MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Mr Irving.

MR IRVING: May it please the court. I have given your Lordship a little bundle of documents. That is a bundle of translations, my Lord, is that right, which your Lordship asked for, the Kommissar order and various other documents. I do not think your Lordship needs to look at it now, but your Lordship did ask for the translations.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is very kind of you. Thank you. The usual question, where should it go?

MR RAMPTON: We do not have them.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where is the Kommissar order in German?

MR IRVING: I have a set of copies for the Defence, but I forgot to bring them.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Could somebody look out where the Kommissar order is in German?

MR RAMPTON: We do not have the translations, so I do not know what document it is.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do you remember the Kommissar order being referred to? I am not actually sure we have it in German either. Anyway, can I leave it with you?

MR IRVING: Yes, guidelines and Kommissar order.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

MR RAMPTON: The one of May 1941, is that the one?

MR IRVING: That is correct, yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: June, I think.

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MR IRVING: My Lord, I have also given you a little bundle which I have called temporarily bundle F, Professor Evans. These are documents which, in the course of cross-examination, I intend to put to Professor Evans.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is very helpful to have them all in one place.

MR IRVING: I have provided the defence with four or five sets.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you.

MR RAMPTON: My Lord, there is something I should wish to mention, if I may. I do it now because time is getting short.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

MR RAMPTON: I received on Sunday, yesterday, what purports to be a further witness statement of Dr Fox.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

MR RAMPTON: Has your Lordship been sent that?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think so, no.

MR RAMPTON: I think your Lordship should be given a copy.

MR IRVING: I have a copy but in fact I decided not to call that witness. I should say that now in fact.

MR RAMPTON: That is helpful. I can sit down and be quiet.

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

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have both worked on the same body, so I think it would help to save the court's time if we do not call him and just rely on his written statement.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is a matter for you, obviously.

MR IRVING: My Lord, I now wish to continue the cross-examination of Professor Evans. < PROFESSOR EVANS, Recalled < Cross-examined by MR IRVING, continued.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Professor Evans, come back into the witness box. I wondered before you start, Mr Irving, if I might ask one question that is in my mind of Professor Evans. It is this. You were asked, you remember, on Thursday what material of Mr Irving's you had been studying in order to arrive at the conclusions you arrived at in your written report.

A. Yes.

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

A. Yes, it is.

Q. I simply cannot remember where and when he made that reference.

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MR IRVING: My Lord, perhaps I can help? I have made reference in various speeches to the chain of documents of course, and talks, and probably in the introduction to ----

MR RAMPTON: Your Lordship will find it on page 220 of Professor Evans's report at paragraph 4.3A(1).

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Now that is on the transcript, that may really be enough, but can I go to it?

MR RAMPTON: BBC Television in June 1977.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is sufficient, Professor Evans. Thank you. Yes, Mr Irving. Do you want to pause and find it? It will be quicker if you have it, I suspect.

MR IRVING: I made a number of sets for the gentlemen of the press this morning so that they can follow what we are doing, because there were complaints about that, my Lord. Today I intend to continue to explore in general, if I can just in two lines tell you what I am going to be doing, the credibility of the witness with special reference to the remarks that he has made about my methodology in the introductory parts of his report. We will certainly cover the first 100 to 150 pages of the report today, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You must take your own course, but bear in mind in the end I am anxious to look at the individual criticisms as well as the general comments.

MR IRVING: Yes. (To the witness): Professor Evans, today is the 55th anniversary of the air raid on Dresden. Would you have described that as a Holocaust?

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A. Yes, I could have described that as "a" Holocaust, but I would, of course, make a distinction between that and "the" Holocaust as it has come to be known. One can use the term "Holocaust". It is, I believe, used for any event which involves large scale fire or burnings commonly used in every day reporting. That is a distinct thing from "the" Holocaust which I think has a special meaning.

Q. That is the etymology of the word. It means "consumed by fire" or "sacrificed by fire". Are you aware that in your report the phrase "Holocaust denier" occurs 261 times?

A. I have to confess I did not count.

Q. In fact, the words "denier" or "denial" occur 352 times, which is a degree of repetition, would you agree? Are you obsessed with Holocaust deniers?

A. I most certainly am not. I have to say I have not really confronted the phenomenon until this case but, of course, it is at the centre. It is perhaps the central issue in this case and so I think, since I was asked to write about it in my report, it is inevitable that that phrase occurs many times.

Q. You say you were not confronted with it until this trial. Do you normally write about things you have not studied in any kind of depth?

A. I think that historians always need to move on to new subjects, face a new challenge, otherwise they would be endlessly repeating themselves.

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Q. Can I draw your attention to page 206 of the book which you wrote? Do you recognize the book that you wrote? This is the American edition?

A. Yes, indeed.

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

A. Could I have a look at that passage, please?

Q. Yes. It is on page 206 of the book.

A. Thank you very much.

Q. What I am asking you is has your position changed in view of the ----

A. Page and what?

Q. 206. It is the paragraph beginning "Extreme relativism" and towards the end of that paragraph, I repeat: "Thus 'Holocaust denial literature' which declares that six million Jews were never murdered by the Nazis and that Auschwitz and similar extermination camps are fabrications of a post-war anti-German pro-Jewish political lobby". My question is this. Is this the way you define Holocaust denial now or have you changed?

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A. Yes. That is rather carelessly phrased, I am afraid. I think I was trying to say there -- "extermination" is the central word there, that such camps were used mainly or exclusively for extermination. I can see what you mean. It is slightly carelessly phrased, I have to admit.

Q. Is it possible to accept that the Nazis murdered in the most brutal manner very large numbers of Jews by whatever means and still be a Holocaust denier, in your view?

A. That depends on what you mean by "very large numbers". I think I defined in my report what I mean by Holocaust denial.

Q. Like one or two million people. Would that be acceptable?

A. I think you have to take the different -- I have listed four what I think are central elements of the Holocaust denial.

Q. Yes.

A. And those four elements I think go together, they do include a minimisation of numbers.

Q. So any reduction of the numbers, whatever, is a denial?

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

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category of the four, but not into the others.

Q. Yes. Were these four categories arbitrarily set up by you, like to make them fit like a shoe the Claimant in this present case, or did you always have these categories in mind long you before you were commissioned to be an expert witness in this case?

A. Neither, to be honest. When I was commissioned to be an expert witness, of course the first thing I did was to study the literature on Holocaust denial, and from that literature, as you can see from my report, I go through it at some length. There are varying different definitions of conditions by the different political scientists and historians who have written about it, but those four I think are common to all of the definitions that I looked at in the course of preparing this report.

Q. Yes. They do vary, though, do they not, these four sets of definitions by the different authors?

A. I do not think these four sets really vary. Of course they are put in slightly different ways and different authors add on other conditions, some of them peculiar to the time at which they were writing.

Q. So, if somebody was to knock off two or three million arbitrarily from the figures, that would be Holocaust denial?

A. If it is arbitrary, then I think it involves an element therefore of falsification of history, which then I think

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falls into that category, but I do want to stress that these four conditions should be taken together.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is not all or nothing, is it? You can get somebody who is an outright 100 per cent denier and somebody who perhaps does not deny it to the same full blooded extent?

A. Exactly, my Lord, it is not a hard and ----

Q. I think arguing about definitions is not hugely productive?

MR IRVING: I agree, my Lord. We should not really be asking an expert witness about meanings of words, I appreciate that, my Lord, but I am working towards something. You have a little bundle of documents in front of you, a loose bundle called F?

A. I do not, actually.

Q. Will you turn to page (it should be) 37, which is a photograph?

A. They are numbered on the bottom?

Q. They are numbered on the bottom, the one after that please?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you agree that that says it is a plaque, is that correct, a memorial plaque?

A. That is right, yes.

Q. Do you recognize that plaque?

A. I do not, to be honest, no.

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Q. Will you agree that it says: "4 million people suffered and died here at the hands of the Nazi murderers between the years 1940 and 1945"?

A. Yes, that is what it says.

Q. Will you now turn the page please? Is that another plaque?

A. Yes, that is right.

Q. Do you recognize that plaque?

A. I do not now that I can see what it is.

Q. Does it appear to be in the same place as where the previous plaque was?

A. I will take your word for it.

Q. Do you agree this one says: "Never let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women and children, namely Jews from various countries of Europe"?

A. That is right.

Q. Is this also Auschwitz?

A. They are both in Auschwitz, yes.

Q. So somebody has arbitrarily reduced the figure from 4 million to about 1.5 million? Is that Holocaust denial?

A. No, I do not agree that the reduction was arbitrary. I think inevitably in the immediate aftermath of the war there was an enormous amount of uncertainty about the numbers who had died. This does not have a date on it, but I think the 4 million is a plaque which was erected

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very shortly after the war and, as research progressed, then the true number of people who died in Auschwitz was more closely approached, so it is an arbitrary reduction.

Q. Is the first figure, which is the figure of 4 million, in any way associated with the figure of 4 million that was propagated by the Soviet Union in the first post-war years for the victims in Auschwitz, in your opinion?

A. I have to say I do not know enough about Auschwitz. I am not an expert on Auschwitz. You had an expert on Auschwitz here.

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

A. I think, well, I would have to see Dr Piper's statement before I could accept that is what he said, of course. I mean ----

Q. Can I draw your attention back we -- will leave that subject. Can I now take you back to your book, please?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have not got your answer yet. I think the object of the exercise is to get the answer to the question, Mr Irving.

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MR IRVING: My Lord, his answer was the now familiar one that he has not seen the document.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, well, he was actually going on to say something else. Would you like to complete it?

A. Yes. Obviously, I accept that there is an element of propaganda in the official memorialisation by the Soviet Union and its satellites in the period of Communism. That is particularly evident, for example, in the absence of any mention of Jews in this first plaque, whereas in the second one it does say mainly Jews. I think it is the case that in the post-war years the Soviet Union and the authorities in Communist Eastern Europe did want to minimise the element of Jewish dead amongst the ----

MR IRVING: As evidence of general Polish anti-Semitism or?

A. No, I do not think that is true. I think it is a number of different things. It is not that.

Q. While you have your book in front of you, Professor Evans, will you remain on page 206 and look at the next paragraph briefly, which begins with the words: "A leading authority". I am sorry, my Lord, that I should have provided your Lordship with the lines I am going to refer to, but it is very brief.

A. Yes.

Q. I will read it out: "A leading authority on this literature, which is Holocaust denial literature, Professor Deborah E. Lipstadt", that is the Second

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Defendant in this case?

A. That is right.

Q. "... of Emery University, Atlanta, Georgia, consistently refuses to take part in public debates with the deniers on the ground 'to do so would give them a legitimacy and a stature that they in no way deserve"?

A. Yes.

Q. Have you any comment on this refusal to debate? Is it a position of strength or a position of weakness, do you think?

A. I think it is a position of principle.

Q. A position of principle?

A. I do not think it is a tactical consideration, in my understanding of it.

Q. Is it a principle that you, as an academic, would willingly adopt?

A. I think, yes, I do not think that Holocaust deniers are academics or scholars or academically or scholarly respectable, and I would not take part in seminars or discussions with them on that basis.

Q. So Holocaust deniers, as you once again use this favourite phrase of yours, are a form of low academic life or low life, in fact, because most of them who have not been academics find themselves cast out? Is that your opinion?

A. I do not agree with any of those statements. First of

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all, it is not a favourite phrase of mine. It is a phrase which I have to use because it is at the centre of this case, as I make no apology for that. I do not like using phrases like "low life" or "low form of life" and, to my knowledge, I have never used those phrases. The problem is not that they are not academic; the problem is what they are engaging in, in my view, is a politically motivated falsification of history, and that is why I think, on the whole, I would endorse and accept Professor Lipstadt's position.

Q. But is it not equally arguable that the use that is made of the Holocaust and that immense tragedy inflicted on the Jews during World War II has just been equally politicised for other purposes, whether good or bad?

A. I think there is, obviously, a political element in a great deal of historical writing, if not all historical writing, to some measure or other, but I would distinguish between the historians', as it were, control of that through reference to the documents and through the attempt to arrive at an objective interpretation which is in accordance with the documents, on the one hand, and deliberate falsification and invention on the other. I think the Holocaust deniers belong to the latter category.

