Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day029.09 Last-Modified: 2000/07/25 Q. You refused? A. Yes. Sorry. So your BNP file is rather thin, I am afraid. Q. Well, turn to page 8, will you. You are in key West. A. I am sorry, which tab was it again? Q. The same tab, page 8, bottom of the page: "12 midday, Kirk Lyons phoned". A. Tab 8 you say? MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. Page 8, tab 5. MR RAMPTON: "12 midday. Kirk Lyons phoned. Going to London November 2nd to November 9th for BNP meeting". Is that you or Kirk Lyons? A. Mr Lyons, he is a lawyer. . P-75 Q. What is his connection with the BNP then? A. I have no idea; he is an American lawyer. Q. No idea? A. No. Q. How do you know he is an American lawyer? A. Is it relevant? Q. Yes. A. You asked me what his connection with the BNP is and the answer is I do not know. Q. I am mildly interested in your associates. Mr Irving. I am much more interested in you personally, of course? A. Speaking of my first lawyer, who was Michael Rubenstein who was my lawyer for 25 years or 20 years and may be familiar to this court. I am quite happy to go through all the lawyers I have employed in my life. Q. Many of my best friends are Jews too, Mr Irving. I want to go back now, if I may, some 50 years or so. A. So the BNP file was rather slim. Can we agree on that? Q. That is your comment, Mr Irving. You have given one dishonest answer already in relation even to so slim a file as the BNP, which is that you it did not go to the BNP me in Leeds, and you told us in answer to our question, answer 45, "I have no connection with the British National Party nor have I been following its progress, nor do I have any knowledge of its official aims or policies". . P-76 A. I think that is a very reasonable and fair answer. It turns out that I attended one semi-BNP function 23 years ago or 17 years ago or something like. Q. 1990, Mr Irving. A. Ten years ago. Q. Then you said: "From memory I have never spoken at a BNP meeting". A. If you want to hang your hat on that then you are at liberty. Q. No, I have a whole row of pegs for my hat, thank you, Mr Irving. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, what is puzzling me a little bit is why you troubled on the 26th October refer to the fact that Mr Lyons was going to London for the BNP meeting? A. Mr Lyons is an acquaintance of mine and he told me he was going to go London, that is all. He probably wanted to know if I was going to be in London at that time and he could come and drop in on me, but that is all. I mean, my Lord, I can be quite plain and say had I attended the BNP meeting your Lordship will be familiar with the fact that they have had my entire diaries and they would have dredged that little morsel out of the diaries and dangled it before this court. It is dishonest of them to have suggested any different. In view of the fact they have had 20 million words of diaries and these are the only references to the BNP, that is a minuscule, almost . P-77 frantic, attempt to associate me with them. MR RAMPTON: Describe the BNP? You seem to have some knowledge of them which I am afraid I do not have, but you tell me who they are, the BNP, while I search for a document? Hopeless right-wing, is that right, going nowhere? What did you mean by that, hopeless right-wing going nowhere? A. Their attempt to establish a right-wing alternative party in this country which is, as I understand from newspaper accounts, riven by internal dissension, by poor quality, officers. I do not know. I do not follow them develop. Q. Who is Mr Anthony Hancock who in Munich describes himself as Mr Michael Carter? A. Are you asking if he has any association with the BNP? I do not know. Q. No. I am asking you who he is, what his political stance is? A. I think he is a right-winger. Q. What do you mean by a right-winger, free market? A. Somebody who is to the right-wing of me, shall I say. If I describe him as being right-wing, then he is right-wing. Q. So he would like black people to be sent back to wherever their ancestors came from, that kind of thing, is it? A. I imagine so, yes, but I have not had learned political discussions with him, so perhaps I should not give that answer. Q. I am sorry, my Lord, there has been a hitch in the . P-78 administration, I am afraid. Mr Irving, do you remember the question arose, first of all, in Professor Evans' report of a letter written to his wife probably sometime in 1942 of a German officer called Schaultz du Bois? A. Yes. Q. Do you remember telling this court some days or weeks ago that you were not aware of the contents of that letter? A. I cannot remember what I told the court, but I can tell you now what my position is. Q. Please do. A. At the time I was researching the background of the Bruns Report, checking on the names in the report, finding out who was who, I read the book by Professor Gerald Fleming, the relevant parts of that book, and Professor Gerald Fleming had done research into the same shootings at Riga, and he had managed to obtain a copy of the letter which Schaultz de Bois had written in 1942, and I read the lines in the Fleming book relating to that letter. In other words, I have not read the actual letter but I know the letter exists. Q. Yes, indeed you do. You were I think asked by his Lordship, this is day 22, which is 17th February 2000, page 103, his Lordship asked you this at line 23: "Is it your case, Mr Irving, because you must put it", because you were cross-examining Professor Evans, Mr Irving, "because you must put it clearly and . P-79 straightforwardly, that you were unaware of what Mr Schaultz de Bois said in this letter?" Mr Irving: "Yes, and your Lordship will have heard from the cross-examination over the previous ten minutes that I do not attach very great importance to the remarks by Canaris." We can ignore most of that sentence, except the "yes", Mr Irving. It was not a straightforward answer, was it? A. Ah! Q. You know very well what was in the Schaultz de Bois letter, did you not? A. I am sure his Lordship is familiar with the problem with transcripts in court, that when a witness is having something read it him and there is a pause and the witness says "yes" as though to say, "Yes, I hear what you are saying", right? This should not be taken as being, yes, I agree with what you are saying, but, yes, I hear what you are saying. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I hope we are not going to treat all your answers in that light. A. I think your Lordship is capable of seeing the difference. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I certainly see the difference. A. What I would call a substantive yes rather than a nod. This is mine. Can I have it back now, please? MR RAMPTON: Yes, exactly. Indeed so. A. This is the Gerald Fleming book in my hand. . P-80 Q. It is indeed. The reason why that letter comes into the case, Mr Irving, as I expect you will remember, is that it contains an account of what happened when the message got back to Hitler -- you will find it on page 98, will you not, it is in German, but you will recognize the passage. It is just above a red marking by you, is it not? A. Yes. Q. Read out what it was reported to Schaultz de Bois that Hitler had said after he learned of the Riga shootings. It is just before your red marking. A. I have to find it first. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Schaultz de Bois went it Canaris to get him to intercede with Hitler? MR RAMPTON: That is right. He wrote a letter to his wife apparently reporting what Hitler's reaction had been. A. I am not deliberately delaying anything. I am just trying to find the actual passage. Q. I think it is on page 98. A. OK I am sorry. Yes, here we have it. This man, who went in and out, he is talking about Canaris obviously. Q. Yes, obviously. A. This man, who went in and out at the Fuhrer's, was to tell the Fuhrer the consequences and the atrocities of these methods once more in a most penetrating manner. No, he is said to have done this whereupon the latter, Hitler, is said to have said, and then comes the quotation: "Mein . P-81 Herr, you want to go soft, do you? I have to do that because after me there will not be anybody else to do it". Q. Right. Now, that is some evidence, is it not -- I am not saying it is the strongest evidence in the world, of course not, Mr Irving -- that Hitler thought it his job -- Hitler, his job -- to abolish the Jews and kill them? A. It is some evidence, yes. Q. Yes. Why have you never brought that to the attention of your readers? You have known about it since 1982. A. I have known about it since roughly the same time as I found the Bruns book, yes. Q. Professor Fleming sent you a copy of his book, the German copy, which I think came out in 1982, did it not? A. Yes. Q. If you look carefully at that copy, just flick through the pages, you may agree with me that you have in fact read the whole of it up to page 104. A. No. I think I set this out at the time I gave the book to you. I obviously dipped into the first 17 or 18 pages. Let us see where the markings end. I think 27 was where I stopped reading. Q. See if you can find the next marking after 27. A. Then I put it away. Then, when I needed a source to look up details on the Bruns Report, I picked it up and looked specifically at the Bruns passages. You will see the ink . P-82 is a different colour. Q. Sorry, I did not mean to interrupt. Would you look at page 88? A. Yes. Q. There is one of your markings there, is there not? A. Yes, and I write "oy" in the margin. Q. There is something said that you do not like, I suppose? A. Yes. It is what I would say to him. If he had read this out to me, I would have said "oy". Q. There is a slight diversion. What is it about that passage you did not like? A. I do not know. Let us have a look. Q. We have a photographic copy of the relevant part of this. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am following. A. Oh yes. On the basis of the liquidation order issued on November 10th and 11th to the newly appointed senior police chief and SS chief in the Baltic, who was Jeckeln, the order issued by Himmler and Hitler, I have underlined the words "Himmler and Hitler" and that is where I have written "oy" in the margin as though to say, "OK, Himmler, I agree but how are you just sliding in the words 'and Hitler' as well"? Q. He no doubt has reached the position in 1982, which you have now reached in this court for the first time, that Hitler authorized the shootings in the East. A. Are you asking me a question? . P-83 Q. Yes, I am. That is right, is it not? A. Let me just explain why I have written "oy" then next to it because that may be part of the answer. This is a book which has been written for the purpose of disproving me, as he admits himself, and this is admitted in the reviews, and this is the evidence on which he relies in disproving me, to prove that it is the Fuhrer's wish. In fact the subtitle of this book is, "It is the Fuhrer's Wish", and it is that actual quotation, the so-called liquidation order, "tell Lohse it is my order and it is also the Fuhrer's wish". I have written in the margin, saying "oy, is that as good as it gets?", the same as I have sometimes said to you, Mr Rampton. Q. Yes, Mr Irving. A. One had expected better, same as his Lordship has sometimes said to me, in fact. Q. Turn back two pages, will you, from that marking to page 86? A. I did notice on the opposite page they are relying on the Wetzel letter, which of course the Eichmann manuscript now challenges as being a forgery. Q. That matters not to me in the least, Mr Irving. A. Yes.
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