Irving, 67, who has said he will plead guilty to charges of Holocaust denial, has been receiving as many as 200 letters a week from admirers since his arrest last November. The authorities are worried that many will turn up to support him.

There are fears of violence if rival groups stage counter-demonstrations. The Austrian media reported last week that a Holocaust survivor would fly in from Israel, providing a figure around whom the historian’s opponents could rally.

“I survived the Holocaust, I’ll also endure David Irving,” the man, who has not been named, told Der Kurier, the Austrian newspaper.

The case has received so much international attention that prohibition of filming and taking photographs in court has been waived. At least 50 television crews are expected.

The charges against Irving relate to speeches he gave in 1989 at far-right meetings in Vienna and Leoben in which he allegedly disputed the existence of Nazi gas chambers. He was charged the same year with denying the Holocaust, which carries a penalty of up to 10 years under Austrian law, but was not arrested until last year on his way to a meeting of a right-wing group.

Irving has been held in custody after bail was refused. He says he has used his time behind bars to write his memoirs, 20 pages a day.

He also came across some of his own works in the prison library, reportedly signing copies for guards. An inventory was immediately ordered of all other prison library books across the country to make sure his works were removed.

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