Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day027.12 Last-Modified: 2000/07/25 MR IRVING: A few minutes before, two or three minutes. A. I have to pinpoint to the fact that it is shown in the whole scope of the video, of one of the videos I saw - - I saw several versions -- that you already met, that Mr Irving already met, let us say, half an hour or more before a lot of these people who are organizing or with organizing who are the main participants of this demonstration in the hotel hall where Uschi or Ursula Worch and David Irving arrived. . P-103 Q. Yes, are we talking about Hagenau or Halle? A. So the whole event has to be taken into account and not only the five or 10 minutes speech during the demonstration. It has also to be taken into consideration the surrounding minutes before Mr Irving spoke. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Are you talking about Halle now? A. Yes. Q. I thought so. A. Excuse me. 9th November '91. Q. I am bound to say, I do not know whether you looked at the diary entry, did you? A. Yes. Q. Because that appears to show Mr Irving arriving at 2 p.m. and leaving at 5 p.m.? A. Right. MR IRVING: 2.00 and 5.00, yes? A. Not 10 minutes. MR IRVING: Let me put this question. MR RAMPTON: Three hours. MR IRVING: Well, I was talking actually about the meeting place which is a different part of the town. Perhaps I can be more specific by cross-examination. The hotel that you referred to where these meetings apparently took place, was that one or two miles away from where the truck was parked, if I can put it like that, where the speech was made? . P-104 A. That can be. I am not informed about the site. It is possible. Q. Yes, that I think explains that, my Lord, that I arrived at the hotel. I remember meeting Martin Bell there and people like that, and I then went over shortly before the speech, made the speech and then got out of it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not want to get bogged down on one diary entry, but that is not, perhaps, the way it reads to me. It says: "Arrived at 2 p.m. I spoke first". MR IRVING: Yes, as is visible. MR JUSTICE GRAY: "10 or 15 minutes". That takes you to 2.20, 2.15, 2.20, and you left at 5 p.m. MR IRVING: My Lord, what I said is not incompatible with the diary entry, but probably cross-examination by Mr Rampton is a proper place to bring that out ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: That may be right actually. MR IRVING: --- if I can be so bold as to say that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Anyway, you press on. MR IRVING: But I have an answer for everything, if I can say that? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I would not put it quite that way. MR IRVING (To the witness): I am now going to deal with some of the names that you mentioned, and I am now taking them out of sequence out of your report purely because you brought these names to the front in the examination-in-chief this morning. You say that I had a . P-105 very close relationship with Ewald Althans? A. Yes. Q. This is correct, is it not, you said that? A. Yes. Q. And it is also ---- A. At a given time. Q. --- not something that will be denied, but I want to ask you a few questions about Ewald Althans. To your knowledge, when did I first get to know him? A. I think ---- Q. In what year? A. I think ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, may I interrupt again because you said something this morning which slightly worried me which was that you were not allowed to ask leading questions. That is true in strict theory, but in practice you can ask leading questions when you are cross-examining. MR IRVING: In cross-examination I can, my Lord, yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: But you did realize that? You said something this morning which made me think you did not realize. MR IRVING: But the situation this morning was not exactly cross-examination; it was more interrupting Mr Rampton. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, no, you said it in the course of cross-examination. I mean, for example, with Althans, it will save time if you say you did not meet him until such . P-106 and such a date, just say. MR IRVING: Thank you very much, my Lord, yes MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Do you accept that I did not meet him until whenever it was?" MR IRVING (To the witness): In that case, Professor Funke, you accept that I first may have met Mr Althans in Canada in March 1989? A. Right. Q. It is possible that this is the Ewald that I met, according to my diary, is that right? A. Right. Q. But that I first really got to know him in October 1989? A. This is very probably. Q. From your knowledge ---- A. Very likely. Q. From your knowledge of Ewald Althans and his rise and fall, was he a very bright student, a very bright person? Was he very gifted and intelligent in many ways? A. I cannot say this. I do not know. Q. Yes. A. But you said something in the diaries to the account of very energetic, and so in any case, whatever the personal judgment may be, you co-operated with him. Q. Well, let us see who the person was that I co-operated with and what he became, shall we? Am I right in saying that he spent six months or a year of his life in Israel . P-107 for an operation called Operation Atonement, Aktion Suhnezeischen? A. I do not know. Q. You do not know that? A. No. I did not -- I have to say I read it if it is stated somewhere. Q. Are you surprised to hear that? A. It is totally new for me. Q. What kind of young man would go to Israel voluntarily on a atonement