Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day003.12 Last-Modified: 2000/07/29 Q. He did not say this, did he, that you have written here? A. I gave the essential part of the information, which was that the orders -- we are talking about here the chain of . P-101 command from Hitler downwards and that the killings were carried out there, the SS officers on the spot and I make this very clear distinction, the gangsters were in the SS who did the killings on the Eastern Front and for that there is any amount of evidence, a lot of which you have in your own files but the evidence of Hitler's involvement is very tenuous and goes in the direction which I indicated from my small bundle. My I also draw your attention to the fact this is a question and answer session, Mr Rampton. Q. Yes, I follow that. A. So there is no script. I am not reading out from a document. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I think the point on the quotation marks is not a fair one given that this is which you said in a speech because whoever transcribed it may well have just added the quotation marks? A. Not just but obviously when one is answering questions from the floor one is giving an encapsulated version of the essence of a document as one recalls it. Q. I follow that. MR RAMPTON: My Lord, there are two minutes, so it might help. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, why not use them. MR RAMPTON: If might help if we looked at the original German of Bruns said that Altemeyer had said. A. It does sometimes vary from the translation. . P-102 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where do we find that? MR RAMPTON: It is bundle H1(vii), some of Professor Evans documents? A. It is actually from my discovery. Q. No, I do not know where it comes from. A. If it has a number written on the top right hand corner. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Unfortunately, I have not brought that particular file. THE WITNESS: I was the person who discovered this document. MR RAMPTON: The page, have you got that? A. Not in front of me. Q. You do not have the German? A. No. Q. It is 233, which looks to me like the British transcript it is the transcript of Bruns' actual words -- before I ask the question I must look in the dictionary because I have not got my own. MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Massen" is underlined, is it underlined in the translation? MR RAMPTON: Yes, I do not know who did that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, it looks original. A. It is original. MR RAMPTON: Shows how important it is, Mr Irving, to go back to source, does it not. A. That is a "yes". Q. Do you know how those transcripts were made? They were . P-103 secretly recorded, presumably by some hidden microphone. A. It is still very secret but in the next door room everything was taken down outsize large disks like the old fashioned 78s. Q. Now can we assume that this is an accurate transcript; there is no reason to doubt it, is there? A. They are normally very accurate transcripts. They had research teams who would have extensive catalogues and indices to check on words and names. Q. Let us look at the German, you will help me when my German strays off course as it very likely will, the relevant passage is at the bottom of page 233. It is line beginning der Altemeyer something triumphantly said quotes: "Hier ist eine Vorgugung" that is an order? A. Not necessarily, that is a strange kind of order. It is more of an ordinance. Q. Yes. Here is an ordinance come, just come? A. Yes. Q. That says, yes? A. Yes. Q. To the effect that, let us say, shall we, dass? A. Yes. Q. This kind of or these kinds of "derartige"? A. That kind of, yes. Q. These kind of? A. Mass shootings. . P-104 Q. Mass shootings, do you hear how I read it, mass shootings? A. Yes. Q. In future, in Zukunft... which means must not take place any more, does it not? A. Yes. Q. "Das soll vorsichtiger gomacht worden"; that means this shall in future be more cautiously or discreetly done? Yes? A. Very good, Mr Rampton, yes. Q. Well, not very good, but it is not very difficult, is it, two things about it? A. Yes. Q. It translates not as "shootings on this scale", it translates as "shootings of this kind"? A. Yes. Q. And the word "mass"? A. Yes. Q. Is underlined. Do you agree that that is likely to reflect the transcriber's impression of the emphasis which Bruns placed upon that word when he spoke it? A. Yes. Q. Good. It is a very significantly different version from the one you have, if I may use a colloquialism "been punting"? A. You mean by leaving off the corollary? Q. Yes, it fits in with the last part of the sentence, "it . P-105 must be done more discreetly"? A. Yes. Q. Does it not? A. Yes. Q. Now why do you reject the second half of that message and embrace the first half? A. We have been over this, but we will attack it from a different angle. We are dealing not with a verbatim transcript of what Altemeyer said, we are dealing with the recollection by a German army general four years later of what Altemeyer had said. We are dealing with a triumphant SS young officer, triumphantly he declaims this. The SS were eager to kill Jews. They were very indignant when orders had come down from whoever that this killing had to stop. They were eager to carry on somehow and so they were eager to find some kind of loophole that they allowed them to go on bumping off their enemies. So he tells the army officer, well, we have the orders but we are going to carry on doing it anyway. Q. Nudge nudge, wink wink, we are going to do it more quietly. A. Yes. Q. It is perfectly plausible. A. I am glad you accept this. Q. That is quite a different thing from suppressing it entirely and perverting its meaning into something . P-106 different. A. I do not accept that I have done that. Q. Which is what you have done. A. I do not accept that. Q. Very well. