MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving?

MR IRVING: May it please the court. Your Lordship will have appreciated that the Defence relied to a certain degree on that document about crematorium capacities .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes .

MR IRVING: I was going to ask your Lordship's leave to have Professor van Pelt back in the box for 10 minutes to put further points about it to him which he may not be able to answer, but which would give the chance then for their other experts later on in the procedure to come back and address .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think your position on that document was that you doubted its authenticity. Is that fair?

MR IRVING: This is, I think, the only document whose integrity I am challenging.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think it is the only one but it is certainly one that you are challenging .

MR IRVING: It is a very important document. I did not appreciate at the time that we went over it the degree to which Professor van Pelt was going to rely on it. You remember the diagram he drew with the tall green column, and so on?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Subject to what Mr Rampton says, as Professor van Pelt is here, I do not see any reason why he should not be further cross-examined, do you?

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MR RAMPTON: No, I do not mind at all, provided he does not .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure he has a choice .

MR RAMPTON: He has not got any of his papers and I do not have the document here myself .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sure he will manage. Let us have him back, shall we, now? Professor, would you mind coming back?

MR IRVING: It is in the Auschwitz core file No. 2. I have provided a set of documents to the Defence to operate with. It is under tab 4, item 49 .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I have it. What about these odds and ends, Mr Irving? Where are you suggesting we put them?

MR IRVING: If we come to Dresden during the day, my Lord .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: These are Dresden, are they?

MR IRVING: They are Dresden, my Lord .

A. This is Kristallnacht, so this is my own report .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can he have a copy of K2?

MR IRVING: This is the actual document. The first thing is that Jean-Claude Pressac on page 247 himself points to the fact that this document did not surface until 1981. Would you agree with that, Professor?

A. No, I do not agree, because it was available in the Vienna trial. The first copy I found was in the Vienna trial .

What I actually had in my hand was, I think, in file OM

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461 at the Dejaco and Ertl trial .

Q. When was that trial?

A. That trial was in 1971 .

Q. Are you aware of any earlier occasions when that document surfaced, shall we say?

A. I think that Jan Sehn had it his hands in the early 50s, but I cannot be sure about that. When I talked about the Domberg version of the document -- there is a version of that document, as far as I know, in the Höss trial transcript, and that would have been there in '48. I am not yet absolutely sure any more that I have seen that document in the Höss trial transcript. I went through the Höss trial transcripts. This was in 1990, but I am not absolutely any more sure that I have seen the Domburg copy in that transcript. I thought it was brought up -- I have certainly seen the Domburg copy. A copy was elsewhere in the Auschwitz und Bauleitung files .

Q. These would be useful pointers to the defence to research the document over the next few days .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry, Professor van Pelt, you referred to the Domburg document. I do not know what you mean by that .

A. There is an archive in the DDR, in Domburg. They sent at a certain moment a copy of that document to the State Museum .

MR IRVING: Would that be in 1959 that that transfer took

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place?

A. I am not sure. If indeed it is in the Höss trial transcript it should have happened earlier because Höss was in 1947, and then, of course, the other camp SS men were tried in 1948, and some of these files of the Höss trial and that of Grabner and the others are actually combined, so it is kind of difficult to determine exactly what comes from where .

Q. The operative word in that response is the word "if" of course, "if it was in the trial". Is it right that the document as published, or a version of the document as published, in a 1957 volume published by the East German, the DDR, the German Democrat Republic?

A. I am not sure. I wonder, do you remember -- do you mean the •• Petsalt book?

Q. I do not know the title of the book .

A. I cannot comment on that. I am not absolutely sure, I think that Petsalt did it, but I thought the Petsalt book was later .

Q. Can I now draw your attention to the document in front of you which is in facsimile? This is taken from the Defence bundle, the Auschwitz core file No. 2 .

A. Yes .

Q. This is an original document, is it not? It is not a post-war transcript, to the best of your knowledge?

A. Yes, this is a copy of an original document. I mean a

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wartime copy .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: A 1943 document?

A. Yes .

MR IRVING: Yes. But you have not seen this particular one in the Auschwitz archives, or have you?

A. No, this one is in Moscow .

Q. This one is in Moscow?

A. Yes .

Q. This is from the captured files of the Auschwitz construction office which are at present in the Moscow archives?

A. Yes .

Q. I draw your attention to the first line, the date 28th June 1943, right?

A. Yes .

Q. How many documents have you seen in carbon copy which do not include the word "Auschwitz" and the following word, "Den", D-E-N?

A. If this is a carbon copy, I presume it was a carbon copy of an original which was on a letter head .

Q. Yes .

A. On the letter head it does actually say "Auschwitz", so in carbon copies one can have quite often just the date and no information about the place .

Q. Very well .

A. But I cannot give a quantity in this case of how many

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documents I have seen .

Q. We go down now to the next line, which is what I will call the letter register line, which begins with the No. 31550. You will notice that that number is typed in and not handwritten in?

A. Yes .

Q. How many documents have you seen in the Auschwitz construction archives that have that letter register number typed in on a carbon copy?

A. I cannot say. I have seen it, but I cannot say how many copies .

Q. Very well .

A. If I had my files with me right now, maybe I could show you examples of it typed in, but at the moment I am standing here just with one document .

Q. I agree. I draw the attention of the Defence to what I call this discrepancy. The next event in that line is an oblique, stroke, followed by "Ja.", Ja period .

A. Yes .

Q. How many items have you seen in the Auschwitz construction office files which have a period after the JA?

A. I am sorry. I cannot answer that .

Q. Yes. I appreciate that. I draw your attention to the next item which is an oblique stroke and the initials "Ne.-". How many items have you in the Auschwitz construction office files which have the initials "Ne" as

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a secretary, signing a letter dictated by Jahrling or Janisch, or by the man whose initials are "JA"?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not quite sure I follow that question .

MR IRVING: I am sorry. Let me phrase it in two parts. Am I correct in saying that the man whose initials are "JA" was the man who dictated the letter?

A. Yes .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is Jahrling?

MR IRVING: Yes. Am I correct in saying that the following initials "Ne" would be his secretary?

A. Yes .

Q. Have you seen any other letters whatsoever in the entire 50,000 documents in the Auschwitz archives which have a secretary whose initials are "Ne"?

A. Since you brought up the challenge a few days ago, I thought it was an "M" here. I mean, it seems to read as "M". I actually checked. I think I mentioned the name of the secretary a couple of days ago. It should be in the transcript because I checked. A 28 year old woman employed as a secretary at that moment in the Zentralbauleitung, I think .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You cannot remember her name?

A. Sorry, I cannot remember her name. I had all the documentation with me on Friday and on Wednesday .

MR IRVING: Very well. Are you aware that his secretary, actually her name began with an "L" or his name began with

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an "L", and that of the 50 items which are in the collection which we control or which I am advised exists, dictated by this man, 49 of them have the secretary's initials as "L" or "Lm"?

A. I cannot comment on that .

Q. Very well. And that in none of these cases is there a period after either the "JA" or after the secretary's name? Can you comment on that?

A. No, I cannot comment on that .

Q. Clearly, the reason I am saying this, my Lord, is to give the Defence a chance to come back possibly with documents proving me wrong on these points?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I think that is fair .

MR IRVING: Will you now look five or six lines lower down to the address: "SS Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt, Amtsgruppenchef C". I draw your attention now to the following line. Is there anything missing from that line "SS Brigadeführer u. Generalmajor"?

A. Generalmajor SS that would have been normally .

Q. Generalmajor der Waffen SS?

A. Yes .

Q. Have you seen any other documents whatsoever in the entire construction files of the Auschwitz office, either in Moscow or in the Auschwitz archives now, in which the words "Der Waffen SS" are omitted after the word "Generalmajor"?

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A. I cannot comment on that .

Q. In other words, the address is improper in its present form; is that correct?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, he cannot comment .

MR IRVING: Yes. Well, my Lord, it is an incorrect rank .

A. It is an incorrect designation of a rank -- a very important one because they were very particular, particularly if they had the rank of a Brigadier General .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You can be a Brigadeführer .

MR IRVING: They were a Brigadier General in the SS and simultaneously they had a military rank in the Waffen SS .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: But you make it clear that it was an SS rank you were talking about, is that your point?

MR IRVING: No. What I am saying, my Lord, is that the correct rank, the proper designation, of Hans Kammler was SS Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen SS, and in every other document which exists it is written out in full .

Those are the only comments I have to make on the face of the document, but possibly, Professor, you are qualified to comment on the content, and I am now purely dealing with the crematoria. Am I right in saying that crematorium I was already out of service on July 19th 1943?

A. It was taken out of service shortly before, but the crematorium was completely intact, which means it was never dismantled. The incinerations, because, as we have

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seen, in May and June 1943 the total incineration capacity in the camp was so much larger than anything really the Germans needed at that moment .

It was absolutely no problem to take out, to decommission the incinerators of crematorium I because they were next to the SS, the house of the Kommandant and the Lazarett and the Kommandantur, to move all incineration capacity to Birkenau and so that the SS quarters at the Stammlager would be spared the kind of environmental disadvantages of having a working crematorium right next to it. So this crematorium remained actually on stand-by throughout 1943, and these incinerations were only finally dismantled in late '44 .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: So the capacity still exists?

A. The capacity still exists .

MR IRVING: The capacity still exists. Are you aware that on the date of this document, June 28th 1943, crematorium No .

II was also out of service?

A. Yes, but it was being repaired at the time and it was brought back into service a month later .

Q. You are familiar, presumably, with the letter from the Topf firm dated July 23rd 1943, which states, "Since the crematorium has been out of service for six weeks now" in one sentence? In other words, this particular crematorium was stated on July 23rd already to have been out of service for six weeks, so obviously it was a major problem

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with crematorium II and yet they list it here as being capable of operating .

A. Yes, but this is a general accounting. This letter goes back to a request which was actually made early in January when Höss wanted to have, the first indication anyway that he wants to have an accounting of total cremation capacity in the camp .

Indeed, crematorium II, after having had an overload of incinerations in March and April, had shown problems with the flues, actually the flues started to collapse, and was taken out of commission in May for repair. It took the Topf workers some time to actually determine exactly what had happened. It took them even more time to actually decide who was to blame, because the chimney maker said that it was Topf who was to blame, and Topf blamed the chimney makers. So they were, basically, negotiating who was going to pay for all of this throughout June. Finally, in August, the crematorium was brought back into operation. But throughout this time, I mean, when you look at incineration capacity in general in the camp, this letter does not refer to actually that day, but to the general capacity available in the camp .

Q. Professor, do you not agree that in that case, since these crematoria were so frequently down, out of service and under repair and being squabbled over, it was improper for a document to exist giving an overall figure which made no

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reference to the fact that at any one given time, 20 or 30 per cent of the capacity might be down?

A. That was not yet known in June 1943. We know in hindsight that indeed crematoria IV and V showed many problems, and that ultimately even the incinerators were at a certain moment left alone for later '43 and early '44, but the fact that we have, in hindsight, acknowledged does not mean that on 28th June '43 that knowledge existed .

Q. Very well. One final question: in view of the discrepancies I that have drawn to your attention and which I allege exist in this document, will you be undertaking any steps to investigate whether there are any similar documents with a similar letter registry number and which contain similar discrepancies in the rank and other items to which I have drawn your attention?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is really a question for Mr Rampton, not for Professor van Pelt .

MR IRVING: I want it to go on the record, my Lord. That is all. I have no further questions .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, do you want to re-examine on that aspect?

MR RAMPTON: I would like the Professor -- I am sorry, I have only got the German with me. I have not got the Professor's report, unfortunately, or any of the other documents with me because I had no notice of it. I would just like him -- his German is pretty good -- if he will,

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just to read the text. (To the witness): Leave out the figures in the middle, if you will, Professor, but just read the text of the letter to us in English starting with "Unter den Eichen 126 - 135", will you?

A. So, OK. There is the address, "Unter den Eichen 126 - 135", which seems to be the correct address, as far as I remember. "I announce the completion of crematorium III on 26th June 1943. With this all of the crematoria which were ordered, which were commanded, have been completed. The capacity of the now available crematorium when used at a 24-hour work cycle", and then we get the numbers .

Q. Then you get the numbers and the total at the bottom. I have one other question only. To your knowledge, did they ever actually use any of these crematoria for a full 24-hour period?

A. The time that they would have used it -- we have no account. Quite literally, we use it 24 hours or 16 or 18, whatever like that, but the only period in which they would have had to use these crematoria on a 24-hour cycle would have been in May and June 1944 during the Hungarian action .

Q. Were they using all five of these crematoria in the Hungarian action?

A. They certainly used No. II and III which were in full function at the time. IV and V were repaired for the

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Hungarian action, shortly before the Hungarian action, because they had been out of commission. But during the Hungarian action V and IV showed problems, and I think that ultimately V was a crematorium where the incinerator collapsed. We always have to make the distinction between the incinerating and the gas chambers. The gas chambers of IV and V were in full operation during the Hungarian action, but ultimately they created these outside incineration pits during the Hungarian action to compensate for the problems in crematoria IV and V .

