Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day024.17 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where is this in the report, or is it not? . P-147 MR IRVING: Page 57, paragraph 15.7. A. I am not sure at the moment whether in the entire text the name Jew is not mentioned, but I think for me the central passage here is this expression of Hitler. MR IRVING: Anybody who looks askance? A. How would you translate it? Q. Anybody who looks askance can be shot. A. Yes. I think this is a category which also would include Jews, without particularly referring to them. Q. Yes. You do agree that "der nur schief schaut" does not actually refer to somebody looking odd? It is actually somebody who is looking out of the corner of his eyes at you, or something like that? Anybody suspect? A. Anybody suspect, yes. Q. You summarize in paragraph 15.8, rather dangerously and adventurously in my view: "With the beginning of the massive murder of the Soviet civilian population in the summer of 1941, a stage was reached in which these statements and similar ones by Hitler could no longer be understood as general threats of violence"? A. Yes. Q. So we are looking really between the lines, are we there? Again, we have nothing specific to point to. A. I think, if you look back and look at Hitler's orders and his speeches in March 1941, and the fact that he demanded the annihilation or the extermination of the Jewish . P-148 Bolshevik complex, if you look at the intelligentsia - - of course this involved the killing of at least 10,000, probably 100,000, people. Then I think one has to take this into account if one looks at the way Hitler actually used this terminology after these events. I do not know whether we have actually reached here the stage where I refer to the Einsatzgruppen and their reports back, and the fact that these reports were widely circulated, we have evidence that Hitler actually has seen them ----. Q. I would be interested. Do you know off the top of your head or from your memory what is the evidence that Hitler actually read the Einsatzgruppen reports? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us find it in the report. A. I should be cautious here. We have this document from the 1st August 1941. MR IRVING: Muller document? A. The Muller document, which I erroneously dated 2nd August, 41, in this report. I cannot find it for the moment. Q. That document does not show he was shown any? A. No, you are right. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Take this a little bit more slowly. Lets find your reference to the Muller document. Is that in your second report? MR RAMPTON: Yes. A. Yes. MS ROGERS: Page 26 of 2. . P-149 A. You are right, one should be cautious. Is it 26? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are you sure it is page 26. MR IRVING: It is in the bundle of documents. A. I have it in the report 1, page 57, in the middle of 15.6. MR IRVING: Page 50 of the bundle. A. I use the wrong date. It is definitely the 1st August. It says here: "Dem Fuhrer soll von hier aus lfd Berichte unber die Arbeit der Einsatzgruppen im Osten vorgelegt weren". In English, the Fuhrer should be presented with continuous reports on the work of the Einsatzgruppen in the East from here. So it is an intention, yes. But we have also other evidence that were not only the Eichnesmeldung, which were done on a daily basis, but there were also monthly and bimonthly reports about the activities of the Einsatzgruppen. We know that these reports were widely circulated. They had a distribution list with more than a hundred names or institutions on it. These monthly reports were widely circulated among the different ministries. For example, in the Foreign Ministry one of the monthly reports was shown to 22 people. It is difficult, I think impossible, to argue that the result of the activities of the Einsatzgruppen could be hidden before anybody, because it was literally, I think hundreds of people actually in the official capacity have seen these reports. So I think that this is enough evidence to say that the intention that Hitler . P-150 should see this, that this actually was carried out, because it could not be, it was impossible to hide it before. On the contrary, it is exactly what he himself demanded in these orders. It is about the destruction of the Bolshevik Judao empire. That is what he wanted to hear and that is why they presented him I think with these reports. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You say he ordered it and it happened? A. Yes. MR IRVING: Now I have to ask supplementary questions on that of course. You say that these Einsatzgruppen reports had lengthy distribution lists. You mentioned 22 names on one. A. Yes. Q. Was the adjutants officer, the Fuhrer, one of them? A. I did not say that 22, the Einsatzgruppen reports, we do not have complete distribution lists for every report and they vary from report to report. So I do not know. Q. Well let me ask in general terms. On any of the distribution lists was there any of Adolf Hitler's officers? A. We do not have a complete set of distribution lists. Q. Yes. On even one report then? A. I have to look to the reports. I cannot say this. I found in report No. 128 the Party Chancellery, for instance, involved. If you want to argue that these . P-151 operations of the Einsatzgruppen were hidden before Hitler ---- Q. Hidden from? A. From Hitler, sorry, then you must argue that Bormann was part of this conspiracy because he received a copy, and he would not be alarmed and go to Hitler. MR RAMPTON: I am sorry. I do not interrupt in the middle of an answer -- at least I try not to. Again, I am a bit troubled by all of this. I had the transcript reference some days ago, weeks ago, I have not got it at the moment. My recollection is that Mr Irving accepted in cross-examination, first that there was systematic mass shootings in the East by the Einsatzgruppen and, secondly, that they were approved by Hitler. So where are we going I ask myself? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just check that because that thought had gone through my mind? I was hesitant about it. MR RAMPTON: It was early on in the case, almost probably the first week. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I will be able to tell you. MR IRVING: I think the answer to that is that there are killings and there are killings. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure that is the way it has been put. MR RAMPTON: I am not going to swear to it, but I think my recollection is more or less right. . P-152 MR IRVING: I am going to come back to this question. MR RAMPTON: I am trying to prevent Mr Irving coming back to these questions, because I think it is a waste of the court's time and my client's money, and this witness's time too. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure, doing the best I can from my own notes, that the latter part of what you have just said is right. But, if anybody can check on the transcript, it is quite an important point. I do not think if I may respectfully say, so on your say so I can stop this line of cross-examination. If you can pick up a reference? MR RAMPTON: No, of course not. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Your position now, Mr Irving, and I do not suggest it was different before, is that, yes, there were these mass shootings going on and there were documents floating around reporting them, but you do not accept that the reports ever got back to Hitler? MR RAMPTON: What I am quite certain about, my Lord ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I have an answer first? Is that right? MR IRVING: That is correct, my Lord. That is the position. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Although the one we do have for December 42 says "vorgelegt", you still do not accept that Hitler saw it? That is what jogs my memory that I do not think it has ever been---- MR IRVING: December 29th, 1942 yes, but that is something different which we will come to in due course. . P-153 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is the same thing. It is a report of shootings by the Einsatzgruppen. MR IRVING: My Lord, if you feel I am wasting this witness's time, I do hope that your Lordship will tell me. MR JUSTICE GRAY: What Mr Rampton is anxious about is that you should not waste time by cross-examining on a point which you have already conceded. MR IRVING: I am very unlikely to do that, my Lord. It is my time also. MR RAMPTON: I do not agree with that. Certainly it was conceded that report No. 51 of 29th December was probably seen by Hitler. That is out of the way. That has gone. That is 363,000 plus Jewish deaths by shooting. MR IRVING: I beg your pardon? That was conceded? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think that was conceded. We must get the references. MR RAMPTON: It was conceded that Hitler probably saw it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. That is not my recollection. MR RAMPTON: I will have to check this and I have to do it quickly because otherwise we are going to be here---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Interrupt, if you would, again when you have the reference, but I think it is the sort of thing that we must have a reference on. Carry on, if you would, Mr Irving, unless and until you are interrupted. MR IRVING: Very briefly, from your knowledge, if you had seen an Einsatzgruppen report which had indicated in the . P-154 distribution list that it had been shown to Hitler or to Hitler's staff, or to his Adjutants, then you would have mentioned it, would you not? A. Yes. Q. Can you just say geographically where was the Party chancellery situated? A. The Party Chancellery, the main office, was in Munich, but they had of course a liaison office in Berlin, or wherever Hitler was. Bormann was, after he became secretary of the Fuhrer, almost constantly a member of Hitler's personal entourage. He also made sure that the Party Chancellery was always represented in Hitler's entourage if he was not able to be present there. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have seen documents where Bormann is on the distribution list for these anmeldung? A. I have found one. These distribution lists are not complete. In 128 it says among 55 copies there is one copy going to the Party Chancellery. Q. Would that have been the Munich office? A. I think it only said Party Chancellery, and it says Party Chancellery in the main well .... Q. Let me ask another specific follow up. On all the copies that you have seen, are there any handwritten annotations like "has been submitted to the Fuhrer" or anything like that? A. As far as I have seen, no, there is nothing like that. . P-155 Q. No. Again if you had noticed that, you would have brought it to our attention? A. Yes. Q. It is not impossible they were shown to Hitler, but we have no evidence, is that right? A. I would phrase it much stronger. I would think it is inconceivable that Hitler was not informed about these reports because they were so widely circulated, and there was a specific order on 1st August actually that materials should be shown to him. Q. What period are you talking about now? Before December 1941 or after December 1941? A. We are talking about what? Q. The Einsatzgruppen reports where you say it is inconceivable that he was not shown them? A. The reports started in June and ended in March '42, and I think this would apply to the whole period because this letter actually from Muller which says it should be shown to him is from the early stages, from 1st August 1941. Q. The fact that the letter from Muller says that the Fuhrer wants to be shown them does not necessarily mean to say that it was acted upon? A. Well, I assume that this was acted upon because, in general, orders by Muller were carried out as a very efficient head of the secret police. I think ---- Q. One example is that I requested that I should be shown . P-156 proof of where this document is and that has not been acted upon either? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I think we have gone through this enough. I hear what the witness says. He says it is inconceivable that Hitler would not have known.
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