Q. Would you consider ----

A. And, of course, in academic and scholarly discussions, one

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puts aside political aspects and concentrates on the issues.

Q. But it is a commonly held view, even among Jewish academics, that the Holocaust is being abused for political purposes now. Are you aware of the writings of Norman Finkelstein, for example? Do you have any opinion about his qualifications as an academic or as a writer?

A. I have -- I am eagerly awaiting his book. He has written an article and a couple of reviews which I think give some foretaste, but I would not want to make a judgment on these views.

Q. Have you, by any chance, read what he wrote in The Times Literary Supplement, I believe it was, in January, suggesting that the whole of the Holocaust propaganda campaign started around about the time of the 1967 June war?

A. I think that both Finkelstein and Peter Novick, whose book I have read with great interest, and Tim Cole.

Q. Would you identify Peter Novick, University of ----

A. The University of Chicago, yes, and another similar book by Tim Cole of the University of Bristol, I think -- are talking about the public presentation of the Holocaust ----

Q. Are they ----

A. --- and the political ----

Q. --- Holocaust deniers in your book?

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A. No, they are not because they are not, they are certainly not denying that i happened in the terms in which I described it in my report. They are talking about the public presentation of history, as in these memorial plaques that you have illustrated. That, I think, is a different thing from the scholarly working up of history. None of them would fall into any of the four, or satisfy any of four, conditions that I have laid down for Holocaust denial. They do not minimise the numbers. They do not deny the use of gassing to kill large numbers of Jews. They do not deny that is systematic, and they do not claim that the evidence was invented or fabricated. They are talking about something quite different which is the public presentation and use which, indeed, of course, by its very nature is going to be subject to political influences.

Q. Yes. They are all American academics, are they?

A. No. Tim Cole is a British academic. Finkelstein, I am not sure, I think he is American.

Q. Yes. Would they be able to propagate their views safely in this country or in France or in Germany, do you think, without fear of either losing their academic privileges or even arrest and prosecution?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I do not think that is a question that is really going to help in this case, if I may say so.

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MR IRVING: My Lord, I am just trying to establish that Holocaust deniers, if I can adopt the witness's phrase, do not have it easy to propagate their views, and if the debate seems lopsided, it is because, on the one hand, people refused to debate and, on the other hand, the people are arrested and locked away.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but you had rather veered off Holocaust deniers to the historians who take the view that there has been some politicisation of the Holocaust from 1967 onwards.

MR IRVING: In that case, may I just revert very briefly to Professor ----

A. I mean, my answer is yes, if that helps. I mean, Dr Cole has not suffered at all from his book and Professor Novick's book is about to be published in this country.

MR IRVING: You have expressed words of distaste for Professor Faurisson who, of course, is no longer a Professor?

A. Where do I do this?

Q. When you were last standing and the witness box on Thursday. I mentioned his name. You said you did not consider him to be an academic and you ----

A. I think -- I am not sure I said that. I would have to see the transcript.

Q. Yes. Are you aware of the damage that was inflicted on Professor Faurisson for holding his principles and views, for holding to his principles as a Holocaust denier?

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A. I am aware that he was deprived of his university post, most certainly, yes.

Q. Would you turn, please, to page 57 of the bundle, the little bundle? I am very sorry, it is at bundle E, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I know.

MR IRVING: The global bundle. I am afraid that you may not have the photographs there.

A. I only have 55 pages, I am afraid.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: So have I.

MR IRVING: In that case I will produce two pages to you. That is Professor Faurisson after he was taught a lesson for his principles and views. Is this the way you think academics should be dealt with?

A. Most certainly not, no.

Q. Thank you very much. The reason I am asking that, my Lord, is evident because I wish to bring to the attention of the court the dangers that befall somebody in public life who is accused of being a Holocaust denier.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do it, by all means. I am not quite sure that I see how that advances your case here.

MR IRVING: Oh, very definitely, my Lord, I submit. I have already suggested it in connection with the Hamas and Hizbollah allegation; I have been exposed to very severe risks. In connection with being accused of being a Holocaust denier, I have been exposed to the risk of what

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happened to Professor Faurisson. His jaw was smashed so badly, it was wired together for six weeks and he had acid poured in his eyes, and he was a man slightly older than myself.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I have tried to explain to you earlier that all this sort of thing can be relevant to damage, but it has to be linked to the Defendants.

MR IRVING: I shall be making a submission on damages later on.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just bear in mind that that is the way I am seeing it.

MR IRVING: As this witness did refer to Professor Faurisson in terms of rebuke, I thought it appropriate to show him photographs of what happened to people who stick to their principle at the other end of the scale.

A. I do not think you can make me responsible for what happened to Professor Faurisson.

Q. No. Witness, you have read or your researchers have read very large parts of my diaries and private papers and lectures and speeches?

A. Yes.

Q. Have you at any time in any of those readings come across any evidence whatsoever that I was associated with the Hamas or the Hizbollah terrorist leaders or with Lewis Farrakhan, the notorious black American anti-Semite?

A. Well, that was not what I was asked to do, so we did not read them for that purpose.

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MR JUSTICE GRAY: Even so, can you answer?

A. We read the material in order to, well, I am trying to explain that my expertise may be not very good at that particular level, there were other expert witnesses who were asked to do that. I did collect information which is on page 174 and afterwards of my report, which is about your connections with Holocaust deniers, and I did find -- I am trying to find it in my report -- connections with Ahmed Rami, page 198.

Q. Can you tell the court what these alleged connections were?

A. Yes. You appeared on the same platform as him in the so-called Leuchter Congress, 23rd March 1991.

Q. Is there any reason why I should have recognized Mr Rami, in your opinion?

A. I think if one appears on a platform with other speakers, one knows who they are.

Q. Is there any connection at all between this Mr Rami and the gentleman, Mr Farrakhan that I mentioned, or the Hizbollah and the Hamas?

A. I have to claim that I do not have any direct expertise on that. I cannot say.

Q. Have you found any kind of correspondence between myself and Mr Rami? Has any been shown to you?

A. Not to my recollection.

Q. So apart from this ----

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A. But, as I say, that is not what I was really looking for. I am really concerned with looking at connections between you and people whose main business is Holocaust deniers.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: So the answer to the original question, whether you have discovered any links, as it were, is no?

A. Is no, that is right. That is not to say that there is not any but...

Q. No, but you have not come across it?

A. I have not come across it, no. I mean, he, Rami, occupies about four lines of my report.

MR IRVING: Yes. Is there any particular reason why you mentioned Rami in this connection? Is he a terrorist or an extremist? I mean, to me, he unknown. I know nothing at all about him.

A. Well, I find that difficult to believe since you appeared on the same platform as him in a meeting, a public meeting. He is an extremist who runs an extreme anti-Semitic website which I have looked at.

Q. When you say that he appeared on the same platform, do you have photographs of him standing shoulder to shoulder with me or are you just saying that he was there one day and I was there the next day?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do you challenge having been on the same platform as him?

MR IRVING: I want to know what he means by this, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I am asking am asking you because you

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have to put your case, Mr Irving. I mentioned that on Thursday. Is it your case that you have never appeared on a platform with Mr Rami?

MR IRVING: Never knowingly appeared.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Never?

MR IRVING: If I can put it like that, my Lord.

A. I footnote video tape 201.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Never knowingly appeared? I see.

MR IRVING: Well, quite simply, because when is this video taped alleged to have been?

A. 23rd March 1991.

MR IRVING: 1991. So it is nine years ago and this is somebody who has, apparently, stood near me on a platform and this is good as the connection gets?

A. Well, you were both speakers. As I say, this is not a very important part of my report; it only occupies a few lines.

Q. Will you turn to page 37 of your report, please? We are now moving on, my Lord. Paragraph 244. You talk about the unreliability of Hitler's former aides as a source?

A. Yes.

Q. And, effectively, my gullibility in falling for everything they said?

A. No. I would not accuse you of being gullible, Mr Irving.

Q. My lack of critical nous, shall we say, in accepting what Hitler's Adjutants and secretaries and people have told me

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-- is that the burden of that paragraph 244?

A. Critical intention, I think.

Q. Do you accept, however, that on numerous occasions I have persuaded Hitler's private staff and the Adjutants and their juniors to reveal to me matters which were against their interest, or against the interest of Adolf Hitler which is probably more significant? Do you accept this is true? Do you remember from The War Path where Hitler's private secretary, Christa Schroeder, describes to me on the night of the long knives, June 30th 1934, when they returned to the Chancellery afterwards Hitler vanished and had a shower?

A. Yes, I remember that.

Q. Do you remember what Hitler said to her when he reappeared, roughly?

A. Very vaguely. You would have to remind me of the exact words.

Q. "So Fräulein Schroeder, now I have had a shower and I feel as clean as a new born babe"?

A. That is right.

Q. Do you feel that speaks highly for Adolf Hitler, that he murders his closest compatriots and has a shower and washes himself clean?

A. No, I do not. But you do say in a document which I quote on page 604 that, once the former members of Hitler's staff, once you had won their confidence I think you mean,

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they thought well now at last they were doing their chief a service. So it seem to be your view that you persuade them that they were doing Hitler a service by talking to you.

Q. I think the sense is that they were doing history a service.

A. That is not what you said.

Q. They were telling the story -- what are the exact words that I used?

A. The exact words were, and I think you have reversed the sense here a bit, once they had won your confidence -- I think you mean once you had won their confidence -- and they knew you were not going to go and report them to the State Prosecutor, they trusted you and they thought well, now at last they were doing their chief a service.

Q. Yes. How would they be doing their chief a service if they told me details of how Hitler had ordered the liquidation of the inmates of a concentration camp?

A. That is not what Christa Schroeder said, was it, to you?

Q. I am giving specific examples now. You said that I persuaded these people to talk, but that I then fell for them, so to speak, and that I did not manage to use my methods, my oily greasy methods, shall I put it like, in fact to get from them information against their self- interest which is what I contend I did.

A. Oily and greasy are not my words.

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

A. Yes, I do.

Q. Was that in any way -- did it reflect well on Adolf Hitler, do you think?

A. No, it certainly did not, but obviously there are some places in which they do reveal things, at which some of them reveal things, which are not ----

Q. I will give you only one further example because I do not wish to test his Lordship's patience but it is important here because I am accused of having exonerated Hitler and fallen for the Adjutants' wiles. You are familiar with the colour photographs that are in some of my books of Adolf Hitler's staff, are you?

A. Yes.

Q. Will you accept that these photographs were taken by Hitler's film cameraman whose name was Walter Frentz?

A. Yes.

Q. He described to me, did he not, a visit to the Eastern Front with Heinrich Himmler in August 1941 where they witnessed a mass shooting outside Minsk, to which shooting

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you also refer of course, do you not?

A. Yes.

Q. This man Walter Frentz was present. Are you aware that he described to me in great deal at 2 o'clock one morning the whole episode, including how Himmler told him to take photographs of the shootings, and other very vivid details?

A. Yes.

Q. Was that in any way in his own interest to tell me that story?

A. We are moving slightly away here. What we are talking about, of course, is their attitudes to, or what they report of, Hitler and Hitler's views, and in that case it really does not apply to that.

Q. We will move on to Hitler's views in this connection in a minute, but will you just answer my question? If Walter Frentz told me this story, how he was with Himmler and witnessed a mass shooting, and took photographs of it, did that in any way reflect well on either himself, the witness, or on Adolf Hitler, for that matter?

A. I would think no, but then he might have thought something different.

Q. If I now tell you that Frentz took photographs back to Hitler's headquarters and showed them to Hitler's Chief Adjutant, and the Chief Adjutant said, "If you know what is good for you, you will destroy these photographs,

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Mr Frentz", is this a significant contribution to a historical debate which I, with my methods, obtained, do you think?

A. The answer is, if that is the case, then yes. I am not denying, Mr Irving, that your interviews with Hitler's former staff have contributed in some ways to historical knowledge, not at all.

Q. So your judgment against me in that paragraph is overhasty, would you agree?

A. No, I do not agree. I think, taken as a whole, your interviews with Hitler's staff, as I show in a chapter of the report, are uncritical, and in some cases also involve elements of falsification of what they actually said, or of the nature of their sources that you used.