Q. Just to complete the picture of potential capacity, if we go on to the Hungarian action in the early summer of '44, what about bunker 2?

A. Are we talking about gassing capacity?

Q. Yes bunker 2 was brought back into operation during the Hungarian action because they felt that the gas chambers of crematoria II to V would not be able to cope with the arrivals .

Q. Where did they incinerate the people that were killed in bunker 2?

A. They were incinerated in open air pits which followed the example developed by Standartenführer Blöbel in Chelmno which Dejaco Hössler had inspected in mid September 1942 .

MR IRVING: My Lord, this re-examination is rather exceeding the bounds of the original cross-examination .

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MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are quite right, it is. But I want to ask you a question which I hope does reflect the cross-examination, and that is this, Professor van Pelt .

Taking on board, as it were, all the points that have been put to you by Mr Irving about the authenticity of this document, do you have a view about it? Are you doubtful about it?

A. If this document were to pop up right now, after having not been seen for 50 or 60 years, given the kind of challenges which have been made by Holocaust denier/revisionist historians, however one would want to call people who challenge the historical record, I would be more suspicious, because, you know, where does this document come from? The issue is, however, that this document has been in existence, and the records of these documents before ever a challenge was being made to the incineration capacity of the crematoria. In fact, this document shows a much lower incineration capacity of the crematoria than we find in the testimonies of Höss and others .

So what I do not understand is what purpose would have been served, let us say, in the 1950s by, let us say, somebody who wants to make a case that Auschwitz was an extermination camp, by creating a document, by falsifying a document, which shows a lower incineration rate for the crematoria than that which has been attested

P-16

to under oath by the German eyewitnesses. That is the discrepancy. So, given the fact that it is lower, and given the fact that it appeared at a time that no one was challenging the incineration capacity, because the German testimony on it was kind of self-evident, and given the fact also that this document, I think, shows a very good convergence with Tauber's testimony, and Tauber's testimony which after 1945 really was not published until Pressac did it, and Tauber describes in detail the way the corpses in the incinerators were incinerated, with many corpses at the time, and he gives times for this, and in fact Tauber's figures do converge with this one, I think there is absolutely no reason to doubt the authenticity of this document as far as the content is concerned .

Q. Can I ask you one more question? When did the issue about incineration capacity really surface?

A. The issue of incineration capacity really started to surface, I think Faurisson mentioned it. Faurisson in the late 70s really concentrated on the issue of the gas chambers. The first major challenge which was made I think was Fred Leuchter in 1988. Butts in 76 also made an issue of it, but in some way this was buried, I think, in the larger context of his work .

Q. In the 70s anyway?

A. In the 70s, after this document had been admitted as evidence in the Vienna court .

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MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, there is a bit of a new point there, so do you want to ask any further questions?

MR IRVING: I do wish to re-examine just briefly. I do not want to go into the matter of the burning pits. I think that that is a side issue that was raised in cross-examination. I do not think it should have been because we had not mentioned the burning pits, but I do want to raise just two or three of the points you mentioned there. You referred to the witness Höss, and you relied on his figures. Is it correct that the witness Höss in his statements said that 2.8 million Jews were killed in Auschwitz?

A. I feel uncomfortable discussing what Höss says without the documents, but since I discussed it in length in my expert report, Höss ultimately comes down to 1.125 million. He makes a detailed calculation, and he does it actually on two or three different occasions .

Q. Did he use the figure 2.8 million at any time?

A. As a general, he said there were different ways to account to it. He said he had one kind of figure based on, he thought how many people had been killed, but then at a certain moment he corrects himself and he says but the real way to calculate it is by looking at how many Jews arrived by the transports. Then I come to 1.15 million people .

Q. If somebody oscillates between 2.8 million and 1.1 million

P-18

under oath, how can you place any reliance whatsoever on his other figures?

A. I think that there is the issue of how do you calculate the figure? There is one thing. He had no documents in front of him because no record was kept. He at a certain moment tries to reconstruct without having any figures, and of course we must remember that Höss was, in the crucial time of the camp's history, Hungarian, actually late 43, he was not any more Kommandant of Auschwitz. He left Auschwitz. He was attached to the inspectorate in Oranienburg. So he only came back later to Auschwitz .

Q. We are only talking about the reliability of his figures .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, we have to confine this. We cannot have an open ended further cross-examination. Confine it to the authenticity of the document .

MR IRVING: That did go to the authenticity because he relied on Höss as a source of statistical evidence, my Lord .

Secondly, is it correct that the version of this document which is in the Auschwitz State museum was provided to them by the East German communist authorities? In other words, not the other way round, as one would expect?

A. Yes .

Q. Thank you .

A. The version in Auschwitz, but this is the Moscow version, so we are talking here about the Moscow document. It is a different document. It is a different object, so to

P-19

speak. The object means the actual sheet of paper which came from East Germany .

Q. The final question is on the question of why the matter has only just recently been raised. Is it not correct to say that the Moscow archives have only become available for purposes of comparison over the last ten years or so?

A. Yes, that is true .

MR IRVING: Thank you very much. I have no further questions, my Lord .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much, Professor .

< (The witness stood down) MR IRVING: Your Lordship may have considered that a rather useless exercise but, as it is such a crucial document, I thought that we ought to examine it in greater detail .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I personally think that the issue of authenticity of this document is important for the purposes of this trial .

MR IRVING: It is almost pivotal, along with the roof. Thank you very much .

MR RAMPTON: I certainly do not agree that it is pivotal. It may be an important document in some senses .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: The challenge to it may be important .

MR RAMPTON: Yes, absolutely. If I feel the need to meet that challenge beyond what the Professor has said in the witness box, I will do so .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: The Moscow archive presumably can be, as it

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were, consulted to see if the document is there .

MR RAMPTON: Oh, yes, but, if it was in the Vienna trial in 1971, I do not know that the Moscow archives have a lot to do with it .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: What now? Mr Irving back into the box?

MR RAMPTON: Shall I give your Lordship a little plan?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Before you do, can I say something which I actually said yesterday? I think it became called L2, I think my L2 has gone back to you, but, in trying to go through yesterday evening, it really is impossible for me to follow it in the transcript when all I have is German documents, some of which have been partly translated in odd bits of Professor Evans' report. It is a nightmare exercise .

MR RAMPTON: It will not surprise your Lordship to be told that I took that on board. What I am going to do today will involve no reference to German documents by me. It will consist of a document prepared with, I have to say, the most extraordinary skill and expedition by Miss Rogers in relation to Dresden. There is a file of Dresden documents. They are mostly in English. I shall not make reference to them myself, because they have been summarised in the little document that Miss Rogers has prepared .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Good .

MR RAMPTON: Contrary to my feeling yesterday evening, I am

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going to go to four topics in the aftermath of Reichskristallnacht, but I am going to do those, unless again I am pushed by Mr Irving to the German, exclusively from Professor Evans' report .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do think that is easier. Can I at the same time make this enquiry? It is important that we are clear for later on. Looking at Kristallnacht, not the aftermath of Kristallnacht, there are several points made in Evans and Longerich, I think, which I do not think you cross-examine to specifically. It is not a criticism obviously, but does that mean they have gone out of the case, or what?

MR RAMPTON: It is very difficult. I am very conscious of the amount of time that this case could take. That means I am also conscious of the amount of money it could cost my clients, never mind court time and the time of all the people involved. I have taken the view, right or wrong, that, if I have three or four, or maybe two or three, or even five or six, dead cert winners, to use a colloquialism, in any particular topic, I am not going to spend a lot of time having argy-bargy about minor points with Mr Irving. I have one more what I regard as dead cert winner to finish which is this business about ND3052 or ND3051 because I have chased that it and I know the answer. But if your Lordship should take the view at the end of the cross-examination of my expert witnesses that

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certain points have gone from the case, well, why then they have gone, but if Mr Irving should take up with my expert witnesses things I have not cross-examined him about, why, then they will come back into the arena .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: But at the moment they are not in the arena .

MR RAMPTON: No .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is rather what I thought, but I think it is quite important to be clear about it .

MR RAMPTON: If I have missed something out, something important, I miss something important and that is just too bad. But there has to be a sense of proportion in all of this, in my belief .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It might be something -- I have not got them in mind now -- there are some points that I think Evans attaches importance to on Reichskristallnacht which maybe we have not really touched on .

MR RAMPTON: I agree there are some things in relation to eyewitness testimony. I am as mistrustful of that in general as is Mr Irving, and I prefer the original documents, and that is what I did yesterday .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes .

MR RAMPTON: I am going back to one other original document in a moment .

MR IRVING: I thought there was going to be a complex on the Adjutants we were going to hear about .

MR RAMPTON: There may be something about the Adjutants along

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down the road, but I have not got to that yet. It is a separate topic .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That clears the air a bit .

MR RAMPTON: I have not given thought to what, if any, Adjutants I am interested in .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, if you go back we are starting off now on Dresden .

MR RAMPTON: No. I am going to finish Reichskristallnacht and then I shall go to Dresden .

< MR DAVID IRVING recalled .

< Cross-Examined by MR RAMPTON, QC, continued .

Q. Your Lordship and the witness will need a document which we dug out yesterday .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I will need my L2 back too, will I not?

MR RAMPTON: Yes, I do not know where it has gone. (To the witness): Mr Irving, can you please go back to your Goebbels book at page 276? At the bottom of that page we saw yesterday, we are going to read it again, you write: "What of Himmler and Hitler? Both were totally unaware of what Goebbels had done until the synagogue next to Munich's Four Seasons Hotel was set on fire around 1k a.m. Heydrich, Himmler's national chief of police, was relaxing down in the hotel bar, he hurried up to Himmler's room, then telexed instructions to all police authorities to restore law and order, protect Jews and Jewish property, and halt any ongoing incidents." You give us

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the reference No. 43, you give us the reference for that on page 613, ND3052-PS?

A. Yes .

Q. Now please look at the document I have just handed in .

A. Well, in fact, there are two sources there. I have also referenced Karl Wolff .

Q. Will you please look at the document I have just handed in?

A. Yes .

Q. That is ---- A. 3052 -- yes, there is a mistake in the number .

Q. You have mistaken the number?

A. Yes .

Q. Professor Evans is right?

A. Yes .

Q. The correct number is 3051, is it not?

A. It is probably 3051. There may be another one, but this is clearly the wrong one, but I have also referenced Karl Wolff as my source .

Q. Can we please look then at what Professors Evans used as the translation of the key part of 3051 at the top?

A. Which, of course, I have not referenced .

Q. No, you have not. But, Mr Irving, I suggest that you had it in front of you and you simply made a slip of the pen (as we all can) and called the document 3052 when, in fact, it was 3051 .

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A. You may be right, but you may be wrong .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: When you say "you may be wrong", you mean there is another document very similar to 3051 which you did in have in front of you?

A. My Lord, note 43 also refers to Karl Wolff which is a source which I also used .

Q. That is another matter .

A. I would have to look and see what Karl Wolff said which may very well be the source of that .

MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, forget Karl Wolff. You have given ---- A. No, because -- I am not going to forget him because he is given in the footnote 43 .

Q. Mr Irving, you have given 3052 as the reference?

A. As one of the references .

Q. That is wrong, as you can plainly see from the document?

A. Yes .

Q. It follows, does it not ---- A. It was another document .

Q. --- that the overlying probability is that you meant 3051 which is, indeed, a telex from Heydrich at 1.20 a.m. on 10th November?

A. That is one telex from him at 1.20 yes, but if ---- Q. Wait, Mr Irving .

A. --- if you look at the time scale, if you look at the time scale, these instructions I am referring to are unlikely to have got into a telex machine at 1. 20 a.m. It would

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be closer to 2 a.m. that things like that went out, by the time he has got back to police headquarters .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You say he "hurried up to Himmler's room"?

A. Yes, but they would not have had a telex machine in Himmler's hotel room, my Lord. He would have had to go to the local Gestapo headquarters or telephone instruction for local headquarters and tell them to type a telex and get this kind of thing out .

Q. So your suggestion is there is another telex from Heydrich?

A. Another source. I am not suggesting it is another telex .

I am suggesting it is another source and I have referenced there Karl Wolff .

MR RAMPTON: Let us suppose for a moment that a three year-old child will not buy that story, Mr Irving, and compare what 301 says of what you wrote in the text, may we?

A. Well, shall we do that?

Q. Yes, let us look at the top of 263 of Professor Evans' report. The German is printed at the bottom. So if you want to read the German first, please do .

A. "On Himmler's instructions, they were to be sure some restrictions placed on the action", is that correct on the foot of page 262?

Q. Yes. That is absolutely right. Now you see what they are on page 263 .

A. Yes, I have read that .

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Q. Now tell me what foundation that provides for your assertion that Heydrich's telex was "to protect Jews and Jewish property and halt any ongoing incidents" .

A. Well, clearly, this is a different message I am referring to .

Q. No, Mr Irving. Clearly, you have deliberately misrepresented the effect of this telex from Heydrich .

A. No, Mr Rampton. You are looking at a different message, and you are saying, "This does not look like the one you are quoting" which is just what I am saying. You are right. It is not the one I am quoting .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where is what you call 3052? Where physically is it?

