Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day029.12 Last-Modified: 2000/07/25 Q. I am not at all, Mr Irving. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I think I understand the point that is being made. But let us look at it anyway. MR RAMPTON: If you look, you see this is for the whole of Germany? A. Yes. Q. Is it not? "Statistik des deutschen Reichs", that is the whole of the Reich for the year 1932. If you look down the left-hand side of this big sheet, we find Nos. 80, 80B, 80C and 81. Now, in 1932 -- I am going to work upwards -- in the whole of Germany, No. 81, there were but 74 cases of insurance fraud, do you agree? . P-103 A. You say in the whole of Germany, but although I agree you have given us the title page of this, this is page 112, we do not know if it was the whole of Germany or just a province of of Prussia or what. Q. I am told it is the whole of Germany. A. Well ---- Q. Mr Irving ---- A. Because I am quite familiar with these statistical reports and they are broken down into provinces, and I would like the assurance we are not just looking at Berlin or just at Prussia. Q. So far as it is within my power to do so, I give you that assurance because that is what I am told and I regard my source as reliable. Now, even if it were just Berlin, Mr Irving, just 74 cases of insurance fraud were committed by persons of all ethnic backgrounds in Berlin, if you like, but in fact for the whole of Germany during 1932. Where are these over 50 per cent of 31,000 insurance swindles committed by Jews? A. We are looking at 80B and 80C, is that right? Q. 81 is ver sicherungsbetreff which I think means insurance fraud? A. Yes. I was looking at the betreff, the ones above, which total something like 70,000, 60,000. Q. Betreff, 80A, that is plain fraud is 50,000 plus? A. Yes. . P-104 Q. Repeat frauds, that is 80B [German] 7,000 and a bit? A. Yes. Q. And then something about minor fraud offences, 80C, 312. 81, insurance fraud -- insurance swindle, to use your word -- 74 cases, yes? A. The overall total of frauds ---- Q. Is 57,888 for the whole of Germany? A. And Daluege says that in Berlin it was 32,000 -- of course, we are looking at different years, are we not? One is 1932 and here it is 1934 or thereabouts. Q. No, Mr Irving, I am sorry. Leave Daluege out of this, if you will? You made an assertion of fact in your book about the number of frauds committed by Jews, mainly insurance swindles, in 1932. I am suggesting that any reputable historian would have gone to this document, as opposed to some rabid Nazi's utterance to a press conference, to find out what the truth was. A. Are you saying that Paul Veiglin is a rabid Nazi and that Walter Keolein, who is a very well-known German historian of the police, is a rabid Nazi? Q. Those are your other references, are they? A. These are my other sources -- two of the other, two of the four sources used, yes. Q. Well, then if we find that your figures and statements are not supported by either of those sources, will you accept without equivocation that you have here committed a . P-105 deliberate distortion, inflation of the figures against the interests of the ---- A. Obviously, if you find that those books do not support the statements I made, then I would accept that I have made an error. But, of course, I am not going to accept that such an error is deliberate because I have got no reason to make a deliberate error. You do not establish a reputation by making deliberate errors and I am baffled that anyone could suggest that you do. Q. Well, I think I have about 25 in my pocket by now, Mr Irving, and that is the 26th. Thank you. Now I want to deal with the Goebbels diaries. My Lord, may I stop now because it is quite intricate and it is 1 o'clock? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but before you depart, can we work out where we are going to put these? MR RAMPTON: It is in a sense a new section because it is a new period. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Shall we put it at the back of what I am calling J3? MR RAMPTON: Yes. Could your Lordship put it at in the separate tab at the back of N1? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Back of N1. MR RAMPTON: Because it is an historical document. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Right, 2 o'clock. (Luncheon adjournment) MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, before I pass from the criminal . P-106 statistics for 1932 to a question or two about the Goebbels diaries, can I pass you up a piece of paper? It is a sheet from the same German government document that we were looking at this morning, and there is one for the judge, please. (Same handed). I would like you to look at the section headed "Summer A bis D" for the year 1932. Tell us, please, to what area or areas of Germany these statistics relate? A. Which? I am sorry, the bottom one, right. Q. What does the heading say? A. It says the crimes and misdemeanours against Reich laws that have been tried by German courts. Q. Yes. That disposes of that question. This relates to the whole of Germany, does it not? A. Yes, apparently. Q. Thank you very much. A. This particular page. