The Swastika Wielding Provocateur

[Kellanved]

British historian and Holocaust denier David Irving, arrested last month in Austria where his views are illegal, is busy preparing his trial in a Vienna prison. Could this be the eccentric Hitler admirer's final act of provocation?
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Irving, 67, appears cheerful and focused and says he is being treated well. Occasionally he does betray a penchant for hyperbole, though. "Someone sent me ink, thank God," he says. Irving is writing his memoirs, 20 pages a day. There is little else to do for a writer behind bars, and there's a tradition about writing while incarcerated. "Perhaps I should call it 'Mein Krieg' ('My War')," says Irving, grinning on his side of the plate glass divider. His daughter finds it "cool that Daddy is in prison," he adds, and one has the impression that Daddy himself still sees the whole thing as part of an adventure. David Irving is a man marooned on the fringes of society, but adventure is part of his business.

Before leaving London for Austria, he left behind 60 blank checks and packed eight shirts, even though the trip was only scheduled to take two days. He is always prepared for anything, says Irving, meaninfully raising his bushy eyebrows. "Be prepared," the motto of the Boy Scouts, is apparently also his motto.

He knew that there was a warrant for his arrest in Austria. In 1989, then Chancellor Franz Vranitzky personally threatened Irving with immediate arrest if he ever showed his face in Austria again. But the stubborn Hitler apologist saw Vranitzky's threat as an invitation to return to Austria as quickly as possible. "I come from a family of officers," he growls from behind the plate glass, "we march towards cannon fire." But he did make a mistake when it came to picking suitable shoes. Prisoners are allowed to walk in the prison yard every day, but Irving has, "unfortunately, only one pair of very expensive shoes," and they're slowly falling apart.

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http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,395810,00.html