A. My Lord, they have had complete access to all my files and we do not know which signals they have put in and which they have not put in .

MR RAMPTON: It does not exist, Mr Irving?

A. It may not be a signal. It may be what Karl Wolff reported. Karl Wolff was with him at that time. I have referenced Karl Wolff in footnote 43 which your Professor Evans has overlooked .

Q. The first reference you give -- I am only going to ask this once more -- is 3052, is it not?

A. Yes .

Q. The reader will suppose that that is a reference to the text of the Heydrich telex?

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A. Well, no. The 43 refers to everything from the beginning of that paragraph, "What of Himmler and Hitler?" onwards .

Q. Mr Irving, the reference you give for the Heydrich telex is 3052, is it not?

A. One of the two references, yes .

Q. Yes. It so happens that the true Heydrich telex is 3051?

A. It so happens that a Heydrich telex is 3051 .

Q. It so happens that 30512 has nothing whatever to do with Reichskristallnacht at all?

A. Yes .

Q. What do you think is the probability -- that had you some other document which has disappeared which had the No. 3052 on it?

A. My documents have not disappeared. As you are familiar, I have given all my documents to the German archives .

I have provided to you what relics I have, what remnants I have, of my document collection .

Q. Well, now I would offer you the same opportunity, Mr Irving, as you kindly offered to us. You find 3052 and the text of a Heydrich telex which carries the information which you have put in the book .

A. Well, perhaps if you have the Karl Wolff's statement from the Institute files No. 317, then you will find precisely the content that I referred to .

Q. Can we move on now, please?

A. If you thought I was wrong, you would have actually

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produced to the court 317, the Karl Wolff statement, and said, "Mr Irving, can you find that in 317?" MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are perfectly entitled to do that yourself, but it does not, I think it is fair to say, meet Mr Rampton's point which is that one of your references is 3052 .

A. One of the references has a digit wrong, this is correct .

Q. And the ball, if I may say so, is in your court to produce the document that you say is 3052 .

A. If I can do so, having given all my records away, this is true, but I shall certainly attempt to do so .

MR RAMPTON: Now, Mr Irving, I want to come to the aftermath of Reichskristallnacht. I want to move on now to the aftermath, the next day, starting with Mr Goebbels -- Dr Goebbels, I do beg his pardon. Can we start, please, and I promised I would stick Professor Evans and that is what I am going to, at page 281 of Professor Evans' report, please .

A. What does he mean by "the inevitable Goebbels diary"?

Does that not suggest a mind cast on the part of your expert in paragraph 1?

Q. If you look at paragraph 2, please, Mr Irving -- you can ask Professor Evans any number of questions you like subject to his Lordship's control, but I am not going to answer your questions, I am afraid. Paragraph 2 on page 281 .

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A. Yes .

Q. "In his account of the events of 10th November 1938, Goebbels wrote: 'New reports rain down the whole morning. I consider with the Führer what measures should be taken now. Let the beatings continue or stop them?

That is now the question'." You, when you wrote about this in your Goebbels book, said: "Goebbels went to see Hitler to discuss what to do next. There is surely an involuntary hint of apprehension in the phrase". Why did you write that?

A. I am, first of all, checking to see the original German text because he has not provided it to us, has he, or has he?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Check it by all means. If we have to go through it, we will have to go through it, but we are trying to avoid doing that .

A. Well, the reason for that is the translation of the word "now" .

Q. You can tell us .

A. Can you confirm that the word he has used for "now" is not "nun" but "nunmehr"?

MR RAMPTON: I have no idea .

A. I am telling you -- I have a pretty good memory of these things .

Q. Why does it matter?

A. Why does it matter? Indeed. So what? "Nunmehr" conveys

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the hint of apprehension. "What do we do now?" Q. You translate it in your book -- what you write is 277 of Goebbels: "As more ugly bulletins rained down on him the next morning, November 10th 1938, Goebbels went to see Hitler to discuss 'what to do next'"?

A. Indeed, "nunmehr" .

Q. What is the apprehension in that?

A. Well, if you understood German and you knew the nuances of the German language, and any German sitting in this room would know there is a difference between the words "nun" and "nunmehr". Am I correct? Is that the word used?

Q. Mr Irving, will you answer my question? Did you write, "He went to discuss with Hitler what to do next"?

A. "What to do now" and "what to do next", what is the difference? You explain to the court .

Q. It might be right if the phraseology were apt to convey the impression, "Oh, dear. Whatever shall we do now?" but that is not what you translated it as?

A. I am trying to give the difference between "now", between "nun" and "nunmehr", and any German in this courtroom will know there is a strong difference. "Nunmehr" means "now more than ever" and this, I suspect, is why Professor Evans has not provided the original German here .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: As a matter of fact, he has. Note 104, page 282, he says the original German is "nunmehrige" which I think is the same as "nunmehr", in fact?

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A. Well, I wish we had had the entire text, but he has ---- Q. You are only quarrelling with that one word, as I understand it?

A. Well, indeed, but there is big difference, of course, between "nun" and "nunmehr", and I can only confirm that any German will confirm this .

MR RAMPTON: The German is, Mr Irving -- excuse my pronunciation once again, but I will read it slowly. .

A. What page is the German?

Q. "Den ganzen Morgen regnet es neue Meldungen". End of line .

The next line: "Ich überlege mit dem Führer unsere nunmehrigen Maßnahmen". That is "our next measures", is it not?

A. I am looking at the original translation in bundle L2 on page 3, the original German .

Q. It is on page 2, I think .

A. "Den ganzen Morgen regnet es neue Meldungen ... unsere nunmehrigen Maßnahmen". There you are, "nunmehr" .

Q. Yes, "our next steps"?

A. But I have to try to explain once again, because you do not hesitate also to keep repeating yourself, that "nun" and "nunmehr" have two totally different nuances .

"Nunmehr" in German means "now more than ever" .

Q. What does it mean, "I discussed with the Führer our next steps"?

A. "... unsere nunmehrigen Maßnahmen" .

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Q. Yes, "our next steps"?

A. Yes, "what steps we should now take more than ever" .

Q. What is apprehensive about that?

A. The adding of the word "mehr" to "nun" .

Q. Then he goes on: "Weiterschlagen lassen oder abstoppen" .

"Shall we go on thrashing them or stop" or "Shall we let the thrashing go on or stop it", yes? "That is now the question"?

A. "Weiterschlagen lassen oder abstoppen", that is right .

Q. "Das ist nun die Frage"?

A. "That is now the question" .

Q. Exactly. What is apprehensive about that?

A. Because he has been summoned to see the Hitler because the whole of Germany is in flames, messages coming in from diplomatic missions all around the world about it .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: But they are contemplating letting it go on?

A. Goebbels is contemplating letting it gone on, "What are we going to do now?" This is Goebbels' diary, my Lord, not Hitler. Goebbels has been summoned before Hitler like a schoolboy who has painted something on the wall .

Q. Well, who is meant to be being apprehensive? I took it to be Goebbels .

A. Goebbels is apprehensive, yes .

MR RAMPTON: About what?

A. That he had been summoned to see Hitler. Perhaps I should sketch in in two lines the background? Goebbels has been

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a very bad for the last six months. He has been caught red handed in an appalling matrimonial scandal. He has been threatened with this missile. He has contemplated suicide. He thought he was doing Hitler a favour with this little outrage and, to his horror, he has found out he has done the exact opposite. He has been summoned before Hitler and Hitler is now showing him the diplomatic messages that have come in. Within a matter of an hour or two, Goebbels has had to issue a telegram which is on the very next page, or page 279 of my book produces a facsimile: "Everything is to be stopped immediately. All the orders I issued yesterday are cancelled". Am the I right?

Q. No, you are not right, Mr Irving. You are not right in your thesis. You are right in what that document says and it is sent to the propaganda chiefs. All that has been decided is, well, for the sake of foreign opinion and public opinion, we had better stop smashing up Jewish shops and killing Jewish people?

A. On the contrary, this document which I reproduce in a facsimile is sent to precisely the people he ordered the day before to start all the pogrom .

Q. So you say. We had that argument yesterday ---- A. Well, you keep saying "so I say", but I am the one who wrote the book .

Q. Well, I do say and I do not accept it, Mr Irving. We went

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through it yesterday. It is quite obvious that I do not accept it. It is no good repeating it. We have been through it. The judge will decide the question and then see what happened in the next day's diary entry. If you pass over to paragraph 4 on the same page, 282 of Evans -- the German, if you want it, is on tab 3 of the Reichskristallnacht file. It is the beginning of the diary entry, as I expect you know. "Following this first conversation with Hitler on morning of 10th, Goebbels drafted an order to bring the pogrom to a halt .

'Yesterday', he wrote on the 11th in his diary, 'Berlin .

There, all proceeded fantastically. One fire after another. It is good that way. I prepare an order to put an amend the actions'". That is the one you have just told us about, Mr Irving. "'It is now just enough ... In whole country the synagogues have burned them. I report to the Führer at the Osteria'." The German is printed at the bottom of the page if you want to look at it. The "Osteria" was a restaurant in Munich, I think, was it not?

A. It is still there, yes .

Q. I do not mind. It was, was it not?

A. Yes .

Q. And if we turn over the page, we can see what Goebbels reports of his meeting with Hitler at the Osteria sometime, presumably, on the 10th, in paragraph 5 on page

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283: "At the Osteria, Goebbels presented Hitler with his draft order to stop the pogrom. His diary entry continued: 'I report to the Führer in the Osteria. He agrees with everything. His views are totally radical and aggressive. The action itself has taken place without any problems. 17 dead. But no German property damaged. The Führer approves my decree concerning the ending of the actions, with small amendments. I announce it via the press and raid. The Führer wants to take very sharp measures against the Jews. They must themselves put their businesses in order again. The insurance companies will not pay them a thing. Then the Führer wants a gradual expropriation of Jewish businesses"?

A. Now, what holes can you pick in my account of that?

Q. I am coming to that in a moment, Mr Irving. Let us look at how you dealt with that entry, shall we, in a minute?

That starts at paragraph 8. But, first, I want to draw your attention to what Goebbels did next, sorry, or before which is in paragraph 7: "On the afternoon of 10th November", that is after the meeting with Hitler at the Osteria, "Goebbels informed the Nazi Party chief of Munich-Upper Bavaria that the pogrom was to be terminated, and added: 'The Führer sanctions the measures taken so far and declares that he does not disapprove'". It is entirely consistent with the diary entry, is it not? Is it not, Mr Irving?

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A. What, what Evans wrote or what I wrote?

Q. No. What Goebbels wrote, "The Führer sanctions the measures taken so for and declares that he does not disapprove of them"?

A. Which passage are you translating?

Q. I am reading from the text of Professor Evans .

A. Oh, I see. I thought you were looking at something hard and concrete .

Q. I told his Lordship that, unless forced to do so, I am going to keep off the German. It is much easier for us ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is working much better .

MR RAMPTON: --- Anglophones. "The Führer sanctions the measures taken so far and declares that he does not disapprove of them". That is exactly what Goebbels reported him as having said at the Osteria, is it not?

Have you got the place in Evans, Mr Irving .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Paragraph 7?

A. I am trying to read three volumes simultaneously .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I know it is difficult. The bottom of page 283 .

A. 283?

Q. Yes, 283 .

MR RAMPTON: Then it goes on ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are you there, Mr Irving?

A. I am, but I am wondering where he gets the words "on the

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afternoon of". I mean, the timing appears to be important, and .. .

MR RAMPTON: Well, it is perfectly obvious. If he saw Hitler on the day, at the Osteria, and Hitler said ---- A. The note 107 refers to something dated November 11th .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not following your point, Mr Irving .

A. Well, I am wondering where he gets the phrase "on the afternoon of November 10" .

Q. Does it matter?

MR RAMPTON: Because it comes from the text of Goebbels' circular. If you look at what Hitler said to Goebbels at the Osteria, it is perfectly natural that later that day Goebbels should report that "Hitler sanctions the measures taken so far and declares that he does not disapprove of them". That is exactly what he had already said to Goebbels .

A. Well, we have a difficulty here. We have just one line, or one line from a message not from Goebbels but from a Gauleiter, from a Gauleiter's adjutant, the next day, in other words, it is already third-hand .

Q. Then I am going to read on, Mr Irving. Top of 284: "In another circular", this is Evans, "sent out the same day to Gau propaganda officials, quoted in Irving's own book on Goebbels, and quite clearly reporting Hitler's views at the meeting in the Osteria, Goebbels added: 'An order is to be expected according to which the (cost of the) damage

P-39

resulting from the anti-Jewish actions is not to be met by insurance companies but by the Jews concerned themselves .

Furthermore, a series of measures against the Jews will very shortly be implemented through the promulgation of laws or decrees'." I am going to show you, if you have forgotten, Mr Irving, what, in fact, happened next. But I want you to look next ---- A. I am finding it very difficult to see what point you are thrusting towards .

