text:
Holocaust Denial on Trial, Trial Transcripts, Day 2: Electronic Edition
Pages 1 - 189 of 189
1996 I. No. 113
2Royal Courts of Justice
3Strand, London
4 Wednesday, 12th January 2000
10Claimant -and-
14The Claimant appeared in person
15MR RICHARD RAMPTON Q.C. (instructed by Messrs Davenport Lyons and Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of the First and
16Second Defendants
17MISS HEATHER ROGERS (instructed by Davenport Lyons) appeared on behalf of the First Defendant Penguin Books Limited
18MR ANTHONY JULIUS (of Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of
19the Second Defendant Deborah Lipstadt
21(Transcribed from the stenographic notes of Harry Counsell & Company,
Clifford's Inn, Fetter Lane, London EC4
22Telephone: 020-7242-9346)
1 DAY 2 Wednesday, 12th January 2000
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Mr Irving
3 MR IRVING: May it please your Lordship. This morning I wish
4to kick off by playing to the court excerpts from two, or
5possibly three, video tapes which are of relevance. I
6will explain what the video tapes are, if I may, my Lord.
7The first one is one minute 20 seconds long. It is a
8postwar German newsreel, January 1948, and the very first
9section on it, fortunately, is the reporting of the end of
10the Auschwitz trial where a number of Defendants, rather
11as at Nuremberg, had been prosecuted on this occasion by
12the Polish Government. Auschwitz is in Poland. They had
13been prosecuted for crimes against humanity, and sentence
14was passed a week or two before this trial, before this
15newsreel was shown.
16 So it is a newsreel showing the judge handing
17down sentence. The relevance is purely the newsreel
18statement from the judge's findings of how many people
19died in Auschwitz which is a matter of contention. We are
20told by the expert witnesses in this case that anybody who
21says the figure is less than is now commonly assumed is a
22"Holocaust denier". I purely wish to show that there is
23a broad band of opinion over the years as to what the
24figures were
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The judge is expressing whatever view he does
26express on the basis of, what, the evidence he had heard
1during the course of the trial or what?
2 MR IRVING: A very lengthy trial, which ended with the
3execution of a number of people. We see on this short
4film the hearing of evidence, the hearing of witness
5statements, the taking of depositions, the forensic
6examination of the site which makes the statement that he
7utters all the more important. My Lord, do you have the
8short transcript of the passage? I have it in German
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: If I have, I do not think I know where it
10is. I have not seen it
11 MR IRVING: I can provide one, my Lord
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Or has it been handed in? Is it somewhere in
13the files because there are a few loose documents
14 MR IRVING: There is one. If I can kick off by showing that
16 MR IRVING: It is a tracking error, I think, my Lord
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are having a quite a task if you are
18trying to cope with that as well as everything else. I do
19not know if there is anyone else around who is more
20conversant with it than you are? We are getting a sound
21now. Shall we come back to that one? It may be we do not
22get the same problem with your next one
23 MR IRVING: Let me just read out what the translation is, if
24I may
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, please do
26 MR IRVING: This is a translation of the German text:
1 "In Cracow the trial of the principal culprits
2for the Auschwitz concentration camp came to an end before
3a Polish court. The Defendants were German camp guards or
4members of the German camp administration staff.
5Unheard-of atrocities against the camp inmates,
6particularly against female prisoners, were proved against
7them. Altogether nearly 300,000 people" -- this is the
8part I am relying upon, my Lord -- "from the most
9different nations died in the Auschwitz concentration
10camp. The court sentenced 23 of the accused to death, six
11to life sentences and 10 to lengthy jail terms; one was
13 It then continues with the same statement: "The
14Auschwitz concentration camp remains as it stands today,
15as a monument of shame to the lasting memory of its
16300,000 victims". Of course, nowadays, my Lord, we are
17told a very different picture of Auschwitz, but that was
18within the immediacy of the event
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I appreciate that no one is being too fussed,
20I understand why not, about the admissibility of the
21evidence, but this reads to me not like the judge or the
22court talking but some sort of newsreel
23 MR IRVING: It is a German official newsreel produced in early
241948 at the time that Germany was under allied occupation
25and all the media outlets in Germany were licensed by the
26allied authorities
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but, I mean, in terms of evidence, I am
2not sure this has terribly much weight, does it
3 MR IRVING: Except, my Lord, for two arguments here: firstly,
4if the allegation is that anybody who states figure less
5than one million or 4 million, whichever figure we look
6at, for Auschwitz is a Holocaust denier, then, denial,
7apparently started very early; and, secondly, if this was
8one of the documents before me at the time I wrote my
9book, my Lord, then I could hardly be accused of
10manipulation or distortion if I choose to rely on this
11document rather than on the evidence of someone like
12Rudolf Hess
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where am I going to put it because I think we
14must have a system of finding a home for every document
15that is handed in, if you are going to rely on it
16 MR IRVING: My Lord, that should be in the bundles of
17transcripts, in my submission
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Perhaps the Defendants can help because let
19us be sensible about putting them were they belong
20 MR RAMPTON: Yes. I suspect what is going to happen during the
21course of this trial is that we are going to create new
22files as we go along. The resources of Her Majesty's
23courts probably do not run to that. So I think what we
24had better do is, as these documents build up, is put them
25in files -- this is a document I have never seen before
26either -- and try to provide an identical file for each
1person in the court who will need to look at it
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I do not want to spend undue time on
3it, but in some ways it is better to try to find them a
4spot in the existing bundles where they logically belong
5rather than having a, sort of, rather random new file
6created with whatever happens to turn up
7 MR RAMPTON: Yes, that is probably right. The only place I can
8think of to put this at the moment is with Mr Irving's
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I think that may be right
11 MR IRVING: In my statement
12 MR RAMPTON: It has no other natural home that I can think of
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I think that may be right
14 MR IRVING: Now, I add to your Lordship's misery by giving you
15the transcript of the video which we will now show
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. For the time being, at any rate, we
17shall put this in C4, shall we? Is that what you mean,
18Mr Rampton
19 MR RAMPTON: Yes, I think it is C4. Unfortunately, mine do not
20any longer correspond to the numbers -- nor does
21Miss Rogers'
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The other thing is we need a hole puncher
23 MR RAMPTON: Tab 1, C4, my Lord
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, that is what I thought, at the back
25 MR RAMPTON: This next one, what is the number of the
26transcript file? The next one goes in D(ii). I do not
1know which of the D(ii)s it will be; I have a feeling it
2is already there actually
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is worth spending just a little bit of
4time on this sort of thing at the moment because then we
5can get the system right for the future
6 MR RAMPTON: D(ii), tab -- my Lord, the best place for it is at
7the back of the second volume of D(ii) where it will have
8a new tab No. 23
9 MR IRVING: I believe I am right in saying that this transcript
10was not already provided by the Defendants; this is a new
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I think that is right. I think that is
13accepted. Shall we play it now
14 MR IRVING: My Lord, can I just explain what it is
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes
16 MR IRVING: This is a transcript of a tape of a news programme
17broadcasted in Australia on July 20th 1994 on ABC
18Television in Australia. It is a typical kind of news
19commentary programme, rather like News Night, which starts
20off with the news bulletin and then follows with a
21feature. The feature on this occasion was a feature
22called "The Big Lie". I do not propose to run the whole
23tape, but to start about three minutes in where I have
24positioned it as at the present which is page 2 near the
25top, my Lord. Mr Anthony Lerman of ----
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes
1 MR IRVING: --- the Institute of Jewish affairs is about to
2start speaking. The reason I am playing it is because
3your Lordship will see that this interview provides the
4Second Defendant, Professor Lipstadt, with a chance to
5express her opinions unopposed
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes
7 MR IRVING: I feel it is appropriate to allow her some minutes
8of the court's time in this rather oblique manner to
9express her opinions
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes
11 MR IRVING: I understand that she will not be testifying in
12person in this case
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes
14 (Excerpt of video was played)
15 MR IRVING: My Lord, I pause very briefly there and invite your
16attention to one scene in the newsreel that is being
17displaced, black and white newsreel, where we are no
18longer outside the railroad trucks filming the people
19climbing into the railroad trucks, but the camera has
20suddenly positioned itself inside the railroad trucks.
21 I am not going to draw any inferences from that
22at this moment, my Lord, but we are suddenly inside a
23darkened railway truck, taking a shot from the inside to
24the outside as people climb in towards us
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes
26 MR IRVING: That is the only point I make, my Lord. My Lord,
1this is Professor van Pelt who will be testifying in this
2case. This is the actual building which we will be
3talking quite a lot about over the coming weeks,
4crematorium No. 2
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: At Auschwitz
6 MR IRVING: At Auschwitz -- correction, at Birkenhau, my Lord,
7which is five miles from Auschwitz
8 MR IRVING: My Lord
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that all you want from that, Mr Irving
10 MR IRVING: Yes. Your Lordship will see from the transcript
11the rest concerns Rwanda ----
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I have read on and I did not think there
13was anything in the rest of it
14 MR IRVING: Unless the Defendants object, I would not propose
15to play the rest of the tape
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sure they will not
17 MR RAMPTON: No
18 MR IRVING: My Lord, I do not know if you consider that was a
19useful exercise? I would welcome your Lordship's guidance
20on ----
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, to be frank, I think not very. In the
22end we have to get down to the specific criticisms of your
23historical approach
24 MR IRVING: Yes
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: How we are quite going to deal with it, I do
26not know, but I think that is what has to be grappled with
1and, from my point of view, the sooner the better
2 MR IRVING: We are also concerned with the Second Defendant
3here. My Lord, I understand she will not be having a
4chance to speak and I will not be having a chance to
5cross-examine her. I think it was a useful exercise
6because it gave us a chance to see her in action. I think
7she could have handled herself under cross-examination,
8had she proposed to do so
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are entitled to make the point that she
10is, apparently, not going to give evidence. I have that
11point and I have now had the opportunity of seeing her on
12the interview
13 MR IRVING: The other point I wish to draw attention to in the
14video is that the other witness who will be called,
15Professor van Pelt, draws great attention to the building
16he was standing on which was crematorium No. 2 in
17Birkenhau. He points to the holes, he points to the
18room. He says, "This is where it happened". In another
19video which I will show on another occasion, my Lord, he
20goes into much greater detail more emotionally saying,
21 "This is where it happened, this was the geographical
22centre of the Holocaust", and so on
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You say that is a post war reconstruction
24 MR IRVING: No, my Lord. We say something different about
25that. This is crematorium building in Birkenhau. What we
26say about that is that it was not what the Defence make
1out that it was. With your Lordship's permission and
2consent, I do not want to reveal precisely the arguments
3we will lead on this occasion. We will give the Defence
4great time to prepare counter arguments and we have spent
5a great deal of time and money with architectural
6consultants and so on providing this evidence. I would
7prefer to leave that evidence ----
8 MR RAMPTON: Can I intervene to say something about that? I do
9not find myself left very happy about what Mr Irving has
10just said. The days are long gone where a Claimant who
11responds to a plea of justification is entitled to keep
12his rabbits in his back pocket and pull them out when it
13suits him so as to deprive the other side of due notice so
14that they can deal with it. If he is sitting on expert
15reports, expert evidence, as indeed he flagged up
16yesterday in his opening that he was, then we must have
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is right. Can we just take
19stock at the moment, Mr Irving, and see where we are
20going? You did, I think, say you were intending to show
21three videos. Are you really wanting to show a third
23 MR IRVING: I sense a certain impatience of your Lordship
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I hope I am not displaying impatience. I am
25just telling you how I see the priorities. I am not
1 MR IRVING: Possibly when we come to the Auschwitz phase, it
2will be useful to show the next one which does concentrate
3much more closely on the fabric of the sites of Auschwitz
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: May I ask you, following up what you told me
5yesterday about the misunderstanding, whether it is or it
6is not agreed that Auschwitz should be taken separately
7and first
8 MR IRVING: We have agreed that, my Lord, and we have reached a
9very satisfactory arrangement on the presentation of our
10principal witnesses from overseas
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is very good to know. Your opening is
12really concluded now, as I understand it
13 MR IRVING: That is so, my Lord
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: So I think probably, unless you tell me that
15there is something else you want to deal with first, the
16time has come for you to start giving evidence
17 MR IRVING: What I had proposed to do this morning, my Lord,
18the bundle which I submitted this morning and replicates
19bundle D(ii), I think, which we have already had, which is
20a very large number of photocopies of all the books which
21I have ever written, apparently, which have been very ably
22put together by the Defendants. I had put together a
23selection of pages from those books on which I was going
24to draw your attention, passages which would refute
25statements that had been made by the Defendants and also
26by counsel yesterday
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: In relation to Auschwitz
2 MR IRVING: No, my Lord. Do I am apprehend that your Lordship
3wishes to deal immediately with Auschwitz or other
4different phases
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, if we are going to divide up the trial,
6and I can see the sense of it, into Auschwitz and the
7rest, it seems to me at the moment, and Mr Rampton may
8take a different view, I do not know, that it is sensible
9really to plunge into the issues that arise out of
10Auschwitz rather than going to anything else, because the
11time for doing that may be when we get to the second, as
12it were, half of the trial
13 MR IRVING: My Lord, the Auschwitz matter is an immensely
14complicated matter involving the assembly of a great deal
15of expert material, drawings. The Defendants deluged me
16on Friday evening after close of business with a further
175,000 pages of documents from van Pelt's report. To start
18straightaway today with that would put me at a
19gross disadvantage. I am sorry that there may be a
20misunderstanding. The agreement we reached was on the
21dates of presentation of our witnesses from beyond the
22seas, van Pelt in the case of the Defence and Professor
23McDonald in my case, and I was still hoping and
24anticipating we could deal with the reputation aspect
25first which is well prepared, and push Auschwitz along
26away from us for a while
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, you say "for a while", I mean how long
2is the while
3 MR IRVING: As long as is necessary for me to deal with the
4reputation aspects of the case
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I do see the sense of your
6establishing, I think by evidence, your reputation. I do
7not myself think that will take very long because, bear in
8mind, I have read a lot of the material. That is not to
9say I do not want to hear you say it from the witness box
10in summary
11 MR IRVING: My Lord, you have read it, but the Press have not
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but the exercise is not really entirely
13for the members of the Press. I do not think we want to
14take a lot of time in dealing with matters which are not
15uncontentious, but which, perhaps, are not at the heart of
16what is the true issue between the parties. I am very
17anxious we get on if we can as soon as possible.
18 Can I just see what Mr Rampton would suggest as
19the appropriate course? I think my own view is that
20Mr Irving ought to go into the witness box from now on
21because I think the case has really been opened. I see
22the sense of hearing some evidence about his reputation by
23way of preliminary
24 MR RAMPTON: I have read his witness statement. Apart from
25what he said in his opening yesterday, I really have no
26clue, no real clue, about what his case is on the detailed
1factual issues. I am in the same position as your
2Lordship found yourself yesterday or said you did
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes
4 MR RAMPTON: I would like to know what his case is and I do
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, well, I understand that
7 MR RAMPTON: I do not mind what order he takes to do that. If
8he wants to saturate with his historiographical issues,
9his techniques and the inaccuracies of the criticisms
10which we have made, that is no problem to me at all.
11Whether he does it from the witness box or whether he does
12it as part of his opening, again I really do not mind
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I do not think it is terribly important,
14but I think it probably is properly done by evidence
15rather than by further opening statements
16 MR RAMPTON: I agree. If he says he is not yet prepared to
17deal with the Auschwitz issues because they are, indeed,
18detailed and complicated, that is perfectly all right with
19us, but I do want to know what his case is and at the
20moment I do not
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, his case is to be found not only in his
22witness statement plainly but in the pleadings
23 MR RAMPTON: Yes, I have some of his case from the reply
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. That is quite comprehensive, it
25appeared to me, on the extent to which Hitler is
26responsible for the Final Solution, relatively speaking
1 MR RAMPTON: Yes, relatively
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is not, if I may say so, Mr Irving, very
3detailed in relation to Auschwitz. I have the broad
4thrust of your case, but I think there is a lack of
6 MR IRVING: My Lord, I am ignorant of the rules of procedure in
7this matter. Would it be possible for me to be examined
8in the witness box on two occasions?
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Let us get clear what is being
10proposed. It is being proposed that there should be a
11division of this trial really into two separate
12compartments, one is Auschwitz which is to an extent a
13free standing issue, it seems to me, a discrete issue.
14The other is all the other issues, such as the bombing of
15Dresden, Hitler's responsibility for the Final Solution,
16and so on. Obviously, they are not wholly separate, but
17I think they can be taken separately for the purposes of
18the trial
19 MR IRVING: My Lord, I think a perfectly satisfactory solution
20which the court will, no doubt, find favour with is that
21I will go into the witness box today and submit myself to
22cross-examination on my pleadings, on the statements that
23I have made, on the correspondence that I have submitted
24to the other parties, on my opening statement and whatever
25other matters they choose to put to me. I will answer
26from the baggage that I carry around in my memory. No
1doubt, I will have the opportunity at a later date,
2possibly when I can go back to my diaries or other papers,
3to produce materials that I could not produce from
4memory. I am sure this would be an adequate solution to
5the problem
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: May I make a suggestion and then you can
7both, if you would like to, comment because I am very
8conscious you are in person and this is, for obvious
9reasons, not an easy case for you to conduct in person,
10but what I would suggest is that you now go into the
11witness box, that you deal with your reputation and your
12published works and so on, and you can take it that I have
13read your witness statement, that you then state, at any
14rate in broad outline, what your case is on Auschwitz --
15I am perfectly happy, as it were, to help you along by
16asking you questions and then you can elaborate in your
17answers -- and then for Mr Rampton to cross-examine you in
18relation to Auschwitz,
19 MR IRVING: At a later date
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, straight off, why not? We are dealing
21with that issue first
22 MR IRVING: Very well
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Then we will have, I do not know whether this
24will work in terms of timing, the expert evidence in
25relation to Auschwitz, hopefully, from your expert and
26from Professor van Pelt. Then you will have the
1opportunity to make submissions about it either at the
2very end of the case or, perhaps, at an earlier stage.
3Does that sound a sensible way of proceeding to you
4 MR IRVING: I am not too happy about being cross-examined on
5Auschwitz because our work on that is not complete. Your
6Lordship may consider this is irrelevant, whether our work
7on that is completed or not, because I am being asked
8about my own work and my own writings, and things that
9I may find out in the future are neither here nor there
10which is the phrase that I used yesterday, but I am sure
11your Lordship will have my interests at heart
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I am very anxious that you should say
13whatever it is you want to say. Your case should be fully
14deployed. But the case has been brewing a very long
15time. I am a bit alarmed to hear that you are not, as it
16were, fully up to speed on the Auschwitz issue
17 MR IRVING: We have been fully up to speed repeatedly, my Lord,
18with all the indications of that phrase. Every time we
19thought we were up to speed, we then received a fresh
20avalanche of binders with further documents
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, plus the 5,000 pages on Friday
22 MR IRVING: Indeed, and more during the weekend
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Would you be content to proceed along the
24lines I have indicated and if you reach a point where, for
25example, Mr Rampton is putting to you a document which you
26have not had a chance to look at before, then you make
1that point and ----
2 MR IRVING: Precisely.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- we ask him, perhaps, to go on to some
4other point?
5 MR IRVING: I believe that the present atmosphere and climate
6of opinion in court is, as Mr Rampton rather indicated, it
7is not fair to sand bag your opponents with surprise
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is very much the way in which litigation
10is now conducted.
11 MR IRVING: And we certainly have not done so. I found it
12mildly offensive that the Defendant should imply that we
13had. I have subjected the Defendants to a stream of
14questions over the last few weeks on their reports which,
15clearly, indicates which way we are thinking.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, may I now ask Mr Rampton whether he is
17happy to proceed in the way I have just outlined?
18 MR RAMPTON: I will proceed in any way your Lordship wants; the
19problem I have starting straightaway with Auschwitz is
20simply a practical one. I do not have my Auschwitz papers
21here. I have to go and get them.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
23 MR RAMPTON: We will not get to Auschwitz today? In that case,
24there is no problem, I can start tomorrow. If I do not
25have to cross-examine today, then I do not have any
26problem at all. I will start wherever it pleases your
1Lordship tomorrow.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But, in principle, the idea of dealing with
3Auschwitz separately is one that I believe you are in
4favour of?
5 MR RAMPTON: Yes. We were given an indication that Mr Irving's
6opening in evidence-in-chief would take us up to about the
7end of the week after next, that is to say, until Monday,
824th January, which is why Professor van Pelt is not here
9at the moment. So, in that sense I have a slight
10reluctance to start on Auschwitz until he gets here. It
11is not an overwhelming reluctance by any means at all.
12I can quite easily, on the other hand, start with
13something completely different. I can start with issues
14arising from Professor Evans' report without any problem
15at all.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: He covers really the whole gamut.
17 MR RAMPTON: I know. From your Lordship's point of view, that
18is perhaps a little inconvenient. The alternative -- it
19is one I do not advance with any great warmth -- is to
20adjourn this case until the beginning of next week by
21which time Mr Irving should be up to speed on Auschwitz.
22 I say that for this reason. Although it is
23perfectly true that the source documents were served on
24him last week, Van Pelt's report, the fact is that a very
25large number of those reports, documents, plans are
26illustrated in van Pelt's report; that they have been
1available in the archives in Auschwitz and in Moscow for a
2very long time. The main report was served at the end of
3July last year. I do not have all of that much sympathy
4with Mr Irving -- I have some, of course, because he is in
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I think the point you make is actually
7a fair one, that Professor van Pelt makes his point in his
8report without actually exhibiting the source material,
9but it is pretty obvious what he is saying.
10 MR IRVING: My Lord, it is not. Architectural consultants who
11have asked us for detailed drawings of many levels of the
12construction work that went on over a period. They need
13to know where the light switches were, that kind of
14thing. You cannot see that kind of information from the
15rather smudgey photocopies that were exhibited to the
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
18 MR RAMPTON: You do not do any better if you look at the nice
19coloured photographs which Professor van Pelt has now
20produced in that regard. They are just better copies of
21what he has already reproduced.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am very reluctant to adjourn the case.
23I really think we have to get on for obvious reasons.
24 MR IRVING: My Lord, can we not start the cross-examination on
25non-Auschwitz matters which will certainly take us up to
26the weekend? I am sure Mr Rampton has a any number of
1questions he is curious about.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am perfectly easy. I think you had between
3you reached agreement. It appears, perhaps, that is not
4really right. I do not mind in which order we take
5things. I think there is something to be said for taking
6Auschwitz first, but if you prefer that it was dealt with
7the other way round, that is fine.
8 MR RAMPTON: I can deal with a whole range of different topics,
9not necessarily in an orderly fashion. That is the
10trouble. What I am anxious to avoid is when I do get to
11Auschwitz in cross-examination, perhaps it might be
12tomorrow, for example, Mr Irving says, "Well, I am sorry,
13I cannot answer that, I have not had time to think about
14it or to instruct myself". That is absolutely hopeless.
15He then comes back, having heard my questions, and we have
16to start all over again.
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I see that.
18 MR RAMPTON: I am not really interested in attributing blame
19for these things. He is obviously not up to speed on
20Auschwitz and I do not really want to cross-examine him on
21it until he is because it is an unfair contest, apart from
22anything else.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us do it the other way round then. Let
24us take the other issues. That is really a course that
25you prefer, is it not?
26 MR IRVING: That was my original proposal, my Lord.
1 MR RAMPTON: When Professor van Pelt gets here (which is the
2week after next, I think) then I will start on Auschwitz
3because that, I would think, would have given Mr Irving
4enough time
5 MR IRVING: We are looking forward to it, in fact
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We will proceed on the opposite basis of
7taking all the other issues
8 MR IRVING: I am indebted, my Lord
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is up to you in which order you deal with
10them, but you will start with your reputation and history
11which I think you can take quite ----
12 MR IRVING: In cross-examination
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, this is in chief
14 MR IRVING: Right
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Then it is really entirely up to you,
16I think, how much you want to say in chief, and it is not
17very easy for you to do because in a sense you will be
18making a speech from the witness box, or whether you want
19to simply submit yourself to cross-examination on these
20various other issues, Dresden, Hitler's role, and the
22 MR IRVING: The court would simply certainly prefer for reasons
23of integrity that the evidence should be under oath
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I would, I think that is the right way of
25doing it
26 MR IRVING: Then the sooner I go into the witness box,
1therefore, the better. That may well speed things up
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. So you are happy to proceed in that
4 MR IRVING: I am happy to proceed in that way, provided the
5Auschwitz stage is left until later on
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is going to be. Mr Rampton, you are
7content with that as well
8 MR RAMPTON: Yes, I agree to that. I will find something else
9to start with
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sure you will. Mr Irving, the next
11problem, and you can really choose whichever you prefer,
12that is the witness box. If you find it more convenient
13to stay where you, I am perfectly happy if Mr Rampton is
14happy at this stage anyway, for the evidence to be given
15from there. When it comes to cross-examination, the
16position may be different because I do not see that you
17can really cross-examine along a row. But it may be
18easier for Mr Irving to stay where he is for the time
20 MR RAMPTON: That is what Miss Rogers suggested. It is a good
21idea. He has all his papers there. When he gets to be
22cross-examined, we may have to have a break while he gets
23all the stuff up there because I cannot cross-examine side
24by side
25 MR IRVING: I would prefer, my Lord, the first part of the
26cross-examination should be done from box, but when we
1come to the Auschwitz stage where we will have papers,
2I might revert to your Lordship's original proposal, that
3it should be continued with me standing here
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We will see about that when the time comes.
5But would you prefer to give your evidence-in-chief ----
6 MR IRVING: I would prefer to give it from the traditional
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Unless you want to deal with anything else,
9I think you ought to go and be sworn
10 MR IRVING: Very well, my Lord. At some stage, of course, my
11Lord, your Lordship is aware wish to deal with the
12Hizbollah allegations and the Farrakhan allegations, but
13this can done at any time
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think even that is best done from the
15witness box because this is a libel trial, it is a rather
16unusual one, but you will want to give what one might call
17some of the standard defamation evidence
18 MR DAVID IRVING, sworn
19 Examined by the Court
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I think the best thing is if
21I give you a little bit if a steer, if I can put it that
22way. Would you rather sit down
23 A. [Mr Irving] I am not sure that I need scaring
24 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] No, the word I used was "steer" not "scare", simply so
25that your evidence has a shape that might make it more
26comprehensible. Shall we start by your full name address
1 A. [Mr Irving] My full name is David John Cawdell -- I will spell that,
2C-A-W-D-E-L-L Irving, I-R-V-I-N-G
3 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] And address
4 A. [Mr Irving] My address is No. 81 Duke Street, London W1
5 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes. You have made a witness statement for the purposes
6of this action and it is dated 22nd January last year.
