Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day020.16 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 Q. Is not what I do precisely what a balanced and neutral observer should do? He should provide material on the one side, material on the other side, and easy instantaneous links by Internet to people with a totally contradictory point of view? Is that not what I do? The Holocaust History Project, Niscore, these are web sites with a viewpoint that are completely the opposite and yet I put an instant and easy link to them. A. Yes, but what you are doing here is suggesting that these are two equal sides of some academic scholarly argument and therefore you, as it were, give yourself credence and respectability by doing that. Q. Your final sentence on that page says, "In other words, Irving is using his website to publicize Holocaust denial material", but you do agree that I publicize the other side of the story too, do I not? A. Yes, you do. Q. You think there is only one side of the story that should be publicised? Is that your viewpoint? A. I do not think that the Internet should be used to publicise phoney, fake and falsifying material. Q. You would like to see it censored, would you? You would like to have automatic filters installed? Is that what you are saying? A. I am not saying that at all. I am saying it is your responsibility for what you do. . P-141 Q. In other words, to say that I only publicise Holocaust denial material, as you call it ---- A. I do not think I do that. I do not say that. Q. You accept that on my website I also put documents giving the other point of view? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think he said that two or three times. MR IRVING: Yes. Thank you very much. Can you now turn to page 193? I am now going to look briefly at the DVU, the Deutsche Volks-Union, the German People's Union. Can you estimate approximately how long that political organization has been active in Germany? About 20 years or 30 years? A. My Lord, I am not the expert on this. I understand there is another expert report on this. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that Professor Funke? MR IRVING: Yes. That is why I am only going to question you briefly. MR JUSTICE GRAY: He is coming. I think he is a better chap to ask about DVU. MR IRVING: I am only going to question him very briefly, my Lord. A. I am only concerned with it here in so far as it is connected with or purveys Holocaust denial. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It does not seem to me the best point in the world anyway, so let us move on and leave that for Professor Funke. . P-142 MR IRVING: Just the last line of that paragraph, my Lord, in case Professor Funke does not raise it. "Mr Irving had also been asked by the DVU 'to do lucrative research in the Berlin Document Centre'". That is a quotation from my diary. Is that right, May 19th, 1984? A. Yes. Q. About 16 years ago. Are you familiar with the lucrative research that Dr Frey of DVU asked me to do in the Berlin Document Centre? A. Remind me. Q. Is it right that the Berlin Document Centre at that time was an American government organization which held the entire biographical records on all the top Nazis? A. Yes. Q. Millions and millions of them? A. Yes. A lot, anyway. Q. Is it evident from my diary and from the papers that have been put before you that the research that Dr. Frey and the DVU asked me to was to weasel out the ex Nazis in the German government, get hold of their biographical records showing they were members of the Nazi party, and is this a despicable thing to have done, or in any way would you wish to criticise that kind of operation? A. It depends for the purposes for which they want to do it. For all I know, they may want to do it to make contact with them and applaud them. . P-143 Q. In the spirit of his Lordship's admonition, I shall move on. Just briefly though, you do accept that the German People's Union has at all times been a legal body and has never ever come up against the legal authorities in Germany? A. I think this is more a matter for Professor Funke, really but I understand that it has been under constant observation by the Germans, or for a considerable time under observation by the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution at various land branches of that, as I say, an extreme right-wing organization. Q. Page 195, we are now on a Mr Anthony Hancock. Again, I am not going to deal with him in any detail because I understand that I am going to be cross-examined on Mr Hancock so that is probably the right time to deal with that unless your Lordship feels I should fill in any of the detail. I am only concerned with the fact that you drag in not only Anthony Hancock, but his father, saying that he was a former member of Oswald Mosley's blackshirts. Should this be held against him? A. Yes. Q. I seem to remember that, when I was last in the High Court 30 years ago, the judge was Mr Justice Lawton, and he had also been a member of that organization before the war. MR JUSTICE GRAY: My own view of this is, if may say so, Professor Evans, by all means criticise Mr Irving for his . P-144 relationship with Anthony Hancock if he is a member of the National Front and so on, but I cannot for life of me see what relevance his father's membership of the blackshirts is. A. I am happy to have that left out. It is of no great importance to my report. Q. It is gratuitous and I personally do not think it has any significance at all, so I am entirely with you, Mr. Irving, if I may say so. A. I understood that both of them published, Did 6 million really die, by Richard Harwood? MR IRVING: What connection has that with me? A. That is a Holocaust denial book and you have an association with Anthony Hancock. Q. So a printer prints a Holocaust denial book and this is somehow linked immediately to me. Is this the way you have built up your evidence? A. No. You have an association with Mr Hancock. Q. And, because his father -- is that not what the Nazis called sippenhaft, if somebody in a family has done something wrong, you arrest the whole family? A. Let me read the passage from my report: "Anthony Hancock junior Anthony