Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day027.12
Last-Modified: 2000/07/25

   MR IRVING:  A few minutes before, two or three minutes.
   A.   I have to pinpoint to the fact that it is shown in the
        whole scope of the video, of one of the videos I saw - -
        I saw several versions -- that you already met, that
        Mr Irving already met, let us say, half an hour or more
        before a lot of these people who are organizing or with
        organizing who are the main participants of this
        demonstration in the hotel hall where Uschi or Ursula
        Worch and David Irving arrived.

.          P-103



   Q.   Yes, are we talking about Hagenau or Halle?
   A.   So the whole event has to be taken into account and not
        only the five or 10 minutes speech during the
        demonstration.  It has also to be taken into consideration
        the surrounding minutes before Mr Irving spoke.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.  Are you talking about Halle now?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   I thought so.
   A.   Excuse me.  9th November '91.
   Q.   I am bound to say, I do not know whether you looked at the
        diary entry, did you?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Because that appears to show Mr Irving arriving at 2 p.m.
        and leaving at 5 p.m.?
   A.   Right.
   MR IRVING:  2.00 and 5.00, yes?
   A.   Not 10 minutes.
   MR IRVING:  Let me put this question.
   MR RAMPTON:  Three hours.
   MR IRVING:  Well, I was talking actually about the meeting
        place which is a different part of the town.  Perhaps I
        can be more specific by cross-examination.  The hotel that
        you referred to where these meetings apparently took
        place, was that one or two miles away from where the truck
        was parked, if I can put it like that, where the speech
        was made?

.          P-104



   A.   That can be.  I am not informed about the site.  It is possible.
   Q.   Yes, that I think explains that, my Lord, that I arrived
        at the hotel.  I remember meeting Martin Bell there and
        people like that, and I then went over shortly before the
        speech, made the speech and then got out of it.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I do not want to get bogged down on one diary
        entry, but that is not, perhaps, the way it reads to me.
        It says:  "Arrived at 2 p.m. I spoke first".
   MR IRVING:  Yes, as is visible.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  "10 or 15 minutes".  That takes you to 2.20,
        2.15, 2.20, and you left at 5 p.m.
   MR IRVING:  My Lord, what I said is not incompatible with the
        diary entry, but probably cross-examination by Mr Rampton
        is a proper place to bring that out ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That may be right actually.
   MR IRVING:  --- if I can be so bold as to say that.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.  Anyway, you press on.
   MR IRVING:  But I have an answer for everything, if I can say that?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, I would not put it quite that way.
   MR IRVING (To the witness):  I am now going to deal with some
        of the names that you mentioned, and I am now taking them
        out of sequence out of your report purely because you
        brought these names to the front in the
        examination-in-chief this morning.  You say that I had
a

.          P-105



        very close relationship with Ewald Althans?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   This is correct, is it not, you said that?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   And it is also ----
   A.   At a given time.
   Q.   --- not something that will be denied, but I want to ask
        you a few questions about Ewald Althans.  To your
        knowledge, when did I first get to know him?
   A.   I think ----
   Q.   In what year?
   A.   I think ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving, may I interrupt again because you
        said something this morning which slightly worried me
        which was that you were not allowed to ask leading
        questions.  That is true in strict theory, but in practice
        you can ask leading questions when you are
        cross-examining.
   MR IRVING:  In cross-examination I can, my Lord, yes.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  But you did realize that?  You said something
        this morning which made me think you did not realize.
   MR IRVING:  But the situation this morning was not exactly
        cross-examination; it was more interrupting Mr Rampton.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, no, you said it in the course of
        cross-examination.  I mean, for example, with Althans, it
        will save time if you say you did not meet him until such

.          P-106



        and such a date, just say.
   MR IRVING:  Thank you very much, my Lord, yes
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  "Do you accept that I did not meet him until
        whenever it was?"
   MR IRVING (To the witness):  In that case, Professor Funke, you
        accept that I first may have met Mr Althans in Canada in
        March 1989?
   A.   Right.
   Q.   It is possible that this is the Ewald that I met,
        according to my diary, is that right?
   A.   Right.
   Q.   But that I first really got to know him in October 1989?
   A.   This is very probably.
   Q.   From your knowledge ----
   A.   Very likely.
   Q.   From your knowledge of Ewald Althans and his rise and
        fall, was he a very bright student, a very bright person?
        Was he very gifted and intelligent in many ways?
   A.   I cannot say this.  I do not know.
   Q.   Yes.
   A.   But you said something in the diaries to the account of
        very energetic, and so in any case, whatever the personal
        judgment may be, you co-operated with him.
   Q.   Well, let us see who the person was that I co-operated
        with and what he became, shall we?  Am I right in saying
        that he spent six months or a year of his life in Israel