7Would you formally confirm that that is so
8 A. [Mr Irving] That is so. I have made a witness statement and the
9statements in it are true
10 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, thank you. Now, you can take it that I have read it,
11but, as you pointed out a little while ago, the Press is
12reporting this case and I think it would be right to give
13you the opportunity to restate in summary form anything
14that you wish to from that statement
15 A. [Mr Irving] I do not have a copy of the statement with me
16 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I think you probably should. Do you have anyone to help
17you fetch and carry documents
18 A. [Mr Irving] My entire staff was called to the Bar just before
19Christmas, unfortunately
20 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Perhaps if you can provide? Thank you
21 A. [Mr Irving] The statement is 18 pages, my Lord. If I were to read the
22statement out, it would take us until lunch time or would
23that be too long
24 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I am very much against you doing that because the main
25object of the exercise is, perhaps, to get your evidence
26across to me. I have read it, but I am giving you the
1opportunity to be selective and make in a summary way any
2of the points that you want to make again in your oral
4 A. [Mr Irving] I think I have made the principal statements from this.
5I repeated them in my opening statement yesterday. My
6books have received high praise from established academic,
7official and government historians in every country where
8they have been published. I just mention the names of
9Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper, AJP Taylor, Professor MRD
10Foot, Captan Stephen Roskill, Professor Norman Stone,
11Professor Donald Cameron Watt. The reason I
12have mentioned those names, as your Lordship will see in
13your files copies of the reviews and praise that these
14people have given to my works.
15 I have not only written about World War II, of
16course; I have also written about other matters like the
17Hungarian Uprising and the German Uranian Research
18Programme during World War II.
19 John Keegan, the Defence Correspondent for The
20Daily Telegraph (and your Lordship will be aware why I
21have stated this) has written: "Two books in English
22stand out from the vast literature of the Second World
23War: Chester Wilmott's 'The Struggle for Europe'
24published in 1952 and David Irving 'Hitler's War'" which
25appeared three years ago. That kind of quotation rather
26gives the lie to the statement by the Second Defendant
1which we saw on video that nobody takes me seriously.
2 It says here in about 1975 Adolf Hitler's
3Private Secretary, the late Christa Schroeder, gave me a
4small pencil sketch, a self-portrait of Adolf Hitler,
5which he had retrieved from his desk in the last days of
6the war. She gave it to me as a gift and I keep it. I do
7not, of course, have any kind of portrait of Adolf Hitler
8on my office hanging on the wall in the way that has been
10 Am I proceeding in the correct manner
11 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, I think this is exactly what I think is the right way
12of proceeding
13 A. [Mr Irving] I consider myself to be an expert on the careers of the
14principal Nazi leaders, including specifically Adolf
15Hitler, Goring and Dr Josef Goebbels. I am an expert on
16the archives about these people. I am expert on the
17current state of research into German and other wartime
18persecution and liquidation of the European Jewish
20 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] You said yesterday -- I am sorry to interrupt you-- that
21you did not regard yourself as being an historian of the
22Holocaust, can you just in your evidence ----
23 A. [Mr Irving] This is true
24 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] --- explain what you mean
25 A. [Mr Irving] There is a subtle difference. I am an expert in the state
26of research but not on their findings, so to speak. I am
1an expert on the way they go about their research, but not
2so much on the actual details of the Holocaust, and so on
3 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] When you say "they", who do you mean by "they", the
5 A. [Mr Irving] No, my Lord. I am sorry, I should have made myself
6clear. I mean the Holocaust historians, the historians
7who specialize in that topic
8 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes
9 A. [Mr Irving] Over the years I have collected a very large archive of
10original documents and copies of original documents, like
11private diaries and papers like that, from the top Nazi
12leaders using various techniques and methods, all entirely
13legal and, as part of my technique, I would then donate
14these papers immediately to the suitable archives so they
15are immediately available to other historians.
16 My views upon politics are on page 1047
17 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes
18 A. [Mr Irving] The Defendants have chosen to refer to my politics and
19they wrongly categorise them. They say that I am extreme
20right-wing or something like that. I have never belonged
21to a political party, left or right, except I think
22I joined the Young Conservatives at University.
23 My father stood as a Labour candidate in the
241945 General Election. I voted for Sir James Goldsmith,
25my Lord, if I can make that point in the last election, in
26other words, neither one nor the other. I regard myself
1as a laissez faire Liberal. In other words, I do not
2really care much about politics so long as they spend the
3money on hospitals rather than Millennium Domes. I have a
4family reason for saying that.
5 I do not look down on any section of humanity,
6either coloured immigrants, I have regularly employed
7them, or females. Your Lordship will appreciate the
8reasons why I make these points. I have five daughters,
9in fact -- I am sorry, I had five daughters.
10 I do not look down on the mentally or physically
11disabled. I admit to having little patience with smokers
12and none at all with drug abusers. This is not to say
13that I have applauded -- I have to state this because
14I will probably be asked about it -- I cannot say that I
15have applauded the uncontrolled tide of commonwealth
16immigration into this country.
17 Like most fellow countrymen of my background and
18vintage, I regret the passing of the Old England.
19I sometimes think, my Lord, that if the soldiers and
20sailors who stormed the beaches of Normandy in 1944 could
21see what England would be like at the end of this century,
22they would not have got 50 yards up the beach. I think
23they would have given up in disgust
24 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] You said you are getting towards paragraph 23 of your
25witness statement, 1048
26 A. [Mr Irving] My reputation as an historian
1 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] You said you wanted to develop that and I think now is
2probably the appropriate time to do that, if you want to
3 A. [Mr Irving] I have, of course, a very large collection of ring binders
4of Press clippings which have been made available to the
5Defendants and in which they have not shown the slightest
6interest. Reviews in all the leading newspapers of the
7world of the books that I have written. I believe I have
8written about 30. I could have produced all those reviews
9to the court, but if I just summarize and say that they
10are largely very favourable reviews, the kinds of reviews
11that made publishers line up to publish my books until the
12turning of tide.
13 Obviously, there were some reviews that you
14could describe as the curate's egg, but, by and large, the
15reviews were exceptionally favourable. It may be said
16that the reviewers were not as clever, perhaps, as the
17expert witnesses whom the Defendants have summoned for
18this case. That may be one argument; maybe they had not
19seen though me, perhaps. Arguments like that will be
20advanced, but I submit this is not the case. These were
21book reviews written by experts in their own field, like
22Captain Steven Roskill who was an eminent naval historian,
23Professor MRD Foot, who is another official historian,
24Professor Sir Frank Hinsley. If I just summarize it as
25briefly as that, my Lord
26 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, I think that is sufficient
1 A. [Mr Irving] If you wish to question that, of course, I will be quite
2happy to put in all the evidence to support the
3contention, but Defendants have not shown any interest in
4these statements
5 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Can you help me because I have not alighted on them. Are
6they in one of the files
7 A. [Mr Irving] They were within my discovery. They were disclosed to the
8Defendants in proper form. Admittedly, I did not do an
9index of the entire set, but they were shown 16 ring
10binders full of chronologically organized, properly pasted
11up reviews and Press clippings in which, who knows, they
12might have found some goodies they could have used against
13me, I do not know, but they did not bother with them
14 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Take your own course, Mr Irving, but do you now want to
15deal with the publication of "Denying the Holocaust"
16 A. [Mr Irving] The publication of the book. I paid no attention to that
17book, my Lord, until 1996. It did not come into my ken
18until 1996. I believe it was published in 1994, but in
19April 1996 we published in this country my book the
20Goebbels' biography, "Goebbels. Mastermind of the Third
21Reich". Your Lordship will be aware this is the only book
22that I requested that your Lordship study in some detail
23because it is a book that I am particularly proud of.
24 When we began marketing that book in the United
25Kingdom, which meant literally that I and my publisher
26imprint rented a van and visited approximately 980
1bookstores up and down the length and breadth of the
2country, which is a very enjoyable exercise. I do not do
3it out of tedium; it is very interesting to visit the
4bookstores and their managers. We marketed the book
5directly to them and we sold many thousands of copies in
6this manner, but we came across the phenomenon that in a
7number of bookstores, particularly in the Waterstones
8chain, the head of the history department took an aversion
9to me.
10 After visiting a number of the bookstores, it
11became quite plain that the reason for the aversion to me
12was the fact that they were selling the book "Denying the
13Holocaust", published by the first Defendant and written
14by the Second Defendant. This book was being believed by
15Waterstones or by their employes and by, no doubt, other
16bookstores too. It was causing me considerable concern
17because these bookstores were thereupon refusing to stock
18my books.
19 So I thereupon during that tour began to
20purchase copies of "Denying the Holocaust" as evidence
21that the book was on sale within the jurisdiction. I put
22the publishers on notice. I put the author on notice.
23I put certain of the book sellers themselves on notice
24because under the Defamation Act anybody in the
25distribution chain can be held liable for the peddling of
26libels. I subsequently, of course, separated those --
1I discontinued the action against the book sellers for
2reasons that need not occupy the court.
3 At the beginning of September 1996, which is
4that same year, which had been a very harrowing year for
5me, as I had seen my American publishers, St Martin's
6Press, in conjunction with my big American publisher,
7Doubledays, simultaneously deciding, we now learn, upon
8representations made by the Second Defendant not to go
9ahead with publication of my Goebbels' biography,
10I decided that I had no recourse but to take libel action
11against this book which was, obviously, part of the cause
12of my problem.
13 So I issued the writ, after taking usual
14procedural steps, the letter before action and so on,
15I think it was dated September 6th 1996
16 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes. Now, you have selected for complaint a number of
17particular passages from the book and I think it would be
18appropriate if you were to deal with them, and where you
19best find them, I do not know, but certainly they are to
20be found in your Statement of Claim, but it may be you
21would rather deal with it in some other way
22 A. [Mr Irving] May I return my papers and collect the Statement of
24 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, of if you point out where they are, perhaps somebody
25can do it for you rather than having you go backwards and
1 A. [Mr Irving] They are in the ring binder
2 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Thank you very much
3 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, I was defamed and libelled on a number of pages
4in the book. I do not propose to read out, unless your
5Lordship wishes otherwise, the specific passages
6 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] No. You are entitled to take your own course about that
7but I think what you ought to do is just give an
8indication of ----
9 A. [Mr Irving] I will read out ----
10 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] --- why you object to the passages that you have selected
11for complaint
12 A. [Mr Irving] If I go to paragraph 9 of the Statement of Claim which is
13 "The natural or ordinary meaning of the words complained
15 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes
16 A. [Mr Irving] I contend that the passages meant, and were intended to
17mean and understood to mean, firstly, "that the
18Plaintiff", meaning myself, "is a dangerous spokesperson
19for Holocaust denial ... for denial forces who
20deliberately and knowingly consorts and consorted with
21anti-Israel, anti-Semitic and Holocaust denial forces and
22who contracted to attend a world anti-Zionist conference
23in Sweden in November 1992, thereby agreeing to appear in
24public in support of and alongside violent and extremist
25speakers, including representatives of the violent and
26extremist anti-Semitic Russian group, Pamyat, and of the
1Iranian-backed Hezbollah and of the fundamentalist Islamic
2organization Hamas and including the black Muslim leader
3Louis Farrakhan, born Louis Eugene Walcott, who is known
4as a Jew-baiting black agitator, as a leader of the US
5Nation of Islam, as an admirer of Hitler and who is in the
6pay of Colonel Gaddafi".
7 My Lord, the wording that I use in this is, of
8course, very closely related to the wording used in the
9work complained of. I have not chosen those words
10myself. I have merely distilled them out of the
11Defendant's text and adhered as closely as possible to the
12original wording
13 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes. You are just paraphrasing really
14 A. [Mr Irving] I am not even paraphrasing, my Lord. I am gluing the
15words together into a complaint form using the words
16actually used by the Defendants in the work complained of
17 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] That is what I meant by "paraphrase"
18 A. [Mr Irving] So I have added no colour, I have turned up no volume.
19These are the extraordinary words used to describe me by
20the Defendants. They say, "that the Plaintiff", myself,
21 "is an historian who has inexplicably misled", in other
22words, the word "inexplicably" is in the original book,
23 "misled academic historians like Ernst Nolte into quoting
24historically invalid points contained in his writings", my
25writings, "and who applauds the internment of Jews in Nazi
26concentration camps". I am accused of having applauded
1the internment of Jews in Nazi concentration camps which
2is a particularly perverse allegation in my view.
3 No. (iii) "that the Plaintiff", David Irving,
4 "routinely perversely and by way of his profession, but
5essentially in order to serve his own reprehensible
6purposes ideological leanings and/or political agenda",
7and here are the allegations, "distort accurate historical
8evidence and information; misstate; misconstrue; misquote;
9falsify statistics; falsely attribute conclusions to
10reliable sources; manipulate documents; wrongfully quote
11from books that directly contradict my arguments in such a
12manner as completely to distort their author's objectives
13and while counting on the ignorance or indolence of the
14majority of readers not to realize this"
15 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] May I interrupt and ask you this? Am I right in thinking
16(and I may be quite wrong) that really that is the
17imputation against you which causes you the most concern
18 A. [Mr Irving] Professionally, clearly so, my Lord
19 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes
20 A. [Mr Irving] I mean, the name calling is neither here nor there and
21your Lordship may make of it what your Lordship wants,
22I submit. Clearly, some of the name calling will stick,
23but it would be a real waste of this court's time if
24I take each of the names I have been called in turn and
25try to prove that is not so. This is what has cost me my
26career, unless the court disposes otherwise at the end of
1this trial, my Lord.
2 I complained that the work complained of
3describes me as an Adolf Hitler partisan who wears
4blinkers and skews documents and misrepresents data in
5order to reach historically untenable conclusions
6specifically those that exonerate Hitler.
7 I am accused of being an ardent admirer of the
8Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, an ardent admirer of the Nazi
9leader, Adolf Hitler; that I conceive myself as carrying
10on Hitler's criminal legacy and that I placed a
11self-portrait of Hitler over my desk; that I
12have described a visit to Hitler's mountain top retreat as
13a spirit experience; that I have described myself as a
14moderate fascist. These are the allegations contained in
15the book.
16 Further, that before the Zundel trial began in
171988 in Toronto, I, the Plaintiff, compromising my
18integrity as an historian, and in an attempt to pervert
19the course of justice and one Faurisson, Robert Faurisson
20whom we saw in the video, that I wrongfully and/or
21fraudulently conspired together to invite an American
22prison warden and thereafter one Fred Leuchter, an
23engineer who is depicted by the Defendants as a charlatan,
24to testify as a tactic for proving that the gas chambers
25were a myth".
26 The loaded words in that sentence, my Lord, are
1words that are actually contained in the book.
2 "That the Plaintiff after attending Mr Zundel's
3trial in 1988 in Toronto, having previously hovered on the
4brink now denies the murder by the Nazis of the Jews". So
5I deny the murder by the Nazis of the Jews, this is one of
6the allegations. That I described the memorial to the
7dead at Auschwitz as a tourist attraction; that I was
8branded by the British House of Commons as "Hitler's
9Heir", and that I was denounced by the same British House
10of Commons as a Nazi propagandist and long-time Hitler
11apologist and accused by them of publishing a fascist
12publication, and that this marked the end of my reputation
13in England.
14 My Lord, it may possibly not be familiar to the
15Defendants that there is a distinction between an early
16day motion being put in the House of Commons by a group of
17disgruntled members of Parliament and the House of Commons
18actually voting and reaching a decision. It is nothing
19more than a propaganda move by people who wish to draw
20attention to something within the privileged atmosphere.
21It is rather like the privileged atmosphere that exists in
22this court, my Lord; people can say what they want about
23me and the newspapers are free to print it
24 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, well, I certainly do know about early day motions,
26 A. [Mr Irving] That some other person had discovered in a Russian archive
1 -- this is the allegation in the book -- that some other
2person had discovered in the Russian archive in 1992 the
3Goebbels' diaries, that it was assumed that these would
4shed light on the conduct of the Final Solution, but that
5I was hired and paid a significant sum by the London
6Sunday Times to transcribe and translate, although I was a
7discredited and ignominious figure and, although by hiring
8the Plaintiff, the newspaper threw its task as a
9gatekeeper of the truth and of journalistic ethics to the
10winds and, although there was thereby increased the danger
11that the Plaintiff would in order to serve his own
12reprehensible purposes misstate, misconstrue, misquote,
13falsify, distort and/or manipulate these sets of documents
14which others had not seen, namely, the Goebbels' diaries;
15I would do all that in order to propagate my reprehensible
16views and that I, the Plaintiff, was unfit to perform such
17a function for this newspaper.
18 Finally, the book contained the allegation that
19I violated an agreement with the Russian archives, and
20that I took and copied many plates without permission
21causing significant damage to them and rendering them of
22limited use to subsequent researchers
23 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Mr Irving, the first of those imputations that you say
24that Professor Lipstadt makes against you in her book is
25one that links you with Hamas and Hezbollah, and again
26I think you indicated earlier on that you wanted to say
1something about those organizations
2 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, I put to your Lordship a small bundle of
3documents ----
4 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes
5 A. [Mr Irving] --- on those organisations
6 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I have read it.
7 A. [Mr Irving] It is probably not necessary for me to go in detail
8through them. I will indicate to your Lordship that
9reliable sources, like the BBC or other news media
10organizations, have consistently described the Hezbollah
11and Hamas, which are two Muslim fundamentalist terrorist
12organizations, as being criminal organizations whose
13members are not allowed into other countries and are
14actively pursued by the forces of law and order and,
15indeed, actively pursued with less law and order by the
16forces of the Mossad, who sometimes dispose of them by
17jabbing the aforementioned hypodermic needle laden with
18nerve gas into their neck which is one of the documents
19which I put before your Lordship
20 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, I have read them
21 A. [Mr Irving] So anybody who is described in this reckless way as being
22a member of the Hamas or the Hezbollah or some other
23similar terrorist organization is at risk of being
24declared fair game with the forces of law and order or, at
25the very least, for the immigration authorities and
26countries who already look askance upon people for various
1reasons and, at worst, they are having their life put at
2risk or they are going to be ruffed up in the street by
3people who disagree with the Hezbollah or the Hamas.
4 I do not share your Lordship's earlier opinion
5at the pretrial review that is a matter which falls under
6section 5 of the Act, my Lord
7 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I did not express any concluded view, obviously
8 A. [Mr Irving] I am sorry, my Lord. This was totally misquoted
9 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Can you help me on something else? You will have the
10opportunity to make submissions about that later on. You
11supplied documents relating to the bombing in Oklahoma
12City. Does that feature in Professor Lipstadt's book
13 A. [Mr Irving] It does not feature in the book, my Lord, but I thought
14this was the appropriate bundle to put them, in February
151996 the media in the United States, where such
16allegations can be made with impunity, raised the
17allegation that I had supplied the trigger mechanism for
18the Oklahoma City bomb.
19 Now, the Oklahoma City bombing features in some
20of the documents quoted, I believe, by Professor Evans or
21by Professor Brian Levin, because they quote from my diary
22on that particular day; and to be accused of having
23anything to do with that crime was something I found
24particularly repugnant and I regard it as being part of
25the general campaign to vilify me and blacken my name
26which originated from the same sources which have funded
1the Defendants with the material they have used to smear
2me. It is no more directly associated with them than
4 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Thank you very much
5 A. [Mr Irving] But it is like trying to put a hook into a custard pie.
6You cannot really pin anything down until you stand back
7and you see the whole continuum of the onslaught to which
8I have been subjected
9 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] The next thing you might want to deal with, Mr Irving, is
10the effect that that the publication of the book of which
11you complain has had on you. I have seen what you say in
12your witness statement about that, but if you want to
13expatiate on that, then please do
14 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, people have said to me, "Why have you picked on
15that book and those particular Defendants?" and the simple
16answer is because it is an open and shut case. I have
17been accused of doing things which they cannot justify.
18If we admittedly find it more difficult to disprove the
19subjective claims, ad hominem statements that are made,
20there are certain specific claims that are made, like the
21Adolf Hitler portrait or like the misquoting of documents
22or deliberate and reprehensible mistranslation or
23distortion, which are easy to disprove and they are the
24ones which reflect on my professional integrity and on my
25career and on my livelihood, which is precisely what the
26Defamation act, as I understand it, is about
1 This is one reason why I decided that the time
2had come after 30 years to take some kind of action which
3I did with the utmost reluctance because Penguin Books,
4the First Defendants, have published books of my own in
5the past and you are not eager to go and sue people who
6have published your own books.
7 The book, undoubtedly, had caused me serious
8damage. When I consider, admittedly, this was not damage
9within the jurisdiction, and it is possible the Defence
10counsel objected and it is, therefore, relevant, but in
11view of the fact that the publication of this book and the
12author of the book were widely quoted in justification by
13the American publishers for cancelling my Dr Goebbels'
14biography, which was for me a particularly wounding and
15injurious event, when I wrote the biography of
16Dr Goebbels, it was a task of nine years, my Lord.
17 We have just spent three years preparing this
18case, writing that one book which your Lordship has seen
19took me nine years. It went through, I think, six
20different drafts; the first draft entirely in handwriting,
21the drafts of the manuscript which the Defendants have
22seen fills some ten cubic feet of boxes, as it was refined
23and refined and then finally totally rewritten when I came
24into possession of the diaries. The book was set to
25restore my reputation completely until the United States,
26because your Lordship may well agree that the book cannot
1be described as "anti-Semitic", the book, in my
2submission, cannot be described as justifying the
3Holocaust or admiring Hitler or exonerating Hitler in any
4kind of way, the book was, I consider, one of the most
5well-founded and well-researched and watertight accounts
6of the higher leadership of the Third Reich that I have
7ever written. It was the crowning point of my career. We
8waited with the utmost eagerness for publication day in
9the United States, shortly before which the publishers
10contacted me and said, Mr Irving, we are beginning to come
11under attack from all quarters. One of the quarters was
12from the second Defendant
13 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Your evidence is, is it, that the -- I think you said "the
14author" did you mean..
15 A. [Mr Irving] The Second Defendant
16 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] The American publishers of the Goebbels book told you that
17Professor Lipstadt and --
18 A. [Mr Irving] No, my Lord, media accounts have linked Professor Lipstadt
19with this particular event
20 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] -- media accounts, rather than the American publishers
21 A. [Mr Irving] This is true, my Lord, and it is very unsatisfactory that
22we are not going to be able, as I understand it, to
23question Professor Lipstadt about what contact she may
24have had
25 If I may state at this point also, one would
26have liked to have seen in her discovery, had her
1discovery been complete, and I am going to submit her
2discovery was incomplete, any correspondence that she
3might have had or any communications she might or might
4not have had with the publishers' concerns, St Martins
5Press, or with the people who were putting pressure on the
6publishers, because the Second Defendant was certainly
7instantly quoted as an authority on the reasons why the
8book should be suppressed
9 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, but you are entitled to make applications for
10discovery, but let us focus on your evidence. If you want
11to make that application we can deal with that at the
12beginning or the end of the day
13 A. [Mr Irving] It is not an application, my Lord, it is an allegation.
14I was informed by the second Defendants' lawyers when your
15Lordship will have seen that I succeeded in obtaining an
16order that the Second Defendant should be required to
17swear a list on affidavit. When that occurs, as your
18Lordship is aware, I am not allowed to go behind the
19affidavit until the trial of the action. I was repeatedly
20reminded of this by the defendants' solicitors, who said
21you will be able to cross-examine Professor Lipstadt when
22the time comes, on her affidavit, and, of course, now we
23will not
24 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes
25 A. [Mr Irving] That is not the last time I shall refer to that, my Lord.
26I find it an unfortunate state of affairs
1 So the book anyway in the United States did not
2appear. The just proceeds of that book not appearing were
3denied to me. But not only the just proceeds of that book
4but as it seems now all future books, because all the
5publishers with whom I previously dealt in the United
6States have pointed to that episode in grief and terror
7and said we cannot afford that to happen to us. The
8chairman of the St Martin's Press was obliged to resign
9six weeks later over the scandal and nobody wanted to go
10through that again
11 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes. So that is your evidence about the effect of what
12has been published by these Defendants. Now --
13 A. [Mr Irving] Specific details, yes, my Lord, of course, there is a
14long-term effect in this country as well
15 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] -- describe that
16 A. [Mr Irving] The book, which has been published by the First and Second
17Defendants has been not just sold through the normal
18outlets, it has been placed on the Internet on two
19different website locations. I have no way of knowing
20whether they are active participants in that or not
21because we cannot cross-examine them on that. I, the
22Defendant, but the book has been made available in other
23words to 200 million Internet users. They can download it
24free, the entire book, and review probably regardless of
25whatever injunction your Lordship sees fit to make at the
26end of this trial that book will continue in perpetuity in
1cyber space. The book has been donated to very large
2numbers of university libraries around the world. One of
3my correspondents at the University of Durham has found no
4fewer than three copies in Durham University library with
5library plate gummed into the front saying "donated by
6Friends of Durham University History Society". There is
7no such Society. So it has been actively propagated by
8who knows whom. The book is relied on as a source. It is
9an authoritative source by people who wish to attack me
10further. So it has an ongoing rolling effect far beyond
11the effect it has just on the one customer who picks it up
12at his local Barns & Noble or Waterstones bookshop, my
14 Of course, the book is a very much more serious
15libel -- vehicle for a libel then a newspaper. When
16newspapers have libeled me or defamed me in the past and
17people have come to me wringing their hands in grief as
18you will see from one of the speeches I made. I said, fear
19not because today is already Monday and what appeared
20yesterday is already wrapping fish and chips or being
21flushed down the drains in some paper processing plant.