Q. You will see what point I am thrusting towards. Be patient. These things have to be built in blocks, Mr Irving. Look at paragraph 8: "How does Irving deal with this particularly incriminating diary entry? In 1992, when Irving first read the Goebbels diary entries for the period 9th to 10th November 1938, he was convinced that it showed that Hitler approved of the pogrom". Here is a quote from Mr Irving interviewed by Kurt Franz, CBC Newsworld in July 1992: "'According to his diary', that is Goebbels, 'and I can't emphasise those words enough, according to his diaries, Hitler was closely implicated with those outrages. And that's a matter of some dismay to me because it means I have to revise my own opinion .

But a historian should always be willing to revise his opinion'"? So far, so good, Mr Irving. Let us see how it develops .

1993, "A year later he was sounding a slightly

P-40

more sceptical note. Goebbels diary, Irving said", and this is part of the talk that you had been going to make in Australia but which you were not allowed to make, Irving "'describes how Hitler thoroughly endorses what he, Goebbels, has done, namely stating'", this is the top of 285 .

A. "Starting" .

Q. ..."'starting that outrage that night. This was a deep shock for me'", that is Irving, "'and I immediately announced it to the world's newspapers that I had discovered this material, although it appeared to go against what I had written in my own book Hitler's War .

But even there you have to add a rider and say, "Wait a minute, this is Dr Goebbels writing this". Dr Goebbels who took all the blame for what was done. So did he have perhaps a motive for writing in his private diaries subsequently that Hitler endorsed what he had done? You can't entirely close that file'." Just pause there, Mr Irving, what motive did Goebbels have for, as it were, trying to implicate Hitler in something which Hitler knew nothing about?

A. I think if you read the whole of my Goebbels book, and I am sure you have, you will note that there were several occasions on which Goebbels took actions independently and subsequently sought shelter in either writing in his diary that Hitler had sanctioned it, or actually went to

P-41

Hitler and informed him what he had done .

One example I quote is the decision to put forward Hitler's name in the presidential candidacy in 1932 which was a public relations disaster. So there are several episodes where Goebbels acts on his own and then seeks endorsement from Hitler, not just this particular episode. So one is entitled to say, was this another such episode?

Q. Mr Irving, the evidence is -- we went through it yesterday -- if you look at the evidence objectively, the evidence is such that it drives one to the inevitable inference that Hitler knew along and probably authorised what happened. There is no reason why Goebbels should put the blame on Hitler if, in fact, that is the case. Second, if Goebbels ---- A. Can I take these points one at a time?

Q. Yes .

A. So in cross-examination is always wise to ask one question at a time. There no reason why Goebbels should have sought refuge in Hitler at this time? Well, the answer is that by two days after the Reichskristallnacht, every finger in Germany was pointing at Goebbels. He had held a disastrous press conference before the Berlin foreign press corps where he had been ridiculed. Ribbentrop, Himmler, Heydrich, every top Nazi, the entire top Nazi brass, were pointing the finger at Goebbels and demanding

P-42

that he should be finally dismissed because of this outrage. We know this from all the private diaries, including from the diaries of anti-Nazis like Ulrich von Hassell, and his only protection was to go to Adolf Hitler .

Q. But, Mr Irving ---- A. And, as I made quite plain, Adolf Hitler -- this is one of his weaknesses -- immediately covered for him .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: So what is said in the diary is true, but Hitler was, as it were, unnecessarily and inappropriately taking the blame, is that what your case is?

A. I think your Lordship has summed it, yes, and I would also draw your Lordship's attention to the fact that the Canadian video tape which quotes my initial apprehensions about what I had just found in Moscow is just four days after I returned -- six days after I returned from Moscow with the Goebbels diaries .

You cannot reach snap decisions about the content of a document as tricky as this without comparing with all the additional surrounding countryside of documentation which is what I then did by a year later .

MR RAMPTON: You may think that it is tricky because, of course, if it is not tricky, it immediately plants Adolf Hitler in the centre of the frame, does it not?

A. Well, the tricky thing about the Goebbels' diaries, as I have repeatedly said, is they are the diaries of a liar .

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Q. Suppose that Himmler, as I suggested to you yesterday, was as involved, and perhaps more so, than Goebbels, it would be in his interests to pass the buck. It was in all their interests, so far as they could, to leave somebody else holding the baby perhaps?

A. Are you suggest that Himmler was involved in it?

Q. I told you so yesterday .

A. But all the evidence is exactly the contrary. All the contemporary evidence, including the private diary of Ulrich von Hassell, says that Himmler and Heydrich were absolutely livid with what had happened that night, because Goebbels had played fast and loose with the police forces which came under them .

Q. Please explain to me, if Himmler and Heydrich were livid with what happened, the terminology of that telex of Heydrich, which we looked at earlier this morning, timed at 1.20 a.m. .

A. Which was the one restricting certain measures .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Saying continue, I think, carry on .

MR RAMPTON: Yes, "Carry on, have a good time, do not damage German property, do not assault foreign Jews, carry on, it does not matter what you do so long as you do not injure German property" .

A. They apprehended that they were acting on Hitler's instructions and they found out at 2 a.m. that they were not, because Goebbels, in his famous speech at the old

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town hall, had clearly given the impression that this was what the Führer wanted .

Q. And then?

A. At 2 a.m., when the Führer found out what was going on right across Germany, he called the people to his private residence and said, "What on earth is going on?" Q. Then, on 10th or 11th November, not only does Goebbels record Hitler's approval or lack of disapproval for what happened, he actually circulates Gauleiters with a statement to the effect that the Führer sanctions the measures taken so far and declares that he does not disapprove of them. Now, if Goebbels had been lying in his diary about Hitler's approval, he was taking an awful risk, was he not, of telling everybody that Hitler did approve of it?

A. This is typical Goebbels. This is exactly the way he operated and, although I point once again to the fact that your source for this circular is a third hand item by an adjutant of a Gauleiter, assuming that that information is correct, this is typical of the way that Goebbels would operate. He would tell everybody to, "Shut up with your criticism of me, the Führer was behind it" .

Q. But it is true. The Führer was behind it, was he not, Mr Irving?

A. Unfortunately, the documents operate the other way. We have that document which I produce now in the original on

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the headed notepaper of the deputy of the Führer, saying from orders from the highest level these acts of arson and similar things against the Jewish property are to cease forthwith, a message sent out at high urgency, high priority, at 2.56 a.m. .

Q. Do we get those words "Jewish property" again? When you were caught unawares with that document yesterday, you correctly translated the word "Geschäften" as shops .

A. The important element of that telegram is not the translation of the word "Geschäfte" but the fact that this is an order being sent out by Hitler's deputy saying, "The highest level has ordered these things to stop", at 2.56 a.m. You cannot get out of that telegram. This is the one thing that destroys your entire case .

Q. Mr Irving, it does not say it. It says the burning of Jewish shops and the like should stop .

A. If you were right, Mr Rampton, that telegram would say "carry on, not enough, more so, more so", and in fact it says precisely the opposite .

Q. It does not say precisely the opposite. We went through this yesterday, Mr Irving .

A. If you are saying Adolf Hitler was behind the outrages, what is his deputy doing sending ought a telegram at 2.56 a.m., of which you provided a copy yesterday, without the heading showing that it came from the Deputy Führer, saying these outrages and the like against Jewish shops,

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Jewish businesses, are to stop .

Q. No .

A. This is exactly the opposite of what Adolf Hitler would have said .

Q. No, Mr Irving, I am sorry, it will not do. You cannot get round the wording of that telegram .

A. You cannot get round the heading of that telegram .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Wait for the question .

MR RAMPTON: However much you may wish to inflate it, the fact is that it is specific as to Jewish shops and the like .

Geschäfte oder dergleichen .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is right. You do not need to check it, Mr Irving. That is right .

A. "I directed No. 174/38 repetition of the telegram sent out that same evening, 10th November, on express orders from the highest level, acts of arson against Jewish businesses or the like, are not to take place under any circumstances whatever." Signed by the Deputy Führer, and you cannot get round it .

MR RAMPTON: Well Mr Irving, I use your own translation given from the witness box caught unawares, "shops". Nothing about synagogues?

A. If Adolf Hitler was totally endorsing what Goebbels was up to, he would have done exactly the opposite. He would have said, "carry on fellows, magnificent stuff, let's have more fires" .

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Q. You look at that message again, if you want. Where is the reference to synagogues, houses and apartments?

A. Where is the reference to Adolf Hitler eagerly backing up everything Goebbels was doing?

Q. No, Mr Irving. You use that telegram as incontrovertible evidence, to borrow one of your phrases, that Adolf Hitler smashed his fist on the table and said, "this has all got to stop". Look at it again .

A. Do not forget, I also have the eyewitnesses who were with him just before this telegram was sent out. I have his two adjutants .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I have each party's case .

A. This is another of those pivotal items and this is very close to the horse's mouth .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I agree it is pivotal, but there is no point in thrashing through it again. We went through it yesterday. I understand both cases .

MR RAMPTON: Yes .

A. It is just that my evidence is slightly better quality than his .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Will you save that up for the end of the case .

MR RAMPTON: Yes, Mr Irving, laughter in court. Can we look at how you have finally come to deal with this Goebbels diary entry on page 278 of your book, Goebbels Mastermind of the Third Reich? It is the top of page 278 in the fourth line

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at the paragraph .

"He made his report (on 'what to do next') to Hitler in the Osteria, the Führer's favourite Italian restaurant, and was careful to record this" -- and you insert "perhaps slanted" -- "note in his diary, which stands alone, and in direct contradiction to the evidence of Hitler's entire immediate entourage: "He is in agreement with everything. His views are quite radical and aggressive. The Aktion itself went off without a hitch. A hundred dead". Where did that hundred come from? I do not remember that. Anyhow, it does not matter. I thought it was 17 dead .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: 17, yes .

A. It must be a subsequent entry in the diary .

MR RAMPTON: "But no German property damaged" .

A. My Lord, remember I was operating from the handwritten original .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes .

A. I may have read the 17 as 100. It was in digits. I had the original .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You may be right, it may be a hundred .

A. Indeed .

MR RAMPTON: The official total at the end of it all was 91, was it not, Mr Irving .

Q. I take your word for it, yes .

Q. We do not find that figure in your book, I do not think,

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do we?

A. You have 100 here .

Q. No, that is Goebbels. You do not trust Goebbels. You are just telling the readership in a moment each of these five sentences was untrue. You are discrediting the figure of 100?

A. On the previous page 276 I say, "191 of the country's 1400 synagogues had been destroyed; about 7,500 Jewish shops had had their windows smashed. 36 ... had been murdered, and hundreds more badly beaten". I give a source for that .

Q. 36. That was an interim report by Heydrich some time on the morning of the 11th .

A. Yes .

Q. The final official figure was something in the region of 91, was it not, dead?

A. Yes .

Q. That comes from the report of the people's court in February of 1939, does it not?

A. I cannot quite understand what the criticism is. I have said on one page the interim figure was 36. I then say Goebbels talks of a hundred .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is not the main point, I think .

MR RAMPTON: No. You say Goebbels spoke of 100 and then you immediately say that that is untrue .

A. What I say is "perhaps slanted", or what?

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Q. No. I am reading your own words after the end of the quote. "Each of these five sentences was untrue as will be seen"?

A. Yes .

Q. Right. So you are discrediting Goebbels' total of the dead, despite the fact that you know perfectly well that even the Nazi people's court, or whatever it was called, in 1939 came to a total of 91?

A. Well, in that case 100 is untrue. Each of those figures is untrue. The point is I am pointing out exactly how unreliable Goebbels' diary is and I am saying, each of these five sentences is untrue, inaccurate. "No German property was damaged". There had been immense damage to German property. Things went off without a hitch .

Exactly the contrary .

Q. Tell me this. Do you accept that, whatever else you may say passed between Goebbels and Hitler at the meeting at the Osteria, Hitler told Goebbels that he wants to take very sharp measures against the Jews, they must themselves put their business in order again, the insurance companies will not pay them a thing. Then the Führer wants a gradual expropriation of Jewish businesses?

A. Yes, that was said .

Q. That was said and it happened, did it not?

A. And it did happen, yes .

Q. On 12th November 1938 there was a conference chaired by

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I think Hermann Goring, at which I think probably Dr Goebbels was present, at which very harsh measures in accordance with the Führer's wishes were taken against the Jews .

A. Yes, that is correct, Hermann Goring was head of the four year plan and he was in a position to issue these ordinances .

Q. You do not in your book, I think, Mr Irving, make any connection between the meeting in the Osteria restaurant, which in fact on reflection was perfectly obvious, and the Goring conference of the 12th two days later, do you?

A. You say that Dr Goebbels was present at that meeting .

I do not believe he was actually present, but I may be wrong .

Q. I do not know. Just have a quick glance -- I am not a historian, Mr Irving -- at the top of page 290 of Evans .

A. 290 of Evans?

MR RAMPTON: Yes .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are we leaving now the passage at 278 .

MR RAMPTON: Yes .

