people of the trial
Speakers
Every voice on the official record of Irving v Penguin — the bench, the parties, counsel, expert witnesses, lay witnesses, and the five whose written statements stood without cross-examination. Click any speaker to see where they appear across the 32 days.
Bench
Claimant
Defence counsel
Defence experts
Claimant's witnesses
Defendant author
Court
Bench · 1 person
Claimant · 1 person
Counsel for the defendants · 2 people
RA
Mr Rampton QC
lead counsel for the defendants
Richard Rampton QC, leading libel silk. Conducted the defendants' case on Auschwitz, Holocaust denial, and Irving's method.
10,452turns · 32 days
HR
Miss Heather Rogers
junior counsel for the defendants
Junior to Rampton QC. Procedural and evidential interventions across the trial. Later a media-law silk.
42turns · 13 days
Expert witnesses for the defendants · 5 people
RE
Professor Richard J. Evans
historian — Irving's method
Professor of Modern History at Cambridge (later Regius). Author of In Defence of History. Wrote the principal report on Irving's historiography.
4,365turns · 6 days
RP
Professor Robert Jan van Pelt
architectural historian — Auschwitz
University of Waterloo. Co-author of Auschwitz: 1270 to the Present (1996). Wrote the 762-paragraph forensic report on the Auschwitz killing apparatus.
2,013turns · 5 days
HL
Dr Peter Longerich
historian — Hitler & the killings
Royal Holloway, University of London. Author of The Unwritten Order (2001) and the standard biography of Himmler. Wrote two reports for the trial: Hitler's role; systematic character.
1,727turns · 3 days
CB
Professor Christopher R. Browning
historian — the Final Solution
Pacific Lutheran University. Author of Ordinary Men (1992), the standard study of Reserve Police Battalion 101. The leading historian of the operationalisation of the killings.
1,242turns · 2 days
HF
Dr Hajo Funke
political scientist — Irving's network
Free University of Berlin. Specialist on the German extreme right. Wrote the report on Irving's association with right-wing extremists and revisionists.
1,423turns · 2 days
Witnesses called by the claimant · 5 people
CW
Professor Donald Cameron Watt
expert witness for the claimant
Emeritus Stevenson Professor of International History, LSE. Diplomatic historian, author of How War Came (1989). Irving's first witness, called to support Irving's standing as a historian.
91turns · 1 day
JK
Sir John Keegan
expert witness for the claimant
Pre-eminent British military historian, author of The Face of Battle (1976) and The Second World War (1989). Defence affairs editor of the Telegraph. Called by Irving on military-history grounds.
46turns · 1 day
KM
Professor Kevin MacDonald
expert witness for the claimant
Evolutionary psychologist, California State University Long Beach. Author of The Culture of Critique (1998), a tract on alleged Jewish group behaviour that the SPLC subsequently classified as antisemitic.
69turns · 1 day
PM
Mr Peter Millar
witness for the claimant
Journalist; collaborated with Irving in 1992 on the Sunday Times's purchase and transcription of the Goebbels diary glass plates from the Moscow archive. Called by Irving on the Goebbels-archive allegation.
95turns · 1 day
AJ
Mr Anthony Julius
solicitor — called by the claimant
Lipstadt's solicitor (Mishcon de Reya). Author of T.S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism and Literary Form (1995). Called by Irving in an attempt to expose alleged funding of the defence; appears for four turns.
4turns · 1 day
Witness statements (did not testify) · 5 people
Statements served by the defendants but not adopted as oral evidence — usually because Irving did not require the witness for cross-examination, or because the matter the statement addressed was uncontested.
DL
Professor Deborah E. Lipstadt
first defendant — author
Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History at Emory University. Author of Denying the Holocaust (1993), the book whose treatment of Irving precipitated the suit.
statement only
BF
Bernie M. Farber
defendants' witness — statement
Senior official of the Canadian Jewish Congress. Witness to Irving's activities in Canada, including his 1992 deportation.
statement only
IG
Professor Yisrael Gutman
defendants' witness — statement
Hebrew University of Jerusalem; chief historian at Yad Vashem. Auschwitz survivor and the editor of the four-volume Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp.
statement only
AW
Anthony Ward
defendants' witness — statement
Investigator-witness to Irving's documented public activities and contacts.
statement only
WA
Steven M. Wasserstrom
defendants' witness — statement
Moe and Izetta Tonkon Professor of Judaic Studies and the Humanities, Reed College. Wrote a witness statement that the defence ultimately did not adopt.
statement only