Q. I will come to those particular episodes later on, but in general?

A. This is a general statement which is a conclusion drawn from the detailed cases that I look at later on in the report.

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

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probably told nobody else.

A. Where do I say the things that you say I say?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think the word "always" is to be found, Mr Irving. I think that is the difference between you.

MR IRVING: That is why I suggested that the phrase overhasty was probably justified, and overhastily rushed a judgment on me, which is not borne out by all the evidence my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: The evidence I think I am hearing from Professor Evans is that usually -- that may be an under statement -- you are portraying these Adjutants as having told you things which are in Hitler's favour, but sometimes not. Is that a broad summary?

MR IRVING: To use one of Mr Rampton's favourite phrases, I would say "so what"? Quite clearly, if these Adjutants have sat for many hours talking to me, I have used all the information they have given me, and some of it has been in favour and some of it has not. What I have not done, and this is my question now to the witness, did I make appropriate use of the information that I obtained from these various witnesses, in your opinion?

A. It depends what you mean by "appropriate".

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

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A. Well, they form an important part of your case that Hitler did not know about the extermination of the Jews, at least before the autumn of 1943, because what you argue about the Adjutants is that they all say that Hitler never actually discussed the extermination of the Jews with them, and in the sense that, if you look at their statements carefully, and I detail some of these later on in the report, you will see that they do not infer from the fact that this was not discussed as they claim, the fact that Hitler did not know about it. That is your inference. Indeed, a number of them explicitly stated that they were pretty sure that Hitler did know.

Q. There is a typical example of that, Albert Speer. Did Albert Speer say to me it was never discussed in front of him, but did he then go on to say that in his opinion Hitler must have known, roughly?

A. As I recall, yes.

Q. Is that not an illogical kind of position for an intelligent man like Speer to adopt, that it was never discussed but somebody must have known? If it was never discussed, how could he guess?

A. As I recall, Speer argued at some length, and there is a degree of self-exculpation here, I think, in Speer, that Hitler simply did not want this to be talked about in his inner circle.

Q. My final question on this particular angle is this. When

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

A. You did not conceal either of those two things, no.

Q. So what I found I used?

A. Not in every case. There is an example in detail later on which we can discuss.

Q. Can you tell us what that example is from memory?

A. Not from memory, I am afraid.

Q. Yes. Perhaps we can wait until we get to it. There is one further question. Has any other writer apart from me got as close to these members of Hitler's private staff?

A. No, I think that is quite right.

Q. So, if I had not done it, then a body of information would have been lost for the world of academics and scholars?

A. We have discussed this before. I do not dispute the fact that you have obtained a great deal of material, not just interview material but also documentary material, which other historians have not obtained.

Q. Were any of these Adjutants interrogated at Nuremberg?

A. There is an awful lot of them, there is about 25 of them.

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I am sure you know more than I do about their interrogations at Nuremberg. Some of them of course were put on trial or were witnesses in subsequent trials.

Q. Very few of them.

A. Karl Wolff is the obvious one.

Q. Is it not right that Karl Wolff was not put on trial until the 60s because a secret deal had been reached between him and the Americans?

A. I do not know about the secret deal but he was not put on trial until 1964, I think.

Q. Have you not heard of Operation Crossword in which Karl Wolff was engaged in Italy at the end of the war, his negotiations with the OSS?

A. You would have to provide me with documentary evidence for a deal, I think.

Q. I am going to go on to page 38, my Lord. Now we are dealing with the Hitler's diaries forgeries, paragraph 246.

A. Yes.

Q. Do you accept that once again I came into early possession of unusual materials? In this case they turned out to be fake.

A. Yes. Were these the materials which you purchased in October 1982 and were intending to sell to Macmillan's?

Q. What is your evidence for the word "purchased"?

A. This is in audio cassette 75, where you said you bought

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them from the forger and then you recognized them as forgeries after examining them.

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

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

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

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us see where we are going with this. This is not, I do not think, any part of the pleaded case. Mr Rampton, that is right, is it not?

MR RAMPTON: That is right, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are in the difficult position, Mr Irving, because here is the principal expert witness for the Defendants making this criticism of you and it is a

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serious criticism, but it is not one that in the end plays any part in the Defendants case.

MR IRVING: I read your Lordship's mind as being that you will pay no attention to this. In that case I will move on.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I will not.

MR IRVING: In the next paragraph 247 you mention Gerhard Weinberg.

A. Yes.

Q. Is he one of the historians whose views you accept?

A. On what?

Q. Is he an eminent historian? He is not a Holocaust denier, is he?

A. He is an eminent historian.

Q. In fact, he is now retired and his chair is occupied by Christopher Browning, is it not?

A. That is the case, yes.

Q. I am going to be looking at Professor Jäckel, my Lord, Professor Eberhard Jäckel, who is a historian whose name will come up I think more than once over the next few days. He played a part in the Hitler diaries. I am not going to look at the Hitler diaries as such but I am going to ask questions which I think have relevance to establishing the reliability of Professor Jäckel. Is it right that Professor Eberhard Jäckel very early on came into possession of one of the diaries, the 1935 Hitler diary?

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A. From what I remember of Mr Harris's book, which is the source of my information, yes. That is to say, I do not rely on Professor Jäckel in my report.

Q. Really I am trying through you to find out what we know about Professor Jäckel as far as reliability goes, as far as his credentials go.

A. Yes. It does not really play a role in my report. That is to say, I am not writing about Professor Jäckel's reliability.

Q. Did you write that Jäckel authenticated some of the Hitler materials?

A. I did not, no. It is my understanding from Mr Harris's book that he had doubts about him. Of course I am aware of the fact that Professor Jäckel did include some forged material in a book that he edited of Hitler's writings.

Q. You are not familiar with the fact that he authenticated the 1935 Hitler diary on behalf of a Stuttgart millionaire?

A. I am not, but if that is in Mr Harris's book ----

Q. You mentioned the other materials. He believed that a very large number of poems and handwritings apparently by Hitler were genuine, is that correct?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: We seem to be back on the Hitler diaries. I thought we had agreed ----

MR IRVING: No we are now off that. We are now on Jäckel, very firmly on Jäckel, my Lord.

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A. That is correct.

Q. Did he publish these in a semi-official volume called Hitler's Entire Manuscripts?

A. Indeed he did.

Q. Did it take him a substantial length of time to confess that these were from the same source, the forger Konrad Kujau?

A. If you tell me it did, then yes. He certainly in the end I think recognized that they were forgeries.

Q. In fact he wrote a report, did he not, in the Journal of Contemporary History in which he admitted that 4 per cent of that volume was fake, only 4 per cent? Is that correct?

A. Well, I do not recall it but I will accept your word for it.

Q. In your little bundle of documents which I gave you this morning, would you just turn rapidly to page 41, which is a photograph of a train?

A. Yes.

Q. The large endless train of wagons with people stuffed in like cattle, is it not?

A. They do not appear to be ----

Q. Several hundred people to each coal wagon?

A. I would not say like cattle. They do not appear to be grossly overcrowded. They are full.

Q. Are you aware Professor Jäckel used this photograph as an

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illustration for Rumanian Jews being shipped to the gas chambers at Auschwitz?

A. I am not.

Q. On a television programme. Can you confirm that that is fact Hamburg railway Station after the war?

A. Very difficult to say.

Q. If I tell that the rubber stamp on the back of the original photograph says Hamburg -- it is in the Hamburg Railway Station archives now, in their picture archives.

A. Right.

Q. What would your opinion be of a historian who uses photographs in that manner, photographs of a post-war scene, and says that it is a photograph of Jews being shipped off to Auschwitz?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am a bit bewildered by this, Mr Irving. You said "so what?" to me not very long, "so what?" to you. Why does whether Professor Jäckel mistook Hamburg Railway Station for a convoy taking Romanian Jews to a concentration camp matter? It is your reliability, not Professor Jäckel's that is in question.

MR IRVING: If Jäckel's words are going to be used against me, as they will be, in expert reports, then I am entitled, in my view, to put to the court the qualifications that Professor Jäckel has.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Again, you are in the difficulty that Professor Evans has relied on other historians in his

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report, but in the end it must be Professor Evans' view, whether I accept it or not, that counts.

MR IRVING: Yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not actually going to stop you, but I really do not think at the moment, until we get to a point where Professor Evans says, "Jäckel says this, ergo it must be right", that this is really helpful. There is an awful lot of material to be covered in Professor Evans' report, but we have not really begun to grapple with it yet.

A. Let me answer the question. Of course, what I think of him depends in this instance on whether he knew that that was a picture of Germans in Hamburg on a shopping trip to the Ruhr in 1946 and then deliberately presented it, and falsely presented it, as Rumanian Jews being shipped off to Auschwitz, or whether it was a genuine mistake. You yourself have said in the course of this trial that historians make many errors, and that one wants to correct them, and one attempts to do so. You pointed out an error in your own 1991 edition of Hitler's War, the absence of your name on the title page, so we all make mistakes. There is a distinction which I drew on Thursday, which I would hold to, between, as it were, genuine mistakes and errors, which unfortunately historians are all prone to, on the one hand, and deliberate falsification on the other.

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MR IRVING: I have to let you get away with that, because I am not allowed now to ask any further questions about the photograph or about ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I did say I was not stopping you, but I was telling you that at the moment I do not find it very helpful. Do not say you are not allowed to; you are allowed to.

MR IRVING: Is Professor Jäckel a recognized authority on Hitler and the Holocaust? Has he written books and articles about it?

A. Yes, he has written books and articles about Hitler in particular, Hitler's views.

Q. Does it diminish him in your esteem that he has fallen repeatedly for forgeries produced by a notorious forger, that he has he published them, that he did not willingly confess that they were forgeries or where they came from, and that he has relied on a dubious photograph?

A. Well, you mentioned one instance in which he fell for material from a notorious forger. If you can show me there are many others, then I will accept the word "repeatedly".

Q. Do you agree that, in dealing with your treatment of the Hitler diaries, you accused me of liking the Hitler diaries and believing they were genuine because they gave a favourable impression of Hitler?

A. Again, I am following Mr Harris there. Let me quote him

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in explaining why you endorsed them at a late stage, "Finally there was the fact that the diaries did not contain any evidence to suggest that Hitler was aware of the Holocaust". Really I am following Mr Harris's argument there.

Q. On what basis do you say ----

A. That was one of a number of reasons which he puts forward for your having endorsed them at a late stage.

Q. On what basis do you say that these fake diaries showed Hitler ordered a stop to the Reichskristallnacht?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I did say quite a long time ago that I am not going to pay any attention to the Hitler diaries because it is not any part of the Defendants' case. Really these questions are directly focused on the Hitler diaries, so I do now say you must move on.

MR IRVING: In paragraph 2.4.9, lines 5 and 6, there is a sentence there beginning, "If an obvious forgery like the Hitler diaries gives credence to my views, I will use it". Is that not a reflection -- am I allowed to say that, my Lord?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have already told you in the clearest possible way that I am not going to place any reliance in forming my judgment on what did or did not happen in the case of the Hitler diaries, so questions about it can only do you harm.

MR IRVING: Three lines from the bottom of that page 40 you

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accuse me of rendering my footnotes deliberately opaque.

A. Yes.

Q. Can you think of any reason why a researcher or writer who has spent a lot of his private funds, who is not a tenured professor, who is entirely reliant on his professional income, obtaining access to sources, might wish to leave his footnotes opaque?

A. Yes. Either in the case of your extremely vague references to the author Ingrid Weckert in your account of the Reichskristallnacht, because that source is discreditable, because she is an anti-Semitic politically motivated falsifier of history upon whom you rely in part of your account ----

MR IRVING: Do you consider that anti-Semitic ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let him finish his answer and then ask you next question.

A. Or that the sources do in fact, if anybody goes to the immense trouble of tracking them down as in the instance we already mentioned on Thursday, the evidence of the policeman Hoffmann at the 1924 trial of Hitler, if that source in fact contains things which you do not want to appear and you do not want people to know about. So it is a kind of judgment call on your part that you need to give a source, but you do not want people to find out too easily what is there.