A. He was present, yes .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: The point is a wider one than the 100 dead, is it not?

MR RAMPTON: Yes, but I have been over that .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just put the question, so I get the

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answer .

MR RAMPTON: Yes .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: 278 of Goebbels. I think the suggestion is that there really is no basis for saying that the record in the diary is such a complete misrepresentation of what Hitler's express view was at the Osteria .

MR RAMPTON: That is right .

A. I am afraid I have not followed your Lordship's question .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry, my fault. You see what you say about the diary entry?

A. Yes .

Q. You are saying that Goebbels is totally misrepresenting Hitler's attitude as expressed to him, Goebbels, at the Osteria restaurant on the 10th .

A. In as much as he has ---- Q. What is the basis for that? I think that is really the question .

A. He has misrepresented the diary in as much as the diary suggested Adolf Hitler endorsed, triggered, ignited and wanted the pogrom to take the shape it had during the previous night .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but on what basis do you say that Hitler's view was something different from what Goebbels says in his diary?

A. This telegram, my Lord, the one that goes out at 2.56 a.m.

saying, this has got to stop .

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MR JUSTICE GRAY: You rely on that?

A. And of course on the eyewitnesses von Below and von Puttkamer who talked to me in a manner that they probably would not have talked to Professor Evans .

MR RAMPTON: How many years after the events, Mr Irving?

A. 1967. That would be 29 years later .

Q. Did you show them the Geschäften telegram of 2.56 a.m.?

A. This telegram?

Q. Yes .

A. I am not sure if I had it at the time I saw them, but their own recollections were very, very clear because they were burned into their memories .

Q. Did you say to them, Mr Irving, look at this telegram, you cannot be telling the truth, whatever their names were, because this telegram is limited to Jewish shops and the like?

A. What they described to me was Hitler's anger on hearing that the synagogue in Munich was on fire, which news they brought to him. His response, "what on earth is going on, send for the police chief von Eberstein", the police chief arriving. He then said, "send for Himmler, send for Goebbels, let us get to the bottom of this". Then the orders were issued between 2 and 3 a.m.. This is their eyewitness account which they gave to me .

Q. The answer to my question is no, you did not show them the Geschäften telegram?

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A. That I do not know. This interview is, what 32 years ago? I do not know what documents I showed to them .

Q. Nor did you show them, I take it, von Eberstein's telegram or message or whatever it was, of 2.10 a.m., saying in effect, "carry on, chaps"?

A. A message with Eberstein's typed signature on the bottom from police headquarters, where Eberstein was not, because at that moment he was at Hitler's flat .

Q. They had a telephone system in Munich in 1938, did they not?

A. Yes, but you have to take into account the factor of time. There is no such thing as instantaneous communication of ideas. They had to pick up the phone .

They had to dial. They had to get through. They had to find the officer at the other end. Somebody had to take the message down, somebody had to type it on to the telex, they had to get open lines .

Q. All of that can be done in about five minutes .

A. I do not think so. I think we are talking about the 1930s when everything was done manually, including telephone exchanges .

Q. Eberstein already had the text of Müller's telex of 5 to 12 that night, did he not, and he just recites it .

A. Yes. There is no question that at the time those igniting orders went out in consequence of Dr Goebbels' speech at the old town hall, the executive branch, if you can put it

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like that, thought they were acting in conformity with Hitler's wishes. At 2 a.m. they learned their mistake .

Q. Did you show your eyewitnesses in 1967 or whenever it was the Eberstein telegram of 2.10 a.m.?

A. That would not be the way I would conduct an interview .

I would go there and learn exactly what they knew without showing them documents .

Q. Did you not think it sensible to test a person's recollection, however amicably you do it, after more than 20 years by reference to the contemporaneous documentation?

A. Mr Gray, if you read the transcripts of these interviews ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think you are getting confused between Rampton and me .

MR RAMPTON: You do me too much of an honour, Mr Irving, I am afraid .

A. I am sorry, Mr Rampton, I must remember Rampton .

Q. I do not mind but I really would not think it was very nice for his Lordship .

A. Mr Rampton, you have read the transcripts of my interviews with these Adjutants of Hitler because they are verbatim, and you will see that we did not go there with a set agenda to talk about. I would go along there, we would have tea, we would sit for five hours and talk about everything they remembered .

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Q. Old Hitler faithfuls and you swallowed their tale, if I may put it like that, hook line and sinker, did you not, because you wanted to?

A. I swallow their tale?

Q. Yes .

A. They were Hitler faithfuls?

Q. You did not take any trouble to test their evidence by reference to the contemporaneous documentation. That is the last time I am going to ask that question .

A. On the contrary, once I had conducted the interviews with these people, and I had a German secretary transcribe verbatim what they said, which transcripts you have had, I would then put that into the general dossier on that particular episode and I would weigh the interviews against the documents, which is precisely what I have done over the last 32 years for one book after another .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just intervene and ask this question?

These diaries that Goebbels kept were for his own benefit, were they? They were not seen by others at the time?

A. My Lord, in 1933 he published the first volumes of diaries which covered the years of struggle, shall we say, up to the seizure of power and he was recalled from the Kaiserhof to the Reichs Chancellery. In 1936 he sold rights in all his diaries in perpetuity to the Nazi publishing house for a large lump sum .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: So he was contemplating publication?

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A. They were very definitely written in contemplation of later publication. But that not necessarily mean to say that there were not also a lot of private materials in them which he did not intend to publish, particularly the handwritten diaries .

MR RAMPTON: Now I want to pass on to something else, also part of the aftermath. One of the consequences of this appalling business, Mr Irving, was that some people were brought before whatever the Nazi party court was called .

Can you remember what it was called?

A. The Oberstes Parteigericht, the supreme public court .

Q. Just so we can be clear, that is not part of the established orthodox German judicial system at all, was it?

A. No. It was a party court established under Walter Buch, B U C H, who was a sworn and dedicated personal enemy of Dr. Goebbels .

Q. That is as maybe .

A. It is not as maybe. You have to bear this in mind when you consider what the findings are which Buch signed .

Q. The fact is, it was not part of the established judicial machinery, was it?

A. No .

Q. So you cannot describe the people who bring people before the party court as the public prosecutors, can you?

A. No .

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Q. Would you turn to page 281 of your Goebbels book, please?

A. Yes .

Q. Just above the middle of the page there is a reference to Rudolf Hess. Do you see that?

A. Yes .

Q. The long paragraph: "Hess confirmed that in his view Goebbels was alone to blame. He ordered the Gestapo and the party's courts to delve into the origins of the night's violence and turn the culprits over to the public prosecutors." A. Yes .

Q. My first question about that is this. Would you agree that that was apt to suggest to the reader that anybody found guilty of arson, looting, damage, assault, rape, murder, or whatever, was going to be prosecuted by the State judicial machinery once the matter had been investigated?

A. I think that what happened, which is covered by the sentence, was that a number of people, both inside and outside the party, exceeded their orders, if I can put it like that, and went on little private rampages. I mention one case where somebody murdered an opponent because he was going to testify against him in a libel action .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is not really an answer to Mr Rampton's question .

A. Would you repeat the question, emphasising the part----

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MR RAMPTON: The question is this. Do you not agree that that sentence, not a long sentence, is apt to suggest to the reader that the matter was going to be investigated by the Gestapo and the party's courts to find out the origins of the night's violence and to turn the culprits, that is to say, those responsible for acts of violence of whatever kind against people or property, over to the public prosecutors so that they could be prosecuted according to the law?

A. I will not go beyond what that sentence actually says .

What I intended it to mean to the reader I cannot recall now twelve years later, but it is footed in a very secure document of the day, December 1938 .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are still not really addressing the question. If I read that, I think I would be inclined to think that these people were going to be prosecuted by the criminal system of the country .

A. My Lord, there was a large number of prosecutions in the regular courts and people went to jail for what they had done that night .

MR RAMPTON: Do you know the figures, Mr Irving?

A. I can find them for you, yes .

Q. 16 cases in the report of 13th February 1939. I am coming back to what actually these people were considering, which is an initial limitation, but we will look at that in a moment .

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A. If we look at the aftermath of this sentence, so to speak, there were public prosecutions in the regular criminal courts and people went to jail for what they did on the night of broken glass in Germany. If you are interested in figures I will obtain them for you .

Q. I will give you the figures in a moment .

A. I will provide my own figures, if you do not mind .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Wait for Mr Rampton's question. You may agree with it .

MR RAMPTON: It is entirely up to you what material you choose to put before the court. This is cross-examination, Mr Irving, not a speech by you. Mr Irving, can we look, please, and see what in fact was the directive which went out under Hess's authority? It is in 293 and 4 of Evans .

It is dated 19th December 1938. It is translated. My Lord, it is at the bottom of 293 in paragraph 1. Professor Evans translates it as follows. The German is at the bottom of 294 .

A. Yes. This is the source of that particular sentence .

Q. I know it is. "The aim of the investigation by the Party Court is to establish which cases can and must be held responsible by the action itself and which cases arose out of personal and base motives. In the latter cases a referral to the state prosecution service will be unavoidable, indeed it will be just" .

A. Yes .

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Q. The only people who were going to be handed over to be prosecuted by the State criminal justice machinery were those who had acted out of base motives of their own .

Anybody else, however grave their crime, would be let off?

A. That is correct .

Q. Where do we find that in your book?

A. In this sentence. That document justifies the sentence I gave: "He ordered the Gestapo and the party's courts to delve into the origins of the night's violence and turn the culprits over to the public prosecutors." We have already seen in the previous pages that a lot of the violence was authorised by the head of state, so quite clearly those culprits are not going to be turned over .

Q. Wait a minute, Mr Irving. I am afraid I have now gone spinning round in 360 degrees. A lot of the violence was authorised by the head of State?

A. Yes. We have seen that. There is no question about that .

Q. In what sense?

A. Hitler has said pull the police back .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is authorising the burning of synagogues?

A. My Lord ---- MR RAMPTON: And the killing of Jews .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: What is the answer to that question, Mr Irving?

A. It is authorising what happened in the run up to the

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Reichskristallnacht. If you remember, it was not on the actual night of the broken glass once it got out of control. When Hitler heard that there were individual outbursts in Kassel and Magdeburg and other provinces, he said the police are not to intervene, they are to hold back, the public must be given a chance to express their outrage and so on. That is what I mean when I say that that kind of violence was certainly authorised by the head of State, and it was not appropriate to turn people like that that over to the law courts. But there were other people who then went and settled private scores and that is what has been winkled out by these party court operations .

MR RAMPTON: Shall we just have a look at some figures? Page 295 of Evans, Mr Irving. Paragraph 3, my Lord. Set out are what the people's court, or whatever they call themselves, set out above are what I take to be what they saw as their terms of reference. Perhaps I ought to read that as a preliminary: "The Führer's Deputy", that is Hess, is it not, "shared the view of the Supreme Party Court that the excesses which had become known should in any case first be investigated by the party jurisdiction ... The view of the Supreme Party Court", this is in February 1939, "is that it must be fundamentally impossible for political offences which primarily touch on the party's interests,

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offences which ... are desired by the party as illegal measures," you notice that wording, do you not?

A. Yes .

Q. "desired by the party as illegal measures, are confirmed and condemned by state jurisdiction, without the party previously having the possibility of creating clarity about the events and contexts through its own courts, in order if necessary to ask the Führer to quash the trial before the state courts at the right moment". This was just intended to be a complete whitewash, was it not?

A. Unfortunately, Professor Evans has, in his amiable way, translated only a fraction of the actual document which you will find under tab 2 of trial bundle L2, and you will find there that he lists there horrendous outrages conducted during the Reichskristallnacht at the end of 1938. I will translate very roughly to you, Mr Rampton: The Supreme Party court -- does your Lordship wish to look at the original German?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. I am listening to you. I am happy to follow you .

A. This is on page handwritten 3 of that document which Professor Evans has quoted from. At the end of November 1938 the Supreme Party court received from various gau courts, in other words the provincial party courts, information that in the conduct of the demonstrations on 9th November 1938, that is the Reichskristallnacht, in a

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considerable degree there had been plundering and killings of Jews which are already being investigated by the police and public prosecutors, and so on .

It then continues about how these various things are going to be investigated and it specifies particular episodes on the following day, crime committed by individual people who are named here, a whole series of them, then 16 specific episodes given just in that one party court file .

MR RAMPTON: I hear what you say. If we need it, we will have a translation made of the whole that report .

A. It does seem that Evans -- I mean, the dot dot dot he has put in there does conceal quite a lot .

Q. No doubt with an eye to saving paper. We can have it translated if necessary. You can take it up with Professor Evans .

A. You keep saying I can take these things up with Professor Evans, but at present his Lordship only has your word and this document in front of him in translation .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. I have got what you tell me is also there and, unless and until Professor Evans says that you are wrong about that, I will assume you are right .

MR RAMPTON: I cannot possibly take it up with you, Mr Irving .

I do not have a translation. Paragraph 3 on page 295 of Evans, please?

