Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day023.13
Last-Modified: 2000/07/24

    Q.   I am going to come back after lunch to that if I may, my
         Lord, because I spent a great deal of yesterday evening

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          reading through the entire memoranda and also the
          interrogations that Schmidt conducted by the US State
          Department which I still have in my files here.  There is
          no reference to this kind of homicidal conversation going
          on in the interrogations.

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, well, speaking for myself, I do not find
          that all that surprising, but it would be interesting if
          Schmidt does record some other reason for wanting to get
          rid of the Hungarian Jews.

    MR IRVING:  That I will try and elicit today, my Lord, but
         there is one final question I would like to ask before we
         adjourn and this is following.

                   (To the Witness) Is there any reason why in
         their own internal foreign ministry memoranda in Budapest
         the Hungarians would have had to use euphemisms to conceal
         what they perceived the Germans were going to do with the
         Hungarian Jews?  Is not likely that they would have been
         brutally frank to their own officials in saying "what is
          this madman Hitler up to now?  He is going to take our
         Jews away from us and liquidate them.  We have to stop it
         however we can".  Is that not the kind of memorandum you
         would expect to find and have you found such memorandum?

    A.   Well, the memoranda you are referring to I think is a
         report by the Hungarian representative in Berlin to the
         Prime Minister in Budapest, which you say summarized the
         talks between Hitler, Horthy, and Ribbentrop and said that

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          the Jews are not to be liquidated only interned, and in
          fact the document deals with a separate conversation
          between the minister and Ribbentrop, and all it says is
          that "Hitler personally drew the attention of His Highness
          the Regent [which is Horthy] to the necessity of settling
          in a more thorough and penetrating manner the Jewish
          question in Hungary".  That is all it says.  It is about
          many other things as well.  As for euphemisms, that is
          just a diplomatic phrase.

    Q.   No, but why should they have pussy footed around in their
         own internal Hungarian memoranda?  I can understand why
         the Germans adopted euphemisms for their murderous
         programme, but why should the Hungarians have had to adopt euphemisms?

    A.   Well, this is an extremely sensitive issue, as we know.
         The Hungarian government actually refused to deliver the
         Hungarian Jews and for that and because the Hungarian
         forces were partly withdrawn from the war effort as
          Germany's ally, Hungary was actually invaded and Horthy
         was pushed aside.  This is a very, very sensitive issue
         within the Hungarian ministries.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I was under the impression they had
         voluntarily in the end handed over the Hungarian Budapest Jews.

    MR IRVING:  It was not voluntary. They sent Adolf Eichmann to do it.


                                 .          121


     A.   It was not, no. The Germans invaded and sent Eichmann in
          who organized it himself.

     MR IRVING:  They question is, my Lord, and I am sure your
          Lordship appreciates it.

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I understand why you put the question.

          It was my ignorance, I did not realise what had been...

     MR IRVING:  (To the Witness) The question is, quite simply,
          you have not found anywhere in the Hungarian files, or in
          my copies from the Hungarian files, any explicit
         references that make plain that the Hungarians were aware
         that killing was what lay ahead?

    A.   Well, they must have been -- the Hungarian file?

    Q.   Yes.

    A.   Well, no, and I think obviously Storgzy (?) who was the
         minister concerned, is much more favourable to the Germans
         than Horthy was, and was, in fact, put into power by the
         Germans when they invaded.  So he may well have felt it
         necessary internally, in the internal power games he was
          playing to cloak what was being asked in a certain amount
         of euphemism, but that is only speculation on my part.  I
         do not want know enough about the ins and outs of
         bureaucratic Hungarian politics at this time.

    Q.   Thank you, my Lord, I think we have made good progress.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  But it is a fair point, is it not, that if
         this was something that they were being dragged kicking
         and screaming into doing against their will, you would

                                 .          122


          think from their own point of view that they would have
          recorded in their own internal documents something to the
          effect that, you know, this is all ghastly.  We know what
          is going to happen to these Jews and we are doing
          everything we can to prevent it happening.

     THE WITNESS:   Well, I think, my Lord, one has to make a
          distinction between this particular politician, Storgzy,
          who was no doubt looking for the main chance, which he
          eventually got when the Nazis invaded and was put into
         power and Horthy who was the one who really objected.
         I think Storgzy was much less hostile towards the idea and
         therefore may well have felt the need for euphemism.

