Testimony
of Vladimar Petrovich Tarasov I, Vladimar Petrovich Tarasov, working at 12
Il'inka Street, 103132 Moscow, hereby testify as
follows. 1. I have been working for the Federal Archive
Service of Russia, formerly known as the Committee
for Archive Affairs attached to the Government of
the Russian Federation (hereinafter referred to as
"ROSARKHIV") since 1991. I am now the deputy
manager of ROSARKHIV. In 1992, I took on the
function of head of the Department of International
Contacts of ROSARKHIV. At that time, Viktor
Nikolayevich Bondaryev occupied the post of
Director of the Central State Special Archive,
which was subsequently renamed the Centre for the
Preservation of Collections of Historical Documents
(hereinafter referred to as "the Centre"). My
duties included deciding on questions associated
with access by foreign nationals to the documents
contained in the Russian State Archives with which
the Centre was connected. The history of the Centre 2. This archive was set up in 1946 to preserve
materials captured from the Nazis during the second
world war. It was initially a secret archive to
which the public did not have access. In 1951 it
moved to the building it currently occupies on
Vyborgskaya Street not far from the centre of
Moscow. In 1992, it became a public archive and was
renamed. The diaries of Josef Goebbels
(hereinafter referred to as "the Diaries") 3. Josef Goebbels kept the Diaries from 1924 to
1945. On his instructions, four back-up copies were
made of the original Diaries on glass plates. Each
plate accommodated up to 45 pages of text. 66 boxes
and 9 envelopes containing these materials fell
into our hands at the end of the second world war.
Some copies of the Diaries are preserved in the
Federal Archive of the FRG in Koblenz. By 1992,
this part of the Diaries had already been published
by the Munich Institute of Modern History
(hereinafter referred to as "IMH") together with
the Federal German Archive. Dr Elke Fröhlich 4. On 11 March 1992, ROSARKHIV sent the Centre a
letter concerning the IMH employee Dr Elke
Fröhlich, requesting that she be permitted to
become acquainted with the documents of the Centre
relating to Goebbels. This letter was essential if
access was to be gained to the documents in
accordance with the rules that had been laid down.
Dr Fröhlich visited the Centre at the end of
the same month and became acquainted with the
documents. No copies were made for her.
Subsequently, in June 1992, ROSARKHIV concluded an
agreement with IMH concerning an academic edition
of the Diaries. Starting in July 1992, in
accordance with the instructions of ROSARKHIV,
copies were made of the Diaries taken from the
Centre by Elke Fröhlich and other IMH staff
and passed on to the IMH for publication. The request of Mr Irving 5. At the end of May 1992, I received a letter
from Mr Irving, requesting me to send him an
invitation, which he needed to obtain a Russian
visa. He informed me that he was working on a
biography of Goebbels and wanted to come to Moscow
to conduct research at the Centre. I did not send
him an invitation, however. Meeting between Mr Millar and Mr
Irving 6. At the start of June 1992, Peter Millar, a
journalist working for the Sunday Times newspaper,
contacted V.N. Bondaryev concerning access to the
Diaries. V.N. Bondaryev informed me that he had met
Mr Millar and told him that permission would have
to be obtained from ROSARKHIV and that he (V.N.
Bondaryev) had no powers to grant such permission.
Mr Millar therefore contacted me, and we arranged a
meeting. Mr Irving arrived in Moscow at that time.
He was here at the time of my meeting with Mr
Millar on 9 June. 7. Mr Millar introduced Mr Irving as a respected
and authoritative historian working ona biography
of Goebbels. Neither of them mentioned using the
documents for purposes other than historical
research. In view of the excellent references of Mr
Irving given by Mr Millar, and in the absence of
any reason to refuse access to the Diaries, I gave
them permission to become acquainted with the
plates in the reading room at the Centre. Visit by Mr Irving to the Centre on 9 - 11
June 8. As far as I am aware, Mr Irving started work
on the very day that he received permission to work
at the Centre. He visited the Centre over a number
of days and studied the Diaries. Before leaving for
London, Mr Irving requested that he be permitted to
take copies from the glass negatives in order to
illustrate a one-off report on the Diaries in the
Sunday Times. He intended to copy the plates during
his next visit to Moscow. Mr Irving received
approval in principle to copy up to 100 pages of
the Diaries. Mr Irving's next visit to Moscow at the end
of June/start of July 1992 9. On 19 June, Mr Irving informed me by fax of
his intention to arrive in Moscow on 25 June in
order to complete his work at the Centre and
requested that he be provided with the glass plates
for a short period (1 or 2 days) to enable him to
take copies within the permitted limits. As there
was no appropriate copying equipment at the Centre
at that time, contrary to our normal working
procedure, I allowed Mr Irving and Mr Millar to
take two glass plates out of the Centre to the
offices of the Sunday Times newspaper situated in
Moscow. in order to take their copies. We allowed
this because Mr Millar and Mr Irving convinced us
(as it later turned out by means of deception) that
Mr Irving was a reputable historian. Our permission
did not include the right to take the plates
abroad. The agreement between ROSARKHIV and IMH
specifying, in particular, that ROSARKHIV "shall
not grant any legal or natural person the right to
copy or disseminate in full the diaries of Josef
Goebbels covering the period 1924 to 1945 preserved
in the archives coming under the jurisdiction of
ROSARKHIV" was already applicable at that time. Mr
Irving returned the glass plates to the Centre on 3
July. The period between Mr Irving's visits 10. When Mr Irving visited Moscow for the second
time, I was unaware that he had removed glass
plates and taken them out of the country after his
first visit. On 29 June, ROSARKHIV received a fax
from IMH providing a proper description of Mr
Irving and his activities and also informing us
that Mr Irving had visited IMH in Munich, taken
copies from the plates removed from Moscow and
asked for their genuineness to be verified. It was
immediately after this that the scandal concerning
the advertisement in the Sunday Times newspaper
indicating that access had been gained to the
Diaries broke in the mass media. The results of the scandal 11. As a result of the scandal surrounding the
activities of Mr Irving, I was already aware at the
beginning of July that he was in infringement of
what we had agreed with him, the rules governing
work at the Centre and Russian legislation when he
took the plates out of the country and took copies
of more than the permitted number of 100 pages. The
management of ROSARKHIV decided to deprive Mr
Irving of the right to work in Russian state
archives. To implement this decision, on 24 August
1992, V.N. Bondaryev issued an order to deprive Mr
Irving of the right to work in the reading room of
the Centre. 12. As there was widespread interest in the mass
media about my attitude to the above, I met the
independent journalist Peter Pringle, who had taken
an interest in these events, and gave him an
interview. I saw a copy of the article by Mr
Pringle, which was printed on 4 July in the
"Independent" newspaper. I can confirm that the
quotes attributed to me are accurate as far as I
can recall. 13. I did not answer Mr Irving's letter of 11
August, in which he thanked me for my co-operation
and informed me about the publication in the
"Süddeutsche Zeitung" newspaper of 6 August of
his denials concerning the publication in that
newspaper on 22 July of the article "Sensation on
glass plates". I had no desire at all to enter into
a correspondence with a man who had abused my trust
for his own improper ends. If I had known what sort
of a person Mr Irving was, of course I would not
have helped him to gain access to the Diaries, let
alone take copies of the glass plates outside the
Centre. 14. The contents of the above statement are
accurate as far as I can recall and to the best of
my belief. Signed: V.P. Tarasov Date December 1998 | 