22Whereas books go into libraries.
23 But simultaneously, as your Lordship will have
24seen from the witness statement of Professor Evans, when
25he went to the British Library and asked to obtain a copy
26of my book he was told that it had mysteriously been put
1in the pornographic book section and was not freely
2available. The book which I have on the desk in front, my
3book "Hitler's War".
4 It is quite ingenious campaign, my Lord, I would
5aver that on the one side my book is being suppressed and
6squirreled away, hidden out of sight so people cannot see
7what I actually wrote. Pressure is put on publishers so
8they do not publish my books and simultaneously a campaign
9is launched by very well qualified writers and very gifted
10writers, armed with ammunition from all around the world
11in an attempt to defame me which I then cannot answer.
12 Has your Lordship further questions on ----
13 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Not on that aspect, and I do not want to impose any kind
14of rigid pattern to your evidence if you do not want it to
15emerge in that way
16 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, I find it is very useful that you ask me these
17questions because it is like an examination in chief
18 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I hoped you might. Yes, that is what it is really intended
19to be. What I was going to suggest you deal with now, is
20the plea of justification because that is obviously the
21main issue. If it is not inconvenient to you it would be
22most helpful to me if you were to deal perhaps quite
23briefly with the various allegations that are put against
24you in the Defendant's summary of case, because I think
25everybody agrees that superseded the original defence, we
26discussed that at pretrial review
1 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
2 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I think it is a convenient summary of the allegations that
3are made against you and can you deal with it briefly or
4at greater length. It is a matter for you. I have no
5doubt you will be cross-examined about it anyway, but
6would it be appropriate to go through --
7 A. [Mr Irving] If I can find it in this bundle
8 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] -- the topics. I have it in a separate file. I do not
9know whether if you have it in the same form I have, the
10Defendant's summary of case
11 MR RAMPTON: We have it. Does your Lordship have it in a
12separate file
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. That may be something I did and have
14forgotten about.
15 MR RAMPTON: It is in the pale green thing
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you got it
17 A. [Mr Irving] I have the summary of the Defendants case, yes
18 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Well, as you recall it is divided into sections, and the
19first section, which is quite a short one, is the
20allegation that is made against you by the Defendants that
21you are what is called a "Holocaust denier"
22 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, I think I led, or at any rate I gave my reply to
23that allegation in my opening statement yesterday at some
24length, and I am not sure there is very much more I can
25add to that in chief, so to speak. Perhaps the ----
26 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Can I just put a little bit of flesh on the bones of that
1 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
2 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] The way the Defendants put their case is to quote quite a
3large number of, mostly speeches, that you have made
4 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
5 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Usually in North America, and to say that you have denied
6that there were any Jews killed in gas chambers at
7Auschwitz and so on, and refer to Auschwitz in dismissive
8terms. The first question, I suppose, is to what extent
9you accept that you are accurately quoted. I am not
10asking you to go into the detail of it, but do you accept
11that you have said that sort of thing, in general, whether
12the quotation is accurate
13 A. [Mr Irving] In general, those quotations are accurate, my Lord. Of
14course, I am quite unhappy about the use of word
15"holocaust" without having had it very closely defined.
16It is a very elastic expression
17 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] You state what you understand it to mean
18 A. [Mr Irving] The Holocaust was the tragedy that befell the Jewish
19people during World War II. I would set it as broadly as
20that. One could even set if more broadly and say the
21Holocaust was whole of World War II and that the people
22who died and suffered in that Holocaust were not
23necessarily confined to the Jewish religion, but any
24number of innocents, whether gypsies, homosexuals, the
25people in Coventry, the people in Hiroshima. I think it
26is otiose to try and define the Holocaust just the way you
1wish to define it in order to snare somebody, which
2appears to be what happens in a case like this. They set
3it as wide as they want when it is a concern, for example,
4of taking money from the Swiss banks. I will justify that
5statement in a moment, and they set it very narrowly when
6they then try to snare a writer who is dangerous to them,
7as they put it.
8 The reference to the Swiss Bank is justified as
9follows. I have in my files and I can produce it to your
10Lordship if you wish probably five or ten whole page
11advertisements inserted in the newspapers around the
12world, and your Lordship may well have seen them, inviting
13people in entitled to compensation for their suffering in
14the Holocaust to come forward, and for the purposes of
15that advertisement those people are defined as any person
16who was persecuted in Germany during the periods of the
17Third Reich, or in Nazi occupied territories, by virtue of
18his religion or by virtue of being a minority. He did not
19have to be in a concentration camp. He did not have do
20work in a slave labour factory. The mere fact of being
21within the frontiers of those countries justified that man
22to Holocaust compensation. That, of course, is, in my
23submission, an offensively wide description of the word
24and I think that the two line description I gave, the
25Holocaust is -- I would prefer to see it defined for the
26purposes of this court, this trial, the Holocaust is the
1tragedy that befell -- that undoubtedly befell the Jewish
2people during the Third Reich, not even just during World
3War II
4 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Well, do not let us be too bothered about labels, but can
5I just ask you this; I understand what are you saying
6about the Holocaust being a term you could apply to the
7World War II generally, but if you take it as meaning, for
8the purposes of this question anyway, a systematic
9programme of exterminating Jews, conducted by the Nazi
10regime --
11 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, I think the difference --
12 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] -- can I just ask you this, do you accept that there was
13any such programme first; leave aside the issue of gas
15 A. [Mr Irving] -- no, I do not. I think this is the defect, with
16respect, in your Lordship's definition. The systematic
17programme to exterminate the Jews is the cause, whereas
18the Holocaust, the word "Holocaust" as I would see it is
19the effect, the result, the tragedy that results. When we
20are looking at the Holocaust we are looking at the
21victims. We are looking at the mass graves. We are
22looking at the people being machine gunned into pits. The
23Holocaust in my submission is not the machinery which
24produced the result, it is the suffering and not the
25murderer, shall we say
26 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] So I want to be clear on this, because it is obviously
2 A. [Mr Irving] It is very important indeed, my Lord
3 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] You are saying that, yes, there were multiple shootings by
4Einsatzgruppen and so on during the invasion of Soviet
5Russia --
6 A. [Mr Irving] There was mass murders of Jews committed by Nazis in their
7satraps --
8 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] -- but it was not pursuant to any systematic programme, is
9that your case
10 A. [Mr Irving] -- again, I would have to -- I am not caviling, but these
11are important definitions, my Lord. If the
12definition -- if by using the word "systematic" you are
13implying that the system, the Third Reich as such
14originated these massacres, then I would have to quibble
15with that. I would say that certainly at a lower level a
16system emerged and that it was systemized somewhere in the
17hierarchy; does your Lordship appreciate --
18 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, I follow what you are saying
19 A. [Mr Irving] -- yes. I submit that the Defendants will find it very
20difficult to suggest that it was a Third Reich decision.
21In other words an Adolf Hitler decision, which is of
22course the open water between us at present.
23 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Can I ask a similar question; do you accept or deny
24totally that there was any systematic gassing of Jews in
25gas chambers, whether at Auschwitz or at elsewhere?
26I know we are not dealing with Auschwitz but I think that
1that ought to be part of --
2 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, I think if we can leave out the word "systematic"
3which is contentious, I do not deny that there was some
4kind of gassing at gas chambers in Birkenhau, it is highly
5likely that there was
6 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] -- on a solely experimental basis or --
7 A. [Mr Irving] That is the word I have used to give an indication of
8scale and to give an indication of the authority on which
9it was conducted, and, well, I leave it at that. But now
10you appreciate the reason why I am reluctant to insert the
11word systematized into that, because that implies that it
12was conducted on authority from above and that there were
13guidelines, and in some of the killings they were very
14definitely guidelines, my Lord, and I will lead some
15evidence on that later. Because Heinrich Himmler in fact
16refers to guidelines in a message he send to one of the
17commanders which has not been revealed previously
18 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] -- do you want to add anything more in advance of
19cross-examination about the allegation that you are a
20Holocaust denier using the term "Holocaust" in the narrow
22 A. [Mr Irving] I do, my Lord, I wish to say that if you are not allowed
23to examine components of the Holocaust as I described it,
24the tragedy that was inflicted on the Jewish people in the
25Third Reich, if you are not allowed to examine individual
26components of that and say, yes, this definitely
1happened. This is slightly exaggerated, that bit I find
2little evidence for. In other words not to carry out
3normal kind of analysis that you would do as a writer or
4as an historian without being accused and defamed as being
5a Holocaust denier instantly by the assembled mass media,
6then I would think would be a very sorry state of affairs.
7To that extent I find it offensive to be called a
8Holocaust denier because there are aspects of the
9Holocaust as currently portrayed that I find questionable,
10debateable and they need to be debated. But that is not
11Holocaust denial in my view, my Lord.
12 The defence contention that somebody who
13challenges the figure is a Holocaust denier ipso facto, I
14have read Professor Evans' report in great deal here where
15I think he gives four criteria of what a Holocaust denier
16is. Somebody who says that Adolf Hitler did not give the
17order, somebody who challenges a figure. Somebody who
18says there were no gas chambers. I forget the fourth
19one. It is almost as though those four criteria have been
20tailor made in the way that you would have a suit tailor
21made for this very action, my Lord. I do not think that
22your Lordship will set much store by those four criteria.
23I hope you will not. Because if it is not possible to
24question the 6 million figure, for example, that I have
25been I accused of being a Holocaust denier, you run into
26immediate difficulties, because the Auschwitz authorities
1themselves removed the memorial stone for 4 million dead
2and replaced it with a memorial stone for one million
3dead; are they Holocaust deniers under Professor Evans'
4definition? It is an absurdity
5 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Again, take your own course, but I was being to move on
6and I was going to skip for the purposes of my so-called
7examination-in-chief of you, skip altogether the section
8dealing with Auschwitz and indeed the one..
9 A. [Mr Irving] If you had not, my Lord, I would have reminded you of what
10we agreed this morning
11 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, quite. I am also going to skip Treblinka, Sobibor
12and Belsic, because it seems to me they really belong in
13the same compartment of the case as Auschwitz.
14 There is a section though in a subsection in
15section 2, you may be able to find the page 28, which is
16headed: "Mass Murder of Jews by Shootings", I am not sure
17that really belongs in that particular section, but I can
18see why it has landed up there; do you want to say
19anything at this stage about that in fairly general
20terms? I think the criticism is made of you that whilst
21you recognize that many, to use a neutral word, many Jews
22were shot and killed in horrific circumstances, you have
23downplayed it, you have underestimated the number of
24deaths which occurred in this fashion
25 A. [Mr Irving] I do not like playing numbers games, my Lord, and a lot of
26these numbers are very suspect. Your Lordship may not be
1familiar with this, but there was the case against Field
2Marshall Manstein, conducted by British War Crimes Court
3in Germany, where Manstein was represented by very eminent
4and able QC, I think it was Paget, who subsequently wrote
5a book called "Manstein and His Trials" and he led very
6good evidence indeed on these figures, proving how totally
7impossible many of the figures were relating to the
8Einsatzgruppen, but I say this with the utmost diffidence
9as I am not a expert and I have no intention of becoming a
10expert on that. What I am an expert on is the role played
11by Adolf Hitler in these killings and if I can just spend
12two minutes of the court's time describing the sequel to
13what happened yesterday, the November 30th 1941 episode,
14documents we have here in the British archives. They are
15of the utmost importance because they go a long way to
16refuting what Mr Rampton said yesterday about my
17interpretation of that Himmler document.
18 If you remember, my Lord, on November 30th 1941,
19an event to which both the defence and I in our opening
20statements have referred occurred. A train load of 1,035
21Jews from Berlin arrived after a two or three day journey
22at Riga. They were unloaded from the train that morning
23in ice cold conditions and had the misfortune to arrive in
24the middle of a mass extermination, a mass shooting of
25Jews being conducted by the local SS commander. They were
26shot immediately in the pits, and, my Lord, I am sure you
1will vividly remember the description of that very
2shooting that was given to us by General Bruns in the
3Bruns Report, to which I have repeatedly referred
4 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes
5 A. [Mr Irving] So that one episode, when great good fortune, having a lot
6of documentation, the defence as I understand it are going
7to seize on the fact that in the Bruns Report the local SS
8junior says it is the Fuhrer's orders. I think there are
9very grave reasons for doubting that because Heinrich
10Himmler, as we heard yesterday, at 1.30 p.m. on that same
11Sunday, November 30th 1941, was called into Hitler's
12bunker and at or about that time, and I am going to be
13quite careful how I say this, he had reason to make a
14telephone call to SS Obergruppen Fuhrer Reinhardt
15Heinrich, who was his henchman, his closest lieutenant.
16He was the head of the killers, shall we say, he was above
17the Gestapo, Reinhardt Heinreich, and in that telephone
18conversation he said certain things as a result of which
19he jotted down two lines in his note pad. I have the
20actual handwritten notes on the table next to my stand
21there. The first line says: ( German spoken) Jew
22transport from Berlin. I appreciate quite readily that in
23the first chapter of my "Hitler's War" book I wrongly put
24that in the plural. The second line continued with the
25words ( German spoken) "no liquidation".
26 Now, many things can be said about that
1document, my Lord, the first is, how is it that it was not
2until 1974 when David Irving took the trouble to
3transcribe Heinrich Himmler's note, 30 years after the war
4was over that this extraordinary note came to the
5attention of the historical community. Well, I do not
6know why they do not want to read Heinreich Himmler's
7handwriting. It is a very difficult handwriting and
8I have to plead that as being my partial excuse for having
9misread ( German spoken) and also on the following day for
10having misread word "juden" as "haben" (?) or vice versa
11 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I think the point they make is not so much about
12legibility, but that this on its face looks as if it is
13talking about a single train transportation to --
14 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, this true, my Lord
15 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] -- to Riga from Berlin
16 A. [Mr Irving] I should have put in the word "the". I left out the word
17"the" in my text based on it. I should not have said
18"transportation of Jews" I should have said "the
19transport of Jews". But I corrected this as soon as this
20was pointed out to me, my Lord.
21 But I can continue because the inference that
22I drew from this, if this telephone call is made ( German
23spoken), from the bunker, from Hitler's bunker at the
24Wolf's lair in Rustenberg, East Prussia, Himmler has been
25required to telephone Reinhardt Heydrich and tell somebody
26these Jews from Berlin were not to be liquidated, you have
1to very interesting conclusion, namely the liquidation was
2in the air and people have pointed this out to me and I do
3not dispute that for one moment. But what interested me
4is Adolf Hitler's biographer is that here is a case of
5Hitler intervening in a negative way. But it gets more
6interesting, my Lord, because we now have 20 years further
7down the road at the end of the 1990s in the Public Record
8Office the intercepts of the radio messages sent by
9Himmler the very next day to the man who had carried out
10the killings, SS Obergruppenfuhrer Joachim. Now this may
11be new to your Lordship. It is certainly new to everybody
12in this court; December 1st 1941, the day after the
13killings, Joachim gets a message from Heinrich Himmler in
14top secret SS code which we broke reading, and I have this
15there memory, I have the actual document on my desk over
16there but the sense is, the words are: These shootings
17that have been carried out in Riga, concerning the
18shootings in Riga, any excess, any further excesses,
19arbitrary excesses and actions against instructions given
20to you -- no. You have been given clear guidelines
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think we ought to look at this document
22I am not familiar with it
23 MR RAMPTON: Nor are we
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Then I think we should look at it
25 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, it has been supplied to the Defence several weeks
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not doubting that for a moment. Can you
2indicate where it is so we can get it for you
3 A. [Mr Irving] It is large yellow sheets headed "Most Secret" in my case,
4at the bottom of the inside of my case. Then I do not
5have them with me, because I was intending to lead this
6material tomorrow
7 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] So I understand what you are saying, you are saying there
8is a message from Himmler to Joachim
9 A. [Mr Irving] From Himmler to the Chief of the SS saying: There were
10very clear guidelines for the outsettlement, the
11outplacing of the Jews from Berlin
12 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] So it is about the Jews from Berlin
13 A. [Mr Irving] It is talking about Jews from Berlin, clearly referring to
14this train load. He then continues: Any further arbitrary
15actions and actions against instructions will be severely
16punished, and he ordered Joachim to report immediately to
17Hitler's headquarters. On December 4th, my Lord, and this
18I do have there in the big blue volume -- can you give it
19to me, the Himmler Diary, have had that volume now for 20
20years -- on December 4th 1941 Joachim then turns up at
21Hitler's headquarters and he is raked over the coals,
22there is no question, because the killings of German Jews
23stopped for the next few months. On December 1st I would
24say ----
25 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Is there a copy of this document? If there is not there
26should be one
1 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, there are copies made. I had all this bundle
2ready to be produced tomorrow
3 MR RAMPTON: Can I help
4 A. [Mr Irving] Because of the importance ----
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think Mr Rampton knows where it is
6 MR RAMPTON: I do not know if it is he same document. From its
7wording I very much suspect it is, but on page 353 of
8Professor Evans' report at paragraph 6 ----
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor who
10 MR RAMPTON: Professor Evans page 353, paragraph 6, he has a
11quotation from a document: "The Jews have been resettled
12out of the territory of the "Ouslander" (?) only to be
13dealt with in accordance with guidelines issued by me or
14the Reich Security Head Office on my authority. I will
15punish individual initiatives and contraventions.
16Signed H. Himmler", and it is annotated as being Himmler
17to Joachim, 1st December 1941 at 7.30 p.m. in the Public
18Record Office HW16/32
19 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct
20 MR RAMPTON: It is the same document
21 A. [Mr Irving] Does he also have the following message, let me ask
22Mr Rampton, where he instructs Joachim to report to
23headquarters immediately
24 MR RAMPTON: I do not have that document
25 A. [Mr Irving] Clearly the significance of that is even more important
26than this rap on the knuckles about the arbitrary
1reactions and acting against authority and disobeying the
2guidelines. On December 1st, the day after the killings,
3the same day as these telegrams, here is in Himmler's own
4handwriting a telephone call at 1315 to SS General
5Heinrich about the executions in Riga which everybody
6agrees is referring to this appalling atrocity where the
7Jews had been shot into the pits. The significant feature
8is, as all the historians on both sides now agree, that
9from that time on the killing of German Jews stopped for
10many months. The fact that this instruction had come in
11the first instance from Hitler's bunker and on the
12following day from Heinrich Himmler who had been to see to
13Hitler who sends him a message that I would describe as
14"panic stricken" to General Joachim saying "any further
15actions of this nature, any arbitrary actions against the
16guidelines, will be severely punished and you are ordered
17to report to Hitler's headquarters", is a matter which
18I think is so serious that this is the reason why I was
19preparing a very detailed bundle on it, my Lord, with
20complete facsimiles and translations for your Lordship's
21attention, because it goes very closely to the central
22issues in this case: How far was Hitler personally
23involved and what were his intentions
24 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] In relation to the shooting
25 A. [Mr Irving] Of European Jews as opposed to Russian Jews
26 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, but in relation to death by shooting
1 A. [Mr Irving] And also in relation to my contention, as your Lordship
2will be aware, that there is a chain of documents of
3varying magnitudes of integrity and weight which indicate
4that Hitler was a negative force in this matter, whereas
5there are no comparable documents indicating the
6opposite. I know it is barely credible, but if one comes
7to this with a open mind and then 20 years later one comes
8across yet another document like this extraordinary
9British intercept, this decode of the SS message from
10Himmler to the man on the spot who had done the killings,
11saying any further such actions will be subject to
12punishment and ordering him to report to Hitler's
13headquarters. It is an extraordinary episode and I find it
14also highly significant that the German historians have so
15far not been prepared to refer to this episode with a
16single line as far as its significance is concerned,
17because they are mortally terrified under the consequence
18of the new laws passed in Germany. It has been the
19foreign historians, like myself, who have drawn attention
20to this exchange of documents
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Your case really, as I understand it, that
22that particular example of the transport from Berlin
23demonstrates what you say was Hitler's role in relation to
25 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, it is one indication. It is not the only
26evidence that I rely upon, my Lord
1 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] No, that is what I meant by "demonstrate", "illustrates"
2is a better word
3 A. [Mr Irving] I am careful there, because when I introduced in my
4previous book, the November 30 handwritten annotation by
5Himmler, my opponent said, "this is his only evidence,
6this is what he relies on", and it was not, I had more.
7My Lord, we shall be hearing at a later stage in these
8proceedings Dr John Fox, who is an expert, among other
9things, on these police decodes, and I shall be asking
10him, with your Lordship's permission, the condition of
11these decodes and are they wall to wall? Is everything
12there, or are there gaps? If one finds an item like this,
13of course, it is a nugget, one is not entitled to expect
14to find it, but one find it and here it is, suddenly in
15our faces, you cannot ignore it. There are several
16documents like that, my Lord
17 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Well, I was going to invite you to perhaps pass on now
18from the shootings of the Jews and to skip section 3,
19which is the Leuchter Report
20 A. [Mr Irving] While I am in full flood can I move on to another Hitler
21document just three months later
22 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, of course
23 A. [Mr Irving] After the Danzig Conference, which was an interministerial
24conflict on the executive measures for the Final Solution,
25whatever it was, there was a lot of paperwork in 199 --
26 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] In 1942
1 A. [Mr Irving] In 1942, the Danzig Conference was held on January 20th
21942, my Lord. After the Danzig Conference the ministries
3engaged in a lot of paperwork, and at one stage the
4necessity was ventilated of bringing up this matter with
5Adolf Hitler, whatever the Final Solution was, the
6Ministry of Justice began to get uneasy about it, because
7they could see it had ugly connotations; there were
8illegalities being adumbrated, and the head of the German
9Civil Service, Dr Hans Lammers, who was a minister, a
10Reich minister, telephoned the head of the German Ministry
11of Justice, whose name was Schlegelberger, we shall be
12hearing quite a bit about the Schlegelberger document and
13in this telephone conversation which Schlegelberger wrote
14a minute on, or what a lawyer would probably call an
15"attendance note", Lammers said "the Fuhrer", Adolf
16Hitler, "the Fuhrer", Adolf Hitler, "has repeatedly said
17he wants the solution of the Jewish problem postponed
18after until the war is over". This is a document that is
19caused my opponents immense difficulties. The
20difficulties they solved initially by pretending it did
21not exist, by which I mean they did not quote it. They
22did not adduce it in their history books, and when that
23thorn in the flesh, David Irving, kept on reminding them
24of existence of this document, which tripped them up
25whatever their hypotheses were, that is when the real
26battle began, the skirmishing began. But I think your
1Lordship will appreciate that I am entitled to point to
2that document as being another document in that chain of
3evidence, unless of course I have deliberately
4mistranslated it, or misconstrued it
5 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] No, I do not think that is suggested
6 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, but it is clearly a very important document. A
7wartime document written by a lawyer on a phone call from
8the head of the German Civil Service, who is the next one
9up to Adolf Hitler, saying the Fuhrer has repeatedly said
10he wants the solution of the Jewish problem postponed
11until after the war was over, which was typical Adolf
12Hitler, anything like that he wanted put on the back
13burner he had fought this ghastly war through. There were
14several problems like that, the church problem was another
16 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] What was Schlegelberger's position
17 A. [Mr Irving] He was at that time, as I understand it, Secretary of
18State, which is the equivalent of a permanent Under
19Secretary in a British ministry. In the Ministry of
20Justice, his Minister was Dr Franz Goertner, who I believe
21had died recently at that time, so he was effectively in
22charge of the Ministry, Schlegelberger, and the minute he
23wrote was directed to a few notorious names including
24Rowland Friessler. It is quite an interesting document
25and interesting about the document, my Lord, is at the
26time of the Nuremberg trials it vanished. It remained in
1original in the Ministry files, but the photocopies
2provided to the lawyers at Nuremberg, this extraordinary
3document, vanished. It was not there, and it gave me a
4lot of trouble locating the original eventually
5 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes. Would you like to pass on now, do you accept that
6the Leuchter report is plainly part and parcel of the
7Auschwitz issue
8 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
9 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I think that must be right. Then the next section in the
10Defendant's summary of case, which is -
11 A. [Mr Irving] The Leuchter Report, of course, exists in two
12incarnations, my Lord. The original Leuchter Report was an
13affidavit drawn up as an expert report for the Canadian
14courts and what we published was a glossy version
15truncated and streamlined
16 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] -- but it was basically the same
17 A. [Mr Irving] Made the same allegations and on the same contentions
18 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] We will leave that on one side, shall we
19 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
20 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I can see it comes in in some other context. Then there
21is a heading called "Historiography", this is really the
22section where there are a whole series of detailed
23criticisms made of you, it being alleged that you have
24skewed documents and generally behaved in a -
25 A. [Mr Irving] Reprehensible -
26 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] -- disreputable way as a historian in your treatment of
1the evidence. Now it is up to you how you deal with it,
2you can either deal with it generally, or you can make
3some specific points on the instances that are cited
4against you
5 A. [Mr Irving] -- well, the general statement I would say is Mandy
6Rice-Davies, they have to say this, my Lord, they would
7say, would they not? My opponents, who I could also
8categorise as my rivals, dislike the fact that I get to
9the documents before them. For 30 years I have been the
10one to dig out the diaries.
11 By way of a general remark I would say I that
12I would visit the widows and obtain the papers, not
13because I was more industrious than them, but purely
14because I took the trouble. I visited the widow of State
15Secretary Anstrom Wiedsecher, who had been Ribbentrop's
16State Secretary. She was Baroness Marianne von Wiedsecher,
17who was subsequently the mother of the State President of
18Germany, President von Wiedsecher and it turned out that
19she had all her husband's diaries and letters, which she
20made available to me, and was rather puzzled that she had
21not made them available to the German historians and her
22reply was, "Mr Irving, they never asked". It was the same
23with very many other historians -- many other historical
24sources. Purely by virtue of visiting the widows or next
25of kin or digging around I have obtained these diaries and
26private papers
1 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] But leaving aside digging out the evidence
2 A. [Mr Irving] Well, this generated the envy and jealousy which is
3unfortunately what has fuelled lot of the criticism
4 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I hear you say that, but what about the criticism of the
5use that you make the evidence once you have got it
6because what is said against you is that you pick and
8 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, this is almost certainly something which can only
9be dealt with on piecemeal basis, they will put individual
10documents to me in cross-examination and to their delight
11I may occasionally concede that, yes, I got something
12wrong. I will concede that I misread the word "harbun" in
13Himmler's appalling handwriting, and if you were to have a
14look at his handwriting you will see how very similar it
15is. I will provide the documents to your Lordship
16tomorrow to the alternative word. This kind of thing
18 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Well, if I may say so, I think you are right that this
19particular topic has to be dealt with on a ..
