"May it please the Court..."
David Irving's Closing Remarks

(Part 6 of 7)

MR IRVING: And also the broader surrounding countryside, if I may put it like that. What I would ask your Lordship to do is to take the ugliest example, whichever your Lordship deems that to be, reach up for the full transcript of whatever that speech was, and ask yourself why I have put that remark in and see what else is in that speech. Then I submit that the alleged anti-Semitic remark fails into insignificance, if it is even taken to be anti-Semitic at all.

For 30 years, as I set out earlier in this room this afternoon, I have found myself subjected to vicious attack by bodies, acting, as they freely admit, as Jews. For 30 years I endeavoured to turn the other cheek and did nothing about it. I hope I succeeded. MR Rampton drew attention to the fun I poked at Simon Wiesenthal. I made a joke in a public meeting about his, an explicit joke I made about his other than good looks, if I can put it like that. MR Rampton called that remark "anti- Semitic". It was not. It was a joke about the man's looks, of the same genre that MR Rampton made when he enquired rhetorically of Professor Funke whether a certain outer-fringe Swedish revisionist seen in one video shown to the court with long blonde hair was a man or woman. It is exactly the same kind of throw-away remark.

In view of the manner in which the two Simon Wiesenthal centres have been abusing my name in their fund rasing leaflets, and endeavouring to destroy my own livelihood, the court might think that my fun-making, while tasteless, remark was not undeserved, possibly it was even rather reserved. It was not anti- Semitic. MR Wiesenthal is no more immune from criticism either as a person or as a public figure than I am.

Searching hopefully for evidence of "anti-Semitism" in me, the investigation by he Board of Deputies in 1992 came up empty handed in their secret report which they planted on Canadian government files. They confirmed that I had dealings with my Jews in my professional life, and they added that I "used this as an excuse" to say that I am not an anti-Semite. These people are hard to please."He is far too clever an opponent" the Board wrote in this secret report, "to openly admit to being an anti-Semite"."We endorse all condemnation of anti-Semitism", they quote me as writing in my newsletter back in 1982. All of these things, including the actual 1992 secret intelligence report filed by he Board of Deputies, were disclosed to these Defendants in my discovery. The Defendants quoted a passage from a speech delivered, they said, in May 1992. In fact, as my diary confirms, it was delivered in May 1993. So it may be that the year was not accidental, because by that time my family and I had been subjected to a catalogue of insults by the leaders of these various bodies. If a writer's books are banned and burnt, his bookshops are smashed, his hands are manacled, his person insulted, his printers are burnt down, his access to the world's archives is denied, his family's livelihood is destroyed, his phone lines are jammed with obscene and threatening phone calls, death threats, his house is beset by violent, angry mobs, the walls and posts around his address are plastered with stickers inciting the public to violence against him, and a wreath is sent to him with a foul and taunting message on the death of his oldest daughter, then it ill-behoves people to offer cheap criticism if the writer finally commits the occasional indiscretion and lapse in referring to the people who are doing it to him.

I singled out in this -- well, I am not going to comment at length on these evil allegations and slurs. They lend fire and fury to the original libel complained of, that is my view. I submit that the word "racism" in the ears of the man in the Clapham Omnibus is about Stephen Lawrence and cone heads in the Ku Klux Klan. It conjures up images of murder and thuggery and violence and foul-mouthed graffiti. In deliberating on the conduct of the case and on the appropriate scale of damages, your Lordship will no doubt bear them in mind, these allegations made against me.

I voluntarily provided all my entire private diaries to the Defendants in this action. They asked to see a few pages and I said "take the lot". Fifty-nine volumes of private diaries, 20 million words on paper and on disk. MR Rampton produced from them one nineteen-word ditty attached to another quite harmless one about the "messica dressica" of my daughter Jessica. To find in all those diaries and telephone conversations written since 1959 just one nineteen-word ditty that you could trot out for the media, does not suggest that I am as obsessed with race and racism as learned counsel and, for that matter, the newspapers that report this case too.

I repeat, this multi-million dollar Defence team has found one nineteen-word nonsense poem, recorded in my diary with other Lear- or Belloc-type rhythmic verses as having been recited to my own nine-month old infant who has, I am glad to say, grown into a delightful girl of six now, bearing none of the traces of the poison that MR Rampton recklessly suggested that I had fed to her. Fortunately, I did not sing to her "Three Blind Mice".

Similarly, from my hundreds of lectures and talks these very proper spaniels have sniffed out a few lines of music-hall whit of the type that a Dave Allen might indulge in, with MR Trevor McDonald as one of the butts. That in MR Rampton's words is racism. One wonders which well-shielded part of the modern world is inhabited by learned counsel. Can anyone go and live there?

