Day 19 Transcript: Holocaust Denial on Trial

Part I: Initial Proceedings (1.1 to 4.6)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE 1996 I. No. 113 QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London Monday, 14th February 2000 Before: MR JUSTICE GRAY B E T W E E N: DAVID JOHN CAWDELL IRVING Claimant -and- (1) PENGUIN BOOKS LIMITED (2) DEBORAH E.

LIPSTADT Defendants The Claimant appeared in person MR RICHARD RAMPTON Q.C. (instructed by Messrs Davenport Lyons and Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of the First and Second Defendants MISS HEATHER ROGERS (instructed by Davenport Lyons) appeared on behalf of the First Defendant Penguin Books Limited MR ANTHONY JULIUS (of Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of the Second Defendant Deborah Lipstadt (Transcribed from the stenographic notes of Harry Counsell & Company, Clifford’s Inn,

Fetter Lane, London EC4 Telephone: 020-7242-9346) (This transcript is not to be reproduced without the written permission of Harry Counsell &Company) PROCEEDINGS – DAY NINETEEN

<Day 19) Monday, 14th February 2000 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Mr Irving. MR IRVING: May it please the court. I have given your Lordship a little bundle of documents. That is a bundle of translations, my Lord, is that right, which your Lordship asked for, the Kommissar order and various other documents. I do not think your Lordship needs to look at it now, but your Lordship did ask for the translations. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is very kind of you. Thank you.

The usual question, where should it go? MR RAMPTON: We do not have them. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where is the Kommissar order in German? MR IRVING: I have a set of copies for the Defence, but I forgot to bring them. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Could somebody look out where the Kommissar order is in German? MR RAMPTON: We do not have the translations, so I do not know what document it is. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do you remember the Kommissar order being referred to?

I am not actually sure we have it in German either. Anyway, can I leave it with you? MR IRVING: Yes, guidelines and Kommissar order. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON: The one of May 1941, is that the one? MR IRVING: That is correct, yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: June, I think.

MR IRVING: My Lord, I have also given you a little bundle which I have called temporarily bundle F, Professor Evans. These are documents which, in the course of cross-examination, I intend to put to Professor Evans. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is very helpful to have them all in one place. MR IRVING: I have provided the defence with four or five sets. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you. MR RAMPTON: My Lord, there is something I should wish to mention, if I may. I do it now because time is getting short.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON: I received on Sunday, yesterday, what purports to be a further witness statement of Dr Fox. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON: Has your Lordship been sent that? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think so, no. MR RAMPTON: I think your Lordship should be given a copy. MR IRVING: I have a copy but in fact I decided not to call that witness. I should say that now in fact. MR RAMPTON: That is helpful. I can sit down and be quiet.

MR IRVING: Quite simply, the witness was going to testify on two matters. One was what Mr Rampton referred to as freedom of speech matters, and I was also going to add to that the police decodes, but I decided on balance that I know as much about the police decodes as he does. We

have both worked on the same body, so I think it would help to save the court’s time if we do not call him and just rely on his written statement. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is a matter for you, obviously. MR IRVING: My Lord, I now wish to continue the cross-examination of Professor Evans.

Part II: Professor Evans Cross-Examined by Irving (4.7 to 113.22)

Section 4.7 to 20.16

< PROFESSOR EVANS, Recalled < Cross-examined by MR IRVING, continued. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Professor Evans, come back into the witness box. I wondered before you start, Mr Irving, if I might ask one question that is in my mind of Professor Evans. It is this. You were asked, you remember, on Thursday what material of Mr Irving’s you had been studying in order to arrive at the conclusions you arrived at in your written report. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.

Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Your answer was that you had focused, at any rate, on what Mr Irving described as the chain of documents on which he relies for his contention that Hitler was relatively friendly towards the Jews. I should know myself the answer to this, but where does Mr Irving make his reference to the chain of documents? I think it is his phrase, is it not? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, it is.

Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: I simply cannot remember where and when he made that reference.

MR IRVING: My Lord, perhaps I can help? I have made reference in various speeches to the chain of documents of course, and talks, and probably in the introduction to —- MR RAMPTON: Your Lordship will find it on page 220 of Professor Evans’s report at paragraph 4.3A(1). MR JUSTICE GRAY: Now that is on the transcript, that may really be enough, but can I go to it? MR RAMPTON: BBC Television in June 1977. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is sufficient, Professor Evans. Thank you.

Yes, Mr Irving. Do you want to pause and find it? It will be quicker if you have it, I suspect. MR IRVING: I made a number of sets for the gentlemen of the press this morning so that they can follow what we are doing, because there were complaints about that, my Lord.

