Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day027.02 Last-Modified: 2000/07/25 Q. My Lord, Professor Funke's English is not quite as good as Dr Longerich's was. The subject with which he is dealing is in some senses quite subtle and in other senses quite technical. I am going to invite him at any stage, if he feels uncomfortable in English, to go into German. He must go slowly because otherwise the interpreter will not be able to keep up. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. . P-9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you can manage in English, Professor, it makes life easier. A. I try my best. MR JUSTICE GRAY: And a bit quicker but, if you feel difficulties, then have resort to the interpreter. A. Thank you. MR RAMPTON: Professor Funke, could you please be given your report? Have you got your report there? A. Yes. Q. At the back of your report there are two appendices. A. Yes. Q. Could you go to the appendix two, please? A. Yes. Q. Which you have entitled "Biographies". Have you got the appendix there? A. Yes. Q. We do not need the actual report, I hope, at all, at any rate as far as I am concerned. You heard what I said to his Lordship before you were sworn to give evidence, that I am going to go through some of the names in this appendix and ask you who they are and what they stand for, what their ideologies and policies are. Do you remember my saying that? A. Yes. Q. I am going also to ask you in respect of each person whether you are able to give us in summary form an account . P-10 of their contacts with Mr Irving. Can I first take a man who is not on this list, called Michael Kuhnen? Who is or was Michael Kuhnen? A. Michael Kuhnen was one of the leading neo-Nazi activists in the 70s, throughout the 80s, up to April of '91, when he died. He was up to renew the NSDAP of the period of '33 to '45. Q. What we now call the Nazi party? A. Right. So he did a lot together with others internationally and nationally, to ask for relegalization of this Party. Furthermore, he referred to special groups within the Nazi regime, that is the Sturmabteilung, the stormtroopers, a more street violence orientated perception of what the new Nazis, the neo-Nazis, the neo-National Socialists should do. Finally, I want to add that he asked for a second revolution in that sense, so to overflow the liberal democracy. He agitated very much against Jews, very anti-Semitic, he asked for pure Aryan race based state. Q. Give me again the year that he died? A. April 91. Q. April 91. Amongst the neo-Nazi or far right groups now in Germany, are there any that can be described as Herr Kuhnen's direct heirs or successors? A. There are some, especially I have to say there is a person called Christian Worch and there is another person called . P-11 Gottfried Kussel from Austria, and they both have close links to NSDAPAO, person Gary Lauck from the United States. These are the three most important -- there are others around this camp, like Thomas Wulf from Hamburg, Christian Worch is from Hamburg, Uschi Worch from Hamburg. Q. Is that Mrs Worch? Is that Frau Worch? A. Yes. MR IRVING: My Lord, would it be helpful if the witness at each stage indicated whether it is going to be alleged I had any contact with these names. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is stage 2. MR RAMPTON: Be patient, please. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, stage 2, do not worry. We will get to that. MR RAMPTON: Can you say whether a man called Ewald Althans is in this grouping or not? A. Yes, he is, but he did not found with the others one of these groupings in the 70s and the 80s was a group called ANSNA, action front of national socialists, and so forth, and then a group that is of importance for the period in the 80s and early 90s called Gesinnungsgemeinschaft, a group of the like-minded of the new front. Q. Who do we find in that -- have we got an abbreviation for that because I cannot say it each time? A. We can call them Gesinnungsgemeinschaft. Q. All right. I will try. Gesinnungsgemeinschaft. . P-12 A. We can call them also it is done sometimes in the social scientists reports "the Kuhnen crew". Q. Right, who nowadays is in the Kuhnen crew? A. Nowadays? Q. Yes-- no, go back to the time when Kuhnen died, who do we find in the ---- A. At that time it was Christian Worch, it was Althans, it was Uschi Worch. So far I see at the side lines also Ingrid Weckert, Gottfried Kussel, Thomas Wulf, and others. Q. Right, now taking them in turn, or, first, have they inherited, those people, the same kind of neo-Nazi ideology, particularly in relation to anti-Semitism, that was propounded by Kuhnen before he died? A. They did not change the course of their ideas, as far as they are stated publicly. There are tactical, you know, changes but of lower degree. If I may add, nowadays means this year and some of them are still active like the Christian Worch near to the NPD extreme right-wing extremist party. That in itself changed in the course of the 90s to a more radical strategy. Q. Can we stay at the moment, please, in the early 90s at and around the time and immediately after the time of Kuhnen's death? At what date in Germany did Holocaust denial become illegal? A. There were in the middle of the '80s several laws set through the parliament that this is a kind of incitement . P-13 of racial hatred and defamation of survivors and killed people. So in the middle of the '80s, there was a strikening, a sharpening of this kind of law that this is forbidden and again in '94, and so there was again renewal of this, of this law. Q. Yes, now among those people that you have mentioned -- I am going to take them in turn -- you have had access, have you not, to Mr Irving's correspondence, his diary and material of that kind, have you not? A. Yes, I did. Q. First, may I take Mr Kuhnen who is now dead? Did ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, I am so sorry to interrupt. For the transcribers' benefit, shall we just spell the names that we are really concerned with? MR RAMPTON: K-U-H-N-E-N. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you. MR RAMPTON: "Michael". Can you tell us whether or not Mr Irving had any contact with Michael Kuhnen and, if so, to what extent? A. So far I see, but you know better, to a limited degree he saw him once, at least -- I have to be very precise -- they were at the same meetings. Q. Right. A. In 1990 and so far I recall in '90 -- no, in '90, especially in '90, and in late '89. They were at the same meetings. . P-14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: How many meetings? A. At least two I recall in Hagnau and on the 21st April of '90 and -- no, this is it, yes. MR RAMPTON: Yes. MR IRVING: Could the witness be specific about what he means by being at the same meetings? Does he mean that Mr Kuhnen was in the audience or on the platform next to me? MR RAMPTON: That is a good question. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is a fair question, yes. A. Exactly. He was in the audience and ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry, who was in the audience? Mr Irving was in the audience or Mr Kuhnen was in the audience? A. Excuse me. Q. It is quite important which actually? A. Mr Kuhnen was in the audience and Mr Irving spoke in the, you know, a Congress [German] in Munich at the 21st April '90. MR RAMPTON: Yes, then what about Ewald Althans? A. This is very different. Mr Irving had close contacts ---- Q. Pause, sorry, I forgot. Althans is A-L-T-H-A-N-S. Ewald is E-W-A-L-D. Sorry. MR IRVING: Mr Rampton, most of the names are on the list that I have given to the transcriber. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I did not realize that. MR IRVING: She will be able to find them eventually, but they . P-15 are in the sequence of my questions rather than your questions. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is very helpful, Mr Irving. MR RAMPTON: Tell us now about the relationship, if there is one, between Mr Althans and Mr Irving, Professor. A. If I may say so, it is a very close relationship, so far I got it from the diaries. Of course, this is a limited source, but also by the disclosures and by other social scientists, researchers. Althans was very active in that period of time as a kind of mediator of the Zundel, of the Ernst Zundel, one of the leading revisionists, and he was a kind of pupil, if I may say so, of the late Otto Ernst Remer, one of the so-called heroes of the neo-Nazi scene. MR RAMPTON: If I hold my hand up, can you pause because it means that something you have said has prompted another question? We will come back to Althans in a moment. A. OK. I will restrict myself. Excuse me. Q. No, only if I hold my hand up otherwise you continue. A. I will look at you. Q. Can you just tell us a little bit about is it Otto Ernst Remer? A. Otto Ernst Remer, right. Q. Who was he? Is he still alive? A. No, he died in the middle, in the later '90s. Q. Tell us first who he was. A. He is perceived as one of the heroes of the crushing down . P-16 of the coup attempt of the resistance movement during the Nazi period in 20th July 1944. He was in one of the Berlin battalions to crush the coup d'etat attempt down and since then, after '45, he was perceived. Q. What rank in the Army did he hold at the time when he crushed the 20th July plot? A. So far I recall, I am not quite sure, I have to look it up, a Major. That is a kind of middle high range below the General level. Q. Yes, we know what a Major is, I think. It is roughly the same, I imagine, in Germany. What rank did he achieve after he had crushed the coup? A. He got up, but I cannot recall to what degree. Q. Sorry, I should not have interrupted you. You continue with his place, please in this scenario which you are painting for us. A. So maybe I should say two sentences to Remer to finish this ---- Q. Yes, then we will go back to Althans? A. --- for that period of time. He was then very active in one of the early neo-Nazi circles, after '45. So he was with founder of the Sozialistische Reichspartei -- cofounder, excuse me, of the Socialist Reichs Party, I would say, and these were clear cut people who tried to renew National Socialism. If you may imagine that at that time there was a lot of applause in parts of . P-17 the population in Germany, and because of that but also by, you know, convincing value reasons, this party was forbidden in '52. So after that the famous Fritz Bauer who did the Auschwitz trial in Frankfurt had a court from the state side against court ---- Q. Action? A. --- procedure against Remer statements in the early '50s. So there was really something to him. Then he stayed course, if I may say so, throughout the '50, '60s, '70s and got some resonance again in the '80s and especially in the '90s with a very harsh, I would say, neo-Nazi course of the so-called Remer Depechert(?). This is a little magazine, kind of magazine. Q. You told us that in some sense Althans was a protege of Remer? A. Right. Q. How exactly did that happen and what does it mean? A. As a young boy, Althans is in the '30s still, of 14 or 16, he joined Remer and got very intense lessons by Remer's convictions, and he referred himself in several statements, I mean Althans referred himself to this Remer like convictions and he said that they came from him to a degree.
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