The references that I have made to what is now formally called the Instrumentalization of the Holocaust, have also been adduced as evidence of anti-Semitism. Are non-Jews disbarred from making a criticism that is made increasing vocally now by others like Professor Peter Novak or by Leon Weiseltier, the literary editor of the New Republic who wrote on May 3rd 1993: "It is a sad fact, said the principal philanthropist of the grotesque Simon Wiesenthal Centre of Los Angeles, that Israel and Jewish education and all the other familiar buzz words no longer seem to rally Jews behind the community, the Holocaust though works every time."

I turn to page 89, my Lord, the third paragraph. In general, I would invite your Lordship to pick out one such utterance as a sample, to reach then for the transcript of the entire speech, to take note of the rest of its content, its clear reference to the very real sufferings of the Jews, the liquidations, the Bruns report and the rest, and then ask: Was the remark true? Was it explicable? Was it rhetorically justified as part of the skilled lecturer's armoury?

Your Lordship has been told of my remarks that more women died on Kennedy's back seat than in the gas chamber at Auschwitz, the one shown to the tourists. It is a tasteless but quite literally true. It is, as I have shown in this court, even true if the main gas chamber at Birkenau is brought into the equation, crematorium (ii), the factory of death, because the eyewitnesses lied about that one too. The Poles have admitted that the Auschwitz building and its chimney are a post-1948 fake. My colourful language, my tasteless language, was a rhetorical way of bringing that extraordinary revelation home to audiences.

The audiences, I am told, are extreme audiences, of extreme people, although the photographs suggest rather differently. They appear rather boring middle-age kind of people.

My files confirm that I occasionally addressed audiences of the Association for Free Journalism in Germany, the National Democratic Party in Germany and the German Peoples Union. My Lord, those four documents which I have disclosed to the Defendants, they are English translations of the policy leaflets, the manifestos of these bodies, and in my submission they do not show them to be extreme in any way. These were, furthermore, bodies that were accepted at that time under Germany's very strict laws as being legal and constitutional. But the court is more concerned, I believe, with have individual personages than with bodies, than with the actual organizations. I have not the slightest doubt that this court will find that I had no meaningful contact with the ugly rag-bag neo-Nazi extremists mentioned by Professor Funke, people with whom, to make the point quite clearly, the Defendants, their experts and their legal team seem more familiar than I. Most of the names were completely unknown to me and the Defence have sought, in vein, for them in my diaries and papers, to which I emphasise yet again I gave them complete and unlimited privileged access. This has not stopped them from bringing these names forward and mentioning these alleged links in the open court in an attempt to smear me still further with an eye particularly on the German media. I urge that this, their conduct of the case, be held against them.

Characteristically of the weakness of their case, Professor Funke listed one entry in a diary where I noted "road journey with a Thomas" whose second name I never learned; Funke entered the name "Dienel? " So for as I know, I have never met a Dienel, but it illustrates the kind of evidence that the Defence were hoping to rely upon.

As for Michael Kuhnen, the documentary evidence before both Professor Funke when he wrote his report and before this court, is that I explicitly said I would not attend any function at which he was even present. I never did and I never met him.

By way of evidence the court has been shown a number of videos. Shorn of their commercial packaging, they do not amount to very much, in my submission. In view of the weight attached to it by learned counsel and by his witness Professor Funke, my Lord, I have re-examined the raw video of Halle function of November 9th 1991 at which I briefly spoke, and I have timed and listed the scenes that it shows. My Lord, you will see in the footnote on that page that I have given the appropriate breakdown referring to the time on the video.

Your Lordship may wish at sometime to have the video back to check that these times are correct, or the Defendants' solicitors may wish to submit any corrections they feel are needed.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. I will assume your time is correct unless I am told otherwise.

MR IRVING: Yes, unless otherwise informed. The raw details are, when the when camera's meter shows 170021 I am first seen arriving at an unnamed hotel restaurant in Halle, accompanied by MRs Worch and by David Leigh of he Sunday Observer. At 17: 14: 40 I am again glimpsed, 14 minutes later, still at the hotel speaking to a reporter. The cameraman and David Leigh then go off to film the rival processions during which I am at no time seen on film. In fact I remained lunching at the hotel. At 18: 11: 00 a truck is seen being rigged as an open-air platform, and at 18: 14: 26 I am seen with two reporters watching from the edge of the square. In my submission, my Lord, I do not have a particularly happy look on my face at all at what I am seeing.

At 18: 16 I walk over to the platform, hands in pockets and mount it. The man whom Professor Funke tells us is Dienel, and I have no way of checking it one way or the other, is seen to get off to the left and there is no contact whatever between him and me. MR Worch briefly introduces me to the audience. I begin speaking at 18: 16: 39 and the filmed portion of my speech ends less than three and a half minutes later.