20 A. [Mr Irving] Piecemeal basis
21 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Well, case by case basis, I think that is it probably
22right, but if you want to say anything more generally at
23the moment about your --
24 A. [Mr Irving] I will say generally, of course, and it is important for
25the case to know, and I am saying this on oath, I have
26never knowingly or wilfully misrepresented a document or
1misquoted it, or suppressed parts of the document which
2would run counter to my case, I think it is important to
3state that. Any of the other allegations in that line,
4misquoting, misconstruing, mistranslating, distorting or
5manipulating a document I have not done. I shall be very
6surprised indeed if the defence manage to make out a
7watertight case on even one document in that line.
8I think I would hang up my hat if that could be
9established against me. It would be a despicable thing
10for a historian to do, but it would be also very
11difficult, because in my case I have always
12instantaneously made my documents available to my
13opponents. Sometimes in advance of publication of my own
14book I would turn over documents like the Bruns Report to
15Professor Fleming. When I found the article Aumeier
16Report in the British archives I actually contacted
17Professor Richard van Pelt, whose book on Auschwitz
18I greatly admired and I said you will certainly find this
19document of great interest and I told him exactly where
20the file was to be found. I have always been like that.
21It would be very difficult simultaneously do that, my
22Lord, and at the same time distort the document because
23you are going to get found out and shot. So I did not do
24it. But that is the only general remark I would make and
25possibly of importance because it is a statement on oath
26 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I think that is right. The next topic that is addressed
1by the Defendants is the bombing of Dresden in 1945
2 A. [Mr Irving] Again, I will make a general statement on it, my Lord.
3This was the -- it was not actually the first book
4I wrote. The first book I wrote was a history of the
5bombing war, but it was only published in German -- in
6Switzerland. It was written at the same time as I wrote
7the book "The Destruction of Dresden", which was a three
8year task, between 1961 and 1963.
9 I emphasise the years, because in 1961 and 1963,
10of course, we were not in the happy position that we are
11in now where we can go to the public archives and see the
12documents. I understand that I can go down the road to
13the public archives and actually see correspondence that
14I had with Harold Wilson, this kind of thing.
15I personally frown on it. I liked the old 50 year rule
16because there were ways round it. But in those years there
17was a 50 year rule in operation. In you wanted to write a
18history of something that happened in World War II you
19could not get the original documents if you were not an
20official historian
21 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] That is from the British -
22 A. [Mr Irving] From the British point of view
23 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] -- what about the German records, were they available
24 A. [Mr Irving] The German records were in a more difficult position
25because Dresden lay in the Soviet zone of Germany, the
26German Democratic Republic as it had by that time become
1and although I had established cordial relations with City
2Archives Director in Dresden, Dr Walter Lange, they were
3under no kind of obligation or compulsion to make their
4records available to me and they did so on a very
5piecemeal basis, what the Germans would call in salami
6slices, piece by piece they would give me a document,
7according to how they thought they could fit it into the
8Cold War propaganda. I had to weigh it from that point of
10 I emphasise this because three years later after
11the book was published those same officials in East
12Germany decided they had now just found a report on the
13statistics on the air raid on Dresden which produced
14figures which were different from mine
15 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] You are making this point really to explain why your
16estimate of the number of deaths, which is really what the
17Dresden issue is about
18 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
19 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Has fallen fairly dramatically from a quarter of a
20million -
21 A. [Mr Irving] I would not say "fallen", that implies only way, I would
22say "fluctuate"
23 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] -- in a downwards direction, would you accept that
24 A. [Mr Irving] If you were a scientist you would not say "the figure is
25this", you would say it is probably that, with a upper
26margin of this and a lower margin of that. You would give
1a range of probabilities, and the range of probabilities
2I have given has remained roughly the same, but I have
3brought down the target figure. The original figure
4I gave, I hasten to add, was not my figure, it was the
5figure given to me by a man who met the Trevor Roper
6criteria. If you remember, my Lord, somebody who is in a
7position to know.
8 This was a man who was school teacher in Hanover
9who had nothing to gain from it, who had asked no money
10for it, but after the air raid on Dresden, which took
11place on February 13th 1945, this school teacher had the
12unfortunate task of running the missing persons bureau in
13Dresden, the Dead Person Section, he had been given the
14job of setting a card index in this appalling task of
15trying to identify the dead. They did it, for example,
16they collected buckets of wedding rings from the corpses.
17I am sure the defence will appreciate when I talk about
18buckets of wedding rings, gold wedding rings, were
19collected from the corpses of the air raid victims because
20inside a German wedding ring there is the initials and the
21date of the wedding, so they could identify the corpse
22from that. Or they could have an index card just saying
23"KD" and a date on the inside of wedding ring. They built
24up this card index.
25 Of course, this was incomplete because they had
26not got all the corpses and not all the corpses were
1adults, not all the adults were married. But he was able
2to extrapolate and he kept a diary, which he also made
3available to me. When I asked him the 60,000 dollar
4question, I said, Dr Voigt or Mr Voigt, how many people in
5your estimate died in that air raid on Dresden? He gave
6me an upper estimate and a lower estimate, and he then
7said that in his own belief the figure was probably
8135,000. Which was the figure I then used, and I quoted
9the source as being this man. In other words it was not a
10figure on my authority, it was a figure on the authority
11of the source. I see no reason really to depart from that
12figure because, it may sound self-defeating, I say that
13there is not much difference between 135,000 dead and
1435,000 dead. Both of them are a monstrous tragedy or
15crime, depending on which end of scale you are viewing it
16from. If you are one of those dead it hurts just as much
17if you are one of the 35,000 or one of 135,000. So
18I confess that I did not dedicate as much work to try to
19pin down the actual death roll as no doubt the defence
20would have liked me to have done, the Defendants in this
21case, my Lord.
22 But I would also submit this cannot be
23categorized as being wilful misrepresentation, or
24distortion. My Lord, you will remember that I said that
25the German police chief's document giving a different
26death figure had been found three years after I wrote the
1book. It was supplied to me by the East German
2authorities, very kindly, voluntarily, and by an
3extraordinary coincidence in exactly the same post
4I received from the West German Government a summary of
5the German Finance Ministry files for that week which
6contained precisely the same figures that that East German
7document contained, because otherwise one which might have
8suspected this was an East German cold war propaganda
9trick. So it was a very authentic kind of document. But
10even then you had to say the document was dated,
11I believe, March 10th 1945, less than four weeks after the
12air raid on Dresden.
13 My Lord, I do not know if you have seen the
14photographs of Dresden after the air raid. There was not
15very much left standing. The building -- the city was
16pancaked. Nobody had excavated the city centre. The
17people who were living in the old town were still buried
18in the basements where they had been suffocated or crushed
19alive. So the figure that the Police Chief gave in his
20report of March 4th 1945 could still only be regarded as
22 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] What is the figure in the current edition of "Destruction
23of Dresden"
24 A. [Mr Irving] Can I just complete what I was about to say, I was just
25pausing for dramatic effect. The step which I then took,
26having received this document, was as follows:
1I discussed it with my publisher, and I said that it was
2an important enough document that I had to draw it to the
3attention of the reading public immediately, and he --
4Mr Kimber -- and Mr Kimber, God rest his soul, he said:
5David do not do that. If you do, it will come down on
6your head. It will reflect on you in a bad way, and I said
7this is an important document, and I have a duty to bring
8it to the attention of reading public, and I sent it as a
9letter to The Times, which is in the discovery, and The
10Times newspaper published it, I believe, on July 6th 1966,
11within a very true days of my actually receiving the
12document from the East Germans, the new figures, the fact
13that there was a considerably lower death roll estimated
14by the local Police Chief. I added my reservations, the
15fact that the city was still largely unexcavated, even
16then, in 1966 and the fact that local Police Chief was in
17charge of air raid civil defence measures. So he had no
18reason to give a bigger figure. He would prefer to give a
19lower figure
20 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] This is Mr Grosse
21 A. [Mr Irving] I cannot remember exactly which name it was, the man who
22wrote the final report. Grosse wrote the incorrect
23report, the propaganda report, my Lord. I emphasise the
24fact that I made this immediately known to the reading
25public and not only that but at my own expense I had a
26reprint made of that letter by The Times newspaper. I had
1500 copies printed and for the next few years I enclosed
2that letter with all my correspondence to other
4 Now I do not know any other historian who would
5have taken action like that, my Lord. He would hoped
6nobody found out, possibly. He certainly would not have
7gone out of the way to draw the attention of other people
8to an error or possible error that he had made in one of
9his own books. To find myself now, 30 years later,
10defending myself against the allegation of manipulation
11and distortion beggers description, it is repugnant, my
13 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] What is the figure in the current edition of "Destruction
14of Dresden" for the number of deaths
15 A. [Mr Irving] I have reduced my best estimate to the region of 60,000.
16This is the edition which is called "Apocalypse 1945" the
17destruction of Dresden because it was not until three
18years ago that I sat down and analysed that Police Chief's
19report and compared it with the Grosse Report and saw the
20obvious similarities and the obvious discrepancies and
21decided that the Grosse Report had been deliberately
22issued by the Propaganda Ministry for propaganda
23purposes. But 60,000, my Lord, 35,000, 135,000, you may
24disagree with me, but I see no difference between these
25figures, any more than somebody whose says it was not 6
26million who died in the Holocaust, it was only one million
1which is the kind of sentence I would never utter because
2each one of those people being killed is a crime and
3I consider people being killed in saturation bombing air
4raids, although I am British, I think it is wrong
5 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Do you sometimes in your books make comparisons between
6the number of deaths caused by Allied bombing raids with
7the number of deaths caused by Nazi bombing raids
8 A. [Mr Irving] I think the word "comparison" would be wrong, my Lord, but
9I have done it in a way that possibly a journalist would,
10I have mentioned the facts in successive sentences.
11 In my very first book "The Destruction of
12Dresden", if your Lordship were to turn to the very last
13page of that book, which I have with me, and it is in the
14bundles I distributed this morning, of "The Destruction of
15Dresden", the very last page says: "That this was
16undoubtedly a terrible crime. It was a crime committed
17against a city in Germany, a country which had carried out
18the most appalling massacres against helpless citizens."
19I forget the actual wording I used, but it is in that
20book. There was that kind of comparison. I do not
21consider it to be offensive to say too colloquially "you
22did it too" and when airmen say, as I asked them at the
23time, I would ask the Bomber Command airmen who pressed
24the button and dropped the bombs, I would say to them what
25were your feelings? They said they had no feeling because
26they could not see their victims. I consider this is not
1an adequate justification but I do not think this goes to
2the issues in this case
3 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes. The next section is the allegation that is made by
4the Defendants that you consort and associate with some
5pretty unsavoury characters in North America and
6elsewhere; that is to say very right-wing extremists
7 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, can I deal with this in summary in general
9 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes
10 A. [Mr Irving] At this stage, undoubtedly if they want to go through it
11piece by piece and name by name and phrase by phrase
12 MR RAMPTON: My Lord, I am sorry to intervene, particularly to
13correct a judge, but your Lordship might have missed a
14couple of sections, I think
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have I
16 MR RAMPTON: After Dresden comes -- it may be because the way
17the file is arranged
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: There is Hitler's Adjutants
19 MR RAMPTON: Yes, Hitler's Adjutants
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That does not belong in Dresden
21 MR RAMPTON: No
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is rather why I skipped it
23 MR RAMPTON: Another route to the exoneration. But your
24Lordship went straight from Dresden to right wing
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes
1 MR RAMPTON: Along the way jumping over Hitler's Adjutants
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: And Nazi anti-Semitism
3 MR RAMPTON: Yes
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are quite right
5 MR RAMPTON: Hitler Adjutants is quite an important section,
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you for that, Mr Rampton. Can
8I therefore invite you to comment on the -- you will find
9this as page 7
10 A. [Mr Irving] Page 7
11 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] The allegation that you really ignored the evidence when
12you claim -
13 A. [Mr Irving] Shall we go through 1 to 6 in detail, my Lord, now
14 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] -- yes, if you would like to because Mr Rampton is quite
15right -
16 A. [Mr Irving] The allegation is that I ignored the most basic cautions
17in interviewing members of Hitler's staff. Well, jealousy
18place a part in this. Adolf Hitler's personal staff at
19the end of World War II, so far as they survived, were
20very bruised people. He had four female secretaries, they
21were all locked up for periods of several years by the
22Allies. I remember my friend, Ralph Hoffmann, who
23I invited to lunch just to see what it would be like to
24having a liberal playwright lunching with Hitler's
25secretary. When he heard that the Americans had locked
26her up for two years he said but why did they put you in
1prison? She said I typed for the Fuhrer. I typed for the
2Fuhrer. He said, but millions carried guns for the
3Fuhrer. They were very bruised people. They did not want
4to speak to their own historians and they certainly did
5not want to speak to the former enemy. It took me many
6years to win their confidence by methods that might be
7found odious. I would become very friendly. In the case
8Christa Schroeder particularly, I would just invite her
9out to lunch and say Frau Schroeder we will not talk about
10the War, knowing very well that she would want eventually
11to mention something that happened. But at the moment
12I took out a pen she would clam up. She would not say
13anything, so I had to write a note afterwards. It was this
14kind of situation. Very delicate, drawing them out and
15then eventually after five or ten years Christa Schroeder
16revealed that she had written private letters to a woman
17friend throughout her time with Hitler and she got all
18those letters back. She produced the letters and gave them
19to me.
20 The allegation is -- I think allegation No. 2
21that I would use documents like that in injudiciously.
22 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] -- just one more question on the first criticism; you say
23that you accept that you did not approach the matter in
24what you regard as the ideal way, but you say there was no
25all alternative because that was the only way of getting
26these people to talk
1 A. [Mr Irving] A historian is accustomed to going to archives or my
2reproof to the historians, particularly of the Defendants'
3historians, is that they sit if their book lined caves
4taking books out of shelves, taking a sentence and working
5it into their own fabric and at the end of the day not
6cricking anything to the sum total of human knowledge.
7I did the exact opposite. I ignored the book lined
8caves. I did not reads their books, which they regarded
9as a personal slight. I went to the very fountainhead of
10the information, the people who had worked at Hitler's
11side for twelve years. By then I aver and I submit and
12I strongly resent in this court on oath at no time was
13I not aware of the fact that I had to treat what they said
14to me with the utmost caution, and it was only when I was
15satisfied they were being completely frank with me, that
16I added weight to the evidence they gave me and I will
17give two examples of that, my Lord. One of them was
18Walter Frentz. He was the personal film camera man
19attached to Hitler's staff and he took the colour
20photographs of Hitler's staff which figure in a lot of my
21books. One day Heinrich Himmler said to Walter Frentz in
22August 1941, which he told me and this is the reason I am
23saying this, because I persuaded him to tell me something
24against himself. He said that Heinrich Himmler had said
25to him in August 1941, Herr Frentz it gets very boring
26here at the wolf's lair, doesn't it? We are going out to
1the Eastern Front for a few days, do you want do come with
2us? Two or three days later Himmler said to Walter Frentz
3and Frentz related to me this one evening over a body of
4wine (he is still alive) at Lake Constance. Himmler said
5to Frentz, tomorrow we are going to be doing a mass
6shooting, do you want to come along and have a look? The
7next morning in the misty hours of dawn Frentz and Himmler
8and Carl Wolf, and a number of other SS gentlemen, Frentz
9himself is in the airforce, found themselves standing at
10one end of a field outside Minsk, at the other end of
11which, as Frentz described it to me, large pits had been
12dug out by "backhose" or bulldozers and truck loads of
13civilians who were being driven up and stood of this pit
14and being machine gunned in the pit. He described this to
15me in great deal. I do not have to go into all the detail
16he gave here, my Lord. His wife was very astonished to
17hear this. Halfway through this description his wife,
18Mrs Frentz, said, Walter, I have never heard this before.
19And Walter went slightly pink because I suppose he was in
20his cups and he had not realized he had told me so much.
21Mrs Frentz niggled slightly in the way that wives do and
22said, Walter, you say these were civilians being shot,
23were there women and children being shot too? Walter
24Frentz said, "I cannot remember", but you could tell from
25the way he said "I cannot remember" that he could.
26 My Lord, I aver that if I get that kind of
1information out for the first time from a man who has not
2even told it to his own wife, then I have succeeded in
3extracting information, even from Hitler's Adjutants.
4 There is another episode of exactly the same
5character. I persuaded a man to talk to me who had been
6the Adjutant, not of Hitler, but the Adjutant of Hitler's
7Adjutant, his SS Adjutant. Hitler's SS Adjutant was an SS
8general named Hermann Fegolein. He subsequently married
9the sister of Eva Braun. Hermann Fegolein's Adjutant was
10Johannes Gohler, who lived in Stuttgart
11 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] May I interrupt you, it is going to be helpful to the
12transcriber, who is having a fairly massive task with all
13these names if you when you mention a fresh name just
14spell it out
15 A. [Mr Irving] I have given her a list of 5,000 names. His Adjutant was a
16man I am going to speak of SS Colonel Gohler. I will not
17bother with the accents. Johannes Gohler told me that in
18the last days of the War, in April 1945, he was present
19when Heinrich Himmler, the chief of the SS came to see
20Hitler and reported that there was a concentration camp in
21Turinier (?), probably the Buchenwald Concentration Camp,
22about to be captured by the American forces, and what they
23should they do with the inmates, because they could not
24evacuate them all in time, Gohler said to me, Mr Irving,
25Hitler said, Herr Heiss Fuhrer, stay over until the end of
26the conference. After the conference Gohler said, after
1the conference Hitler sat on the edge of the conference
2table with his legs dangling and said, "Herr Himmler,
3those convicts are to be liquidated if they cannot be
4evacuated in time". I asked Mr Gohler about that episode
5on three separate occasions, spread over several years
6just to see if there were discrepancies in the different
7versions, rather like a stereoscopic picture of the
8episode. The narrative remained the same. You will find
9that particular episode in my books on Adolf Hitler. That
10is an episode recounted to me by an SS officer against the
11reputation and honour of the SS and against the honour and
12reputation of Adolf Hitler, yet I extracted it from
13Hitler's Adjutants, or the person who I would certainly
14put in this category. This is what entitles me to aver
15once again that I have not failed in my duty as an
16historian in so far as the Adjutants are concerned
17 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] That conversation, which I am bound to say I do not
18remember, is in "Hitler's War"
19 A. [Mr Irving] Certainly in "Hitler's War"
20 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Cited in a way that accepts it did happen
21 A. [Mr Irving] Unquestionably, my Lord, yes
22 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I am afraid I have not got that in my mind. Yes. I think
23you were on the..
24 A. [Mr Irving] That was number 2
25 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes. That is illustrative, is it really, about what you
26are saying about that criticism
1 A. [Mr Irving] Well, the plaintiff, that is myself, is tendentious in his
2choice and interpretation of documents, rejecting out of
3hand the greater wealth of statements. My Lord, you will
4have noticed the subtle difference between statements and
5documents, I am sure. Directly implicating Hitler in the
6Final Solution and adopting as persuasive the few
7statements exculpating Hitler without any proper
8explanation for so doing.
9 My Lord, in your former incarnation as a
10barrister I am sure you have also had to weigh statements
11and documents and decide which you attach more importance
12to. Documents in this connection are anything from a
13wartime document, a microfilm, a tape recording, an aerial
14photograph, a deciphered intercept, or even a building as
15document in this connection; where a statement made by
16somebody for whatever purpose, usually to exculpate
17himself and pass the blame on to somebody else, as
18frequently happened in the war crimes trials, is to be
19viewed with the utmost suspicion.
20 Statements in my submission are usually relied
21upon by people who have not got enough documents, they
22have not got enough documents because they have not gone
23out and done the fieldwork. They like using the
24statements because they fit in with their preconceived
25notions, whereas the documents like the ones I have
26I mentioned, the Schlegelberger document and the Himmler
1telephone notes are inconvenient. They find no
2explanation for them. So they prefer their statements to
3my documents, my Lord. This may seem a trite answer, but
4it is the answer which I shall give until they come at me
5with chapter and verse in cross-examination
6 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, I think this is another example of an allegation that
7is really only capable of being dealt with by looking at
8the individual cases relied on
9 A. [Mr Irving] I think the choice of words between their statements and
10my documents is not by happen chance, I think they have
11chosen the word "statement" deliberately because they
12intended to put to me self-serving statements made by
13people in various war crimes trials under whatever
14conditions against the documents which I have obtained
15 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes. Now the next criticism really relates, I think, to
16mainly to the way in which you dismiss some sources which
17do not say what you want them to say
18 A. [Mr Irving] I am sure your Lordship is also a bit baffled as to what
19they are getting at here, I am sure Mr Rampton will assist
20us when he comes to the cross-examination. If they are
21saying I do not put in adequate apparatuses in my book
22saying what sources and archives I have used there are
23several reasons for that
24 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I think the key phrase in that criticism is "double
25standards"; I think what is said against you is that you
26are inclined to adopt uncritically some source material
1because it suits your agenda, as they put it, whereas you
2dismiss -
3 A. [Mr Irving] I accept -
4 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] -- more reliable evidence because it does not fit in with
5your agenda
6 A. [Mr Irving] -- I accept that that is a valid criticism, my Lord. AGP
7Taylor said the same to me once. He said, when you are
8looking at the Final Solution you are asking for a
9document, when you looking at what happened to General
10Sikorski you are quite happy to make allegations without a
11document. There are answers you can give. It is a valid
12criticism, but I am not going to say it is a "correct
14 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Can you explain what you mean by that
15 A. [Mr Irving] They are entitled to make that criticism on their
16perception of the way history is written. If I take that
17specific example, that there is no document -- I point out
18there is no document showing that Hitler even knew about
19Auschwitz, whereas when I wrote about the death of General
20Sikorski in a book published in 1967 I am accused of
21having said it was probably sabotage even though there is
22no documentary evidence to suggest it was. This is
23I think an acceptable distinction because we are after all
24the victor nation; all our records are intact. We lost
25none of our records through World War II. We were not
26invaded by the Red Army; our archives were not bombed and
1blasted and burnt to pieces. Our archives are intact. We
2now no longer have a 50 year rule, and so we would be
3entitled to expect to find as a result of our having had
4unconditional surrender from the Germans and total insight
5into their archives we would expect to find the record
6relating to Hitler, then we would not expect to find in
7the British Secret Service archives, which, of course, are
8only the archives which are still closed in this country.
9That became a bit convoluted, if I had a second chance
10I would say it again slightly differently
11 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I think I understand what you are saying. You are really
12saying that because the German archive is incomplete -
13 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, we have total insight into the German archives such
14as they have survived by virtue of unconditional surrender
15which we did not have at the end of World War I, but we
16certainly had at the end of World War II. There are no
17German archives that were withheld from the invading
19 So after over 50 years we would be entitled by
20now to have found the document that proves me wrong,
21whereas we are not entitled to expect to find records
22about General Sikorski, even now, because it would have
23been a Secret Service matter and Secret Service files are
24closed for at least the next 100 years.
25 So it looks like a double standard to start with
26until you realise you are looking at two different
1theatres of operation. But, again, if they want to put
2specific examples to me, some I will concede, and most
3I will not, probably
4 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] -- well, I think before we move on to the next point we
5will adjourn and resume, if you will, please, at
62 o'clock
7 (Luncheon adjournment)
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, can I before we resume with your
9evidence just ask Mr Rampton something, if you will
10forgive me? It is a logistical question, Mr Rampton.
11Assuming you are going to be starting to cross-examine
12this afternoon ---
13 MR RAMPTON: Yes
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- I am wondering whether I have all the
15files that I ought to have here because what I do not want
16to find happening is that you ask a question in relation
17to a document that I do not have a copy of. Are you able
18to help
19 MR RAMPTON: Can I just say, I do not know how long I will get,
20but assuming it were an hour or so, your Lordship would
21need the copy of Mr Irving's opening which you should have
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have
24 MR RAMPTON: And files D2(i), (ii) and (iii)
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have all of those too
26 MR RAMPTON: The only other thing that your Lordship would need
1would be Professor Evans' report if we got as far as that.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have that. Thank you very much. I thought
3I had better check
4 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, before you resume your examination or your
5questioning, can I raise just two points
6 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Of course, yes
7 A. [Mr Irving] I drew your Lordship's attention to a newspaper, a leading
8article which appeared in The Independent this morning
9 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Which I have read. I cannot lay my hands on it at the
11 A. [Mr Irving] I have it here, my Lord. I personally found it pushing
12the envelope of what is permissible, but maybe, in view of
13the fact that either I am a litigant in person or we are
14sitting without a jury, this kind of comment is permitted
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think the position really is this,
16Mr Irving. I understand what you say, but I can really
17only intervene if I were to take the view that in some
18shape or form it amounts to a contempt. I do not. I am
19fairly clearly of that view. But if it helps at all,
20I totally disregard it
21 A. [Mr Irving] Thank you very much, my Lord
22 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I think I will not say any more about it
23 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, you asked in one of your questions whether I had
24compared or weighed casualties against casualties,
25atrocity against atrocity. I have referred to the final
26paragraph of my "Destruction of Dresden" book, and, my
1Lord, the bundle which I handed you this morning which
2I believe is on the desk in front of you at this end, the
3thin bundle, is that it, bundle B on page 5
4 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, this is the new bundle
5 A. [Mr Irving] That is the new one I gave you this morning. It is
6selections from the books. You already have the entire
8 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, you mentioned that
9 A. [Mr Irving] If you look at page 5, my Lord, big figure 5, at the foot
10of the page, there is this paragraph: "On 13th February
111946, the former Commander in Chief of RAF Bomber Command
12sailed from Southampton on the first stage of his
13journey. That night throughout eastern and central Europe
14at 10.10 p.m. the church bells began to peal. For 20
15minutes the bells ran out across the territories now
16occupied by a force as ruthless as any that the bomber
17offensive had been launched to destroy. It was the first
18anniversary of the biggest single massacre in European
19history, a massacre carried out in the cause of bringing
20to their knees a people who corrupted by Naziism had
21committed the greatest crimes against humanity in recorded
23 That is about as close as I have ever got to
24weighing atrocity against atrocity, my Lord, and that was
25in my first book
26 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I am just puzzled by the date
1 A. [Mr Irving] Well, it is the first anniversary of the Dresden raid, my
3 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I see
4 A. [Mr Irving] This is why the bells are ringing
5 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I see. It was the Commander in Chief of Bomber Command
6setting out that misled me
7 A. [Mr Irving] The second page I would draw your Lordship's attention to
8concerns the adjutants. You asked whether I had made use
9of that information I obtained from the adjutants about
10Buchenwald inmates to be liquidated. Page 99, my Lord, by
11chance, is one of the pages that I included in the
13 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Tab 4, the last page
14 A. [Mr Irving] It is big figures 99 at the bottom of the page. The third
15paragraph, my Lord, is: "As American troops advanced
16across ... Hitler was confronted with the problem of the
17concentration camps. Goring advised him to turn them over
18intact and under guard to the Western allies who would
19sort out the criminals from the foreign labourers and
20Russian prisoners thus preventing hoards of embittered
21ex-convicts from roaming the countryside and inflicting
22additional horrors on the law-abiding. Hitler did not
23share Goring's trust in the enemy. Sitting casually on
24the edge of the map table after one conference, he
25instructed Himmler's representative to ensure that all
26inmates were liquidated or evacuated before the camps were
2 The footnote at the back of the book which I
3could show you if my Lordship is interested, because I
4have the book here, says the source of that information is
5the SS Major, who was Himmler's Adjutant's Adjutant, who
6has, however, requested that his identity be withheld.
