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Needless to say the insurers of Cassell Co Ltd,
the British publishers, would not have authorised
such defence actions had their counsel not studied
all the documents available and concluded that we
had a powerful defence, based on the Admiralty
records; this they in fact did, and wrote Opinions to
that effect. Libel actions in Britain are tried by jury.
Make of that what you will.
The case is revealing because of what it says about Irving's
abilities as a historian and his motives as an author.
According to The Times of London, Irving showed a copy of
the manuscript to Broome before publication.
* Correct. I showed the late Captain Broome the
mansucript in 1966, and he agreed to read it and
make comment (as did a score of other officers
involved); breaking his undertaking, he alone
decided not to co-operate, but to wait for
publication and then sue for profit. So be it.
Broome objected to the accuracy of some thirty passages in
the book, and threatened to sue for libel if Irving did not make
changes.
* Incorrect. He objected in reality to six words
("Captain Broome was a broken man"), and after
these words were expunged, years later, his
lawyers permitted the book's republication by
William Kimber Ltd.
At that point, William Kimbers Ltd., Irving's publisher, notified
him that they would not publish the book as it was then
written.
* Incorrect. I was in dispute with William Kimber
after they paid me only J67 instead of the agreed
fee of J200 for translating the book, The Memoirs
or Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel. This being so, I
removed the PQ17 manuscript physically from
their offices; Kimber's secretary came ru
down the street after me, pleading for me to return
it. I keep a very detailed diary of events. In court,
Kimber, already probably suffering from the
Parkinsonism from which he later died, gave a
totally different version, namely yours; he later
apologised to me, which did not assist me much of
course. Unfortunately, our counsel elected to call
no witnesses in the case but to rest securely on the
Admiralty documents.
Later, Irving published the book with another publisher.
The court found that Irving "was warned from most
responsible quarters that his book contained libels on Captain
Broome ... To make [the book] a success he was ready to risk
libel actions ... Documentary evidence .... showed that [Irving]
had deliberately set out to attack Captain Broome and in spite
of the most explicit warnings persisted in his attack because it
would help sell the book." The court labeled Irving's conduct
as "outrageous and shocking."
Irving's misrepresentations did not end with the publication of
his book. According to Cesarani, in 1979 a German publisher
had to pay compensation to the father of A
printing the German edition of Irving's book, Hitler's War. Irving
had claimed that A
* Correct as written. Without consulting me, the
Ullstein Verlag publishing firm, part of the
pro-Israeli Axel Springer Group) made some
unspecified payment to Otto Frank at his demand. I
had already halted production and publication of
the book for other reasons (tampering by Ullstein
with my text). The German Bundeskriminalamt
found that parts of the diary had been written in
(post-war) ballpoint ink-paste, which made its
authenticity problematic. My opinion on it now is
ambivalent: it is unimportant, not a historical
document of any value.
Irving claims that according to his "research", the Holocaust is
greatly exaggerated.
* Correct. I think the figures have been magnified
by an Order of Magnitude. Events in Auschwitz
alone suggest that I am right:: here the figure has
been effortlessly brought down from 4 million to 1
million, and now to even less.
(He was recently quoted in the K-W Record as saying that the
number of Jews who died in concentration camps was "of the
order of 100,000 or more.")
* Incorrect. Do you really believe all the
newspapers say? I may have said "killed", not
"died".
But during the 1988 trial of pro-Nazi publisher Ernst Zundel,
he was forced to admit under cross-examination that he hadn't
even read all of Eichma
testimony, Eichma
the so-called "Final Solution to the Jewish
problem"--extermination, in 1942.)
* Incorrect. I have Eichma
memoirs, given to me in Buenos Aires in
November 1991. He states that to him Final
Solution always meant the Madagascar Solution.
Anyway, do you really want to base your case on
the utterances of a Nazi war criminal?
In November 1991, a reporter from The Independent showed
that Irving omitted crucial lines from a translation of Goebbels'
diaries--lines that would have contradicted his theory that
Hitler knew nothing about the extermination of the Jews.
* Incorrect. Which "crucial lines" am I supposed to
have omitted?
Irving's record is clear: he is not an historian, and he has
made false statements and been forced to apologize for them.
As Andrew Cohen, reporter for the Financial Post, has said,
"David Irving should be denied credibility."
* Well, that really wants to make me hang up my
shingle: namely, that a shyster from a money-rag
doesn't believe me. What a waste of kilobytes,
when there are megabytes of reputable historians
saying precisely the opposite about me.
Yours sincerely,
David Irving
Focal Point Publications
Professor Jeffrey Shallit
Associate Professor
Computer Science Department
University of Waterloo,
Waterloo, Ontario
Canada
The following is the full text of the article by Mr. Shallit that Mr.
Irving quotes in the preceding letter.
LIES OF OUR TIMES
by Jeffrey Shallit
How the Words of the Holocaust Deniers and Their Allies
Show Them For What They Are
1. Background
Canada has a long tradition of tolerance and multiculturalism.
That's why many residents of the K-W area were shocked and
saddened to learn that a stereo store on King Street in
Kitchener was displaying posters advertising a talk by David
Irving, a self-described historian who says that the estimates
of six million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II are
greatly exaggerated. Inside the store, according to the K-W
Record, one can find for sale a book by Fred Leuchter that
claims that the gas chambers at Auschwitz were never used
for mass killing. After local protests, the store owner retaliated
by putting up posters about the banking system based on the
writings of anti-Semite Eustace Mullins. Subsequently, these
posters were taken down by the store owner, but one explicitly
anti-Semitic flyer still remains. The Kitchener-Waterloo
Record recently carried a letter to the editor by Paul Fromm,
director of "Canadian Association for Free Expression, Inc.".
This letter defended neo-Nazi publisher Ernst Zundel, saying,
"Zundel was dragged through the courts for nine years ...
MERELY for his UNPOPULAR views." [emphasis mine]
Who are Michael Rothe, David Irving, Fred Leuchter, Eustace
Mullins, and Paul Fromm, and what do they stand for?