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5.4 OPC observations 1990.

5.4.1. The 1990 VSB reported that

The important British revisionist David Irving (52), who spoke at.the 10-3-90.DVU rally in Passau was not allowed to speak because the town administration put a ban on the meeting. Nevertheless he could express his opinions at meetings of right-wing extremists in Munich, Dresden, Leipzig, Gera, Stuttgart, Weinheim/Bergstrasse, and Oberhausen. The Minister for the Interior ordered a ban on his entering the FRG. Irving was nevertheless not identified when he entered.Germany, however, he distributes the Leuchter Report from London.<315>

5.4.2. In state VSBs it was observed that at several meetings that year Irving had stated the Holocaust was just a `propaganda lie'.<316> In Munich he was quoted as having said that there `were never any gas chambers in Auschwitz'.<317> Further `The British writer David Irving also shared the conviction that the Holocaust is just a propaganda lie put about by the allies of World War II.<318> 'Irving, in his books and lectures puts forth

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vehement opinions of the so-called revisionism that claims the Holocaust (gassing of deported Jews) did not occur.'<319>

5.5 1991: `the total catastrophe' and how Irving reacted.

5.5.1. Irving was in Germany at least seven times in 1991 12-27 February, 22-26 March. 7-14 May, 5-12 June, 23/24 [?]-31 June, 6-10 November, and December. Again important passages are missing in Irving's diaries and attempts to reconstruct all of Irving's activities in the year must remain inconclusive. The missing entries are 29 March-24 April (25 April incomplete), 26-28 April, 30 April-6 May, 27 August-22 October, 4-5 November, 19-29 November, 31 November-22 January 1992.

5.5.2. Irving's February tour was mainly involved with seeking out NS witnesses for an American television documentary. On 12 February slept at Hoeffkes's grandparents' home and recorded his forthcoming DVU Passau speech `just in case I am arrested first.'<320> On 13 February Irving held a `sparsely attended' press conference in Frankfurt.<321> On 16 February Irving spoke at Passau (see above) and on 20 February he had dinner with Althans in Munich.<322>

5.5.3. In March Irving was again invited to speak at the second revisionist conference in Munich. On 22 March Irving met Althans 'at his office' in Munich and had dinner with W. R Hess.<323>

5.5.4. On 23 March the revisionist campaign in Germany was meant to reach a new high point with a planned `international revisionist congress' in Munich, organised under the title `International Annual Meeting of Critical Contemporaries' ['Internationaler Jahrestagung kritischer Zeitgenossen']. This second revisionist conference was organised by Althans (and his AVÖ), Zündel, Reinhold Rade, and Stephan Niemannn.<324>

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Irving, who would seemed to have been still concerned about his public persona, wrote to reassure Frey 'As far as the 23.3. is concerned, the theme of my talk is "Churchill in World War II". I therefore expect no difficulties from the authorities.'<325>

5.5.5. Althans had hired the hall of the German Museum in Munich that could hold 2.400 people. That the congress did not take place as planned was due only to the determination of the museum administration. A ban [`Veranstaltungsverbot'] by the local district administration [Kreisverwaltungsamt] was overturned by the administrative court [Verwaltungsgericht], but the museum held firm despite the threat of claims for compensation. On the evening before the congress the higher administrative court [Oberverwaltungsgericht] decided in favour of the museum because of `wilful deceit' [`arglistiger Taeuschung'] by Althans who had booked the hall under a false title. The revisionists were nevertheless allowed to hold a vigil [`Mahnwache'] in front of the museum.

5.5.6. In the filmed record of the protest Althans announced that David Irving, Mark Weber, Ahmed Rami, Wilhelm Stäglich, Fred Leuchter, Dietlieb Felderer, Nancy Lang, Jerome Brennter, Ernst-Otto Remer, and Mrs. Rost von Tonningen were to have spoken. The speakers at the improvised protest meeting included Irving, Althans, Rost von Tonningen, Ahmed Rami, Henri Rocques, Wilhelm Stäglich, Dietlieb Felderer, Christian Worch (responsible for "security"), Raimund Bachmann, and Pedro Varela who conveyed the greetings of Leon DeGrelle.<326> The Bavarian VSB claimed that Meinolf Schönborn was also present.<327> Zündel was unable to speak as he had been arrested the evening before.<328>

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5.5.7. Irving recorded the fiasco in his diary, no longer willing to incur arrest after his experience at the first conference.