7Some of these people at the time I wrote that book were
8still nervous about being identified, but he was the
10 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] But he is no longer nervous
11 A. [Mr Irving] I am sure he has no nervousness now, my Lord, because the
12years has passed, but he was the source and that was the
13episode which I recounted to you. You asked if I used it.
14 In my submission, I have used it exactly as it should
15have been used and at the proper length
16 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Is this the 1991 edition or the 1977
17 A. [Mr Irving] That is the very first edition, my Lord, 1997. If your
18Lordship is interested, I can certainly produce almost
19identical pages from the subsequent editions
20 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] No, do not bother. Thank you very much. Yes, now
21anything else or shall we resume? We are still on the
22topic of Hitler's Adjutants. I think you have dealt with
23criticisms (i), (ii) and (iii)
24 A. [Mr Irving] Double standards
25 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] And the next one is, at any rate, self-explanatory
26 A. [Mr Irving] I distort, suppress, manipulate evidence, but until they
1give chapter and verse, I cannot say.
2 "The Plaintiff claims falsely that all of
3Hitler's surviving adjutants, secretaries and staff had
4uniformly testified that the extermination of the Russian
5or European Jews was never mentioned at Hitler's
6headquarters. That claim is contradicted by the evidence,
7my Lord. I shall be interested to see what the evidence
8is to which they are referring
9 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Just pause a moment. Do you accept that you have made the
10claim that all the Hitler surviving adjutants and so on
11have uniformly testified that the extermination of the
12Russian or European Jews was never mentioned at
13Hitler's ---
14 A. [Mr Irving] I think the full extent of the statement was that they
15have been frequently questioned ever since the war both by
16American and British interrogators and by others in
17between and certainly by myself on each occasion, and each
18of them has said that this systematic extermination of the
19Jews, or whatever -- what is it -- the extermination of
20the Russian or European Jews was never mentioned at
21Hitler's headquarters, that it was never mentioned in
22their presence. Obviously, they can only testify to what
23they personally witnessed and that was all I was
24interested in
25 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, but the point I was on really was this, you have made
26that claim
1 A. [Mr Irving] I have made that claim
2 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] You say it is a true claim
3 A. [Mr Irving] I have maintained that it is true claim. If, however, the
4Defendants produce new evidence that it is false, I will
5accept that evidence, but that does not amount to my
6having distorted and manipulated. They would have to show
7that evidence was on my desk within my four walls, so to
9 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes. The last one
10 A. [Mr Irving] "In full knowledge of the historical detail, the Plaintiff
11subjectively filtered, bent and manipulated his sources to
12his own political and ideological desire to exculpate
13Mr Hitler." Well, that is a bit of a polemical question,
14I suppose, in which the sting is in the question rather
15than in the answer
16 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Not really. Anyway, answer it
17 A. [Mr Irving] Well, the answer is under oath, no. My Lord, I have never
18consciously done any of those things in order to exculpate
19Hitler. In fact, I have bent over backwards to include
20what I knew from reliable sources which met my criteria,
21and in the very introduction to my book "Hitler's War"
22which is included in the bundle which I provided this
23morning, my Lord, I gave a short list, a check list, of
24the crimes he did commit: "He issued the commisart order
25for the liquidation of the Soviet commisarts and signed
26it. He issued the euthanasia order for the killing of the
1mentally disabled and signed it, back-dated it to
2September 1st 1939. He ordered the killing of British
3commandos who fell into German captivity. He ordered the
4liquidation of the male population of Stalingrad and
5Leningrad..." and so on. There is a long list of these
6crimes which I gave as a kind of check list form in the
7introduction of the book specifically to avoid the kind of
8accusation that I apprehended would one day be made
9 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I suppose, to be balanced, you would accept that you would
10not only need that short list, but also a list of what one
11might call the opposite points where you say ---
12 A. [Mr Irving] Said nice things about him
13 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] --- said commendatory things about him which, I think it
14is right to say, you do from time to time in "Hitler's
16 A. [Mr Irving] I have obviously said commendatory things about him.
17There was a time when he was on the right course and then
18he went off the rails. That is roughly what I have said.
19But, of course, he was not on the right rails in every
20respect. You cannot praise his racial programmes. You
21cannot praise his penal methods. But, on the other hand,
22he did pick his nation up from out of the mire after World
23War II and reunify it and gave it a sense of direction and
24a sense of pride again which, from the German point of
25view, though not from the English point of view, was
26something commendable. I say those things which need to
1be said and it would be wrong to suppress them
2 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] May I just ask you one thing that struck me when I was
3reading "Hitler's War" which is that I think you say in
4the Forward that you are writing it, as it were, from his
6 A. [Mr Irving] Well, my Lord ---
7 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Is that a usual way to approach an historical biography
8 A. [Mr Irving] No. It is my trademark way of writing, the books which
9I have written. If you collect enough original primary
10sources, first of all, you are confronted with many
11problems. First of all, a super abundance of material and
12you have to decide which way you slice that particular
13cake. The easy way that I decided to slice the cake was
14to say let us imagine we are sitting in his swivel chair
15and that confronting us, as writer, are only the documents
16that passed across his desk. It is, in theory, a nice
17idea; in practice, it is more difficult to put into
18effect. But this is the first criterion you apply, and
19you then tell the story as seen from his viewpoint and in
20the sequence in which it came to him.
21 I give one example: The July 20th 1944 bomb
22blot. Every other writer would describe the planning of
23the bomb plot and the conspiratorial meetings and the
24arrangement and the provision of the explosives and the
25comings together and the various failed attempts. In my
26book, your Lordship will have noticed the first we know
1about the bomb plot is when the bomb goes off under your
2table. Then, retrospectively, you see the Gestapo reports
3and the enquiries and the investigations, and you find out
4this was not the first time they tried do it and so on.
5You may say it is a literary trick as a literary advice,
6which is why my books are probably more readable than
7their books, but I do not think it is something
8necessarily derogatory
9 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Now, I think, unless you want to add anything on the topic
10of Hitler's adjutants, the next section or the next part
11of this section is the question of Nazi anti-Semitism.
12What is said against you is that you tried to blame what
13was done during the Third Reich against Jews upon the Jews
15 A. [Mr Irving] That is a gross oversimplification. I do not level that
16accusation at your Lordship, of course, but I think it
17would be a gross oversimplification to put my conclusions
18in that way. I have said on a number of occasions, for
19example, most recently to Daniel Goldhagen who wrote a
20book on Hitler and his executioners. If I was a Jew,
21I would be far more concerned, not by the question of who
22pulled the trigger, but why; and I do not think that has
23ever been properly investigated. Anti-Semitism is a
24recurring malaise in society. It recurs not just in
25Germany, not just in Europe, but it keeps on coming back.
26If I had enough spare time, one day I would like to sit
1down and investigate just that, the root causes of it, but
2I do not have the qualifications and the training for it,
3my Lord, and I suppose nobody in this room probably does.
4One would have it have a great degree of independence,
5independence of mind and independence of means, but there
6must be some reason why anti-Semitism keeps on breaking
7out like some kind of epidemic.
8 That is at the root of several of the books that
9I have recently written, probably most recently in
10Dr Goebbels' biography where we had the phenomenon of
11Dr Goebbels who, on the evidence of his own private
12letters in his earliest youth was the opposite of
13anti-Semitic. He actually ticked off his girlfriend for
14writing an anti-Semitic letter to him, saying that this
15kind of sentiment is very cheap and needless, and yet he
16later on becomes the worst and most criminal anti-Semite
17of all times. One can say facetiously, is it something in
18the water? But something must have caused him to change.
19I do not think it is irresponsible to ask that question,
20even if one cannot provide a full answer
21 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Can I just be clear what you are meaning when you say
22 "something must have caused that change" -- something
23done by the Jews themselves
24 A. [Mr Irving] Something which I have not been able to establish and
25something which I am frightened of even investigating, and
26I do not really have to investigate because it would not
1come within the purview of a biographer to start getting
2involved in sociological problems, I do not think
3 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Is it not an historical problem as well
4 A. [Mr Irving] It is an historical problem but for somebody else to
5investigate because I am in trouble as it is, my Lord, and
6I do not think that one would earn any great kudos for
7investigating that because, frankly, I do not have the
8qualifications to investigate it. I am not a
9sociologist. My findings would not be heeded anyway. So
10I would prefer to spend the time somewhere else that was
11put to better use. But I did what I could in the case of
12Dr Goebbels, as you will see, trying to develop why he
13became an anti-Semite.
14 I think what is most offensive in my works is
15the apportionment of blame between Hitler and Goebbels
16which a lot people find offensive. They find it
17incredible, but I think that it is well-founded in my
19 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, well, I think perhaps we can move on, if you are
20ready to, to the ---
21 A. [Mr Irving] Extremism
22 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] --- penultimate topic, I think, which is your alleged
23association with Neo Nazis and other right-wing
25 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, I would make a general comment here, and I think
26it was in this very building only a few weeks ago that
1Moreland J said that there is no such crime in Britain as
2guilt by association and there never has been, and it
3would be very difficult to define and very difficult to
4pursue in any way.
5 I suppose it can easily be said (and I am making
6no great concession here) if I say that probably everybody
7in this courtroom has acquaintances who they shudder when
8they ring the door bell. When you hold a cocktail party,
9you say you hope that Smith does not come or whoever it is
10but, on the other hand, he is an agreeable person to have
11around. This does not mean to say that you share all of
12Smith's opinions.
13 Sometimes when the allegation is made, as it is
14made, I am rather shocked to say, in some of the expert
15statement, the expert reports, that it is not Smith that
16I am being accused of being associated with, but somebody
17who is associated with Smith, then it is beginning to
18become rather like that musical song about "I danced with
19a man who danced with a girl who danced with the Prince of
20Wales". How far down the line does this buck stop? Does
21it mean that everybody who is in this room is in some way
22polluted by being in the same room as I am? It is
23ridiculous. Which way does this particular flow of odium
25 I think it is a very loose kind of argument when
26people say, "Look who he is in the same room with" or
1 "Look who comes to hear him speak" which is what a lot of
2the allegations appear to be. It is name calling. It is
3a waste of the court's time, and I shall answer the
4questions, my Lord, but it is very difficult to come to
5grips with it.
6 These people are extremists by definition of
7these expert witnesses. I do not think there is any
8satisfactory definition of "extremist". In my book, an
9extremist is somebody who plants bombs under motor cars,
10somebody who plots the overthrow of governments, somebody
11who goes around with a gun in his pocket, somebody who
12holds views which are extreme, this is a very subjective
13concept. It depends on which viewpoint you view those
14views from.
15 Am I making sense, my Lord
16 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, I understand what you are saying and, indeed, it may
17well be that this does not turn out to be one of the most
18important issues in the case
19 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, I have not chosen this. This is ---
20 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] No, I appreciate that. No, that is not said in a way
21critical of you at all. But, having said that, one needs
22to break it down a little bit. I mean, do you accept that
23you have found yourself on the same platform or at the
24same meeting as a number of people who could be
25legitimately categorized as extreme right-wing fanatics
26 A. [Mr Irving] It is the subsidiary clause there who could be legitimate
1categorized, and you have even put it into the passive
2voice which puts one further removed -- we do not know who
3is doing the categorising
4 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] So you are saying that the people who you found yourself
5alongside are not, in truth, right-wing extremists or
7 A. [Mr Irving] I do not regard them as extremists, by my definition of
8the word "extremist". I am prepared to believe there are
9people at the other extreme who would regard them as
10extreme from their viewpoint because they hold views that
11are extremely or diametrically opposed to their own. But
12this is a free society. They are not extremist in the
13degree that they do not go around espousing violence or
14practising violence or advocating overthrow of
15governments. They are people who just hold views with
16which I am not necessarily associated. As your Lordship
17will have seen from the correspondence, I frequently had
18very marked altercations with these people, saying, in
19effect, "You may be a frightfully nice person privately
20and you have got a good tennis serve but, on the other
21hand, your views on the Holocaust are wrong"
22 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] So would you say that there is not anyone who you feel, in
23hindsight, you should not have associated with
24 A. [Mr Irving] Oh, in retrospect, good Lord, yes! In retrospect, you
25could look out of the back of the truck as it goes
26trundling down the highway of history and you say, "I wish
1I never get to know him", but we have all met people like
2that, my Lord. This should not be held against me.
3People change.
4 There is one particular gentleman called
5Mr Althans, Ewald Althans, who figures in this
6correspondence. He was a German character who I got to
7know when he was a student. I first met him, I think, in
81989 and my first impressions of him which I have recorded
9in my diary was that he was a very forceful, energetic,
10forthright and fearless young man.
11 It subsequently turned out he held opinions that
12could be really categorised as extreme, that he was, in
13fact, an agent of the German government and an agent
14provocateur because he testified to that effect when he
15finally got his comeuppance. I bitterly regret ever
16having made his acquaintance, and certainly if he came
17anywhere near me I would say, "Go away". If he came to my
18front door, I would pretend I was not in. Well, if that
19can be held against me, my Lord, then I think this is an
20unjust society. These things happen. People change as
21you get to know them. They become different from the way
22they were when you first knew them
23 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] So you are saying really, are you, that you want to be
24judged by what you said rather than by what people you may
25have been at the same meeting with
26 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, I am very satisfied to be judged on what I
1have said verbally which is recorded in great abundance in
2the transcripts. I am very satisfied to be judged on the
3basis of what I have written to any of these gentlemen,
4but I do not think I should be judged on the basis of what
5they may have said either to me or to others. That is
6their own affair. Frequently, I have had cause to
7reprimand them privately and say, "Do not do it".
8 For example, I remember one trip I made to South
9Africa. The South Africans are a different people from
10us. They have different attitudes to us. I visited South
11Africa on a speaking tour and I went to Johannesburg
12Airport to pick up my assistant who was to accompany me
13and I warned her; I said, "You will find the people here
14in Johannesburg treat coloured people in a manner which is
15totally repugnant to us, but I must request you not to say
16anything about it because we are their guests", but that
17is as far as you can go
18 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] The last topic, is there anything you want to add
19 A. [Mr Irving] No, my Lord -- unless you wanted to ask me about any
20specific names that they have mentioned? You do not
21 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Well, I was not proposing to, but if you want to say
22anything about, for example, Mr Zundel who is, perhaps,
23more important than most of the others
24 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Zundel, I can speak about very briefly. I first met
25Mr Zundel, Z-U-N-D-E-L, who is a German of Canadian
26extraction who has been in constant hot water for the last
110 or 15 years, but is sill in the eyes of the law
2blameless, in other words, he has not been convicted on
3anything he has been accused of which is a matter not to
4be taken lightly, of course. A lot of accusations have
5been made against him, but he has so far not been found
6guilty of anything.
7 I first heard about him before 1986 in the most
8disparaging terms. In 1986, I conducted around the world
9lecture tour, and coming up from Australia and Fiji to
10Vancouver, I was met at Vancouver Airport in Colombia, in
11Canada, by a man who introduced himself in the car to me
12as Mr Douglas Christie. I said, "But you are the
13barrister for Mr Zundel, are you not, in the hearings in
14Toronto?" He said, "Yes, I am. I am chairing the meeting
15tonight". I was so shocked by this that I telephoned my
16tour organizer in Australia immediately and said, "I am
17afraid I cannot allow Mr Christie to act as chairman of
18tonight's meeting". My hostility to Mr Zundel at that
19time was so pronounced I would not even allow his
20barrister to come near me, in other words.
21 I then flew across to Toronto where I was to
22speak and I was picked up at Toronto Airport by two
23gentlemen who drove me down town, and half way down the
24Queen Elizabeth Highway into Toronto, one of the gentlemen
25turned to the other and said, "Ernst, I think we will put
26Mr Irving off at his hotel first". I said, "Do you mind
1if I ask who you are?" and he said, "Yes, I am Ernst
2Zundel". I am afraid I was terribly shocked to be found
3sitting in the same car with him because the blackening of
4his name at that time had gone to such an extent that not
5only did I not want to be associated with his barrister,
6but not with him either.
7 Now I say that, having got to know him over the
8next two or three years, you realize that the reputation
9he had and the man he was were two different things. He
10was an enbattled person, coming under, I will not even say
11the same kind of attack as I have, he came under the most
12vicious kind of attack which included the burning down of
13his house and a constant onslaught and violent and
14physical assault, and he was bearing himself up with more
15fortitude than taste; and you had to realize that he was a
16man with a certain intellect, a certain sense of humour
17and execrable private opinions. That is the only way that
18I can characterize him
19 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes
20 A. [Mr Irving] I repeatedly said this, my Lord. I have sent him messages
21and letters and I have said that, frankly, your opinions
22are off the wall -- in fact, they are off the map. The
23correspondence has been in the discovery for the
24Defendants and they could have seen it and, no doubt, it
25has alarmed them because it does not confirm the picture
26that they would have wished to portray
1 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] But you agreed to give evidence at his trial
2 A. [Mr Irving] I thought it was my duty as an historian, as a public
3citizen, to give evidence. I did not realize at the time
4the odium that would accrue. In fact, the element of
5odium, I think, would have been impossible in this
6country. I think it would have been almost a contempt for
7witnesses to be subjected to the kind of onslaught that
8I was after I gave evidence in that trial, but it
9happened. I wrote letters to the newspapers about it.
10I said, "This will be completely impossible in England".
11The letters were published, but there it is.
12 If people ask me now, as they have, "Would you
13do it again?" I say, "No, I would not", not because I did
14not consider my duty to give the evidence I gave as
15an historian, and I understand the Judge afterwards said
16that he had never had such a convincing witness, but it
17was a mistake, because of the fact that that has been used
18as a reason to destroy me subsequently. Frankly, I do not
19seek personal destruction. If I was given the chance to
20do it again, if the people who have destroyed me since
21came to me now and said, "Mr Irving, we are prepared to
22put you back where you were", I would say, "Show me what
23I have to sign and I will do it". It is as simple as
25 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Then, finally, I think this is the last topic that you
26need to deal with, the allegation that you broke an
1agreement in relation to the microfiche containing the
2Goebbels' diaries by removing them from Moscow, or from
3the archive in Moscow, and risking damage to them
4 A. [Mr Irving] Yes. Well ---
5 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] You dealt with this quite thoroughly in your opening
6 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, I have to be a bit careful because you have actually
7compounded two elements in that statement. You said by
8removing the glass plates and by something else. I do not
9know what the agreement was supposed to have been. I have
10dealt with this quite thoroughly in my opening statement,
11and I am happy to aver here on oath that what I said in my
12opening statement in this respect, as in other respect, is
13true to the best of my knowledge and belief.
14 Ten years nearly, or eight years, have passed
15since that time when I was in Moscow and I obtained the
16diaries. You will be hearing the evidence of Mr Peter
17Miller who was with me at the time; and there is no
18written agreement either in my discovery or in the
19discovery produced by the Defendants who have had close
20collaboration with the Russian archival officials, will be
21able to cross-examine the Russian witnesses, and on this
22occasion they will be giving evidence, I understand, and I
23think, perhaps, we had better reserve judgment until after
24we have had the opportunity of hearing all that.
25 But, to the best of my knowledge and belief,
26there was no agreement, and I have made the admission
1(which I had to) which was quite proper about having
2illicitly or illegally or even improperly removed the
3glass plates on the archives and returned them the next
4day and whatever which, to my mind, not such a big deal
5because they allowed me to two days later anyway
6 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Well, so far as I am concerned, that is all I was going to
7invite you to give evidence about, leaving aside
8Auschwitz, but do feel free to add anything that you think
9has not been sufficiently covered before you are
11 A. [Mr Irving] I only wanted to say that you asked me earlier about the
12consequences of the book. I mentioned the pecuniary
13consequences and I mentioned the consequences for my
14career, but there has also been a more intangible
15consequence, that I have found myself subjected to a
16burden of hatred which you cannot quantify, but which is
17quite definitely there, the blank telephone calls, the
18obscene messages and so on. I would give only one
19example, my Lord, of the kind hatred -- well, two
20examples: one when I was assaulted in the Book Exhibition
21in Chicago -- in Los Angeles which I attended with my
22publishing imprint a few weeks ago when a member of the
23Jewish community -- a very notorious member of the Jewish
24community; one of the most extreme members in the United
25States with a long criminal record -- came up to the stand
26and screamed that he was going to come back and kill me,
1 "You're a Holocaust denier" he screamed as he was led
2away by the police, using the phrase coined by the Second
4 The second one would make more sense to your
5Lordship if you are aware of who Philip Bullard is.
6Philip Bullard was the head of the Nazi Extermination
7Programme for the mentally and physically disabled, the
8Euthanasia Programme
9 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, I know
10 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, I had the great misfortune in September to lose
11my eldest daughter. After we buried her, I received a
12phone call from the undertakers that another wreath had
13come. When the wreath was delivered late that afternoon,
14it was a very expensive and elaborate wreath of white
15roses and lilies -- far more expensive than we could have
16afforded -- with a card attached to it saying, "Truly a
17merciful death", "It was truly a merciful death", signed
18"Philip Bullard and friends". I should mention that my
19daughter was disabled in all those respects. She was
20legless and she had been brain damaged for 18 years.
21 I submit that this is the kind of hatred that
22this book has subjected me to -- something intolerable,
23something unspeakable, and which I would wish no other
24person to be subjected to
25 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes
26 A. [Mr Irving] Thank you
1 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Is there anything you wish to add
2 A. [Mr Irving] Not to that, my Lord, no, and in any other respect I think
3that you have drawn the essentials out of my admirably, as
4was only to be expected
5 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Well, you will have the opportunity, obviously, to amplify
6your case after cross-examination, if you wish to. Now,
7I do not know whether we need to clear the decks before
8you cross-examine so that Mr Irving has the documents that
9you mentioned earlier on, Mr Rampton
10 MR RAMPTON: I do not know how best to do it. I have to say
11(and I will say it again; I sort of hinted at it
12yesterday) this is the most ghastly inconvenient and
13uncomfortable court I have ever been in. That is nobody's
14fault. I can hardly stand up. I cannot get at my
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I wish I thought I could do something about
18 MR RAMPTON: I say that as a preliminary. The witness is miles
19away from the files that he needs. I can hardly see him
20because of this pillar and my learned junior cannot see
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Otherwise you are pretty happy!
23 MR RAMPTON: Except for the feeling that I am being boiled
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That I have tried to do something about. The
26air conditioning was supposed to be on. I do not know
1whether it actually was over the midday adjournment -- it
2was. I just do not see that we can solve any of these
4 MR RAMPTON: Perhaps the authorities at least might pretend
5that it was mid summer instead of Siberia, we might be a
6little bit more comfortable
7 Cross-examined by MR RAMPTON, QC
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, to be serious (and I am sorry to be a little
9bit facetious) Mr Irving will need some files
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I think it is best to do that first
11before you start
12 MR RAMPTON: Yes, I agree. D2(i) and (ii), a copy of his
13opening ---
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Would you prefer to have your own copies
15 A. [Mr Irving] No, my Lord, they are not marked up
16 MR RAMPTON: Those are the first two transcript files.
17Eventually, but perhaps not now, and Mr Irving's own
18writing, his books. Those are the two, just (i) and (ii)
19are the only ones that are needed and a copy of the
20opening to start with.
21 (To the witness): Mr Irving, there is an
22elegiac story that you told us just now -- I do not mean
23that sarcastically at all; it is perfectly true it is --
24you blame that appalling note on the wreath on Deborah
25Lipstadt's book, is that right
26 A. [Mr Irving] I think I was quite careful to say that it is difficult to
1quantify and difficult to be precise, but one thing leads
2to another which thereupon leads to another and in that
3respect the book has created and generated a climate of
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] If what the book said about you is true, then it would
6not, perhaps you would agree, be the book's fault but
7yours, would it not
8 A. [Mr Irving] I do not think any man can ever be expected to receive a
9wreath from hateful people like that and have it said it
10is his own fault
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] Let us take a step back in time (and I promise you, as
12I have before, both publicly and privately, that I am
13going on to Auschwitz this week, to give you time to get
14your head round it). In 1977, when the first edition of
15Hitler's War was published, you accepted the Holocaust in
16all its essential details in its ordinary sense, did you
17not, its generally understood sense
18 A. [Mr Irving] Would you tell the court what you mean by the ---
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, I will. The systematic mass murder of millions of
20Jews by the Nazi regime during the Second World War
21 A. [Mr Irving] I do not accept the word "systematic", but for the rest of
22it, then that is an accurate precis
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Including the continuous, if not systematic, though it is
24difficult to distinguish the two, perhaps, use of
25homicidal gas chambers in institutions like Auschwitz
26 A. [Mr Irving] Continuous
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, over a period of time
2 A. [Mr Irving] It is not a word that I used
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, not daily on a continuous basis, but for a long period
4of time, something like, I think, 22 months you accepted
5that Auschwitz used homicidal gas chambers to kill very
6large numbers of Jews, did you not
7 A. [Mr Rampton] I certainly did not say 22 months
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, let us try to get to the point. In your 1977 edition,
9Auschwitz was characterized, I am not quoting, I am
10paraphrasing, as one of the extermination camps, was it
12 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] In the 1991 edition, it had become, am I not right, merely
14a slave labour camp?
