Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day020.23 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 Q. Does this render him incapable of speaking under oath the truth? A. Can you show to me the passage in your book where you mention these facts which is necessary for an assessment of the reliability of his evidence? Q. Does it render him incapable of speaking truth under oath in a case like this? A. As the court recognized, he did not speak the truth under oath. It dispensed him of having to take the oath because . P-206 he was regarded as a biased witness. Q. When you translate the passage, "Es ist ein schones Zeichen von Ihnen, wenn Sie zu Gunsten Ihres Fuhrers aussagen", you translated that as: It is a nice testimony to you, that you are speaking out on behalf of your leader." What is the German for "testimony"? A. I can put a nice sign of you, that is fine, it just does not sound quite right in English. Q. What is the German for "testimony"? Is it "zoitnes"? A. Something like that, yes. Q. So you have mistranslated a word there? A. No, I disagree. I am trying to find something that reads reasonably well in English. I think the meaning is the same. Can you just to point to me the page? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I cannot find it. MR IRVING: Page 230, paragraph 2, the last line. A. Yes, if you want to do it literally it is a beautiful sign of you when or if you speak out in favour of your leader. Q. That would be a bit wooden. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It reflects well on you? A. It reflects well on you. It is a nice testimony to you. I do not mean by using the word -- may I just fish, Mr Irving? I do not mean by using the word "testimony" it has anything to do with the testimony he has given. MR IRVING: But it would be a bit wooden, would it not, that translation if you were to translate it with sign and all . P-207 the rest of it? A. Yes, it would. "It is a beautiful sign of yours". I am trying to steer a course here between -- we have spoken about this before. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is a free translation, but it is an entirely accurate one. MR IRVING: You appreciate the point I am trying to make, your Lordship? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do, but I am afraid I am not very impressed by it. MR IRVING: Not impressed by it? The fact that one is inclined to take liberties in a literary sense with a sentence in order to make it more legible. MR JUSTICE GRAY: As long as you get the flavour of what is being said right. MR IRVING: Is not the correct translation of that sentence "good for you, good for you that you are speaking out on before of your leader"? A. No. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Not quite. A. If I may say so, the judge was obviously rather pompous and says it in this rather kind of convoluted pompous way, not in that colloquial manner. MR IRVING: Is it not exactly the same as when his Lordship says things like, "You have done rather well, Mr Irving",, for example, as his Lordship did yesterday, we take it at . P-208 face value and it is not something to be taken all that literally? A. What he says is, "It is a beautiful sign of you when you or it is a nice testimony to you or good for you", if you want to put it colloquially, "it is not just good for you or you have done well; it is good for you that you are speaking out on behalf of your leader", that is what he is saying, your leader. It is quite clear the presiding judge regards ---- MR IRVING: But he is not actually saying ---- A. --- regards -- may I finish, Mr Irving? May I just finish? Q. But you carry on and on and on? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, come on. This is a witness who is trying to answer a point you have made and let he him finish, if he can remember where he had got to. A. It is quite clear the judge knows from the start to finish that Hofmann, that Hitler is Hofmann's leader and he treats the evidence accordingly. MR IRVING: Is it not just a throw away remark by his Lordship in this case to put this witness at his ease, and that is exactly what happens again and again and again in the courtroom, and you have put all this pompous significance on to it in order to try to undermine the value of this police sergeant who is doing his job? A. First of all, I agree of course that it is intended to . P-209 make, it is a nice comment, the judge is trying to be nice to Hofmann. After all, Hofmann whose has not been treated very well. He has not been allowed to present evidence on oath. He has been told that he is too heavily involved in the whole thing, but he says, "it is your leader", and it is quite clear to anybody who reads this rather brief section of testimony that everybody is perfectly well aware that this man's evidence is tainted, because Hitler is his leader, not just because of that statement, but also because, as he says, he was with Hitler frequently, he was head of the political section of the Nazi party's Intelligence Unit, participated in the Putsch, accompanied Hitler for most of the evening of the Putsch. Q. But cutting to the bottom line, is there any reason to believe that this witness made the whole story up? Is there any reason, any subjective or objective reason why we should accept that he made the whole story up? A. Which story? Q. The story about how he had been a witness of Hitler, ticking off this lieutenant and throwing him out of the party? A. There is a serious reason to distrust that