A. Yes .

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Q. Where the Party Courts drew the line between actions which could be justified, and those which were judged to have been committed out of vile" -- I could say base , I suppose, could I not? -- "motives, becomes clear in the various judgements of the Party Courts. For instance, in the report of 13th February 1939, Goring was informed of the outcome of the investigations in 16 cases which the Supreme Party Court had undertaken. In only two of the 16 cases, both involving the rape of Jewish women, had the Party Court transferred the perpetrators to ordinary criminal courts (and in these two cases the party judges were not motivated by concern for the victims, but simply by the fact that Nazi party members had committed 'racial defilement' or in other words compromised what the party regarded as their own racial purity). In all the other 14 cases the Supreme Party Court asked Hitler to quash proceedings. These cases included the brutal murder of 21 Jews, who had been shot dead, stabbed to death or drowned by Nazi party members. The worst punishment meted out to these murderers was an official warning and barring from any Nazi party office for a period of three years. The great majority of offenders received even milder 'punishments', or none at all." Is that true or false, that account given by Professor Evans?

A. Well, Professor Evans has not given us the source of information for what happened to these people,

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unfortunately. He has just relied on this one report which deals with the investigation of these cases, but he has not told us what he relies on for the outcome of the cases .

Q. 14 out of 16, the two transferred to be prosecuted in the normal way being rapists?

A. You heard me say earlier that there were substantially more cases than just the 16, and I will certainly be presenting to the court the evidence of the other cases .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us stick with the 16. You are being asked, do you quarrel with this?

MR RAMPTON: You have only two out of 16. You have 14 that get let off despite being murderers .

A. We do not know what his evidence is for that .

Q. It is in the report. He says ibid., which is his footnote for 130, which means the same report, the report to Goring .

A. In cases 3 to 16 the Supreme Party Court requests that the Führer halt the proceedings in the regular criminal court, so it does look as though those 16 were not further prosecuted .

Q. Two of them were, apparently .

A. Yes .

Q. So they get off just because they are jolly party members acting in accordance with the wish of the Führer and murdering Jews?

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A. Yes .

Q. How does that chime with what you wrote in Goebbels?

"Hess ordered the Gestapo and the party's courts to delve into the origins of the night's violence and turn the culprits over to the public prosecutors"?

A. He did. That is the document of December 1938 .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: On the contrary, Mr Irving ---- A. No, my Lord ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: 14 of them never went to the criminal courts .

A. My Lord, the sentence, he ordered the Gestapo and the party's courts to delve into the origins and so on, Hess ordered and so on, to delve into the origins of the night's violence and turn the culprits over to the public prosecutors, they did then enquire and delve, and subsequently in February 1939 there is this later report of what the outcome was .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: They just got a ticking off for raping and killing .

A. This is absolutely right, my Lord, but there were then very many other cases to which this document makes no reference where prosecutions were carried out, and I shall bring that evidence forward .

MR RAMPTON: You make no reference in your book to this absolutely scandalous manipulation of the justice system, do you?

A. I think I make any amount of reference in the Goebbels

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biography to the manipulation of the justice system by the Nazis. There is any amount of evidence of the way that they twisted the system in order to prosecute Catholic priests and so on. The whole way through the book I have shown the cynical manipulation of the German justice system but there is a limit to how much you can keep on packing into a book without making it 2,000 pages long or filled with the 8 pages of sludge that I referred to earlier. You have to halt the story at some point and proceed .

Q. To avoid misrepresentation, which I suggest this is an absolutely scandalous example, it is much better to leave it out. If you cannot find enough space to put in the truth, leave it out .

A. You are not suggesting the sentence that I wrote there is not the truth? It is absolutely true .

Q. Of course I am .

A. They ordered an investigation but at some point, we are dealing here with December 1938, you then draw the line .

You have mentioned how many people have been thrown into concentration camps, you have mentioned the murders, you have mentioned the huge amount of looting and destruction that went on, and now I am being criticised because I have not referred to 16 specific cases where the Nazis acted in a perverse way when it was not Goebbels who was acting in a perverse way, it is the rest of the Nazi system that is

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operating in a perverse way .

Q. You knew perfectly well when you wrote this that it was the intention of the Nazi Party that all but a tiny minority of those guilty of everything from murder downwards should get off. You never said it?

A. First of all, there is no evidence of any such intention and I am not writing a book about the Nazi justice system. If I was to write a book about the Nazi justice system, I would have gone in far greater detail into this kind of evidence. I am writing a biography of the man, Dr Josef Goebbels, who triggered this outrage, and there comes a point where you draw a line and say, "That is as far as one is going down that particular story because we now have other things to relate". Elsewhere in the book I have given any amount of evidence of specific distortions of the German justice system with which he was personally involved, for example, the prosecution of the German priests and the prosecution of Pastor Niemöller, and so on .

MR RAMPTON: My Lord, I want to turn now, if I may, to Dresden .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, so we can put away Evans, can we not?

MR RAMPTON: He can be put by way, as it were. There are one or two places where the full text of a document is quoted in evidence which we may need to look at, but I would recommend using what I call the Heather Rogers' Guide to Dresden .

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MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think I have got it .

MR RAMPTON: No, it is coming .

A. But, I will, in fact, be in a position to call the evidence of the other convictions that resulted from the Kristallnacht ---- MR RAMPTON: By all means do .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, do .

A. --- if you attach importance to it .

MR RAMPTON: My Lord, neither your Lordship nor Mr Irving has seen this document. I would like to use it because, as far as I am concerned, it is both comprehensive and accurate. When I say that it contains a comprehensive catalogue in date order of all the material to which I want to refer .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: What I think I will do with it is put it in your summary of place, is that a good idea?

MR RAMPTON: Yes, that is a good idea, in the Dresden section .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are you producing a file on Dresden?

MR RAMPTON: There is a file on Dresden. Sorry, my Lord, about this conversation. It is meant to be helpful .

A. My Lord, I also provided your Lordship with a small clip of documents .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: We might put it in the same file, I suspect .

A. Yes, that is why I was mentioning that .

MR RAMPTON: I have here two sets of documents, one of which one might call the David Irving original research file, or

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clip, the other is some of what Mr Irving has said on this question. I am trying to not refer to those if I possibly can because I want to use this schedule here. My Lord, there is an empty file on the bench, I think, if those could go in as tabs 2 and 3?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think I have this empty file. Has it got anything on the back of it?

MR RAMPTON: L1 .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: L1, yes. This is going to become Dresden, is it?

MR RAMPTON: Well, the first part is history. That is not what I meant. The first part is Hitler/Horthy which is a very slim clip of, I think, two pages or something, and the next two tabs can be Dresden .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am going to ask if somebody can put this into tab 2 because they have been individually hole punched so that it is half an hour's work .

MR RAMPTON: Yes. Before I start on this topic, my Lord, I think I need to know from Mr Irving through your Lordship whether he has any objection (and he has not seen it before) to using this tabular schedule that I have just handed in .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Does it contain anything that is not in the other documents?

MR RAMPTON: It is all taken from the documents .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are you happy with that, Mr Irving?

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A. Well, with reservations, yes. I think it contains prejudicial material which does not -- but it depends how he presents it MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us work off it anyway, shall we?

MR RAMPTON: Let us start off anyway. My Lord, I start on page 3. I should preface that by saying on page 1 your Lordship will see as the first four items listed four authentic German, that is to say Nazi German, wartime documents dealing with the numbers of dead as a result of allied bombing at Dresden in February 1945. As your Lordship will see, there is no dispute about the authenticity of any of those four documents. That is right, is it not, Mr Irving?

A. I do not have them in front of me yet .

Q. You know what they are, 15th March 1945, final report?

A. Yes .

Q. 22nd March 1945, situation report 1404; the real Tagesbefehl 47 of 22nd March 1945, not the fake, and the situation report 1414 of the Chief of Police of 3rd April 1945. You are well familiar with all those documents, are you not?

A. I am sure about No. 3 and 4 until I actually see them. Do they come from my discovery?

Q. As far as I know. I think perhaps the last one comes from [Götz] Bergander, but I am not sure. There is no doubt that the real Tagesbefehl was obtained, I think was sent to you by

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Bergander, but I am not sure, in 1977. Have you seen the real Tagesbefehl -- the non-faked one?

A. Well, I am afraid my bundle is not assisting me here .

Where do I find these four documents in the bundle?

I have got 15th March one .

Q. I do not know that I can tell you that .

A. I have 22nd March one .

Q. Because for one thing I can hardly read it. There is a document on page 7, for example, which might be anything .

There is a document of 22nd March at page 8 .

A. Yes, those two I am familiar with .

Q. Right. That goes on and on .

A. That goes on and on. I am lacking the next 22nd March one which you say is Tagesbefehl 47 .

Q. I do not know if there is a next 22nd March one. I really cannot help. But these documents all, I think -- we think that these documents came from your discovery, such as we have. But you know what I mean by the real Tagesbefehl 47, do you not?

A. Well, I do not. The only one that I am familiar with is the one turns out to have been faked by the German Propaganda Ministry .

MR RAMPTON: I see .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where is the original? I mean the genuine one? It does not look as if it is in the bundle .

MR RAMPTON: No, it does not, I agree. I do not know

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actually. It is referred to in a book by somebody called Bergander in 1977 .

A. I do not think there is a genuine one, document No. 47 .

The only one I have seen was a fake which was produced by the Goebbels Propaganda Ministry for propaganda purposes .

MR RAMPTON: Yes, which had an extra 0 added to all its figures, did it not?

A. It multiplied everything by an order of magnitude, yes .

Q. If you turn to page 11, my Lord, of the table, it says, basing herself on Professor Evans, Miss Rogers writes this: "1977, the real TB 47 comes to light. It is discovered by Bergander who found a reservist Ehrlich who had a copy cited at page 261 of Bergander, etc. Evans describes Bergander as the most authoritative work", and so on and so forth. I dare say if you have not read Bergander, Mr Irving (and I know you do not read other people's books) you will not be conscious of ---- A. Well, Götz Bergander was a very good friend of mine -- he still is a very good friend of mine .

Q. Have you read this 1977 book of his?

A. I have not, no .

Q. Then the answer to my question was, "You are quite right, I do not read even my friend's books and so I am not familiar with this document". Is that right?

A. Well, I gave him a great deal of assistance when he was writing his book, but I had no reason to read his book

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because I was no longer writing about Dresden .

Q. Whether or not he has found the real one, and I expect you to accept that he has ---- A. That is the first I have heard of it actually at this moment there is supposed to have been a real one .

Q. Yes. But the interesting thing about the real one, as you will see in a moment, is that its numbers coincide more or less ---- A. Well, we have not been shown it. I cannot comment on that .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 67, tab 2 .

A. It was in his book, right. Is this from a printed book?

MR RAMPTON: No, this is from Bergander .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: So we have not got it?

MR RAMPTON: We have not got the document, no .

A. Are you referring to the handwritten page 67 or typed?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Handwritten. That looks like Bergander .

MR RAMPTON: It does .

A. I cannot see any reference to the Tagesbefehl. It is T-A-G-E-S B-E-F-E-H-L .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 235. I am probably wrong, but there is a reference to "Befehl" there. No, I think it is a different "Befehl" .

MR RAMPTON: My Lord, I can tell your Lordship this, that on page 553, 552 and 53, Professor Evans reports the discovery of the real TB 47 by Bergander through Ehrlich

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and at paragraph 2 on page 553 he says this: "In this new, authentic Ehrlich copy the death figure was put at 20,204, the expected dead at 25,000 and the number cremated at 6,865", which are exactly the same figures as in the fake or forged TB 47 except for the missing 0 at the end .

A. In fact, I calculated that myself when I rewrote the Dresden book three or four years ago. I spotted the fact that somebody had clearly juggled the figures, but this is literally the first I ever heard of the existence of a real Tagesbefehl .

Q. And the reference given for that is Bergander at page 261 .

A. Well, the reason I mention that this is the first I have heard of it is I see that here Professor Evans in his infinite wisdom is saying, "despite having been finally forced to disown", what by? I never knew there was a real one. I have always recognized the other one was fake .

Q. You have not always recognized it, Mr Irving. We are coming back to that .

A. Well, ever since -- the last 20 or 30 years I recognized it was fake because the figures were so totally inflated .

Q. All I am asking you to accept -- you can look at it in Bergander, it is on page 77 of tab 2 of the file .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, that is right .

MR RAMPTON: All I am asking you to accept, because it does

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save such a lot of time -- there is no trap in it -- is that the real Bergander (sic) was found and that, as one would expect, its figures are short by a 0 .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You said the real Bergander, you mean the real Tagesbefehl?

MR RAMPTON: I mean the real Tagesbefehl, sorry, yes .

A. I shall get on the phone to Mr Bergander tonight and ask him if he knows about this .

Q. Well, it is in his book at page 261 .

A. I shall conceal the fact I did not read his book .

Q. You can tell him that you were forced to read it in court if you want?

A. I beg your pardon?

Q. You can tell him you were forced to read it in court .

A. Well, we cannot read it in court because you have not got it. You have only got his book. We have got his ---- Q. As I say, his book?

