely Warsaw, Rotterdam and Coventry, to be judged? […] Why were attacks preferred on working-class areas to attacks on exclusive residential districts?

What was the German answer and how did it correspond to the bombardments of allied planes in terms of the number of bombs dropped, the intensity of detonation, the loss of housing and the death rate? How are the Allied bombardments of 1945 to be classified, for example Dresden, when the war had long been decided? How many deaths did the Allied attacks on concentration camps and ships with concentration camp prisoners cause?

Perhaps the lecture should finish with an examination of the Nuremberg trial and Rudolf Hess. […] Please leave Hitler and the Jews unmentioned.45

3.2.13. As well as orchestrating the contents of Irving’s speeches, Frey carefully controlled their timing in order for the DVU to maximum political impact from them. In 1982 an American drama series entitled ‘Holocaust’ was to be repeated on German television.

The first showing in 1979 had been watched by millions of Germans and despite the controversy surrounding it is considered as representing a mile-stone in German public consciousness about the Holocaust.46 With respect to Irving’s forthcoming lectures Frey wrote to Irving,

I suggest the next series of lectures begin on Friday 12 November [1982] and end on Sunday 21 November (10 meetings) on the same conditions. A theme worth considering could be “Who bears responsibility for the unatoned holocaust of the expulsion?” [i.e. of the Germans from former Reich territories which fell to eastern Europe]. I hope we will formulate this more succinctly and impressively.

In the enclosed copy you’ll find the dates for the repeat of the Hollywood-Holocaust soap on “German” television. During these days you will speak, at a different time, about the expulsion holocaust and provide the true historical accompanying music to the horror slush. Please again leave Hitler and the Jews out completely.47

I suggest the next series of lectures begin on Friday 12 November [1982] and end on Sunday 21 November (10 meetings) on the same conditions. A theme worth considering could be “Who bears responsibility for the unatoned holocaust of the expulsion?” [i.e. of the Germans from former Reich territories which fell to eastern Europe]. I hope we will formulate this more succinctly and impressively.

In the enclosed copy you’ll find the dates for the repeat of the Hollywood-Holocaust soap on “German” television. During these days you will speak, at a different time, about the expulsion holocaust and provide the true historical accompanying music to the horror slush. Please again leave Hitler and the Jews out completely.47

3.2.14. Irving’s speaking tour of 1982 was indeed titled ‘The unatoned Holocaust – the expulsion of the Germans’ [‘Der ungesühnte Holocaust – die Vertreibung der Deutschen’] and was a political attempt to counter-act the TV-series ‘Holocaust’.48

3.2.15. Irving’s DVU sponsored speaking-tours coincided with carefully contrived publicity-campaigns in the DNZ. His latest speeches and books were heralded and marketed by Frey’s publishing concerns. Irving also played an important part in the DVU’s veneration of former Nazi heroes. For instance on 9 January 1983 Irving delivered a memorial speech [‘Gedenkrede’] on the death of Oberst Hans-Ulrich Rudel.49

3.2.16. As of 1987 Frey also invited Irving to contribute articles to the DNZ although Irving had long fed Frey with documents he felt might interest him, the DVU, or the readers of the DNZ.50 For instance in 1984 Irving offered Frey and the National News [National Zeitung] photos taken in the immediate aftermath of the ‘ “freeing”‘ [‘ “Befreiung”‘ – Irving’s quotati

on marks] of Dachau concentration camp, purporting to show executed camp guards. If the photos were to be used Irving hoped he would receive his usual commission [‘Verwendungsgebühr’].51 In 1984 Irving was asked by Frey if he had anything ‘exonerating’ [‘Entlastendes’] in the case of the notorious Klaus Barbie, and if so to send it to Barbie’s daughter.52

3.2.17. In 1984 Irving was requested on Frey’s behalf to investigate certain names in the Berlin Document Centre for their backgrounds and activities during the Third Reich.