15 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct -- well, I did not say "merely". I said a
16slave labour camp
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Merely" is my word
18 A. [Mr Irving] You appreciate one has to be precise what I agree to
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes
20 A. [Mr Irving] Otherwise it will be used against me later on. You said,
21 "It was merely a slave labour camp"
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] You can be certain that I do not conduct litigation in
23that way and that if I did his Lordship would sit on me
24quite hard. So have no fear of silly little Perry Mason
25traps like that
26 A. [Mr Irving] I am very glad to hear it
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Until 1988 you accepted the Holocaust, however it be
2precisely defined (and I am not quibbling about minutia)
3in its generally understood sense, that is to say, a mass
4killing of Jews by the Nazis during World War II, did you
6 A. [Mr Irving] I did not use the word "Holocaust" but I did quite
7definitely accept that the Nazis engaged in mass killing
8of Jews during World War II
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do you accept that most people in the western world now
10and perhaps all over the world, I know not, when the word
11"Holocaust" is used mean the systematic mass murder of
12millions of Jews by the Nazi regime
13 A. [Mr Irving] I do not think that they ponder one moment to define what
14they are thinking about. They associate pictures with
15words. When the word "Holocaust" is used, they are
16thinking of people behind barbed ward, they are thinking
17of pits will bulldozers pushing bodies into them. It is
18visual images that are conjured up. They are not using
19legal definitions which can later on be bandied in a libel
20action. I think it is pictures that are conjured up by
21the word
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, we are not looking for legal definitions, Mr Irving.
23We are looking for -- I give you the card straightaway so
24that you can think about it while I ask you more questions
25 -- what people would have understood you to mean when
26later you denied the Holocaust, do you understand? Do you
1remember my original question was it might be thought
2eventually that the catastrophe or the misfortune you
3described at the end of your evidence-in-chief had been
4brought on you by what you have said yourself. Do you
5understand that? Do you understand, perhaps put it this
6way, that if you use a word ---
7 A. [Mr Irving] This is very similar to saying that the catastrophe that
8befell the Jewish people was brought on them by
9themselves, and you can say to each of those sentences,
10each of those points, the answer is yes
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] I do not think ---
12 A. [Mr Irving] But between each of those alphas and omegas there are very
13many intervening stages which you are leaving out
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] That may be so. I do not think you are perhaps quite
15answering my question
16 A. [Mr Irving] I thought that was a very comprehensive one, sir
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] Let us go back to your opening yesterday. You made noisy
18complaint, if I may call it that, about being branded a
19"Holocaust denier", did you not
20 A. [Mr Irving] Oh, yes, yes
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] You finished up by calling it a verbal Yellow Star
22 A. [Mr Irving] Among my remarks I called it a verbal Yellow Star. I did
23not finish up by calling it that
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] No. "A poison to which there is virtually no antedote,
25less lethal than a hypodermic with nerve gas jabbed in the
26neck but deadly all the same. For the chosen victim, it
1is like being called a wife beater or a paedophile. It is
2enough for the label to be attached for the attachee to
3find himself designated as a pariah, an outcast from
4normal society. It is a verbal Yellow Star". What did
5you mean by "it"
6 A. [Mr Irving] The phrase "Holocaust denier"
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Exactly. Now, then I would like you to look at some of
8the things that you have said publicly or, at any rate,
9semi-publicly. You have those two files there, the ones
10with the pink spines on them. Can we start, please, with
11the one which is, if I can find it, it is D2(i). Can you
12please turn to tab 9 which is the transcript of a speech
13you made at the Travelodge at the Airport Inn in Calgary,
14Alberta, on 29th September 1991. I myself quoted some
15part of this, I think, yesterday in opening for the
16Defendants. Can you please turn to page 4? If you think
17I am reading anything out of context, you must say so
18because then I will go back and start again
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: So take your time if you need it, Mr Irving
20 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, I read the whole of this speech in the small
21hours of this morning in view of the fact that ---
22 MR RAMPTON: Then can I start, please, halfway down the page,
23five lines above the paragraph break
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry, I missed the page
25 MR RAMPTON: Page 4, my Lord. There is a sentence which begins
26with the last word on the line "For", after the words "in
1one or two dramatic points". Do you have it
2 A. [Mr Irving] I have that
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] "For example, until 1988, I believed that there had been,
4until 1988, I believed that three had been something like
5a Holocaust. I believed that millions of people had been
6killed in factories of death. I believed in the gas
7chamber. I believed in all the paraphernalia of the
8modern Holocaust". Now, what was "all the paraphernalia
9of the modern Holocaust" that you believed in up to 1988
10 A. [Mr Irving] The words that I had set out in the previous four lines,
11the factories of death
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes
13 A. [Mr Irving] The gas chambers
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes
15 A. [Mr Irving] Like everybody else in this room, I believed in them up to
16that point
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then comes this: "But 1988, when I came to Canada and
18gave evidence in the trial of Ernst Zundel as an
19historian, I met there people who knew differently and
20could prove to me that the story was just a legend"
21 A. [Mr Irving] "That that story was just a legend"
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] Quite right, thank you, "that that story", that is to say
23the Holocaust story in which you previously believed, "was
24just a legend. I changed my mind I've now revised the
25Hitler book so that all references to Auschwitz and the
26gas chamber and all the factories of death", so that would
1include Sobibor, Treblinka ---
2 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Rampton, you have inserted some words there. After,
3where you read out "to prove that that story was just a
4legend", you then verbally inserted the words "in other
5words, the story of the Holocaust"
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes
7 A. [Mr Irving] Or something like that, and that is not in there
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Fair enough
9 A. [Mr Irving] That story was referring to the paraphernalia
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] You corrected my reading quite rightly, I said "the
11story", you said "that story". What does that mean in
12that context
13 A. [Mr Irving] The paraphernalia, the equipment, the factories of death
14and the gas chambers
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, and the killing of millions of people
16 A. [Mr Irving] No
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] Really
18 A. [Mr Irving] We have repeatedly made quite plain that the Nazis killed
19large numbers of people
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] "I believed millions of people had been killed in
21factories of death"
22 A. [Mr Irving] You see, this is why you said "the story" instead of "that
23story". You were trying to sweep up the whole of that
24sentence, including the millions of people, when it is
25quite plain that I am talking about the latter part of the
26sentence which is the paraphernalia
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, we will get nowhere if we argue about trivia of
2that kind. What you had believed in ---
3 A. [Mr Irving] It is not trivia, Mr Rampton, with respect, because a few
4days down the line you will read back to me the transcript
5and say, "But you agreed on January 12th that this was
6what you were referring to", and that is why I am going to
7be sticking on each one of these points, Mr Rampton
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Let us get it straight. The story that you had believed
9in until 1988 was, amongst other things, that millions of
10people had been killed in factories of death by the use of
11gas chambers. I am paraphrasing the penultimate and the
12propenultimate lines of the previous ---
13 A. [Mr Irving] I am sorry, but that is not an accurate paraphrase. You
14just said, "I believed that millions of people had been
15killed in the gas chambers" and that is exactly what that
16sentence does not say. It says: "I believed that
17millions of people had been killed in factories of death.
18I believed in the gas chamber". Can you not see the
19difference between those two sentences
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, I am afraid I cannot. You tell me the difference
21 A. [Mr Irving] I believed that millions of people have been killed
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] In factories of death
23 A. [Mr Irving] In factories of death. I believed in the gas chambers
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. Right, now, will you please, just so that we can
25clear up this, I will not use the word, just this little
26dispute, please keep your finger where you are and turn to
1tab 11 which is something you said apparently on the
2unedited transcripts of an interview on 15th and 28th
3November for the "This Week" programme and I think Irving
4and Leuchter at the Chelsea Town Hall was a press
5conference you gave announcing your publication of the
6Leuchter Report, am I right
7 A. [Mr Irving] It was a lecture that we organized at the Chelsea Town
8Hall, yes
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] Can you turn to page 2, please, of this transcript
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry, Mr Rampton. This contains two
11separate things, this tab, does it? One, the press
12conference and the other a television interview
13 MR RAMPTON: It does
14 A. [Mr Irving] What I am I supposed to be looking at
15 MR RAMPTON: Page 2 of the transcript which is at tab 11,
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: This is the press conference
18 MR RAMPTON: This is the press conference and there is a
19passage time at 0014.25
20 A. [Mr Irving] I only have tape 191 in this book
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is what you are meant to be looking at
22 MR RAMPTON: Page 191
23 A. [Mr Irving] Tape 191
24 MR RAMPTON: Tape 191. Please turn to the second page of the
25transcript and look at the last paragraph on the second
1 A. [Mr Irving] 1425 right? The time
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, 1425. You told his Lordship this morning that, so
3far as you could tell, these were accurate transcripts of
4what you had said. I will read the sentence and you tell
5me whether you want to ---
6 A. [Mr Irving] Excuse me, you just said that I told his Lordship that
7these were accurate transcripts of what I have said
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] So far as you could tell, I think, yes. He asked you that
10 A. [Mr Irving] I said with reservation, with the reservation that some of
11them have been subjected to editing
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, just let us have a look at this one sentence and
13then you can tell his Lordship whether you think it has
14been edited and in some way crafted to misrepresent what
15you said
16 A. [Mr Irving] The one sentence, yes
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] The one sentence: "The biggest lie of the lot, the blood
18libel on the German people, as I call it", that is you,
19 "is the lie that the Germans had factories of death with
20gas chambers in which they liquidated millions of their
22 A. [Mr Irving] That is an accurate transcription of what I said
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] You did say that
24 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] And did you regard that proposition, that the Germans had
26factories of death with gas chambers, plural, in
1which they liquidated millions, plural, of their
2opponents, at this date in November 1991 as a lie
3 A. [Mr Irving] A big lie, yes
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] A big lie
5 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is that proposition, is it not, Mr Irving, which most
7people regard as representing not in any accurate or
8meticulous, historical sense, but generally understood as
9the Holocaust
10 A. [Mr Irving] I disagree with that. I have made quite plain that in my
11mind most people when they think of the Holocaust think of
12everything they are shown on television. Mostly nowadays
13it is people being made to walk to the edge of a pit and
14being bumped off by soldiers holding rifles. That is the
15visual image that people now have
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Right. So that does not represent the Holocaust, millions
17of people being killed in gas chambers in factories of
19 A. [Mr Irving] It represents a part of the Holocaust story
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] So will you please go up the page two paragraphs to the
21words "timed at 1213", and explain what you meant by what
22you here said? "If you look at my great Adolf Hitler
23biography here, this bumper Adolf Hitler biography that we
24have only just published, in fact, it literally arrived
25off the printing process today, you will not find the
26Holocaust mentioned in one line, not even a footnote. Why
1should we? If something didn't happen, then you don't
2even dignify it with a footnote"
3 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct. The word "The Holocaust" you will not
4find in that book
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] What was the Holocaust that did not happen that you meant
6to signify by those words
7 A. [Mr Irving] The way I then I specify it two paragraphs later which is
8the millions being killed in the gas chambers. This makes
9it quite plain it is all part of the same story
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] So what it comes to is that the Holocaust, your own
11words ---
12 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- has been denied by you, does it not
14 A. [Mr Irving] No. The Holocaust as defined here by me later on, the
15description of people being killed in factories of death.
16This is the description here which I say you will not find
17in the book and you will not find the word "Holocaust" in
18the book which you will not, because I think it is very
19confusing to use words like that. I mean, this is where
20the confusion has come from, that instead of you asking me
21a question about the shootings and a question about the
22gassings, you are asking a question about a vague concept
23called "the Holocaust" knowing that you will get me one
24way or you will get the other, rather like Mortimer's
25Fork. I think it would be more forensic if you were to
26ask specifically about what you mean rather than ask about
1vague concepts
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Thank you for your advice about how to conduct my case in
3court, Mr Irving. I am grateful for that. What do you
4think was the Holocaust about which Professor Lipstadt
5wrote in her book
6 A. [Mr Irving] Which Holocaust are we talking about
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am ---
8 A. [Mr Irving] The broad definition
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- asking you to answer my question, what is it in her
10book that you object to in the words "Holocaust denier"
11 A. [Mr Irving] The word "denier" that is attached to it. That is what I
12object to it
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] You did not deny the Holocaust in that passage ---
14 A. [Mr Irving] I denied the gas chambers. I denied that the Germans
15killed millions in gas chambers and we are going to have a
16great deal of interest when we get to that phase of this
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] How many people do you think -- I mean innocent people,
19I am not talking about bombing raids, Mr Irving, I mean
20innocent Jewish people do you think the Germans killed
22 A. [Mr Irving] You mean like Anne Frank
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] I do not mind whether they are like Anne Frank or not.
24How many innocent Jewish people ---
25 A. [Mr Irving] Well, I mean, she is a typical example and a very useful
26example to take because everybody has heard of Anne
1Frank. She was innocent. I have daughters of my own and
2if what happened to her happened to one of my daughters, I
3would be extremely angry
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Oh, I see, so Mr or Mrs Frank might not have been
5innocent, is that what you are trying to say
6 A. [Mr Irving] But I asked you about Anne Frank; I did not ask about her
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, I am sorry, Mr Irving. The procedure in this court is
9that you do not ask questions, I do. I asked you how
10many ---
11 A. [Mr Irving] I did not ask a question. I just said, I mean, shall we
12talk about Anne Frank
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, I do not want to talk about Anne Frank
14 A. [Mr Irving] You want to talk about nameless, unspecified Jews so that
15later on we can say, "Well, I was not meaning those ones,
16I meant those ones"? The reason you do not want to talk
17about Anne Frank, of course, is because she is a Jew who
18died in the Holocaust and yet she was not murdered, unless
19you take the broadest possible definition of murder
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, this is becoming somewhat comical. We will get
21to Anne Frank along down the road, I assure you. She is
22part of Professor Evans' report, apart from anything else,
23for a completely different purpose.
24 I said "deliberately killed". How many innocent
25Jewish people do you say that the Nazis deliberately
26killed during the course of World War II. That was my
2 A. [Mr Irving] Now, you heard me say in my opening statement, Mr Rampton,
3that I am not an expert on the Holocaust. What I would
4now say would be a figure without any value whatsoever.
5It would be just an assessment off the top of my head.
6I can say what did not happen because you can apply
7certain logistical principles, but I cannot say what did
8happen. It would be a waste of this court's time for me
9to make an assessment
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] Let us break down your Holocaust denial then, so far as
11you will accept that you have made it. You dispute the
12word "millions"
13 A. [Mr Irving] I dispute the word "millions"
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes
15 A. [Mr Irving] No. I do not think I have disputed the word "millions"
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] So "millions" is only wrong so far as the gas chambers are
17concerned, is that right
18 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] So there are no gas chambers, I think we know that, do we
21 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Rampton, if I may, I will not venture a question, but
22I will make a statement. A million people weigh 100,000
23tonnes. We are talking of a major logistical problem
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] We are not -- I think, Mr Irving, we are at
26cross-purposes. I am trying to understand what it is that
1you deny, not your reasons for denying it. That will come
2much later on
3 A. [Mr Irving] I am denying that any kind of multiples of millions of
4people were killed in the gas chambers at Birkenhau
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] Articles then of -- no, that is not what you have said
7 A. [Mr Irving] I am very being very specific which makes it much easier
8to nail me down
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, "factories of death" is plural
10 A. [Mr Irving] Well, there were several factories of death, allegedly, at
11Birkenhau, the crematoria
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] What you do you say about Sobibor, Treblinka, Belsac and
14 A. [Mr Irving] Nothing at all. I am not an expert
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do you deny that they were killed in gas chambers in those
17 A. [Mr Irving] You did not hear what I said, Mr Rampton. I am not an
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] You have no opinion about that at all
20 A. [Mr Irving] Except what I have read from other people. If other
21people come and tell me that, for example, there is no
22trace of any mass graves at Treblinka even now, then
23I begin to get suspicious about the story
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] Let me understand it, Mr Irving. By "factories of death"
25in this sentence on page 2 of tab 11, you had no intention
26of including in that phrase "factories of death" the
1installations, whatever they were, at Belsac, Treblinka,
2Sobibor or Chelma, is that right
3 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Rampton, you are asking me a question about a verbal
4statement I made nine years ago and, if you wish, I will
5look to see what the rest of the statement is and I will
6tell you which parts of the universe I was talking about.
7But ---
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Your answer just now -- it may have been too quick an
9answer; it was not, perhaps, your best answer -- was, "Oh,
10when I said 'factories of death' here, there were
11factories of death at Birkenhau"
12 A. [Mr Irving] Well, I presumed that as we are still talking about the
13Auschwitz phase of the cross-examination, you are talking
14about Auschwitz and Birkenhau
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, I am talking about what I call your Holocaust denier
16here you write a sentence or you speak a sentence,
17presumably written out before: "The biggest lie of the lot
18is the lie that the Germans had factories", plural, and
19I said that when I read it to you first time, "of death
20with gas chambers in which they liquidated millions of
21their opponents"
22 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Let us get back to the present. Which of those elements
24in that statement "factories", plural, "of death with gas
25chambers", plural, "in which they liquidated millions",
26plural, "of their opponents", which of those elements do
1you still deny
2 A. [Mr Irving] The millions in gas chambers
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes
4 A. [Mr Irving] Because, among other reasons, which we will come to later
5on in this trial, the logistical problems for a start
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] But you do deny it
7 A. [Mr Irving] I deny -- I use that word, it might be more proper to use
8the word "contest" or "question", but certainly for your
9purposes I will use the word "deny", that it was possible
10to liquidate millions of people in the gas chambers that
11had been presented us by historians so far
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] I follow that. Are you retreating from your earlier
13answer that your use of the words "factories", plural, "of
14death" was confined to Birkenhau
15 A. [Mr Irving] What, in this particular speech
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes
17 A. [Mr Irving] Do you wish me to read the speech so that I can answer
18that question
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, no. I would rather you gave me an answer now; if you
20want to change it tomorrow, by all means do so. That is
21perfectly legitimate
22 A. [Mr Irving] No, unless the Judge so orders, I think it would be
23improper for me to answer from memory about the content of
24a speech I made nine years ago
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is probably a fair point. It
26does mean that time is going to have to be taken up with
1it, and I am concerned we do not spend too long on it, but
2glance through. I do not think it will take that long
3 A. [Mr Irving] I am anxious to be responsive, my Lord, but I do not want
4to ---
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, I think that is fair, as I already said. Just glance
6through and see whether you can get any help one way or
7the other from the rest of it
8 A. [Mr Irving] Whereabouts was it
9 MR RAMPTON: It is on page 2, tab 11
10 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, with respect, I do not see why I should be
11required to amplify a statement that I made nine years ago
12in any respect whatsoever or I should be required to add
13geographical locations on which I did not specify at the
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You were not, with respect, being asked
16that. When you use that phrase "factories of death" ---
17 A. [Mr Irving] Well, I can certainly be helpful here and say that I think
18I am prepared to deny the possibility that the Nazis
19liquidated millions of people in gas chambers at any of
20their locations during the Third Reich.
21 MR RAMPTON: That is very helpful
22 A. [Mr Irving] But do not then start just taking elements of that
23sentence saying, "Oh, but you said this, the gas chambers"
24or "You said the millions" or "You said anywhere". The
25whole sentence in its totality is correct, and that is
26what I am testifying to
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do you accept that the Nazis killed, by one means or
2another, and I am not talking about hard labour or
3exposing people to typhus, shot, murdered, gassed, kicked
4to death millions of Jews during World War II or not
5 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] You do
7 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, whether it was of the order of millions or not,
8I would hesitate to specify, but I would say it was
9certainly more than one million, certainly less than four
10million. But that is not a very useful answer to you, the
11limitation I put on that. I do not want you to say, "You
12said millions, therefore, it is more than two million",
13for example. I do not want you to ..
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] So tell me what it was then that was the Holocaust that
15you removed from the 1991 edition and announced to the
16world that you had done so
17 A. [Mr Irving] The word "Holocaust" has gone
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, but why
19 A. [Mr Irving] Because I find the word "Holocaust" misleading, offensive
20and unhelpful
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] Why
22 A. [Mr Irving] For precisely the reasons that I said 10 minutes ago, that
23it is too vague, it is imprecise, it is unscientific and
24it should be avoided like the plague, because the word
25"Holocaust" could be understood to mean one thing when
26somebody is referring to it meaning something else. I try
1to avoid words like that.
2 I shall be calling -- I shall be asking one of
3my experts on precisely this matter who is an expert on
4the use of the word "Holocaust". He also takes the
5strongest exception to it
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] So you removed it because you found it imprecise for one
8 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, as a part of the general tidying up process -- when
9you take a book after 10 years and you revise it and you
10work over it with a red pencil, you do a lot of tidying up
11and tightening up, and we did that with the new edition.
12We cut a lot of material out anyway because the book was
13the one-third too long and we wanted to bring a new
14material that we had obtained, the diaries of Hitler's
15doctor and Goring, and so on. So there was a lot of
16editorial work that went on
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] I want to take it slowly because it may be important in
18the end. You removed it because it was imprecise, but you
19accept, you now tell me, that the Germans deliberately
20murdered perhaps something between one and two million
21Jews during the course of the War
22 A. [Mr Irving] A criminally large number of Jews, yes
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Where, in your opinion, did this happen, broadly speaking
24 A. [Mr Irving] Well, we could take it sector by sector, but I am not sure
25if it is a meaningful exercise. If I am a Jew and I take
26it from Amsterdam and I am living a peaceful life and I
1find myself thrown into a stinking concentration camp
2where I die of disease, I considered myself to have been
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] I excluded them, as you know perfectly well. I talked
5about shooting, gassing, hanging, kicking, what you like,
6but I excluded the people who died of disease or overwork
7or starvation
8 A. [Mr Irving] Very well. On the Eastern front, particularly in the
9Baltic States, particularly in the Ukraine, I would
10estimate that up to one million Jews were murdered, using
11that word in a way that is completely incontrovertible.
12They were stood on the edge of pits and shot into the
13pits, clubbed to death
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] Just so that we get it straight: in the second edition of
15"Hitler's War" -- start at the beginning. In the first
16edition you accepted that Auschwitz was an extermination
17centre, did you not
18 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, a lazy acceptance which I now regret
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is as may be. By the time of the second edition you
20had recanted that acceptance, had you not
21 A. [Mr Irving] That Auschwitz was an extermination centre, a dedicated
22extermination centre
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes
24 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] You said, for example, I am paraphrasing, perhaps you will
26accept it, that the Hungarian Jews were sent to Auschwitz
1for slave labour
2 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Instead of purposefully to be killed
4 A. [Mr Irving] Definitely
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] What do you say went on -- perhaps I will ask you this
6first. Do you accept that there were camps, and we will
7take them one by one, Chelmo
8 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] Belzec
10 A. [Mr Irving] Belzec I am not certain of
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] Treblinka
12 A. [Mr Irving] Treblinka I am becoming uncertain about
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Sobibor
14 A. [Mr Irving] Sobibor I know nothing of
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] Chelmo you accept
16 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] The other two, second two you are uncertain about
18 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] What happened at Chelmo
20 A. [Mr Irving] In 1940 they established a killing centre. It was in a
21handy part of Europe. Hitler had ordered liquidation in
22the Polish campaign and afterwards the liquidation of all
23the Polish intellectuals and clergy and intelligentsia and
24the Jews who were liable to occupy leading positions, and
25a lot of them found themselves shipped off to Chelmo where
26they were dispatched
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But not by gas
2 A. [Mr Irving] Not to the best of my knowledge, my Lord, no, but I say
3this, and I hesitate to say this, as a non-expert on the
4Holocaust, this book was not written as a history of the
5Holocaust. This was book was written as a biography of
6Hitler and it would have been neither here nor there how
7his victims were disposed of
8 MR RAMPTON: Let us take the other three camps together. You
9would not accept that they were purpose built
10extermination centres either
11 A. [Mr Irving] Not on the basis of the evidence I have seen so far
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] It follows, does it not, that you do not accept that
13people who were killed there were killed by the use of
14purpose designed gas chambers
15 A. [Mr Irving] At which camps are you talking about, Treblinka
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] To the three East Polish ones
17 A. [Mr Irving] There is a lot of debate each way which, in my mind, is
18unresolved and I have no particular interest in resolving
19it because, I repeat for the nth time, I am not a
20Holocaust scholar, and taking the Treblinka Miediner camp
21you have the problem there that they cannot make up their
22mind what kind of gas was used to kill the victims, was it
23Zyklone, was it diesel engine exhaust fumes, was it petrol
24engine exhaust fumes, when that kind of uncertainty occurs
25in the testimony, frankly I tend to turn my back on the
26entire story and write something that is safe rather than
1something that is liable to dispute
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, can I ask this question.