When the off-screen chanting of slogans begins at 18: 18: 59 I am clearly seen to interrupt my speech, shake my head at them and gesticulate with my left hand to them to stop, and I am clearly heard to say, "You must not", because they are shouting the "Siegheil" slogans, Mein Fuhrer, and things like, "you must not always be thinking of the past". I am heard clearly to say: "You must always be thinking of the past. You must not keep coming out with the slogans of the past. We are thinking of the future [voice emphasised] of Germany. We are thinking of the future of the German people. As an Englishman I have to say ...", and so on. So I am quite clearly expressing extreme anger at these people who have come along with their Nazi slogans.

Six seconds after ending my brief speech I am seen to leave the platform without further contact with anybody. My diary notes that I at once left by car and drove back to the Rhur in Western Germany.

Heavily edited, for example to remove my rebuke to these slogan-shouting people, whom I took and take to have been agents provocateurs, this sequence was shown on November 28th and 29th to British TV audiences in a "This Week" programme entitled "Hitler's Children, the New Nazis", directed by the German Michael Schmidt, Professor Funke's star witness, and with none other than Gerald Gable of Searchlight listed as the consultant, and in Despatches on the other channel. This indicates whose hands were behind the editing. Again, heavily edited the film has been shown around the world against me. This was the thrice edited film to which I drew your Lordship's attention in suggesting there was evidence of dubious admissibility.

May I again remind your Lordship of my basic principle on lecturing. Unlike the Defendants who have proudly stated that they refuse to debate with opponents, I have expressed a readiness to attend, to address all and any who are willing to listen. Your Lordship will remember my letter of June 24th 1988 to my editor William Morrow, Connie Roosevelt, to whom I wrote:

"I have been invited to speak as a guest speaker at a right-wing function in Los Angeles next February. They have offered a substantial fee and all my expenses, and until now I have adopted a policy of never refusing an invitation if the speakers meet my terms, namely a free speech and a fat fee. On this occasion I intend to give the audience a piece of mind about some of their lunatic views."

I may secondly point out that were it not for the clandestine activities of the violent and extremist bodies dedicated to destroy my right to free speech and the rights of all audiences in the United States and elsewhere, at Berkley, at Dublin, Pretoria or wherever, to hear my opponents and equally dedicated to intimidating my publishers and smashing bookstall windows, where it not for their hate campaign I would have been able to continue in the normal manner with my exemplary professional career. It rings hollow that the same shabby bodies who have generated the hatred against me now point their crooked finger at my and abuse me using the very considerable privileges afforded to them by this court, to continuing to make my voice heard whenever I can. When I use words to describe them in detail, which they well deserve, they ring their hands lament about extremism.

I have pointed out that so far as Germany is concerned, none of the German bodies who invited me to speak was illegal or banned. In fact when first invited to address the German Peoples Union I wrote to and telephoned the Germany Embassy, as the documents in my discovery show, and asked them specifically whether this was a legal and constitutional body. The Embassy confirmed in writing on July 25th 1984 that was. The extremism was in the eye of beholder. The further to the left the beholder squinted from, the more distant these bodies may have seem from him.

We have heard a lot from Professor Funke, the sociologist of the Free University in Berlin. My Lord, I am now going to pass over the next two pages and continue from the bottom of page 94. As for his allegation, the allegation by Professor Funke, here in court, my Lord, I also ask you to disregard those two pages.

[Transcription note: See http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/f/funke-hajo/ for Professor Funke's Expert Report.]

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I think I know why, and I think that is very right and proper.

MR IRVING: As for his allegation here in court that I should have known that various allegations were going to be banned in years ahead, it is difficult for an Englishmen coming from a country with deeper democratic traditions than Professor Funke's, to implant himself into the brain or mindset of the authoritarian German mould where book burning is now once again de rigueur, where a German academic like Funke does not bat an eyelid upon hearing that a teacher is still serving a seven-year jail sentence imposed for chairing a lecture at which I spoke, where two District Court judges who acquitted that teacher were reprimanded and finally retired in disgrace by order of the Minister of Justice, and where governments recently have begun routinely banning fringe opposition parties and circumscribing even their legal activities.

My general response to this attempt at "guilt by association" which we have seen a lot over the last few weeks, is to compare it with the worst accesses of the inquisitions conducted by Senator Joseph McCarthy. In Britain the courts have always viewed it as repugnant; most recently I believe Morland J in another court in the same building. Hollywood's finest scriptwriters, many of them Jewish, had their careers vernichtet, to use that word again, by the reckless allegation that they had associated with known communists. Now come these Defendants levelling the mirror image of these same charges at me. McCarthyism was rightly exposed for what it was in more recent years and more enlightened years, and these Defendants for their own purposes are seeking to turn the clock back.