Althans arrives around 9:30 a.m., and after discussion I agree we speakers should go to the hall steps to meet the press; but not to make speeches. At the steps..., I speak with Seipl, police commander; her [Sic] confirms that people will be allowed to speak only on the Vertragskuendigung, [cancelled contract] nothing else. This again showed Althans lied to us -he doesn't care if we get arrested. I consequently speak only two minutes, telling the crowd (around 400 hardy soulds [Sic] braving the blustery weather) that I am not allowed to speak.<329>

5.5.8. The next day Irving attended a press conference given by Althans in Munich, but `no press'<330>

5.5.9. On the 25 March Irving attended `a new press conference by Althans (who was missing!) and Leuchter, who read out his report endlessly. Further shambles.'<331> The same day Irving met `local NPD agent' Renate Werlberger to arrange details of a meeting for 12 May.<332>

5.5.10. The period April to May is impossible to reconstruct with any degree of certainty. It is worthy of note that Michäl Kühnen died of AIDS, 25 April 1991.<333>

5.5.11. In May Irving returned to Germany. On 10 May Irving spoke in Rothenburg to the GfP on `the future of the German people between England and Russia' [`Die Zukunft d. dt. Volkes zwischen Englädern u. Russen.'<334> On 11 May Irving spoke in Munich to the Rudolf Hess Society [`Rudolf-Hess-Gesellschaft'] on the fiftieth anniversary of Hess's flight to England.<335> `Frl. Fath (R[udolf]H[ess]'s secretary) was in the audience which

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made it so much better.'<336>

5.5.12. On 12 May Irving talked to the Munich NPD.<337> The meeting was organised with Frau Werlberger, `a local NPD agent'. <338> According to later court documents the meeting had been advertised under the rubric,

The famous contemporary historian, under the topic "Germany's future in the shadow of political extortion", will for the first time give his opinion "if the Germans and their European neighbours can still afford to tolerate contemporary history as a political instrument of extortion".<339>

5.5.13. The NPD was informed that the meeting could only go ahead if they took the responsibility that Irving only speak about the persecution of the Jews in the Third Reich as far as he did not deny it.<340> Hence Werlberger wrote to Irving `We have only the request that you avoid mention .of the. word "Auschwitz", in your own interest and in the interests of the party which is bound by the present conditions.'<341> Just how far Irving complied with the request is evident from a (incomplete) recording of the meeting. Referring to legends that he may not mention, Irving proclaimed,..`In three, four years at the latest these legends will no longer hold water. The legend will be over and then the tables will be turned, then the whole [drowned out in applause]'<342> Few in his audience can have had any doubt as to which `legends' Irving was referring to. 5.5.14. On 14 May Irving had breakfast with Reinhard Rade. Althans was due to have joined them but didn't.<343>

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5.5.15. On 5 June Irving attended a function of the Danubia student fraternity [Studentenschaft] in Munich.<344> The following day Irving met Althans.<345> On 7 June Irving dinned with Althans, Susie Töpler (Reinhard Rade's fiancee), and other guests at Althans's house. The company later went on to a beer hall where they met Ursula Worsch.<346> On 8 June Irving signed books at Althorns' AVÖ bookshop in Herzog- Heinrich-Strasse in Munich. Irving recorded in his diary, `It is an impressive effort by Althans (though Susie [Töpler] told me later that Reinhard Rade has financed it and is the title holder, as Althans's creditworthiness is not much at present). About 150 to 200 people came during the time I was there, including familiar faces."<347> On 10 June Irving met the Worschs in Munich and spent the day with Töpler and Rade.<348> 5.5.16. Intestine quarrels were slowly brewing between Althans and Philipp, crippling lrving's planned July - August tour. On 1 July 1991. Althorns faxed Irving `Two pages of hysteria', announcing the collapse of the forthcoming July / August tour.<349>

...now it's come to this. The total catastrophe. The speeches of 25.07 to 17.08 will not take place. I have to give up.

I can picture you now foaming with rage. And I am very scared that we will fall out again over this.[...]