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Whatever it means, it is not Altemeyer saying, well, we are going, as it were, off our own bat, carry on as before, because the words make it plain it is part of the order that the mass shootings shall be carried out more discreetly in the future. A. When I am writing this up, and also when I am talking about it, I am not just taking this document into account, I am taking into account what we know at both other ends and also the killing of the Germans thereupon stopped. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Right. A. Thank you. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Will you show Mr Rampton if you want to pursue the Stuttgart business. A. After lunch. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Provide it to him. 5 past 2. (Luncheon adjournment) MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving and Mr Rampton, it is court 73 as from Monday. There were problems about Chichester Rents that made it unsuitable. MR IRVING: Thank you very much, my Lord. My Lord, first, one minor matter. I have one minor application to make which . P-107 I would make about this time tomorrow concerning the date of one of the witnesses who is appearing on summons that it would be proper to make to your Lordship. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I know. MR RAMPTON: He may mean Monday, may he not, my Lord? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Monday. MR IRVING: Thank you very much, Mr Rampton. MR JUSTICE GRAY: We are going to review whether we sit on Fridays, but for the moment I think it probably is, in everybody's interests to have, not least yours, Mr Irving, actually. MR IRVING: Thank you very much, my Lord. My Lord, you will have seen the press clipping which I put to you this morning ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I did. MR IRVING: --- from the German newspaper. I will not read it out. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you seen it, Mr Rampton? MR RAMPTON: Yes, I have. MR IRVING: It refers to the year 1996. According to this press clipping, the German government have asked for my extradition to Germany on an allegation, an alleged offence that I committed in 1990. The substance of the allegation is neither here nor there. I am only concerned with the coincidence of time; the fact that after 10 years suddenly this should have occurred now, just as our action . P-108 here is being heard. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not want to cut you short, but I rather sympathise with your view that it is unlikely to be a pure coincidence, but what on earth can I do about it? MR IRVING: Put my mind at rest, my Lord. If we could ask the Defendants whether they have had any advance or prior knowledge in any way at all of this or whether they were contacted at all with the prosecuting authorities in Stuttgart, or whether they contacted the prosecuting authorities. The reason I have to say this, my Lord, is because, as my discovery shows, one of the bodies which I mentioned in my opening statement has corresponded in the past with both the German Embassy and the Austrian Embassy asking for my arrest. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not going to compel Mr Rampton to stand up and give an answer to that question. There are two ways in which you can deal with it if you want to pursue it, and I do not myself feel that you would be well advised to do so, but if you want to pursue it, you can either lay the foundations in your own evidence for me to draw the inference that it must have had something to do with the Defendants -- that is one way of dealing with it -- or you can cross-examine whichever of the Defendants' witnesses you think would be able to answer your questions on this topic. . P-109 I appreciate you understand that Professor Lipstadt will not be being called to give evidence so you will not be able to ask her, but there may be other witnesses, I do not know, who are going to be called by the Defendants whom you could ask. But, to be candid, my feeling is that we have quite enough to gnaw on this in this case without really going down what are effectively side alleys. MR IRVING: Very well. I did wish to draw it to your Lordship's attention in case the morning should arrive when this end of the bench was suddenly empty. MR JUSTICE GRAY: If that were to happen (which I think is unlikely) I will do my best to prevent it. Does that help? MR RAMPTON: So indeed would I. Although your Lordship said you are not going to compel me to answer, but if I may respectfully say so, rightly, Mr Irving did ask me to ask. I did ask and the answer is no. MR JUSTICE GRAY: There you are. You do not have to accept that, but that is what you are told. MR IRVING: Quite clearly, I am sure that Mr Rampton would not have made that statement if it was in any way ^^-- I will accept that assurance, but I will also advance this particular episode as an instance of the kind of hatred that I have faced and the problems that I have faced in view of the allegations and the repugnant suggestions made . P-110 by this Defendant and others. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have dealt with that very clearly in your evidence and, of course, I have that well in mind. MR IRVING: It has a certain actuality about it which is quite impressive. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is true. Yes, if you would like to go back? MR DAVID IRVING, continued. Cross-Examined by MR RAMPTON, QC, continued. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, have we finished, at any rate for the time being, with H17, because if so I will hand it back because I have your copy. That is the German version of Bruns' statement. MR RAMPTON: Yes. I am afraid I have not quite finished with Bruns. I thought I had, but, as usual, that is the trouble with adjournments; things occur to one that one might have asked and did not. But, for completeness, I will ask. (To the witness): Mr Irving, do you still have there the file D3(i) which is the file of published articles or talks by you? A. D3(i), yes. Q. I am looking at tab 30 which is the print of your speech, the JHR conference in October '92. A. Yes.
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