testimony. Q. Purely on the basis of the fact he was a Nazi ---- A. I do not think it was taken very seriously by the court, and I think that a responsible author has to present this particular problem to the readership. If you want to make . P-210 use of Hofmann's evidence you simply have to say that he is heavily involved in the Putsch, he is a Nazi party supporter and is regarded as such by the court. Q. Your final criticism is that I do not give proper source notes for this, is that correct? A. Yes. Where is this? Q. Well, that I failed to provide a proper footnote reference. It is the bottom of page 230. A. Yes. Q. Is that a serious criticism or is just your irritation that you had to go and look in the index of your printed edition of this trial? A. Well, it is more than that. I think that you have made it deliberately difficult for people to go and check it out. Q. I have made it deliberately difficult? A. Yes. Q. In what way? A. Do you want to have a look at the footnote reference which you provide or do not provide? Q. Is it not correct that I give the reference as being microfilm version of the trial of the Bavarian people against Adolf Hitler and others? A. Yes, that is 8,000 pages, as you said, Mr Irving. I do think that simply referring to an 8,000 page collection does make it difficult. You could, for example, easily have put the day on which it occurred and given a frame . P-211 number, if there are frame numbers, or a real number, if there are real numbers. There are ways in which you can be more precise. Q. Will you take it from me that the American publisher William Morrow asked me to cut 2,000 lines out the proofs of this book. In other words, at proof stage, they said, Mr Irving, please cut 2,000 lines out of this book. Can you accept that? A. I would have to see the documentary evidence of that. Q. Very well. If that was the case, what are the first places that you would be tempted to make the cuts? A. I agree of course in the footnotes. Q. In the footnotes? A. But in that case I think you still have to abbreviate footnotes. You have to provide footnote references which will enable other people to go and check up what you have written. You could have, you know, done this in such a way as to achieve that object. Q. So, in summary, on the case of this policeman Hoffmann your allegations against me rest on the statement that I ought to have known, or ought to have noticed, there was a Nazi party member and I ought to---- MR RAMPTON: No, my Lord, he did not say "ought to", he said "must have", which is quite different. A. Yes. He did know. MR IRVING: Very well. In that case I have to ask again, on . P-212 what evidence---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: We have been all over that, Mr Irving, really. MR IRVING: Do you have any evidence that I did know? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, Mr Rampton has just reminded you that you accepted that you had read the whole of the trial evidence, including Hoffmann. MR IRVING: Has your Lordship any idea of how many words there are on 8,000 pages of transcript? MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have just been through that point. MR IRVING: Yes, but the fact that one reads 8,000 pages of transcript with no doubt many millions of words does not mean to say that one knows everything that is stated about every person in that transcript. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, what I am going to suggest is that you read the transcript of the last 20 minutes again perhaps, if you have time between now and tomorrow, and I think you will understand why I think you will not do any good to your case by going all over it again. MR IRVING: Well ---- A. The answer to your question, Mr Irving, is no, my case against you here does not rest solely on that. MR IRVING: On Hoffmann? A. On the fact that you suppressed your knowledge of the bias in his testimony. I also, as you know, say that you manipulate what he said. . P-213 Q. What is your evidence for the fact that he was biased in his testimony? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that question has been asked and answered sufficiently. MR IRVING: Except that he stated it as a fact, and of course it is an opinion. MR JUSTICE GRAY: In a sense it is perhaps neither. It is an inference from all the circumstances. MR IRVING: A possible bias, this is true. We now pass to Reichskristallnacht, page 233. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I accept that it is slightly my fault that we spent the last 20 plus minutes on the 1924 trial, but frankly I think it was vital that you did address that. But, having got to ten past 4, would it be sensible to start on Kristallnacht tomorrow morning? MR IRVING: It would be sensible, my Lord. Perhaps I can wave a little flag and say I shall reserve the right to come back to Hoffmann on a later occasion with more material, as your Lordship obviously attaches more significance to it than I do. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Only because is it one of the chain of documents. MR IRVING: I intend dealing with the chain of documents in sequence on a different occasion, I think. It makes more sense. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I say in advance that I am going to have . P-214 to rise just a little bit early tomorrow, say about 4 o'clock rather than 4.15. 10.30 tomorrow. (The witness withdrew). (The court adjourned until the following day) . P-215
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