⚠️ Historical Documentation Notice
This document is part of a historical archive and is presented for scholarly research and educational purposes.
In November 2005, David Irving was arrested in Austria on a warrant dating from 1989 relating to speeches he had given in Leoben and Vienna. He was held in Vienna’s Josefstadt prison for over a year before being released in December 2006. During his imprisonment, he continued writing — working on his Heinrich Himmler biography — and maintained correspondence with friends and supporters around the world.
Letters from a Vienna Jailhouse
From political prisoner number 70306 — the letters below were written from Josefstadt prison in Vienna during 2006.
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.
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 — 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 pages, have however vanished with all my other papers from my luggage.
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.
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.
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!”
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.
Memoir Draft: Vienna Imprisonment
“For many weeks I brooded on where the Pottersman Factor fitted into all this. Apart from the eight police officers who had forced my car off the autobahn at gunpoint — they had been informed that I was a car thief — the Austrians could not have been friendlier.
“As word spread round Vienna’s Josefstadt jail on who I was, I received a stream of visitors. Jailers brought me magazines, mail, packets of coffee as gifts. One gave me a glass of whisky, ‘Nobody must hear of this.’ The enemy blubbered with fury in the national press when they learned that my books were in all the prison libraries, over a hundred as it turned out, including Hitler’s War. The ministries reassured Parliament that my books had now been withdrawn.
An unknown Austrian historian — nearly all Austrian historians are unknown — was appointed to check them. The books by me were burned. This would surely convince the world that Austria was not a Nazi state.”
— David Irving, memoir draft, 2006
Background: The Arrest
The criminal court permitted Irving to see a sanitized police file which went back sixteen years. The top transcripts were of talks in Leoben (November 5, 1989) and Vienna (November 6), received by the police several weeks later. The public prosecutor in Leoben had reviewed the actual tapes and concluded that Irving had not broken any laws; so had the Staatspolizei officer who actually attended.
Günther Bögl, the Vienna Polizeipräsident, had issued the arrest warrant before any of the transcripts were received, on the evening of November 8, 1989 — the day before the Berlin Wall came down.
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Photographs from the period of David Irving’s Vienna imprisonment, 2005–2006.
Source: Original FPP website Austrian arrest dossier. Letters and memoirs by David Irving, 2006.