Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day024.13 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 MR IRVING: We are making rapid progress. For the remaining three minutes I will just have a quick look at page, 45 please. On May 25th 1940 Himmler did put this document to Hitler on the plans for the East? A. Yes. Q. Was this again Plan Ost or was that another document? A. This was the future of the Frentfurgischer, as it was called in the text, the alien people. Q. Does not Himmler in this document say words to the effect that we cannot do what the Russians do, we cannot just liquidate them? A. Yes, the quote here is: "The Bolshevist methods of physically extirpation (Ausrottung) of a people because of inner conviction, as un-German and impossible". So he is distancing himself from ausrottung. In the same text he . P-111 says: "I hope to see that by means of the possibility of a large emigration of all Jews to Africa or to some other colony - that the concept of Jew will be fully extinguished". So I think we have take these two sentences into account. Distinguished but not ausrottung. Q. I just wanted to look at the fact that the word ausrottung in that document does not by itself mean killing, because Himmler had to add the word "physical" in font of it, did he not, so going to physically ausrottung them? A. Of course that is a possible interpretation, but sometimes in a document you make your position very clear by actually repeating the same meaning and adjective. Q. That is added emphasis, is it? A. Yes, you have to have a subject but you also add an adjective. Q. To make it unmistakable? A. Yes, exactly. Q. Because otherwise it could be mistook. A. Yes, and also probably you want to strengthen your point. People tend to repeat themselves. That is quite a common experience. If in the same document you make the same point twice or three times, it does not always, I think one cannot -- well, I stop here. Sorry. Q. Just like Adolf Hitler in that November 10th 1938 speech using the phrase "we do not need them"? He says it twice . P-112 in one sentence. A. Yes. Q. It does not add anything really? A. Yes, for example. Q. I see a smile from his Lordship. That was not the point I was hoping to make there. I would hate to go down just on that one sentence. That is the reason. Page 46 just for one minute. The Madagascar plan was quite feasible, was it not? A. In which sense feasible? Q. It could have housed them. The island is big enough. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The relevant question is they thought it was feasible? Whether they were right or not may not be here or there. MR IRVING: I was going to ask the witness. He is rather dismissive of the plan. A. In which sense feasible? You mean to provide a place where 4 million Jews could have a happy life? In this sense feasible? Q. Happier life. A. Or feasible in the sense of an SS police state, so to say a big prison, with a high death rate? In this sense I would say, yes, it was feasible. We have contemporary examinations about this problem. For instance, the Polish Jewish Commission which was sent to Madagascar in 37, they came back with a recommendation that, as one member put . P-113 it, Madagascar would offer a place for about 50 to 75,000 people. The Jewish members of this Commission did not agree. They said 2,000 probably. So this is contemporary evidence we have. I would say clearly that I doubt that 4 million Jews would have the chance to survive this, if I may say, excursion to Madagascar in 1940. Q. Dr Longerich, one final question before the adjournment. Are you aware that the population in Madagascar has increased from about 2 million to 13 million over the period? A. I looked it up because this was always said. 4 million in 30s to 30 million indeed in the 1990s, yes. Q. So that kind of population could have been absorbed? A. Yes, within 50 years, with an infrastructure and so on, of course. Experience shows that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Two o'clock. (Luncheon Adjournment) (2.00 p.m.) MR RAMPTON: My Lord, can I hand in my little note on the inadmissibility of expert witness statements? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much -- yes, please. MR RAMPTON: I say no more about it. Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Mr Irving? MR IRVING: Thank you. (To the witness): Dr Longerich, we had reached the middle of 1941 roughly and I think I am right in summarizing that there is no evidence up to 1941, the . P-114 middle of 1941, of any directives by Hitler to exterminate Jews, no order for a systematic extermination of the Jews that you are aware of by the middle of 1941? A. Well, if it comes to the preparation of Barbarossa, I would not agree. Before that -- at the moment I cannot -- probably you are right, I cannot recall something like that. Q. Yes, shall we have a look at the directives issued in May 1941 now? A. Yes. Well, by the way, no, I have to correct myself, there is no -- we do not have a written, a written statement by Hitler signed by Hitler, you know, that the Jews have to be killed. This is something we do not have. Q. On page 55 of your report, 15.1, you begin by saying: "In the course of the preparations for the racist war of extermination against the Soviet Union", that is rather colourful language, is it not? A. Well, this is actually a language which is commonly used by historians to describe the specific nature of this war. Q. Yes. It is not really material here except that it goes to your state of mind, I suppose, but are you not aware