Today I intend to continue to explore in general, if I can just in two lines tell you what I am going to be doing, the credibility of the witness with special reference to the remarks that he has made about my methodology in the introductory parts of his report. We will certainly cover the first 100 to 150 pages of the report today, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You must take your own course, but bear in mind in the end I am anxious to look at the individual criticisms as well as the general comments. MR IRVING: Yes.(To the witness): Professor Evans, today is the 55th anniversary of the air raid on Dresden. Would you have described that as a Holocaust?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I could have described that as “a” Holocaust, but I would, of course, make a distinction between that and “the” Holocaust as it has come to be known. One can use the term “Holocaust”. It is, I believe, used for any event which involves large scale fire or burnings commonly used in every day reporting. That is a distinct thing from “the” Holocaust which I think has a special meaning. Q. [Mr Irving]: That is the etymology of the word.

It means “consumed by fire” or “sacrificed by fire”. Are you aware that in your report the phrase “Holocaust denier” occurs 261 times? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have to confess I did not count. Q. [Mr Irving]: In fact, the words “denier” or “denial” occur 352 times, which is a degree of repetition, would you agree? Are you obsessed with Holocaust deniers? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I most certainly am not.

I have to say I have not really confronted the phenomenon until this case but, of course, it is at the centre. It is perhaps the central issue in this case and so I think, since I was asked to write about it in my report, it is inevitable that that phrase occurs many times. Q. [Mr Irving]: You say you were not confronted with it until this trial. Do you normally write about things you have not studied in any kind of depth?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think that historians always need to move on to new subjects, face a new challenge, otherwise they would be endlessly repeating themselves.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I draw your attention to page 206 of the book which you wrote? Do you recognize the book that you wrote? This is the American edition? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, indeed.

Q. [Mr Irving]: I will just read out a passage, if I may, of your own words from page 206: “Holocaust denier literature which declares that six million Jews were never murdered by the Nazis and that Auschwitz and similar extermination camps are fabrications of a postwar anti-German proJewish political lobby” — is the way you still define Holocaust denial, the statement that Auschwitz and the other camps did not exist?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Could I have a look at that passage, please? Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. It is on page 206 of the book. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Thank you very much. Q. [Mr Irving]: What I am asking you is has your position changed in view of the —- A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Page and what? Q. [Mr Irving]: 206.

It is the paragraph beginning “Extreme relativism” and towards the end of that paragraph, I repeat: “Thus ‘Holocaust denial literature’ which declares that six million Jews were never murdered by the Nazis and that Auschwitz and similar extermination camps are fabrications of a postwar anti-German proJewish political lobby”. My question is this. Is this the way you define Holocaust denial now or have you changed?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. That is rather carelessly phrased, I am afraid. I think I was trying to say there — “extermination” is the central word there, that such camps were used mainly or exclusively for extermination. I can see what you mean. It is slightly carelessly phrased, I have to admit.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Is it possible to accept that the Nazis murdered in the most brutal manner very large numbers of Jews by whatever means and still be a Holocaust denier, in your view? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That depends on what you mean by “very large numbers”. I think I defined in my report what I mean by Holocaust denial. Q. [Mr Irving]: Like one or two million people. Would that be acceptable?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think you have to take the different — I have listed four what I think are central elements of the Holocaust denial. Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: And those four elements I think go together, they do include a minimisation of numbers. Q. [Mr Irving]: So any reduction of the numbers, whatever, is a denial? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think it is difficult to be very precise about this.

I say in my report that the generally accepted number by historians is between 5 and 6 million, and there are a number of disputes about that, but it does go together with the three other conditions of Holocaust denial which I lay out in my report. Of course, I think I do say in my report that some people would, as it were, fall into one

category of the four, but not into the others. Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. Were these four categories arbitrarily set up by you, like to make them fit like a shoe the Claimant in this present case, or did you always have these categories in mind long you before you were commissioned to be an expert witness in this case? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Neither, to be honest.

When I was commissioned to be an expert witness, of course the first thing I did was to study the literature on Holocaust denial, and from that literature, as you can see from my report, I go through it at some length. There are varying different definitions of conditions by the different political scientists and historians who have written about it, but those four I think are common to all of the definitions that I looked at in the course of preparing this report. Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.