MR IRVING: Can you think of no innocent explanation why the

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aforementioned author might leave his sources opaque?

A. No.

Q. Are you familiar with the kind of scholar and academic who will pretend that he has done the research, who will pretend that he too has been to Canberra and Ottawa and Washington and Moscow, he will quite the file and he will quote the document number and even the page number in that file to give the impression that he has been there and done the work?

A. Give me an example.

Q. I am just asking you if are familiar with that kind of scholar?

A. I cannot think of any examples. Try and give me one.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that legitimate, I really do not know as a matter of a historian's proper approach? If you have seen some other historian give a reference for a particular proposition as being File X in the Washington archive or wherever, is it then illegitimate for the next historian simply to cite that as being the authority without actually going to the Washington archive and looking for himself?

A. Well, it is normal, my Lord, to say file so and so in the archive as cited in such and such a book. If you simply say file so and so in the archive, that does suggest you have been there. It is what I would call slightly sharp practice.

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MR IRVING: If, for example, you found in a book by David Irving on Winston Churchill unusual sources and you were an academic and a scholar, if you did not want to be associated with him, would there be a temptation just to use that file in the French National Archives or whatever it is and pretend you had seen it yourself, but not of course that you had it from David Irving's book? Would there be that temptation?

A. I would not be tempted. I can only answer for myself.

Q. You would not be tempted to use the source?

A. I would want to go, if that was the work I was doing, to the archive and check the source. I would not take it on trust as it appears in your work.

Q. Even if you could go to some archives like the Institute of History where I did in the meantime deposit all the records so that you could check it out? Do you appreciate that there might be an innocent reason on the basis of what I have said, on the basis of my questions, why an author might sometimes wish to make it slightly less easy for a crooked scholar to steal his brain work?

A. You would have to show that there were crooked scholars around who are all desperate to steal your brain work. I do not believe that that is the case, so I do not really accept that there are innocent reasons. It is quite straightforward. If you cite an original or any source, if you use a source in your work, you footnote it in order

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to enable other historians to go and find it and you are as helpful as possible to them. It is part of the kind of checks and controls which historians have, and this curious way we have to enable other people to challenge our own work and to falsify it and say that we are wrong. It is part of what I would call being an objective historian is.

Q. Do you agree that there are two kinds of books? There are the super academic works as submitted for PhDs or for some other kind of academic qualifications where everything has to be rigorously footnoted according to a standard scheme, and books which are sold in Books Etc. and Waterstones where books have to fit in within a reasonable size, number of pages, and that, if you put all the footnotes in to that scheme, you are going to end up with an uncommercial book. Do you agree with that proposition?

A. Not really, no. I think there is a large kind of scale of books, or a spectrum of books, from the academic PhD theses which is not really publishable as a book in many cases and has to be rewritten, where everything has to be all the Is dotted and all the Ts crossed all the way down to very general non-fiction books which do not have any footnotes in at all and everything in between. So I think there is a very wide spectrum. In respect of your works, Mr Irving, Hitler's War is over 800 pages long. It is a very long book, and the claim that you make for it is that

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it is based on an enormous mass of research and there are a lot of footnotes in it. It does give the appearance, as your other books do, of being a scholarly work. You make a great deal of the fact that you use a large number of source.

Q. Professor Evans, when your researchers were researching in my files at the Institute of History in Munich, did they come across a thick file there which was about 1,000 pages long, consisting of the original annotated footnotes of Hitler's War which were referenced by number to every single sentence in that book?

A. No.

Q. It was not part of the published corpus, it was part of the original manuscript, but it was chopped out because of the length.

A. No, we did not see that.

Q. Have you seen isolated pages of that in my discovery in so far as it related to episodes which were of interest, like the Reichskristallnacht?

A. I do not, to be honest, recall, but that does not mean to say that we have not seen them.

Q. You said that my footnotes are opaque because they do not always give the page reference. Do you agree that, on a page which we are going to come across in the course of this morning, of your own expert report, you put a footnote in just saying "see van Pelt's report", see

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expert report by Robert van Pelt, and that expert report is about 769 pages long, is it not?

A. Yes.

Q. That is not an opaque footnote?

A. No, because, when one says see this or see that, that means that you are not relying on that for what you say. It is simply a further reference directing the reader, if the reader wants to gain further information about that particular topic, to go there. If I were relying on Professor van Pelt's report for anything I say in my own, which I am not, then I would footnote it as precisely as I could.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Why are you not?

A. Why am I not relying on Professor van Pelt?

Q. Is there a reason?

A. Well, his report is about something different from mine and I thought I should reach my own conclusions on the basis of my own work, but I do cross-reference other expert reports in so far as I think it is useful.

MR IRVING: It is a strange kind of cross-reference that just says "See expert report" by somebody.

A. Well, can you point me to the page?

Q. We will come to it later on. I am just looking for it and I do not want to hold up the court. If you would you go now to page 41 of the expert report, please, paragraph 251? Can I ask that you be given bundle H1I, please, so

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we can see what you have omitted from the quotations? It is a passage where you say: "They are not lies, what I have published, they are true. At any rate, the truth as I perceive it". Then you omit bits.

A. Where is this -- yes.

Q. That should be H1I at page 94?

A. Page 94. Yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Whereabouts on the page, bottom of the page, is it?

A. It is near the bottom of the page.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

MR IRVING: Do you not admit a passage there about how it gets far more expensive the closer you approximate towards the truth, that it is quite easy to find out 90 per cent of the truth, and then it gets a bit more expensive to get 95 per cent of the truth, and to get absolute truth is impossible, but it gets more and more and more expensive? That is roughly the sense of it. I do not have it in front of me, but I am familiar with the speech.

A. That is where you say it is a shame that we lost the United States.

Q. Yes. "They are not out lies, what I have published, they are true, at any rate, the truth as I perceive it"?

A. Yes.

Q. Then you left out the explanatory bit?

A. No. "Even the most erudite and hard working historian", I

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say, "is never going to obtain 100 per cent truth. He is only going to approximate it", and that, I think, gives the sense of what you are saying. I come back to the point, I echo the point that you have made about your own work, this report is already 740 pages long, and in this quotation, I think I give the essence of what you are saying there. Moreover, of course, I do put the ellipse in, three dots, to tell the reader that I am leaving something out there so the reader can do, as you have done, go back and cheek the speech and see if I have left anything out that I should not have left out. That is not the case in quite a number of the cases in which you abbreviate quotations from the original sources, as I have shown in my report.

Q. Yes, but ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: But it is fair to say Mr Irving does go on really to say he is one of those writers who does try to get the extra 10 per cent and get 100 per cent accuracy? I think that is the burden of the passage as a whole.

A. Yes, indeed, yes.

MR IRVING: Unfortunately, not everyone has our patience to go and look up the original document to see what has been replaced by the three dots. There is another passage, while you still have that H1 in front of you, please, can I ask you to go to page 106 of H1I? This has a rather

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more important kind of material that has been left out of the indented paragraph?

A. Yes.

Q. In the middle of page 41 of the expert report, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I have it.

MR IRVING: Your Lordship will see that the witness has omitted all the reference to the organised campaign of window smashing and so on that went on around this country to persuade Waterstones not to stock my books and other booksellers. He then goes on to mock me for suggesting that there is a campaign, having cut out the material relating to it out of the quotation.

A. Sorry, where do I mock you?

Q. Page 42 at 254: "Irving does not appear to believe that other historians can rise to the challenge; rather he believes that there is an international campaign organised by the Jewish community in many countries to stop him from speaking and selling his books"?

A. Well, that is my sense of what you believe. I do not see anything mocking in that. I am trying to convey your own point of view there. Once again, of course, in this passage that you mention, there are ellipses to denote that I have omitted some material, and really what I am trying to do here is to describe your view of history. I am not really concerned with all the details that you give here about the campaign which you allege is being

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conducted against your work. That is not what I am concerned with.

Q. Here you go on about the campaign I allege has been conducted against my work, but you have deprived his Lordship of knowing details of what that campaign is; the fact that there was an organised campaign of window smashing in the big book stores to persuade them not to stock my books.

A. How is that relevant to my report? I really do not see it.

Q. Because you say (as you have just said) that I allege there is a campaign and you say in paragraph 2.5.4 that I seem to believe that there is a campaign to stop me selling my books, and yet you have cut out of that quotation concrete evidence of the campaign that has been going on?

A. But it is not my concern in this report to deal with the campaign. I have given your view here that there is a campaign, and I think in the context of a report which is about your treatment of historical subjects, that that is enough. If I went, if I had gone in this report into every issue like that, it would have been enormously long and I really do not think that is relevant to what was asked to do.

MR RAMPTON: I should intervene. Mr Irving actually misread the report. It is only so that it gets on the

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transcript. The report actually did not say "he seems to believe".

MR JUSTICE GRAY: "He believes".

MR RAMPTON: It says "he believes".

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I did notice that.

MR IRVING: If had omitted any reference to book burning from a passage about the Nazi activities in 1933, that would have been duplicitous, would it not?

A. It depends what you are trying to write about the Nazi activities in 1933.

Q. They were suppressing books that they disapproved of.

A. If you are writing a dissertation about the Nazi policy towards the Civil Service or the Nazi policy towards the Bauer in 1933, then I do not think book burning would necessarily have been a relevant consideration.

Q. If I had omitted the book burning in Berlin in March 1933 from my Goebbels' biography, then this would have been duplicitous, would it not, and if I had just said, "Well, that did not really belong"?

A. That is certainly true since Goebbels was centrally concerned with it.

Q. If I had omitted the window smashing, which is very apposite, from the Kristallnacht, that would also have been duplicitous, would it not?

A. Absolutely, yes.

Q. So why is it not duplicitous that you omitted that passage

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from that passage you quoted?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I understand your point, but the fact is in paragraph 254 Professor Evans does refer to your belief that there is an international campaign to prevent you from speaking and selling your books. So he is not actually concealing it, is he, in his report? Anyway, I understand the point, but let us go on to the next point.

MR IRVING: Many paranoid people have beliefs which are not supported by evidence, my Lord, but if there is a campaign of window smashing which is in the discovery, which is in the documents before the court, the witness should not have cut it out of the part that he quotes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I understand that is the criticism you make of him, yes.

MR IRVING: That is my submission. That I regard as earning all the adjectives that have been heaped on me by this witness. (To the witness): In that same paragraph, 254, we are back to your report, Professor. You say: "Irving does not appear to believe that other historians can rise to this challenge, rather he believes there is an international campaign ordered by the 'Jewish community (our traditional enemies)'"?

A. Yes.

Q. What entitles you to equate those two as though I had said

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that the traditional enemies of the truth or free speech are the Jewish community?

A. Well, on your website you list, you have a section where you list the traditional enemies of free speech.

Q. Which includes the Jewish community leaders, yes.

A. Nearly all of them. I think there is only one organisation there which is not a Jewish organisation.

Q. But you put the words "Jewish community" in quotation marks as though you are taking it out of some document of mine?

A. I did not want to imply that there was a Jewish community in that sense. That is why I put it in inverted commas.

Q. You refer quite correctly to my website where I have a menu of traditional enemies of free speech, some of whom are specific organisations which are Jewish in character? That is correct?

A. Nearly all of whom -- all apart from one.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you got the reference for this either in your own report or in the website file because I would quite like to see it if the point is being taken. It is difficult ----

MR RAMPTON: My Lord, I ----

A. It is page 168 of my report, my Lord, where I detail a number of cases where Mr Irving has equated -- I quote here a speech in 1992: "'Our old traditional enemies ... (are) the great international merchant banks are

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controlled by people who are no friends of yours and mine', who were 'annoyed' friend by" ----

MR IRVING: What paragraph is that?

A. 168, paragraph 50.

Q. Is there an ellipsis in the middle of that?

A. Yes.

Q. Will you please look at the document and see the four sentences, three full stops, four semi-colons and 86 words that those three dots represent?

A. Could you direct me to ----

Q. And see if that is a genuine quote?

A. --- the document, please?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. That is fair.

MR IRVING: That is the document, I am very familiar with that quotation.

A. Could you direct me to it, please?

MR IRVING: This is highly illuminative and illustrative of this witness's methods.