    MR RAMPTON:  Perhaps one should draw attention, save me coming
         back to it, to paragraph 3, the last part, on page 444,
         and the last sentence of page 445 in Professor Evans' report.

    THE WITNESS:   Yes, this is Horthy deleting the reference to
         "extirpation" from his letter to the Germans.  It is not
          an internal memorandum.

    MR IRVING:  Reference to "ausrotten", right.  Was Horthy
         surrounded by a large staff of people with him?  Did he
         have interpreters with him and flunkeys who also attended the conference?

    A.   I have to say I do not know how many people came with him.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, shall we say five past 2?  How are you
         doing, Mr Irving, are you more or less on course?

                                 .          123


     MR IRVING:  We have made excellent progress.

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, do not rush your fences, particularly
          on the big points.

     MR IRVING:  If your Lordship thinks I am rushing then please slow me down.

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, I have tried to slow you down on the
          odd occasion.  But five past 2.

                           (Luncheon Adjournment)

     (2.05 p.m.)

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Professor Evans, you were going to help us
         about the Adjutants, I think, were you not?  If you had
         the chance to see whether there were any who, on
         reflection, did say that they thought Hitler knew about
         the extermination?  I think that was the point, was it not?

    A.   Yes, I have looked very hastily at my report.  I refer you
         to pages -- oh, yes, well, first of all, page 622 of my
         report and pages 15 to 16 of my letter of 10th January
          this year which makes it clear that the conversation which
         Engel reported was on 2nd November, and Himmler was
         reporting to Hitler about what was going on with the Jews
         in Riga and Minsk at the very time when shootings were
         taking place.  It seems highly likely that they were
         discussed.  Pages 629 to 30.

    MR IRVING:  Can I take them one at a time, my Lord?

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I think that probably is better in the


                                 .          124


          end, Professor Evans, if you would not mind?

     A.   I have 10 references my Lord.  It may take some time.

     MR IRVING:  We will deal with them very rapidly.  Is this the
          only reference to Engel on which you are going to rely?
     A.   Yes, this is all we had time to look at really.

     Q.   Major Engel or Lieutenant General Engel, as he became, was
          Hitler's Army Adjutant, is that correct?  He was the Army
          Adjutant on Hitler's staff?

     A.   Right, with Hitler, yes.

    Q.   You never met him, did you?

    A.   I did not meet him, no.

    Q.   Did you ever see the original diary or pages of diary on
         which this is based?

    A.   Yes, well -- oh, I see what you mean.  I explain the
         background to the diaries on page 617 to 18 of my report
         and again on pages 15 to 16 of my letter.

    Q.   I am not going to discuss contents ----

    A.   This is a shorthand diary you are saying or?

     Q.   I am not going to discuss the content of the diary.  Am
         I right in saying that there is a dispute over the time
         when the diaries were written?

    A.   I think there is some confusion which was partly his own
         fault, but I think it is fairly clear what happened, and
         that is laid out in my report and in the letter.

    Q.   I am going to ask you questions.  Is it right that the
         diaries were purchased by the Institute of History in


                                 .          125


          Munich in the 1960s from the General for a sum of 50,000
          deutschemarks?

     A.   I will accept if you say that, yes.

     Q.   Is it right that the Institute then learned to their
          consternation that the diaries were written on postwar paper?

     A.   It is clear that the diaries were, in short -- that what
          Engel did -- I am trying to find the place here -- is that
          he seems to have sort of made up another version of the
         diaries or used a copy of the diaries after the war to
         answer questions which are put to him, and that he added
         in some extra, some additional notes, and then somehow the
         originals got lost, so that what exists is a sort of
         hybrid which consists partly of original material and
         partly of copied out and partly of the later editions, and
         the problem is trying to disentangle these things.

                   What one can say is that there is some original
         material there and then some material written down from
          memory.  So they have to be treated with a considerable
         amount of caution, particularly where dates are concerned,
         as I make clear in the editions to my report where he
         reports a conversation on 2nd October 1941 which can, in
         fact, be dated to 2nd November 1941.

    Q.   Would a genuine diary do that?

    A.   I have already explained the status of the diary which was
         copied by Engel with some additions, so it is not a


                                 .          126



          question of being genuine or fake.  It is a question of a
          kind of hybrid document.

