Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day027.03
Last-Modified: 2000/07/25

   Q.   Now, what relationship does or has Althans had with some
        of the other people you have mentioned, for example, the

.          P-18


        Worchs and Kussel?
   A.   They were at the period that is of interest, in the period
        that is of interest, very close.  So they interacted, they
        had their quarrels, but they interacted a lot to prepare
        revisionist congresses, demonstrations, and I may add to
        widen their influence to the new free zone for influence,
        that is to say, the former GDR, East Germany.  That was a
        very fruitful field after the falling down of the Wall.
        Immediately after that ----
   Q.   Explain as briefly as you can why that was a fruitful
        field for the activities of these people.
   A.   The authoritarian GDR regime lost not only control but all
        sorts of convictions that many people in authoritarian
        regime.  This took place especially in the 80s, I am very
        sure.  So a lot of various youngster groups spread and
        came to the fore, leftist, rightist and, in the middle of
        the 80s, in the face of the decay of the former
        authoritarian GDR regime, the extreme right-wing
        skinheads, very violent groups, took over in the scene out
        of the formal youth groupings and youth movement.  Since
        86 or 87 we have had really a fascist scene that were very
        brutal against foreigners already at that period.  So they
        were there without a control in 89 and early 90.  This was
        the situation in which the far right groups, and
        especially these neo-Nazis we are talking about, said, OK
        this is a chance to widen our influence, to make and to

.          P-19



        steer and to be an avant-garde of male youngsters movement
        of that kind.
   Q.   We are going to see the film shortly.  One such occasion
        as you have described with lots of these young skinheads
        took place at Halle in November 91, did it not?
   A.   Yes, this is right, but also before and after.
   Q.   Where is Halle is my question?  We are ignorant English in
        this court!
   A.   Halle is around one hundred kilometres or so south to
        Berlin in East Germany former GDR.
   Q.   In the former GDR?
   A.   Right.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Rampton, I am not sure I am aware of the
        extent of Mr Irving's connections with the likes of Otto
        Remer.  Althans you have dealt with I think.  Otto Remer:
        Is there a connection alleged.
   MR RAMPTON:  I have not dealt with him.  I will do that.  I do
        not want to take too long.  At the same time I do not want
        to cut any corners.  Are you aware whether or not
        Mr Irving had any contacts with Otto Ernst Remer before he died?
   A.   I think so.  During the meetings.
   Q.   Do we see Otto Ernst Remer in any of these films or not?
   A.   Yes, we will see them, if the videos will be shown.
   Q.   I pass from Althans to somebody called -- I will take them
        out of order because I want to stick with what you have

.          P-20



        just told us, but I am coming back to some other names
        afterwards.  What about Gottfried Kussel, the Austrian?
        Where does he stand in this?  What is his position?
   A.   Gottfried Kussel is perceived as one of the three dominant
        successors of the Kuhnen crew, the
        Gesinnungsgemeinschaft.  Aside of Christian Worch, who was
        the organisational leader, so to speak, and aside of a
        third person, wait a minute, Gottfried Kussel, Worch,
        I come to him in a minute.
   Q.   All right.
   A.   Gottfried Kussel was and is an Austrian who joined this
        kind of attempt of renewal of the Nazi party, and he was
        eager to prepare paramilitary groups by so-called
        Wehrsportgruppe -- can you translate that?
   THE INTERPRETER:  Military exercise groups, military style
        support groups.
   A.   So he was very active in that, it was his part.
   MR RAMPTON:  Dressing up in battle dress with guns?
   A.   Right.
   Q.   Marching around in the woods?
   A.   And using old weapons they found from the Second World War
        or using Bundeswar weapons, if they get them, using
        weapons of especially the army of Austria.
   Q.   Do you take that kind of activity seriously?
   A.   I did not do it up to 89, I have to say, because up to 89
        there was such tiny little groups that we just looked over

.          P-21



        as social scientists, but since they got some influence
        and even widened this influence in the early 90s, you
        may recall that there was a brutal wave of violence
        against foreigners with 70 killed peoples within three
        years.  So with this I was very eager to analyse it a bit more.
   Q.   Yes I understand that.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Professor, when did the Berlin Wall come
        down?  I should know.
   A.   9th November 89, so two years before this Halle meeting we
        are coming to.
   MR RAMPTON:  I have two diversions for you, I am afraid.  The
        9th November is an anniversary of something else, is it not?
   A.   Yes.  It is the most loaded kind of anniversary date we have.
   Q.   Apart from the 30th January perhaps, or the 20th April?
   A.   No, it is even more loaded, if I may say so.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You are a bit elliptical at this stage.
   MR RAMPTON:  The 30th January is the speech in the Reichstag in
        1939.
   A.   Hitler's birthday, if I may add, is 20th April.
   Q.   Tell us about the 9th November.
   A.   There was a coup d'etat of Hitler and his comrades at the
        9th November 1923, the so-called ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Putsch?