MR RAMPTON: I think it is the Clarendon Club. I think your Lordship has probably already seen that, in fact. Unfortunately, mine is not here.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: D2II.

MR RAMPTON: Yes. It is K4, tab 5, Clarendon Club.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure this is actually going to be the answer to the question, but that may be wrong.

MR IRVING: The question is what do those three dots represent?

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A. K4?

MR RAMPTON: K4, tab 5.

A. Yes, 5, I have that.

MR RAMPTON: This is the Clarendon Club in September 1992 which I think is the reference we have here?

A. "Our old traditional enemies".

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Bottom of page 3 of 13.

A. Yes. Right, shall I read that out, if you would not mind?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

MR IRVING: My first question is ----

A. May I read that out then?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: He is just going to read it first and then ask the question.

A. It is about Andrew Neil, the Editor of the Sunday Times, and the Goebbels' diaries which he was publishing in your -- from you, and that he had come under pressure "'from our traditional enemies, pressure not just from the advertising industry, pressure not just from the self-appointed, ugly, greasy nasty, perverted representatives of that community, he came under pressure from the international community too because the Sunday Times, like many other newspapers, needs international capital to survive and the international capital is provided by the great international merchant banks, and the great international banks are controlled by people who

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are no friends of yours and mine'".

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That appears to be Andrew Neil speaking.

MR IRVING: What I am looking at is what those three dots represent which is not just ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Pause a moment. We will get to that in a second.

A. I take that to be Mr Irving's paraphrase and version and gloss on what Mr Neil was saying.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: So the answer is yes, but it is a gloss?

A. A very heavy gloss, my Lord, I think, and it goes on to say, "And Andrew Neil found that these 60 foot long posters had annoyed these people, and they put immense pressure on him, and we know this because from all over the world I have been getting press clippings", and so on and so forth.

MR IRVING: Where do the three dots end and the sentence resume?

A. "'... are the great international'" -- "our old traditional enemies are", it is three lines up from the bottom of page 3 and the sentence resumes four lines down from the top of page 4, so that is, five lines are omitted there.

Q. My point is, my Lord, that when you see three dots in the middle of a sentence like that, you are entitled to assume that a few words have been left out of a sentence, not that two words have been taken from one sentence and then

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sentences later they have been glued on to.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I think the point, and bear in mind we are not really concerned with your criticisms of Professor Evans, rather the other way round, but the point is whether anything has been left out that materially affects what is quoted. It seems to me that in this particular instance what has been left out by Professor Evans really makes no difference. Indeed, in many ways he might have made his point more strongly if he had put in what he had left out, the reference to "the self-appointed, ugly, greasy, nasty, perverted representatives of that community".

MR IRVING: I agree, my Lord, but my point is that if I had adopted that kind of abbreviation in a paragraph, and I had cut out three or four sentences, full stops, semi-colons and 86 words and replaced them by three dots, it would have been completely reprehensible and it would have been rightly pounced on by all the witnesses in this case.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I would not have thought it was reprehensible unless it did some injustice to what remains quoted.

MR IRVING: If I can put it another way? If I were an editor in a reputable publishing house and I caught one of my authors doing that, then I would sit on him like a tonne of bricks and say, "You cannot do this".

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Anyway, let us move on.

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A. Yes. If I can just say, my Lord, the point that I make repeatedly in my report is that the three dots, as it were, are missing from Mr Irving's manipulation of quotations. He does not ----

MR IRVING: Have you found one instance where I have not replaced missing materials with the appropriate ellipses, I ask you, Professor.

A. Plenty, yes.

Q. And you have referred to them actually in your report?

A. Yes, yes.

Q. We shall take that when we come. Can you give one example from memory?

A. For example, in your -- yes, from memory, your account of the discussions between Admiral Horthy and Hitler and Ribbentrop in 1943, when you actually mix up, when you transpose a phrase from Hitler from one day to the other in order to make him look better without any indication that you have actually done this.

Q. This is totally different from the question I asked you. Have you found one instance where I left words or a passage out of a document and did not replace it with ellipses?

A. Exactly, then that is exactly my answer.

Q. No.

A. I am afraid it is, Mr Irving. Shall we turn to the pages ----

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Q. Please do, yes.

A. --- in question?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is around page 440. I think it is 444, but I may be wrong.

A. The point here is that you transpose the sentence from ----

MR IRVING: We are not talking about transposition here.

A. Well, what we are doing is that you leave out the entire gap, the entire enormous passages, between the discussions of 16th and discussions of 17th of April 1943, and you ----

Q. I think you are deliberately obscuring the issue. This is not the answer to my question.

A. I am sorry, I am not deliberately obscuring ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, let him give it and then you can, of course, make the point that it is not an answer to the question. Sorry, Professor Evans, carry on.

A. Here is your -- you simply go straight on, what you said, "'They can hardly be murdered or otherwise eliminated', he protested. Hitler reassured him there is no need for that".

MR IRVING: Are you suggesting I left material out of that sentence?

A. That implied, that implies, that there was no gap at all between these two sentences.

Q. You know as well as I do, Professor, what the etiquette

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for use of ellipses is. Is that correct?

A. Indeed, yes.

Q. That is not an appropriate place for the insertion of ellipses. One has not left material out.

A. You have taken a Hitler statement from one day and transposed it to another.

Q. We are not talking about transposition.

A. You have an left enormous amount of material out there and given a completely misleading impression of the discussions which took place.

Q. Professor, would you accept that if you quote one sentence from a report, by definition, you are leaving out the whole of the rest of the report, and you do not replace the rest of the report with ellipses, is that correct?

A. It depends how you do it. I mean, for example, I could have done in my report, instead of having and indented quote with ellipses in, I could have had a number of separate quotes as you do here, separated by your own or my own commentary, but the effect is the same.

Q. In the case instanced here it would not have worked, would it, because you said "the merchant banks ..." and then you go on using the verb of another sentence.

A. Yes, I do not think that what I have left out, had it been put in, would have given what you said, another impression, a different meaning.

Q. Why do you say that I equate the traditional enemies of

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free speech with the "Jewish community", in quotation marks, when it is quite plain from everything that I have written that they are part of the bundle of people who try to suppress free speech, either by refusing to debate, or by smashing windows, or by putting pressure on publishers, or by inserting filters in the Internet or whatever?

A. I have already given my answer to that, the fact that on your website your list of the traditional enemies of free speech includes ----

Q. Is entirely Jewish, is entirely Jewish community, is it?

A. 90 per cent, I think.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I wish we could find it because, if Professor Evans is right, it is an answer to the question and it is quite an illuminating answer.

MR IRVING: I agree, it is. Would you agree that the Australian Government is one of the people listed on that pull down menu?

A. I would have to see the list.

Q. Would you agree that Cyber Patrol which is a filtering system for the Internet Surf Watch?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Until and until we find it, Mr Irving, this is a bit difficult, is it not?

MR IRVING: I am trying to put some ideas in your Lordship's mind, that this witness is not accurate when he says 90 per cent of the representatives on there are. Obviously and finally one further question on this, would you agree

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that in view of the fact that these particular bodies are the ones who have inflicted most damage on me over the last 10 years ----

A. Let me just quote, Mr Irving, another quote from page 168 from a speech you made in the Clarendon Club again, 29th May 1992 ----

Q. Is this relevant to the questions that we have asked?

A. "I never used to believe in the existence of an international Jewish conspiracy", you said, "I'm not even sure now if there's an international Jewish conspiracy. All I know is that people are conspiring internationally against me, and they do mostly turn out to be".

Q. ...

A. "... (drowned out by laughter and applause) which I think it is fairly clear that the next word was going to be "Jews".

MR IRVING: My Lord, I am not able to put bundle E to this witness and ask him questions on the documents which will substantiate what I just said in that speech, but certainly when we come to submissions which I am going to make, then I will justify that particular element.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure why you say you are not ----

MR IRVING: Because your Lordship has said that this is not the appropriate time to introduce bundle E with the documents on the global endeavour to suppress my rights to publish and write.

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MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, and the reason I said was that it seemed to me that the point went to the damage that you say you suffered as a result of what you say are libels. That is something you can deal with in your evidence or in submissions. But if you are challenging -- but, you see, it is coming in a slightly different context. I think really, and when one gets to the bottom of it, it is further evidence -- I think this is the thrust of what Professor Evans is saying at the moment -- of an anti-Semitic attitude.

MR IRVING: I agree, if left alone.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: On that, you are entitled to cross-examine. I hope you do not understand that one document may be relevant on two issues. On one issue ----

MR IRVING: I will not use the licence that your Lordship has given me.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: On any reliance that Professor Evans places on particular documents as showing your anti-Semitism, you are perfectly entitled -- I make this absolutely clear -- to cross-examine. So if you want to show him that document from your bundle E, then please do, or your clip E. It has not become a bundle yet, has it?

MR IRVING: It is quite substantial. Do you have bundle a bundle E in front of you? That is how big it is. It has been quite a major conspiracy. This is only a part of it.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not encouraging you to go right the way

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through it. It is simply that if there is any ----

MR IRVING: No, my Lord, but I think, firstly, one or two general questions.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page, Mr Irving?

MR IRVING: I am going to ask him one or two general questions first to set the scenery. (To the witness): Witness, is it your opinion that that remark you just quoted is evidence of an anti-Semitic state of mind?

A. Sorry, which remark was this?

Q. You one that you decided to read out about the international conspiracy.

A. Conspiracy, yes.

Q. Is criticism of Jewish people or community permitted for whatever reason?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: We had this yesterday. I do not think we need to traverse that ground again.

A. Of course.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: When I say "yesterday", I mean Thursday.

MR IRVING: If you are shown scattered evidence of a concerted endeavour by representatives of that community to abrogate my rights to write and publish, over a period of, say, 25 years, around the world, would you be satisfied that that was a justified comment to make in those conditions?

A. Well, that is a very hypothetical question. In order to be -- I mean, I am constitutionally disinclined to believe in international conspiracies, and it would take a very

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great deal to persuade me that there was an internationally orchestrated conspiracy of this kind. It is the belief in an international Jewish conspiracy is a central element, in my view, of the most extreme forms of anti-Semitism.

Q. You talk about an international Jewish conspiracy, you are just talking about the kind of protocols of a Zion conspiracy, are you, or is one entitled to believe in a specific endeavour to achieve a certain aim, namely to silence David Irving as being a particularly dangerous historian? Is that an acceptable concept in your mind? Can you believe there is such an endeavour ----

A. I do not myself believe there is such an endeavour, no.

Q. If ----

A. But I have to say that it has not been a part of my task to investigate whether there has or not. I am not speaking, in other words, as an expert when I say that.

Q. My Lord, I am wondering what use it is going to be to put these documents piecemeal to this witness. I do not think it is at this point.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: None at all. I mean, his position is very clear. He does not believe that there is an international Jewish conspiracy. Therefore, he thinks that when you talk of one, you are displaying evidence of anti-Semitism. That is the end of it as far as this witness goes, I think.

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MR IRVING: Yes. As long as your Lordship appreciates that the time will come when I will justify whatever remarks I made.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Absolutely.

MR IRVING: The only problem is we have a rather unruly witness, I think, who ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, that is not an appropriate comment at all.

MR IRVING: Well, I think it was not necessary really for him to have read out that passage if he was not prepared really to be cross-examined on it in depth on his own knowledge.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, it happened. It was not unruly behaviour.

A. Thank, my Lord.

MR IRVING: Do you accept that this phrase "the enemies of free speech" to which the full phrase applies, "the traditional enemies" includes governments, political groups, trades unions and others as well the Jewish community leaders and other organisations?

A. Sorry, where is the passage then where you say that? Are we back to the website again?

Q. No, I am back to your reference in that paragraph, to paragraph 2.5.4 to "the Jewish community" which you now admit is a phrase that I do not use.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have we got the reference in the website?

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MR IRVING: Paragraph 2.5.4, my Lord, of his report: "Irving believes that there is an international campaign orchestrated by the 'Jewish community' ('our traditional enemies')" as though there is an equation between the two, an equation, shall we say?

