Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day028.15 Last-Modified: 2000/07/25 . P-137 you did or did not have an association with him, and if you did what it consisted of. MR IRVING: Thank you, my Lord. My Lord, it is helpful to know what questions we need answers for, I think, in this case. Will you, please, therefore, answer the question suggested by his Lordship, what meaningful contacts did I have with Mr Schwierzak, to your knowledge? I insert the word "meaningful" as a means of slimming the answer down. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I do not think I have got my message across at all. The burden of Professor Funke's evidence -- I have said this many times -- is that you had associations with a number of individuals, including Schwierzak, and that those individuals are ---- MR IRVING: Extremists. MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- in one way or another extremists. MR IRVING: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is his case. Mr Schwierzak is on this famous list. He is said to be connected with the National Offensive. I do think that it is for you to put to this witness what your case is. You know what contacts you had or whether you had any contacts with Schwierzak and I, therefore, think it is not exactly candid of you to ask him what evidence he has got. MR IRVING: Well ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: The evidence is set out in tab 13. I know . P-138 what the evidence is, you know what the evidence is, but what is your case? That is what the object of cross-examination is. MR IRVING: My Lord, we are looking at events that happened 11 or 12 years ago. These names mean nothing whatsoever to me for the most part. MR JUSTICE GRAY: So you are not conscious of having had any communication with Schwierzak at all? MR IRVING: And I am perfectly prepared to be educated to the contrary if this expert witness knows quite simply off the top of his head, "Mr Schwierzak organized 20 meetings for you in Munich, do you not remember?" A. It is stated here, I mean. Q. But he just given an answer which I would have found quite acceptable that, apparently, Mr Schwierzak was involved in organizing one meeting for a very tiny group called the NO which was not an illegal body, had not been banned, am I right? MR JUSTICE GRAY: But what is your case, Mr Irving? MR IRVING: That is the case. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is it you cannot remember the man and do not know him from Adam or not? MR IRVING: That is quite clearly the case. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is? Well, I am afraid I am probably the only one in court who did not realize, but I did not realise that you were saying that you had no idea who this . P-139 man is. MR IRVING: My Lord, at the beginning of yesterday's evidence, your Lordship will remember that I showed the witness a list of 6,500 names of people with whom I have had meaningful contacts over the last, well, since 1993, if I can put it like that, and to remember one single name out of that is a fluke, particularly if I have only had one meeting organized by him and I was speaking at this time at 160 meetings per year. I will just ask this question. You say that the NO was a relatively small organization or diminutively small organization? A. Yes. Q. Was it illegal at that time? A. No. Q. Had I any way of knowing that it might sometime be banned? A. Yes, you could have. Q. My Lord, I really do not see the point of wasting time on Mr Schwierzak. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, you corresponded with Mr Schwierzak. That is what puzzles me. MR IRVING: Maybe I should look at bundle E sometime and refresh my memory. A. I mean we can do it now. It is stated here. MR IRVING: But, I mean, when these bundles are dropped on me from a great height as they were on a weekend ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: With that, of course, I am sympathetic. . P-140 MR IRVING: I am preparing my cross-examination simultaneously and running a family and a business. A. It is stated in the report, it is in your diary, and here just you can, it is one page, it is a shortening, a letter to Althans stating something about Schwarzik, so you did not know the right name at that moment. But then a circular by Plaintiff addressed, amongst others, to Michael Schwierzak, again in January '92. Then the letter Worch to Plaintiff suggesting to Plaintiff that Schwierzak might be able to provide two dates in South Germany on Plaintiff's tour. Letter, Worch to Plaintiff, assuring Plaintiff that Schwierzak can provide two dates outside Frauberg. Letter Schwierzak to Plaintiff. Plaintiff records speaking at NO meeting outside Stuttgart in Singlfingen. Then letter, Plaintiff to Ernst Zundel, complaining about NO with good reasons I have to say. Then Schwierzak to Plaintiff. That Schwierzak to Plaintiff. So it is all out of your disclosure, letters Schwierzak to Plaintiff enclosing an article that will surely interest you in '95. So it is between '91 and '95 and it will refresh your memory if you read it. Q. Professor Funke, if somebody is receiving sometimes 100 letters a day, right, and if somebody is writing 50 letters a day, is he likely to remember 10 years later the names if the people with whom he has corresponded? . P-141 A. That is why we refresh your memory. Q. All right. Can I suggest that if I asked that question, Mr Schwierzak is a man who played no part whatsoever in my political horizon, is that likely, and then I will ask you a bit about his alleged extremism which is also going to be useful. In other words, let me phrase the question differently. If