Prison Letters

sday, January 30, 2007 Letters from a Vienna Jailhouse from political prisoner number 70306 . . . to a friend in Chicago, April 12, 2006 ANOTHER Thursday. I was given a radio (new) by one of the guards yesterday, which brightens the cell a lot, I must say. I found a radio station called “Radio Stephansdom”, which appears to be the local Catholic station: it plays classical music all day long, interrupted with occasional Catholic and Vatican propaganda.

I get a lot of writing done, though sometimes I nearly run out of ink. Fortunately, the Protestant chaplain visits every week and sometimes he brings ink cartridges. He explains that prisoners are not supposed to have ink in case they use it for tattooing each other. Yeah, right, I can just see me tattooing one of these gangsters. I have got a good history institute in Munich sending me documents I need for the work on Himmler , so my time here is not completely wasted.

I write about ten pages a day. Today less, as I spent six hours on the 2nd floor (your 3rd) seeing my new lawyer, firing my old one, and then signing up my new one — Dr. Herbert Schaller , who will fight the appeal in 2-3 months time. We have to lodge the documents on the appeal in ten days’ time and we have Easter in between. The old lawyer [Dr Elmar Kresbach ] did not inspire me with any confidence any more. Very weak. As I was taken out of the courtroom [

on February 20] I said, “I am shocked”, when asked by TV reporters: In fact I was shocked at how weak he had been! The old lawyer was 46; the new one is almost twice as old. My writing style if not my handwriting, has improved enormously in prison. I have read a lot of Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane , although in the latter books rather a lot of dames end up getting stood up, whereas Chandler just sweet talks them. . .

I have also read Tom Wolfe ‘s Bonfire of the Vanities &endash; same kind of thing, with a rather fizzled out kind of ending. . . . to a friend in London, May 3, 2006 THREE weeks ago I applied for permission to extract my lecture notes from my possessions held here in the prison. The judge authorised it — “no objections” — and yesterday finally I was escorted to the Property Room to pick them up.

Here I was screamed at by some high ranking prison officer in plain clothes — all the uniformed staff cringed as he appeared. The actual papers, 30 pp., have however vanished with all my other papers from my luggage. David Irving

on Nov 10, 2005, at the famous Cafe Landtmann, shortly before his kidnapping. He was already arrested here in 1984. He forced Austria’s Minister of the Interior to pay damages damages for wrongful arrest. We served our appeal on time, April 22; the State Prosecutor has also served a rather lame notice of appeal, demanding an increase in the 3 year sentence.

He has pointed to my “hundreds of lectures around the world”, in justification; of course, this pretends that the Banning Law is in force in all those countries too (in fact it holds force only in Austria); and it also pretends that I was talking about the Holocaust and praising the Nazis in all these lectures. This too is absurd, as my audiences know I talk about Churchill , Poland, Sikorski , atomic research , Rommel , and Hungary’s Revolution of 1956 , to mention just a few topics.

It is all smoke and mirrors; he would make a good rival for David Copperfield ! I don’t think the five judges of the Supreme Court of Austria who hear the appeal in 2-3 months’ time will be very impressed by his efforts.

Unless of course . . . but then, this letter goes through prison Censorship, so the rest of the sentence will have to remain in the eye of the beholder.” . . . to a friend in London, May 29, 2006: THE Appeal documents have now all been served on the Austrian Supreme Court (OGH), as of Friday, May 27. Dr.

Herbert Schaller , 83, has done a magnificent job displaying a legal expertise and fighting energy that was shockingly absent from his youthful (46) predecessor, criminal attorney Dr Elmar Kresbach , who had previously made a name for himself in narcotics cases. Depending on the initial court response, Schaller will decide whether to apply for my release on bail pending the Appeal hearing due later in the Summer. I would however have to surrender my passport, and reside in Vienna.

Legal experts say that if I appeals to the European Court, Austria will face a massive compensation claim. . . . to a correspondent in Chicago, June 2, 2006 MY big problem (legal) now is with the Trustees in London [Baker Tilly]. They hold almost one-quarter of my archives and library, having illegally seized them all in 2002, and having illegally disposed of three-quarters by sale or destruction!