They do vary, though, do they not, these four sets of definitions by the different authors? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not think these four sets really vary. Of course they are put in slightly different ways and different authors add on other conditions, some of them peculiar to the time at which they were writing. Q. [Mr Irving]: So, if somebody was to knock off two or three million arbitrarily from the figures, that would be Holocaust denial?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: If it is arbitrary, then I think it involves an element therefore of falsification of history, which then I think

falls into that category, but I do want to stress that these four conditions should be taken together. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is not all or nothing, is it? You can get somebody who is an outright 100 per cent denier and somebody who perhaps does not deny it to the same full blooded extent? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Exactly, my Lord, it is not a hard and —- Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: I think arguing about definitions is not hugely productive? MR IRVING: I agree, my Lord.

We should not really be asking an expert witness about meanings of words, I appreciate that, my Lord, but I am working towards something. You have a little bundle of documents in front of you, a loose bundle called F? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not, actually. Q. [Mr Irving]: Will you turn to page (it should be) 37, which is a photograph? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: They are numbered on the bottom? Q. [Mr Irving]: They are numbered on the bottom, the one after that please?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you agree that that says it is a plaque, is that correct, a memorial plaque? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right, yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you recognize that plaque? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not, to be honest, no.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Will you agree that it says: “4 million people suffered and died here at the hands of the Nazi murderers between the years 1940 and 1945″? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, that is what it says. Q. [Mr Irving]: Will you now turn the page please? Is that another plaque? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, that is right. Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you recognize that plaque? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not now that I can see what it is.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Does it appear to be in the same place as where the previous plaque was? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I will take your word for it. Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you agree this one says: “Never let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women and children, namely Jews from various countries of Europe”? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right. Q. [Mr Irving]: Is this also Auschwitz?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: They are both in Auschwitz, yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: So somebody has arbitrarily reduced the figure from 4 million to about 1.5 million? Is that Holocaust denial? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not agree that the reduction was arbitrary. I think inevitably in the immediate aftermath of the war there was an enormous amount of uncertainty about the numbers who had died.

This does not have a date on it, but I think the 4 million is a plaque which was erected

very shortly after the war and, as research progressed, then the true number of people who died in Auschwitz was more closely approached, so it is an arbitrary reduction. Q. [Mr Irving]: Is the first figure, which is the figure of 4 million, in any way associated with the figure of 4 million that was propagated by the Soviet Union in the first postwar years for the victims in Auschwitz, in your opinion? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have to say I do not know enough about Auschwitz.

I am not an expert on Auschwitz. You had an expert on Auschwitz here. Q. [Mr Irving]: We will keep it in general terms.

If you were told (as we have heard) that Dr Piper, the director of the Auschwitz State Museum at the time that first plaque was in existence, and who arranged for it to be removed and replaced by the second plaque, has stated that the first plaque was purely propaganda, would you accept that this is evidence of politicization of the Holocaust and the figures connected with it?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think, well, I would have to see Dr Piper’s statement before I could accept that is what he said, of course. I mean —- Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I draw your attention back we — will leave that subject. Can I now take you back to your book, please? MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have not got your answer yet. I think the object of the exercise is to get the answer to the question, Mr Irving.

MR IRVING: My Lord, his answer was the now familiar one that he has not seen the document. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, well, he was actually going on to say something else. Would you like to complete it? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Obviously, I accept that there is an element of propaganda in the official memorialization by the Soviet Union and its satellites in the period of Communism.

That is particularly evident, for example, in the absence of any mention of Jews in this first plaque, whereas in the second one it does say mainly Jews. I think it is the case that in the postwar years the Soviet Union and the authorities in Communist Eastern Europe did want to minimise the element of Jewish dead amongst the —- MR IRVING: As evidence of general Polish anti-semitism or? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not think that is true.

I think it is a number of different things. It is not that. Q. [Mr Irving]: While you have your book in front of you, Professor Evans, will you remain on page 206 and look at the next paragraph briefly, which begins with the words: “A leading authority”. I am sorry, my Lord, that I should have provided your Lordship with the lines I am going to refer to, but it is very brief. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.

Q. [Mr Irving]: I will read it out: “A leading authority on this literature, which is Holocaust denial literature, Professor Deborah E. Lipstadt”, that is the Second

Defendant in this case? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right. Q. [Mr Irving]: “… of Emery University, Atlanta, Georgia, consistently refuses to take part in public debates with the deniers on the ground ‘to do so would give them a legitimacy and a stature that they in no way deserve”? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you any comment on this refusal to debate? Is it a position of strength or a position of weakness, do you think?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think it is a position of principle. Q. [Mr Irving]: A position of principle? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not think it is a tactical consideration, in my understanding of it. Q. [Mr Irving]: Is it a principle that you, as an academic, would willingly adopt?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think, yes, I do not think that Holocaust deniers are academics or scholars or academically or scholarly respectable, and I would not take part in seminars or discussions with them on that basis. Q. [Mr Irving]: So Holocaust deniers, as you once again use this favourite phrase of yours, are a form of low academic life or low life, in fact, because most of them who have not been academics find themselves cast out? Is that your opinion?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not agree with any of those statements. First of

all, it is not a favourite phrase of mine. It is a phrase which I have to use because it is at the centre of this case, as I make no apology for that. I do not like using phrases like “low life” or “low form of life” and, to my knowledge, I have never used those phrases.

