Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day004.10 Last-Modified: 2000/08/01 Q. But you see, Mr Irving, if you are looking for evidence both ways, what was known in Berlin about what was going on in the East, and before launching yourself into an assertion that these were their unauthorized crimes of some wicked people in the East, you ought to be looking at things like that if they exist, ought you not? A. I did indirectly, if you remember I offered a major reward for anybody who could find the kind of evidence. If it is provided, the kind of evidence I am sure people would stepped forward with outstretched hand -- Q. I think, Mr Irving, you are shortly going to try his Lordship's patience if you are not careful. A. -- that was a short and perhaps cheap answer. Q. That was not an answer to my question. If you assert that these killings were the unauthorized criminal acts of certain wild SS cowboys in the East, then you ought to be looking for evidence both ways before you make that assertion? A. Which killings are we taking about, the killings of German Jews, or killings of the rest, if I may put it that way? Q. We will have to do the paper chase after lunch. -- A. There is a very significant distinction, I think, in the statement I made that the killings stopped. . P-85 Q. -- no, Mr Irving, sometimes -- I know it is tiring to concentrate hard all the time, I know that, sometimes I think you just do not hear what I say. I am talking about the killings in the East. Leave the German Jews out of it for a moment, because at the beginning they were in tiny minority anyway. A. But my reference to the wild minority carrying on was a reference to German Jews. Q. No. You, I think, have asserted -- if I am wrong then I say after the adjournment we will do a paper chase to see whether I am wrong, if you say I am wrong -- you have asserted on a number of occasions, have you not, that this sort of thing, like what happened in Kovno, like the sort of thing we have seen in that Minsk document, were not part of policy, they were just things that happened. You said just now about those Berlin Jews, they got to the end of line, that was that and after that they were in hand of the wicked witch? A. The system operated from Berlin out to the East. I think we have conceded this, so far as there was a system. But I think that what you failed to establish, if I may say so, is to establish that the system operated from Berlin outwards to Hitler headquarters as well, and that I should have known about and I ignored it. Q. No. Do I have now a clear concession that what the SS were doing in the East, whether they were Polish, Russian . P-86 or Berlin Jews, no, leave the Berlin Jews out of it for the moment; what the SS were doing in the East to the Russian Jews, and the Baltic Jews, to a total of perhaps 1.5 million, I do not believe the numbers matter, we have a concession now, do we, that that was done on the authority of and with the knowledge of at least Heydrich in Berlin? A. Yes, quite clearly. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The buck stopped there, did it, did it go to Himmler as well? A. I think quite clearly this August 1941 message to which Mr Rampton probably wants to proceed next is a reference to the overall security activity of Einsatzgruppen in the East, on which Hitler wished to be kept informed, and to try and say this obviously refers to specifically to the killing of Jews and only to the killing of Jews is a very adventurous leap to make. Obviously you have to mention this desire of Hitler to be kept informed, but it is dangerous then therefore to say therefore he must also have been told in great detail about everything else that is going on. MR RAMPTON: I am trying to take it slowly, Mr Irving, because I want to be sure of the bricks which I am building. I have built brick No. One, at long last I have a concession that Heydrich authorized and knew about shootings of these hundreds of thousand of Jews in the . P-87 East. A. Which Jews are we talking about? Can we be quite specific. We are talking about the eastern non-German Jews? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON: We are talking about the ones the Einsatzgruppen -- A. Yes, it is not a concession because I said it all along. I think the word "concession" is loaded. It implies I said something differently previously. Q. -- that is what I will look for over the adjournment because I believe that you have on numbers of occasions, not in this court, said almost exactly that. A. I shall await this revelation with interest. Q. I may be wrong, if I am wrong I will tell you so. Now I am going to go a stage up from Heydrich. I am going to go to Himmler next. This is a document which I perfectly well accept you did not have at the time when you wrote your books. My Lord, it is Himmler's note of the 18th December 1941. It is referred to on page 63 of the first part of Dr Longerich's report, and the document itself in one of several versions is at footnote 160 of H4(ii). A. While we are looking for that, can I just say this is precisely the kind of document, of course, that falls under my strictures about is it strictly relevant to the . P-88 issues as pleaded? If it was not available to me at the time I wrote the books ... MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have been wondering about that and I think ---- A. It is of historical interest and I am quite happy to... Q. Yes, but just wait a minute, Mr Irving. I think there is a lot of force in what you say, but I do not think I can stop Mr Rampton cross-examining about it because if he were, for example, able to show by producing a document you did not know about when you were writing, that it points unequivocally in whatever direction, and you were to deny it, he might be entitled to say to me at the end of the case, well, that shows that you are not objective when you are shown a new document. A. He is a hard, cold denier, yes. Q. But I do accept the force of what you say and Mr Rampton may takes these documents perhaps rather than shorter than the ones that were available. MR RAMPTON: I think it is very easy to do that because there is really only one question comes out of it. The trouble is I cannot find it. A. I have, of course, used the document in the new version of the book that has now gone to press. MR RAMPTON: It is about three quarters of the way through file 4(ii). Has Mr Irving got file 4(ii)? A. I am very familiar with what the document says and its . P-89 shape. "Juden frager"... MR JUSTICE GRAY: But I am not, Mr Rampton, so can you show me where I go for it? MR RAMPTON: Yes, my Lord, footnote 160. This reproduction of the note is the best I have. It comes from that little book, Witte. It is a Himmler manuscript, my Lord. Your Lordship may recognize the handwriting. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON: Before we look at the substance of this, Mr Irving, perhaps it is best to say what it says. We had better just tell everybody what it means. I hope I read it correctly. It is headed: "Fuhrer Hauptquartier", is it not? A. Yes. Q. Which is the "Fuhrer's headquarters". Underneath that we know which headquarters because Himmler tells us, the Wolfsschanze, the Wolf's Lair. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Did you say FN 160? MR RAMPTON: Yes, 160. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mine is 17th December 1941. MR RAMPTON: Yes, but on the right-hand side it should be the facsimile. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I had assumed that was what was being transcribed on the left-hand side. MR RAMPTON: No, it is not, I am afraid. In fact, in the book the transcription is on the next following page behind the . P-90 Himmler note. "Fuhrer Hauptquartier, Wolfsschanze 18.12.41 at 1600 hours", 16H that is? A. Yes, that is correct. Q. Underneath the XII for December, the Roman 12, Himmler has drawn a line or somebody has, have they not? A vertical line? A. Yes. Q. So the page divides into two columns? A. Yes. Q. Above the right-hand column underlined is the word "Fuhrer"? A. Yes. Q. And in the left-hand column Himmler has written -- are these written in pen or pencil or what? A. Himmler used a green crayon. He or his adjutant, Grothmann, would write a list of topics to discuss with Hitler on the left-hand side of the line, and then on the right-hand side sometimes there would be a one or two word comment usually reflecting what Hitler had decided. Q. On the left-hand side, this is what you might call the agenda then, correct? A. Yes. Q. Himmler's has written "Juden frager"? A. The Jewish question. Q. And under "Fuhrer" in the right-hand column he has written "aus partizan auszurotten, has he not? . P-91 A. "To be wiped out as partisans". Q. Yes. This ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Does it say "aus surotten", sorry? A. "Auszurotten". MR RAMPTON: This, Mr Irving, is an important document? A. It is a document, but, as Trevor Roper said once, because it is new that does not mean it is necessarily true, and also you have to look at every document like that and say because it is new, you have to fit it into the general fabric. It is one mosaic stone that you have to fit into the rest of the mosaic. But I appreciate it is a crucial document, a cardinal document. MR JUSTICE GRAY: When did you first see it? A. I could not actually put a date on it. It became common knowledge in, I think, the summer of last year when a young German historian published it in a learned essay and sometime later I obtained the actual facsimile from -- -- Q. That was the first time you had seen it when you saw it last summer? A. That is correct. MR RAMPTON: And the natural meaning or import, implication, significance, call it what you will, for an historian, of course, he has to take everything into account, but at first blush this would suggest that Hitler had told Himmler to wipe out the Jews as partisans? Do you agree? A. This is an interpretation which is put on that document, . P-92 yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: But the question was, do you agree? A. Not in that form, my Lord. MR RAMPTON: Tell me how you read this. I would be very interested. A. "Jewish question", first of all, the literal translation is: "Jewish question, to be liquidated as partisans". Once again we are faced with the problem of trying to define which Jews we are talking about, which Jews is Himmler likely to have been talking with Hitler about on that afternoon, on December 16th 1941. Presumably, it is the Jews in the Baltic and on the Eastern front. Q. Suppose you are right about that ---- A. Yes. Q. What else? A. --- to be liquidated as partisans. I am quite happy to use the word "liquidated" as that translation for "aus hotten" on that occasion. I think it is quite clear that they were going to be, I forget the phrase the Americans use, terminated with extreme prejudice, partisans on the Eastern front were shot, they were executed, and the only question, of course, which hangs over this document is which Jews specifically are being talked about. MR JUSTICE GRAY: We have agreed, have we not? A. Yes. MR RAMPTON: I do not know, I am not an historian ---- . P-93 A. Well, is it German Jews being deported to the East who are falling under that ambit or just all the rest? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, you would say no because of the document that we were looking at the other day, "Keine Liquidierung"? A. Precisely, my Lord. MR RAMPTON: If may or may not be, Mr Irving, that is not at the moment what we are talking. This is evidence that Hitler gave authority for the massacre at least ---- A. Of Jews. Q. --- of Jews in the East? A. Yes. Q. Yes. That, I think, as I recall, is the view that Dr Longerich takes? A. I do not think there is any dispute between the parties on this.
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