I have issued a High Court Writ against them for compensation; the dogs are now threatening to destroy the rest. I feel very powerless in situations like this. The London lawyers I hired [Frank & Co., of London W1] turned out to be yet another firm of do-nothing deadbeats like the one I first had here (and fired) [Kresbach]. Every time I hear people innocently inquire, “Why did you not use lawyers?” — against Lipstadt — I could scream with fury at such ignorance.

Anybody who has had experience of lawyers and has hired them knows the answer to that one. My glasses are failing. My opticians are in Key West. Everything takes so long, when you are locked up 23 or 24 hours a day! All over by Christmas — or rather, “the holiday season” — I hope. . . . to a Canadian friend, June 9, 2006 FIRST, I apologize for using this paper.

A coffee disaster this morning has effectively polluted most of my remaining paper — but you’re “family” so I can use it on you without (many) qualms. Next, thank you (to the power of ten) for the attached photographs. I liked the T-shirt, and greatly appreciated the logo, “Austria Sucks!” I expect to see you when I am released, and we have now served our appeal. So I hope it will be in the winter, and after 2-3 months repairing fences in London. I shall embark on a lecture tour.

You could of course come and help me on all or part of the tour. This imprisonment has made a huge hole in our finances, un-refundable airline tickets, lecture fees at universities, etc. Around $300,000 — that’s the hole I would expect to have to refill. Problem is, I can’t write and drive. Himmler is going well, I don’t have many idle hours in the week. I have about one visitor a month. A month ago a nice visit from one daughter, from Madrid. Keep an eye on my website.

I cannot access the Internet; so I have no idea what’s on it about the imprisonment. Gotta go now. Well, not exactly “go”, I have a hundred letters to write. Well not exactly a hundred, but a LOT . Bulletin dated London, June 16, 2006 L.M. has had an email from Lucy Popescu at the English PEN.

She is Programme Director of the Writers in Prison Committee at the English Centre of International PEN. “We continue to discuss the David Irving case, on a national and international level, and individual PEN centres have been responding in different ways.” The Writers in Prison Committee of English PEN agreed to write a letter regarding his imprisonment.

Her address is 6-8 Amwell St, London EC1R 1UQ Tel: 020 7713 0023 Fax: 020 7837 7838 Email: [email protected] www.englishpen.org Ms Popescu may devote a future column in the British Literary Review to Mr Irving’s situation in prison. Photo: David Irving in the Munich courthouse in 1993 where he has just been fined DM30,000 for expressing an opinion. (Centre of picture is his attorney Dr Hajo Herrmann, at right is Dr. Herbert Schaller.)

Click image for high-resolution version. . . . to a friend in London, June 16, 2006. IT looks as though the Viennese criminal authorities are hoping for a second bite at the cherry.

Oblivious of the colossal worldwide outcry that followed my Feb. 20 three year jail sentence for expressing an alleged illegal opinion at a small restaurant meeting with 50 guests here in Vienna seventeen years ago, the Austrians are now contemplating prosecuting me again for an article published by Vienna newspaper Die Presse

on March 3. The article was allegedly based on a jailhouse interview with me which had been initiated by the newspaper, and specifically authorised by the Judge Peter Liebetreu . The prosecutor Dr. Michael Klackl is understood to object to a passage in which I allegedly drew attention to the fact that nearly one hundred thousand Jewish prisoners survived Auschwitz until the camp was abandoned in January 1945.

More irksome for the criminal authorities was the title for the whole-page article, chosen by the editor: AUSTRIA IS ACTING LIKE A NAZI STATE . In the present vindictive mood, if the consequent irony of their new action is lost on the authorities here, I will again be prosecuted. “Once again”, says I, “the truth is no defence.” I was therefore summoned before a new investigating judge Dr.

