Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day023.11 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 A. I have withdrawn that page. Q. You are hoping that Professor Longerich is going to cure that little snag? A. I have withdrawn that page and the previous page, and the top half of the following page and replaced them with a new section, which is on pages 8 to 12 of my letter of the 10th January. Q. Page 425, I am hoping this is going to take less than 15 seconds, Magnus Brach (?) says that the Madagascar plan was a pure hypocrisy, a verbal smoke screen born out of thought games. I am looking at the phrase "thought games", . 99 would you agree that this is the same as saying it is a pipe dream? A. He is not -- we are not talking about the Madagascar plan, but about the Hitler table talk of the 24th July mentioning the Madagascar plan, when, as we know, Hitler had long since abandoned it. He says "pure hypocrisy", I had better give the whole quote. "The talk on the 25th July by Hitler about sending the Jews to Madagascar was pure hypocrisy, at best a verbal smoke screen of Hitler's born out of thought games, a smoke screen with which he took up a known topic which had also once been the subject of concrete planning in order not to call the measures which are actually going on against the Jews by their name." Q. Page 426, paragraph 1, which is the lower paragraph 1 on the page, an examination of? A. Yes. Q. I may have a mistake here. I have a note here, you say that I omit the reference when in fact -- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, if you do not, we should look at it. A. It must be a different page or something. MR IRVING: Must be looking at a different page. In fact, I have commented, it is, in fact, printed in full. Where am I accused of omitting a reference? But let us move on. In other words -- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Take your time, do not rush, Mr Irving. . 100 MR IRVING: In that case we will have a look. 388. "It is a life and death struggle between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus" is the reference I am accused of omitting. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure what are you looking for. The allegation against you by Professor Evans is that you did not -- MR IRVING: I left out -- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Presumably in the Goebbels book refer to the passage which Goebbels has talking about Hitler as being a persistent pioneer and spokesman of radical -- MR IRVING: Here, too, the Fuhrer is the staunch champion and promoter of a radical solution, and I am accused of having omitted it and in fact it is on page 308 of the Goebbels biography? A. Which page of my report is this? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 426. MR IRVING: Ah. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, at least that is where I assumed you were. MR IRVING: Yes. Yes, it is staring me in the face, three lines from the bottom of the main text. A. Right. Q. It has also been shown how Irving manipulated the diary entry in order to omit the Goebbels' reference to Hitler as the persistent pioneer and spokesman of a radical . 101 solution to the Jewish question"? A. Yes. Q. If you look at page 388 of Goebbels book it is there. MR JUSTICE GRAY: 388 or 308? Q. 388, it is there. MR RAMPTON: To be fair to the witness, this is a reference back to -- I do not see a reference to the Goebbels book here. MR IRVING: Hitler's War. MR RAMPTON: I think it is a reference back to Hitler's War? A. Yes, I was about to say that, my Lord. I do not deal with the Goebbels book in this section. MR RAMPTON: No, I think that is right. MR IRVING: But you agree that it is in the Goebbels biography because this, page 388, and it is relevant as concerns Goebbels, but not very relevant as concerns Hitler; is that a fair statement? A. But you omit it from Hitler's War. Q. Yes. A. Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, do you accept it is not very relevant as far as Hitler is concerned? MR IRVING: Do you accept that the entry incriminates Goebbels, but does not incriminate Hitler? A. No, I do not, no. Q. In law, would it incriminate Hitler? . 102 A. I am not a lawyer, Mr Irving, I am an historian. MR JUSTICE GRAY: What do you mean by "in law", Mr Irving? Do you mean as hearsay as regards Hitler? MR IRVING: In a criminal case, would that be accepted? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think it matters whether it would or it would not. We have to look at hearsay in an historical context. We have spent most of the morning looking at it. A. Particularly in the so-called Schlagerberger memorandum. It is hearsay twice removed. You rely very, very heavily on that. MR IRVING: Professor Evans, when were faced with an abundance of documentation and materials and you are obliged to write a book that does not contain eight pages of sludge every now and then would you agree that the first kind of thing that you would chop out would be the hearsay and you would leave the hard core stuff in like the police decodes and material like that? A. But you do not do that, Mr Irving. There is masses of hearsay. As I said the so-called Schlagerberger memorandum is nothing but hearsay twice removed. Q. I will ask the question again. A. If it suits you, Mr Irving, you will put this hearsay in. If it suits you to discredit it because it is hearsay because it does not conform to your arguments you will leave it out. You have double standards in dealing with . 103 this evidence. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, the question, I will ask it again is; as a historian, Professor, do you agree that if you are cutting down a published work for a new edition, the first thing that goes is hearsay evidence? A. I cannot agree with that as a general, global statement, my Lord. It depends on what you are writing about, and, of course, it depends on what the quality of other evidence bearing on this particular problem is. There are occasions when we have to rely on hearsay evidence, though one would perhaps rather not. MR IRVING: Page 427, please, the last sentence. You say there is a number of documents and sources which strongly suggest that Hitler knew all along. So at the end of all this all can you do is say the document strongly suggests something; is that right? A. Yes. It seems to me a reasonable statement. I think history is about balances of probability, I think. Q. It is a rather damning statement for the defence in this action though because what you do not say, and apparently you can not say, is that there is a number of documents which prove beyond reasonable doubt that Hitler knew, or even prove on the balance of probabilities. It is just saying you strongly suggest it, after all this huffing and puffing and after 55 years of searching through the archives and after millions of dollars which your defence . 