3I thought, Mr Irving, when you were giving your
4evidence-in-chief, I think it was in response to a
5question from, you said you accepted that gassing had
7 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] But to the limited sent that it had been carried out on an
9experimental basis
10 A. [Mr Irving] By experimental ---
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] Let me finish the question. I had understood that to be a
12reference to the gas vans being brought after the
13termination of euthanasia programme. Am I wrong? Is it
14wider than that
15 A. [Mr Irving] By "experimental" I do not mean that men stood around in
16white coats with clip boards and stopwatches. It as just
17local SS commanders who had been given the job of
18disposing of these people and were looking for other ways
19of doing it. Certainly the gas vans were used, because in
20Adolf Eichmann's papers which I obtained in Argentina he
21describes having witnessed one such killing, and there are
22documents which satisfy me, which may be of great
23disinterest to the Defendants but they satisfy me that
24they are authentic that such killing trucks did exist,
25unless there are enormous coincidences in the use of
26language and words. The gas chambers story is
1sufficiently difficult to analyse, because on the one hand
2you have apparently consistent testimony of people who
3should have known, like the commandants and their
4deputies, testifying to the fact that these killings were
5carried out in gas chambers, and on the other hand you
6have the logistical and agricultural impossibilities which
7cannot be overlooked. I am sure that we will hear a lot
8more about them later on in the trial
9 MR RAMPTON: Yes, perhaps. Then let us return finally to page
102 of tab 11 of this file. I hope you still have it open,
11have you
12 A. [Mr Irving] Page 2, tab 11, yes
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. In the second paragraph timed at 12.13 the last
14sentence reads:
15 "If something didn't happen then you don't even
16dignify it with a footnote".
17 The "it" you are referring to there is the
18Holocaust whatever that may mean. Is that right
19 A. [Mr Irving] Well, it is the gas chamber Holocaust
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. I am not trying to be unfair, but according to the
21internal syntax of that statement the "it" is the
22Holocaust, is it not
23 A. [Mr Irving] It is the gas chamber Holocaust and I am sure his Lordship
24is well aware of the fact this is a speech delivered under
25very strained circumstances without a script. So one does
26not put every word on the gold balance, as the Germans
1say. The mere fact it means the gas chamber Holocaust is
2evident from the fact that if you look at the book I am
3talking about, Hitler's War, there is any amount of
4reference to the rest of the Holocaust story, namely the
5shootings on the Eastern Front which are accepted in full
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] I said I was not trying to be unfair. I wanted to take it
8in stages
9 A. [Mr Irving] You are being very fair and you are being very patient
10with me, but I have to be very careful with my responses
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] In the four walls of that little paragraph the "it" that
12did not happen is the Holocaust, grammatically speaking,
13is it not
14 A. [Mr Irving] We keep coming back to the same question
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] No. Just say yes or no. It is very easy. I am not
16trying to trick you. It is, is it not? It is not a
17difficult question
18 A. [Mr Irving] Which "it" are we talking about
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] In the last line: "If something didn't happen you don't
20even dignify it with a footnote". That follows, does it
21not, from the earlier part ---
22 A. [Mr Irving] The something that did not happen is it
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] The something that did not happen is the Holocaust if you
24look at the previous line
25 A. [Mr Irving] No, the clause, "if something didn't happen", that is the
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] All right, we will read the whole thing. If you read ---
2 A. [Mr Irving] It is still going to say the same no matter how often you
3read it
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] "You won't find the Holocaust mentioned in one line, not
5even a footnote. Why should we? If something didn't
6happen then you don't even dignify it with a footnote."
7The something that did not happen is the Holocaust in this
8sentence, is it not
9 A. [Mr Irving] It is the clause if something did not happen. Let me
10explain to you, by this time I had encountered a very fine
11American editor Tom Condon, who was my American editor,
12American publishers have people who have editors who teach
13you how to write, and this particular editor said:
14"Mr Irving, don't waste time and ink telling your readers
15what has not happened." He said: "Don't say he didn't
16like dogs but he did like cats. You just write 'he did
17like cats'". This is what I am getting at there. You do
18not waste ink
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] I follow that entirely, but let us look at the substance
20of the thing. The something that did not happen is the
21Holocaust, is it not, in this sentence
22 A. [Mr Irving] The gas chamber Holocaust, yes
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, no, in the English, the something that did not happen
24is the Holocaust
25 A. [Mr Irving] The whole of this speech is about the gas chamber, the
26whole of this part of the speech. You will notice the
1tape has previously jumped so we have no idea what has
2been cut out or what has been accidently omitted
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] I said I am said trying to be fair
4 A. [Mr Irving] I must insist on fairness here, because I have stipulated
5that I will accept these transcripts and allow you to make
6great horseplay with them, except where they have been
7edited, and that is a paragraph or a sentence has that has
8been edited. It says specifically "tape jumps" which
9means it has been switched on and switched off. You are
10getting the second half of a sentence
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] I wish you would not be so nervous of me, Mr Irving.
12I said I am trying to be fair. Now look down at the other
13paragraph we looked at earlier. I am now going to put
14some words into your mouth. You have said in the earlier
15paragraph that the Holocaust did not happen. That is as
16plain as a pikestaff to anybody who can read English. Now
17we see, do we not, as you have been trying to tell us,
18what you mean by the Holocaust:
19 "The biggest lie of the lot is the lie that
20Germans had factories of death with gas chambers in which
21they liquidated millions of their opponents."
22 A. [Mr Irving] My I intern that differently? I am sorry it is a
23question. I will intern that differently. The biggest
24lie of the lot is that the Germans had factories of death
25with gas chambers in which they killed millions of people
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Liquidated, yes
1 A. [Mr Irving] Do you notice the difference there
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] You can read it either, can you not
3 A. [Mr Irving] You read it your way, Mr Rampton
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] No. What you are saying ---
5 A. [Mr Irving] And we at this end of the wicket will read it our way
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] What you say is the biggest lie is the assertion that
7there were gas chambers. That is what you say you meant
8by that
9 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, in which millions were killed. This is what I asked
10you not to do, not just to take individual phrases out of
11a sentence and say, look at this bit and look at that.
12You have to judge the whole
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] I do not think that is very fair. I read the whole
15 A. [Mr Irving] No, you did not. You said there were gas chambers, the
16biggest lie is that they were gas chambers, and I am
17saying that, no, what I say is the biggest lie is that
18there were gas chambers in which millions were killed
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] I thought, Mr Irving, these were elements in the lie,
20factories of death, gas chambers and millions
21 A. [Mr Irving] Only when taken together
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] Right
23 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, am I labouring these points too much
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, you are not at all. You deny that there were
25factories of death with gas chambers in which were
26liquidated millions of Jews. I have rephrased it so that
1it is absolutely crystal clear
2 A. [Mr Irving] I thought I did not recognize it
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] So that it is absolutely crystal clear, it has not an
4ambiguity of what you wrote. I want to get your evidence
6 A. [Mr Irving] Let me explain what underlies this sentence. Because it
7is logistically impossible to kill millions of people in
8the buildings that have been portrayed to us as factories
9of death, therefore they cannot have been, and that is the
10big lie, if you try to cut that particular sentence up any
11particular way then it becomes (A) something I did not say
12and (B) worthless for the purposes of this court
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, you sorely tempt me to proceed to Auschwitz
14straightaway, but I will resist it
15 A. [Mr Irving] I am looking forward to Auschwitz
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Would you accept that one version of the Holocaust which
17is generally understood, accepted and perceived ---
18 A. [Mr Irving] Will you avoid using the passive voice so we know
19precisely who is generally accepting, understanding and
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] Call it the public at large, the audiences to whom you
23 A. [Mr Irving] Have you stood in Oxford Street with a clip board asking
24them, the public at large
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] You will not commit yourself to a generally understood
26sense of the Holocaust then
1 A. [Mr Irving] I do not know what the generally sense of the Holocaust
2is. I have given my version of it. You are giving the
3court your version of it
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Will you accept, Mr Irving, and if you will not say no, it
5matters not, will you accept that one element in the
6public perception of the Holocaust is the killing of
7millions of Jews in gas chambers constructed by the Nazis
8in various parts of Europe
9 A. [Mr Irving] That I accept
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] You will
11 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Right. And that you deny
13 A. [Mr Irving] Why did you not ask that question right at the beginning
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] I wanted to know what you meant
15 A. [Mr Irving] It is one element
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, please
17 A. [Mr Irving] It is one element, as you say
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Would you not accept that it was the major element in the
19public perception of what the Holocaust was about
20 A. [Mr Irving] Now you are saying something different
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am asking you a further question
22 A. [Mr Irving] You have changed from one element to a major element
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, please, I have asked you about one element.
24You have accepted that is an element. I now ask you
25whether you do not also accept that it is the major
1 A. [Mr Irving] In what
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] In the public perception of the words "the Holocaust"
3 A. [Mr Irving] I do not know
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Right. You do not know
5 A. [Mr Irving] I have not take any statistical evaluations of what people
6think in Oxford Street
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] You deny, I think we are clear on this now, that the
8Germans killed millions of Jews in gas chambers in
9purpose-built establishments
10 A. [Mr Irving] Will you repeat that sentence? You deny that Germans
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] You deny that the Nazis, do not let us talk about Germans,
13let us talk about Nazis, that the Nazis killed millions of
14Jews in gas chambers in purpose-built establishments
15 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes
17 A. [Mr Irving] I am sorry to take so long to answer, but I have to see
18exactly what it is you are asking. Purpose-built
19establishments, millions of Nazis in gas chambers, yes
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is the reason really why you deny that
21because you do not accept there were any such
22purpose-built factories
23 A. [Mr Irving] Well, the word "purpose-built" made my answer much easier,
24my Lord. You will understand why I say that when we turn
25to the architectural drawings and we bring in the evidence
26that I have
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] And Liechter
2 A. [Mr Irving] Liechter I think is something that I am not going to rely
3on at all. As I said in my introduction on the Liechter
4report, the Liechter report is flawed. We now have very
5much better expertise
6 MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, you do tempt me very sorely. When
7Liechter first swam into your view, you had no expertise
8about Auschwitz or about gassing or extermination or
9anything like that, did you
10 A. [Mr Irving] I did not need it. That was not what his report was based
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] No. Mr Irving, when Liechter swam into view you had not
13studied this question at all, had you
14 A. [Mr Irving] No
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] I think you said as much
16 A. [Mr Irving] No
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yet I am right, am I not, that you announced Mr Liechter
18as having been, as it were, the corner stone of your
19conversion, if I may mix my metaphors
20 A. [Mr Irving] Not Mr Liechter, but the laboratory analyses attached to
21his report. I am not sure whether I announced it in that
22way, but certainly that was the corner stone
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] I will just read from the same -- there are many other
24references but we need not look them all up. Page 6 of
25the same transcript. We will start, if we may, at the
26large paragraph in the middle of the page, timed at 30.28
1because again I do not want to be accused of taking
2anything out of context.
3 "Thank you Professor Faurisson for that
4wonderful erudite discursion on the argument on the
5controversy in which we are so emotionally and deeply
6embroiled. It is fascinating to see how an academic, a
7Professor, can enlarge upon what after all is just a tiny
8detail of history, as it now turns out. He can hold it
9under a microscope and see details, he can see details on
10those details and further details on those details. If
11I can just dot the i's and cross the t's to some of those
12details of details of details, he mentioned that after
13Fred Liechter did his truly epoch making investigation of
14the gas chambers at our Auschwitz, the forensic laboratory
15tests which yielded the extraordinary result which
16converted me" ---
17 A. [Mr Irving] There you have it
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] " ... made me into a hardcore disbeliever."
19 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is right, is it not
21 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] So it was the Liechter report and that aspect of the
23Liechter report which summarised or discussed the
24laboratory findings that converted you into a hardcore
26 A. [Mr Irving] I specifically say there the laboratory forensic tests
1Can we analyse what I am disbelieving there
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] No. It is much better we do not go down that road
3 A. [Mr Irving] I thought so
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Because we might find ourselves discussing Auschwitz now
5which might not suit your book. Do you agree
6 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Rampton, you said it did not suit your book in the
7interval. You were very willing to start with Auschwitz
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Anyway, we are not dealing with Auschwitz
9now. We are dealing really, are we not, with Holocaust
11 MR RAMPTON: Yes
12 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] We have touched upon Mr Liechter. We are going to grapple
14with him much more extensively next week. We have touched
15upon Mr Liechter and it has led you to this conclusion
16that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz, is it not?
17I use the historic present. It was Mr Liechter's report
18and the bit about the laboratory tests which converted you
19into disbelief that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz,
20is that right
21 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] Is that is correct. As a consequence of that, you have
23come to believe, perhaps it was a matter of protest,
24perhaps not, I do not know, that the Nazis did not use gas
25chambers for the extermination of Jews let alone millions
26of Jews
1 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, I have become very sceptical of that element of the
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] And you have publicly expressed your disbelief
4 A. [Mr Irving] Scepticism, yes
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] So if and in so far as that forms a part of people's
6belief about the Holocaust, you are a Holocaust denier
7 A. [Mr Irving] No
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Are you not
9 A. [Mr Irving] No. You do not have to believe in the whole to be a
10believer. How many of us are Christians who do not
11believe in every aspect of the Christian ethos
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] All right. I do not think we ought to argue metaphysics,
13Mr Irving
14 A. [Mr Irving] It is a metaphysics problem you are putting there. You are
15saying: Believe the whole thing or you are a denier and
16you are ruined. You will not eat lunch in this town
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] I did not. I said in so far as that forms a part of
19people's belief about the Holocaust, you deny that part,
20put it like that
21 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Rampton, are you leading evidence on people ---
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am asking you ---
23 A. [Mr Irving] --- people's belief
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am asking you a question. If it should be thought that
25it forms a part of common belief about the nature of the
26Holocaust that large numbers of Jews were systematically
1gassed in purpose-built gas chambers, you are a Holocaust
2denier, are you not
3 A. [Mr Irving] I do not know this does form a large part of people's
4beliefs and I do not think you are allowed to lead
5evidence on people's beliefs in an effort to back it up
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, only one last little bit about that. Whatever
7methods were used, and you deny the use of gas chambers,
8whatever methods were used to kill large numbers of Jews,
9whether they are 1, 2 or 3 or 6 million, you say it was
10not systematic, is that right
11 A. [Mr Irving] Would you elucidate precisely what you mean by
12"systematic"? Something organised and ordered from the
13highest level of the Third Reich or something ordered from
14halfway up the system, or something that was just a system
15within the camp? I think the word "systematic" is a bit
16of a man trap
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] You know quite a lot about the shootings in the East after
18Barbarossa in June 1941, do you not
19 A. [Mr Irving] As I said this morning, they appeared to be chaotic,
20disorganized and arbitrary
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] You know that ---
22 A. [Mr Irving] As that one signal proves that I read out
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] You know, do you not, that regularly, indeed frequently,
24reports were sent back in writing from the East, from the
25units in the East, from the Einsatzgruppen and other units
26in the East, enumerating and totalling the numbers of
1people shot
2 A. [Mr Irving] Who were these reports from and to
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] They are from the Einsatzgruppen to Heydrich's office in
5 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, this is true
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] Where they are, am I not right, distilled into, as it
7were, summary reports, meldung
8 A. [Mr Irving] Sometimes they were, yes
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] And there are a large number of these documents, are there
11 A. [Mr Irving] Yes. From whom to whom did these reports go
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] From the East to Berlin
13 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, and the meldung you are talking about made in Berlin,
14were did they go to
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is a matter of speculation. Assume they went to
16Heydrich or his office. We are then, are we not, in the
17top echelons of the Nazi party at this time
18 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do we need to go any further
20 A. [Mr Irving] We do not and I can make your life easier, Mr Rampton, by
21saying that Adolf Hitler was quite satisfied, I think,
22with the Einsatzgruppen operations on the Eastern Front in
23so far as they had the character of security operations
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] I see
25 A. [Mr Irving] Subsequently of course the security operations were then
26umbrellaed out to include the liquidation of Jews who were
1considered to be fair game
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] We will come to report No. 51 on 29th December, 26th its
3original date but 29th September 1942 further down the
5 A. [Mr Irving] That is just one of a kind of course
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, it is 51. It is No. 51. So presumably there were
7another 50 before it
8 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, but the others were about things like the progress
9and development of the rubber plant and things likes that
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] It may be so. It gives a figure, does it not
11 A. [Mr Irving] 316,000
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] 363,000 plus as a separate category of Jews executed in
13three areas
14 A. [Mr Irving] I think you ought to look at the whole document rather
15than just take one line out and consider the document a
16bit and the initials that are marked on it
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But the figure is right, is it not? That is
19the figure
20 A. [Mr Irving] This figure is typed on that document, my Lord, that is
21true, yes, and the document is typed in the special large
22faced typewriter which Himmler and Hitler used
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Himmler used that as well
24 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, on occasion he would use it to write speeches in,
26 MR RAMPTON: And that document is signed by Himmler, is it not
1 A. [Mr Irving] One copy of it is that I have seen
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] And it is marked for the Fuhrer, is it not
3 A. [Mr Irving] It is a report to the Fuhrer, yes
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. Suppose ---
5 A. [Mr Irving] It would be far more useful if we could have the document
6before the court
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Unfortunately I do not have it here. So we will have to
8come back to it. We will come back to it in detail I am
9afraid. There is no way round it
10 A. [Mr Irving] I am very familiar with the document of course. I think
11his Lordship should see it
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] This is why I can ask you about it, so am I, without your
13having it in front of you. Just suppose for the sake of
14argument that that document was shown Adolf Hitler
15 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Why would it have been shown to Adolf Hitler
17 A. [Mr Irving] I would ask the question the other way round
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, please
19 A. [Mr Irving] I would say why is that figure buried on page 6 of that
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is not. It is on the first page
22 A. [Mr Irving] That is why we wrote it so I do not blunder into silly
23mistakes like that. I think I am right. You think you are
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am not trying to catch you. Under the heading Meldung
26and Fuhrer or whatever it is
1 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, OK, why it is buried on that first page
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Have you got it there
3 A. [Mr Irving] We have got it. Ah!
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, I have not got my copy. We have only got one copy.
5We do not play tricks like that in this court, Mr Irving.
6If we do the judges get very cross with us. There is no
7point to it
8 A. [Mr Irving] What I shall ask you is, does it have the notation at the
9top: Fuhrer Fordalig
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] I did not hear that
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Does it have "shown to the Fuhrer" written on
12the top
13 MR RAMPTON: Yes, it does. Well, it has a word which I believe
14means something like "presented" in handwriting. It is
15written by a man called Fife I think
16 A. [Mr Irving] I know Fife and I know Gruchmann, the two initials on it.
17It has the letters ERL which means taken care of which may
18or may not have been shown to Hitler
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] Please, I do not want to come on to the question of fact
20whether the Fuhrer ever saw it. I would just like you to
21have a look at it
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I be told where it is
23 MR RAMPTON: Yes, I am sorry. It is in H3 (i) at tab 3. It
24has a handwritten "6" on the bottom which is a modern
25numeral. Tab 3 page 6. It has a whole load of other
26numbers on it as well
1 A. [Mr Irving] Written on the top it says "forgaleg" which means put
2before. But it does not say whom to. But it does say
3"put before"
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is cut off on my copy
5 MR RAMPTON: Yes, I know. I have had it read by a Germanist
6and it does say that
7 A. [Mr Irving] The initial at the top is Fife and the initial below it is
8Gruchmann, GR
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: So the manuscript is "forgaleg", is it
10 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
11 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Do you accept that means since it is addressed to the
12Fuhrer that it was shown to him
13 A. [Mr Irving] On a high probability, yes, my Lord. I would have
14accepted that as being evidence that it had probably been
15shown to Hitler, but I would also draw attention to two or
16three details, if I may, since we are looking at the
17document now
18 MR RAMPTON: I would rather we left it but you can if you want
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I personally think I would leave it
20 A. [Mr Irving] I do not want to upset Mr Rampton by drawing attention to
22 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] You will have an opportunity later
23 A. [Mr Irving] I am not questioning the authenticity, my Lord, just
24aspects of it. Right
25 MR RAMPTON: I do not mind at all, Mr Irving, if that is what
26you would like to
1 A. [Mr Irving] No, you have your own way
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] I look at it, I see it describes itself, its subject
3matter ---
4 A. [Mr Irving] Now you are looking at details and I am not allowed to!
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think we will leave it to Mr Rampton.
6I think he can ask you more questions if he wants to
7 MR RAMPTON: If you have answers to my questions rather than
8speeches to make by all means give them, but I really do
9prefer to proceed my own way, if I am allowed. It
10concerns reports to the Fuhrer about the campaign against
11the partisans. Is that a roughly right translation
12 A. [Mr Irving] This is what I was about to point out, that the subject
13line is combatting partisan, partisan warfare
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is report No. 51 and it concerns Souther Russia, the
15Ukraine and Bialystok area, does it not
16 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is about the outcome of that campaign from 1st
18September until 1st December 1942
19 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct, yes
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] The first group, the first category are called van
21Diecknann which are ---
22 A. [Mr Irving] It is their word for "partisans"
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, not always, sometimes it is partisanan, is it not
24 A. [Mr Irving] They have various different words for the same thing. But
25Nazi jargon was to call partisan bandits
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. There are some people killed under in fact four
1headings, August, September, October and November. So it
2does not actually begin on 1st September; it begins
3earlier. The second category are partisan helpers and
4what are "vanda verdicta"
5 A. [Mr Irving] Partisan suspects
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] Suspects, yes. In 2C it says: First of all, arrested,
7that is subcategory (a). Then it says subcategory (b),
8numbers executed, a total of 14,257. In subcategory (c)
9it says explicitly, does it not, "Jews executed"
10 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] And the total there is 363,211
12 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] What would the Fuhrer think when he saw that. You tell
14us? You are the Hitler historian
15 A. [Mr Irving] I do not think that my imagined response on behalf of the
16Fuhrer is evidence in this case
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. I think that is wrong, if I may say so.
18I thought you might say that, but you are an historian.
19It is your job to make sense of a document, if you can.
20I therefore think it is not only a proper question, it is
21quite a significant question
22 A. [Mr Irving] Well ---
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] To be asked what you think this would have conveyed to
24Hitler, which is I think what Mr Rampton was asking
25 A. [Mr Irving] Firstly, I accept the document was in all probability
26shown to Hitler. Secondly, I think in all probability he
1paid no attention to it. The reason being the date. This
2is the height of the Stalingrad crisis. Every waking
3moment he is waiting for news that the fourth army that he
4sent to rescue the sixth army, to relieve the sixth army,
5had broken through the ring, the battleship Sharn Horse is
6out on the high seas in the Arctic Circle just about to be
7sunk that same day as it is shown to him. He has an awful
8lot of things on his plate. You asked me to imagine, my
9Lord, the situation and I can imagine the situation that
10the Fuhrer, Heydrich Himmler has thought that this is an
11opportune moment to slip a document into the heap to be
12shown to the Fuhrer which he can use one way or the other
13as time may come later on, either to say, "look how well
14I did, mein Fuhrer", or on the other hand to say, "But
15I told you at the time we had done that." There is a
16reason why I say this because we have another document
17later on called Korherr report with which I am sure the
18Defendants are familiar, where Himmler goes to some
19lengths to camouflage the documents so Hitler cannot see
20what is going on, and references to special treatment and
21so on are actually excised from the document before it is
22shown to Hitler. So taking this in conjunction with other
23documents, but I would attach no evidentiary value to what
24I just said whatsoever, because it is literally
25speculating on the basis of very thin evidence, on the
26basis of the date, on the basis of my knowledge from other
1source of what else was going on at that time in Hitler's
2War. It is a mistake to contemplate documents like in
4 MR RAMPTON: Oh yes
5 A. [Mr Irving] At the same time as documents like this are happening, if
6I can put it like that, all sorts of other things are
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Sure, but one, only one, and you see, Mr Irving, we are
9not on this side of the court setting out to prove what
10did happen, we are only interested in the evidence which a
11reputable historian would put into the scales and weigh
12before arrival at a conclusion, one obvious explanation of
13this document, which in fact is generated by the document
14before it in the bundle if you look at it, is it not? The
15original report is dated 26th December 1942 and comes from
16the higher SS and police leader in South Russia, etc.,
17does it not
18 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] So somebody has taken the trouble back at Berlin to have
20this typed up in the large Fuhrer type
21 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] Somebody has taken the trouble to put it in front of
23Himmler who has signed it as we see on its fourth page, my
24Lord, that is page 9, and somebody has taken the trouble
25to put it in front of Hitler
26 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Why should they do that
2 A. [Mr Irving] Somebody has sent it to be put in front of Hitler, yes
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] And you agree that the probability is that he saw it
4 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] Or that it was put in front of him
6 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Why should they do that if they did not think he would
8want to see it
9 A. [Mr Irving] Because Hitler has personally given orders for the
10security operations on the Eastern Front. Hitler at a
11very early date after the operation Barbarossa began, the
12attack on Russia, issued instructions to Heydrich that he
13wanted to be kept regularly informed on the operations of
14the Einsatzgruppen
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] And on 1st August 1941 Mullar, the head of the Gestapo
16told Einsatzgruppen that, did he not, or reminded
17 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, that is correct. That is the document I am referring
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is the beginning of the system, if I may call it
20that, and this is one of the end results, is it not? That
21is how the system matures
22 A. [Mr Irving] We are trying to justify the word "systematic"
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not worry too much about what Mr Rampton
24may or may not be trying to do
25 MR RAMPTON: It is not a joint exercise with you, Mr Irving
26 A. [Mr Irving] I was in the dark as to what was contentious about this
1document, because I have actually used in document in my
2book Hitler's War, my Lord. I have given the data. I
3have given the figures. I have reported it in detail.
4There is no mystery about it. I have not tried to conceal
5it the way that my opponents have concealed the documents
6they do not like
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, I am not here representing your opponents
8except in so far as you have sued some people for libel.
