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Auckland, New Zealand, Friday, August 6, 2004

More troublesome to give Irving the distinction of a ban

[David Irving has sacrificed his academic credentials and personal fortune on a dubious altar, says The Daily News.]

HE IS the ultimate Holocaust denier, the darling of the Nazi apologists and revivalists, and the post-modern historian who has made a career out of trawling for perverse opinions and wayward snippets of history that might be creatively stitched together as evidence that Adolf Hitler‘s mad quest to exterminate Jews, among other non-Aryan minority groups, did not happen.

David Irving comments: THE SUITES of data which the New Zealand Jewish community are handing out around the newspapers are getting a bit frayed at the edges, a bit threadbare, and perhaps they need sometime to go back to the cleaners, or dump the whole shabby suit entirely and buy a new wardrobe. Here are just a few corrections to clean the dirty grease-spots off the article on the left:  Holocaust denier: I never wrote one book or article or broadcast on the subject. It is boring. Yet as a recent correspondent pointed out, newspapers seem to think that HD are my real first names.  Stitching snippets together. My last two books were over 1,200 pages each. Some snippets!  Hitler’s mad quest. The doctors who treated him all confirmed to Allied interrogators that he was not “mad” — certainly no madder than Mr Bloodthirsty Bush or Mr Sanctimonious Blair. And even Prof Christopher Browning — Lipstadt’s own chosen expert — has now published a book agreeing with my finding that there is no “smoking gun” linking Adolf with the Holocaust.  Four libel defeats: two in 50 years actually – the PQ17 action in 1970 (defendant), and the Lipstadt Trial in 2000 (plaintiff); how many libel defeats has The Daily Press had, or the London Times for that matter,. More than two in fifty years, I’ll wager.  Banned from the German State archives: No such reason was given — only that it was “im Interesse des Deutschen Volkes”. They have however retained the important archival collections I donated to them, and refused to return them!  Florida based: My permanent home and legal residence is in Central London, but I have a “battle HQ” in Florida, for logistics reasons, where I work many months of the year.  Deported from Australia: Never. Twice visited, and toured without problem.  Sad and frantic: You wish. Here’s a picture of me, all sad and frantic, two days ago:  Race hatred: Well, without spelling it out, we know which race does the most hating right now.  … NZ, where his books are available anyway: I will give US$1,000 to any New Zealander who can walk into his local high-street book- store and find one new book by me. Guess who’s behind that problem too…    Aug 3, 2004 Jerusalem Post: Israel Government applauds Irving ban

At least, not in the realm of the six million such deaths accepted by everyone else. After four libel action defeats — the most serious costing him about $NZ6 million (an interesting tally) — Mr Irving has placed himself so far outside the intellectual and academic mainstream as to look just a little bit loony.

Clearly, if he cannot win scholarly and literary respect, he will settle for notoriety. Even in Germany, where there might linger a few old diehards from the Third Reich, and skinheads from the Fourth of their dreams, Mr Irving has been banned from the State’s official archives for his persistent and acrobatic misrepresentation of records to fit into his own skewed ideologies.

That country and France have made Holocaust denial a criminal offence. Commercial publishers there will not touch him, although he still manages to find and fund printers who will.

That is perhaps no bad thing. A free press and individual freedom of expression are seen as key elements in open, liberal societies.

Ironically, they are rights that were won at the cost of those six million lives, and 10 times as many more during the total carnage of World War II.

It is not a right that would be readily provided had Mr Irving’s favourite dictator won.

He is nothing if not stubborn. He simply refuses to accept the scale of his judicial and academic defeats, and has curiously graduated through them all to become something of an oddball circus act.

He wants to come to New Zealand for a speaking engagement — at the National Press Club in Wellington — but the Government says the Florida-based Briton will not get the automatic entry of similar nationalities.

He will have to apply for an exemption to the disqualification triggered by his being deported from another country (Canada and Australia).

Mr Irving says he is coming in mid-September, visa or not, and New Zealand will have to cope with the international glare of his rejection.

He is probably not worth the resultant publicity he will win and relish, nor the unfair impression of intellectual timidity that this country will earn — where his books are available anyway.

Ignored, he would wither as the rather sad and frantic figure that he has become. And if he feels the need to step outside his normal rant, there are laws to deal with incitement to racial hatred. 

  [Write to the NZ Herald’s Editor:  ]  

 Dossier: attempts by New Zealand Jews to stop David Irving’s 2004 visit

 FAQ: Answers to frequently asked questions about Mr Irving’s visit

 Flashback Wealthy Jewish organisation drafted a secret plan to “destroy David Irving’s legitimacy” | “Don’t let this fall into the wrong hands” [documents from the Lipstadt trial]