A. Oh, the book, yes, but I would have liked to have seen the document itself which he says he has .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, so would I. I wonder where it is?

MR RAMPTON: I do not know. Perhaps Mr Bergander has it. I do not know .

A. Perhaps I can get him to fax to me .

Q. But it really does not matter .

A. Well, it does because -- well, I am not going to presuppose what you were going to say .

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Q. I am only asking you to accept that the figures for deaths and expected deaths in the real version are 20,000 and 25,000, respectively?

A. Yes. That closely tallies with the Police Chief's report of that date .

Q. Exactly .

A. Yes .

Q. That is all I was driving at .

A. And I reached this deduction independently of all this about five years ago when I rewrote my Dresden book .

Q. That is as may be. In fact, document -- I will just read out the figures and then we can get on -- the final report of 15th March 1945 which I think you have got, or have seen?

A. You call it the final report?

Q. It is called the final report of the Dresden Police sent to you on 27th May 1966 ---- A. My Lord, I am bit unhappy -- oh, it is called "Schlußmeldung", right?

Q. I do not know .

A. 15th March .

Q. Which should be pages 17 of tab 2 in this file .

A. That is correct, yes. It is the final report on the four air raids .

Q. Yes, good. The figures given in that document, I am told by Professor Evans (but you dispute it, if you wish) are

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18,735 dead, 212 badly wounded and quite a lot more people slighted wounded, is that right? It is no good -- I cannot read it, so.. .

A. Well, of course, the Police Chief actually does not spell it out quite like that. He says, "18,000 bodies so far found", I believe, which is a subtle difference .

Q. Sure, and we will come to that along down the road, I am sure, Mr Irving. The situation report 1404 of 22nd March 1945?

A. Yes .

Q. Situation report gives figures of, I think, and it may be there is a misprint because it is odd that it is 18,375 and not 735. Maybe they have been adjusted. 25,000 total expected and 35,000 missing, is that right?

A. Yes. The interesting thing was that the one document was supplied to me in 1966 by the Soviet Authorities and simultaneously in the same mail I received the other document from the West German Authorities. They had found it in the German Finance Ministry files .

Q. Middle to end of May 1966, is that right?

A. Yes, this is three years after I published my book .

Q. I want to go back, if I may, because again I am not interested for this purpose -- I know you will get angry about it, but I am not -- I am not interested in what actually happened at Dresden or in the total numbers, though that, as it has in other areas of the case, may

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emerge ---- A. I remember you said, "So what?" Q. Yes, because that is not what this case is about, Mr Irving. You accuse people too readily of a kind of callousness, I do believe. We are investigating your bona fides as an historian and nothing more than that .

A. Well, you were the one who said, "So what?" ---- Q. Yes, because the reference to Dresden was irrelevant ---- A. --- about the way we killed 100,000 people in one night .

Q. --- to your reference to Auschwitz. Now, just keep our eye on the ball, if we may. Would you turn to page 3 of this tabular document, please? Is it right that in November 1964 you were in Dresden and you visited somebody called Hahn, is that right?

A. Walter Hahn .

Q. Yes. Is it right that when you were in the sitting room Hahn and a man called Walter Lange, who is the director of the Dresden City Archive, began to discuss the implications of the 200,000 figure, yes?

A. Well, if you have a source for that, yes .

Q. I have your own words .

A. A diary or?

Q. Page 517 of Evans. When you came back from this visit, you wrote a long memorandum, did you not? It is in the file .

A. Yes .

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Q. It is difficult to read because it is a photograph of a negative or whatever .

A. Yes .

Q. I would much prefer to read it from Evans' text. "'Lange had not realised that it gave this figure'", that is the so-call TB 47, "'and I at once realised why Hahn had seemed reluctant it show it to me (in fact he had had that probably since 1950 or so, yet he had not shown it to me on any of my previous visits in 1962 and 1963)'". Then comes this: "'As soon as Lange began to expostulate on this document being a patent forgery, Hahn became very worried'". What sort of man is or was Lange, Mr Irving?

A. He was a short, bald headed gentleman with a prominent Communist Party badge in his lapel .

Q. What sort of a man is or was Professor Seydewitz?

A. He was the former Mayor of Dresden and, obviously, a Communist Party official .

Q. Both of those, I think I am right, cast doubt on, if not the authenticity of the document, certainly the reliability of the figure, did they not?

A. I am not sure that Walter Lange did, but Max Seydewitz had published his own book on air raids on Dresden -- a very good book -- and he produced different figures .

Q. You knew from the beginning -- for you this is the beginning -- that there was grave doubt about the figures given in this document?

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A. Yes .

Q. That the figure for dead was 202,000 plus and the figure for expected death, again a forgery, was 250,000, was it not?

A. Yes .

Q. You knew from this time and said you thought the document was genuine, but that the 200,000 figure might be suspect?

A. Yes .

Q. You said that on a number of occasions. If we turn over to page 4 of the table, you said it to ---- A. Of the table?

Q. --- to Mr McLachlan, the Editor of the Sunday Telegraph: "It remains to be established whether" -- this is the second box, 26th November '64 -- "the 200,000 number it contains is equally genuine and if not why not" .

A. Well, yes, that sentence is quoted .

Q. And on 28th of November 1964 you wrote to a Herr Struss, Dieter Struss, I think his name was?

A. My German publisher .

Q. Yes?

A. Yes, my German publisher .

Q. Yes, your German publisher, referring to the death figure of 202,040 people. You said: "This information is naturally sensational and because it comes from the then Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Max Fünfack, there is no doubt about the authenticity of the document." Now, did

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you in that letter to Herr Struss express any doubt about the figure?

A. Without seeing these two letters, it is difficult to see ---- Q. I quite share that, if I may say so .

A. --- exactly what the context these sentences are taken out of .

Q. Page 37 of tab 2. It is probably written in German, I should think, since it is from you to a German gentleman. It is page 37 and 8. It is a letter from you to Herr Dr Struss. Can I ask you to read it to yourself?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where is the relevant bit, Mr Rampton, do you know?

MR RAMPTON: It is right in the first paragraph, my Lord .

A. They do not seem to be irreconcilable. In the previous letter on page 36, I say, "Having now examined the document minutely myself, I am satisfied of its authenticity. It remains to be established whether the 200,000 number it contains is equally genuine and if not why not" .

MR RAMPTON: That is what you said on 26th November ---- A. And two days later I then write to Dr Struss .

Q. Yes. Tell us whether in that letter -- my only question this, I do not know, I have not read the whole letter -- you raise a doubt about the reliability of the number in the same way as you had two days earlier to the Editor of

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whatever the paper was, The Telegraph .

A. It is exactly the same. "This information is naturally sensational and coming as it does from the Deputy Local Chief Doctor, Dr Max Fünfack, there could be no doubt as to the authenticity of the document" .

Q. Fair enough. I quite agree. What I asked was whether in this document Dr Struss, your German publisher, you raise any doubts about the reliability of the figures which is the key to this argument, Mr Irving. You need to read the whole of it .

A. "I have just returned from a visit to Dresden and I have received from confidential sources the Police report of the Police Chief in Dresden on the four air raids". This is the Tagesbefehl 47, of course, not the final report .

"This document gives the death roll known as of that date as 202,040. This information is naturally sensational and coming as it does from the Deputy Local Chief Doctor, Dr Max Fünfack, there can be no doubt as to the authenticity of the document. This document has been mentioned in Eastern Germany, in other words, Communist Eastern Germany, but only with the comment that it is a Nazi propaganda lie, and extracts have been published from it. I accept this judgment on page 245 of our book" .

Q. Which judgment is that?

A. Of the propaganda lie, presumably. Without checking the book, I cannot tell .

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Q. Well, now ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Urteil" means "judgment", does it?

A. "Urteil" is "judgment", yes, or "verdict" .

Q. Can you just read the next rather long convoluted sentence?

A. "As I have now seen the complete document with my own eyes, I do not doubt that it is genuine, and should there be a second edition of my Dresden book, this information should certainly be incorporated, possibly as an appendix, perhaps mentioned instead on pages 295 to 296 of the present appendix on these pages" .

Q. Including the number of dead? You do not say that, but that is what you mean, is it not?

A. Well, reproducing the document and I believe I am right in saying that is what we actually did. We reproduced the document in toto as an appendix which is what one would do with a document that one wants to present to readers without necessarily forming a judgment on it .

MR RAMPTON: You say that, Mr Irving. You see, what I am I am wondering is how it came about, as I shall shortly, I hope, show .

A. I have to introduce the caveat, of course, you are asking me about things that lie 36 years back .

Q. Of course. This is why contemporaneous documents are so valuable, Mr Irving .

A. Indeed, and if you ask for my recollection of things, like

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what I said at a meeting with a man in his front room.. .

Q. I will show you the documents .

A. Yes, it is better that we refer to the documents .

Q. Why it was, Mr Irving, that with such rapidity between 26th November and onwards, from 26th November onwards, your lingering doubts, if indeed you had any, about the reliability of the numbers seems to have evaporated?

A. Well, I do not think I have referred in this letter -- I may be mistaken -- to saying, I do not think I have said that the figure is genuine. I have said the document appears to be genuine, but I have doubts, as I make quite plain in the letter two days earlier to McLachlan, who is an intelligence chief himself, about the actual figure .

So, clearly, one has to carry out further investigations .

Q. Let us see what you said, roughly speaking, a week later ---- A. If I can just continue? Of course, clearly, it would have been improper for me to suppress the document in any way .

Q. I am not suggesting you should have done, not for a moment .

A. Yes .

Q. It might have been an interesting document. It turned out to be ---- A. It turned out 20 or 30 years later to be totally fake, and interesting in as much as it was issued by the Goebbels propaganda ministry .

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Q. Actually about 10 years later but that does not matter .

A. As far as I am concerned, it was 20 or 30 years later .

Q. Let us see how your attitude to this document, which I quite accept you did not know at the time was a fake, though you had expressed considerable doubts about the reliability of the figures up until now. 6th December 1964, you wrote to the Provost of Coventry. The only mistake in Miss Rogers' document is that she describes the Provost of Coventry as Mr Cunningham. That is, in fact, Mr Irving's telephone number, telephone exchange?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: She is too young to have remembered that .

MR RAMPTON: It was Cunningham 8426 for anybody that is interested. It was late at night, I know that. That is on page 40 of this document. This, I think ---- A. Can we look previously on December 1st, the letter where I am writing to the German Federal archives trying to make attempts to find out more about the people concerned and the authenticity of the document?

Q. Again I have no translation of this which is why I have not referred to it. If it is important, please tell us what it says .

A. "Dear Colonel Teske, during a recent visit to Dresden, I have received from an erstwhile officer in Dresden who during the war was the Local Chief Medic in Dresden, Dr Max Fünfack a copy of the attached document. As you can see, it is supposed to be an order of the day issued

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by the Dresden Police Chief in which for the first time the number of air raid dead is provisionally estimated at 202,040. Obviously, it is important for me to establish how genuine this document is, and I am trying to locate the officers who signed this document, Colonel Grosse", G-R-O-S-S-E, and so on. I have written to the German Federal Government, the archivist trying to track down the authenticity of the document .

Q. That is very proper, if I may say so, a very proper proceeding, Mr Irving. Before you barge into the public arena waving the document and saying how wicked the Allies were, it is best to be sure that the document is genuine and the figure is reliable, do you not agree?

A. I consider this to be wicked, burning thousands of bodies at a time in a public funeral. You may say: "So what?", but you are saying about how wicked the Allies are. It is a war crime and there is no way round it .

Q. Let us clear the air. Nobody on this side of the court is supposing that it is a jolly good thing that, let us say, 25,000 or 35,000 innocent German civilians were roasted to death in Dresden in 1945 .

A. Roasted to death?

Q. We are concerned about your gigantic appetite for distorting and exaggerating; that is all I am concerned with. I think it was your correspondent -- I cannot remember his name now -- a German gentleman who drew your

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attention to the fact that it was probably only 35,000?

A. Only 35,000 people burned alive in one night by the British .

Q. Yes, and he said ---- A. A charming term of phrase, only 35,000 .

Q. As opposed to the huge figures you were punting about and he said, with which nobody would disagree, that is bad enough, that is two divisions .

A. At least he did not say: "So what?" MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Mr Irving, I think you are being unfair when you pick on that phrase when it was used in context and Mr Rampton was not belittling the tragedy of the bombing. So you have made your point. I do not think it is a fair one, but let us move on .

MR RAMPTON: Do you not think it even worst or even more of an offence to those people who died in Germany and Dresden ---- A. I think his Lordship has said that we should move on .

Q. --- To exaggerate the numbers of the dead for your own base-political purposes, do you not think that would be worse, Mr Irving?

A. I think his Lordship said we should move on .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is a different point, but, anyway, I think it is comment .

MR RAMPTON: Is there anything else in this letter from you to Colonel Teske on 1st December 1964 to which you want to

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draw attention?

A. No .

Q. Let us see what you said five days letter in a letter to the Provost of Coventry. Was Coventry holding some kind of memorial exhibition or what?

