Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day027.02
Last-Modified: 2000/07/25

   Q.   My Lord, Professor Funke's English is not quite as good as
        Dr Longerich's was.  The subject with which he is dealing
        is in some senses quite subtle and in other senses quite
        technical.  I am going to invite him at any stage, if he
        feels uncomfortable in English, to go into German.  He
        must go slowly because otherwise the interpreter will not
        be able to keep up.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.

.          P-9



   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  If you can manage in English, Professor, it
        makes life easier.
   A.   I try my best.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  And a bit quicker but, if you feel
        difficulties, then have resort to the interpreter.
   A.   Thank you.
   MR RAMPTON:  Professor Funke, could you please be given your
        report?  Have you got your report there?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   At the back of your report there are two appendices.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Could you go to the appendix two, please?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Which you have entitled "Biographies".  Have you got the
        appendix there?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   We do not need the actual report, I hope, at all, at any
        rate as far as I am concerned.  You heard what I said to
        his Lordship before you were sworn to give evidence, that
        I am going to go through some of the names in this
        appendix and ask you who they are and what they stand
        for, what their ideologies and policies are.  Do you
        remember my saying that?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   I am going also to ask you in respect of each person
        whether you are able to give us in summary form an account

.          P-10



        of their contacts with Mr Irving.  Can I first take a man
        who is not on this list, called Michael Kuhnen?  Who is or
        was Michael Kuhnen?
   A.   Michael Kuhnen was one of the leading neo-Nazi activists
        in the 70s, throughout the 80s, up to April of '91, when
        he died.  He was up to renew the NSDAP of the period of
         '33  to '45.
   Q.   What we now call the Nazi party?
   A.   Right.  So he did a lot together with others
        internationally and nationally, to ask for relegalization
        of this Party.  Furthermore, he referred to special groups
        within the Nazi regime, that is the Sturmabteilung, the
        stormtroopers, a more street violence orientated
        perception of what the new Nazis, the neo-Nazis, the
        neo-National Socialists should do.  Finally, I want to add
        that he asked for a second revolution in that sense, so to
        overflow the liberal democracy.  He agitated very much
        against Jews, very anti-Semitic, he asked for pure Aryan
        race based state.
   Q.   Give me again the year that he died?
   A.   April 91.
   Q.   April 91.  Amongst the neo-Nazi or far right groups now in
        Germany, are there any that can be described as Herr
        Kuhnen's direct heirs or successors?
   A.   There are some, especially I have to say there is a person
        called Christian Worch and there is another person called

.          P-11



        Gottfried Kussel from Austria, and they both have close
        links to NSDAPAO, person Gary Lauck from the United
        States.  These are the three most important -- there are
        others around this camp, like Thomas Wulf from Hamburg,
        Christian Worch is from Hamburg, Uschi Worch from Hamburg.
   Q.   Is that Mrs Worch? Is that Frau Worch?
   A.   Yes.
   MR IRVING:  My Lord, would it be helpful if the witness at each
        stage indicated whether it is going to be alleged I had
        any contact with these names.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think that is stage 2.
   MR RAMPTON:  Be patient, please.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, stage 2, do not worry.  We will get to that.
   MR RAMPTON:  Can you say whether a man called Ewald Althans is
        in this grouping or not?
   A.   Yes, he is, but he did not found with the others one of
        these groupings in the 70s and the 80s was a group called
        ANSNA, action front of national socialists, and so forth,
        and then a group that is of importance for the period in
        the 80s and early 90s called Gesinnungsgemeinschaft, a
        group of the like-minded of the new front.
   Q.   Who do we find in that -- have we got an abbreviation for
        that because I cannot say it each time?
   A.   We can call them Gesinnungsgemeinschaft.
   Q.   All right.  I will try.  Gesinnungsgemeinschaft.

.          P-12



   A.   We can call them also it is done sometimes in the social
        scientists reports "the Kuhnen crew".
   Q.   Right, who nowadays is in the Kuhnen crew?
   A.   Nowadays?
   Q.   Yes-- no, go back to the time when Kuhnen died, who do we
        find in the ----
   A.   At that time it was Christian Worch, it was Althans, it
        was Uschi Worch.  So far I see at the side lines also
        Ingrid Weckert, Gottfried Kussel, Thomas Wulf, and others.
   Q.   Right, now taking them in turn, or, first, have they
        inherited, those people, the same kind of neo-Nazi
        ideology, particularly in relation to anti-Semitism, that
        was propounded by Kuhnen before he died?
   A.   They did not change the course of their ideas, as far as
        they are stated publicly.  There are tactical, you know,
        changes but of lower degree.  If I may add, nowadays means
        this year and some of them are still active like the
        Christian Worch near to the NPD extreme right-wing
        extremist party.  That in itself changed in the course of
        the 90s to a more radical strategy.
   Q.   Can we stay at the moment, please, in the early 90s at and
        around the time and immediately after the time of Kuhnen's
        death?  At what date in Germany did Holocaust denial
        become illegal?
   A.   There were in the middle of the '80s several laws set
        through the parliament that this is a kind of incitement

.          P-13



        of racial hatred and defamation of survivors and killed
        people.  So in the middle of the '80s, there was a
        strikening, a sharpening of this kind of law that this is
        forbidden and again in '94, and so there was again renewal
        of this, of this law.
   Q.   Yes, now among those people that you have mentioned --
        I am going to take them in turn -- you have had access,
        have you not, to Mr Irving's correspondence, his diary and
        material of that kind, have you not?
   A.   Yes, I did.
   Q.   First, may I take Mr Kuhnen who is now dead?  Did ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Rampton, I am so sorry to interrupt.  For
        the transcribers' benefit, shall we just spell the names
        that we are really concerned with?
   MR RAMPTON:  K-U-H-N-E-N.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Thank you.
   MR RAMPTON:  "Michael".  Can you tell us whether or not
        Mr Irving had any contact with Michael Kuhnen and, if so,
        to what extent?
   A.   So far I see, but you know better, to a limited degree he
        saw him once, at least -- I have to be very precise --
        they were at the same meetings.
   Q.   Right.
   A.   In 1990 and so far I recall in '90 -- no, in '90,
        especially in '90, and in late '89.  They were at the same
        meetings.

