Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day021.03
Last-Modified: 2000/07/24

   Q.   --- "application"?
   A.   --- "Application for clemency or pardon".  So there is no
        indication here that there is anything in here that has
        anything to do with the Reichskristallnacht.  That is why
        it does not appear.
   Q.   So his manuscript on Adolf Hitler would not contain that
        matter than?
   A.   It is not a manuscript from Adolf Hitler.
   Q.   It is a manuscript on Adolf Hitler.
   A.   It is an essay on Adolf Hitler.

.          P-19

   Q.   Yes.  If I reference that in my source notes of several
        books, then you would have normally gone to some trouble
        to find that particular file, as you obviously had
        privileged access to my papers which I no longer have, of
        course, but you had access to these papers?
   A.   Not privileged, no.  Could you point out to me where you
        cite this document, please?
   Q.   It is referenced in several parts in the Goebbels'
        biography, is it not?
   A.   Could you point out where you reference it, please?
   Q.   We are back to delaying tactics again, are we?
   A.   No, I want to see where you reference it.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is not a delaying tactic.  I think it is a
        fair point, Mr Irving.  I mean, if you want to spend a lot
        of time on this particular document, which I am not
        finding very helpful, then I think that is a fair
        observation for the witness to make.
   MR IRVING:  Can I draw your attention to page 252 of your
        expert report on line 5, which is line 3 of paragraph 3?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   "The evidence offered by Irving for the encounter between
        Eberstein and Hitler" which you will agree is quite a
        crucial encounter, is it not?
   A.   In your account, yes.
   Q.   "The evidence offered by Irving for this is the testimony
        of Wilhelm Bruchner".  My Lord, do you now understand why

.          P-20

        I am zeroing in on this particular collection of documents
        which the witness has made no attempt to find?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, I have not the faintest idea, no.
        I really have not.
   MR IRVING:  My Lord, your Lordship is familiar with the meeting
        between Hitler and the Police Chief of Munich in the
        middle of the night on the night in question?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I am.
   MR IRVING:  And one source for that meeting was the papers of
        Wilhelm Bruchner which is the papers which I donated - ---
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You cite that, do you, in Goebbels?
   MR IRVING:  Which are the papers which I donated, well, the
        reference in Goebbels is page 277.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.  I am just looking at the footnotes at 277.
   A.   Could I have a copy, please ----
   Q.   Footnote 45 is what you are referring to, is it?
   A.   --- of what we are talking about here?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  630.
   MR RAMPTON:  It says:  "Testimony of Wilhelm Bruchner (IfZ,
        Irving collection)".
   MR IRVING:  That should be plain enough, should it not.
   A.   No.
   Q.   Is the IfZ the Institute of History in Munich?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   But is the Irving collection a well-known body of

.          P-21

        documents there under the designation Ed200 or Ed100?
   A.   Sorry, let me please just check this.  Page 277 at
        footnote 45.
   MR RAMPTON:  Page 613.
   A.   613.
   MR IRVING:  This is going to take a long time if we have to go
        into this.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, we started it back to front, if I may
        say so, Mr Irving.  If we are going to go on this like
        this, I think I will make this observation to you.  There
        is a criticism made of your account, particularly in
        relation to Hitler's knowledge of the pogrom that broke
        out during the course of whenever it was, 10th November,
        I think.  It would be helpful to me if you went to the
        passage in Goebbels which is the subject of the criticism,
        then went to what you say is the source for what you
        write.  As it is, we plunged into an extremely obscure
        document called the Deckblatt without any indication of
        where you were going; the result was I was not following
        your cross-examination.
   MR IRVING:  I apologise, my Lord ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Do you see my point?
   MR IRVING:  --- if I am not making myself plain.  The reason
        for this particular reason line of cross-examination is
        I am trying to establish the repugnant allegations made
        about me for having made statements in my books with no

.          P-22

        kind of foundation is the result of these expert witnesses
        not having looked in the file which I actual reference in
        the book.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, but I do not think you are quite
        understanding what I am saying.
   A.   It would have been helpful I think if in your
        cross-examination you had gone to page 277 and shown me
        the passage that you are seeking to justify, namely
        sending for the police chief, Eberstein, and Eberstein
        finding Hitler livid with rage, and phoning Goebbels,
        saying what is going on, and then you can of course take
        me to what Bruckner says about it, what Eberstein says
        about it, and we can see where we go from there.  Is that
        not the right way of doing it?
   MR IRVING:  In this case unfortunately not, because your
        Lordship will have caught the words that I used when I
        said that the expert witnesses have access to these papers
        of mine but I do not.  I am disbarred from visiting my own
        archives, my own collection.  I am drawing to their
        attention----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You can give evidence.  All right, you are
        not able to produce in disclosure Bruckner's account of
        these events, but you can put to Professor Evans what you
        say Bruckner's account reveals, can you not?
   MR IRVING:  That is the version sustained in my book, which is
        probably footnoted and referenced back to this document