The problem is not that they are not academic; the problem is what they are engaging in, in my view, is a politically motivated falsification of history, and that is why I think, on the whole, I would endorse and accept Professor Lipstadt’s position. Q. [Mr Irving]: But is it not equally arguable that the use that is made of the Holocaust and that immense tragedy inflicted on the Jews during World War II has just been equally politicized for other purposes, whether good or bad?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think there is, obviously, a political element in a great deal of historical writing, if not all historical writing, to some measure or other, but I would distinguish between the historians’, as it were, control of that through reference to the documents and through the attempt to arrive at an objective interpretation which is in accordance with the documents, on the one hand, and deliberate falsification and invention on the other.

I think the Holocaust deniers belong to the latter category. Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you consider —- A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: And, of course, in academic and scholarly discussions, one

puts aside political aspects and concentrates on the issues. Q. [Mr Irving]: But it is a commonly held view, even among Jewish academics, that the Holocaust is being abused for political purposes now. Are you aware of the writings of Norman Finglestein, for example? Do you have any opinion about his qualifications as an academic or as a writer? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have — I am eagerly awaiting his book.

He has written an article and a couple of reviews which I think give some foretaste, but I would not want to make a judgment on these views. Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you, by any chance, read what he wrote in The Times Literary Supplement, I believe it was, in January, suggesting that the whole of the Holocaust propaganda campaign started around about the time of the 1967 June war?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think that both Finglestein and Peter Novic, whose book I have read with great interest, and Tim Cole.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you identify Peter Novic, University of —- A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The University of Chicago, yes, and another similar book by Tim Cole of the University of Bristol, I think — are talking about the public presentation of the Holocaust —- Q. [Mr Irving]: Are they —- A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: — and the political —- Q. [Mr Irving]: — Holocaust deniers in your book?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, they are not because they are not, they are certainly not denying that i happened in the terms in which I described it in my report. They are talking about the public presentation of history, as in these memorial plaques that you have illustrated. That, I think, is a different thing from the scholarly working up of history. None of them would fall into any of the four, or satisfy any of four, conditions that I have laid down for Holocaust denial.

They do not minimise the numbers. They do not deny the use of gassing to kill large numbers of Jews. They do not deny that is systematic, and they do not claim that the evidence was invented or fabricated. They are talking about something quite different which is the public presentation and use which, indeed, of course, by its very nature is going to be subject to political influences. Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. They are all American academics, are they? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No.

Tim Cole is a British academic. Finglestein, I am not sure, I think he is American. Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. Would they be able to propagate their views safely in this country or in France or in Germany, do you think, without fear of either losing their academic privileges or even arrest and prosecution? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I do not think that is a question that is really going to help in this case, if I may say so.

MR IRVING: My Lord, I am just trying to establish that Holocaust deniers, if I can adopt the witness’s phrase, do not have it easy to propagate their views, and if the debate seems lopsided, it is because, on the one hand, people refused to debate and, on the other hand, the people are arrested and locked away. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but you had rather veered off Holocaust deniers to the historians who take the view that there has been some politicization of the Holocaust from 1967 onwards.

MR IRVING: In that case, may I just revert very briefly to Professor —- A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I mean, my answer is yes, if that helps. I mean, Dr Cole has not suffered at all from his book and Professor Novic’s book is about to be published in this country. MR IRVING: You have expressed words of distaste for Professor Faurisson who, of course, is no longer a Professor? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Where do I do this?

Q. [Mr Irving]: When you were last standing and the witness box on Thursday. I mentioned his name. You said you did not consider him to be an academic and you —- A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think — I am not sure I said that. I would have to see the transcript. Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. Are you aware of the damage that was inflicted on Professor Faurisson for holding his principles and views, for holding to his principles as a Holocaust denier?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am aware that he was deprived of his university post, most certainly, yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you turn, please, to page 57 of the bundle, the little bundle? I am very sorry, it is at bundle E, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I know. MR IRVING: The global bundle. I am afraid that you may not have the photographs there. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I only have 55 pages, I am afraid. MR JUSTICE GRAY: So have I.

