Holocaust Denier David Irving

Defending Nazi Revisionist History

What follows is an article contributed by controversial figure David Irving. The Holocaust Denial Conference, hosted by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, met with outrage from world leaders. Attendees included many of the world's most notorious Holocaust denial figures including former KuKluxKlan Imperial Wizard David Duke. It cast doubt on what most historians accept as incontrovertible fact: that the Nazis systematically executed six million Jewish people in World War II. Controversial historian David Irving was serving the final days of a jail term in Austria for violating that country's laws prohibiting Holocaust denial. Irving maintains he is a legitimate historian and laws against Holocaust denial violate free speech and inhibit scholarship. His critics say it's thinly-veiled anti-Semitism.

Here, in his first interview since he was released December 21, 2006, Irving commented on the Tehran conference. He also talks about being imprisoned for his beliefs, saying the worst thing was being denied a pen and paper and being away from his daughter. Despite the ongoing threat of new charges, Irving remains passionate and vocal about his right to choose how he writes his history and discusses how his work will be viewed by generations to come.

In 1964 I decided to write the biography of Adolf Hitler based entirely on original, primary sources. In France, legislation makes it a criminal offense to dispute the facts of the Nuremburg trial in 1945. In Germany, the law is called Defaming the Memory of the Dead, and in Austria, the law is called The Reactivation of the Nazi Party.

In Austria last year, 35 people were put on trial for this offense, 12 were acquitted. If you're a German or an Austrian historian, you're subjected to these laws, and it's going to damage your credibility, not to mention 400 days in solitary confinement. For me it's cost 300,000 Euros in lost revenue and legal expenses. We lost our home.

The Tehran Holocaust Denial Conference

The Tehran Holocaust Denial Conference is about geopolitics instead of history. I spent the last eight years researching Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler and it's become increasingly evident to me that he was the principal architect of the Holocaust along with Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister and Martin Bormann, the Nazi Party secretary.

My reputation has come under foul attack ever since 1959. I tried to defend my reputation in 2000 with a libel action in England. It was disastrous because my enemies poured $13 million into the High Court in London to defend the person I was suing. It's a very one-sided battle. I'm entirely self-supported. I don't have academic backing, I don't have university backing, I don't have family money.

The worst part about being in prison was being away from family and the prison authorities wouldn't let me have ink and paper initially. I wrote 4,000 pages by hand while I was there. I have them with me now -- 2,000 pages on memoirs and 2,000 on Himmler. It wasn't wasted time.