Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day028.12
Last-Modified: 2000/07/25

   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, Mr Irving.
   MR IRVING:  Thank you, my Lord.  I asked the defence to show me
        the Staglich letter on which they are going to rely and
        they refused.  They said they would have it translated.
   MR RAMPTON:  No, I have not had it translated.  It is in the
        original German in Mr Irving's diary.  We had but the one
        copy in court.  We have more now if Mr Irving would like
        to have one.

.          P-108



   MR IRVING:  I will show it to the witness. (Same handed).
   A.   Thank you.
   Q.   It begins three lines on the bottom of the page.  Have you
        read it?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   So I just ask you two or three questions based on that
        letter, is there any indication from this letter that
        there had been any meetings between myself and Staglich
        prior to that letter?
   A.   No.
   Q.   Is there any indication that I had written to him?  Is he
        responding to a letter of mine, or is he in fact just
        writing out of the blue to me?
   A.   I do not know if he is writing out of the blue, but he did
        write to you.
   Q.   Does he reference a letter from me there, does he say in
        reply to your letter of?
   A.   Yes, from the 28th of supposedly November.
   MR RAMPTON:  We do not have the rest of the correspondence
        because it has not been disclosed.
   A.   I just referred to the letter and stated here 28th November.
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes, I know, we do not have the earlier
        correspondence.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Professor Funke, can you translate the first
        sentence of the second paragraph of the letter?

.          P-109



   A.   The second paragraph?
   Q.   Yes.
   A.   I was surprised that the facsimile publisher, for you it
        is not a concept still.  It is a very small, very
        aggressive, yes, publication.
   THE INTERPRETER:  Publishing house.
   THE WITNESS:   That absolutely is in our sense according to our lines.
   MR IRVING:  Are you familiar with the facsimile, they publish
        historical facsimiles?
   A.   No, I do not.
   Q.   In other words, we are all interested in facsimiles, we
        are all interested in accurate representations of
        documents?
   A.   Can you say the name of this facsimile firm?
   Q.   I am sorry?
   A.   Can you say the name of this facsimile?
   Q.   It is called facsimile for law?
   A.   OK, good.
   Q.   Will you accept that the reference to being "in our sense"
        is that they are interested in accurate reproductions of
        documents as facsimiles?
   A.   I think it meant -- the "our" means -- the our it is an
        our sense means more than just being interested in
        documentation, then, for example, I would be included in
        that, and why.

.          P-110



   Q.   Yes, in other words, from this correspondence or on this
        letter from me to Dr Staglich, I am replying to him and he
        is asking me for advice on publishing something?
   A.   Yes, and you are replying and saying, OK, it is absolutely
        in the like minded, you know, direction of publishing things.
   Q.   Yes?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  "Sinne" means thought or mind, does it?
   A.   Excuse me?
   Q.   "Sinne" means thought or mind?
   A.   Yes.
   THE INTERPRETER:  Is a whole figure of speech?
   A.   It is in our, you know, joint effort.
   THE INTERPRETER:  "Along our lines" is a better translation.
   MR IRVING:  I will leave that, the Staglich letter, unless your
        Lordship wishes to ask me any further questions.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No.
   MR IRVING:  Go briefly to page 74, which is one more item
        referring to Wahrheit macht frei meeting in Munich?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Paragraph 5.3.40.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   I have a little chicken to break with you, I think we say
        in German, do we not (German spoken)?
   A.   Go ahead.
   Q.   You say some members of the audience wore donkey masks and

.          P-111



        hung notices around their neck?  My Lord, you remember
        the --
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I do.
   MR IRVING:  The text which you put here is "I still believe in
        Holocaust, the ass that I am"; is that the text that was
        actually on the photograph we saw on the video?
   A.   No, it was a reference to it, and I have to admit this, if
        there is not no other showing of 21st August '90, then it
        was a mistake.  But, you know, the sense of it again was,
        as you know, the 78 presentation of this ugly reference to
        the Holocaust denying.
   Q.   But there is a major difference?
   A.   By Boris and Kuhnen.
   Q.   But there is a major difference between the text that you
        have said in your expert report was on that notice and
        what we actually saw with our own eyes?
   A.   Yes, this is a mistake.
   Q.   The source of your mistake is that book in source 285,
        which is one your anti-fascist sources.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Are you any doubt, Professor Funke, that the
        caption which I think was along the lines of, "some people
        believe everything they are told".
   MR IRVING:  That is right.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Are you in any doubt about what that is
        really referring to?
   A.   I am without any doubt that this is referring to this very

.          P-112



        quotation of 1978.
   MR IRVING:  Well, I do not think that is the question his
        Lordship was actually asking.
   A.   Excuse me --
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes, it was.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It was.
   MR IRVING:  I think what his Lordship really wished to ask you
        if I may be so bold and impertinent is.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, you ask what you think I wish to ask.
   MR IRVING:  This is what David Irving would wish to ask, you
        would associate that only with the Holocaust lie, would you?
   A.   -- yes.
   Q.   That particular, yes?
   A.   And you?
   Q.   I was going to thank his Lordship for having opened this
        avenue of question.  Over all the talks that I delivered
        in Germany, speaking to these groups that you consider to
        be right-wing extremists, was the Holocaust ever or the
        only topic that I talked about?
   A.   It was the topic, it was not the only one.
   Q.   Is it fair to say that there was a whole quiverful?  A
        whole package?
   A.   Package, yes.
   Q.   Of topics on which I talked, about 20 different topics?
   A.   Yes.