9Beyond that I have no role
10 A. [Mr Irving] You are representing my opponents
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] In this case
12 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] What, you mean Professor Lipstadt has suppressed
14documents, is that what you are trying to say
15 A. [Mr Irving] You said I am not representing your opponent
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, I am not. You said "in the way that my opponents have
17suppressed documents". I said I do not answer for those
19 A. [Mr Irving] Those opponent you are not representing
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, I do not represent them. Here is a document which
21appears to represent a part of a systematic reporting to
22Adolf Hitler about the numbers of people killed by the
23Einsatzgruppen in the East
24 A. [Mr Irving] I strongly disagree. This document is an orphan. Can you
25produce to me one other document shown to Hitler with
26figures of that magnitude reporting crimes on that scale
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Earlier they would have been less. We do not have the
2other 50 or do we
3 A. [Mr Irving] I am saying that these reports ---
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Have you got ---
5 A. [Mr Irving] No. What I am saying is that the other reports in the
6Meldung series are not necessarily statistics. They may
7be as I gave one example, a typical thing would be a
8report on a two-man midget torpedo operation against the
9Tirpitz where Himmler's men had caught the British seamen
10involved and had them executed and that would go to Hitler
11as a meldung to the Fuhrer at exactly this time. So what
12I am saying is that this kind of meldung with these kinds
13of statistics to Hitler on an Einsatzgruppen operation is
14an orphan. You cannot produce to me one similar document
15in that series
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have we got any of numbers 1 to 50
17 A. [Mr Irving] I have at home, my Lord, yes
18 MR RAMPTON: Do they look like this? I am not saying the
19wording is similar, but do they look like this
20 A. [Mr Irving] No. This is just something that Himmler sent in because
21he thought it is just as interesting to Hitler midget
22torpedo operations or the rubber plant that he is working
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] We are know at the end of 1942 with this document
25 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, but you are trying to justify the system, the fact
26that they were systematically put in on the basis of
1reports like this and I am saying this is the only such
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is the only one which has survived
4 A. [Mr Irving] No. There is a complete series
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] How many are there in this form with a large Fuhrer type
6 A. [Mr Irving] I have only seen one such report reporting statistics of
7this kind. All the others are in the large Fuhrer type
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] They are
9 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, the ones about the two-man torpedoes and things like
10that. They make fascinating reading. They are obviously
11of great interest
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Would you suggest that that report to Hitler of 363,000
13plus Jews executed in those eastern territories by the end
14of 1942 bore no relation to the order that the
15Einsatzgruppen should report to Hitler on the activities,
16on their activities, on their work, in the East
17 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, it may have born, and we know from the decoding
18operations of the Einsatzgruppen regularly reported their
19killing operations and there are enormous figures involved
20in them
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then, Mr Irving, can we face reality? There is an order
22in August 1941 that these people shall report to the
23Fuhrer on their activities
24 A. [Mr Irving] The Fuhrer wishes to be kept constantly informed on the
25Einsatzgruppen operations.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is right, he wishes to have continuous report
1 A. [Mr Irving] That is right
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] In the result, as I have put it, in the result in December
31942 he gets just such a report
4 A. [Mr Irving] Oh, I do not think you can say that because somebody gives
5an order in August 1941 and a document turns up, what, 16
6months later this is the result of that
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Why not
8 A. [Mr Irving] It may have been but it may not
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] Why not
10 A. [Mr Irving] If it had turned up two weeks later then I would say yes
11there is probably a very clear link between one and the
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] If in August 1941 at the time that the Einsatzgruppen were
14just starting their work there is an order in place that
15the Fuhrer is to be supplied with regular reports of their
16work, it is not at all surprising that by December 1942
17that system is still in place and these reports are still
18coming in, is it
19 A. [Mr Irving] I disagree. Suppose in August 1941 you ask for a plumber
20to come and fix a sink, and finally in December 1942 a
21firm of plumbers contacts you and says, "here is an
22estimate for fixing your sink", it does not necessarily
23mean there is any connection between them
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is not a very good analogy, Mr Irving. I do not ask
25the plumber for continuous plumbing over a period of time
26all over a large part of Eastern Europe. Better keep off
1those sorts of analogies
2 A. [Mr Irving] But then where are the other continuous reports,
3Mr Rampton? I have not seen them
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, I do not know where they are, Mr Irving
5 A. [Mr Irving] This is one report
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] But this is a report of some of the work of the
7Einsatzgruppen in the East to be placed before the
9 A. [Mr Irving] But this was not the only task of Einsatzgruppen. The
10Einsatzgruppen had a whole bunch of tasks they carried
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I really do think that you ought
13to consider the position. Hitler gives an order that he
14wants to be kept regularly informed about the shootings by
15the Einsatzgruppen
16 A. [Mr Irving] No, he wants to be kept informed of the operations of the
18 MR RAMPTON: The work
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The work, whatever you like, kept informed.
20That suggests he wants to be told on a repeated basis what
21is going on
22 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
23 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Are you suggesting that for some reason he countermanded
24that order or that it was not obeyed or what
25 A. [Mr Irving] No, I am not, but I am not saying that it is established
26to my satisfaction at any rate that this document
1is -- I am sure what the relevance is -- that this
2document is the direct product of that order
3 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Well, forget about whether it is the direct product.
4Would you not think it a reasonable inference that there
5would have been reports in one shape or form or another to
6him reaching Hitler's desk of the number of people being
7shot by the Einsatzgruppen
8 A. [Mr Irving] One would have expected it, but this is the only one we
9have and this is what surprises us
10 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] So you agree that one would expect that there would have
11been other similar reports
12 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, my Lord
13 MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, let us look at it in a slightly
14different way. If, as you have proposed on occasion, the
15killings by the Einsatzgruppen in the East and some of the
16police battalions and some of the local malitia were
17merely, I say "merely" I do not mean to diminish what
18happened, but in the sense of structure, merely criminal
19acts by local maverick SS commanders and others, nobody
20would have dreamed of putting this document before
21Hitler,, would they
22 A. [Mr Irving] You are regarding it in vacuo again. The episode which
23I recounted was at the end of 1941. The clock has now
24moved on one year, many things have happened. Germany has
25started to lose. People are getting frantic. The tide has
26turned as Churchill himself said, it was no longer the
1beginning of the end, but it was the end of the beginning
2I think Churchill said. This was Stalingrad, it was
3encircled, El Allgemeine, the battle had been won. The
4Germans were now seeing the writing on the wall and it may
5well be that Himmler thought this was a good time to show
6this kind of thing to Hitler
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] And for why
8 A. [Mr Irving] Can I just remind you once again, this document is in my
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. We are going to look at your books in some detail
11further on down the road, not today, Mr Irving, except for
12one remaining purpose
13 A. [Mr Irving] That is what worries me about why we are spending the
14court's valuable time on looking at this document when
15I have gone into in great detail in my book
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Because, Mr Irving, I think your position is that mass
17killings ---
18 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- not by gas but by other means were not systematic
20 A. [Mr Irving] I have said all along mass killings occurred on the
21Eastern Front. This is the Eastern Front
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] And then we started this little digression, if you
23remember, by your asking me what I meant by "systematic"
24 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] I said and you agreed there are all those meldungs that go
26back to Heydrich's office
1 A. [Mr Irving] Halfway up the hierarchy
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Or whatever, but quite a long way up, halfway up the RHSA,
3he is head of the RHSA in Berlin
4 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] He is quite close to Himmler
6 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Who is quite close to Mr Hitler
8 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then this was another example designed only to illustrate
10this, that a reputable historian might well conclude that
11this document would not have surprised Adolf Hitler one
13 A. [Mr Irving] Might not have
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] No. Well, surely, use your imagination, Mr Irving, if
15I am Adolf Hitler I am king of the German world, as it
16were, and this is put in front of me and it represents
17something that I do not approve of, I am going to go
18through the roof, am I not
19 A. [Mr Irving] I do not say he did disapprove of the killings of the Jews
20on the Eastern Front
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] He did not
22 A. [Mr Irving] He did in December 1941 in the case of the German Jews
23being killed. He was quite plain. I mean Himmler sent
24the message which the British decoded ordering the man
25responsible to come immediately to headquarters, but the
26killings on the Eastern Front of the Russian Jews and the
1others, Hitler did not care about them
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] This is South Russia, the Ukraine and Bialystok which is
3on the border then of Poland and Russia
4 A. [Mr Irving] Still the Eastern Front according to my map
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] Though by 1942 quite a long way behind the Eastern Front
6 A. [Mr Irving] It is the rear Eastern Front area. It is the area in which
7the SS still operated
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is miles away. It is right over, well, as you say,
9Stalingrad. This is the height of he battle for
11 A. [Mr Irving] But it is the area in the rear of the Eastern Front where
12the Einsatzgruppen had h task of pacifying and cleansing
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Before I move on to something else, do you distinguish in
14your own mind a sensitivity in Hitler towards the murder
15of central or western Jews, German Jews, and the murder of
16363,000 Eastern Jews
17 A. [Mr Irving] I am not sure what that question means, but if I say that
18one of his staff, Walter Havel, whose diary I had, said
19that if you want to understand Hitler's attitude to
20humanity was the way that a man might look on an ant heap,
21and that is how he regarded the Eastern peoples whether
22they were Jewish or not, but he very definitely intervened
23to stop the killing of German Jews at the time that
24I specified. So there was clearly a distinction in his
25own mind at that time
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] We are talking about two events a year apart
1 A. [Mr Irving] Well, you are talking about two events a year apart. Also
2you are talking about the giving of the order and the
3receiving of meldung
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, surely, but that is in a completely different
5context, Mr Irving, as you very well know. You use what
6you say as Hitler's opposition to the Riga killings as
7having some kind of relevance to this document. Tell me
8what the relevance is
9 A. [Mr Irving] Hitler clearly intervened, if we can assume that the fact
10that the telephone call in the first place was made from
11Hitler's bunker, and if we know that the next day Himmler
12was ordered to send or Himmler was required to send a
13radio message to the man who had carried out the killings
14telling him that he had overstepped the mark, that he had
15to follow the guidelines in the future with outsettled
16Jews, the ones sent from Germany, in other words, and this
17is clearly an indication that German Jews were kept in a
18different category because the killings then stopped as
19the historians agree for several months as far as the
20German Jews were concerned, but the killing operations of
21non-German Jews behind the Eastern Front continued and
22obviously, according to this document, on a huge scale.
23I can only repeat why are we wasting our time looking at
24this document which I have printed in my books, which
25I agree is authentic, I am not going to challenge the
26authenticity of it
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Or the likely conclusion to be drawn from it that Hitler
2will have seen it
3 A. [Mr Irving] We have agreed that it is probable that given that is says
4"forgaleg" it is probable that it was shown to Hitler
5because that is the phrase they would have used
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] You deny, however, that there is any evidence that the
7shootings in East were systematic in the sense that they
8got up and were approved, got up to and were approved by
9the highest level
10 A. [Mr Irving] To justify the word "systematic" I would want to not just
11one out message and one in message which is all we have
12separated by 18 months, I would want to see a flow of out
13and in and out and in, in the way that we are accustomed
14to seeing them in the archives
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] You have read what I call in shorthand the EMs coming in
16from the East to Heydrich's office, have you not
17 A. [Mr Irving] They go up to Heydrich's office and hey are detailing
18purely these security operations
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] Security operations. I mean they list killings of
20hundreds of thousands of Jews, as Jews, as Jews, not as
22 A. [Mr Irving] Well, let us have a look at all the other ones and see how
23they are categorized
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] We will do
25 A. [Mr Irving] I agree that the Jews are being brought in under that
26umbrella. They are being killed under that camouflage
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] You are familiar with the Jager report, are you not
2 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, but I very much hope we are going to have a look at
3the original
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] We are going to have a look at the original. We certainly
6 A. [Mr Irving] It comes from the Russian archives
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] I want to be sure, because I do not want to do you any
8disservice at the end of this case. I want to make sure
9I have your position clear. You do not accept that that
10document, let alone its forerunner, you say it is not a
11forerunner, back in August 1941 is any evidence that the
12killings in the East by shooting, not by gassing, but the
13killings in the East by shooting is any evidence at all
14that this was a systematic process approved of at the
15highest level of the Third Reich
16 A. [Mr Irving] That is my position
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] I see. Thank you very much. Now I want to pass to
18something different. What you will need now are copies of
19your two books, 1991 Hitler's War and Goebbels Master Mind
20of the Third Reich. You will also need in case we need to
21refer to it, a copy of your opening yesterday. You will
22need D2 (i) (ii) and (iii). Forgive me, Mr Irving, I am
23just trying to find the document. I apologise for that
24pause, my Lord. Mr Irving, yesterday you made quite
25something of this document from the PRO which records
26statements made ---
1 A. [Mr Irving] The Bruns document
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- by General Bruns but secretly recorded
3 A. [Mr Irving] That is true
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] You told us that this document has considerable
5evidentiary value. It is not self-serving
6 A. [Mr Irving] Not self-serving, yes
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] And that it has the ring of truth from the phraseology and
8the things he describes, is that right
9 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, very similitude
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. Do you have a copy of it with you or can you tell us
11where to find it
12 A. [Mr Irving] Well, the text is in my opening speech of course
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] I will try to use the same version as you
14 A. [Mr Irving] Page 22
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, page 22
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is not 100 per cent accurate I remember
17noticing, but I do not think there is any real
19 MR RAMPTON: I am just checking, my Lord, to see whether the
20two little passages which I have are the same
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, the one right at the end
22 MR RAMPTON: There is one, as your Lordship says, right at the
23end. As far as I can tell at a quick glance, the words
24which Mr Irving has printed in his speech are the same as
25I have on the document. So perhaps we can use the
26speech. In the middle of the page just below the middle
1of page 22, Mr Irving, General Bruns reports having, as it
2were, been subjected to the experience of one of these
3Riga shootings. He reports that a man called Altemeyer
4said to him upon his protest at the use of, at the misuse
5of he waste of valuable manpower, Altemeyer said: "Well,
6let it be shot in accordance with the Fuhrer's orders. I,
7that is Bruns, said: Fuhrer's orders? Answer from
8Altemeyer: Yes. Whereupon he, Altemeyer, showed me,
9Bruns, his orders." Yes
10 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct, yes
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is what is in the PRO document. Therefore,
12presumably, General Bruns actually said that
13 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] And was recorded as having said it by Allies. If you go
15right to the end, the narrative is that they managed,
16Bruns and his colleagues managed, to get back to Berlin,
17perhaps to Canaris, an account of this shooting, perhaps
18in the form of an objection, is that right
19 A. [Mr Irving] My reading of the document was -- in fact, we know also
20from other sources -- Gerald Fleming had done some very
21good work on this particular episode, that an Army
22Lieutenant wrote a report, having been sent down the road
23to go and have a look for himself by these cowardly German
24Generals, and this Army Lieutenant's report was sent over
25the Army Lieutenant's name up to Hitler's headquarters by
26the route of Admiral Canaris who was the Head of the
1German Intelligence Service
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Can I start at the bottom of the next page 24 where
3"Canaris" begins a line, do you see that
4 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Canaris had the unsavoury task of waiting for the
6favourable moment to give the Fuhrer certain gentle
7hints. A fortnight later I visited the Oberburgermeister,
8or whatever he was called then, concerning some other
9business. Altenmeyer(?) triumphantly showed me: 'Here is
10an order just issued prohibiting mass shootings on that
11scale from taking place in future'. They are to be
12carried out more discreetly.' From warnings given me
13recently, I knew that I was receiving still more
14attentions from spies", etc.
15 "They are to be carried more discreetly in
16future" means the shootings are to be carried out more
17discreetly in the future
18 A. [Mr Irving] I would even go so far as to say mass shootings
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. It does not mean that the mass shootings were to
20come to an end, does it
21 A. [Mr Irving] Not in that sentence, no
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] What it means is that they must be more cleverly disguised
23from anybody who might notice what was going on
24 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just whilst you are on that document, you
26told us, I think, that Bruns would have been a Colonel
1 A. [Mr Irving] He was a Colonel at that time in the Engineer Corp. and he
2was a Major-General at the time of his capture in 1945
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] And Altenmeyer, presumably, was his superior officer
4 A. [Mr Irving] No, sir. Altenmeyer, his real name was "Altemeyer",
5without an "n", he was a 21 or 22 year-old very junior SS
6officer who just happened to have the lives of these
7unfortunate people in his power
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Hitler's orders go to him before they go to the Colonel
9 A. [Mr Irving] No, sir the orders went -- I think the route was that
10Hitler told Himmler, who sent the message to Joachim which
11is what we talked about yesterday which we, British,
12intercepted and decoded, so we had an inkling of what was
13going on. Himmler said to Joachim, "Come straight to
14headquarters, that it had to stop".
15 In Himmler's diary on December 1st 1941, the
16following day, I noticed yesterday there is the telephone
17call from Himmler to Heydrich on December 1st, SS
18Obergruppenfuhrer Heydrich "Executzionan in Riga", the
19executions, the shootings, in other words, in Riga, they
20talked about this very episode again on the day after it
21happened; and when Joachim came -- unfortunately, I cannot
22show you this, my Lord, that bundle is still at home; we
23know it from Himmler's diary in Moscow -- Joachim came to
24see Himmler on December 4th. Himmler wrote in his diary
25that evening that he dined with him at 9.30 p.m. and the
26topic of their conversation which Himmler also noted was
1[German], Jewish question, and [German] "in Riga", which
2[German], economic businesses, small shops, something like
3that, in Riga, which fits rather in with Bruns'
4description, in my view, that these executions were
5causing problems in the local economy because they were
6running out of manpower, but that is a possible
7interpretation of that.
8 But, obviously, there was a certain amount of
9toing and froing from the very highest level down through
10these channels down to this very low level SS Officer who
11claims he received a Fuhrer order, if I may go into that,
12when the army Colonel came to see him and said, "What on
13earth is going on here?" and this very junior SS Officer
14said, "Oh, it is the Fuhrer's orders" which frequently was
15said. Frequently people claimed they were Fuhrer's
16orders. We know, however, from our other sources (which
17are much superior sources) that the Fuhrer's orders were
18distinctly very different in this case [German] "No
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But Bruns says that Altemeyer showed him the
22 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, I do not attach too much importance to that, my Lord
23 MR RAMPTON: Well, in considering all the other trappings of
24verisimilitude that this ---
25 A. [Mr Irving] I thought you might mention that, actually
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Of course I might mention it. It is obvious, is it not
1 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, but the problem we have with that, Mr Rampton, is how
2do you reconcile in with the kind of [German] in Himmler's
3own notes what Hitler told him, Jew transport, no
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] You have never shown us any evidence, shall I say, or any
6of your readers that Himmler [German] came from Hitler
7 A. [Mr Irving] It is coming from Hitler's bunker, from a phone booth in
8Hitler's bunker, just as if I made a phone call from that
9phone booth outside
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] But as I think you have accepted on your web site an hour
11before Himmler met Hitler
12 A. [Mr Irving] But he was in and out all day. When you visited Hitler in
13his headquarters, you would have lunch with him, you would
14have tea with him, you would be in and out of Hitler's
15bunker all day
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] The entry in his log for that day -- it is not a diary,
17except in the most primitive sense -- in Himmler's log,
18the only entry referring to Hitler is, I think, 1430,
19[German] or something along those ---
20 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, I agree entirely with what you say, Mr Rampton, but
21I have to say that if he drives over to Hitler's
22headquarters and, for whatever reason, finds it necessary
23suddenly to telephone Heydrich and say, "That transport of
24Jews from Berlin is not to be liquidated", it is a very
25reasonable interpretation indeed to say this is not
26unconnected with the fact that he is speaking from
1Hitler's bunker. And it would be perverse not to accept
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, bear with me. I do wish that one could insert
4the word "objective" into every answer you give. It is a
5possibly, certainly, that Himmler spoke to Hitler before
6he made that telephone call. That is quite different, is
7it not, from an assertion that the telephone call was made
8on Hitler's orders
9 A. [Mr Irving] I agree, I agree
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] And you have asserted the latter, have you not
11 A. [Mr Irving] I agree, it is a judgment call, and it is a judgment call
12which -- may I speak? It is a judgment which, in my
13submission, is entirely justified. If Himmler drives over
14to Hitler's bunker in the train, [German] makes a few
15phone calls and then [German], from the bunker, from
16Hitler's Wolf's Lair bunker, he makes a phone call to
17Heydrich saying, "That train load of Jews is not to be
18liquidated", it would take a very perverse and obtuse
19person indeed to say there is no connection between the
20two facts
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] May I suggest that what an objective, reputable historian
22who was not punting a particular line to exonerate Adolf
23Hitler might have written would be something like this:
24The evidence is that Himmler saw Hitler about an hour
25after he made that telephone call. There is no direct
26evidence that Himmler spoke to Hitler before he made the
1telephone call. It is possible that that telephone call
2was made at Hitler's instigation
3 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes
5 A. [Mr Irving] Why did he make the phone call from Hitler's bunker then
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] Because he happened to be there for heavens sake
7 A. [Mr Irving] Why did he not make the phone call from his own
8headquarters? I do not want to say that I am less obtuse
9than you, but I am beginning to suspect it in this
10matter. It is not a question of reputable or not. It is
11a question of seeing a logical solution written in six
12inch letters in front of your own face
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] I see
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: My impression, I think it is relevant on this
15topic, from your book Hitler's War is that at this time
16Himmler was seeing Hitler almost more often than anybody
18 A. [Mr Irving] Very frequently as we know now from his diary and
19telephone log, but you will appreciate that particular
20episode because it is a pivotal episode has now gone
21through three or four different chameleon like changes
22with very subtle refinements and a word knocked out here
23which cannot be justified and so on, as happens. One is
24constantly revising history. This does not mean to say
25one is manipulating or is in any way trying to exonerate.
26You are trying to get closer and closer and closer to the
1likelihood of what actually happened
2 MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, tell me plainly, we are off course
3again but it does not matter, we will get back on course
4in a moment, tell me plainly what is the evidence for
5this, this is in the 1991 edition ---
6 A. [Mr Irving] Right
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] And you have repeated it since. I think you repeat it in
8the appendices or the footnotes to Goebbels, these words:
9"On 30th November he, Himmler, was summoned to the Wolf's
10lair", pause there. Sorry, page 427
11 A. [Mr Irving] I am looking at my Himmler diary because I know what you
12are going to say next
13 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I expect you know it off by heart
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry
15 MR RAMPTON: It is D1 (v). It is Hitler's War second volume,
161991 edition
17 A. [Mr Irving] What is the evidence for ---
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Wait a minute. I am waiting until his Lordship has the
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes
21 A. [Mr Irving] What page of Hitler's War is it? This is the new
23 MR RAMPTON: Now you can help me with some German perhaps in a
24moment. It is the new edition. It is changed from the
251977 edition in that you have conceded that the Himmler
26order concerned but a single train load of Jews
1 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Instead of Jews in general
3 A. [Mr Irving] Yes
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Can you first of all explain why it was that in the 1977
5edition this passage referred to Jews in general
6 A. [Mr Irving] It was a silly misreading of the word. If I show you the
7actual handwriting ---
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, it is printed in the book, is it not
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think you said you misread, you could not
10read the handwriting of Himmler
11 A. [Mr Irving] Perhaps I would like to show to his Lordship what the
12handwriting of Heydrich Himmler looks like
13 MR RAMPTON: Your Lordship will find it in this ---
14 A. [Mr Irving] I have a reasonable facsimile of the original here. He
15wrote a particularly nasty form Gothic spiky handwriting
16which modern Germans cannot read either. You could show
17that document to several Germans in this room, unless they
18were the older generation, they would not be able to read
19it. It is pretty horrific. I admit I made a mistake in
20the transcription. I was paying more attention to the
21position of the full stops in the lines which are quite
23 MR RAMPTON: Yes. I have it somewhere here. You actually
24printed a facsimile of that page in both the editions, did
25you not
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is in the following page 506
1 A. [Mr Irving] It would be remarkable if when one transcribes a lot of
2that handwriting one does not occasionally miss out a
3letter E or something like that.
4 MR RAMPTON: When printing that as a facsimile in your editions
5Hitler's War, you would not expect your ordinary English
6reader to be able to decipher what it said
7 A. [Mr Irving] I would be very surprised if they could decipher that
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Even if they knew German
9 A. [Mr Irving] Older generation Germans can read that, prewar
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] But your ordinary English reader, these books are
12published primarily in English, are they not
13 A. [Mr Irving] No. My books are published in every language in the
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] I know, but are they written in English originally
16 A. [Mr Irving] This one was, yes. I have written books in German too
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] As you fairly concede even a modern German might struggle
18with that unless they had the old handwriting
19 A. [Mr Irving] The point I am trying to make is that this is not
20manipulation on my part. It is not manipulation or
21distortion. It is a traffic accident, shall we say
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] I have to disagree with you. I do not have any training
23of the German language. I have relatively poor eyesight.
24I look at the word on the page and it quite plainly does
25not have an E on the end of it, does it
26 A. [Mr Irving] No
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is perfectly clear
2 A. [Mr Irving] I now see that, yes
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Why did you put an E on it? Were you in a terrible hurry
4or very tired or something when you wrote this
5 A. [Mr Irving] You are asking me to recall. This was actually written in
61970. We are looking at something 30 years ago you and
7you are asking me why I had an E on the end of a word
8which I wrote 30 years ago
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] I will tell you why I am suggesting it was deliberate,
10Mr Irving, for a number of reasons which are cumulative,
11but one which is very closely related. There are two
12closely related reasons. The first we are coming back to
13in a moment which is the way you have handled he Bruns
14testimony, but the other is in relation to the entry for
15the following day, 1st December 1941, where for some
16reason best known to yourself, and of course we shall need
17to hear your explanation, you translate the words
18"[German] SS" as Jews
19 A. [Mr Irving] No.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] That cannot be a misreading, can it
21 A. [Mr Irving] I misread the word "harbun" for "uden" and I have it here
22in front of me and I will show that to his Lordship
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] What have you got in front of you
24 A. [Mr Irving] Himmler's diary, the actual handwritten page
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] We have not got that. We would like to see it. May we
26see it
1 A. [Mr Irving] Had I known you were going to attach importance to I would
2have provided you with any number of copies
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] You would have heard in my opening speech that I attach
4some importance to it
5 A. [Mr Irving] I am terribly sorry, but I had actually prepared a dozen
6facsimiles of this to bring in tomorrow in a bundle
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] In fairness to you and perhaps to me we should leave it
8where it is until we get the facsimile
9 A. [Mr Irving] Yes. I did envisage that I would have the running of this
10and that we would be looking at my bundle of stuff
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] The running of what, your cross-examination
13 A. [Mr Irving] I had not ---
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] Shall I sit down
15 A. [Mr Irving] --- envisaged that I would envisioned I would be standing
16up for cross-examination today. Had I known that I would
17not have worked to 6 o'clock this morning preparing
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You can blame me for that
20 MR RAMPTON: That said, my Lord and since he was up until 6
21o'clock ---
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: ! I agree with what you are about to say.
23I think you have had quite a long day. 10.30 tomorrow
25 (The court adjourned until the following day)