You yourself know what kind of a position I have been in since the Leuchter Congress. Now it's got worse.<350>

5.5.17. Althans complained that he was plagued by the bailiffs, his phone had been cut off, and that trips to the former east Germany required time and money, neither of which he had. A banned meeting had been broken up with truncheons. The bookshop had become subject to numerous attacks making it necessary to guard it. Comrades, like

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Harder [Ulrich?] were proving incapable of acting responsibly or autonomously. Worst of all, Philipp was conducting a whispering campaign against him.

Thus for example K[arl] P[hilipp] has managed to incite Gen.[eral] Remer and presumably G.[erd] Honsik against me. They in turn have managed to stir things up more with their naive innocence (you know how much I value Remer and Honsik).<351>

5.5.18. Since February Althans had been on trial in Stuttgart and was threatened with a long imprisonment.

Perhaps one would have got somewhere if we had been at the meeting. There were a lot of people there upon whose supportive assistance I could have hoped. But Karl Philipp, who knew that you were coming because I was stupid enough to register you as a guest as required, lied to you that I wanted to use you to break up the event. You believed him and cancelled with me. So Philipp could tell people Althans is a liar, even David Irving doesn't like him and therefore dosen't come to the conference. And, as expected, I alone received no invitation.<352>

5.5.19. This passage presumably relates to a meeting that had taken place between Irving and Althans in Munich on 11 June. `[Althans] Also suggests I come to Munich two days June 28 for a confrontation with Karl Philipp and Faurisson at Nuremberg. What the ---?'<353>

5.5.20. This in turn is with certainty related to the NF's intention, announced at its national congress on 6 April, to also hold a revisionist campaign in June (originally in Roding in Cham, Bavaria) under the slogan `Down with the Holocaust' [`Schlup mit dem Holocaust']. The list of those who were to speak was almost identical to that in

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Munich.<354> The Bavarian VSB for 1991 recorded the intention to hold the same congress. Speakers were to have been NF leader Meinolf Schönborn, Faurisson. Remer, Stäglich, and Philipp. The conference was banned. Despite the ban 150 people gathered in Roding, only to be cleared out of the meeting rooms by police. Some 150 NF supporters fought with police, leading to two arrests and hurt policemen and neo- Nazis. An later attempt to hold the congress in the evening led to 38 arrests.<355>

5.5.21. Karl Phillip wrote to Irving on 4 July boasting about the meeting in Cham where he had successfully held a meeting for Dr. Schaller and Faurisson despite a concerted police effort to break up the meeting.

That was a masterpiece by Meinolf Schönbom and his people. We should take it in mind to do something with him in late Autumn. He is really a soldier and everything goes off with military discipline and according to military organisation. He has almost 400 young people around him who follow his commands.<356>

5.5.22. The nuances of the dispute are unclear, but the conclusions are inescapable. Irving was no mere hired speaker to the neo-Nazis or in the revisionist movement, but had the political weight to support or undermine political positions and alliances within both scenes.<357> That Philipp, who had now known and worked with Irving for almost two years, should try and impress Irving with tales of his own conspiratorial skills and Schönborn's violent antics, speaks for Irving's tastes.

5.5.23. Irving promptly sent a circular to Karl Hoeffkes and Philipp asking if they, or anyone they knew, could fill in at such short notice and organise anything. Irving was willing to agree on `a topic acceptable to the authorities' [`ein den Behoerden genehmes-Thema

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vereinbaren'].<358> Irving likewise wrote to Zündel.

I am of course alarmed, sorry, and annoyed. It is unprofessional to say the least of Althans. We have been planning this four week tour of Mitteldeutschland [central Germany] since Leuchtercongess [Leuchter congress]. For him to abandon it giving me three weeks' notice is unhelpful. I have ordered a thousand books, etc. I am now left hanging around like a spare prick at a wedding! The only items that survive are Hamburg (which I arranged, after he failed to contact Ulrich Harder for weeks); Bonn, and (weeks later) Wunsiedel. I doubt personally that Wunsiedel will come off this year, but one must be an optimist.

What can we do? Do you have any independent people there, anybody in the major cities who could set up isolated events for me on the lines of Stuttgart last September, which was a brilliant success?

Needless to say, I have the utmost faith in you. You are a professional. You know the law in both Canada and Germany, and keep within it, so far as I can judge. [...]

I do of course-appreciate the serious personal problems Althans is facing, which must be a serious disappointment for him. Sometimes we have to hang strong. Those times are now. I am very sorry that we are losing Mittledeutschland [central German] like this.<359>

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