A. Coventry is a twinned city with Dresden and I was collaborating with the Coventry Cathedral authorities in their celebrations .

Q. Coventry was quite badly bombed in the war, too, but not as badly as Dresden .

A. I believe 300 people were killed, were they not?

Q. Not as bad as Dresden. Mr Irving, please keep your eye on the ball .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Actually, Mr Rampton, if I may say so, that may have been slightly your fault .

MR RAMPTON: But there is no doubt one reason for what you call the Dresden/Coventry link, is there not?

A. Yes .

Q. They are both victims of bombing during the war?

A. Both cities were used for propaganda purposes .

Q. What?

A. Both bombing raids were used for propaganda purposes .

Q. I have no doubt, war is a terrible thing. "I am now enclosing", this is dated 6th December 1964, "I am now enclosing a large number of photographs of the destruction caused in Dresden by the Allied bombing. Some of them

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should be suitable for the exhibition we had in mind to raise funds for the Dresden/Coventry link. I have enclosed several duplicates of some of the best for a particular purpose. I suggest that when your exhibition opens you might circulate these both to the local and national newspapers as free publicity material which they can print if they like" .

"To drive home the impact of the exhibition, I also suggest that you have the text of the Police President's report on the Dresden raid attached, printed in large type. I think that it is nonchalance and the casualties" (please note those words) "it mentions have a shattering impact. Please also feel free to quote any excerpts you wish from my book or, for example, from the feelings expressed by RAF airmen, without acknowledgement if you wish. The Police President's report is really something sensational. I brought it back from Dresden two weeks ago and I have been trying to establish its authenticity through Ministry of Defence channels" .

A. Also, in addition to the German archives .

Q. Yes. Now this: (Underlined) "I am myself in no doubt as to the authenticity of the document." A. Can I point out that I have not underlined that document myself .

Q. That is not your underlining?

A. It is certainly not typed in; nor have I done that line

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down the left-hand margin .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I had assumed you had not .

MR RAMPTON: I did not take the line down the side to be yours. I am not accepting that it is not possible when you have typed a letter and looked at it and thought that is an important passage, I will underline that in ink, but that is not what you did .

"In view of having obtained it indirectly from the Dresden Deputy Chief Medical Officer responsible for the disposing of the victims still lives in Dresden. It was circulated to him officially in March 1945. Please note that I am leaving", so on and so forth, "at the end of December for three and a half months" .

Mr Irving, you will agree, I hope, that you are urging the Provost of Coventry to put into his exhibition, with as much effect as he can achieve, a document which shows casualties of 202,040 people?

A. Yes .

Q. And yet, Mr Irving, you still were not certain, or should not still have been certain, that those figures were accurate?

A. I said quite clearly here that I am satisfied as to the authenticity of the document, and we now know that the document is accurate, except for the figures .

Q. Mr Irving, in your earlier correspondence ---- A. The document also mentions enormous damage to buildings

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which, if you have been to Dresden you will know precisely which buildings we British were responsible for destroying that day ---- Q. What has that got to do with casualties?

A. I heard laughter in court and I thought I should make plain that this document did not ---- Q. Because your answer was absurd, no doubt, Mr Irving. You have just been telling us that, we have been through it, how you had lingering and then disappeared doubts about the authenticity of the document ---- A. Of the figure .

Q. You were satisfied of the authenticity of the document, but had doubts about the reliability of the figure?

A. That is correct .

Q. Those doubts about the reliability of the figures have now disappeared. Why?

A. I have told him that I am in no doubt at all as to the reliability of the document, The authenticity of the document because of where it came from .

Q. You are asking the Provost of the Cathedral of Coventry to plaster these figures, the casualties it mentions which have a shattering affect, impact all over his exhibition .

Why, if you do not believe that the figures are reliable?

A. Are you suggesting that at this time I had any reason to doubt that the figures were inaccurate?

Q. You have said so a dozen times .

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A. I said I am investigating the figures and I am going to great lengths at this time, through the various archives and governments, to find out what I can about the people who signed the document .

Q. You have known from the beginning that the figures were suspicious, have you not?

A. Suspicion inasmuch as I have not seen them substantiated by other documents, for example, on the Eastern Front, we have seen some of the major figures of the killings of the Jews substantiated by the lower-level documents on which those totals are based, and I would have liked to have seen similar documents reflecting these totals, as indeed subsequently turned up in 1966 when the West German Government and the East German Government simultaneously provided me with corroborating documents for their document .

Q. A month before this document was sent to the gullible Provost of Coventry Cathedral, you wrote a long memorandum which had as part of its introduction (my Lord, it is page 27 of tab 2), in paragraph 4, you wrote this, Mr Irving -- Has your Lordship got it?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I think .

MR RAMPTON: Obviously, it is of some importance to determine, one, whether the document is genuine, i.e. was really written by the person claiming to have signed it and on the date specified; and two, if the document is genuine,

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whether the 202,040 figure is itself an accurate and true detail or whether it was deliberately falsified at this time. By the time you write to the Provost of Coventry on 6th December 1964, that last enquiry, that last doubt, equivocation seems to have disappeared, am I right?

A. Have I specifically said to the Provost of Coventry there is no doubt that these figures are accurate?

Q. No, but, Mr Irving, bear with me; you could hardly invite the Provost of Coventry to include, with maximum impact, in his exhibition these figures, if you did not think that they were reliable -- if you were an honest man, I mean?

A. But you are familiar with the fact that the document does not just refer to death or casualties; it refers to the entire damage which was inflicted on that city .

Q. "Casualties", Mr Irving, is your word, the casualties, it mentions, have a shattering impact. Of course they will do if they are authentic and reliable. But, Mr Irving, what if they are not?

A. Are you suggesting that the people of Coventry would have been any less dismayed or shocked if the figure had been 35,000? I do not think so .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are saying in your letter to the Provost, you are saying this figure of 200,000 plus is going to have a shattering impact. That is the very point you are making, is it not?

A. Well, my Lord, we have not been shown the order of the day

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No. 47 which in everything that it contains, part of which is the death roll, is the document, and the nonchalance of the document to which I am referring saying this is going to have a shattering impact on people who visit your exhibition, and I have no reason at this time to doubt the overall authenticity of the document, although I was making enquiries to investigate that actual figure because I obviously wanted to make very much more of the figure when the time comes. But before I went ahead, I wanted to know who had signed the document could I speak to him, for example. This is 1964 and there was every chance that the man who signed the document, Colonel Grosse, was still alive. In fact, I eventually tracked down his widow .

MR RAMPTON: Yes, Mr Irving. Could we now turn ---- A. And if I can also refer to that memorandum you were dealing with on page 27. In paragraph 3 I gave reasons why the figure did not seem outlandish. I looked at the death rolls in Hiroshima and the other major air-raid disasters of World War II, so there was less reason than might now seem apparent, to question the final authenticity of the figure. But you did not read out that paragraph .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am reading it now .

A. It is probably also appropriate here to mention that the figure of 200,000 by no means orphaned very many people

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referred to that death roll for Dresden, including members of Hitler's private staff, including Hermann Göring's personal Liaison Officer Bodenschatz who visited Dresden and came back and spoke of that figure .

MR RAMPTON: It was a jolly good propaganda figure, was it not?

A. They used it for propaganda, yes .

Q. Of course they did, and it was totally false, was it not?

A. It is easy to say in retrospect that that document is fake. But I am looking at this in 1964. The document has been given to me by Dresden's Deputy Chief Medical Officer. The document itself is authentic as we now know, but this figure has been inserted for propaganda reasons .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: What I am not really clear about is when you first saw this document, whether your reaction was that the figure does look amazing high; I really am rather suspicious about it?

A. My reaction on seeing a figure as high as that was to say, if true, this is sensational. Clearly one has to carry out proper enquiries which I then began with the archives and trying to track down the people who signed the document and through whose hands it passed in 1945. In the meantime, I began making cautious use of it on the assumption it was genuine, for example showing it to the Provost of Coventry, mentioning it to newspaper editors, contacting my publishers, saying we may have to put this in as an appendix and so on. One does not know how long

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it is going to take to make the enquiries. The German archives might have responded a week later and said yes, Colonel Grosser is now living in Cologne at such and such an address .

Q. Well now, it was not exactly moderate or reserved and in accordance with the need to make careful enquiries to place these figures before the public in Coventry, and no doubt for other parts of this country and abroad, so that they shall have a shattering impact, was it, Mr Irving?

A. I did not hear the adjective. It was not what?

Q. It was not in accordance with what one might call the need to make careful enquiries, and to take stock of this figure, to place it with shattering impact before the public in Coventry the rest of this country and perhaps other parts of Europe?

A. I think it was a proper usage of that telegram for the purposes of the charitable fund raising of the Coventry Cathedral, yes .

Q. Tell a lie if it raises money, is that it?

A. I do not think I said that. It would have been a lie if -- if I had known that the figure was untrue then it would have been a lie .

Q. You had no idea whether it was untrue or not, back in 1963 you told your publisher Mr Kimber that you thought it was probably a piece of Nazi propaganda, did you not?

A. I did not have it in 1963 .

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Q. Now I want to turn a year on to early 1965 .

A. Do you wish to dwell on that statement? Do you want to find the actual reference?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think that is right .

MR RAMPTON: It is right .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is?

MR RAMPTON: Yes .

A. Can we look at the actual reference .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 39 .

MR RAMPTON: No, it is page 2 of the table .

A. Page 2 of?

Q. April 1963, it is in the Kimber edition of the Destruction of Dresden. What is written here is: "In the 1963 Kimber edition", second box, my Lord, "edition of Destruction of Dresden" ---- A. Can I halt you there and point out that at this time I did not have this document. So we cannot possibly be referring to this document .

Q. Let me read on, will you, Mr Irving?

A. I know the reasons why you want to read this out, because you want to confuse the court and confuse members in the public gallery .

Q. No, I do not at all .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is a bit confusing to me. Can we understand the sequence?

MR RAMPTON: This is before he has been supplied with a copy of

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a copy, as a matter of fact, was it not, Mr Irving? It was not an original copy?

A. It was the fourth or fifth carbon copy, yes .

Q. But it was typed out by Frau Grosse?

A. If we are going to look at a letter as prejudicial as this I think we should see the entire letter and not just the sentences that Miss Rogers has picked out. Your Lordship will remember that at this time, I said in my opening speech at this time Mr Kimber was knee deep in the Auschwitz trial, the Dr Dering trial, and he was in a very sensitive and raw state .

Q. Let us see what was published in your William Kimber book first of all, Mr Irving .

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Tab 3, page 1, is that right?

MR RAMPTON: Yes. I take it you take responsibility for what appears in your books, do you? Or are you going to tell me this was put in by some sub-editor?

A. You probably know what I am going to say then, do you not?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you let me in on this?

MR RAMPTON: I am just going to read out what you wrote .

A. What I wrote or what was published?

Q. Mr Irving, come on, let us have a nice gentle read of it together: "Now if a trifle belatedly in the weeks after the American and British destruction of Dresden, Dr Goebbels was also discovering the use to which bombing

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propaganda ..." A. I do not know where are. What are we looking at?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: L1, tab 3, page 1 .

A. Yes .

MR RAMPTON: In the middle of the page under, "They shall reap the whirlwind" - "Now if a trifle belatedly in the weeks after the American and British destruction of Dresden, Dr Goebbels was also discovering the use to which bombing propaganda could be put. At the beginning of fourth week in March he set in motion a cleverly designed campaign of whispers calculated to galvanise the German people into a last horrified stand against their invaders. For this purpose he appears deliberately to have started a rumour about the death roll in Dresden wildly exceeding any figure within the realms of possibility. On 23rd March a Top Secret order of the day, Tagesbefehl, was leaked to certain Berlin officials would could be relied on not to keep their tongues still." And it read: "In order to counter the wild rumours circulating at present, this short extract from the final report of the Dresden Police President on the Allied raids on Dresden of 13th to 15th February 1945 is reproduced: 'Up to the evening of 20th March 1945 altogether 202,040 bodies, primarily women and children, were recovered. It is expected that the final death roll will exceed 250,000. Of the dead only some 30 per cent could be identified. As the removal of the

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corpses could not be undertaken quickly enough, 68,650 of the bodies were incinerated. As the rumours far exceed reality, these figures can be used publicly." A. That is what I wrote in 1962. Yes, I wrote that .

Q. I am going to finish it: "It was characteristic of the highly advanced national and socialist propaganda experts that they did not try to spread this figure through public press announcements, but by means of this apparently indignant denial of an exaggerated rumour. All responsible authorities placed the Dresden death roll considerably below this figure. Neither the Dresden Police President nor his report on the air raids survived the end of the war, the President dying by his own hand and the order never having been referred to outside this spurious order of the day." Now that was the position in 1963, Mr Irving?

A. 1962, yes .

Q. 1962. You received a copy of a copy, not even a photographic copy, but a typewritten copy of a pre-existing document in Dresden in November 1964 .

A. Yes. So this was not ---- Q. By which time ---- A. But this