Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day023.18
Last-Modified: 2000/07/24

    Q.   Can I help to cut through this verbiage and ask you ----

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, that is unnecessarily offensive, Mr Irving.

    MR IRVING:  Well, to cut through this particular line of
         argument and say were the ----

    A.   Yes, I know you want to cut through this particular line
         of argument, Mr Irving, because you do not like it.

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Please continue, Professor Evans?

    A.   Thank you, my Lord.  There is an additional document where
         on, it says, the local officials in Rome get back the
         message in answer to these telegrams on the basis of the
         Fuhrer's instructions.  The Fuhrer's instructions, "the
         8,000 Jews resident in Rome are to be taken to Mauthausen
         as hostages.  The Heireich Foreign Minister asks you not
         to interfere in any way with this affair but leave it to

                                 .          170


          the SS.  Please inform Ambassador Rahn".

                    Another, still a telegram, again the same thing,
          taken to Rome -- taken to Mauthausen as hostages.  The
          Reich Foreign Minister requests that Moran and Moellhausen
          be told under no circumstances to interfere in this affair
          but rather to leave it to the SS from Sohn Leitner".

                    And a further or even tougher line, Foreign
          Minister insists to his local officials that "you keep out
          of all questions concerning Jews".  The SS, they should be
         the exclusive competence of the SS.

                   So what they are being told on Hitler's orders
         is, "Stay out of it.  Go away with your proposal that they
         be used locally in Rome on building works."  They are all
         going to be taken off on Hitler's orders to Mauthausen.

                   Now, hostages, well, one has to look at what
         went on in Mauthausen.  This was, as I said, a
         concentration camp in a class of its own in which murder,
         mass murder by brutality and overwork and malnourishment
          was the order of the day.  It had an extremely high mortality rate.

    MR IRVING:  What use is a dead hostage?

    A.   "Hostages" I think is a camouflage word again.

    Q.   Another euphemism, another camouflage word?

    A.   Indeed, yes.

    Q.   Goodness!  They are more useful than aspirin, are they
         not, these words?


                                 .          171



     A.   Of course, taking them to Mauthausen was a euphemism and
          in the end they were, in fact, taken to Auschwitz.

     Q.   I have been very reluctant ----

     A.   If you want to know what happened to hostages taken to Mauthausen ----

     Q.   Can I take it piece by piece what you have been saying  ----

     A.   Outline it on page ----

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Let him complete this because once they have
         got to Auschwitz, that is the end and then you can ask questions.

    A.   If you want to know what happened to so-called "hostages"
         taken to Mauthausen, I outline it ----

    MR IRVING:  In great detail?

    A.   --- on page 476:

    Q.   Why not read it all out and waste another 10 minutes?

    A.   400 young men rounded up in the Jewish quarter in Holland  ----

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We have the reference.  We have the reference.

    A.   ---  taken as "hostages" to Buchenwald and then 348 to
         Mauthausen.  Most, nearly all of them, apart from one,
         were killed.  That is that happens to hostages at
         Mauthausen.  As I said, these ones went to Auschwitz where
         the vast majority were also killed.  It is quite clear
         this Hitler knew that would happen to them.


                                 .          172


     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Now, that was a long answer and now,
          Mr Irving, you have had the case spelled out, as it were
          and ----

     MR IRVING:  And I have also read it and your Lordship has read
          it and I do not think it really needed to be read out.
          Still, here we go with some short questions and let us
          have some short answers, please.  Kesselring wanted to use
          them for fortification work, is that right?

     A.   Yes.

    Q.   Were they used for fortification work?

    A.   No.

    Q.   So that was a rather needless detour in this particular
         argument, was it not?

    A.   No, absolutely not.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, Mr Irving, that will not do.  We have to
         tackle this point properly if it is going to be tackled at
         all.  As I understand what the witness is saying, he is
         saying that, basically, those on the ground in Rome,
          including Kesselring, wherever he may have been -- in Italy?

    A.   General.

    Q.   Yes, all basically wanted the Jews to stay in Rome?

    MR IRVING:  For whatever reason they wanted them kept alive.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  For whatever reason.

