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The Holocaust Business
Spielberg Backed Trial Against Irving
How dare you diminish the market value of Swindler's List.
STEVEN SPIELBERG, the Oscar-winning director of the Holocaust movie
Schindler's List, was one of the main financial backers of the American
academic unsuccessfully sued by the disgraced historian, David Irving.
Mr Spielberg was one of a group of prominent American Jews who gave money to
Professor Deborah Lipstadt, the academic whom Mr Irving sued for libel after
she described him as a Holocaust denier. Professor Lipstadt, who was
vindicated in the courts last week, told Telegraph yesterday that she had
received financial backing from a number of different individuals and
organisations, but declined to go into details.
Speaking from her home in Atlanta, Georgia she said: "I was helped by a
variety of people but I am really not at liberty to say who did or didn't
back me. It's not for me to confirm or deny one way another. I just don't
feel comfortable giving the details. I will say there are people who gave $18
and people who gave more." However, one individual close to the case told The
Telegraph that naming Mr Spielberg as a financial backer "would not be far
off the mark".
According to a report in the Jewish Chronicle, contributions to Professor
Lipstadt's defence fund may have been funnelled through the Shoah Foundation,
an organisation set up by the film director to raise awareness of the
treatment of Jews during the Second World War. Penguin books and Professor
Lipstadt's own university both contributed to the huge costs of the case. But
a number of wealthy individuals agreed to help when they realised a defeat
for the American academic would be a gift for far-Right extremists across the
world.
A ready cash flow was essential given the enormity of the task facing the
defence team. More than a dozen lawyers and experts gathered witnesses and
evidence from around the world. Professor Lipstadt's successful defence
depended upon painstaking research into Mr Irving's background, in particular
his links with neo-Nazi organisations in America and Germany.
Additional funding may still be needed because Mr Irving has announced that
he is to appeal against the Mr Justice Gray's ruling. Last week he claimed to
have received as much as $10,000 from one supporter in the United States. Mr
Irving who has been told he must meet the entire £2 million costs of the
case, said he would not be surprised if Mr Spielberg had provided financial
help.
He said: "I know she has received funding from a number of sources. I will
say this whole thing has backfired on them. If they had agreed to pay £500 to
charity then the whole thing would have gone away. But they insisted on
making it such a big issue and spending so much money on it. I think they are
beginning to regret that because there has never been so much interest in me."
Since the release of Schindler's List in 1993, Mr Spielberg, who is himself
Jewish, has emerged as a key figure in the fight to promote awareness of
Hitler's Final Solution. Most of the profits of the film, which won seven
Oscars, have been poured into the Shoah Foundation which aims to create a
permanent record of the suffering of Hitler's victims. One of its principal
aims is to undermine revisionist propaganda of the kind espoused by Mr Irving
and his supporters.
Shoah is the Hebrew term for the Holocaust. The Foundation has produced a
documentary called The Last Days, that recorded the testimony of 50,000
survivors, from 57 countries and in 32 different languages. In a separate
development, Penguin Books is in talks with Mr Justice Gray to see if they
can publish his judgment in book form.
The company is already planning to reissue the book that sparked off the
original libel trial. It will have a new introduction giving a detailed
history of the case. Irving is being pursued by an American court over
allegations that he failed to repay several thousand pounds to the widow of
one of his supporters. Irma Kerstan sued Irving after he refused to repay
more than $10,000 (£6,300) lent to him by her late husband Max, a former
German soldier who supported the historian's work.
The London Telegraph, April 16, 2000
Spy vs. Spy
The Commies Get Kohl
Stasi files help undo bribe-taking politician.
RECORDS of the secret financing system run by Helmut Kohl during his time as
leader of Germany's Christian Democratic Union have gone missing, his
successor said yesterday.
Wolfgang Schäuble, who took over from Mr Kohl last year, said the files for
1994-96 were missing from the documents handed by Horst Weyrauch, the
Frankfurt accountant who ran the secret system, to auditors commissioned by
the current party leadership to investigate the affair.
Mr Kohl, who has admitted the existence of the secret accounts, is under
pressure from the party leadership