A. Well, Mr Irving, you do in your speeches repeatedly refer to "our traditional enemies", and I think it is clear, in my judgment, that by "our traditional enemies" you mean, essentially, the Jews.

Q. Is it not true that the phrase that I use is "the traditional enemies of free speech"?

A. Not always, no. You refer to "our traditional enemies" on a number of occasions.

Q. Is it not obvious that one is the short form of the other?

A. No.

Q. "Our traditional enemies" is three words and "the traditional enemies of free speech" is five or six words. One is the short form of the other?

A. I quote on page 168 "our traditional enemies", "our old traditional enemies", and so on.

Q. Yes, but you appreciate that when you are speaking you do not use again and again and again exactly the same phrase, you modify it slightly. Sometimes you use the long form and sometimes you use the short form?

A. Well, I have gone through a number of your speeches, Mr Irving, and you do use exactly the same phrases on a

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number of ----

Q. "The traditional enemies of free speech"?

A. --- because you speak in a number of different places, "our traditional enemies".

Q. And "the traditional enemies of free speech".

A. You have used both of those formulations.

Q. Yes, and "the traditional enemies of free speech", as I formulated them both in public and on my website, include the people who are trying to censor the Internet, is that correct?

A. I think, Mr Irving -- correct me if I am wrong -- you have taken to talking about the traditional enemies of free speech more recently. In the early 1990s, it was -- you were much more inclined to talk about our traditional enemies.

Q. Do you have any evidence, any kind of statistical evidence, for that or that just a gut feeling you have that makes you say that?

A. That is just an impression I have on looking at and reading your speeches and your writings.

Q. But you have no evidentiary basis for that apart from your recollection?

A. That is my impression from having read your material.

Q. Will you now answer my question and say, is it true that on my website and elsewhere I have listed as the traditional enemies of free speech, governments, trades

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unions and people who are censoring the Internet?

A. Again, Mr Irving, we are back to the problem ----

Q. And there are separate dossiers on each of those people?

A. --- that we need to look at that page of your website where you ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: We are going to have to pause until somebody has been able to find it. I do not mean pause altogether, I mean come back to it.

MR IRVING: I have one more question.

A. All I can say is that when I checked out, the list provided of some traditional enemies of free speech, there were virtually all Jewish.

MR RAMPTON: Can I intervene because it involves a technical problem which is beyond me. Could I ask Miss Rogers to explain it?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Would you mind, Miss Rogers?

MS ROGERS: My Lord, what happens is if you click on the website, there is what is called down a pull down menu which lists the organisations under a heading, but I am told -- I cannot do it-- by others as well it is not possible to print the pull down menu.

MR IRVING: On Mackintosh it is.

MS ROGERS: What one could do, one could either type out the list, or perhaps your Lordship, with assistance, could go on Mr Irving's website and have a look and see the list.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I will do that. Is it possible to give me a

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reference to where I will find it on the website?

MR IRVING: Www.fpp.co.uk/trial.

A. It is very easy, my Lord, to find it on the website. It is a very clearly organised website.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Right, thank you very much, Miss Rogers. I am not surprised you ----

MR IRVING: So that each of these particular things has a dossier, right? Each of these organisations, the Anti-Defamation League, the Board of Deputies, each of them has a dossier?

A. Right.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, shall we leave it that I will have a look, and I know what the question is, whether they are mostly Jewish organisations or whether they are not.

MR IRVING: My Lord, you are just going to have a look at the menu, are you not, is that correct?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not going to browse generally through the Internet. No, I did not mean that in any way critically of it. I just am not going to; there is plenty else to be doing.

MR IRVING: Because there are 53 megabytes of information on that and I have idea which particular part of the forest you are going to get lost in. (To the witness): Do you accept that there is concerted campaign by the traditional enemies of free speech to refuse to debate with people like me?

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A. I do not accept the concept of traditional enemies of free speech, to start with. I do not accept that there is a concerted campaign. No, I have not seen evidence for that.

Q. Are you familiar with the number of times I have been invited to speak at universities over the last 10 years and the university has then come under pressure to cancel the invitation?

A. I am not, no, but I can quite believe that that is the case.

Q. Has this happened to other historians like John Charmley?

A. I do not regard you as an historian, Mr Irving. Let me make a distinction between universities and other venues. By appearing at a university and speaking in a university, I think you lay a claim to being an academic or being a scholarly historian which you receive an endorsement from by the fact that you appear at a university.

Q. I am careful not to create the impression that I am a scholar. Nothing would frighten me more.

A. I think you try and give that impression in your books. You may have a different definition of "scholarship" from the one that I have. There is a distinction to be made, surely, if you take United States of America where nobody stops you from going around making speeches wherever you want to apart from universities.

Q. Are you familiar that I have lectured at the National

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Archives in Washington?

A. On what occasion?

Q. About five years ago on Hermann Goring.

A. I am not familiar, no.

Q. Are you familiar with the fact that I have lectured at Harvard on Adolf Hitler at the invitation of the Master of Harvard, Dr Richard Hunt?

A. On what occasion was that?

Q. This was 1977, I lectured on Hitler's War.

A. Yes, I am familiar with the fact that you have talked to many academic institutions in the 1970s, including my own college in Cambridge, I believe.

Q. Indeed. I have spoken at Caius and I have spoken at various other colleges around the world until the problems arose. Are you familiar with the fact that these problems were generated by outside organisations?

A. I would have to be provided with evidence of that, I think.

Q. Are you familiar with the fact that I was in the University of Cork in Southern Ireland?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, how is it going to help me that you were addressing the University of Cork? We really must keep an eye on the ball. We have spent a very long time deal with these preliminary passages and I can understand why, for forensic purposes you are concentrating on those earlier passages, but in the end we

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must get to the specific criticisms because on that really Professor Evans is hanging his case against you. It stands or falls by that.

MR IRVING: I agree, but we have just this witness say, "I do not consider you to be a historian", and then it turns out that large numbers of academic bodies consider me to be a historian whom they would willingly hear, were it not for the violence that is threatened if I do attend. This is the reason that I mentioned that fact, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

MR IRVING: Go to page 44 of your report, please, 2.5.6. Do you accept that the Board of Deputies of British Jews in 1919 acknowledge that I am "one of the world's most thorough researchers and an exciting and readable historian"? You put it in quotation marks.

A. I think I can accept that, yes.

Q. So you did ----

A. I would not dispute the fact that you are a thorough researcher. I have not disputed that in this case.

Q. You agree that that report does exist?

A. I accept your word for it. I have not seen it myself.

Q. Would you accept that the report is currently lodged in the files of the Canadian government where it was placed by an organisation with the intention of getting me denied access to Canada?

A. That I would require evidence, I think particularly with

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the intention. Since I have not seen the report, I am only citing it second hand here, for the purposes of talking about your reputation as an historian, as a researcher, I am not concerned with any other aspects of the report which, as I say, I have not read myself.

Q. On paragraph 2.5.8 on the same page, once again you are coming down pretty heavily on the historical profession, are you not? I wonder sometimes what your colleagues say in your common room when you go back to Caius about the way you are blackening the name of historians whom you disagree with.

A. Could you point out to me the blackening of historians' names?

Q. You are saying that those with the general knowledge have been kind to me, whereas those who are experts like yourself are rightly rude -- is that the burden of that?

A. No. Let me read you the sentence. I am making a distinction between different kinds of historians with difference kinds of expertise in reviewing and commenting on your work. I quote here: "Those with a general knowledge have mostly been quite generous to Irving, even where they have found reason to criticise him or disagree with his views; but they have also seldom been entirely uncritical of Irving's work and his methods". Is that blackening their name?

Q. Can I draw your attention to footnote 34?

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A. Yes.

Q. That is the New Statesman 1977. Is that not ten years before I published my biography on Winston Churchill?

A. That, I take it, is a review of your book on Hitler.

Q. Yes, so my views on Churchill are neither here nor there in such context.

A. They appear in your work on Hitler.

Q. Can I ask you now to turn to page 45, where there is once again reference to my attempt to show that Hitler urged restraint in the Reichskristallnacht?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you consider this to be a completely ludicrous version of history, that Hitler was the restraining influence that night? Is this your conclusion?

A. Yes. It depends exactly what you mean by "restraint" but I think I am summarising what Hinton Thomas says in that review there. I think that is probably his phrase.

Q. But you devoted quite a lot of this report -- my Lord, I think this is something we can dwell on for a moment or two, which is the Kristallnacht?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: We are certainly going to have to spend some time on Kristallnacht. Whether this is the right context to do it I do not know, because in the end, as I say quite often, it is Professor Evans' views and his criticisms that matter, not what other historians may have felt.

MR IRVING: Oh dear. I will see how far I get with this one

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then.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is for me to make up my mind, when I know what the criticisms are and I know what your answer is, whether I think it is well founded.

MR IRVING: The allegation is that I have been perverse, if I may put it like that, in suggesting that Hitler was a restraining influence that night of all nights. It turns out -- would you turn to page 48 of your little bundle please, which is F?

A. Is that the one with the pictures?

Q. That is the one with the pictures. On Thursday we found out that you knew who Professor Burrin, a Frenchman, was.

A. Burrin, a Swiss, I believe.

Q. You said that yes, he is an academic, an acceptable historian with the highest credentials. Is it right that he is Professor of International History at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva?

A. I will accept your word for it.

Q. Yes. If we go to page 57 of his work, which I have extracted in that bundle for your Lordship, do we not find there that he expresses precisely the same view as I do? In fact, two years before I did in my Goebbels biography, so it cannot be derivative in the slightest way, he seems to have been surprised by the extent of the destruction, Hitler?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 57? Do you mean that?

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A. Page 48 of the bundle, my Lord, which is page 57 of the book Hitler and the Jews, the Genesis of the Holocaust. By Philip Burrin, who is an intentionalist historian. Would you explain what an intentionalist historian is in the great debate?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is not a functionalist historian. I think I know the answer.

MR IRVING: Very good.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you.

MR IRVING: Your Lordship has grasped it quicker than I ever did.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us get on.

MR IRVING: Page 57 on this book?

A. I am not sure I would describe Burrin as an out and out intentionalist in his book on Hitler and the Jews.

Q. "Whilst Hitler could only have endorsed the concept of exacting reprisals, namely on the Jews, he seems to have been surprised by the extent of the destruction . Soon he will be able to gauge its impact. (Jump a sentence) In each case Hitler covered for Goebbels who did not derive the hoped for benefits from the affair." Is this Professor perverse, do you think, for adopting that on the basis of----

A. I have to say I do not agree with that interpretation. I do not agree at all.

Q. Yes, but you would not describe him as perverse?

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A. It really comes down to how he has arrived at that, the methods he has used to arrive at that conclusion.

Q. Of course, he did not have the Goebbels diaries then.

A. Without looking at this in detail, it is very difficult to say.

Q. Yes.

A. My criticisms of what you have to say about the Reichskristallnacht depend to a large extent on the methods you have used to arrive at the conclusions you arrive at. I think this is only a brief -- if I recall rightly and I may be wrong -- paragraph in a work which is almost entirely devoted to the wartime. It is part of a very brief broad summary.

Q. So what are you saying is that this view that Hitler was taken by surprise by it and that he covered for Goebbels but did nothing else, it is not perverse when it is stated by a professor of international history, but it is perverse when it is stated by David Irving?

A. First of all, he does say that Hitler authorised the holding of spontaneous demonstrations, whatever that means. He was surprised by the extent of the destruction. I do not accept either of those points of view but, as I say, I do not know to what extent this rests on his own research, or to what extent this is just a very brief summary. I suspect this is just a single paragraph. Knowing what I recall of the book, it is

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nearly all about the years 1939, 1940, particularly 41 and 42.

Q. It is a pretty revolutionary statement for a Professor to make though, is it not, at that time, to come out you and say that he thought that Hitler was not behind the Kristallnacht?

A. I do not think he says that.

Q. It is not exactly a throw away line, is it?

A. He says that -- it is speculative , is it not -- he could only have endorsed the concept of exacting reprisals. I have to say simply I do not agree with that point of view. It really comes down to how you arrive at that and the documentary basis for it.

Q. Moving on to the next paragraph in the middle of that page 45 back in your report, you refer to my omitting key passages of this kind from his discussion of documents such as Hitler's Political Testament. Is this Hitler's Political Testament that I am holding in my hand?

