The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Shofar FTP Archive File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit//transcripts//day022.09


Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day022.09
Last-Modified: 2000/07/24

MR RAMPTON:  I believe the evidence of Mr Irving was in
cross-examination that this error was pointed out to him
some time in the early 1980s, I think by Eberhard Jaeckel,
but I am not sure.----
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am afraid I had forgotten that.

.  P-75



MR RAMPTON:  Which is why he retranscribed it in the
typewritten version that we have in J3 at page 13 --
sorry, J1, tab 3, page 13.  I think his evidence was that
he retranscribed the word "haben" from "Juden" on a
typewriter which I think he said he had thrown away over
15 or 20 years ago.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  So, mid 80s?
MR RAMPTON:  Yes, I think it is early to mid 80s.  I am open to
correction.  That was done entirely from memory, but I
think that is what the evidence was about it.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Can you remember, Mr Irving, as a matter of  ----
MR IRVING:  Well, unfortunately, the mid 80s would be a crucial
date because mid 80s is when the second edition went to press.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What, the 1991 edition?  It could not have
been six years, could it?
MR IRVING:  Books of this size are in the gestation period a
long time, and I sent it off to be edited down and cut
down and trimmed, and the first edition was 1975.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  '77.
MR IRVING:  Well, the German edition was 1975, my Lord.  1977
was the first English edition which means that it was
actually finished in 1974.  So it is not an easy kind of
question to answer, that.  So I think that is why it is
more sensible to look at Goebbels and say it is quite

.  P-76



simply ----
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, it has gone from Goebbels.
MR IRVING:  It has gone from Goebbels ----
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  --- and everybody accepts that.
MR IRVING:  --- so the appropriate action was taken.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes?
A.I do not accept that, Mr Irving.  I would need to know
exactly when you -- when this was pointed out to you.
Q.You do not accept that it went from Goebbels.
A.No, no.  I do not accept that the appropriate action
was
taken as soon as it was pointed to you, but in any
case
that is not really what we are talking about.  The
point
is that it was in your books in the first place.
Q.Yes, so to summarize your evidence, your evidence is
that
the reading of "haben" in old German handwriting as
"Juden" was a totally perverse and deliberate action
I took in order to exonerate Adolf Hitler?
A.Yes.
Q.And that, in your opinion, therefore, even when you
are
confronted with the original faded photocopy that I
had
before me, and not the printed volume that scholars
now
use, this was not a permissible misreading?
A.No, I think anybody who reads the German handwriting
and
approaches this with any degree of objectivity can see
that it says "Verwaltungsfuhrer der SS haben zu
bleiben".
Q.This kind of handwriting is pretty easy to read, is
it? I

.  P-77



mean, any historian can read it?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Have we not really had that questioned
asked
and answered?
MR IRVING:  Well, I was going to ask one obvious follow up,
and
that is if it so easy to read, why was it not until I
used
it that it was ever used?
A.I do not dispute the fact that you were the first
person
to read a number of documents.  The point is, Mr
Irving,
the misuse you make of them when you do read them.
Q.Is your contention that that was a sufficiently
important
sentence in that paragraph that its removal makes no
difference to the thrust of my arguments?
A.I think you have that sentence the wrong way round.
Q.In other words that ----
A.Could you remind me of the page again?  I foolishly
shut
the book.
Q.Let us move on.  We will move on then, for heaven's
sake.
A.I think its removal does weaken the paragraph, yes.
Q.Will you turn to page 357 of your expert report,
please?
A.Do I need this bundle still?  Sorry, let me just clear
the
decks again.
Q.You are accusing me of further ----
A.Have we finished with this?  Well, I will keep that.
Q.No, you will not, I will have it.  It is mine.
A.You have it back, yes.
Q.Professor Evans, you accused me of further

.  P-78



misrepresentations and omissions in connection with
the
Bruns Report and the subsequent events.  Page 357 of
your
report.
A.Yes.  Yes.
Q.The specific omission you accuse me of is not making
use
of or not referring to a document, a letter, written
by,
if you look at page 359, paragraph 6, a man called
Schulz-Du Bois?
A.No.
Q.You do.  You say:  "However, he makes no mention of
the
letter's contents"?
A.That is not the specific -- I mean, I make a number of
points about this, but that is one of them, yes.
Q.One objection you make to my use of the Bruns document
is
that I rely on the fact that after these German Army
officers saw what was going on, the SS shooting Jews
on
that morning November, 30th 1941, they discussed among
themselves who was going to bring it to Hitler's
attention, is that right?
A.Where is that?
Q.According to General Bruns?  I am telling you what is
in
the report.
A.Right.  Can you just point me to the paragraph and
where
I say that?
Q.I am telling you what is in the report and we have had
this evidence before the court.

.  P-79



A.In my report?
Q.In the report by General (as he became) Bruns.
A.I am looking in my report for where I make this
allegation.
Q.Paragraph 1 on page 357 is your reference to it.
A.Yes.
Q."Irving relies on Walter Bruns as the source for his
claim
that a report about the killings in Riga eventually
reached Hitler's headquarters".  Does that refresh
your
memory?
A.Yes.  It quotes:  "Hitler seemingly intervened at once
to
order a halt to 'diese Massenerschiessungen' (these
mass
shootings)" ----
Q.Can we take this stage by stage?
A.--- "as soon as a report, signed by a junior officer,
was
forwarded to him".
Q.Will you be responsive to the questions I am asking?
A.That is what you say.
Q.Have you read the Bruns Report?
A.Yes.
Q.Does the Bruns Report describe how the Army officers
who
witnessed these atrocities discussed among themselves
how
to bring it to Hitler's attention?
A.Yes.  Do we have a copy of that?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, we must look at it.
A.We must look at it, yes.

