Irving v. Lipstadt

 1MR RAMPTON:    Mr Irving has the advantage of me, I have to say.
 2MR JUSTICE GRAY:    --- press on?
 3MR RAMPTON:    I will. Then we cut to Irving again and then we
 4have some more German. Lots of question marks because the
 5poor old translator, I dare say, could not pick up what
 6the Hitler pick up what the words were. Anyhow, let us
 7read the fragment that we have got, may we? "Now, to
 8solve the enigma of the Auschwitz gas chambers, last
 9October the Vatigan established that, according to carbon
10dating, the something or other probably without
11doubt", literally in German without objection, "dates from
12the years between 12.60 and 13.90, but some scientists
13argue that the wholly energy [blank] a body [blank] during
14resurrection the [blank] would have lifted up [blank]".
15Do you follow that? If you would like to look at the
16German, do you follow the drift of that thought, Professor
17Funke?
18A. [Dr Hajo Funke]     It seems, but help me, that it is referring to.
19MR JUSTICE GRAY:    The Turin Shroud I should think, is it, or
20not?
21A. [Dr Hajo Funke]     To the shrine, right.
22MR RAMPTON:    That is right, but transferring if I could ----
23MR JUSTICE GRAY:    I am not sure that it is really a matter of
24evidence, this, I think it is a matter of ----
25MR RAMPTON:    No, it is a matter of what it says, I agree. It
26is matter of comment and it is a matter in the end for

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 1your Lordship what its drift is.
 2    My final question is this, having regard
 3Professor Funke, to the content of those little extracts
 4that we have from the meeting at Hagenau, yes? According
 5to your knowledge of right-wing extremism and neo-Naziism
 6in Germany, are these sorts of things which are said here,
 7whether by Mr Irving or by Mr Zundel, are they in any way
 8characteristic of the views and attitudes of neofascists
 9in Germany?
10A. [Dr Hajo Funke]     I have to give a differentiated answer. It is in that
11intensity of radical racist anti-Semitism, not a common
12language of all right-wingers. Parts of the right-wing
13extremists are more soft alluding to some aspects of what
14I said is a second anti-Semitism. So they criticise
15Galinski and nowadays Jewish leaders.
16    So this kind of openly rage-based anti-Semitism,
17this full scale of contempt like in the word Juden Pack,
18this absolutely cynicism with which Irving is referring to
19the most deep causing sorrows of the people of the Jewish
20descent, this kind of extreme radical racist, post
21Holocaust anti-Semitism is more at the core of these
22groups that I call neo-National Socialists and those who
23are influenced as skinheads, as youngsters by these
24groupings, and what I have to say, according to social
25sciences surveys that are done in the Institute of anti-,
26to analyse anti-Semitism in Berlin is that this kind of

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 1radical anti-Semitism, let us say where it is researched
 2in the Branbuch area around Berlin is widespread within
 3these circles. So you have on different levels,
 4especially among male youngsters of middle education, you
 5have this kind of anti-Semitism widespread. This is the
 6very reason that the amount of destroying Jewish
 7cemeteries, for example, the very well-known Wiesensee
 8Cemetery or the grave, is it right, the grave of Heinz
 9Galinski by a bomb attack, that this is caused by this
10kind of widespreading new kind of aggressive anti-Semitism
11within these circles.
12MR RAMPTON:    Thank you very much indeed, Professor.
13MR JUSTICE GRAY:    I think that should go, just so that we know
14where it is, in tab 15 of RWE 2, page?
15MR RAMPTON:    Yes, page 18A and B but only the Hagenau bit
16because attached to it is some Munich, I think. The
17Leuchter conference -- well, that is Munich. Oh, a
18different Leuchter. It is not the Leuchter Congress. It
19is the Leuchter Conference.
20MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Yes.
21MR IRVING:    My Lord, may I question for five minutes, please?
22MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Of course. One of the documents was the
23letter to Dr Frey?
24MR IRVING:    Yes, on each of those documents, but in reverse
25order. I think that is the most helpful.
26< Further Cross-Examined by Mr Irving.

