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J. Barlament has some rather impertinent questions to put to Mr Irving, Thursday, November 14, 2002
How early is "too early"?
I AM in my last year of a history major in college, and I've become interested in your work via my senior seminar. By reading excerpts from your books, criticisms, interviews, articles, and the transcript of your trial, I can say that I do not agree with the implications of most of your work.However, I do believe that you were called an anti-Semite and holocaust denier too early in your career. This early designation most likely did effect your earning power and prestige in the world of historical scholarship. If you don't mind, I have a few questions that I'd like to ask. Perhaps I have yet to read it in the trial transcript, but did you give evidence at the trial that proved that you had lost revenue and credibility due to Lipstadt, et al? If so, how did you attempt to prove this? How early do you believe you were dismissed by the Jewish community? Were you ever given a chance by the Jews?
Why did you travel to Germany to work at a steel factory when you had a bright academic future ahead of you (I believe you finished some ungodly sounding curriculum in high school)?
I'm sorry to just barge in on you like this, but I thought I'd try to email you just to hear it from the proverbial horses mouth. The above questions are just a few that I'd like to ask, but I don't want to bore you with some long drawn out thing. You're probably busy enough as it is.
Related file on this website:
Our dossier on the
origins of anti-Semitism
Background
of David Irving
Notes
for Counsel, 1970
Some
impertinent questions answered in 1996
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David
Irving replies:
I HAVE time to answer only some of your questions, as I shall be off to the Public Record Office later this morning and that is a more important use of my time.
- "However, I do believe that you were called an anti-Semite and holocaust denier too early in your career. " -- I think the charges began in about 1950 or even earlier; it is difficult to be precise as most of my files of press clippings were seized in May. They eventually become self-fulfilling: if you smear somebody long enough as an anti-Semite -- and it is invariably the Jews with most to be ashamed of who use that cudgel -- eventually people are bound to end up disliking the Jews. I reserve my dislike just for the Jews who are wielding, or wielded, the cudgels, e.g. Robert Maxwell, the ADL, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and Deborah Lipstadt; she did not, mark you, call me an anti-Semite: that point seems to have eluded Mr Justice Gray, the allegation was largely irrelevant in the trial of Lipstadt and Penguin and it was only introduced a few days before the trial began, after all the documents which refuted the allegation had been ordered removed from my Discovery by order of a lower court, as the defence counsel said they were irrelevant to their Defence as (earlier) pleaded.
"Did
you give evidence at the trial that proved that you had
lost revenue and credibility due to Lipstadt, et al?"
-- Under the Defamation Act, it is not necessary to
prove or plead special damages (i.e. actual financial
damage) in cases of alleged libel. In cases of slander
and criminal defamation it is necessary. Libel is a tort,
the cause of a civil action. It is self evident that the
libels damaged my livelihood, and I would not otherwise
have brought the action against Lipstadt and her
gang.- "Why did you travel to Germany to work at a steel
factory when you had a bright academic future ahead of
you?" -- I had worked my way through college as a
concrete-worker for John Laing Ltd. (left) After leaving
Imperial College (London) in 1959, my automatic deferment
from the two years' National Service (military) ended,
and I was liable for enlistment; I volunteered instead
for the RAF as an officer, to learn Russian at Cambridge
for three years.
I
passed their Russian and intelligence tests with flying
colours, but they said I had failed the medical. Denied
the chance to do so at taxpayer expense, I decided I had
to get out of the country under my own steam and do
something different. I had majored in German at school,
and volunteered in a letter to Krupps for a steelworkers
job. They turned me down with a very snooty letter, being
English, and I was accepted by their rivals, Thyssen AG,
instead (works ID, right). I worked there from the
autumn of 1959 to mid 1960 when I transferred to Madrid
to work for the US Strategic Air Command as a clerk
stenographer.
David Irving