A. Let me say I do not refer to that. I am referring to Sir Martin Gilbert review and I am saying what he says. In all this passage I am simply trying to summarise what other historians have said.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I know.

A. I do not necessarily endorse every single point they have made. I am trying to establish reputation.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have created a problem. You understand

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that, Professor Evans?

A. Yes.

Q. And I am trying to find the way through it without any unfairness to Mr Irving. Obviously the views of Sir Martin Gilbert command enormous respect, but I say again in the end it is for me to look at the evidence in huge detail, as we are going to have to, and then look at the criticisms, look at your answer and make up my own mind. Obviously it is of importance to note what Sir Martin Gilbert and these others say, but in the end it cannot impact very much on my decision.

MR IRVING: In my submission, this witness has relied very heavily on sources of a particular colour, if I can put it like that, and the reliability which I would challenge, then surely I am entitled seriatim to take these sources until your Lordship has really run out of patience.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not see why you have to take it that far, in a way. I have made my view pretty clear. I understand why you are doing this. Professor Evans possibly regrets one or two sections of his report for that reason. Maybe he does not, I do not know. What I am anxious to do, I make no secret of this, is to get on to the specific criticisms and see how much there is in them. Take it rapidly, if you would, Mr Irving.

MR IRVING: I will put on seven league boots. Did Sir Martin Gilbert rely on this book, Hitler's Political Testament?

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A. I really cannot say. I cannot answer for Sir Martin Gilbert.

Q. You have criticised me through him for not relying on Hitler's Political Testament?

A. I thought it necessary, since you made a great deal of this in your reply to the Defence initially at the beginning of this whole case a couple of years ago, of your reputation as a historian, to go into that, and that is what I am talking about here.

Q. Are you familiar that Hitler's Political Testament is a forged document, and I know the Swiss gentleman who forged it in his own handwriting? There is every reason therefore why I should not have relied on that document.

A. That is not really relevant to what I am saying here. What I am saying here is that you have been criticised by other historians.

Q. 2.5.10, please. I am sorry, the last lines of 2.5.9. Do you remember you are quoting Michael Howard criticising me for not crediting other historians where they had done the work?

A. Yes.

Q. Can I, in view of the fact that you have not done so, call the court's attention to the review that Michael Howard wrote, which is in the little bundle at page 33? Does your Lordship have it?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

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MR IRVING: I think in your Lordship's copy I may have highlighted a few sentences in yellow.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 33 of your E?

MR IRVING: Of F.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sure you have, and it is very helpful when you do. I will read out the passages you have highlighted in my copy if you like.

A. May I read out the passage in my report in full? The military historian Michael Howard ... praised the 'very considerable merits' of The War Path and declared that Irving was 'at his best as a professional historian demanding documentary proof for popularly held beliefs'". That is very positive and I am trying to convey there the positive impression that Howard gives. Then I go on to his criticisms: "Howard pointed out that Irving's account of an episode such as the enforced resignation of Generals Blomberg and Fritsch before the outbreak of the Second World War was not as original as he claimed and added nothing to the story already told by other historians. 'It would be nice', he wrote, 'if Mr Irving occasionally recognised that other men had been there before him and done a competent job of work'". This is not a damning review. I am not trying to convey the impression that it is. Of course, since, Mr Irving, you say you never read other historians' work, that last criticism of Sir Michael's is really not very surprising.

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MR IRVING: Oh dear. I wish you had not said that. Can I now draw your attention to the next item in that bundle, which is page 34? That is a letter from me to the newspaper that published that review.

A. Can you direct me to the bundle?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 34 of the slim F.

MR IRVING: Now you will see what has happened, will you not? Can I show you the book? First of all, is this the book?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I have the point.

A. Yes I have the point too. That is one historian. Many other historians ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think climb down on that one.

A. I will climb down on Professor Deutsch, but he is not the only historian who has written about this subject.

MR IRVING: Just so that the people behind me know what has happened, is this the book to which you were referring by Professor Harold Deutsch?

A. What you say in that letter, as you point out, Professor Deutsch in his book had based his account on material that you had supplied to him.

Q. Let me get a lot mileage out of this. First of all, is Professor Deutsch Jewish?

A. I have no idea.

Q. Take it from me that he is a very good old Jewish friend of mine who is one of the United States old guard of historians?

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MR RAMPTON: There comes a time, even when it is a litigant in person, where we cannot have continually, we have had it all the time, evidence from counsel's row. I do not really mind. I am really standing up for rather a different reason. We have done 45 pages in a day and a half. At that rate Professor Evans will be in the box for another three weeks.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am very conscious of that. I do not know the shape of what is to come. I have not counted my interventions, but they have pretty numerous. The difficulty, Mr Rampton, if I may explain, is that Professor Evans has made reference to these other historians and their views. That does rather open up cross-examination.

MR RAMPTON: It only does if those references are (a) likely to be relied on by me, which is not very likely, and (b) and much more important, if they are likely to influence your Lordship. This is not a jury trial. If your Lordship were to make it clear, if it be the case, that this part of the report is not an important part ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I have made that clear effectively on a large number of occasions.

MR RAMPTON: I had thought so, and it does seem to me that this is a rather futile game of ping pong that is going on at the moment, and far better to get on to the detailed criticisms. Professor Evans has said a number of times

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why he does not regard Mr Irving as a reputable historian. It is because of the way he treats his material. Then we ought to be looking at that, in my submission.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, that really is very much what I think I have been trying to say to you very often. I am giving you, as I have said many times before also, as much latitude as I reasonably can, but I do think you really must get on to the specific criticisms. We are going very, very slowly and this morning I really have not found hugely helpful in terms of the task that I am eventually going to have to perform. That is my problem.

MR IRVING: I am trying to undermine your Lordship's confidence in this witnesses as being somebody who has the ability and the impartiality and the historical background to pass judgment on myself.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: If I may say so, that is a perfectly legitimate thing to do, but in the end you cannot just attack credibility. You have to get on to the nuts and bolts of the report and show why they are not credible, as opposed to attacking Professor Evans' credibility on a more broad brush basis. Do you see what I mean?

MR IRVING: In that case it would have been well if Professor Evans had not written the initial 100 pages in his report.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I said that myself and I do rather take that view. He did. You know my view of it. You are

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a litigant in person and you are, if I may say so, handling your task extremely well, but one of the things that you do learn is to take hints if you are doing it professionally . I understand how difficult it is for you because there is stuff in those first 150 pages which you understandably take fierce objection to.

MR IRVING: It sets my teeth on edge, a lot of it.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is not going to bulk very large in my thinking.

MR IRVING: Your Lordship knows how your Lordship is thinking but, with respect, I do not. You have a poker face and a complete mask like demeanour which keeps me totally in the dark. People ask me when I go home how have you done and I say I not know.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is probably best. Anyway, I have given the hint yet again. Mr Rampton is going shortly to ask me to make a ruling about it and, if I have to make a ruling, you know the way I am thinking at the moment, so let us get on.

MR IRVING: Can we leap forward to page 47 of your report, please? Harsh words on John Charmley now, a right wing historian at the University of East Anglia.

A. What is harsh about that? He is right-wing. I do not think he makes any secret of that. He is a former colleague of mine.

Q. Does that disqualify somebody if they are right-wing?

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A. No, certainly not.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is enough about Mr Charmley. On to your next point. I am not being flippant at all, but there is nothing there for you, Mr Irving, I do not think, so come on.

MR IRVING: Can I ask your Lordship to go to page 26 of the little bundle, please? Recently received, but if your Lordship feels it is irrelevant, then I shall move on.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: He pays you a warm tribute and wishes you well in your libel action.

MR IRVING: Can I take you to page 49, please?

A. I am just saying that I quote Professor Charmley and saying that he admires Mr Irving in my report.

MR IRVING: My Lord, if I am referred to as some kind of pariah in the academic community whose views are worth nothing, I find myself ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is not the way I approach it. I am trying to find a way round this problem because I can see you are not going to take my hint. I have seen plenty of evidence, you have shown me a lot of evidence, from very distinguished people like Lord Trevor-Roper paying you tributes and, as a military historian, I certainly accept the evidence that I have heard about the number of people who have a very high regard for you. But in the end it is not as a military historian that you are appearing really in this trial. You are appearing for the very specific

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detailed criticisms of your approach made by Professor Evans, and those are what matter.

MR IRVING: You are talking about assassinations, is this right Professor?

A. Sorry, where is this.

Q. On page 49, and the suggestion which is implicit in that paragraph that the British did not carry out assassinations, that I should not have hinted that we did, and Irving's claim that the democracies had no hesitation about killing their foreign opponents. Do you accept that the British did carry out assassinations in World War II?

A. I am describing Trevor-Roper's view of your work, and I am recounting what he says in a section that is about your reputation as an historian, where I try and lay out what your reputation amongst professional historians has been and is. I am not responsible for justifying every last detail of what every historian I quote has written about your work.

Q. Do you reference the assassination of Chancellor Dollfuss in 1934?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry, I am not going to go into the assassination of the Austrian Chancellor in 1934. It has nothing to do with this case at all. You have to move on, Mr Irving. I really am not going to let this case grind almost to a halt on peripheral material.

MR IRVING: I am moving on. A 700 page report has been dumped

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on me by this expert witness in which he has used this material to blacken my name and set my teeth on edge. It has been very widely quoted and I do not know what your Lordship is attending to or not.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not attending to other historians' views about the issues I have to decide. In the end they are for me to decide, apart from those who have provided reports.

MR IRVING: Move to page 57, please. I have leapt 20 questions there, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do realise you have. I recognize that.

MR IRVING: 2.5.29, please. The allegation that I invented sources by Mr Charles Sydnor.

A. Once again, this is still in a section that is discussing your reputation amongst other historians.

Q. So you feel quite comfortable in throwing these kinds of reports or allegations or opinions of other historians at me to criticise my reputation without investigating how true they were?

A. It is not a central part of my report, Mr Irving. I am simply trying to establish that some historians have been extremely critical of your methods. That includes particularly Sydnor and Broszat. I am aware of the fact that you replied to Sydnor and I dealt with that in my response to the written questions which you submitted.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do you adopt Sydnor's criticism? This is

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Mr Irving's problem and I am not unsympathetic towards it. You recite the criticisms that Sydnor makes and then you in some way seem to rather disavow them when you come to give evidence. Are you saying that what Sydnor said is a justified criticism? Or are you simply giving it as background, as it were, to your own criticisms? That is his problem as you, I am sure, understand.

A. I can see the problem.

Q. If you say well, no, I am not making that any part of my case, then it may be that Mr Irving will feel we can forget about Mr Sydnor.

MR IRVING: Yes. We could do that with a whole number of my critics.

A. What I am saying, trying to be as precise about it as possible, is that it seems to me that Sydnor is an authoritative critic, but of course I cannot say that every one of his criticisms is justified. It is not in the end part of my case at all. I am not taking up these points and making them in my own treatment of your work. I make a whole set of separate points about your work. This is to do with your reputation amongst historians.

MR IRVING: Can I draw your attention to the middle sentence where you say: "In his efforts to present Hitler in a humane light", which is one of the allegations against me, "Irving, wrote Sydnor, manipulated sources, invented incidents" -- that is a pretty serious allegation --

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"(such as Hitler's supposed rebuke of the Judge Freisler at the conspirators' trial) and once more, as so often, failed to give proper documentary references". Professor, in your work at the Institute of History in Munich though my papers, did you not find the papers of Hitler's Adjutant Schaub?

A. Mr Irving, you did not respond to that criticism in your reply to Professor Sydnor in Central European History.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, but, I think, Mr Irving, you may not have heard or digested what Mr Irving said. He said: "It is not in the end part of my case at all. I am not taking up these points and making them in my own treatment of your work. I make a whole set of separate points about your work". I understand that really to mean that it is what appears from about page, I do not know, 120 onwards which Professor Evans relies on and he does not rely, unless they happen to be in both, on the criticisms by Sydnor. I would have thought that that is sufficient for you to be able to say, "Well, right, I can forget about the recitations of other historians' views and get on to what matters".

