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There is no "smoking gun" order from Hitler calling for the destruction of the Jews, he reminds the court often. There is no "smoking gun" blueprint for gas chambers at Auschwitz.

And, of course, he is right.

On the surface he sounds believable. His tall, square-shouldered frame reflects his inner confidence over a mastery of obscure Nazi documents and wartime history. He bounces on his feet as he fences verbally with Rampton.

His comments cause a flurry of scribbling, as Holocaust survivors, Irving supporters, tourists, law students, professors and scruffy courthouse regulars take notes on whatever is available: envelopes, small notepads, newspapers. Reporters from Germany, Israel, Australia and the United States sit nearby, filling notebooks with Irving's words and the arguments from the defense. Most days the stern court clerk places a "Court Full" sign on the door, barring entry to more who wait in the narrow corridor.

Sometimes the trial is a jousting match, with historical documents and incidents as the lances. "What do you take to be the meaning of the phrase found in Wetzel's letter to Lohse of 25th October 1941 ..." starts Rampton, and Irving shoots back: "I am familiar, you remember, with the Tesch trial ..."

Other times, the debate is more disturbing:

"They also retrieved a paper sack, marked on it a weight of 25.5 kilograms of hair, which they say was taken from the corpses of females after gassing and before burning in the crematorium ovens in Birkenhau," said Rampton. "Twenty-five point five kilograms of hair in total is the hair of about, what, 500 women?"

"I do not know," Irving answered. "I have not done any calculations. It seems to me you would have had to have a bag the size of an elephant to make it weigh 50 pounds of human hair."

The living faces of the Holocaust visit the trial as well. Michael Lee, a 76-year-old survivor of Auschwitz, comes every week.

"The whole thing is surreal to me," he said. "I can't believe they argue dates and translations of words when I actually witnessed the horror of the whole thing."

People like Irving worry him, he said, because they plant seeds of doubt. "Now there are a lot of witnesses still alive," he said, "but in 20, 30, 40 years there won't be anybody left."

Next page | But Irving discounts eyewitnesses, too