http://www.abendblatt.de/bin/ha/set_frame/set_frame.cgi?seiten_url=/contents/ha/news/reportage/html/190700/0319TEXT1.HTM

Leben unter einem besonderen Stern

Die Engländerin Christabel Bielenberg erinnert sich an die Zeit, als sie "Deutsche" war, in Hamburg lebte und mit vielen Menschen des 20 Juli im Widerstand gegen Hitler verbunden war. Wir haben die 91-Jährige in Irland besucht.

Excerpt:

Ihr Ur-Enkel Adam erhält mit seinem Vornamen die Erinnerung an den Widerstand und an einen engen Freund am Leben. Natürlich lebt der Krieg auch auf andere Weise in ihnen fort. Mit Interesse verfolgten die Bielenbergs beispielsweise den Prozess des englischen Historikers und Holocaust-Leugners David Irving. "Was Irving sagte, war Unfug", sagt Christabel. "Vor ein paar Jahren wurde ich zu einer Diskussion mit ihm nach Dublin eingeladen, wo ich ihn hätte widerlegen sollen. Ich hätte es gerne getan, doch als ich im Trinity College ankam, wo die Diskussion stattfinden sollte, musste alles wegen der wütenden Demonstranten abgeblasen werden." [...].

David Irving writes:

I remember the Dublin episode well. In fact there were two -- Mrs Bielenberg, a charming old Englishwoman -- has evidently forgotten the first. It was in about 1984, she was invited to debate with Lord Longford and against myself, the motion being: "That this House is of the opinion that Stalin was a worse Devil that Adolf Hitler."

Mrs Bielenberg, being one of the champions of the Stauffenberg gang, naturally preferred Stalin. I took to Dublin the motto "He must Have a Long Spoon that Sups with the Devil," and, concealed about my person, two spoons -- one was as used by Adolf Hitler himself (Henriette von Schirach had snaffled it from his table once day at the Berghof, and passed it on to me with various other items of Nazi memorabilia that would no doubt threaten the national security of the French Government if offered on an American auction-house website).

The other spoon I had brought from our laundry room, a three-foot long wooden stirring spoon, coloured a violent red by cochineal. I produced them in turn from the recesses of my suit to the guffaws of the student audience: the Hitler spoon, which was quite obviously of regulation length; the "Stalin spoon", and -- a final flourish -- a tiny spoon provided to me on the flight over by Aer Lingus, the smallest I have ever seen, which showed clearly what undevilish people the Irish are! This brought the House down, and we were clearly on the winning ticket. Mrs Bielenberg however wheeled into action something more formidable than the spoons. She quietened the raucous audience with largely fictitious accounts of her experiences in Nazi camps: she could have qualified as CEO of The Holocaust Industry itself, she spoke so well, and our side was soundly thrashed when it came to the vote being taken (by acclamation, if I recall, rather than by show of hands).

The second occasion, which she does recall, I have retrieved from my diaries of the time; it reflects the strenuous attempts being made by Jewish organisations even at that time to destroy my right to speak.

November 19, 1988 (Saturday) Durham - London 3:30 p.m., C.C of Irish Independent newspaper phoned: big trouble brewing in Dublin against me next Friday, Searchlight stirred up trouble, he asks for my comments. 300 students voted to boycott my talk. [...] 7:40 p.m. Irish Corresp of The Times phoned, about same story, saying that Christobel Bielenberg has withdrawn from the platform. (I: did not know she had been invited, and she is a hypocrite as she shared a platform with me at the same college four years or so ago.)

November 25, 1988 (Friday) London   Flew 11:05 to Dublin, met there by newspaperman, and Niall Lenihan, president of Trinity College Philosophical and Debating Society, who took me in taxi to two more interviews, one radio, in the town. Lenihan is a 21 year old, rather woolly but enthusiastic, student. Walked with him to Philosophical Society debating chamber at Trinity College, using all the back streets, at 4 p.m. University had insisted I be in the building by 4 p.m., three hours before the planned demonstration, although a vote today (or yesterday) had agreed it would be non-violent. By 7 p.m., a very large angry mob had gathered out side, carrying banners and placards, but a larger audience had come to hear me inside. Unfortunately, Count Nikolas von Tolstoy came late, arrogantly assuming that the demo was only against me. Both he and Christobel Bielenberg found themselves blocked out by the picket. Niall L. waited for an hour for them to get through. By then, 8 p.m., windows were being smashed, and the main doors assailed. Every exit was covered by the mob, and the students could not get me out until 1:30 a.m. The university had meanwhile decided that the Debate, on Hitler and the Holocaust , was off. Unmarked police car whisked me back to hotel, where seventy students had foregathered to hear me. This they did from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m., with Tolstoy's answer. Exhausting night [...]

What is it that makes one suspect that it must be something very true that I am lecturing, if the opponents resort to such violence to suppress it? In contrast to the snake-venom of Lipstadt, Bielenberg was all sweetness and light, and I am glad to read in this newspaper that she is still around to entertain.