Quick navigationMr Irving, take me to …… Letters Index… Your next speaking tour… today’s “AR-online” again… your main alphabetical index… news on your legal battle… you and your family… your career so far… how to buy your books… how to help your fighting fund… your publishing Home Page

IN THE EIGHT months since the launch of this FPP Website, there has, remarkably, been abusive mail only from one correspondent, a Mr David Katz of Johannesburg, writing in early 1998. After eight months’ silence Katz has now written again.

In this new letter Katz claims to have written a letter to Mr Irving to which he has received no reply. Now read on …

BACKGROUND. After David Katz posted on the Nizkor Website a defamatory account, from memory, of David Irving’s November 1987 speech to an audience in Johannesburg, the British writer sent a suitable rebuke to Katz, and posted his diary of the tour. Katz responded with further allegations. Mr Irving replied on the same day:- THANK YOU for your reply. I deny that I uttered anti-Semitic remarks either then or on any other occasion. Both the Anti-Defamation League (New York, Washington) and the Board of Deputies of British Jews (in London) have gone on record in their private memoranda, copies of which I have obtained under legal processes, as stating that “regrettably” I cannot be attacked as an anti-Semite (this is of course normally their first line of attack). The legal processes concerned are libel actions which I have brought in this country. I do not hesitate to defend my reputation with all proper legal means. The Internet is a cowardly place to defame people, as it is beyond the reach of the law. Such defamers are cowards: willing to wound, but afraid to strike. All the power but none of the responsibilities — the prerogative of the whore, as somebody so rightly said. David Irving

YOUR ABOVE comment can be equated with Lenin denying that he was a Marxist. Your reputation for uttering distasteful remarks about Jews precedes you. There cannot be smoke without fire. I personally witnessed some of this “fire” back in Johannesburg. What is your definition of “anti Semitic”? (I prefer to call a spade a spade and use the term anti Jew.)

[Right: A smoke-without-fire-maker 

I have no doubt that you wish to defend your reputation. What are you defending? For one that is so sensitive to anti Jewish labels you certainly show very little circumspection or respect when talking about Jews and their relationship with the Germans. Your remarks about Jews are callous, and disrespectful and incredibly hurtful to those who lost relatives in the camps and at the hands of the Einsatz. You have chosen to use your considerable talents in the trenches of Holocaust denial.

The Holocaust, due to the immensity of the tragedy to European Jewry is central and dear to every Jew today. Your methods, and words, and the nature of the audiences that you preach to, all point to the very simple fact, that you are anti-Jewish.

You yourself said in Johannesburg that the Holocaust is a minefield. You have now entered that minefield of your own choice. Cowboys don’t cry, Mr Irving.

It is also cowardly to utter remarks about Jew and other racial groups at meetings, but never to reduce the same to the written word for all to see. I am less bothered with your anti Jewishness than your constant denial of the words that you uttered in Johannesburg. It is important to me that any historian should have integrity no matter his political or racial outlook. In my opinion your blatant denial of what I know to be true has devalued the worth and impact of the many books you have written.

David Katz
Johannesburg

 I AM SORRY to say that your reply as quoted by you [above] did not reach me. When did you send it? Please provide data: time, date, address sent to, etc. I shall of course post your reply, in fairness. I do not think it will help to lessen the hostility of the anti-Semites, in fact it may increase it.

No doubt you have now read my diary of my South Africa trip, and you will realise how impossible it is to reconcile my contemporary private diary note with the version from your recollection.

Is there any good reason that your above reply differs substantially from that posted onto your Web site?

You have left out the fact that your absence from the country or your staff may have been to blame for your oversight in not replying to my letter. I wouldn’t like to think that you engineered the Web reply so as to give the impression to your readers that my letter was an eight month afterthought designed to assist the defence council of Deborah Lipstadt. I think you owe it to your web visitors to show the complete picture and not “engineer” your or my correspondence for the sake of a cheap shot. For the record I deny that I have been approached by Lipstadt’s defence counsel at any time. I am sure she has ample material to defend herself adequately without my evidence. I am not particularly interested in your little squabble with Lipstadt and others. These amount to a feeble attempts to rehabilitate yourself in the eyes of the mainstream historians, and once again be allowed access to various historical archives. It does not take a rocket scientist to see when I mailed the original message. This information appears at the top of the page on the last letter.

I have now read your diary several times, and in all honesty how does this help your case? Your diary FAILS to give any details as to the content of the speech that you delivered in South Africa. In your diary you admit to your association with [Clive] Derby-Lewis. Other than that NOTHING! Please spell it out ! What you are trying to prove by showing me this diary that contains nothing of relevace. I suspect your motive is a little too obtuse for those of us who enjoy hard fact. (A little bit of bullsh*t baffles brains perhaps?).

I have recently read [Ron] Rosenbaum‘s Explaining Hitler. He devotes a whole chapter to you. I strongly urge all your “truth seekers” to read this excellent book. The author certainly was able to answer most of my unresolved questions that I have about you. What was of particular interest to our current discussion was your little “OOPS” dilemma with the Eichman diaries. What was fascinating was your explaining away the clear “Führer Directive” alluded to in the Eichmann diaries by saying that the man wrote with the thought in mind that these very same diaries would one day be valuable evidence in his defence. If I understood it correctly you accuse Eichman of engineering a “Führer Directive” in his diary so as to cover himself in any future conviction. Now isn’ t that something Mr. Irving? Your plot not mine. What an elaborate thing to do. I hope that you do not write your diaries with the same intention in mind.

Your replies to my correspondence on your web site have become increasingly shrill. I appeal to you to try and retain a little composure in this matter. May I also take this opportunity to state that I do not give a damm what effect my replies are having on the anti-Semites of this world. I am only interested in stating the truth of the events that took place at your Johannesburg speech 1987 no matter the consequences.

David Katz

MANY LETTERS are edited for brevity, and for no other reason; but I will post your reply in full. — David Irving

©Focal Point 1998  write to David Irving