104 assistants have spent the most you can say is "strongly suggest"? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that meant to be question? MR IRVING: It is. Well, there was a -- MR JUSTICE GRAY: You know what I am getting at, Mr Irving. MR IRVING: Well, sometimes the answers are also long, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: True. A. Am I supposed to try and answer that? MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I think you have answered it. MR RAMPTON: So do I. MR IRVING: In other words, there is nothing better than just strongly suggest that is how far we have reached? A. I think they do strongly suggest and the point is, of course, that these documents, which do strongly suggest to the objective historian that Hitler knew all along, are not directly confronted by you and taken into account by you, but they are manipulated, misrepresented or suppressed. That is the conclusion. Q. My Lord, we are on page 428. We are now on the Himmler minute of 22nd September 1942, on which I have cross-examined this witness in connection with the chain of evidence. A. Yes, I thought we dealt with this. Q. So, really, there is just one or two little dotting Is and crossing the Ts? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that the "abschaffung" of the French . 105 Jews? MR IRVING: No, my Lord, it is the Juden austvanderung which is one reason. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry, what date did you say? December 1941? MR IRVING: September 22nd 1942. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry. MR IRVING: And it is Himmler's handwritten agenda for a conversation with Hitler on which he firmly noted down before going into see Hitler the topic of Juden austvanderung, emigration of the Jews; how are we to proceed? Then there is a new topic underneath that about the settlement of Lublin. THE WITNESS: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: It will be in my bundle in the chain of documents, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. What are you going to ask? Are you going to ask more about that? MR IRVING: One or two minor things, because he has dealt with it in some detail. I am not going to ask about where they were going. On page 430, these are ancillary documents to his argument on this, paragraph 4, line 2. I am afraid you have not provided the document for this, so we are . 106 not... A. No. Q. We are not in a position to judge the quality of this source. It is not in the bundle. I looked. You have quoted it from Brightman and from Labotsnik's file. Now we know from various sources, including Himmler's letter to his mistress? A. That is generally publicly available, is it? MR RAMPTON: That is not the first time Mr Irving has mentioned that correspondence. It is evident he has either got it, or he has seen it, or knows where to find it. We would be very much obliged if it were disclosed. MR IRVING: I am sure you would. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is not really an answer, Mr Irving. If you have it, it should have been disclosed. Do you have it? MR IRVING: My Lord, they are aware from the correspondence. It is not in my custody, power or possession. I read through the entire file in Chicago. It is in private hands and I have made a three page note which I have supplied to the Defendants now. MR JUSTICE GRAY: And you have not taken copies of it? Or of any of it? MR IRVING: The gentleman concerned wanted a quarter million dollars for them. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you taken any copies of any of it? . 107 MR IRVING: There is one page of which I have a facsimile which I provided. But I provided to the Defendants the note I took at the time on that, which is pretty full and extensive. The reference, from memory, it is Himmler writes to this female in July 1942. He is just about to set out on a swing round Lublin and Auschwitz and other places. He mentions Auschwitz by name and says there are ugly things that he has to do for Germany's sake. But that is the sense of it. I have not got the exact quotation. But anyway we do know that he had set out. He the question is, witness, at this time, this letter is just after Himmler had visited Lublin, Auschwitz -- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, just pause a moment, if you can bear in mind that we have all got to get, or at least I have to get my bearings, Mr Rampton, it seems to me that cannot be taken any further. MR RAMPTON: What cannot? MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have had a synopsis. MR RAMPTON: No, I sat down. I have not seen it. I do not know when we had it but that is -- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, chase it up if you want to raise it again. MR RAMPTON: That is my problem. That is not Mr Irving's problem. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, so are we back to the Himmler minute of . 108 22nd September? MR IRVING: July 22nd 1942, it is very interesting period, is it not, witness? A. September? Q. Yes, or July -- A. Page 430, yes. Q. -- 430, yes. Labotsnik has written a message in which apparently he says the Reichsfuhrer SS has given us so much new work that with it now all our most secret wishes are to be fulfilled; I am unhappy about this omission after the word "Reichsfuhrer SS" because we have established you have a bit of a track record of leaving things out, have you not, Professor? A. No. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, leave aside that is gratuitous as well, where is the document? MR IRVING: We do not have the document, my Lord, I have not been shown it.
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