    MR IRVING:  They wanted them kept alive and not liquidated.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  One of the points he makes is that when it is

                                 .          173


          sent up to Hitler, they do not remain in Rome as a result
          of Hitler being consulted, they go north for whatever
          fate.  So Kesselring's attitude towards the Jews is
          relevant, is it not?  Can you not see why the Professor
          says that?

     MR IRVING:  I see those telegrams in Rome as being purely
          evidence that different people in Rome advance different,
          all very plausible, reasons why these Jews should not be
          rounded up and liquidated, which is what the SS wanted,
         but they should be kept alive, and Kesselring, who was a
         decent chap, said, "Well, I can use them for
         fortifications, let us use them for that, let us put that
         in the telegram" or whatever, and all of this, to all of
         this, and I say this quite boldly knowing that it will
         provoke the wrong reaction, I attach no significant
         whatsoever and far less significance than the fact that
         Ribbentrop took the message to Hitler, as we know from
         Hitler's register, the register kept by Heinz Linge, of
          the visits by Ribbentrop that day, and back came the
         telegram from Hitler's headquarters, effectively, back to
         Rome saying, "They are not to be liquidated.  They are to
         be taken to Mauthausen", and I rely on this, "as
         hostages", and I emphasise hostages have, by their very
         nature, to be kept alive, so whether or not Mauthausen was
         a highly infectious place to be sent, or a place where
         people died like flies, which is unfortunately true, is

                                 .          174


          neither here nor there; what is significant is that the
          message from Hitler to Ribbentrop clearly was, "See that
          they are taken to Mauthausen and kept alive, we can use
          them as hostages".  I then also rely on the fact that,
          notwithstanding that this very clear order is in the files
          (which I understand the Defence have great problems with
          because it is much better than this kind of memoir quality
          of document that they rely upon) notwithstanding that,
          these orders from Hitler are flagrantly violated and they
         are taken off to Mauthausen, but 1,000 of them are rounded
         up, 1035, or thereabouts, that is all they can get their
         hands on, because in the meantime the local officials have
         managed to let the Jews escape, and the 1,000 are taken
         elsewhere and they are never seen again.  They are taken
         to Auschwitz or somewhere.  This is another, to my mind,
         highly significant fact that Hitler's orders have been violated.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  If may say so, Mr Irving, that was not a
          question, and I do not criticize you at all for that
         because you have set out your case as clearly as Professor
         Evans set out his case ----

    MR IRVING:  Now I will ask the Professor ----

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  --- and I do not personally see that there is
         a great deal of need to amplify it by lot of
         cross-examination because it all turns on the question
         whether one takes at face value and literally the order

                                 .          175


          that they are to be taken no Mauthausen as "hostages".
          That is what it comes to.

     MR IRVING:  I will ask one supplementary question.

     A.   May I just comment on what Mr Irving said which included
          several gross misrepresentations of the document --- -

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Briefly.

     A.   --- so I am afraid I really do have to point this out.
          The telegram giving Hitler's view did not say they are not
          to be liquidated.  That is a complete fabrication that has
         emerged from Mr Irving here.  The point is that the
         original protest, as it were, from the local officials in
         Rome are saying that the SS wants to liquidate them, and
         what is Hitler's response?  "Leave it up to the SS".

                   Finally, also, of course this is in mid October
         1943 and Mr Irving has made it quite clear that from
         October 1943 Hitler knew perfectly well that the
         extermination of the Jews was taking place.

    MR IRVING:  He had no reason not to know is what I say, of course.

    A.   You actually have said that he did know.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  But, Professor Evans, can I just ask you
         this, I mean, if you look at the instructions that came
         back from Hitler's headquarters, they do say in terms that
         the Jews are to be taken to Mauthausen as hostages?

    A.   Yes.

    Q.   And it is true it goes on to say, "Leave it to the SS".

                                 .          176


          That does not mean leave it to the SS to decide what to do
          with them, or would not appear so on the face of this
          telegram.  It means, "Leave the handling of the hostages
          and the arrangements", I suppose, "for taking them north
          to the SS".  Is that not a fair reading of the reference
          to the SS?