.  P-80



MR RAMPTON:  It is a very bad copy, I am afraid.  It is J1,
tab
4, my Lord.  It is very difficult to read.
A.Do we have a page number?
MR RAMPTON:  It is the beginning of tab 4.
A.Yes, of course, that is right.
MR RAMPTON:  So it is a wartime copy document.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.
A.Right.
MR IRVING:  Have you found the passage towards the end of
the
report where they are discussing, the question was who
was
going to bring it to the Fuhrer's attention?
A.That is right, yes.
Q.Do you agree that Colonel Bruns at that time was a
senior
German Army Engineer Officer in Riga?
A.At the time he is referring to, yes.
Q.At the time he is referring to, but at the time of
this
conversation that the British have overheard he is a
Major
General ----
A.That is right.
Q.--- in British captivity?
A.That is right.  It is, whatever you call it, a spying,
a
record made by the British without the Germans, the
captives, knowing that it was being made.
Q.What kind of reliance would you place on a report like
this on the British intercept, if I can call it that,
of
an overheard conversation?  Is it liable to be
dependable,

.  P-81



used with caution, with proper circumspect?
A.One should use all documents with proper circumspect
and
caution, but it is certainly, since they do not seem
to
have been aware that they were being recorded, it does
seem to be quite reliable.
Q.There might be a tendency to brag a bit or possibly
even
to conceal things they had a guilty conscious about?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think you got your answer "yes" is the
answer.
MR IRVING:  The reason I am about to ask this is to say how
would this compare with the testimony given by
somebody in
the witness box at Nuremberg, the same person?  Would
it
be more reliable or less reliable?
A.That would -- I mean, one has to take all these things
individually and actually look at them.  One would be
perhaps a little more suspicious at the testimony in
the
witness box at Nuremberg, but one would have to take
these
things on their merits.
Q.Having read the Bruns Report or scanned it, would you
agree that he is describing something he actually
witnessed, the shooting of these people at the pits,
the
girl with the flame red dress ----
A.Yes.
Q."I see her in my mind's eye even now"?
A.Yes, yes.
Q.The same General Bruns in 1948, did he not deny that
he

.  P-82



had witnessed these things?  He said in the witness
box
under oath that, yes, he had received reports on it
and he
had sent people out to see what was going on?
A.Right.
Q.So, in fact, there are distinctions between the
calibre of
evidence?  Sometimes ----
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think the witness has accepted that
already.
MR IRVING:  Yes.
A.Yes.  I mean, clearly here he did not think he was
implicating himself because he thought he was talking
in
private, whereas in the witness box he was very
careful
about making any admissions.
MR IRVING:  So used with proper caution, a document like
this
CSDIC report is a valuable source?
A.Yes.
Q.What kind of cautions were then used about what one
accepts?  Should one be careful about hearsay where
they
are reporting what B has said to C, or is there any
other
kind of caution you would apply?
A.Yes, cautious in every -- I mean, you take it on its
merits.
Q.A self-serving statement you would be cautious about?
A.If it is obviously self-serving, yes, but, as I say,
it is
less likely to be self-serving in these circumstances
than
it is in the witness box.

.  P-83



Q.Are you familiar with these CSDIC reports?  Have you
worked with them in any detail?
A.I have not, no.
Q.You have not?
A.No.
Q.There is something like 50,000 pages of these
overheard
conversations with top Nazis and you never used them?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, come on, Mr Irving, is that
helpful?
MR IRVING:  Page 359 -- I am sorry, we had better have a
look
at page 358 at paragraph 3.  What happened to the
report
that went up to Hitler, that was finally sent up to
Hitler?  How did it go, do you know?
A.You tell me, Mr Irving.
Q.Is it right that the report was drafted by a junior
Army
officer was sent up through what one can call Army
channels and then across to intelligent channels to
Admiral Canaris?
A.That seems to be the case, according to the Schulz-Du
Bois
document, yes.
Q.When Schulz-Du Bois refers in his letter, which was,
apparently, written in January 1942, is that right?
I referred you to paragraph 6.
A.Well, yes, it is certainly uncertain.  I mean, his
wife
dated it to January '42, yes.
Q.Well, Schulz-Du Bois did not survive the war?
A.That is right, yes.

.  P-84



Q.On the foot of page 359, you say the report had been
forwarded to the top counter-espionage official.  Is
that
a reference to Admiral Canaris?
A.Yes, I presume it is, yes.
Q.Would you consider a statement made by Admiral Canaris
as
against Adolf Hitler to be dependable or not?  In
other
words, if he had made a statement that was critical of
Adolf Hitler, would that be dependable?
A.Those are two different questions.
Q.The second question.
A.Again, one does regard this in the same way as other
sources.  I mean, this is ----
Q.Was Adolf Hitler a member of the anti-Hitler
resistance?
A.You mean was Canaris?
Q.I am sorry.  Was Admiral Canaris -- a Freudian slip --
was
a member of the anti-Hitler resistance and was he
hanged
for this on April 8th 1945?
A.He was indeed, yes.

Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor

© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012

This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and to combat hatred. Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.

As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.