ГУЛаг Палестины

David Irving

David John Cawdell Irving is a British "historian", born in

1938.

* Correct.

According to David Cesarani of the Wiener Library in London,

England, he attended Imperial College at the University of

London, but never graduated. He holds no academic degree

and no academic position at any university or college.

* Correct. The same can be said for Winston S.

Churchill, Thomas Babington Macaulay (The

History of England), and the Gibbon who wrote

The Decline Fall of the Roman Empire, etc.

Would you denigrate them as "historians" too?

He calls himself a "moderate fascist",

* Incorrect. Please produce the source of this

spurious and libellous allegation.

and claims, among other things that the gas chambers at

Auschwitz (in which an estimated 2-3 million people died)

were "built by the Poles after the war as a tourist attraction."

* Not quite correct. I stated (on April 21, 1990 and

other occasions): "The gas chamber which is

shown to the tourists in Auschwitz is a dummy

(Atrappe) built after the war by the Polish

communists as a tourist attraction." In 1990, Dr

Franciszek Piper, the then director of the Auschwitz

State Museum Archives, confirmed that this is

true. As recently as 1995 the present directors

confirmed in an interview with Eric Conan, of the

well-known liberal French weekly L'Express, that

the gas chamber shown to the tourists was

constructed on the orders of the Polish communist

government in 1948. "Tout y est faux," reported

Conan, and the deputy chief of the site stated:

"Pour l'instant, on la laisse en l'йtat et on ne

prйcise rien au visiteur. C'est trop compliquй. On

verra plus tard" (L'Express, January 26, 1995).

(For this remark, he was fined DM 10,000 by a Munich court in

May 1992.

* Correct. On January 13, 1993 the fine was

increased to DM30,000 in view of my refusal to

retract the statement. (Why should I? It was true). In

addition, on July 1, 1993 I was permanently

banned from setting foot in the German Federal

Archives, which had benefited over the years from

my donations of half a ton of archival material

including the diaries of Canaris, Himmler,

Rommel, etc., which I had located, and which they

have now had to relinquish to me; and on

November 13, 1993 I was permanently banned

from Germany. How's that for freedom of speech!

The judge was quoted as saying that the gas chambers of

Auschwitz were "an historically certain fact.")

* Correct. The word used is offenkundig, and is

used in German law to deny defence lawyers the

introduction of any defence exhibits or witnesses,

e.g. the aforementioned Dr Franciszek Piper whom

we were prepared to call. There has been an

outcry in the German legal profession against

these methods, and Germany is to face a rebuke

from the United Nations for her repression of

freedom of opinion by such means. Of course, if

you believe they are correct to adopt such tactics,

such is your right.

Irving denies being a "Holocaust denier" or "Hitler apologist",

and seems willing to resort to legal action if necessary.

* Correct. Last year one of Britain's biggest Sunday

newspapers was forced to pay me substantial

damages after they printed such a libel. I issued a

Libel Writ in the High Court. (For legal reasons,

namely the settlement agreed, I am not permitted

to identify the newspaper or the amount, except off

the record). I am currently pursuing Libel action in

the British courts against The Observer, Deborah

Lipstadt, (whose odious little tract has been

foolishly published here, i.e. within the jurisdiction,

by Penguin UK Ltd) and Svenska Dagbladet. You

have been warned!

In a recent fax printed in the K-W Record, he is reported as

saying, "I have warned 22 British newspapers that I shall not

hesitate to commence libel action if they use smear phrases

such like 'Hitler apologist' or 'Holocaust denier' to embellish

their writings." But Bernard Levin, writing in The Times of

London in May of this year, quoted Irving as saying, "I hope

the court will fight a battle for the German people and put an

end to the blood lie of the Holocaust which has been told

against this country for 50 years."

Irving first entered the headlines in 1970.

* Incorrect. Ever since 1963 my books have been

the subject of wide comment and much praise in

the British media.

In July of that year, he was forced to apologize in the High

Court of London for "making a wholly untrue and highly

damaging statement about a woman writer."--not an

auspicious start for someone who claims to be in pursuit of the

truth.

* Correct. A Sunday Express journalist, Jill -----,

stated that Rolf Hochhuth, the German playwright

and one of my closest friends had granted her an

exclusive interview. Hochhuth assured me he had

not even spoken to her. I mentioned this in a letter

to the newspaper's editor. She sued. As I was

fighting the hideously costly PQ.17 Libel Action at

the time, I had no alternative but to settle out of

court-- "shortening the front," is what military