MR IRVING: In that case I will produce two pages to you. That is Professor Faurisson after he was taught a lesson for his principles and views. Is this the way you think academics should be dealt with? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Most certainly not, no. Q. [Mr Irving]: Thank you very much. The reason I am asking that, my Lord, is evident because I wish to bring to the attention of the court the dangers that befall somebody in public life who is accused of being a Holocaust denier.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do it, by all means. I am not quite sure that I see how that advances your case here. MR IRVING: Oh, very definitely, my Lord, I submit. I have already suggested it in connection with the Hamas and Hisbollah allegation; I have been exposed to very severe risks. In connection with being accused of being a Holocaust denier, I have been exposed to the risk of what

happened to Professor Faurisson. His jaw was smashed so badly, it was wired together for six weeks and he had acid poured in his eyes, and he was a man slightly older than myself. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I have tried to explain to you earlier that all this sort of thing can be relevant to damage, but it has to be linked to the Defendants. MR IRVING: I shall be making a submission on damages later on. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just bear in mind that that is the way I am seeing it.

MR IRVING: As this witness did refer to Professor Faurisson in terms of rebuke, I thought it appropriate to show him photographs of what happened to people who stick to their principle at the other end of the scale. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not think you can make me responsible for what happened to Professor Faurisson.

Section 20.17 to 32.15

Q. [Mr Irving]: No. Witness, you have read or your researchers have read very large parts of my diaries and private papers and lectures and speeches? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you at any time in any of those readings come across any evidence whatsoever that I was associated with the Hamas or the Hisbollah terrorist leaders or with Lewis Farakan, the notorious black American anti-semite?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, that was not what I was asked to do, so we did not read them for that purpose.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Even so, can you answer? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: We read the material in order to, well, I am trying to explain that my expertise may be not very good at that particular level, there were other expert witnesses who were asked to do that. I did collect information which is on page 174 and afterwards of my report, which is about your connections with Holocaust deniers, and I did find — I am trying to find it in my report — connections with Ahmed Rami, page 198.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Can you tell the court what these alleged connections were? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. You appeared on the same platform as him in the so-called Leuchter Congress, 23rd March 1991. Q. [Mr Irving]: Is there any reason why I should have recognized Mr Rami, in your opinion? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think if one appears on a platform with other speakers, one knows who they are.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Is there any connection at all between this Mr Rami and the gentleman, Mr Farakan that I mentioned, or the Hisbollah and the Hamas? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have to claim that I do not have any direct expertise on that. I cannot say. Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you found any kind of correspondence between myself and Mr Rami? Has any been shown to you? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Not to my recollection. Q. [Mr Irving]: So apart from this —-

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: But, as I say, that is not what I was really looking for. I am really concerned with looking at connections between you and people whose main business is Holocaust deniers. MR JUSTICE GRAY: So the answer to the original question, whether you have discovered any links, as it were, is no? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Is no, that is right. That is not to say that there is not any but… Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: No, but you have not come across it?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have not come across it, no. I mean, he, Rami, occupies about four lines of my report. MR IRVING: Yes. Is there any particular reason why you mentioned Rami in this connection? Is he a terrorist or an extremist? I mean, to me, he unknown. I know nothing at all about him. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, I find that difficult to believe since you appeared on the same platform as him in a meeting, a public meeting.

He is an extremist who runs an extreme anti-semitic website which I have looked at. Q. [Mr Irving]: When you say that he appeared on the same platform, do you have photographs of him standing shoulder to shoulder with me or are you just saying that he was there one day and I was there the next day? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do you challenge having been on the same platform as him? MR IRVING: I want to know what he means by this, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I am asking am asking you because you

have to put your case, Mr Irving. I mentioned that on Thursday. Is it your case that you have never appeared on a platform with Mr Rami? MR IRVING: Never knowingly appeared. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Never? MR IRVING: If I can put it like that, my Lord. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I footnote video tape 201. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Never knowingly appeared? I see. MR IRVING: Well, quite simply, because when is this video taped alleged to have been?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 23rd March 1991. MR IRVING: 1991. So it is nine years ago and this is somebody who has, apparently, stood near me on a platform and this is good as the connection gets? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, you were both speakers. As I say, this is not a very important part of my report; it only occupies a few lines. Q. [Mr Irving]: Will you turn to page 37 of your report, please? We are now moving on, my Lord. Paragraph 244.

