Alternative News & Information: 'Hitler? He was good in parts'

The discredited right-wing historian David Irving was arrested in Austria last year for denying the Holocaust and faces trial next month. From his Viennese prison, he gives his first interview to German author and academic Malte Herwig, who asks if arrogance is at the heart of Irving's desire for outrage - or something more sinister. (...) Irving is referring to Austria's Verbotsgesetz, a constitutional law dating back to 1945 which not only bans National Socialist or neo-Nazi organisations but makes incitement to neo-Nazi activity and the glorification or praise of National Socialist ideology illegal. It also prohibits public denial, belittlement, approval, or justification of National Socialist crimes, including the Holocaust. While other countries such as Germany and Poland have anti-Nazi laws too, Austria's Verbotsgesetz is particularly strict, carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years. With an average of 25 convictions each year, it is also enforced vigorously by the judiciary. In 1989 the Austrian public prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for Irving, who had claimed during lectures in Vienna and Leoben that the 'gas chambers in Auschwitz never existed'.