Progress Report: An Important Move
and a Successful Meeting
Institute for Historical Review
August 2009
This has been a busy and productive summer for the IHR.
In July operations were moved to a less expensive and more professional office-warehouse property a few miles from the quarters in southern California that the IHR had occupied for 15 years. This important step will greatly improve the Institute’s cost-effectiveness and better secure its future.
This move took a lot of time, money and hard work. For example, it meant sorting, packing and hauling the IHR’s large inventory, as well as the big research and reference library, and the large archive and document collection. It also meant hauling file cabinets, tables, book cases, desks and many other furniture items, and dismantling and re-installing a lot of shelving.
Although the move was disruptive, the staff was able to continue most routine operations during the transition, including processing of orders, conducting radio interviews, and so forth.
Also this summer, Mark Weber addressed an appreciative audience at a spirited meeting in Vancouver, Canada. The July 2 event was organized by veteran free speech activist Paul Fromm, director of the Canadian Association for Free Expression. Over the years, the IHR director has spoken at several meetings hosted by Fromm, and Fromm has been welcomed as a speaker at IHR events in the US.
A high point of the summer was the IHR meeting on July 25, which was a rousing success. In fact, a number of attendees expressed the view that this was the most spirited and upbeat IHR event in years. (A report on the meeting, with photos, is posted here.) Among the more than 60 men and women who filled the hotel conference room in southern California were engineers, businessmen, attorneys, writers, students, community activists and educators, as well as an unusually large number of younger people.
David Irving, speaking with his characteristic verve and mastery of detail, gave a memorable “real history” lecture based on a careful study of many hundreds of secret German radio and teletype messages intercepted by the British during World War II.
Mark Weber’s address (posted here) began with a brief report on the IHR’s work in recent months. The IHR director made a point of thanking each of the nine local men and women who generously volunteered time and labor to help with the move to new offices.
Most of Weber’s address was devoted to reviewing the destruction, looting, starvation, rape, “ethnic cleansing”, and mass killing imposed on vanquished Germans by the victorious Allies after the official end of fighting in 1945 — a horrible chapter of history in which some three million Germans died unnecessarily: about two million civilians, mostly women, children and elderly, and about one million prisoners of war. This “unknown holocaust” of non-Jews, said Weber, is essentially ignored in our society not because the facts are disputed or unknown, but rather because this reality does not fit well with the Judeo-centric view of history that is all but obligatory in today’s America.
During these summer months, the IHR has — as usual — been carrying on its regular work. Each and every week, for example, the IHR mails out many books, CDs, DVDs, audio and video tapes, flyers, and booklets. In fact, month by month, the IHR distributes more items, and on a wider range of topics, than any similar center or organization. No similar group — certainly none with a comparably modest budget and staff — comes close to matching the IHR’s level of outreach and distribution.