Witness
StatementMy name is Peter Millar
[address
withheld by Website]. I am a
freelance journalist and writer,
permanently resident at [address
omitted]. I am a fluent German and
Russian speaker, having worked in both
countries and a degree in the latter.
The following is an account of my
encounters with David Irving and my
knowledge of his involvement with The
Sunday Times (Times Newspapers Ltd.) in
connection with his 1992 research on
the Goebbels
diaries in the Moscow archives.
I first met Mr. Irving in London on
or about May 28, 1992 and in Moscow on
or about June 7, 1992. The Sunday
Times had asked me to act for them in
dealing with the officials of the
Moscow archives where David Irving was
attempting to gain access to the
Goebbels Diaries. I have recently
(1999) been shown the personal diary,
headed "David Irving, Relevant
Extracts from 1992 Diaries," in so far
as it concerns me and my own knowledge
of events if largely conforms with my
own recollection of those events, even
if some of the details have been
expanded beyond my own experience.
Mr. Irving told me that he had
obtained from a friend at the Munich
Institute für Zeitgeschichte
information on where to locate the
Goebbels Diaries. This friend had given
him the visiting card of Dr. Bondarev,
director of the former Soviet special
archives building in Viborksaya Ulitsa,
to use as an introduction to him. These
archives were in a dilapidated building
set up specially to house records
captured from Berlin in 1945. The
filing system was extremely archaic and
consisted chiefly of detailed Russian
translations on flimsy copying paper of
the German originals.
Mr. Irving and I spoke with Bondarev
and then subsequently in the
headquarters of the Russian Federation
Archival Service with his chief Mr.
Tarasov. I myself conducted the
preliminary negotiations for access,
with Dr. Bondarev in Russian and with
Tarasov in Russian and German on behalf
of The Sunday Times. No written
agreement was made, everything was
arranged verbally. Tarasov telephoned
instructions in our presence to Dr.
Bondarev at the archives to allow Mr.
Irving access to the glass plates.
After Mr. Irving was allowed access,
he told me that the boxes of
microfiches were stored in a very bad
condition, in weak cardboard boxes,
with the individual boxes overfilled
and no kind of special packaging to
protect them. The archivists were, as
most Soviet state employees, unfamiliar
with the concept of outsiders having
access to their material. They had no
modern facilities for copying or
reading microfiches. During this first
visit (June 1992) Mr. Irving used a
small hand-held magnifying glass.
I visited the archives room once or
twice while Mr. Irving and his
assistant were working through the
boxes of plates. As he reviewed the
boxes and their contents, Mr. Irving
selected individual plates for copying.
The Sunday Times had agreed with him a
list of historical episodes for which
we wanted to find the corresponding
diary. Mr. Irving copied some pages out
in handwriting, dictated other extracts
onto a handheld dictation tape
recorder, and he typed up extracts from
other pages on a portable
typewriter.
As far as I am aware, there was no
written agreement between Mr. Irving or
ourselves (Times Newspapers Ltd.) and
the archives on the usage or copying of
the Goebbels diaries. The agreement was
reached verbally between myself and the
Russians, who were extremely
helpful.
To my knowledge, no money was paid
to them either then or later. Mr.
Irving told me there
[omitted: had
been rivalry] between
himself and the Munich-based Institut
für Zeitgeschichte over access to
the plates. The institute was trying to
persuade the Moscow officials to limit
or curtail his access to the plates. It
was agreed that The Sunday Times would
make copies of some plates but no
number was settled upon formally.
On one occasion, after the archives
closed for the day, to my extreme
annoyance, Mr. Irving told me he had
secretly removed two plates from the
archives to show to Andrew Neil, the
Sunday Times editor who was also in
Moscow at the time. These plates he had
concealed in a James Bond-style fashion
outside the institute. I told him this
was foolish and risked jeopardising the
whole agreement - an opinion he thought
to be rather 'wimpish'. I insisted they
be replaced the next day, which, to the
best of my knowledge, they duly
were.
To my knowledge no other person than
Mr. Irving was using the glass plates
while we were in Moscow or had
requested access to them in many
years.
Mr. Irving told me that at the end
of his first stay, he borrowed two
glass plates and took them back to
Munich for copying on professional
microfiche printing equipment at the
Institute für Zeitgeschichte.
Times Newspapers Ltd. also wished, at
my recommendation, to carry out tests
in England on the photographic emulsion
and glass of the plates for
authentication purposes. I understand
that a Times Newspapers staff member
returned the plates to Moscow in early
July, and Mr. Irving says he replaced
the plates in the archives.
Mr. Irving subsequently delivered to
the Sunday Times his transcripts of the
diaries. Several of these
transcriptions the newspaper published
during July 1992. Der Spiegel published
them in Germany and several other
newspapers around the world also
published them. To the best of my
knowledge there were no complaints that
he had distorted or mistranscribed or
manipulated the texts. Several of his
transcripts I myself checked against
the copied plates and found them to be
accurate, although given the difficulty
in deciphering Goebbels' old-style
German script I was not in a position
to transcribe more than a few.
I visited Mr. Irving at his London
residence on May 28, 1992 and on two
other occasions to discuss his deal
with The Sunday Times. On no occasion
did I notice a self-portrait of Hitler
over his desk, although he did show me
a watercolour (of a street scene, I
think) which he said had been painted
by Hitler.
Peter J. Millar
dated London, January 21, 1999