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is the page before the following page, is it? A. It is not, my Lord, no. MR RAMPTON: No, there are some pages missing, but you can see, if you look at the top of page 112, which we already have, that the numbers run serially. At the beginning we start with 1 and by 112 we are at 63B. A. That may or may not be the case, I cannot comment on that, but there are pages missing. I am sure your researchers . P-107 would not mislead us deliberately. Q. I hardly think that. The missing pages are here, if you would like to see them. (Same handed). I feel quite confident in saying that these run serially from 1 through (as the Americans say) 115. Anyhow, have a look and see if you agree with me that these are the statistics for the whole of Germany for 1932. A. Yes, they do. Q. Do you agree? A. Yes, they do. Q. They do? Good. Excellent. Perhaps we could have that back because it is not mine. I said Goebbels diary, but I have been interrupted because we do not have sufficient copies of the documents I want, so that will take about a quarter of an hour to do. I want to pass to something else instead, if I may, which is your assertion that the gas chambers were an invention of British propaganda during the war. Do you agree that you have, on a number of occasions, made that assertion? A. Yes. This is the Foreign Office clip of documents you gave me recently? Is that right? Q. Yes. Has the judge got a copy of the clip of documents on this topic? MR JUSTICE GRAY: No? A. I do not know if I still have it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I thought you meant a new clip. The old . P-108 ones? MR RAMPTON: I feel cautious about that, but yes. File L1, tab 6. A. Yes. I still have it here. Q. My Lord, this relates to two different years, 1942 and 1943. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON: 1943 starts at page 11, and I will deal with 1942 first, if I may. Through no fault of ours, the passage of time, inefficiency of typewriters in those days, some of this is a bit difficult to read, but never mind. The first page -- does your Lordship have it now? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I have. MR RAMPTON: The first page contains some typescript in the top, and some manuscript in the bottom. A. Yes. Q. Mr Irving, doing the best I can, the date of this, I think, is 8th August 1942. A. Yes. Q. It says "Reported German plan for extermination of all Jews". Do you see that? A. Yes. Q. This is a Foreign Office document, is it not? A. Yes. Q. Then it says, I think, "Geneva telegram No. 174, Message for Mr Sidney Silverman, Chairman of World Jewish . P-109 Congress, London, from Mr Gerhard Riegner, Secretary of World Jewish Congress, Geneva. Mr Riegner has received a report stating that in the Fuhrer's headquarters a plan has been discussed and is under consideration for the extermination after deportation to East of all Jews in" -- can you read the next bit -- "in the areas occupied or controlled by Germany. Action is planned for the autumn. Ways and means are still (something or other) and include the use of prussic acid". Hydrogen cyanide, that is, is it not? A. Yes. The full text is on the next page actually in typescript. You could have read it. Q. I know that, but I just wanted to see the first date at which this information was relayed to the Foreign Office in London via Mr Sidney Silverman via Mr Gerhard Riegner in Geneva. A. It was received 11th August 1942. Q. Exactly. 17th August 1942, which is the next page, that information is laid out. Says the Foreign Office, "Have received by telegraph through His Majesty's Consul General at Geneva the following message", and then in a legible form we see it on the next page, page 3. A. Yes. Q. I will read this: "Following for Mr Sidney Silverman, SS Silverman MP, chairman of British section, World Jewish Congress London, from Mr Gerhard Riegner, Secretary of . P-110 World Jewish Congress, Geneva. Received alarming report stating that in the Fuhrer's headquarters a plan has been discussed and is under consideration, according to which all Jews in countries occupied or controlled by Germany numbering three and a half to four millions should after deportation and concentration in the East, be at one blow exterminated in order to resolve once and for all the Jewish question in Europe. Action is reported to be planned for the autumn. Ways of execution are still being discussed, including the use of prussic acid. We transmit this information with all the necessary reservation as exactitude cannot be confirmed by us", that is Geneva. "Our informant is reported to have close connections with the highest German authorities, and his reports are generally reliable. Please inform and consult New York". That message from Geneva is an authentic message, or was an authentic message, was it not, Mr Irving? A. Yes. I am very familiar with these documents. Q. It was not an invention of the British propaganda machine, was it? A. No. Q. So why do you maintain that the use of homicidal gas chambers employing prussic acid, hydrogen cyanide, Zyklon-B, was an invention of British propaganda? A. Because the following pages make plain the skepticism of . P-111 the Foreign Office about this particular report. Q. Well, unless you want to go ---- A. Page 5, at the foot of it, says, "I do not think we should be wise to make use of this story in propaganda to Germany without further confirmation". Q. And the decision is made not to do so. Do you agree? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can we take it in stages? The first thing is, are you accepting you said that this was all an invention of British propaganda? A. My Lord, you will be familiar with the document on which I rely, which is a year later than this, signed by Cavendish-Bentinck, saying, "we have no evidence whatsoever that these things" ---- Q. That is why I asked you. I am asking you about whether you agree that you have claimed that the lie about the gas chambers was an invention, underline "invention"? A. Yes. A propaganda story put out by the British in early 1942. Q. Invented by the British? That is the point. A. And invented by the British propaganda agencies. Q. What Mr Rampton is putting to you is that this is a message from Geneva that they have had a report. A. Yes. They are two separate ----
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