Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day008.41
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20

   Q.   I beg your pardon, April 1988.  When did you first make an
        attempt to look at any of the archive documents, whether
        in Auschwitz or in Moscow?

.          P-182



   A.   I cannot tell you off the top of my head, but certainly,
        when I went to the national archives in Washington,
        I would have read more intensively in the papers of
        Heinrich Himmler or the SS and, when I went to any other
        places, for example the Public Record Office, I started
        also paying more attention to Auschwitz at that time.
   Q.   When was that?
   A.   Well, again I cannot, I have been to the Public Record
        Office in London probably 50 or 100 times.
   Q.   You were going in August '89 I think, '88, and you said,
        I do not know what this is from, this is a speech in
        Toronto:
                  "I am going to visit in this four-month swing
        around the entire United States, East Coast and West
        Coast, probably about 40 different Government and private
        archives on various projects, and everywhere I go I am
        looking into the archives to see what they have got on
        Auschwitz."
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Yes.  Now what was to prevent you making a similar trip to
        Poland at that time?
   A.   1988?
   Q.   In 1988.
   A.   It was behind the Iron Curtain.
   Q.   So what?
   A.   The Iron Curtain had not come down.

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   Q.   Humble Mr Pressac got there in '82, '83.  Professor van
        van Pelt was there in 1990.
   A.   Yes, but you seem to forget I am not a Holocaust
        historian.  I have to keep on reminding you of this.  I am
        an historian of the top Nazis.  I write about Goring and
        Hitler and Rommel and Hess.  To do that you do not have to
        go to Auschwitz.  I read Professor van Pelt's book with
        enormous interest as a book.  One of the first books I
        read from cover to cover.
   Q.   That is where I thought we were going to get to.  So the
        fact that in due course you would have been unable to go
        to Auschwitz because of a ban, is quite beside the point.
        You never had any intention of doing so, did you?
   A.   I never had any need to go there.  I am not a Holocaust
        historian for the hundredth time.
   Q.   Then, may I suggest, that it was wholly improper of you to
        give Leuchter such a high profile, given your supposed
        position as an historian of repute?
   A.   I do not think so.  You say "high profile", how many lines
        of each speech did I deliver?  Shall I do a calculation
        tonight of how many per cent, what fraction of 1 per cent
        of my speeches concern Mr Leuchter over the last ten
        years?  I would suggest it is less than 1 per cent.  You
        have read out just the lines dealing with him.
   Q.   No, Mr Irving.
   A.   His Lordship has in front of him the entire bundle and he

.          P-184



        can see how very low he barked on my horizon.
   Q.   No, Mr Irving, it will not do.  You actually went to the
        trouble of publishing your own glossy version of the
        Leuchter report nine months, no more, over a year after
        the Zundel trial, and of announcing its birth to the world
        with a press conference?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Well, what is the point of that?
   A.   I think it produced an extremely valuable stimulus to the
        entire research community.  Without the Leuchter report
        there would have been none of these in depth
        investigations in archeological tests and searches and so
        on.  It has been an extremely useful report in that
        respect.  That is why I said in the introduction, I said
        the ball is now in their court.  It is very much intended
        as stimulus to further research.
   Q.   Without your having taken the least trouble to investigate
        the question yourself?
   A.   I am a publisher in this respect.
   Q.   Oh, in this guise you are a publisher.  You are only an
        historian when it comes to Adolf Hitler and that sort of
        thing, is that right?
   A.   I do not think I actually said that.  Certainly you asked
        me about the Leuchter report and I acted as the
        publisher.  I was not the author.  You have seen the
        letters in which I say I did not write a single line of

.          P-185

        it, except the introduction.  I merely provided the
        publishing facilities.
   MR RAMPTON:  My Lord, I do not think I can usefully ask any
        more questions in relation to Auschwitz at all, unless
        I am told that I must.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, I think that is right.
   MR RAMPTON:  I really do.  I will come back now finally to
        where I started I think last week.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  My only hesitation is, and it is a problem
        because Mr Irving is in person, that he plainly is
        wanting, as I understand it, to say there are various
        later developments post Leuchter which confirmed in his
        original conclusion that Leuchter was really a dramatic
        new piece of evidence which really did clinch the argument
        against the Holocaust affirmers, as it were.  Do you want
        to leave that hanging in the air until re-examination?
        You do not have to ask any questions, but there is
        something to be said for seeing ----
   MR RAMPTON:  About the new evidence?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.
   MR RAMPTON:  I have a question about the new evidence, because
        he mentioned, I think, really only one specifically which
        was a report by somebody called I think Germer Rudolf?
   A.   The Rudolf report.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It was not only that, but certainly that was
        one of the things.