.          P-107



        for an operation called Operation Atonement, Aktion
        Suhnezeischen?
   A.   I do not know.
   Q.   You do not know that?
   A.   No.  I did not -- I have to say I read it if it is stated
        somewhere.
   Q.   Are you surprised to hear that?
   A.   It is totally new for me.
   Q.   What kind of young man would go to Israel voluntarily on a
        atonement mission for six months or a year of his life
        aged about 20, as he then was, and seek to make amends for
        what the Nazi had done?  Would that be inclined to impress
        you, that kind of young man?
   A.   Again I am surprised.
   Q.   I am asking not about Mr Althans now, but about any young
        man ----
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   --- if he did that.  It would tell you something about
        what kind of character he was?
   A.   Yes, definitely.  I think so.
   Q.   But you accept that people can later on go off the rails,
        they can be led astray, they fall into bad company.
   A.   This can happen.
   Q.   Yes.  Later on, of course, he did fall into bad company,
        did he not?  He made a lot of neo-Nazi acquaintances and
        he undoubtedly turned into a right-wing extremist for a

.          P-108



        time?
   A.   At least he turned to a right-wing extremist and, as you
        say, neo-Nazi.
   Q.   Yes.  Now, when he was finally put on trial in Berlin for
        having taken part in a film, he was sentenced to three and
        a half years in jail, is that right?
   A.   At least to a big amount and I cannot recall how many years.
   Q.   Yes.  Do you remember what one element of his defence at
        that trial was which rather surprised the press?
   A.   It was, as far as I recall, but correct me or others may
        correct me, that he may took side of the State Secret
        authorities of the verwaschungsschultz.
   Q.   Did he not claim credibly to have been in the pay of the
        German Security Services for a substantial part of the
        latter part of his political career, that he had been
        acting as an agent for them?
   A.   I am not very familiar with it, so it would be better
        I have evidence because it is very debated, and I really
        did not get it through what really was at stake and what
        the real, you know, state of affairs in this period, let
        us say, '93, '94 was, so...
   Q.   Let me take it in stages then.
   A.   I have to react on your question very vague.
   Q.   Let me take it in stages then.  You did hear the newspaper
        reports that Althans had made this very surprising claim?

.          P-109



   A.   Yes, I saw it, yes.
   Q.   Have you any indication or can you remember how long he
        was taking money from the Security Services?
   A.   I do not know.
   Q.   He offered to supply ----
   A.   I even do not know if this is the case.
   Q.   Yes.  Would he be likely to have made a claim in a court
        in Berlin that could easily have been refuted by the
        Public Prosecutor if it was untrue?
   A.   It was very debated so I cannot comment on that without
        evidence.
   Q.   Yes.  So, in other words, he is a very mysterious
        character, Mr Althans, towards the end of his political
        career?
   MR RAMPTON:  I think it would be important to have a date for
        this particular event because if it occurs after the end
        or near the end of Mr Irving's association with him, with
        Althans, then it, of course, is of no relevance whatsoever.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  The trial was in '94, I think.
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes, precisely.  Unless Mr Irving knew at the time
        when he was in close association with Ewald Althans that
        he was, in effect, a government spy, it is of no relevance
        whatsoever.
   MR IRVING:  Then let me put this question to the witness.
        Dr Funke, have you seen correspondence between myself and

.          P-110



        Dr Fry in which Dr Fry warned me that Althans was a very
        suspect character?
   A.   Yes, I read this.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  When is that?  I mean, I am not quite sure
        where it is taking us.
   A.   It is in the early time when David Irving and Ewald
        Althans did this very intense cooperation.
   MR IRVING:  In other words, it was at the material times to
        which Mr Rampton is referring I did receive already an
        advanced warning that there was something fishy about
        Mr Althans?
   A.   But may I add something to that?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.
   MR IRVING:  Of course.
   A.   You know, it has to be taken into account that the DVU was
        a Congress organization on the right extremist ----
   THE INTERPRETER:  A competitor?
   A.   A competitor on the right, right-wing extremist side.  So
        they feared, so far I recall the diaries and the letters
        and so forth, that the action Althans is proposing to
        David Irving may hurt his reputation as accepted in this
        right-wing extremist circles around the DVU as accepted
        speaker, because Althans was more far right, as I said, as
        a neo-Nazi, and may endanger this special, you know,
        interaction between the right-wing extremists around the
        DVU, on the one hand, and David Irving on the other

.          P-111



        hands.
                  So there are several causes that this warning
        came, and it did not allude to the fact that he may be a
        member of the Secret Service.  If I am allowed to, I would
        then question also why David Irving took sides with this,
        you know, dangerous, or whatever, mysterious character at
        that time for that period of time, but this is a question
        that may be valued by others.
   MR IRVING:  Certainly it is a question for Mr Rampton to
        consider when his turn comes along, but the fact remains
        that if Mr Althans was working for the German Government
        security agencies, it is possible that he had been given
        the task of framing me, is it not -- if you can understand
        that question?
   A.   Can you translate it?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am afraid I do not.
   MR IRVING:  I beg your pardon?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am afraid I do not.  Of entrapping you?
   MR IRVING:  [German].  Entrapping, yes.
   A.   I cannot answer that.  I cannot answer that.
   MR IRVING:  Are you an expert on the verwaschungsschultz, on
        the German security agencies?
   A.   Yes, I know it a bit, but I am not an expert on that.
   Q.   Are you familiar with any other instances where they had
        used these kinds of methods?
   A.   Yes, of course.

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