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 1MR IRVING:    Professor Funke, you said that these kinds of
 2remarks addressed to skinheads and youngsters are liable
 3to lead to attacks on synagogues and so on, is that
 4the ----
 5A. [Dr Hajo Funke]     Say it again. Excuse me.
 6Q. [Mr Irving]     Referring to my remarks at Hagenau (which I will discuss
 7with you in a moment) "addressed to skinheads and
 8youngsters", that was your phrase, would be liable to
 9cause the kind of circumstances you referred to there,
10like tombstones being overthrown, synagogues attacked, and
11so on?
12A. [Dr Hajo Funke]     This kind of rhetoric, yes.
13Q. [Mr Irving]     Can I ask you just to have a look at the photograph,
14please, on page 15 of the bundle of photographs which is
15the audience at Hagenau and tell me how many skinheads and
16youngsters you can see in it?
17MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Well...
18MR IRVING:    My Lord, he said, it is a hypothetical thing, "If
19these remarks had been addressed to skinheads and
20youngsters, that would have been the outcome".
21A. [Dr Hajo Funke]     No, it is researched. It is researched. It is the
22[German] research -- you may know it -- about the
23widespreading of anti-Semites within male youngsters who
24are often the same token very violent.
25Q. [Mr Irving]     Answering Mr Rampton's question, you said that these
26remarks addressed to skinheads and youngsters would have

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 1these undesirable effects and you are probably right. But
 2if you look at the audience who were listening ----
 3A. [Dr Hajo Funke]     Yes, of course, the audience is different.
 4Q. [Mr Irving]     Middle aged?
 5A. [Dr Hajo Funke]     Yes, with the exception of Christian Worch and his gang.
 6Q. [Mr Irving]     Right. I am only going to refer briefly to the one man
 7gas chamber. If I am lecturing an audience on the
 8improbabilities of aspects of the Holocaust legend and, as
 9this court well knows, I criticise the quality of a lot of
10the eyewitness evidence, and if one of the eyewitnesses,
11and we know there is a lot of lurid eyewitness evidence
12that we can discard, has described this rather improbable
13contraption, would that fit the description of what I have
14described in that speech?
15A. [Dr Hajo Funke]     What you are doing here is that you pretend that the
16eyewitnesses are excessing ----
17Q. [Mr Irving]     Exaggerating?
18A. [Dr Hajo Funke]     --- exaggerating and producing legends, but I have to be
19now very personal. I did a book of those, it is called
20"Other Memory" of those who left Germany because of the
21pressure and later on the torture by the Nazi
22authorities. Social scientists, like Eric Ericson,
23Zaufriedlende, and what I learned as the essence of this
24encounter in the late '80s and at the time we are talking
25about, is, and I quote Zaufriedlende of the historian, the
26famous, that all those, excuse me ----

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 1Q. [Mr Irving]     Can you just answer the question about this being a piece
 2of lurid eyewitness evidence?
 3A. [Dr Hajo Funke]     That all those -- I do -- that all those who went through
 4this horror ----
 5Q. [Mr Irving]     The trauma?
 6A. [Dr Hajo Funke]     --- the trauma -- right, thank you -- cannot do this kind
 7of research just as an objective historian. They have to
 8do the objectivity and, on the other hand, they have to
 9always rely to the experiences they themselves or their
10families went through. So, in other words, I would say no
11to all those who discard eyewitnesses. That does not say
12that the reconstruction of the Auschwitz horror, the
13cosmos of death -- if you go there you would see, you
14would sense it even today -- that the essence of this
15trauma and terror done by these Jews there, the mass
16gassing included, that this has been reconstructed by
17various means, and I think Peter Longerich did an awful
18good witness statement and paper to that, together with
19Mr Van Pelt. And so it is very clear that you cannot only
20count on the description of the eyewitnesses, although it
21is especially for the subjectivity what they went through
22very decisive.
23    So to quote your reference to Dresden, the
24Dresden thing are horror for a lot of people and you refer
25to the ashes of Dresden, but you cannot do it only -- you
26can do it only if you refer in the same token to the ashes

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