.          P-186



   MR RAMPTON:  What else is there, Mr Irving?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Something in 1945, Auschwitz.
   MR RAMPTON:  45 was the Polish report we looked at.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am not sure it was.
   A.   There was no another Polish after the Leuchter report.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, in 1945.
   A.   No,  in 1989.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Was there not another one in 1945 that you
        are relying on.
   MR RAMPTON:  No, the only 1945 report is the report your
        Lordship has seen.  There was a preliminary report by the
        forensic people in about 1991 in response to Leuchter.  It
        was unsatisfactory.  They redid it under Professor
        Markovic's aegis and that produced positive results.
   A.   The first one was politically incorrect, so they put it
        away in the safe and they produced a new version.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You say that.  When are you proposing to deal
        with that?
   A.   My Lord I am going to have to ask for instructions from
        your Lordship as to how I can put this material.  I was
        proposing to do this kind of thing in the -- I was going
        to put these documents to the experts and I thought that
        would be an appropriate way of doing it.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am not disagreeing about that, but you
        obviously want to say something on these topics.
   A.   I certainly do not like leaving it.

.          P-187



   Q.   I am content to deal with it that way.
   MR RAMPTON:  I am too. The only thing I am not content about,
        since I have finished maybe I can say this now, I am not
        content about is (A) I have not had time and nor, I dare
        say, has Professor van Pelt who has been sitting in court,
        to review the new material we were given this morning; and
        (B) I have never seen the Rudolf report because it is not
        in Mr Irving discovery.
   A.   Yes, it is.
   Q.   I am told it is not.
   A.   If it is not then I humbly apologise.  It certainly should
        have been, and I will provide copies immediately.
   MR RAMPTON:  Miss Rogers is the most reliable person in the
        world when it comes to these matters and she says it is
        not.  So I am going to rely on her for the moment.
   A.   I will eat humble pie today provided ----
   MR RAMPTON:  If reliance is to be placed on it then we need
        time to look at it.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Professor van Pelt needs time particularly
        because he will be the one who has to deal with it.  How
        easy would it be for you to dig it out?
   A.   I can have it couriered around this afternoon.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That would be helpful.  I think he ought to
        have it.
   MR RAMPTON:  My Lord, that leads to my final enquiry of your
        Lordship.  Other things being equal I would want Professor

.          P-188



        van Pelt to go into the witness box sometime tomorrow, but
        plainly if he does Mr Irving must keep off the new
        material until Professor van Pelt has had a chance --- -
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  He may have time because Mr Irving has just
        said he is going to be able to get it round this afternoon.
   A.   My Lord, there are two things.  The Rudolf report is one
        and also on your Lordship's instructions I have allowed
        the Defence sight of an expert critique I received from an
        architect on his report.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Is that what you gave me this morning?
   A.   It is what I gave your Lordship this morning, yes.
   MR RAMPTON:  It has no name on it.
   A.   You are not entitled to this man's name, with respect.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am afraid that is a matter for me and I do
        not at the moment understand why you say that.
   A.   This man is obviously in a leading position in the world
        of architecture and he is, frankly, frightened because he
        knows what the people backing the Defendants in this
        action are capable of doing to people of stature.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Hang on, are you proposing to call him to
        give evidence?
   A.   No, I am not.  He is purely a person who has advised me in
        private on some of the technical matters, the
        architectural matters, which are involved in this case, as
        the nature of correspondence.

.          P-189



   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Then, subject to Mr Rampton, I think you can
        put the propositions contained in whichever document you
        are talking about, because I do not think I have seen it,
        and I do not think there is any reason why I should compel
        his identity to be disclosed.
   MR RAMPTON:  Absolutely not.  As I now understand it, all
        I think has happened is that we have been given a brief
        for cross-examination.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, which is what you asked for and you have
        now got it.
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes.  I do not think Mr Irving is asking your
        Lordship to receive it as evidence, because you cannot do
        that.
   A.   No, it is not, but your Lordship did say that this kind of
        thing was disclosable to the Defendants.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am bound to say I was under a slight
        misapprehension.  I thought you were talking about
        material that was going to be led by you through the mouth
        of an expert witness.  If I had known it was simply -- --
   A.   It is more of the nature of correspondence between
        ourselves.
   Q.   --- simply material for you to cross-examine on, I think I
        would not have had said you had to hand it over.
   A.   We have no reason not to show it to them.  It is just that
        unfortunately he have now been obliged to disclose some of
        our cards.

.          P-190

   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think there may have been a misunderstanding.
   MR RAMPTON:  I misunderstood.  I thought what we were being
        given was some sort of expert's report.  As it is not so,
        may I in front of Mr Irving endorse what your Lordship
        said.  I do not want to see anything which has not been
        tendered in evidence or otherwise relied on.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You hear that, Mr Irving?
   A.   Yes.
   MR RAMPTON:  My Lord, with luck Professor van Pelt can give
        evidence tomorrow.  He is here.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I follow that.  Then you are going to resume
        again afterwards.
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes, I am then going back to Irving stuff.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Shall we have the discussion tomorrow about
        the future programme?  I suspect you would rather do that
        then than now.  Mr Irving has had a long day just as you
        have.
   MR RAMPTON:  I need to take instructions.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is what I thought, yes.  So I think we
        will adjourn a little earlier, unless there is anything
        else that can usefully be covered.
(The witness stood down)
(The Court adjourned until the following day)

.          P-191

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