.          P-14



   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  How many meetings?
   A.   At least two I recall in Hagnau and on the 21st April
        of '90 and -- no, this is it, yes.
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes.
   MR IRVING:  Could the witness be specific about what he
means
        by being at the same meetings?  Does he mean that
        Mr Kuhnen was in the audience or on the platform next
to
        me?
   MR RAMPTON:  That is a good question.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is a fair question, yes.
   A.   Exactly.  He was in the audience and ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Sorry, who was in the audience?  Mr
Irving
        was in the audience or Mr Kuhnen was in the audience?
   A.   Excuse me.
   Q.   It is quite important which actually?
   A.   Mr Kuhnen was in the audience and Mr Irving spoke in
the,
        you know, a Congress [German] in Munich at the 21st
        April '90.
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes, then what about Ewald Althans?
   A.   This is very different.  Mr Irving had close contacts
----
   Q.   Pause, sorry, I forgot.  Althans is A-L-T-H-A-N-S.
Ewald
        is E-W-A-L-D.  Sorry.
   MR IRVING:  Mr Rampton, most of the names are on the list
that
        I have given to the transcriber.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I did not realize that.
   MR IRVING:  She will be able to find them eventually, but
they

.          P-15



        are in the sequence of my questions rather than your
        questions.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is very helpful, Mr Irving.
   MR RAMPTON:  Tell us now about the relationship, if there
is
        one, between Mr Althans and Mr Irving, Professor.
   A.   If I may say so, it is a very close relationship, so
far
        I got it from the diaries.  Of course, this is a
limited
        source, but also by the disclosures and by other
social
        scientists, researchers.  Althans was very active in
that
        period of time as a kind of mediator of the Zundel, of
the
        Ernst Zundel, one of the leading revisionists, and he
was
        a kind of pupil, if I may say so, of the late Otto
Ernst
        Remer, one of the so-called heroes of the neo-Nazi
scene.
   MR RAMPTON:  If I hold my hand up, can you pause because it
        means that something you have said has prompted
another
        question?  We will come back to Althans in a moment.
   A.   OK.  I will restrict myself.  Excuse me.
   Q.   No, only if I hold my hand up otherwise you continue.
   A.   I will look at you.
   Q.   Can you just tell us a little bit about is it Otto
Ernst
        Remer?
   A.   Otto Ernst Remer, right.
   Q.   Who was he?  Is he still alive?
   A.   No, he died in the middle, in the later '90s.
   Q.   Tell us first who he was.
   A.   He is perceived as one of the heroes of the crushing
down

.          P-16



        of the coup attempt of the resistance movement during
the
        Nazi period in 20th July 1944.  He was in one of the
        Berlin battalions to crush the coup d'etat attempt
down
        and since then, after '45, he was perceived.
   Q.   What rank in the Army did he hold at the time when he
        crushed the 20th July plot?
   A.   So far I recall, I am not quite sure, I have to look
it
        up, a Major.  That is a kind of middle high range
below
        the General level.
   Q.   Yes, we know what a Major is, I think.  It is roughly
the
        same, I imagine, in Germany.  What rank did he achieve
        after he had crushed the coup?
   A.   He got up, but I cannot recall to what degree.
   Q.   Sorry, I should not have interrupted you.  You
continue
        with his place, please in this scenario which you are
        painting for us.
   A.   So maybe I should say two sentences to Remer to finish
        this ----
   Q.   Yes, then we will go back to Althans?
   A.   --- for that period of time.  He was then very active
in
        one of the early neo-Nazi circles, after '45.  So he
was
        with founder of the Sozialistische
        Reichspartei -- cofounder, excuse me, of the Socialist
        Reichs Party, I would say, and these were clear cut
people
        who tried to renew National Socialism.  If you may
imagine
        that at that time there was a lot of applause in parts
of

.          P-17



        the population in Germany, and because of that but
also
        by, you know, convincing value reasons, this party was
        forbidden in '52.
                  So after that the famous Fritz Bauer who did
the
        Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt had a court from the
state
        side against court ----
   Q.   Action?
   A.   --- procedure against Remer statements in the early
'50s.
        So there was really something to him.  Then he stayed
        course, if I may say so, throughout the '50, '60s,
'70s
        and got some resonance again in the '80s and
especially in
        the '90s with a very harsh, I would say, neo-Nazi
course
        of the so-called Remer Depechert(?).  This is a little
        magazine, kind of magazine.
   Q.   You told us that in some sense Althans was a protege of Remer?
   A.   Right.
   Q.   How exactly did that happen and what does it mean?
   A.   As a young boy, Althans is in the '30s still, of 14 or 16,
        he joined Remer and got very intense lessons by Remer's
        convictions, and he referred himself in several
        statements, I mean Althans referred himself to this Remer
        like convictions and he said that they came from him to a degree.

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