You talk about the unreliability of Hitler’s former aids as a source? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: And, effectively, my gullibility in falling for everything they said? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No. I would not accuse you of being gullible, Mr Irving. Q. [Mr Irving]: My lack of critical nous, shall we say, in accepting what Hitler’s Adjutants and secretaries and people have told me

— is that the burden of that paragraph 244? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Critical intention, I think. Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you accept, however, that on numerous occasions I have persuaded Hitler’s private staff and the Adjutants and their juniors to reveal to me matters which were against their interest, or against the interest of Adolf Hitler which is probably more significant? Do you accept this is true?

Do you remember from The War Path where Hitler’s private secretary, Krista Schroeder, describes to me on the night of the long knives, June 30th 1934, when they returned to the Chancellery afterwards Hitler vanished and had a shower? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I remember that. Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you remember what Hitler said to her when he reappeared, roughly? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Very vaguely. You would have to remind me of the exact words.

Q. [Mr Irving]: “So Fraulein Schroeder, now I have had a shower and I feel as clean as a new born babe”? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right. Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you feel that speaks highly for Adolf Hitler, that he murders his closest compatriots and has a shower and washes himself clean? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not.

But you do say in a document which I quote on page 604 that, once the former members of Hitler’s staff, once you had won their confidence I think you mean,

they thought well now at last they were doing their chief a service. So it seem to be your view that you persuade them that they were doing Hitler a service by talking to you. Q. [Mr Irving]: I think the sense is that they were doing history a service. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is not what you said. Q. [Mr Irving]: They were telling the story — what are the exact words that I used? A.

[Professor Richard John Evans]: The exact words were, and I think you have reversed the sense here a bit, once they had won your confidence — I think you mean once you had won their confidence — and they knew you were not going to go and report them to the State Prosecutor, they trusted you and they thought well, now at last they were doing their chief a service. Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.

How would they be doing their chief a service if they told me details of how Hitler had ordered the liquidation of the inmates of a concentration camp? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is not what Krista Schroeder said, was it, to you? Q. [Mr Irving]: I am giving specific examples now.

You said that I persuaded these people to talk, but that I then fell for them, so to speak, and that I did not manage to use my methods, my oily greasy methods, shall I put it like, in fact to get from them information against their self- interest which is what I contend I did. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Oily and greasy are not my words.

Q. [Mr Irving]: They are words I put in — I oiled these remarks out of them, shall I put it like that? If I put this one example to you, that I persuaded an SS officer who was on Hitler’s staff to describe to me the meeting between Hitler and Himmler in April 1945, where Hitler gave the order to liquidate all the inmates of Buchenwald if they could not be evacuated in time, do you remember that episode? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I do.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Was that in any way — did it reflect well on Adolf Hitler, do you think? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, it certainly did not, but obviously there are some places in which they do reveal things, at which some of them reveal things, which are not —- Q.

[Mr Irving]: I will give you only one further example because I do not wish to test his Lordship’s patience but it is important here because I am accused of having exonerated Hitler and fallen for the Adjutants’ wiles. You are familiar with the colour photographs that are in some of my books of Adolf Hitler’s staff, are you? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Will you accept that these photographs were taken by Hitler’s film cameraman whose name was Walter Frentz?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: He described to me, did he not, a visit to the Eastern Front with Heinrich Himmler in August 1941 where they witnessed a mass shooting outside Minsk, to which shooting

you also refer of course, do you not? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: This man Walter Frentz was present. Are you aware that he described to me in great deal at 2 o’clock one morning the whole episode, including how Himmler told him to take photographs of the shootings, and other very vivid details? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Was that in any way in his own interest to tell me that story?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: We are moving slightly away here. What we are talking about, of course, is their attitudes to, or what they report of, Hitler and Hitler’s views, and in that case it really does not apply to that. Q. [Mr Irving]: We will move on to Hitler’s views in this connection in a minute, but will you just answer my question?

If Walter Frentz told me this story, how he was with Himmler and witnessed a mass shooting, and took photographs of it, did that in any way reflect well on either himself, the witness, or on Adolf Hitler, for that matter? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I would think no, but then he might have thought something different.

Q. [Mr Irving]: If I now tell you that Frentz took photographs back to Hitler’s headquarters and showed them to Hitler’s Chief Adjutant, and the Chief Adjutant said, “If you know what is good for you, you will destroy these photographs,

Mr Frentz”, is this a significant contribution to a historical debate which I, with my methods, obtained, do you think? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The answer is, if that is the case, then yes. I am not denying, Mr Irving, that your interviews with Hitler’s former staff have contributed in some ways to historical knowledge, not at all. Q. [Mr Irving]: So your judgment against me in that paragraph is overhasty, would you agree? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not agree.