MR IRVING: Except that I would have submitted, my Lord, that in every single instance where he has produced such an episode, I am able to justify myself, as, for example, and this is not without significance as far as his credibility

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as a witness is concerned and his credit worthiness. I will take him to one further episode and then we will skip another 20 pages. (To the witness): Page 59. You applaud, shall we say, John Lukacs' attack on me, is that right, for having invented sources and all the usual allegations?

A. No, I do not applaud it. I am summarising it as part of a discussion of your reputation amongst historians.

Q. Right. He writes: "Mr Irving's factual errors are beyond belief. He says that '40 per cent of the prisoners in southern France turned out to be Russians" as one example of how erroneous and factually erroneous I am?

A. Yes.

Q. Can we go very rapidly to make progress, not just to the review which we will have a look at, but to page 23 of bundle F?

A. Yes.

Q. Is that a telegram from General Devers to General Marshal and General Eisenhower?

A. Yes.

Q. Does the sentence that has been ringed on it say: "Prisoners captured are between 1,500 and 2,000 of which about 40 per cent are Russians"?

A. Yes, if I just explain that this telegram was issued on 17th August. It notes that the 6th Army Corp. were ashore by 1800 hours. "They occupied all small towns in this

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area which they say delineated by map references, and they are advancing on Toulon which the 3rd Division expects to reach by the morning and landing operations were continuing. The prisoners captured are between 1500 and 2,000 of which about 40 per cent are Russians". So the first point is that -- well, there are many points -- the document does not say that 40 per cent of the prisoners in southern France turned out to be Russians. It just says that 40 per cent of the prisoners taken in a small area of southern France, Near Toulon, in the first few hours of an American landing were Russians. It does not say the Russians were volunteers. So it seems to me that this is an egregious misinterpretation of this document. You are blowing up a small report into a large generalisation.

Q. This is the report by the Commanding General in command of the entire sector, the entire landing operation, in southern France. I do not really want to spend more time on this than to say that, quite clearly, the reference in my book depended solely on this telegram from Eisenhower's personal papers.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Evans, it is right, is it not? I mean, this is from the Advanced Detachment of Allied Forces Headquarters for the attention, for his eyes only, to Generals Marshall and Eisenhower. It can hardly be a reference to some little skirmish. I mean, it must be a

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global report. Is Mr Irving not entitled to make the point?

A. My Lord, he is talking about a few hours of a landing in a relatively small area with 1500 and 2,000 captured prisoners which is really a very small number. I do think it is a manipulation of this source to generalise about 40 per cent of the prisoners in southern France which must refer, surely, to the whole of the southern half of France over the whole period in which the fighting was going on.

MR IRVING: No I think you will find ----

A. I think this is a classic example of ----

Q. --- before the words ----

A. --- of Mr Irving's blowing up a small source into a large generalisation.

Q. I think you will find that before the words "40 per cent" the phrase is "in the initial phase of the attack 40 per cent", but he has cut those words out?

A. If you present me with the document, I would be happy to concede that if he has manipulated that.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is a very good illustration of the problems we run into. You have not got the war between the Generals here, have we?

MR IRVING: No, I have not got it here with me, my Lord, but we have a much more serious problem with this witness, and this is that he has repeatedly relied on documents which are not in the H1 series ----

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A. I am sorry, but the fact remains they were not volunteers. Russians who joined the German armies were in many cases, effectively, forced to do so.

Q. They were called Hilfswillige, were they not?

A. They were not volunteers.

Q. "Hiwis", is that right?

A. That, of course, is a classic piece of Nazi rhetoric.

Q. Is it not true that they joined with the intention of fighting the Bolsheviks and then found they had been sent to another front?

A. Not in all cases, not at all, no. They were -- Russian prisoners of war in Germany were in extremely difficult conditions. Some 3 million were, effectively, deliberately left to starve and die by the Germans in the course of war, and the alternative to being pressed into the German Army was quite clear to many of them.

Q. John Lukacs has published a book recently, has he not?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, may I just try to help you because I do see your problem and I am actually sympathetic with it. If I tell you that my approach to these opening paragraphs, pages, where the views of other historians about your work are recited at length and in a very critical vein, if I tell you my attitude to them is going to be that they count for virtually nothing, so far as I am concerned, when I come to judge the criticisms made of you by Professor Evans, and I go a little bit further

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than that, and say it is my view that it is in every way -- this is not a criticism of Professor Evans personally -- unfortunate that they are there because they could be taken to indicate a preconception about the validity of the criticisms.

MR IRVING: I think they are grossly prejudicial, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Does that satisfy you that you really are not going to lose by not spending long, in fact I hope no longer, on these other historians' views?

MR IRVING: But you do accept my belief that they are grossly prejudicial ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I chose my words with a certain amount of care. They are capable of giving rise to the impression that there was a preconception that there were justified criticisms about you. In the end, I think Professor Evans accepts that he has justify his own criticisms in his own terms and as a matter of his own beliefs.

A. Yes.

MR IRVING: Can you turn to page 63? We are now moving on to publishers. I will not deal with any more historians then. 2.5.38, can you accept that, in fact, my main publishers in that era were Macmillan and Hutchinsons and not Penguin? They were my major hard back publishers.

A. Yes, I mention publishing house -- your books are published by a variety of mainstream publishing houses, including Penguin Books, Macmillan, Hodder and Stoughton,

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HarperCollins, Grafton Books and Corgi paperbacks.

Q. But they ceased publishing me, did they not?

A. I think that is correct, yes.

Q. Are you implying they ceased publishing me because of inherent faults in my works or because of some other reason? Do you have any knowledge one way or the other?

A. I am trying to see where I describe this. You have no longer been published -- since the late 1980s you have no longer been published by major houses, but instead you have brought out your books under your own imprint.

Q. You are aware, in fact, that Macmillans continued publishing me until 1992?

A. Yes.

Q. Are you suggesting that Macmillans and Hutchinsons and the other major hard back publishers ceased publishing because they found faults in my work?

A. I mean, one has to kind of guess really, I think, because I have not had access to any documentation which they have, but, as you know, the normal process among publishers of non-fiction is to have manuscripts and books submitted to referees for comment, and it may well be that that is the reason why they did not. I mean, your views have changed on a number of matters.

Q. Have you any reason to ----

A. Or did change in a number of matters, particularly on the Holocaust in the late 1980s, and I think it is not

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unreasonable to see a connection between the change of your views that took place in 1988 when I think you became a Holocaust denier, and the fact that within four years major publishing houses were not publishing your work any longer.

Q. Is it in your knowledge of the publishing industry normal for publishers to come under outside pressure?

A. It depends what you mean by "outside pressure". As I said, publishers commonly send manuscripts and books out to a variety of referees who report on them. In a sense, if they get adverse reports from those referees, I guess that is outside, that is some kind of outside contribution.

Q. You have no knowledge of Macmillan ever having sent any of my recent and final books out to outside referees, do you?

A. I do not know whether you have submitted your manuscripts to them or not. This is only a very brief reference here in a few lines.

Q. Have you ever heard of a major publisher ordering the total destruction of an author's works under the effect of outside pressure?

A. Under the threat of legal action.

Q. No, not under threat of legal action?

A. That is outside pressure.

Q. Under threat of political pressure?

A. Not to my knowledge, no. That is not to say it has not

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happened.

Q. On page 63 you refer to the fact that reputable historians do not get themselves arrested and deported and all the rest of it. Is that correct?

A. Yes, I think so. Yes.

Q. Is Salman Rushdie a reputable historian?

A. No, he is a novelist.

Q. Is he reputable?

A. He is a novelist.

Q. Blamed for his own misfortune?

A. He is a novelist. I am not talking about novelists. I am talking about reputable historians.

Q. Is it reputable to abandon your principles in order not to get arrested and deported?

A. I find that a difficult question. I mean, that is so hypothetical. I am not quite sure who you are referring to.

Q. Well, you used the word "reputable".

A. All I am saying here ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, this is getting you nowhere.

A. All I am saying here is that, as I say: "It is impossible to think of any historian of any standing at all who has been subjected to so many adverse legal judgements", and also who has ----

Q. Are you aware there has been only one adverse ----

A. --- experienced so many difficulties.

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Q. --- legal judgment against me, and that this was in Germany in January 1993? Are you aware what that judgment was for?

A. I thought you had an adverse legal judgment against you in the case of your book on the Convoy of PQ17, I think it was called.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, we are certainly not going to go into that.

MR IRVING: Are you aware of what the adverse legal judgment in Germany in January 1993 was for?

A. Yes.

Q. Would you tell the court?

A. I think it was for Holocaust denial, was it not?

Q. No, it was not for Holocaust denial. It was for saying that the gas chamber at Auschwitz I which is shown to the tourists is a fake.

A. Without seeing a copy of the judgment, I could not confirm that. That is not my understanding of what the judgment was.

Q. Those are the words complained of and that is what I was fined on. Will you comment ----

A. Well, if I have copy of judgment in front of me, then I will, then I will be prepared to comment on that.

Q. Would you go to page 66 of your report? We now come to Irving and Holocaust denial.

A. Yes.

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MR JUSTICE GRAY: On that issue, Mr Irving, can I just before we embark on it so that we do not misunderstand one another, I have got now a definition from the Defendants of what they mean by "Holocaust denial" and you have cross-examined about that and I bear in mind the points you have made. I have all the statements that the Defendants say you made which they rely on as amounting to Holocaust denial. I have the context of the denials so that I can see any points you have to make on context, you have given your evidence about what you meant. I am just wondering where we go with the evidence on it. Is it not in the end a question for me to look at what you have said or you are reported as having said and making up my mind whether you constitute a Holocaust denier in the sense the Defendants define that term?

MR IRVING: This is true, but I am trying to organise that word in the order of things. This is a useful paragraph to look at because in this paragraph, my Lord, he states that Holocaust denier is the central allegation against me in Lipstadt's book, in the book by the Second Defendant. I was going to ask whether he does not agree that the allegations about manipulation, distortion and deliberate mistranslation are far more serious for a professional historian.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, that is a perfectly fair question.

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A. Well, the answer is I say a central allegation, not the central allegation.

MR IRVING: Well, nit-picking aside, will you now answer the question? Would you not agree that the allegation about manipulation, distortion and deliberate mistranslation of original records are far more serious to be slapped on a professional historian like myself or a professional writer like myself, if you do not like the word "historian"?

A. Well, I describe it as a central allegation because it is not the only one. It does, to my mind, as it were, contain within it the allegation that you manipulated, falsified history, and it is an allegation to which in your plea to the court, your written submission to the court initially, you take extremely strong exception, so I felt it necessary to go into it.

Q. By what -- I cannot really question ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure you have answered the question quite.

MR IRVING: I beg your Lordship's pardon?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think that the Professor has answered your question quite.

MR IRVING: It is important.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think it is an important question and I think it is worth spending a few moments on.

MR IRVING: Because they have not exactly put these ones in

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section 5, so I am entitled to ask how serious these allegations are as seen by an acknowledged historian who is an expert witness on the matter.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Evans, it is an fair question.

A. Yes.

Q. In the end, the sting or the main sting, as it is sometimes called, against Mr Irving is that he has manipulated data and so come to deny the Holocaust in the sense ----

A. Or the other way round, that he is denying the Holocaust and, therefore, manipulated data.

Q. Yes, I follow that.

A. The two are bound up together, my Lord, and I am trying to unpack them here. So certainly, of course, the allegation that he has manipulated data is in that sense the crucial allegation in Lipstadt's book.

MR IRVING: Professor, are they not separate allegations? They are four separate allegations, are they not? He manipulates, he distorts, he mistranslates and, on top of all that, he denies the Holocaust?

A. No, I think they are bound -- I mean, you can separate them out, and they are also very closely connected. I think the burden of the charges put forward in Professor Lipstadt's book is that Holocaust deniers, by definition, as it were, manipulate and falsify history, falsify the data.

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Q. But if you were to take for a moment ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let the Professor finish his answer.

A. Well, I had, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You had finished?

A. Yes.

MR IRVING: If you were to wrench the Holocaust denial allegation out of the book and just leave the rest of it, the manipulation, the distortion and the mistranslation, that would sti