.          P-22



   A.   March to the Feltan Halle.  You discuss it here.
   MR RAMPTON:  Tell me about that.
   A.   Yes.  Of course 15 years later, 9th November, the
        so-called Reichskristallnacht, the night of the broken
        glasses, and again 9th November 1989.  This was, by the
        way, the reason that the authorities did not dare to use
        this as a kind of national anniversary date.
   Q.   No.  As you said, it is a bit loaded.  Do you know whether
        Mr Irving has had any contacts with Gottfried Kussel?
   A.   I do not know.  Again, the same as it is with Kuhnen, if
        I may say so, on the same level.  They were at this same
        meeting, especially in Halle, and he has seen him, so far
        as the video shows, but maybe he sees it different.  But
        the video is, I think, very clear on that.  And the like.
        So no mentioned connections in the diaries and elsewhere.
   Q.   Now we come to somebody who I think we do find fairly
        often in the diaries, two people, Christian Worch and his
        wife Ursula or Uschi Worch.  Do they appear in the diaries?
   A.   Yes.  This is, I would say, the interactions between David
        Irving and Christian and Ursula Worch, as intense as they
        were with Ewald Althans.
   Q.   Characterize, if you will.
   A.   I just counted the interactions so far we got it from the
        disclosures, from other sources and from the diary of
        David Irving, 26 in three years.  A lot of interaction

.          P-23



        between others and David Irving and the Worches.
   Q.   Others such as whom?
   A.   Others like Karl Philipp, another very interesting person
        in this network.
   Q.   I am coming to him.  Karl Philipp.  Anybody else?
   A.   Yes.  Christian Worch was one of the main organizers, as
        I said, of the neo-Nazi movement between 89 and 93, the
        period that is of interest here.  By the way, furthermore,
        so he is at the centre of this Kuhnen crew after his death.
   Q.   Is he still active?
   A.   He is sill active.  He organised a demonstration at the
        29th, so one day before the 30th January 2000 in Berlin,
        against the attempt to build a memorial of the Holocaust,
        a very neo-Nazi like demonstration, very ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Can I just ask this?  Are you saying that
        Mr Irving and Karl Philipp have had contact with each other?
   A.   Yes, very much so.  Karl Philipp, Ewald Althans and
        Christian Worch are those with whom David Irving had the
        most intense interactions at that time.
   MR IRVING:  My Lord, I think he ought to specify, if he says
        I had 26 contacts, what he means by contacts.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I do not think that was Karl Philipp actually?
   A.   No, that was Christian Worch.

.          P-24



   MR IRVING:  If we are to use that kind of statistic, I think it
        would be useful just to telephone ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  If you want to, up to a point.
   MR RAMPTON:  Absolutely right.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am anxious to get the broad picture at the
        moment, but can you explain what you mean by interactions
        or contacts?
   A.   It is all sorts of interactions to prepare things, to take
        sides, to be invited.  So, for example, at the 3rd March
        of '90 David Irving was invited to the group.  He
        especially had, I have to say, in Hamburg, the so- called
        nationalist, this is a bunch of little tiny groups.  So he
        was invited to give one of David Irving's speeches there,
        and there were, of course, the Nationalists, so part of
        this neo-Nazi camp, in that region, that is to say in
        Hamburg, and, on the other hand, new invited East Germans
        around the new built other group like the Deutsche
        Alternative.  So just to say the minimum that groups of
        the neo-Nazi camp around Hamburg and groups of the new
        organized groupings of East Germany came together to hear
        David Irving at the 3rd March of '90.  This kind of
        interaction, preparing speeches, tours and the like.  The
        same holds true, if I may add this, in preparation of the
        event of the 9th November '91, in Halle.  This Halle event
        was interesting in the regrouping and further organizing
        of the neo-Nazi movement in the early 90s.  They tried to

.          P-25



        combine their groupings and you will see it on the video.
   Q.   Can we just pause there?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   These summaries are taken from your report.  We can see an
        illustration of what you are talking about, my Lord, if we
        take the second file, RWE file, and turn to tab 11.  Could
        the witness please be given that?  Could you turn please,
        Professor, to the second page in the summary which you
        will find at the beginning of that tab?  It has a (ii) at
        the bottom of the page and we are looking at some dates.
   A.   Say it again, excuse me.
   Q.   The second page of the summary at the beginning.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   We see some dates from March 1990 to August 1991.
   A.   Right.
   Q.   We do not need to read them out unless anybody wants me
        to.  Would you just read them to yourself and continue
        down to the end of 9th November '91 on the following page.
   A.   Yes.  (Pause for reading).
   Q.   Now, if one reads on, one sees that they went on
        corresponding with each other through until June 1993.
        Can you please just look at the entry for the 1st January
        1992?  It is the middle of page (iii).
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   You, or rather Miss Rogers, has written summarising your
        evidence, letter P, that is Mr Irving, to the Worches,

.          P-26



        using the informal address "du".  What does that signify
        in German if one addresses people in that form?
   A.   It signifies a close relation, that they know each other
        by private level.
   Q.   How do you then respond to a suggestion, if it be made,
        that these Worch people were just informal slight
        acquaintances of Mr Irving who sometimes turned up to his
        meetings?
   A.   No.  They are of central importance.  You let me read the
        page before, and it is stated that they met not only at
        the 3rd March but on the next day, Althans and Worch
        together with the plaintiff.  Then Althans organized
        something with the help of Worch.  That is the 21st April,
        the first revisionist Congress in Munich that was a joint
        organization.  It is very interesting that you have
        joining the revisionists and the like with these kind of
        clear cut neo-Nazis.  Then they met again the next morning
        with Wilhelm Staglich, another ----
   Q.   I am going to ask you about that entry for 22nd April in a
        moment.  You say a close relationship, had Worch been
        present on these occasions when Mr Irving has spoken?
   A.   Yes.

Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor