Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day028.09
Last-Modified: 2000/07/25

   Q.   It is complicated and I am not going to read it all out.
        I want you to run your eye down it and I will ask you in
        advance the questions I am going to ask.  Is it evident
        from at that my daughter Paloma was with me on this tour
        of Hamburg, tour of Germany, and that she was with me in
        the car and that she came with me to the function?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   And that I spoke later that evening at another function to
        university students?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  And that you knew that Michael Kuhnen was

.          P-79



        going to be present.
   MR IRVING:  I beg your pardon?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  And that you knew that Michael Kuhnen was
        going to be present.
   MR IRVING:  Did I say that I would not come if he was going to
        be present, that this has caused problems?  This evoked
        consternation and I said I was not going to come.  The
        question I am going to ask you is, is there any evidence
        from the diary entry that I had Michael Kuhnen in the car
        with me and would I not have mentioned it?
   A.   In the car?
   Q.   In my car, yes.
   A.   I did not know.
   Q.   So you will accept, will you, that he was not with me and
        I did not arrive with him?
   A.   No, it is just the diary.
   Q.   Will you accept once more that I have never met Michael
        Kuhnen knowingly in my life?
   A.   As a responsible scientist I have to at least notify that
        there are other hints and eyewitnesses, so to speak, who
        say differently.
   Q.   You have one, Michael Schmidt, you are familiar source,
        Michael Schmidt?
   A.   Yes, it is a very important source, because he is one of
        the few who is not in the right-wing camp, and could
        manage it for a time of some years to interact with them

.          P-80



        and even film it, and all the video material is from him.
        So of course it is an important source.  It is a worldwide
        important source for this kind of camp.
   Q.   But contrasting, shall we say, the postwar memoirs of
        Michael Schmidt, this left-wing journalist on the one
        hand, and his recollection that he seemed to think that
        I arrive with Michael Kuhnen with my diary which shows
        clearly that I am with my daughter and there is no
        reference to Michael Kuhnen arriving with me at all, or
        even being with me, in fact there is no reason why he
        would have been because I came from a totally different
        part of Germany, you have to admit that, on balance of
        probabilities, it is unlikely?
   A.   I cannot say yes or no to that.  I read your diary.  I was
        very cautious, but I have to mention that there are other,
        you know, eyewitnesses of that meeting.
   Q.   One?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Yes.  Can I take you now to 5.3.16?  We have moved on from
        Michael Kuhnen.  One of your other sources, a Miss
        Benedict, is it, or Mrs Benedict?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Says that I received applause from the older members of
        the audiences, especially SS veterans.  How on earth does
        she know they were SS veterans?
   A.   She stated so.

.          P-81



   Q.   Is this not indicative of the kind of things your sources
        are writing?  Were they in uniform?  Did they hold up
        party cards?
   A.   I quote this person and I do not know more.
   Q.   Are you not critical about the sources you use when you
        write these reports?
   A.   Oh, yes I am very, and Benedict is one of the sources
        I met often, and she is one of those who knew the scene as
        intense and differentiated as, for example, Wagner.  The
        problem is with these sources of course ----
   Q.   Is she one of your social scientists that you refer to?
   A.   Excuse me?
   Q.   Is she one of your social scientists you refer to as being
        a reliable source?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   I thought so.
   A.   It is more out of an observational perspective, and she is
        one of the persons out of East Germany who knew the scene
        from before '89.  So she knew the persons they interacted
        in the definitive phase between '85 and '90.  So she is a
        very reasonable source.
   Q.   Paragraph 5.2 ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I thought we had got beyond that.
   MR IRVING:  We had got beyond that and I was just going to
        reassure myself once again, my Lord, this is headed "OPC
        Observations", that paragraph, it is on page 58, your

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        Lordship is paying little heed to OPC observations
        I trust.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well ----
   MR IRVING:  That is the German Office of the Protection of the
        Constitution.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I follow that.  We went through this
        yesterday and it seems to me I make up my mind about these
        organizations on the basis of what Professor Funke tells me.
   MR IRVING:  Yes.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  And not what the OPC says.
   MR IRVING:  We did have a discussion about it yesterday, and
        the impression I got was that your Lordship would attach
        little weight to what these ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What I said yesterday was exactly what I said
        just now.
   MR IRVING:  I will have to read transcript.  5.3.2, Mr Zundel,
        footnote 198, there is a reference to Zundel's Maulkorb
        which is a ----
   A.   598?
   Q.   I am sorry, footnote 198.  There is a reference to a
        Maulkorb having been put on Zundel, a dog, what is the
        word for it ----
   A.   I did not see it.
   Q.   It is probably not important then.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is a classic example of what I did invite

.          P-83



        you not to do, which is to go to some rather obscure
        footnote and completely fail to put your case in relation
        to your association or otherwise with Mr Zundel.
        I thought you accepted that Zundel was somebody with whom
        you had a close association?
   MR IRVING:  Yes, indeed, but it is just a trivial point I was
        just going to ask him if he knew why this Maulkorb, this
        gag, had been applied on Zundel, was it just a legal gag.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  If it is a trivial point let us, please, not
        bother with it.
   MR IRVING:  Yes.  5.3.26, please, this is Mr Althans who is
        organizing my tour for me in Dresden and elsewhere.  It
        states that the turnover did not apply, the Umsatz
        entfallt.  Do you know why that was?  Are you familiar
        from the correspondence that I had agreed to donate the
        entire proceedings for the rebuilding of the Church of our
        Lady in Dresden?
   A.   So far as I recall, yes.
   Q.   Yes.  So there is nothing sinister about that particular
        arrangement?
   A.   No, it seems not.
   Q.   Paragraph 5.3.7, I am sorry my numbering has gone slightly
        astray, 5.3.7, you have: "In his report on Irving's court
        appearance", and you give as a footnote there 218.  Is the
        source you give for that ----
   A.   Where is 218?