As far as the United States are concerned, apart from the Institute of Historical Review, which I shall deal with separately, the one organization identified by learned counsel for the Defence, as I understand it, is the National Alliance. First let me point out that, no doubt with good reason, the Defendants have decided not to call their expert on political extremism in the United States, Professor Levin, and they have withdrawn his expert report. I think "junked" was the word. MR Rampton used the word "junked" or "dumped" I believe. Had they not I would have "debunked" it I think. We have, therefore, no general expert evidence as to the nature of the National Alliance, and I think I ought to emphasise that matter. The court is probably as much in the dark about this group as anybody else.

[Transcription note: See http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/american/national-alliance/]

The Defence invites the court to study the leaflets put about by that body at one meeting, but could offer to the court not the slightest evidence that I was aware of such leaflets or, for that matter, if they are once again falling back on negligence, that I ought to have been aware of them.

If, as I submit, the meetings were organized by individual friends of mine acting outside whatever their capacity, if any, within the National Alliance may have been, there is no reason why I should have read such leaflets if they were indeed on offer.

As for the IHR, the Institute of Historical Review [Transcription note: See http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/ihr.] , I have little to add to what I have stated in my various written replies and on the witness stand. It is clearly unsatisfactory, though not surprising, that establishment scholars feel the need to dismiss any rival body of scholars or historians as extremists, merely on the basis that these others propagate a different version of history from their own consensus versions.

The officials of the IHR nearly all hold academic qualifications. True they are not trained historians, but then neither are some of the most famous names of historians in both ancient and contemporary times. It is clear from correspondence before the court that I recognize he short-comings in the old IHR, and I was keen to introduce them to new speakers, including mainline scholars, historians like John Toland who did in fact speak there, Professor Ernst Nolte and Michael Beschloss. I am not and never have been an official of the IHR. At most, one of many friendly advisers. As for speaking engagements, my association with the IHR has been the same as my association with (I use the word "association" again), for example, Cambridge University Fabian Society because I spoke there too, or the Trinity College Dublin Lit. & Debc., or any other body of enlightened people keen to hear alternative views.

Professor Evans in his odious attempts to smear and defile my name which I hope will long haunt him in the common rooms at Cambridge, called me a frequent speaker at the IHR, and may I say "so what? " None of my lectures had a Holocaust denial or anti-Semitic or extremist theme. I spoke on Churchill, on Pearl Harbour, on Rommel, on the Goebbels' Diaries, on my Eichmann papers find, and on general problems of writing history. The court has learned that I have in fact addressed functions of the IHR only five times in seventeen years, one lecture each time. No amount of squirming by this expert witness could increase that figure. It is true that I socialized before or after the event with the IHR officials and their wives. So what? It is true that I use their warehousing facilities. So what? It is true that the IHR, along with thousands of other retail outlets sell my books. So what?

It is true that I introduced them to subjects which some members of their audience found deeply uncomfortable, for example, the confessions of Adolf Eichmann, the harrowing Bruns report and the Kristallnacht. I would willingly read out the relevant extracts of my lectures to the IHR, but my Lord, through the courtesy and industry of the Defendants' solicitors, which I have already had cause to praise, your Lordship is already funded with extensive transcripts of precisely those talks, and I would ask that your Lordship read them or look at them with this paragraph in mind.

I am accused of telling audiences what they want to hear, and that may be partially true, but, by Jove, having done so, then I used the goodwill generated like that to tell them a lot of things they very much did not want to hear. The Defendants would willingly overlook that aspect of my association with the IHR, and I trust that the court will not.

As for the National Alliance, an organization of which the Defence makes much, once again, as an Englishman ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have dealt with that already.

MR IRVING: We have had it, but I am back again, my Lord. It must have been quite late at night when I wrote this part. As an Englishman I am completely unfamiliar with he nature the National Alliance, its logo and its name. It may be that the name means more to the Defendants and to those who are financing the efforts than it means to me. It certainly meant nothing to the English members of the gallery on the day that it was mentioned here.

I have no meaningful contacts with the organization as such. One or at most two of its individuals members who were already on my mailing list volunteered, like scores of other Americans, to organize lectures for me. One was Erich Gliebe who has always organized my lectures Cleveland in Ohio. On the evidence of his notepaper from the year 1990 (that is ten years ago now) he is also a National Alliance member. I ask the court to accept that when asked about it ten years later I had long forgotten receiving that one letter from him with its heading and its logo. Before each lecture date I mailed an invitation letter to my entire mailing list of friends in each State. The audience was, therefore, largely my own people, if I can put it like that. That is why MR Breeding rather superfluously welcomes the strangers in his opening remarks on the Florida video tape as seen. Had he told me he would also claim to do so on behalf of his organization, I would have told him not to. It was my function and the audience were my guests and not his.