I think, taken as a whole, your interviews with Hitler’s staff, as I show in a chapter of the report, are uncritical, and in some cases also involve elements of falsification of what they actually said, or of the nature of their sources that you used. Q. [Mr Irving]: I will come to those particular episodes later on, but in general? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This is a general statement which is a conclusion drawn from the detailed cases that I look at later on in the report.

Q. [Mr Irving]: You have said that I used these statements only in the service of their chief, so to speak, and I did not put in material from the Adjutants or the secretaries which was unfavourable, and that I was uncritical in my assessment of these sources, and I have given you three episodes where quite clearly I persuaded members of Hitler’s staff to reveal from their innermost memory things that they

probably told nobody else. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Where do I say the things that you say I say? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think the word “always” is to be found, Mr Irving. I think that is the difference between you. MR IRVING: That is why I suggested that the phrase overhasty was probably justified, and overhastily rushed a judgment on me, which is not borne out by all the evidence my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: The evidence I think I am hearing from Professor Evans is that usually — that may be an under statement — you are portraying these Adjutants as having told you things which are in Hitler’s favour, but sometimes not. Is that a broad summary? MR IRVING: To use one of Mr Rampton’s favourite phrases, I would say “so what”?

Quite clearly, if these Adjutants have sat for many hours talking to me, I have used all the information they have given me, and some of it has been in favour and some of it has not. What I have not done, and this is my question now to the witness, did I make appropriate use of the information that I obtained from these various witnesses, in your opinion? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It depends what you mean by “appropriate”. Q. [Mr Irving]: Did I make appropriate use?

In other words, did I rely on them solely, shall we say, for important episodes of history when I could not find any documentary substantiation?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, they form an important part of your case that Hitler did not know about the extermination of the Jews, at least before the autumn of 1943, because what you argue about the Adjutants is that they all say that Hitler never actually discussed the extermination of the Jews with them, and in the sense that, if you look at their statements carefully, and I detail some of these later on in the report, you will see that they do not infer from the fact that this

was not discussed as they claim, the fact that Hitler did not know about it. That is your inference. Indeed, a number of them explicitly stated that they were pretty sure that Hitler did know. Q. [Mr Irving]: There is a typical example of that, Albert Speer. Did Albert Speer say to me it was never discussed in front of him, but did he then go on to say that in his opinion Hitler must have known, roughly? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: As I recall, yes.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Is that not an illogical kind of position for an intelligent man like Speer to adopt, that it was never discussed but somebody must have known? If it was never discussed, how could he guess? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: As I recall, Speer argued at some length, and there is a degree of self-exculpation here, I think, in Speer, that Hitler simply did not want this to be talked about in his inner circle. Q. [Mr Irving]: My final question on this particular angle is this.

When

you have read, as you or your researchers have, my interview notes on all these ladies and gentleman on Hitler’s private staff, did I conceal anything detrimental that they told me? In other words, the Walter Frentz episode, the shootings at Minsk, Hitler’s remark to Krista Schroeder, “now I have had a shower and I feel as clean as a new born babe”, did I conceal that or did I properly use it in my books?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You did not conceal either of those two things, no. Q. [Mr Irving]: So what I found I used? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Not in every case. There is an example in detail later on which we can discuss. Q. [Mr Irving]: Can you tell us what that example is from memory? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Not from memory, I am afraid. Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. Perhaps we can wait until we get to it. There is one further question.

Has any other writer apart from me got as close to these members of Hitler’s private staff? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I think that is quite right. Q. [Mr Irving]: So, if I had not done it, then a body of information would have been lost for the world of academics and scholars? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: We have discussed this before.

I do not dispute the fact that you have obtained a great deal of material, not just interview material but also documentary material, which other historians have not obtained. Q. [Mr Irving]: Were any of these Adjutants interrogated at Nuremberg? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: There is an awful lot of them, there is about 25 of them.

I am sure you know more than I do about their interrogations at Nuremberg. Some of them of course were put on trial or were witnesses in subsequent trials. Q. [Mr Irving]: Very few of them. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Karl Wolff is the obvious one. Q. [Mr Irving]: Is it not right that Karl Wolff was not put on trial until the 60s because a secret deal had been reached between him and the Americans?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not know about the secret deal but he was not put on trial until 1964, I think. Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you not heard of Operation Crossword in which Karl Wolff was engaged in Italy at the end of the war, his negotiations with the OSS? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You would have to provide me with documentary evidence for a deal, I think.