cannot remember the man's name 10 years after the event, is it likely he was very important to me or to anybody else? A. It depends on the structure of your memory, I have to say. Q. All right. A. I do not know. Of course, it can be that you lost the memory about this person because ---- Q. Will you tell us what you know about this man's extremism? On what do you base the suggestion that he is an extremist in the sense as used in this trial? A. The National Offensive is quite of the same political structure and to have the same ideas like the NL, the Nationalist in Hamburg. It is a southern part of this neoNational Socialist cadre organizational stuff in the early '90ss. You have NO there, you have the NB nearby in Bavaria, you have the National Bloc, you have the Nationalist, you have the GA, the German Alternative, the Deutsche Alternative. These are the various, you know, in their language gau. Q. Gau? . P-142 A. Yes, gau. Yes, it is really the National Socialist, what we are talking about. Q. What is the evidence that himself had extreme opinions, apart from the opinion of your consensus and the social sciences, is there any evidence? Did he engage in any extremist acts? Did he publish any extreme literature? A. Oh, yes, he did so. Yes, he did so. Q. Did he write any extremist books? Did he throw pigs into other people's gardens or do any of those other extreme things? A. He did something together with his whole bunch of people, and I have to go to the details in looking up what he else did aside of this group. But then it cost some time. Q. Can you not remember what he did? Was he not very important in your memory either? A. He is as important as -- you know, Schwierzak was ---- Q. Totally unimportant, in other words? A. As important as Worch, aside of the leading position he got after the death of Kuhnen, as important as Thomas Dienel. So they were not important for me because before '89 whatsoever were not important, but since they got this influence in East Germany to lead violent skinheads and took part in the revisionist movement, they got important and influenced the people to a high degree. So that in the course of these years the death rate of foreign peoples rose, the destroying of Jewish cemeteries . P-143 rose, the criminal acts against of right-wing extremists rose to a height of 88,000. Q. Was he prosecuted for any of these actions? A. Oh, they organized that in this cadre, in this way of right-wing extremist cadres are doing it ---- Q. But you do not mention this in your report? A. Propagating ideas of extreme nationalist sort and the like. Q. You do not mention any of these prosecutions of Mr Schwierzak in your report, do you? You say that he was given a suspended sentence for trying to revive an organization he had previously set up and which had been banned, which appears to be a pretty mild kind of offence to me. A. I referred, I know, I do not know what I am referring, what is in the report, I referred, I know that the NO because of this National Socialist ideas was banned in the same year, in '92, right, so there is a record on that. Q. Yes, but you tried to give the impression in response to my question as to what extremist acts he had committed or thoughts he had expressed, you start talking about violent acts and murders and so on, and yet when I ask you in detail was he prosecuted, then the answer is no? A. It is, no, I did not say this. It is the very organizational capacity of this NO, tiny as it is, it instigated hatred against foreigners, it instigated . P-144 anti-Semitism and fuelled these kinds of activities of skinheads in that area where he was active. Q. What evidence do you have for these statements or are you just saying it for the court at present? Do you have any evidence to back up these allegations? A. Yes, it is the reasoning of the Minister of Interior to ban this group, it is the reasoning ---- Q. Is that the Federal Ministry for the Interior or the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior? A. It is the Federal Minister of Interiors, so far I recall. Q. Is that a Socialist Minister? A. No, I think it was at that time Manfred Kanter who was a more right-winger within the central political scenery. Q. So in response to my question as to whether you know anything in detail that Mr Schwierzak has done, you come up with just vague stories about what the NO or the right-wing groups to which the NO was associated has done? A. No, it is very decisive. MR JUSTICE GRAY: He founded the NO, so it is not unreasonable to suppose that there was a link between what the NO did and Mr Dienel -- and Mr ---- MR IRVING: Was the NO to which I spoke at any time an illegal or banned organization? We have had that. A. The NO, yes, it was, it get banned end of '92, as I said. Q. When did I speak to it, Professor Funke? A. Before. . P-145 Q. The year before that, right? A. I know that and I said it. I did not say anything different. Q. Am I right in saying that you find difficulty in remembering any details at all about Mr Schwierzak, any concrete, meaningful details apart from vague associations? A. It is not a vague association to know that he is the leading person of this association, NO. Q. But never prosecuted for any illegal acts? A. Not personally so far. Q. Yes, thank you. My Lord, he is the last person on the list with whom I have not dealt. We have knocked out all the names, effectively, except for some of the bigger names. Karl Philipp who is very little on ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, do not make a speech now. I mean, if that concludes your cross-examination?
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