     Q.   Would why he copy dates wrongly in his own diary?

     A.   Well, we all make mistakes.

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  A slip of the pen, I suppose.

     MR IRVING:  I beg your pardon?

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  A slip of the pen, could be?

     MR IRVING:  Are there many such slips of the pen?

     A.   There seem be a number, yes, and it is also, of course, in
         shorthand, shorthand notes.  And Engel, in fact, went to
         the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich twice to
         read out his shorthand notes for copying, and so there are
         a lot of opportunities for error there in all these
         various processes.

    Q.   Is it not likely that, in fact, he tried to reconstruct
         years later what had happened and when and that in that
         process he got the dates wrong?

    A.   Not entirely, no.  I mean, it is very difficult to second
          guess exactly what went on.

    Q.   Are you familiar with the passage in the Engel diary dated
         November 24th 1942 where he describes a heated conference
         between Hitler and Goring over the Battle of Stalingrad at
         a time when Goring was, in fact, nowhere near Hitler's
         headquarters but was on a shopping expedition in Paris?

    A.   There are many instances like that, but if one looks at it
         patiently, I think one can disentangle them and to track

                                 .          127


          down the right date as we have done in once instance that
          we had time to do.

     Q.   Have you seen several items of correspondence from me to
          the Institute in which I have drawn their attention to
          genuine entries in genuine diaries, like Walter Hayhol or
          the widow of Schmunt, which makes the entries in the Engel
          diary completely impossible?

     A.   Yes, and if you check them against the Himmler
          Diensttagebuch, you can also find some misdating there as well.

    Q.   How can ----

    A.   That does not mean, however, that the whole diary has to
         be dismissed.  Responsible historians do not dismiss whole
         sources just because of complex problems of this sort.
         You have to find out how the sources came into being and
         then try to track down what went on there.  The point,
         since we seem to have got on to the Adjutants on a kind of
         larger scale, the point that I make in my report is, of
          course, that because you find Engel's diary/memoirs,

         I think one should call it, in many ways embarrassing, you
         dismiss it altogether just simply as a forgery which is
         completely irresponsible.

    Q.   How can one have the slightest confidence in a diary ----

    A.   Whereas the very similar diaries/memoir of Friedrich van
         Owan you treat quite uncritically because he says he was a
         neo-Nazi after all and says what you like.

                                 .          128


     Q.   You say that I treat it uncritically.  Have you seen the
          reference in the Goebbels biography to the faults that are
          contained in the Owan diary and the evidence has quite
          obviously been constructed postwar?  There is this very
          lengthy footnote in my Goebbels biography.

     A.   If you point it me to?

     Q.   I will point it out later on because I do not want to be
          distracted from this.

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Right, we have dealt with Engel, have we not?
         What about your second reference?

    MR IRVING:  I want to ask one summary question.  How can one
         have the slightest confidence in a diary of a man who has
         repeated mistaken dates, invented fictitious events ----

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You have asked that question, Mr Irving.  You
         have asked that question.

    A.   And the answer is through the use of painstaking objective
         scholarship of a kind which you seem unfamiliar with, Mr Irving.

     Q.   Are you aware that I am the person who has exposed the
         Engel diary as being suspect?

    A.   It is suspect now, is it?  Not completely falsified?

    Q.   And that until I did so, the Institute of History had not
         the slightest idea that these pages had been faked?

    A.   It is not at all -- it has no relevance at all to what I am saying.

    Q.   What is the next name?

                                 .          129


     A.   What we are dealing with here is the point that while the
          Adjutants said that the subject of extermination of the
          Jews was not mentioned in so many words in Hitler's
          headquarters, it is not legitimate to draw from that the
          conclusion that they thought that Hitler did not know
          about it which is the conclusion that you draw.  On page
          632, for example, we have Karl-Jesco von Puttkamer who
          says, "I can state with certainty that Dr Dietrich knew
          nothing of such things", and we are talking here about the
         press spokesman Otto Dietrich.  "Because of Dietrich's
         sensitive nature, Hitler would have completely oppressed
         him with the knowledge of it", talking about the
         extermination of the Jews, "and Hitler, who knew precisely
         this quality in Dr Dietrich, took care, alone on these
         grounds, not to initiate him."  Thus, what Puttkamer says
         is that Hitler knew but did not tell Dietrich.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  So that is the second one?

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