Key West, Fl. March 20, 2001

 

Dear Ian

Thank you for your reply about the Goebbels diaries, and I am sorry you won't have time to have an advance look at the Churchill biography (because it is likely that one of the newspapers will want you to review it later: there is great interest). I have been told by many correspondents of your interviews around the world suggesting that you were the first to exploit the Goebbels diaries, in one way or another. You may not have noticed that Ralph Reuth had them from me, both for his biography and for his five-volume digested edition of them. Without any sense of malice I have put a page about this matter on my website with a photo that I took in 1992 -- rather before your book came out-- of the hitherto unopened original Agfa boxes of Goebbels diaries microfiches on the archive table desk in Moscow. They are fully exploited in the new edition of Hitler's war which has been on my Internet website since 1999, and which reappears in print this spring.

Yours sincerely,

David Irving

 

Professor Ian Kershaw

Department of Modern History

University of ShefÞeld

ShefÞeld S10 2TN

Picture on right: The original unopened boxes of Goebbels diaries microfiches on the desk in the Moscow archives, photographed by David Irving, 1992

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Reviews of Prof. Kershaw's books:

N Y Times, Dec 10, 2000: "In Volume II of his biography, Ian Kershaw shows that Hitler had the perfect personality for a cult leader"

The Observer, Oct 15, 2000: "Ian Kershaw reveals a Führer who was a clinically insane monster but a dull amateur with bad breath in Hitler 1936-45"

The Times, Sep 27, 2000: Hitler's last days: Hitler screamed: "You have all betrayed me"

New York Times, March 19, 2001: "After 10 Years With Hitler, a Biographer Declares His Liberation."