that there is a body of historical opinion on the other side now which says that to a certain extent, notwithstanding that Hitler had always wanted to fight the Soviet Union, by June 1941 it also had a preventive character? . P-115 A. No, I do not accept this thesis. I think it does not convince me at all. These historians have not produced, in my opinion, enough evidence to prove that Hitler was just, well, fighting a preventive war. Q. Preventive war? A. Yes. Q. I did not say he was just fighting a preventive war because I said that there was certainly evidence that he had always wanted to fight the Soviet Union. I chapter 14 of Mein Kampf goes that way, does it not? But Stalin's biographer, General Volkagonov, has presented documents from Stalin's own private archives indicating that the Russians were planning to attack Germany? A. I do not think there is enough evidence now. I mean, I know that research is going on, and one actually can find more material in Soviet archives, but at the moment I do not think that the case is made that Hitler was just fighting a preventive war against the Soviet Union and that Stalin had decided to attack Hitler somewhere in the summer 1941. Q. Once again, I did not say he was just fighting a preventive war, but it had a preventive element? A. I do not accept this. I think, from the German side, if you follow the preparations, I mean, I am, of course, more an expert -- expert on the Germans, not on the Soviets. I am just following the discussion, but on the German . P-116 side, it is quite clear in the preparations, from my point of view, that Hitler actually is planning this war since the summer of 1940, and in the documentation that there is actually, as far as I am aware, almost no reference to the policy of behaviour of the other side. So I think it is the main reason for this was really, on the one hand, the ideological belief of Hitler that he has to destroy this so-called Bolshevik Empire and, on the other hand, he is trying to find a way out of the general, the war situation he found himself in in the summer of 1940 when Britain was not prepared to surrender. So I do not share this view, that it was to some extent a preventive war. Q. Or to any extent at all a preventive war? A. No, I do not share this view. Q. I do not want to labour the point, but I am just drawing attention to the fact that in that first line you do appear to throw around words like "extermination" rather loosely. A. I do not think I throw around; I just say that, in my opinion, if you follow this documentation, I think it is fair to say that this was a racist war of extermination from, you know, as both, if you look at the preparation and planning and, on the other hand, if you then look at what happened after the 22nd June 1941. Q. We are looking now at Hitler's instructions to the High Command Operations staff, March 3rd 1941. These are the . P-117 guidelines which I believe I gave your Lordship in complete translation a few days ago, the English translation of the document. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I think you did. MR IRVING: Is there any indication in that document, apart from that quoted paragraph, that there is an intention when the Russian campaign begins to liquidate the Jews as such rather than just the leadership? A. I do not have the full document in front of me, so I cannot answer this, but you could probably help me. Q. But you would have quoted it if it was in the document? A. I think I looked through the document and if I did make a mistake, it is nothing, there is not such a phrase in document. Q. I think we can take it that Hitler himself is the author of this document, can we? A. Yes. Q. When Hitler refers to the Jewish Bolshevik intelligentsia, der Judisch Bolschewikisch intelligentsia, he is referring to the people around Stalin and the leadership of the NKBD and the Commissarts, that kind of people? A. Well, I think the top leadership but also the Party functioners, I think. Q. Whether they were Jewish or not, he just put them all into one package? A. The Jewish Bolshevik intelligence, yes, Jews and non- Jews . P-118 probably. Q. This was part of the Nazi party jargon, was it not? It was part and parcel -- it was a word they liked using a lot? A. Yes, but it refers to the fact that they were convinced that Bolshevism or Marxism is a kind of sinister, you know, tool of the Jews, you know, in order to destroy the Aryan people. This is, I think, the background. It is just not, it is just not kind of jargon. It has a thing, it has a background. Q. The further quotations that you put on that page from the papers of General Thomas ---- A. Yes. Q. --- who I incidentally learned was the father-in-law of my private secretary after 20 years she worked for me, oddly enough. It is a small world. These are just references to destroying the Soviet leadership? A. Yes. Q. Or murdering them or killing them? A. Yes. Q. Would that be a legitimate military aim to discuss with the German High Command? A. Well, it gives you a kind of insight about the nature of this war because they are not planning only to annihilate or exterminate the Russian Army, but also they are trying to crush the whole system, including killing, obviously, . P-119 the leadership. So it is far more than a normal war when two armies fight against each other, and, yes, and --- - Q. So it is just one step up the ladder, shall we say, of extermination? A. Yes. Q. So it is not the whole way, but it is an interesting rung in the ladder? A. 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.