Section 32.16 to 62.16

Q. [Mr Irving]: I am going to go on to page 38, my Lord. Now we are dealing with the Hitler’s diaries forgeries, paragraph 246. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you accept that once again I came into early possession of unusual materials? In this case they turned out to be fake. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Were these the materials which you purchased in October 1982 and were intending to sell to McMillans?

Q. [Mr Irving]: What is your evidence for the word “purchased”? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This is in audio cassette 75, where you said you bought

them from the forger and then you recognized them as forgeries after examining them. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, can I interrupt and make this enquiry of you, really? . I realize that Professor Evans refers to the Hitler diaries in his report. I am just wondering what relevance they have to the issues in this action. Can you help me? I am sorry to interrupt you but are obviously starting on a fresh point.

MR IRVING: If I am familiar with Professor Evans’ arguments of having flipflopped, changed my position on them, and ipso facto being unserious, is that right, Professor Evans?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not use the word “unserious”, but I derive from Robert Harris’s book, which seems to me to be a reliable book, written I think partly in co-operation with you, certainly with use of materials you supplied to him, the fact that having declared that the diaries, quite rightly, were forgeries, you then subsequently declared that they were genuine. If you tell me that that is not true, of course I would have to accept it.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us see where we are going with this. This is not, I do not think, any part of the pleaded case. Mr Rampton, that is right, is it not? MR RAMPTON: That is right, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are in the difficult position, Mr Irving, because here is the principal expert witness for the Defendants making this criticism of you and it is a

serious criticism, but it is not one that in the end plays any part in the Defendants case. MR IRVING: I read your Lordship’s mind as being that you will pay no attention to this. In that case I will move on. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I will not. MR IRVING: In the next paragraph 247 you mention Gerhardt Weinberg. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Is he one of the historians whose views you accept? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: On what?

Q. [Mr Irving]: Is he an eminent historian? He is not a Holocaust denier, is he? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: He is an eminent historian. Q. [Mr Irving]: In fact, he is now retired and his chair is occupied by Christopher Browning, is it not? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is the case, yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: I am going to be looking at Professor Jackeln, my Lord, Professor Aberhard Jackeln, who is a historian whose name will come up I think more than once over the next few days.

He played a part in the Hitler diaries. I am not going to look at the Hitler diaries as such but I am going to ask questions which I think have relevance to establishing the reliability of Professor Jackeln. Is it right that Professor Aberhard Jackeln very early on came into possession of one of the diaries, the 1935 Hitler diary?

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: From what I remember of Mr Harris’s book, which is the source of my information, yes. That is to say, I do not rely on Professor Jackeln in my report. Q. [Mr Irving]: Really I am trying through you to find out what we know about Professor Jackeln as far as reliability goes, as far as his credentials go. A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. It does not really play a role in my report.

That is to say, I am not writing about Professor Jackeln’s reliability. Q. [Mr Irving]: Did you write that Jackeln authenticated some of the Hitler materials? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I did not, no. It is my understanding from Mr Harris’s book that he had doubts about him. Of course I am aware of the fact that Professor Jackeln did include some forged material in a book that he edited of Hitler’s writings.

Q. [Mr Irving]: You are not familiar with the fact that he authenticated the 1935 Hitler diary on behalf of a Stuttgart millionaire? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am not, but if that is in Mr Harris’s book —- Q. [Mr Irving]: You mentioned the other materials. He believed that a very large number of poems and handwritings apparently by Hitler were genuine, is that correct? MR JUSTICE GRAY: We seem to be back on the Hitler diaries.

I thought we had agreed —- MR IRVING: No we are now off that. We are now on Jackeln, very firmly on Jackeln, my Lord.

A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is correct. Q. [Mr Irving]: Did he publish these in a semi-official volume called Hitler’s Entire Manuscripts? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Indeed he did. Q. [Mr Irving]: Did it take him a substantial length of time to confess that these were from the same source, the forger Konrad Kujau? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: If you tell me it did, then yes. He certainly in the end I think recognized that they were forgeries.

Q. [Mr Irving]: In fact he wrote a report, did he not, in the Journal of Contemporary History in which he admitted that 4 per cent of that volume was fake, only 4 per cent? Is that correct? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, I do not recall it but I will accept your word for it. Q. [Mr Irving]: In your little bundle of documents which I gave you this morning, would you just turn rapidly to page 41, which is a photograph of a train? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.

Q. [Mr Irving]: The large endless train of wagons with people stuffed in like cattle, is it not? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: They do not appear to be —- Q. [Mr Irving]: Several hundred people to each coal wagon? A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I would not say like cattle. They do not appear to be grossly overcrowded. They are full. Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you aware Professor Jackeln used this photograph as an