     A.   Yes, my Lord, well, it is saying, the two telegrams
          I quote are saying to the local officials:  "Keep out of
          it.  Leave it to the SS", and the SS, of course, are the
         instrument through which the Jews are being exterminated.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Who would have arranged for their transport
         north -- the SS, presumably?

    A.   The SS, my Lord, yes.  The message is quite clear: "No
         local works, no use of labour.  Just take them off and
         kill them".

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I follow that point, yes.

    MR IRVING:  Are you familiar very briefly with the Otto
         Brottigan diary of September 1941 where Hitler agrees to
          the notion that the Jews should be held as hostages ----

    A.   That is September '41.  This is October '43.

    Q.   Does Hitler frequently order Jews kept alive as hostages
         in bulk, en masse?

    A.   There are instances up until the American declaration of
         war -- the declaration of war by Germany on America on the
         11th December 1941 where Hitler does talk, in general
         terms, about using Jews as hostages for the event of a

                                 .          177


          World War.  It seems to disappear after that.  There are
          some -- we have already discussed the rather odd idea of
          keeping a small number of Jews with connections in America
          in a special camp and keeping them alive.  But this,
          I think, I cannot conceive why these should be used as
          hostages.  It is simply one word.  There is not
          explanation of any larger policy, as you usually have when
          hostages are discussed.

                    I think this is simply a little piece of
         camouflage thrown in to try to appease the obviously
         disquieted local officials in Rome where the situation is
         extremely difficult, the Pope is threatening to
         intervene.  It is quite clear that the local Italian
         population are extremely unhappy about the Jews being
         taken away and doing their best, such as it was, to
         protect them.

                   The members of the Foreign -- of the Embassy in
         Rome were connected with the German opposition, which
          eventually came out in 1944, the bomb plot.  So it is a
         very convoluted and difficult situation.  It is not
         surprising that they should want to sugar the pill a
         little bit by describing them as "hostages".

    Q.   We do have several SS documents from this episode, do we
         not, a couple of documents?

    A.   Yes.

    Q.   Is there any indication in any of the Himmler files or the


                                 .          178


          SS files that this document from Hitler was regarded or
          recognized as being camouflage, and that "Although Hitler
          says, 'Send them to Mauthausen as hostages', we all know
          what the old boy really wants" is not in any of the SS
          files, is it?

     A.   No.

     Q.   I am going to move on now, my Lord, because otherwise we
          are not going to cover the ground.  Page 491, the last few
          lines, please, of the main text.  You say:  "This last
         mentioned claim is an obvious untruth.  It is undermined
         by Ribbentrop's knowledge of the activity and situation
         reports of the Einsatzgruppen".  Do you remember writing that?

    A.   Yes.

    Q.   What evidence do you have that Ribbentrop read or received
         the SD Einsatzgruppen reports, the Einsatzgruppen reports?
         The mere fact that they are in the Foreign Office files?

    A.   Yes, I am relying here on the two standards works on the
          Foreign Office and the Jewish question of the Third Reich
         by Professor Browning.

    Q.   Are you aware that we heard Professor Donald Watt state
         here in the witness box that there were hundreds of tonnes
         of Foreign Office records?

    A.   As I remember, Professor Cameron Watt said that he was not
         really competent to judge on the nature of records during
         the Second World War.  His expertise covered the period

                                 .          179


          1933 to '39.

     Q.   Are you aware of any copies of these SD reports which have
          Ribbentrop's big letter "R", his initial on them, to
          indicate that he has read them?

     A.   I would have to check that up in the sources that I used
          which make it clear that Ribbentrop knew of these things.

     Q.   In your opinion?

     A.   In the opinion of Professor Browning whom you had ample
          opportunity to question about the matter.

    Q.   Yes, but I am questioning you on your report.  You say
         there is ample evidence that Ribbentrop knew, and I am
         asking you what the evidence is and your information is
         second-hand, is that correct?

    A.   Indeed, yes.  I rely on Professor Browning for that.

    Q.   Page 484 ----

    A.   That is not the only evidence, of course.  There is also
         the Horthy conversation with Ribbentrop which I have also
         mentioned.  Page 484?

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