.          P-23

        which I had at the time I wrote the original manuscripts
        of Adolf Hitler and Hitler's War, which I no longer have.
        It is quite plain that the Defence solicitors in this
        action were aware of the Bruckner collection in Munich and
        yet they did not use it.  They are quite happy to allege
        that I have had no foundation for this statement of mine,
        and there are other documents to which I am going draw
        your Lordship's attention.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  This is all back to front.  It is not a
        question of whether the Defendants' advisers have been
        diligent about it.  It is a question of you showing, by
        your cross-examination of Professor Evans, that he is
        wrong to criticise you for what you write at page 277,
        because you have good reliable testimony to support it.
        That is what you should be putting in cross-examination.
        I am sorry to sound as if I am lecturing you, but it is
        very important that you conduct the cross-examination in a
        way that conveys to me ----
   MR IRVING:  I am doing the very best I can given the limited
        circumstances that the Defence have access to my documents
        which I do not have.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Are you suggesting that they are physically
        in court, these memoirs of Bruckner?
   MR RAMPTON:  No.  Can I help?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.  Otherwise I am completely lost.
   MR RAMPTON:  I think the position is this.  Mr Irving is rather

.          P-24

        rushing his fences this morning.  I understand what he is
        saying, I think.  The position is this, that they are in
        the Munich archive.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I follow that.
   MR RAMPTON:  He cannot go there.  My people went there and
        could not find it.  Professor Evans does not know that,
        I do not think, because he did not go himself.  One of the
        researchers went.
   A.   I am sorry, I do know that.
   MR RAMPTON:  He does know that?  I must not give his evidence
        then.  I am sorry, it is there already.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  But none of that invalidates what I was
        suggesting.  I am not suggesting it, I think it must be
        done that way. Otherwise this is meaningless for me.
   MR IRVING:  We have two more documents which will answer your
        Lordship's question straightaway.
   A.   Let me say the footnote reference to testimony of Wilhelm
        Bruckner I have said Irving collection.  It is really not
        very helpful in trying to locate a document.  When you
        look at Samlung Irving Deckblatt, it does not contain
        anything that is entitled testimony of Wilhelm Bruckner.
        It just contains the things that I read out.  It does not
        indicate that there is anything in here giving his
        testimony about the events of the Reichskristallnacht.
   MR IRVING:  Two follow up questions, however.  The fact is that
        you did not look, or you did not find it, for the Bruckner

.          P-25

        file, is that correct?
   A.   Those are two different things, Mr Irving.
   Q.   You did not find the Bruckner file, is that correct?
   A.   We looked very very hard.
   Q.   Yes or no?  Did you find the Bruckner file?
   A.   You mean this Samlung Irving with the Deckblatt and so on
        document?  We could not locate the testimony which you
        refer to, no.
   Q.   Should you not therefore have said in your report, it is
        quite possible that this document contained in this file
        would have borne out Mr Irving's version but we cannot
        state, not having seen it?
   A.   Well I will read the you the sentences:  "Irving only
        provide an incomplete reference for Bruckner's testimony,
        which could not be located in the Institute for
        Contemporary History in Munich".  That is very carefully
        phrased.  That not mean to say it is not there.  It is
        just to say that we could not locate it there.  It goes on
        to say:  "The only document which could be located was a
        summary of a statement of Bruckner, written by a German
        historian.  According to this summary, Bruckner claimed
        that Hitler 'is said to have raged' when he is informed of
        the burning Munich synagogue".  So that does appear to be
        the source which you are relying on.  If you can show me
        it is a different source you are relying on, I would be
        happy to see that.

.          P-26

   Q.   Is that document that you just referred to a part of the
        Irving collection?
   A.   It is.
   Q.   It is part of their ZS collection?
   A.   It is in the Siegler -- it is footnoted in footnote 39.
   Q.   Let us move on to another personality now?
   A.   I do not think it is.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am going to pursue this, if I may.  I am
        sorry to interrupt again but I think this is quite
        important.  Professor Evans, you are in the difficulty you
        did not personally search the archive.
   A.   Exactly yes.
   Q.   Can you help and say if this is any problem about doing
        so?  Who was it who went to Munich?
   A.   It was my assistant Mr Vassman.
   Q.   Tell me more about him.  Is he in your department?
   A.   He is a junior research fellow in Downing College, Cambridge.
   Q.   Never having had to consult an archive in my entire life,
        I do not know how difficult it is to do a search.  I have
        to form some sort of view about how easy the testimony of
        Bruckner should have been to find.  I have no idea.
   A.   Yes.  This is getting very convoluted, my Lord.  Archives
        have file numbers, core numbers, so everything has a
        number and here we cite in footnote 39, that is the core
        number that I have said is in the Institute of

.          P-27

        Contemporary History in Munich, Zs-243/I.  Basically it is
        a kind of interview.  They did a series of interviews in
        the Institute after the war.  Footnote 38 gives a numbered
        film, which is an interview or interrogation really, of
        Wilhelm Bruckner in 1947, statement by Schaub, so they all
        have those core numbers.  It is normal practice by
        historians to put the core numbers in their footnotes, not
        just to have some vague reference to testimony, which
        makes it very difficult to locate what one is trying to find.
                  Then archives have descriptions, both in what
        are called location aids or search aids, which are usually
        typed up and only available in the archive, and those have
        numbers of the files and rough descriptions of what is in
        then.  So you can see in this document here Samlung Irving
        Deckblatt, that is start a rough description, brief
        description, of what is in the file.  These are all done
        by archivists.  You can go on.  It says who is the author
        and then who is allowed and who is not, whose permission
        has to be given to see the files.

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