Hancock hired the venue and distributed tickets for a 'revisionist' seminar in London on 4th July 1992 in which Irving spoke. Hancock's Historical Review Press printed Irving's newsletter Focal Point in the early . P-145 1980s and Hancock was filmed at a Holocaust denial meeting in Munich at which Irving was a guest of honour, and there were various mentions in your diary of the older Hancock who is offering funds and facilities to publish the Churchill biography". I am simply trying to establish there that you have connections with these two Holocaust deniers. Q. This word "Holocaust denier" has become quite frequently fixed in your vocabulary, has it not, 300 times in this report alone? A. I was asked, Mr Irving, to comment on that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not rise to the bait. A. I am sorry, we have been through that many times before, my Lord. MR IRVING: Everybody who is sinister is suddenly called a Holocaust denier and it begins to grate after a time. Can you look at paragraph 11 now? This is the next gentleman. A. I will not rise to that, Mr Irving, on his Lordship's instructions. Q. Here we are: "Perhaps the most sinister of the Holocaust deniers with whom Irving has had extensive and long term contacts was General Otto Ernst Remer". Is that still your view? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think the way to cross-examine, if I may say, on this sort of allegation is, I do not know what the . P-146 facts are, but, Professor Evans, do you realize that I have only met the man twice, or whatever? Asking him if it is still his view is not going to help. Just put what you say is wrong with the proposition that you have had long term contacts with him. That is really the quickest way of dealing with it. MR IRVING: Will you turn to page 91 of bundle F, please. Is that a page from my diary dated July 22nd 1989? A. Sorry, which page? Q. 91 or thereabouts. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Something may have gone wrong with the bundle. MR IRVING: It has. Towards the end it has become a bit screwed up. It will be at the end somewhere. A. No. I am sorry, I do not seem to have it. Q. Bundle F? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think 91, oddly enough, seems to be missing. A. Yes. I do not have it, my Lord. MR IRVING: It will be one of the last two or three pages, a page headed July 22nd 1989. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not have it. I think it should be after the Spectator letter, and it is not. Some people have it. I am sorry, I just do not have it. MR IRVING: The content is almost immaterial. Have you found it, Professor? . P-147 A. No, I have not, but I am familiar with it. Q. It is a one page entry from my diary July 22nd 1989. Does it refer to my driving to a place called Vlotho, and meeting a general called Remer? A. Yes. If it helps, this is dealt with in my written responses. It would hurry things up a bit. Q. Now I come to the question which his Lordship wishes me to ask. Will you agree that this is the only one time or occasion on which I have ever met General Remer and had a conversation with him? A. Yes. I will withdraw the "extensive and long term contacts". You had contacts with him in 1989 at that particular occasion that you mention. There Remer was present at Munich on 21st April 1990 when you were speaking. You were to have spoken to a meeting which was cancelled, a meeting alongside side Remer in 1991. Q. I am sorry to halt your flood of rhetoric but can I read out to you your first sentence of paragraph 11, please? A. You had plenty of close and repeated contacts with---- MR RAMPTON: I do believe that Mr Irving is occasionally guilty of discourtesy. My Lord. I would not interrupt a witness like that in that aggressive---- MR IRVING: I have to interrupt, Mr Rampton, because otherwise ---- MR RAMPTON: I am speaking to his Lordship, Mr Irving. Please remain quiet. I am making an objection to the way in . P-148 which Mr Irving is attempting to harrass the witness. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The objection is entirely well founded. Would you like to pick it up where you left off, Professor Evans, which was you were talking of a meeting in 1991. A. Yes, and you had repeated contacts with Karl Philip, who was Remer's assistant in 1989 to 1991, page 1967. I mention the meeting in Munich again, and of course your Action Report website carried an obituary praising Remer as loyal to the old cause. So what I think I say I is that I withdraw "extensive and long term contacts" and I would say that you were in contact with General Remer in the period 1989 to 1991 1. MR IRVING: Can I now read into the record therefore the sentence which you are withdrawing: "Perhaps the most sinister of the Holocaust deniers with whom Irving has had extensive and long term contacts was General Otto Ernst Remer", and it turns out I had a conversation with him only once. As your Lordship will see from the diary entry, it was an entirely proper conversation where I interviewed him for the purpose of the Goebbels book and all the rest is waffle. A. I have said I would withdraw "extensive and long term". I hope that satisfies you. Q. On 197, five lines from the bottom, you say: "He (Irving in other words), was active" ---- A. No, sorry. That is a mistake. That is Remer. . P-149 Q. So you are not suggesting that I was active in the HIAG? A. No. That is a misunderstanding on your part, Mr Irving. It refers back to Remer early in the sentence. Q. I continue: "He was active in the HIAG, an organisation for ex members of the SS with which Irving also had contacts". A. Yes. Q. Now what on earth is the source for that particular allegation? A. The February 1979 issue of the HIAG house magazine Der Frewillige, volunteer, carries an interview with you by someone called Joachim Cannicht, which I presume is a pseudonym, and one presumes therefore that contact with the magazine and thus with its parent organization were necessary in order to set up and carry out the interview unless you are telling me you did not give the interview or you were not aware of who was doing it.
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