Irving v. Lipstadt

 1Q. [Mr Irving]     Would you estimate to the court how brief this testimony
 2was in terms of typescript pages?
 3MR JUSTICE GRAY:    So it takes ten minutes to read, I think?
 4A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes, something like that. I have actually read it.
 5MR RAMPTON:    My Lord, again I intervene. I think sometimes
 6I live in a parallel universe. I asked Mr Irving in
 7cross-examination what that passage in the book was where
 8he says that Goring goggled at the exchange between Hitler
 9and the young lieutenant.
10MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Yes, I remember.
11MR RAMPTON:    Mr Irving said: "That was Hofmann, was it, that
12testified about that? Answer: Yes. Yes, the whole
13episode is based on Hofmann."
14MR IRVING:    The fact that the whole episode is based on Hofmann
15does not presuppose that one has read the whole of Hofmann
16with great detail as to his origins, his party membership
17number and all the other matters on which Professor Evans
18is relying.
19A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Well, I have the typed pages here.
20Q. [Mr Irving]     The printed pages or the typescript pages?
21A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes, the printed pages.
22MR JUSTICE GRAY:    I think we now know that they are the same.
23A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     The printed version is called [German] which is the
24verbatim account of the principal proceedings before the
25people's court at Munich 1, and Hofmann, in other words,
26it is a verbatim account, it is the same. Hofmann's

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 1testimony begins on this printed version, that is on
 2seventh day, it begins on page 540, and goes on to page
 3545 I think, a little bit further. It is really not very
 4long. In any case, Mr Irving, if you read the entire
 58,000 pages you certainly must have read those handful of
 6pages.
 7MR IRVING:    Will you accept that when one reads 8,000 pages of
 8a transcript of a treason trial one is not paying
 9attention to the political background of the individual
10members?
11A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     No, certainly not. It is extremely important. You
12present yourself as a professional historian who has an
13extremely critical attitude towards written evidence,
14particularly in trial testimonies as it happens, and here
15you have the testimony of somebody in an important trial
16of Hitler in 1924, a fairly brief testimony, and this is
17somebody who is the head of a political intelligence
18section of the Nazi party who is with Hitler a great deal,
19who is quite clearly a Nazi party member, so closely
20associated with the Nazis and with the Putsch that the
21court actually mentions the fact; at the beginning and at
22the end the judge congratulates Hofmann for being so loyal
23to his Fuhrer. This right through the evidence, Hofmann
24makes no secret of it all in his evidence, and you
25suppress this entirely. You present the evidence of this
26police officer as an entirely neutral statement. You

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 1suppress, you deliberately suppress these facts which you
 2must have known from having read this report.
 3Q. [Mr Irving]     Must have known and ought to have known, is this
 4sufficient evidence for you, Professor, when you write
 5your books?
 6A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     I cannot put myself inside your mind when you are reading
 7this stuff and say whether or not you closed your eyes
 8when it came to the passages where all these things are
 9mentioned. Even if you did that, even if you fell asleep
10repeatedly during reading this five or six-page account,
11I cannot really believe, it still seems to me that it is
12more than irresponsible. You have suppressed this
13information. You have not presented it to the reader.
14Q. [Mr Irving]     Precisely what information have I suppressed, the fact
15that he was a Nazi party member, that he was on Hitler's
16staff, is that what you are saying?
17A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes .
18Q. [Mr Irving]     Does this render him incapable of speaking under oath the
19truth?
20A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Can you show to me the passage in your book where you
21mention these facts which is necessary for an assessment
22of the reliability of his evidence?
23Q. [Mr Irving]     Does it render him incapable of speaking truth under oath
24in a case like this?
25A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     As the court recognized, he did not speak the truth under
26oath. It dispensed him of having to take the oath because

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 1he was regarded as a biased witness.
 2Q. [Mr Irving]     When you translate the passage, "Es ist ein schones
 3Zeichen von Ihnen, wenn Sie zu Gunsten Ihres Fuhrers
 4aussagen", you translated that as: It is a nice testimony
 5to you, that you are speaking out on behalf of your
 6leader." What is the German for "testimony"?
 7A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     I can put a nice sign of you, that is fine, it just does
 8not sound quite right in English.
 9Q. [Mr Irving]     What is the German for "testimony"? Is it "zoitnes"?
10A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Something like that, yes.
11Q. [Mr Irving]     So you have mistranslated a word there?
12A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     No, I disagree. I am trying to find something that reads
13reasonably well in English. I think the meaning is the
14same. Can you just to point to me the page?
15MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Yes, I cannot find it.
16MR IRVING:    Page 230, paragraph 2, the last line.
17A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes, if you want to do it literally it is a beautiful sign
18of you when or if you speak out in favour of your leader.
19Q. [Mr Irving]     That would be a bit wooden.
20MR JUSTICE GRAY:    It reflects well on you?
21A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     It reflects well on you. It is a nice testimony to you.
22I do not mean by using the word -- may I just fish, Mr
23Irving? I do not mean by using the word "testimony" it
24has anything to do with the testimony he has given.
25MR IRVING:    But it would be a bit wooden, would it not, that
26translation if you were to translate it with sign and all

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 1the rest of it?
 2A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes, it would. "It is a beautiful sign of yours". I am
 3trying to steer a course here between -- we have spoken
 4about this before.
 5MR JUSTICE GRAY:    It is a free translation, but it is an
 6entirely accurate one.
 7MR IRVING:    You appreciate the point I am trying to make, your
 8Lordship?
 9MR JUSTICE GRAY:    I do, but I am afraid I am not very impressed
10by it.
11MR IRVING:    Not impressed by it? The fact that one is inclined
12to take liberties in a literary sense with a sentence in
13order to make it more legible.
14MR JUSTICE GRAY:    As long as you get the flavour of what is
15being said right.
16MR IRVING:    Is not the correct translation of that sentence
17"good for you, good for you that you are speaking out on
18before of your leader"?
19A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     No.
20MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Not quite.
21A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     If I may say so, the judge was obviously rather pompous
22and says it in this rather kind of convoluted pompous way,
23not in that colloquial manner.
24MR IRVING:    Is it not exactly the same as when his Lordship
25says things like, "You have done rather well, Mr Irving",,
26for example, as his Lordship did yesterday, we take it at

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 1face value and it is not something to be taken all that
 2literally?
 3A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     What he says is, "It is a beautiful sign of you when you
 4or it is a nice testimony to you or good for you", if you
 5want to put it colloquially, "it is not just good for you
 6or you have done well; it is good for you that you are
 7speaking out on behalf of your leader", that is what he is
 8saying, your leader. It is quite clear the presiding
 9judge regards ----
10MR IRVING:    But he is not actually saying ----
11A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     --- regards -- may I finish, Mr Irving? May I just
12finish?
13Q. [Mr Irving]     But you carry on and on and on?
14MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Mr Irving, come on. This is a witness who is
15trying to answer a point you have made and let he him
16finish, if he can remember where he had got to.
17A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     It is quite clear the judge knows from the start to finish
18that Hofmann, that Hitler is Hofmann's leader and he
19treats the evidence accordingly.
20MR IRVING:    Is it not just a throw away remark by his Lordship
21in this case to put this witness at his ease, and that is
22exactly what happens again and again and again in the
23courtroom, and you have put all this pompous significance
24on to it in order to try to undermine the value of this
25police sergeant who is doing his job?
26A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     

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