Frederic Artner at 9:10 a.m. this morning to be interrogated about the article, and about a dispatch issued by the same journalist for the Austrian Press Agency APA, and no doubt also about the BBC “Today” interview — although the judge did not get that far as I refused to answer any question at all, on the instructions of new defence lawyer Dr. Herbert Schaller. My continued imprisonment is costing Austrian taxpayers over $1,000 a week.

The cost to me is incalculable, of course, and that is what the traditional enemies of free speech are banking on. PS Costs. You are very kindly incurring expenses on my behalf. Please keep a list of them and I will of course reimburse you as soon as possible. . . . to a friend in Chicago, June 20, 2006 LETTER No. 69 [ of a final total of 114 ] goes off to Jessica and Bente. Coffee bubbling on a chair in the corner. In this Cell, Number 19 in “C1”-Block, everything is within arm’s reach.

Humid and 33 degrees C today, the cell is boiling. I am now into the eighth month of my Austrian taxpayer-funded Sabbatical. I am very keyed up about the Big Search I shall launch as soon as I regain my freedom. One problem is that the “treasure” is located in a region where I am, ahem, forbidden to set foot. Not much of a clue for the enemy there. Delicate negotiations would seem to be called for. My new lawyer, since April 20, is Dr.

Herbert Schaller, 83, veteran member of the Ernst Zündel defence team in Mannheim. He shuttles between Mannheim and Vienna, ministering to our needs. A great guy. He is optimistic about this appeal; I warn him that in all countries which have Ministries of Justice it is politics amd politicians that ultimately call the shots.

I remind him of the last big trial in Munich where he acted for me, in 1993: his German co-lawyer Klaus Gobel arrived at court palpitating with fear — he had that morning received a letter from the Bavarian Rechtsanwaltskammer [Bar Association] which he showed me, advising him not to defend me, on penalty of permanent suspension; fortunately I also had Colonel Hajo Herrmann as an attorney, a bearer of the Knight’s Cross and hence not easily intimidated — still alive in Düsseldorf today, he

fought as a Luftwaffe pilot in the July 1942 battle for Convoy PQ.17 — and of course Dr. Herbert Schaller too, again fighting for my freedom today. (Schaller’s address is Gusshaus Strasse 6, A-1040 Vienna.) I have today lodged a formal complaint with the Vienna Rechtsanwaltskammer about Schaller’s predecessor, the feckless leftwinger Dr. Elmar Kresbach. . . I do not seriously expect them to act. These professional bodies rarely do.

Schaller also saw the interview of historian Raul Hilberg in Der Standard (Vienna, June 10, 2006). I think highly of Hilberg; he has a degree of intellectual honesty not often found in historians. Here are a few translated extracts: ” Standard : Mr. Hilberg, do we know all there is to know now about the Holocaust?

Hilberg : As good as twenty percent. . .There hasn’t been the research, because people did not want to know certain things, for example that the poor died first, and only then the well-to-do. . . Standard : One topic at the Wiesenthal Symposium was his memorandum to the Austrian Government forty years ago, stating that Austrians were disproportionately involved in the Holocaust. Hilberg : (Agrees, with many details). Standard : Should we be imprisoning David Irving for Holocaust-denial [sic]?

Hilberg : To be honest, no. He is a megafraudster (Hochstapler). Standard : As an historian, yes. But he has provided legitimacy to the deniers. Should Holocaust denial be criminalised at all? Hilberg : Not in my view. I am for freedom even for these people. We can even learn from them. They’re like children who say: Prove it! And so we must, prove it!” Schaller has included the whole article in a fresh submission to the Viennese Supreme Court. I remind Schaller that the unfortunate Dr.

Hilberg was called as a well-paid prosecution expert at the trial of Ernst Zundel in Toronto Canada. He crumpled under Douglas Christie ‘s fierce cross-examination, and when the Crown asked him to testify again at the 1988 retrial ( at which I was also called ) Hilberg flatly refused, stating that he never wanted to go through that ordeal again.

Hence, I rather suspect, Hilberg’s wan admission that only twenty percent is known; which is not to claim that we non-conformist historians know the other eighty percent. Schaller and I, we both chuckled loudly, and I am escorted by a friendly officer