.          P-113



   Q.   There was the Nuremberg trials --
   A.   Yes, of course.
   Q.   -- Churchill, there was Pearl Harbour, there was a
        whole --
   A.   Dresden.
   Q.   -- Dresden. The expulsion of the Germans from the Eastern
        territories, there was the Eastern frontiers --
   A.   Hungary thing --
   Q.   -- the Hungary uprising.  Rommel, you remember --
   A.   -- Rommel.
   Q.   -- so, what I am going to put to you is the fact that that
        these revisionists lectures, which were held around
        Germany, to which, in fact, that placard refers, refers
        not just to Holocaust revisionism, but to the whole
        revisionism scene, which includes everything about history
        that needing revising?
   A.   Oh no, there is a difference between the revisionist - - to
        revise history and this package of persons, or package of
        literature, that is referring to this revisionism we are
        talking yesterday and today about, that came to the fore
        in the German public, especially since '89 and with you.
   Q.   But you agree that I spoke to these bands of incorrigible
        young Germans, constantly improving their mind on history
        from my viewpoint as a revisionist historian giving them
        an alternative viewpoint on history, not just about the
        Holocaust, but about many other topics?

.          P-114



   A.   It depends on the subject.  You know the debate on
        Dresden, for example, has its own tone and has an own
        message, we can go into that, compared to that of course
        it goes to the peak of this, in this sense, revisionists
        who really dispute the amount, and even the content of the
        Holocaust.  So of course there are different levels, but,
        yes.
   Q.   The answer is, yes, I did speak on different topics to
        different groups?
   A.   No question.
   Q.   I did not change the cut of my jib.  I did not change --
        I am not trying to be deliberately obtuse. I did not
        change the content of my talk depending on whom I was
        talking to?
   A.   Oh, I heard the translation, that you are leaning to the
        public, right.
   Q.   I did not change the content.  It was always the same, the
        same record that every audience got, whether it was
        generals or right-wing extremists?
   A.   No, you changed, of course.  That is your reversal, your
        conversion, if I may say so, you had during the court
        procedures in Toronto and since then --
   Q.   I do not think you quite understood the question.
   A.   -- I did not get --
   Q.   I did not adapt the meeting, I did not adapt the content
        of my talk to the audience that was in front of me?

.          P-115



   A.   -- I do not know.  You said in -- I read a lot of your
        letters, you see.  In one of your letters you said you
        know what a populist is, you have to give to the people
        and I am good populist.
   Q.   This is a familiar saying, is it not, the good
        politician --
   A.   I mean you said it.
   Q.   -- the good politician says what the public want to hear.
   A.   Yes, you said you will do it there, you are good.
   Q.   That is not a very extreme viewpoint, it is, it is more
        centrist.
                  I am making much quicker progress forwards now,
        if I may, 1979, paragraph 5.3.3, the son of Rudolf Hess,
        is what you hold against the son of Rudolf Hess the fact
        that he is the son of Rudolf Hess, is there not a German
        word for that called "zibenhuft" (?)
   A.   No, come on, I do not --
   Q.   You mention --
   A.   -- I do not rely on "zibenhuft".  I see the son and the
        son of the son each different, of course.
   Q.   -- you mention the fact that he is in your little list,
        you mention the fact he is the son of the famous Rudolf
        Hess, the martyr?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I do not think he is in the little list, if
        you referring to the list of associates.
   MR IRVING:  Page 143, my Lord, he is on the little list.

.          P-116



   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  But if you remember we went through that
        list, and we have selected, or rather the Defendants have
        selected?
   A.   Yes, but ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Those whom they rely on.
   MR IRVING:  They are not going to rely on Rudolf Hess.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  He is not in the list.
   MR RAMPTON:  I do not rely on Rudolf Hess.  He has been long
        dead, I think.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  This is Rudiger.
   MR RAMPTON:  I have a theory which I am going to ask about in a
        re-examination in the light of recent questions that - -
   MR IRVING:  Down goes another one then.
   MR RAMPTON:  There is a tendency to glorify what might one call
        "Nazi war heroes", but I will come back to that point.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is a different point.
   MR RAMPTON:  That is a different point.
   MR IRVING:  I am quite happy to be accused of glorifying Rudolf
        Hess.  Very happy and not at all ashamed.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I do not think we need to spend very long on
        Rudiger Hess.
   MR IRVING:  No. Turn to page 81, you mention on paragraph
        5.5.10, I think completely gratuitously, Michael Kuhnen
        died of a certain illness?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Is there any reason why you mention that in this report?

.          P-117



   A.   It was said in the whole publication of these groups that
        it was because of AIDS and he was reduced in his
        capacities and believe me I do not rely on this specifics.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am going to ignore that paragraph
        completely.
   MR IRVING:  Very good.  Page 85, the final footnote on the
        page, please, there is a letter to Ernst Zundel that you
        may find significant about Althans.  Always interesting to
        read what one --
   A.   What note?
   Q.   -- the final footnote on the page.  Interesting to read
        what one extremist writes to another about a third one, is
        it not, here I am saying that Althans is damaging the "Bewegung"?
   A.   Yes.

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