Following the failure of Focus , in September 1983 , Irving for the first time attended a conference of the IHR . Van Pelt has argued that , with the failure of Irving 's political career , he felt freer to associate with Holocaust deniers . At the conference , Irving did not deny the Holocaust , but did appear happy to share the stage with Robert Faurisson and Judge Wilhelm Stäglich , and claimed to be impressed with the allegations of Friedrich Berg that mass murder using diesel gas fumes at the Operation Reinhard death camps was impossible . At that conference , Irving repeated his claims that Hitler was ignorant of the Holocaust because he was " so busy being a soldier " . In a speech at that conference , Irving stated : " Is n't it right for Tel Aviv to claim now that David Irving is talking nonsense and '' of course '' Adolf Hitler must have known about what was going in Auschwitz and Treblinka , and then in the same breath to claim that , '' of course '' our beloved Mr. Begin did n't know what was going on in Sabra and Chatilla " . During the same speech , Irving proclaimed Hitler to be the " biggest friend the Jews had in the Third Reich " . In the same speech , Irving stated that he operated in such a way as to bring himself maximum publicity . Irving stated that : " I have at home ... a filing cabinet full of documents which I do n't issue all at once . I keep them : I issue them a bit at a time . When I think my name has n't been in the newspapers for several weeks , well , then I ring them up and I phone them and I say : ' What about this one , then ? ' " A major theme of Irving 's writings from the 1980s was his belief that it had been a great blunder on the part of Britain to declare war on Germany in 1939 , and that ever since then and as a result of that decision , Britain had slipped into an unstoppable decline . Irving also took the view that Hitler often tried to help the Jews of Europe . In a June 1992 interview with '' The Daily Telegraph '' , Irving claimed to have heard from Hitler 's naval adjutant that the '' Führer '' had told him that he could not marry because Germany was " his bride " . Irving then claimed to have asked the naval adjutant when Hitler made that remark , and upon hearing that the date was 24 March 1938 , Irving stated in response " Herr Admiral , at that moment I was being born " . Irving used this alleged incident to argue that there was some sort of mystical connection between himself and Hitler
Sabra and Chatilla
Sabra and Shatila massacre
David Irving