The photographs taken at this meeting shows, as the Defendants' own agents have warranted, no formal National Alliance presence, flags, arm bands or whatever. The witness statement of Rebecca Gutmann has confirmed this.

Learned counsel for the Defendants has drawn attention to one 18-inch wide pennant, that is my estimate, displayed at the function on a side wall with what they state is the National Alliance logo on it visible on the video film. Its logo appears to be based on the CND design. I did not notice it at the time nor would I have had the faintest idea what it was if I did. Evidently MR Gliebe told me that his pals at the National Alliance had had a hand in organizing my successful Cleveland function, and that is why I noted in my diary with a hint of surprise that it turns out that the National Alliance had organized the other meeting too.

The court may agree that this phrase alone is evidence that their involvement was (A) not manifest, and (B) not known to me before. Given that the audience was largely my own making, it does not seem worthy of much note. I submit that this kind of defence evidence really does not meet the enhanced standard of proof required by law on defamation for justification of the more serious charges.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think you need bother with the next paragraph frankly.

MR IRVING: In general, it is also to be stated that at material times, namely when associated with those individuals, they were not extremists -- I take it that your Lordship accepts what I said in that paragraph?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think, frankly, that the evidence of your contacts with the BNP amounts to anything.

MR IRVING: Thank you very much. In general, it is also to be stated that at material times, namely when I was associated with those individuals, they were not extremists; nor has it been shown to the court that at that time they were. Thus at the time I first met this young man Ewald Althans in Germany late in October 1989, he seemed full of promise and eager to learn. I later learned that he had been to Israel for six months on a German Government voluntary scheme for young Germans who wished to atone. Over the two or three years that our orbits occasionally intercepted I could see that he was growing more extreme and provocative in his actions. He also became undependable and wayward in a number of non-political ways that I mentioned in court.

According to Der Spiegel at his 1995 trial in Berlin, Althans had acted for the Bavarian security authorities as a top agent until 1994 when they ended the liaison. The German security authorities had, as Professor Funke agreed, a record of hiring agents provocateurs.

I now come to Ernst Zundel, the next paragraph. Ernst Zundel is a German born Canadian [Transcription note: Mr. Zundel is not a Canadian, he is a Landed Immigrant who has twice been denied citizenship.] for whose own particular views I hold no brief. I later learned that he had apparently written some provocatively-themed books with tongue-in-cheek titles on flying saucers in Antarctica, and on the "Adolf Hitler that I knew and loved", which is said to be worst than outre; wild horses would not make me read such books myself. I had met him in 1986 and found that as a personality he was not as dark as had been painted in the media. I was asked to give expert evidence at his trial in Toronto in 1988 relating to the Third Reich and Hitler's own involvement in the Holocaust. I did so to the best of my professional abilities, and I was told that I had earned the commendation of the court in doing so.

It is plain to me from what I know that MR Zundel has been subjected to 20-year onslaught by the Canadian organizations dedicated to combatting what they regard as Holocaust denial because of his dissident views, which are certainly more extreme than mine. My own relationship with MR Zundel has been proper throughout, and the court has not been given any evidence to the contrary. At times it has even been strained because of the misfortune inflicted on me in retribution for having spoken at his trial.

My Lord, there remain one or two minor matters, in my view. The Defendants alleged that I wilfully exaggerated the Dresden death roll in my 1963 book "The Destruction of Dresden", and that I had no basis for my figures. I have satisfied this court, I believe, that at all times (A) I set and published the proper upper and lower limits for estimates that I gave, giving a wide range of figures which necessarily decreased overall over the years as our state of information improved, and that (B) I had an adequate basis for the various figures which I provided in my works at the material times. It has to be said that authors have little or no control over the content of books that are sub-licensed by their main publisher to other publishers. Revisions are not encouraged for costs reasons.

I have always been aware of the highly charged political nature of the figures quote for this event, the bombing of Dresden. The highest figure of 250,000, which I mentioned in my books only as the maximum ever alleged, was given, for example, by the German Chancellor Dr Comrade Ardenau in a West German official government publication which I showed the court. The lowest figures only became available in a book published in 1994 by Fredrich Reichardt. A copy of this book was provided to me in 1997. By that time I had already published the latest updated version of my book which is now called "Apocalypse 1945, The Destruction of Dresden", in which I had lowered the death roll still further on the basis of my own investigations and considerations. This was the first edition over which I, not the publisher, had total control, as it appeared under my own imprint.