He was offered DM 2,000 for the work plus costs and was to pass the documents on to the DVU.53 The list of over 100 names included many prominent left-wing and liberal personalities in Germany such as Rudolf Augstein, Joseph Beuys, Heinrich Böll, Marion Gräfin von Dönhoff, Günter Grass, Eugen Kogon, Erich Kuby and Harry Ristock.54 Frey wrote to Irving that the DVU themselves were not in a position to do the work because the ‘incriminated person’ [‘Belastete’] would have to be mad

[‘verrückt’] to allow them access to their files.55 Irving duly wrote to the Berlin Document Centre claiming that he was researching the names as part of his work on Reich Marshall Hermann Göring.56 The Director Daniel P. Simon politely told Irving that ‘…you should know that Mr. Frey, who is not authorized to receive information from our files, has on several occasions in the past tried to obtain information from the BDC.’57

3.2.18. In his reply Irving made clear that his activities for Frey and the DVU were political.

It is true that I am familiar with Dr Gerhard Frey. He is a strange character, his own enemy sometimes, but one of the few people on the Right putting his money where his mouth is in the fight against the Far Left. That is why I place my oratory at his disposal. It helps to keep the Right Wing in the fringe, I hope.58

It is true that I am familiar with Dr Gerhard Frey. He is a strange character, his own enemy sometimes, but one of the few people on the Right putting his money where his mouth is in the fight against the Far Left. That is why I place my oratory at his disposal. It helps to keep the Right Wing in the fringe, I hope.58

3.2.19. It would seem that the list was declined by the Berlin Document Centre, but alone Irving’s attempt to undertake such work for Frey speaks for the political nature of Irving’s relations to the DVU.59

3.2.20. The case became public in 1988 surrounding a scandal about documents being purloined from the Centre.

In the course of the discussion Irving himself admitted the details of his political work for the DVU in 1984.60 In 1989 Irving tried to re-approach the Centre for research materials, and was reminded of his statements to the media and informed that passing materials on to ‘someone whom you knew had been refused access to the BDC…with the prospect of receiving money’ constituted ‘a grave misuse of the privilege of access to the BDC.’61 As he recorded in his dairy 5 July 1989:

‘…writing long letters…, and to the Berlin Document Centre, apologizing for my 1984 lapse (Dr Frey asked me to “research” there for him). I don’t think it will work.’62

3.2.20. More importantly perhaps, and interestingly for Irving’s later fortunes in Germany, Irving consistently acted as a pawn in the DVU’s strategy of using ‘the court-room as political forum’ [‘Der Gerichtssaal als Forum der Politik’].63 Until 1988 there seems to have been little danger that Irving would in any way damage the DVU by questioning the reality of Holocaust as such.

Nevertheless Frey made it repeatedly clear to Irving that he was on no account to even talk about Hitler or the Jews, particularly for benefit of the DVU’s media image.64 This included Irving’s pet thesis at the time that Hitler had not ordered or even known of the Holocaust.65

3.2.21. It is clear that the strategy related to the limits the law in Germany sets on denialist statements, and the DVU’s good democratic image. On 29 April 1983, Frey wrote to Irving that

…during the forthcoming lecture series I ask you strictly to observe that we should give even the malicious no chance whatsoever to unpunishably accuse us of any glorification of Hitler or the NS era, let alone justification of the persecution of the Jews…. On no account do we want the vanished NS, the dead Hitler, and as always leave out everything which directly or indirectly touches on the Jews.66

…during the forthcoming lecture series I ask you strictly to observe that we should give even the malicious no chance whatsoever to unpunishably accuse us of any glorification of Hitler or the NS era, let alone justification of the persecution of the Jews…. On no account do we want the vanished NS, the dead Hitler, and as always leave out everything which directly or indirectly touches on the Jews.66

3.2.21. In discussing his forthcoming lecture series on the Nuremberg trial Frey wrote to Irving in 1985.

At the same time I am presuming that you will steer completely clear of Hitler and the Jews, because both topics could only be our ruin. Even if you say something absolutely accurate about the two topics it will be turned around, misinterpreted, and in the end must even serve for bans and other prosecutions. The more objective your presentation, the more unassailable.67

At the same time I am presuming that you will steer completely clear of Hitler and the Jews, because both topics could only be our ruin. Even if you say something absolutely accurate about the two topics it will be turned around, misinterpreted, and in the end must even serve for bans and other prosecutions. The more objective your presentation, the more unassailable.67