Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day021.13 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 MR IRVING: Mr Rampton has very cleverly pre-empted what I was about to say myself by way of submission. It is true that a few days ago I anticipated two and a half days would cover this, and I attach no blame to your Lordship, if I can put it like that, that this witness has sometimes . P-115 become so prolix in his answers. I have repeatedly tried to curtail the witness's answers, which have sometimes rambled on and on. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not let us seek to apportion blame. What is the prognosis? MR IRVING: The prognosis is that I was going to ask your Lordship, particularly in view of what I would call it, a threat uttered by Mr Rampton that he would take certain other matters that are contained in the report as being agreed or accepted by me unless I did challenge them. In that case I really have to have the time to deal with them seriatim unless your Lordship rules otherwise. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I will tell you this straight, as it were. I have found extremely enlightening the cross-examination that has taken place over the latter part of yesterday afternoon and this morning. So I am not going to give you any encouragement to skip things. Professor Evans is a pretty key witness. MR IRVING: May I make a proposal then, my Lord? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: Clearly, this is going to take more than another half a day this afternoon and another half day tomorrow to deal with the remaining matters. I am very cognisant of the fact that Professor Evans has his own academic commitments that he has to return to, but I do not know whether the procedure will permit him to return for the . P-116 cross-examination to be continued. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think the answer is that, if he has to, he has to. I would prefer that your cross-examination is carried on and completed in one go, as it were. MR IRVING: I have to say straight away that I would not be physically capable of sitting on Friday, for two reasons. Quite physically the burden on me is becoming very serious. MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you say that, I do not even need to ask you to say any more because I accept that. Indeed, I think everybody else finds it essential to have a day to catch up. MR IRVING: It is useless less if I do not come properly prepared. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Shall we deal with it this way? Do you think you will be finished with your cross-examination by close of play tomorrow? MR IRVING: Of this witness? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: The simple answer is no, not at the present rate. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I would prefer it that we did take Friday as a non-court day and that we did, if Professor Evans can bear it, continue him and conclude him hopefully on Monday of next week unless that is going to throw Dr Longerich into confusion. MR RAMPTON: In fact both Dr Longerich and Professor Funke are . P-117 here. I do not have instructions from them at the moment about what their availability is for next week. I was hoping we might actually finish the evidence next week or early the week after. It does not look now as if we shall. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I was hoping it too. MR RAMPTON: I was hoping so, but it does not look like it now because I have three quarters of a day's cross-examination of Mr Irving left, to be fitted in at some stage. I do not mind when. I will have to see if Professor Funke, for example, can come back at the beginning of the week after next if required, and I just do not know the answer to that at the moment. What I would invite your Lordship to do is two things: Invite Mr Irving and indeed, if necessary, rule that he must confine himself to the questions which really matter. That is to say, for example, in relation to Reichskristallnacht, the original documents and the accusations which Professor Evans makes about Mr Irving's interpretation or use of those original documents. I would also invite your Lordship to ask Professor Evans just how problematical next week is, so far as he is concerned. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The first of those suggestions is difficult, because we are now dealing with the meat of Professor Evans' report. There are various ways of . P-118 cross-examining. Sometimes it is not a bad idea to pick a little hole and use it to undermine the witness. I do not think myself that that is the best way of cross-examining this witness on this sort of material, but that is in the end for Mr Irving. MR RAMPTON: I will be blunt, if I may. I do think that the first three quarters, 75 per cent, of this cross-examination has been a complete waste of time, if I may respectfully say so. I deeply mind about that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am going to say this, because I think it is fair to say it in defence of Mr Irving. The first 150 pages of that report are there. MR RAMPTON: Sure. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is not Mr Irving's fault that they are there, and I would have wished that they were not there. MR RAMPTON: Yes, all right. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I will say no more but I will now ask Professor Evans, what about Monday? Are your students all going to fail their exams? A. Monday morning is all right, my Lord, but some of my students have an exam next week. I have five lectures to give. I have presumed an enormous amount on the goodwill of my colleagues for rescheduling lectures and classes. As you appreciate, Cambridge has rather a short term and we already halfway through it effectively. I put all my teaching into the last part of term. . P-119 MR JUSTICE GRAY: So what about Monday afternoon? That is what we are really talking about. A. Monday afternoon I would find very difficult. I have commitments in the late afternoon. MR JUSTICE GRAY: From your point of view, there is everything to be said for getting shot of this altogether? A. My preference would be to sit on Friday but I quite understand the reasons why we cannot. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is a strain being a witness day after day but it is also a very considerable strain cross-examining day after day, probably worse. A. Of course. I really would find it extremely difficult to appear here on Tuesday or indeed any day after next Tuesday for the following three weeks. MR JUSTICE GRAY: What I am going to suggest is, if you can possibly do so, would you mind trying to free Monday afternoon and we will try, even if we have to sit a bit late, to finish you altogether. I hope that is not unrealistic but it does mean we have to keep a foot on the accelerator. MR IRVING: It does provide me with one extra day. MR RAMPTON: I can then tell your Lordship that, so far as Dr Longerich is concerned, the only day next week which is impossible is Thursday. So we could use that as the day off. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think he should be over and done with by . P-120 then. MR RAMPTON: I agree. I do not think he should take more than a day myself, but there it is. It is not in my hands. MR JUSTICE GRAY: What I will not require of Mr Irving is that he goes over the same points with Mr Longerich as he has been through with Professor Evans. MR RAMPTON: No. The second half of Longerich is almost entirely swept aside by Professor Browning. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not saying you should not, but I am saying you do not need to. MR IRVING: Yes. We shall be using Dr Longerich's "Germanness", if I can put it like that, the way that we could not with Professor Browning. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sure. MR RAMPTON: After that, I will see where Professor Funke can be fitted in either later next week or the beginning of the week after. MR JUSTICE GRAY: One problem about sitting too long is that the transcriber who, if I may take the opportunity of saying so, has done an extremely good job, really cannot last, I suspect, for more than two and a half hours. Shall we press on. MR IRVING: I will try and phrase my questions on the remaining days in a way that they can only be answered with short answers. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not feel you have to gallop but could you . P-121 could bear in mind that the big picture matters. MR IRVING: Professor Evans, on page 276 you refer to yet another of my witness with whom you find disfavour, Mr Hederich. A. Yes. Q. You call his testimony highly unreliable on the basis that no other witness claimed that Hitler made a speech before Goebbels. I am referring to paragraph 5 on page 276. A. Yes. Q. Can I draw your attention to the actual text of what he says in the footnote? A. Yes. Q. "Was vorher Hitler selbst gesagt hatte..." A. Yes. Q. Is that any reference to Hitler making a speech? A. It appears to be. Q. Is it not just Hitler having said something? Is that the only reason why you discount this witness's testimony? A. No, it is not. You will have to tell me what you use it for. Q. Turn it page 277, at the beginning of paragraph 6 you say: "So Hederich falsely claimed that Goebbels's speech contradicted a previous speech made by Hitler". A. Yes. Q. When all that we are certain of is that Hederich just said that Goebbels' speech appear to fly in the face of . P-122 something that Hitler had said previously. A. It is not something he said. It is what the translation ---- Q. "Was vorher Hitler selbst gesagt hatte..."? A. Yes. As I say in my translation, he had held a speech and I had the impression that it did not harmonise with what Hitler himself had said before. Q. So there is no reference to a Hitler speech is there? Is it not equally possible that Hitler arrived at this function of the old guard, the old gang, and had mingled a bit, gossiped with people like Hederich, possibly even the death of this diplomat had arisen and, when they heard the speech by Goebbels later, this man Hederich said, "that is funny, it does not sound like what Hitler said to me"? A. That is all speculation. Q. But you agree that there is no reference to a speech? A. He does not say Hitler's speech, no. He says Dr Goebbels held an address and I had the impression that it did not harmonize with what Hitler himself had said before. It seems to me to be a reference to a previous speech. Q. That is the only reason why you say Hederich is a suspect source because he refers to a speech which did not take place? A. No, it is not. Q. Can you give any other reason? A. It is really the use that you make of it. This is an . P-123 interrogation of Hederich, who is an old Nazi. He is a sort of censor. Q. Are we going to rule out everybody who is an old Nazi as a possible source? A. I think one has to regard postwar interrogations of these people. This is an interrogation. Q. Was Rudolf Hess an old Nazi? A. This is an interrogation in Nuremberg on 16th April 1947, and you yourself have cast serious doubts upon interrogations conducted at Nuremberg, but, presumably because this one you regard as being favourable to your point of view, you do not raise those doubts there. Q. The fact is that all---- A. This is another piece of postwar testimony. Q. The tissue of lies and distortion and manipulation, all the rest of it. We know the speech. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have the point on Hederich. MR IRVING: Thank you very much. MR RAMPTON: Before we go on to the next question, one reason why we do not proceed as quickly as one might like, I suspect, is that Mr Irving never lets Professor Evans finish an answer without interrupting. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us move on. That has happened occasionally, I agree. Let us move on. MR RAMPTON: It happened just now. MR IRVING: Without interrupting, can I have an answer, please, . P-124 to the following question? We are now in paragraph 8 on page 278. A. Yes. Q. You dispute the allegation in my book, or the statement in my book, that Goebbels spent much of the night making telephone calls to try and undo the damage. A. Yes. Q. Do I have no evidence for saying that? A. No reliable evidence.
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