.          P-84



   Q.   Footnote 218, would I be right in describing that book
        that you are using there as being an anti-fascist kind of source?
   A.   Say it again?  Where you are, please?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We have now gone back to paragraph 5.3.7.
   MR IRVING:  Footnote 218 about Karl Philipp?
   A.   5.3.7.
   Q.   I am just commenting on your evidently using what I would
        call anti-fascist sources.  It is footnote 218.  The
        question is purely, is that book you quote there what you
        would call an anti-fascist source?
   A.   Exactly.
   Q.   Yes.  You accept such sources quite uncritically, do you?
   A.   I stated yesterday that I do it for a special purpose in a
        special situation where these sources seem to be very
        valid.  Of course I have to do it in the case of the
        Michael Schmidt video, and this is a kind of rewriting of
        the whole video material Michael Schmidt put to these
        people.  That is why, otherwise I would not, because
        I have to check again and again, but I could check,
        especially these sources, by seeing the videos and seeing
        what it means and what not.
   Q.   Would it not have been preferable to have used the
        original sources rather than other people's ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving, are you challenging the
        correctness of what Mr Philipp wrote, because if you are

.          P-85



        not, why are we spending a long time discussing whether
        the source for it is reliable?
   MR IRVING:  We will spend no further time.  Paragraph 5.3.19,
        Professor Funke.  We are now on page 66.  We are back at
        the Moers meeting?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   At 5.3.17 before that, you describe the speech I made at
        Moers as being demagogic or I describe it as being demagogic?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Do you object, demagogic, if you remember the little
        speech I made at the Leuchter Congress, was that
        demagogic, although all I was saying was that I am not
        allowed to speak?
   A.   It refers to your diary.
   Q.   Yes, but, I mean, there is nothing reprehensible about
        making a demagogic speech inherently or is there?
   A.   Oh, yes.
   Q.   All right.
   A.   My perception of demagogic is not so good as yours.
   Q.   5.3.19, we are now actually going on to the content of the
        Moers speech?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   The Moers speech was organized by Mr Althans, was it?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   And here I am quoted as saying by the transcript: "Then

.          P-86



        I believed these gentlemen [German historians] who said
        that something happened at Auschwitz.  Now I no longer
        believe this story at all.  Today I say the following:
        there were no gassings in Auschwitz".  Stop there, do you
        know the difference between Auschwitz and Birkenhau?
   A.   Yes, of course.
   Q.   Have you read either in these court documents or before or
        since an article published in L'Expresse, a French news
        magazine of repute, in January 1995 which established that
        the gas chamber at Auschwitz which is shown to the
        tourists is fake and that they admit it?
   A.   Give me the evidence, but it was debated very much in this court.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving, we have been through that several
        times.  It has nothing to do with this witness's evidence.
   MR IRVING:  It is my way just of reminding the court.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, please accept that I remember what you
        say about the dummies at Dachau and Auschwitz.
   MR IRVING:  The court did interrupt me when I was trying
        to cross-examine van Pelt about this matter.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Only because you had previously
        cross-examined him about it.  So don't let us spend time
        with Professor Funke on it.
   MR IRVING:  The topics mentioned in paragraph 5.3.23?
   A.   Yes.

.          P-87



   Q.   It is over the page actually, at the top of page 68, there
        are several topics mentioned there, are any of those
        topics Holocaust denial or anti-Semitism or are they just
        plain revisionism?
   A.   I just have to read the sentence.  No, it seems not.
   Q.   This is Mr Althans who was organizing this particular tour
        with these topics?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Page 69, half way down the page, the letter was headed
        with a quote from Irving, the question is what evidence do
        you have that there was ever such a quote from me?
   A.   To what line are you referring to, please?
   Q.   Effectively, the second half of that page beginning with
         "The letter was headed"?
   A.   69?  Yes, I have it.
   Q.   This is a letter issued by some organization with an
        invitation to a speech by me and then it is headed with
        what is said to be a quotation from me?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You are saying that is something you never said?
   MR IRVING:  That is what I am putting to this witness, my Lord,
        yes.  Have you seen any evidence that that quotation
        actually comes from anything I wrote or said?
   A.   I know that to a degree you referred to that kind of
        ideas, that is quoted there, that I know by the bundle of
        excerpts on anti-Semitism that Mr Rampton brought to the

.          P-88



        court.  Yes.  But I do not know now, I have to look at the
        bundles to see.
   Q.   Yes.  I do not want to dwell too long on organizations,
        but there are two or three bodies that you mentioned in
        that paragraph, 5.3.27, are any of them banned or
        right-wing extremists to your knowledge?
   A.   5.3.27?
   Q.   Yes.  The Arbeitskreis Deutsche Wahrheit or the
        Forderverein Junges Deutschland?
   A.   I have to look up, I do not know.
   Q.   Have you heard of them before?
   A.   Not at that point, not at that point, it seems to, not at
        that point in time.

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