mission for six months or a year of his life aged about 20, as he then was, and seek to make amends for what the Nazi had done? Would that be inclined to impress you, that kind of young man? A. Again I am surprised. Q. I am asking not about Mr Althans now, but about any young man ---- A. Yes. Q. --- if he did that. It would tell you something about what kind of character he was? A. Yes, definitely. I think so. Q. But you accept that people can later on go off the rails, they can be led astray, they fall into bad company. A. This can happen. Q. Yes. Later on, of course, he did fall into bad company, did he not? He made a lot of neo-Nazi acquaintances and he undoubtedly turned into a right-wing extremist for a . P-108 time? A. At least he turned to a right-wing extremist and, as you say, neo-Nazi. Q. Yes. Now, when he was finally put on trial in Berlin for having taken part in a film, he was sentenced to three and a half years in jail, is that right? A. At least to a big amount and I cannot recall how many years. Q. Yes. Do you remember what one element of his defence at that trial was which rather surprised the press? A. It was, as far as I recall, but correct me or others may correct me, that he may took side of the State Secret authorities of the verwaschungsschultz. Q. Did he not claim credibly to have been in the pay of the German Security Services for a substantial part of the latter part of his political career, that he had been acting as an agent for them? A. I am not very familiar with it, so it would be better I have evidence because it is very debated, and I really did not get it through what really was at stake and what the real, you know, state of affairs in this period, let us say, '93, '94 was, so... Q. Let me take it in stages then. A. I have to react on your question very vague. Q. Let me take it in stages then. You did hear the newspaper reports that Althans had made this very surprising claim? . P-109 A. Yes, I saw it, yes. Q. Have you any indication or can you remember how long he was taking money from the Security Services? A. I do not know. Q. He offered to supply ---- A. I even do not know if this is the case. Q. Yes. Would he be likely to have made a claim in a court in Berlin that could easily have been refuted by the Public Prosecutor if it was untrue? A. It was very debated so I cannot comment on that without evidence. Q. Yes. So, in other words, he is a very mysterious character, Mr Althans, towards the end of his political career? MR RAMPTON: I think it would be important to have a date for this particular event because if it occurs after the end or near the end of Mr Irving's association with him, with Althans, then it, of course, is of no relevance whatsoever. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The trial was in '94, I think. MR RAMPTON: Yes, precisely. Unless Mr Irving knew at the time when he was in close association with Ewald Althans that he was, in effect, a government spy, it is of no relevance whatsoever. MR IRVING: Then let me put this question to the witness. Dr Funke, have you seen correspondence between myself and . P-110 Dr Fry in which Dr Fry warned me that Althans was a very suspect character? A. Yes, I read this. MR JUSTICE GRAY: When is that? I mean, I am not quite sure where it is taking us. A. It is in the early time when David Irving and Ewald Althans did this very intense cooperation. MR IRVING: In other words, it was at the material times to which Mr Rampton is referring I did receive already an advanced warning that there was something fishy about Mr Althans? A. But may I add something to that? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: Of course. A. You know, it has to be taken into account that the DVU was a Congress organization on the right extremist ---- THE INTERPRETER: A competitor? A. A competitor on the right, right-wing extremist side. So they feared, so far I recall the diaries and the letters and so forth, that the action Althans is proposing to David Irving may hurt his reputation as accepted in this right-wing extremist circles around the DVU as accepted speaker, because Althans was more far right, as I said, as a neo-Nazi, and may endanger this special, you know, interaction between the right-wing extremists around the DVU, on the one hand, and David Irving on the other . P-111 hands. So there are several causes that this warning came, and it did not allude to the fact that he may be a member of the Secret Service. If I am allowed to, I would then question also why David Irving took sides with this, you know, dangerous, or whatever, mysterious character at that time for that period of time, but this is a question that may be valued by others. MR IRVING: Certainly it is a question for Mr Rampton to consider when his turn comes along, but the fact remains that if Mr Althans was working for the German Government security agencies, it is possible that he had been given the task of framing me, is it not -- if you can understand that question? A. Can you translate it? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am afraid I do not. MR IRVING: I beg your pardon? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am afraid I do not. Of entrapping you? MR IRVING: [German]. Entrapping, yes. A. I cannot answer that. I cannot answer that. MR IRVING: Are you an expert on the verwaschungsschultz, on the German security agencies? A. Yes, I know it a bit, but I am not an expert on that. Q. Are you familiar with any other instances where they had used these kinds of methods? A. Yes, of course.
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