In 1965, as the court is aware, I received written estimates of 140,000 and 180,000 dead from a rather anxious Soviet zone citizen, Dr Max Funfack, who claimed to have received them about nine days after the raid from the City Commandant and the Chief Civil Defence Officer respectively, both of them his personal friends. That being so, there was no reason why I should have revised the 135,000 estimate which I had earlier received from Hans Voigt, a city official charged with drawing up death lists when I was researching my first book in 1961.

In 1966 I received the police final report of March 1945. While still remaining sceptical about it for the reasons stated, for example, the officer was responsible for Dresden's ARP and it was too early to achieve any kind of overall final figure, the number of refugees killed was also an imponderable. I took the correct action, however. I sent to letter to The Times within a few days of finding the new documents, that is July 1996, within a few days of finding the new documents in the mail on my return from a trip to the United States. Not only that, but at my own expense I had the letter reprinted and sent to hundreds of historians and the like. One hopes that the expert witnesses whom we saw in the witness stand on behalf of the Defence would have had the same integrity to do the same kind of thing.

As for the Goebbels diaries, the Defendants, as I understand it, do not now seek to justify their claim that I broke an agreement with the Moscow archives in 1992.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think that is right, but do not take time on it because I think I know what the case is.

MR IRVING: They have withdrawn witness reports of the Russian archivists and will provide me no opportunity to cross-examine them. I was prepared to pursue those cross-examinations most vigorously. I produced a witness statement from MR Peter Millar of the Sunday Times, my colleague in Moscow, and I made him available for cross-examination. He confirmed that there was no verbal or written agreement, as I had also stated in my various replies, so therefore I could not have broken it. The Defendants have left no satisfactory evidence before the court that refutes this, in my submission.

MR Millar also confirmed to the court that he did not agree that my conduct gave rise to significant risk of damage to the plates. The plates had been withheld from historians by the Russians for 55 years or more. That figure of course is wrong. It is 48 years at that time, I am sorry. The plates have been withheld from historians for 48 years or more. By my actions I made this historically very important materials available to the world, and I placed copies of them in the appropriate German archives at my own expense.

My Lord, I make submission now on the Heinrich Muller document.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think I would read that out if I were you. I think that is not the best way of dealing with it.

MR IRVING: No. I will leave it as a written submission.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you seen what -- I am sure you have seen it because I have a copy of a letter to you with attachments.

MR IRVING: I have seen it, my Lord, yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: In the light of those attachments and including Professor Longerich's really quite helpful account of his investigations, what is your submission?

MR IRVING: I am not challenging the authenticity of the document, my Lord, but I am asking that attention be paid to the fact that it is highly unsatisfactory that I am not provided in good time, in a timeous manner, with the file dated that I needed in order to go behind the document and establish whether there was anything which would undermine the purport that the defendants were seeking to attach to that document.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You mean the other documents in the same file?

MR IRVING: Like in the case of the Schlegelberger document, which enabled the Defendants to attack the meaning of the Schlegelberger document, because they had documents relating to it in the same file which enabled them to narrow it down and say this is clearly a reference to the Mischlinge.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry, we are talking about the Muller document, are we not?

MR IRVING: We are talking about the Muller document. I am saying that, had I had the other documents in the same file ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: What has it got to do with Mischlinge?

MR IRVING: I could have gone behind the Muller document, using the other documents in the same file.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You mean as you did with Schlegelberger?

MR IRVING: As they did with Schlegelberger.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I follow. I am not quite sure, Dr Longerich wrote to Dr Aaron Reich, as I understand it, to see what other documents there were in the file, but I do not know what the result was, or indeed when the question was asked. You do not know either?

MR IRVING: I asked the question and I was given a totally fictitious file number in the German Federal archives.

MR RAMPTON: Not by us.

MR IRVING: It was given by you because it was in the footnote of one of your expert reports as being the source.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: As I understand it, and do not let us talk over each other too much, my understanding is that first time around the wrong file number was given, but then later the correct file number is thought to have been discovered, which then prompted Dr Longerich to write to or to fax Dr Aaron Reich, asking if he could say what the other documents in this file are.

MR IRVING: The correct file number was then notified to me this last weekend, which of course gave me no time whatsoever to do the kind of research that I would have had to do.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Anyway, your position is you do not deny its authenticity, but you do say that the provenance is unsatisfactory.

MR IRVING: I do say it has been improperly produced to me in a manner which has made it impossible for me to attack its meaning, but I have attacked its meaning nevertheless in my submission.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I know you have.

MR IRVING: I am not seriously worried about it because I am sure that your Lordship will accept what I said about the meaning.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do you mind if I ask MR Rampton what the explanation of----

MR RAMPTON: I do not see it that any criticism at all can be made ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: When was Dr Aaron Reich asked the question?

MR RAMPTON: Where is that, my Lord?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is paragraph numbered 4 on the second page.

MR RAMPTON: I think that, unless I have completely misunderstood this clip of papers, I confess I have not paid it a terrific lot of attention recently, there is, I think, actually a page of the little clip showing that a fax was sent or received -- I can see. It has my own fax number right at the top of it so I think it is what Dr Longerich says he sent from my chambers. It looks like 16.48 on Friday, but unfortunately I cannot read it.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That was the problem I had which is why I asked when it had been sent.Leave aside when it was sent. What was the answer?

MR RAMPTON: I do not know when it was sent.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry, what was the answer from Aaron Reich?

MR RAMPTON: There was one in the Washington archive as well. The reply says, whatever its date may be -- I can see it is 10th March. It is from somebody called Anna Row. She is writing to both Aaron Reich, who I think might be in New York, I really do not know, and to Dr Longerich. What she says is: "After some searching and help from Jurgen, we were able to find a copy of the document in question. The citation in Moscow is, according to the two records" etc. etc., and gives the reference."If a fax copy is desired we can send it along".

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I follow all that and, as I understand it, not making too much of a meal of it all, there are two copies of this document, one in Moscow and another in Germany, the German copy having been provided from Moscow. That may or may not be satisfactory, but what I was really concerned to know is what attempts, if any, have been made to discover what other documents were in the same file, because I think the request was not an unreasonable one, that the other documents in the file might cast some light on the significance of Muller.

MR RAMPTON: I simply do not know. If that is not addressed in Dr Longerich's note, I cannot give an answer about it because I was not a party to it.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That was one of the things that I think I suggested on day 30 or day 31, I cannot remember, MR Irving should be given an answer to.

MR RAMPTON: Plainly, I would submit, the position must be this. The reason why, not including the November 1941 document, MR Irving tendered the other Schlegelberger documents is that, on one view of its dating, the other documents might be of some relevance. I assume -- this is an assumption -- that a distinguished and respectable historian like Dr Longerich would not produce a single document from a file if there were other surrounding documents which, to his knowledge, had a bearing on its interpretation.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but he does not say so, that is the problem. He does not say that he has looked, or tried to look and failed.

MR RAMPTON: In any event, since MR Irving accepts the authenticity of the document, the fact that there are not any other documents around it leads nowhere.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: We do not even know that, do we? We do not know whether there are other documents in the same file.

MR RAMPTON: There might be a source, I do not know. In fact, I think I may have been guilty of not reading the message carefully enough. I read paragraph 1 of Dr Longerich's note which was prepared yesterday: "I am familiar with this document. A copy is available in the archival collection of the Zentralstelle in Ludwigsburg. This is a collection of documents which was handed over by the Soviet authorities in 1969 to the Federal Republic". It begs the question, I interpose there, how on earth it is that MR Irving has never seen it. It has been there since 1969."The document is accompanied by a covering page with an archival reference to the file where the original is kept 500.1.25. This is an archival reference from the Soviet archive in Moscow. Fons" -- whatever that -- "security police and SD, part 1 of the collection, file 25. I was in Moscow", says Dr Longerich "in 1992 for four weeks, and I looked at documents from this fons extensively. At the moment I cannot remember whether I saw the original of this document during my stay in Moscow, but I kept notes about this day and could reconstruct what I saw there. The notes are at the moment in Munich". That plainly does not suggest that he believes that there are any other relevant documents in that file.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It does not say one way or the other. He says he cannot remember. It probably is a point of absolutely no significance but, since it is something that MR Irving has raised and I did indicate that I thought he ought to have an answer, I would still like such information as can be obtained from Dr Longerich to be communicated to him and to me.

MR RAMPTON: I will try again. Given that it is accepted to be an authentic document, and given also that it is not perhaps a document that lies at the heart of the case though it has some significance obviously, I will do it. That leads me to make an enquiry, if I may, of your Lordship.

MR IRVING: Can I just finish?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. You have some other points?

MR RAMPTON: My Lord, I am sorry, this is a connected enquiry, if I may. That may take time. I do not know myself at the moment what date judgment is likely to be because obviously, if your Lordship is going to consider any additional documents, they will need to be got sooner rather than later.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not know either. I hope it will not be as long as you might fear. That does not tell you very much, does it. That is not intended to be delphic, but think in terms of a small number of weeks rather than a large number of months.

MR RAMPTON: I was not trying to put any pressure on at all. For the sake of this exercise, I obviously need to know. If it is going to be in three or four days time, I probably will not be able to achieve it.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that will be unlikely. That is all I can do. If you can obtain it as soon as possible -- if you cannot, so be it. We will have to manage without.

MR RAMPTON: We will do what we can.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: MR Irving, you have listed some other matters.

MR IRVING: I wish to conclude on page 104, if I may.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am so sorry. Hang on, why are you telling me about that now?

MR IRVING: Okay, then it is wrong that I should let your Lordship know.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that not relevant only to costs? Tell me if I am wrong, but that would be the way I would see it.

MR IRVING: Not only the costs, my Lord, there are other features of part 36.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let me just read it.

MR IRVING: My understanding is that your Lordship was not informed of what was in the offer, but that offer was made under the new rules.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not see the relevance of telling me that unless and until it comes to the question of costs.

MR IRVING: Yes. The question of costs is covered by the next paragraph, which is that I do not propose asking for my costs in this action.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is premature to be telling me that.

MR IRVING: Not at all, my Lord. This is surely the place when I can put this into your Lordship's mind and that deals with it, puts it out of the way.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is true, but I would only address that question once judgment had been given.

MR IRVING: But I do ask your Lordship to give judgment in the terms and premises set out in my writ and statement of claim, namely damages, including aggravated damages for libel and an injunction restraining the Defendants and each of them, whether by themselves or agents or otherwise from further publishing or causing to be published the said or similar words defamatory of myself as claimant.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. You gave me that little list of other things you were going to raise today. Standard of proof in graver libels, I think you know that I believe I know what the law is on that so you need not trouble with it, unless you want to. Is there anything you wanted to say particularly, MR Irving? I am not stopping you, I just do not think it is really necessary.

MR IRVING: It is trite law, is it not, my Lord?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is.

MR IRVING: We had this discussion earlier and I thought it important -- in fact it is obviously very impertinent of me to draw it your Lordship's attention.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is not at all, no. I have it in mind anyway. Section 5, I think we have resolved that in an earlier discussion today.

MR IRVING: We have dealt with 4 because I have now done it.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Costs we have decided it is premature. Now I realize time is passing but it is obviously sensible to conclude everything today, and I hope I can perhaps do it in this comprehensive way. You have seen that in the Defendants' detailed written submissions they recite various concessions -- you may not like the term but they call them concessions which they say you have made about such matters as shootings in the East, numbers killed, whether it was systematic, whether Hitler knew about it, and also in relation to deaths at the Reinhardt death camps. Do you accept you did make those concessions?

MR IRVING: The answer is I have not seen them, but I know of them. I have not had any time at all to read that big thick thing.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Then I do not think it is fair to ask you to give answers on the hoof. What I will ask you to do though is this. If you either dispute that you ever made the concessions that the Defendants say you made, or you want now to reconsider ----

MR IRVING: Resile.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I was trying not to use that word actually -- to reconsider, then would you write to me and to the Defendants, shortly setting out what you say you said, or what you now say?

MR IRVING: Yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Because I do not want to be under any misapprehension.

MR IRVING: Purely on the matter of concession?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

MR IRVING: I will certainly do that within the next two or three days.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Good. Is there anything else, MR Rampton?

MR RAMPTON: Yes, there is. I should like to apologise personally -- I dare say I am right in thinking it was directed at me -- for not being able in one moment to restrain my frustration. I apologise for that.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: There is no need for that.

MR RAMPTON: Yes. I should at my age know better. But, as your Lordship will remember, it is sometimes extremely difficult to restrain oneself when one can actually hear the evidence of one's own witnesses being misrepresented. I am not going to do a trawl through what MR Irving has said. Your Lordship has the evidence.

But there is one thing which he said which I really do think needs to be corrected. If this is a case without this kind of high profile, I might say nothing at all. MR Irving said that Professor van Pelt had no explanation for the many oddities in Bischoff's letter of 29th June 1943. That is an important document. In fact, when I re-examined on 2nd February, that is day 14, page 3 to page 13 at the end, by reference to the little clip of documents by which MR Irving sought to show the uniquely ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I remember that quite well, all the oddities, as it were.

MR RAMPTON: In fact, he explained every single oddity, except the missing year date in the reference.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I remember that quite well, but thank you for reminding me what the reference is.

MR IRVING: My Lord, in view of my traditional right to the last word, I would reserve the right to write your Lordship a letter setting out the oddities in that Bischoff letter, with a copy to the Defendants.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. I do not think I am going to invite that. I feel fairly deluged anyway with paper. I really do. I have in mind both what you said were the reasons why you at that stage disputed the authenticity, and I know you still question the authenticity of that document, but I also have in mind, in a general sense, the explanations that were given by Professor van Pelt. Now, anything else?

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