Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day029.15 Last-Modified: 2000/07/25 Q. So, on the advice, no doubt of the Department of State in the United States and of the Foreign Office in Great Britain, the reference to gas chambers in the draft has been removed? A. Yes, because it was -- there was no adequate evidence. Q. Yes, the Allies and, in particular, the British PWE decided against using, unhappily perhaps, but they decided against using the gas chamber story as propaganda, correct, am I not? A. This is not a propaganda declaration; this is a warning to the German leaders, to the Italian leaders, that . P-131 retribution is on its way to them. It is nothing to do with propaganda. Propaganda was what we broadcast of which there is any amount of evidence. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I would like to see it because at the moment I do not have any no evidence at all. A. I have great confidence on this score. MR RAMPTON: I have been given Claimant file F, my Lord, on page 61 your Lordship will find it, I hope. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think we have had this before. F became something else. MR RAMPTON: You should have a separate file F, my Lord, a small file F. It had originally, I think, a two-page index and the document in question is page 62. I think Mr Irving should have it too, please. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think this what I had in mind. MR RAMPTON: Yes. This is the so-called Ringelbulm diary. It has, I am afraid, no year date on it. But I will read it just the same because it is rather interesting. But I do think Mr Irving should have it. Could somebody please find Mr Irving a file F? I hope, Mr Irving, that your index page, your contents page, 62, there are two pages from this book? A. Yes. Q. 294, 295, is that right? A. Yes. Q. Can we look at 295 which is on the right-hand side in my . P-132 copy? A. Yes. Q. "Friday, June 26th has been a great day for OS", what is "OS", see introduction", well, that is hopeless. I have not got the introduction. What is "OS", Mr Irving? A. No idea. Q. OK. "This morning the English radio broadcast about the fate of Polish Jewry. They told about everything we know so well, about ... (reading to the words)... Lemburg and Chelmno, and so forth. For long months we had been suffering because the world was deaf and dumb to our unparalleled tragedy. We complained about Polish public opinion, about the liaison men in contact with the Polish government in exile. Why were they not reporting to the world the story of the slaughter of Polish Jewry? We accused the Polish liaison men of deliberately keeping our tragedy quiet so that their tragedy might not be thrown into the shade. But now it seems that all our interventions have finally achieved their purpose. There have been regular broadcasts over the English radio the last few weeks treating of the cruelties perpetrated on the Polish Jews, Belzec and the like. Today there was a broadcast summarizing the situation. 700,000, the number of Jews killed in Poland was mentioned. At the same time the broadcast avowed revenge, a final accounting, for all these deeds of violence". . P-133 Which year, Friday June 26th, Mr Irving? A. 1942. Q. 1942. Do you see anything in there about gas chambers? A. No. Q. Am I right that the Polish Government in exile at the instance, no doubt, of people in Poland had been, as it were, hacking at the Allies to pay attention to these stories for some considerable time? A. Yes. Q. These stories were not invented by the British Government, were they? A. Inasmuch as when the British Government put them out, they had no firm evidence that they were true and they later summarized that they had no such evidence, they were. Q. Now I think we know where we are. A. My Lord, on the broadcasts in their clip there is a number of docments which I did not actually rely on when I cross-examined Mr Klemperer. When we next come together, I will produce a schedule of broadcasts and what they contained in this respect, I think, as far as I can. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is there anything else in this clip at the moment that ---- A. Well, I think it would take up too much of the court's time to read the 10 or 15 pages. Q. I am not too bothered about that. I do not think it would take very long. Do you rely on the ---- . P-134 A. But what I am really saying is ---- Q. Do you rely on the diaries of Klemperer? I am sorry, Mr Rampton, it is just that once one is on this topic, one really needs to ---- A. Well, I do not really want to do it in a hurried manner and if I do it in a slow manner, then your Lordship will get impatient. What I am really saying is that we do not want to go back and have a look at the files to see what else I can dredge up. MR JUSTICE GRAY: We have got 64. I am just looking for references to a broadcast. Page 64 is Klemperer. Q. Page 67, I think. Could you just read the top of page 67, Mr Irving? A. I do not have those numbers on this. Q. Sorry, page 442 of whatever it is. A. "Millions of German people did, in fact, listen attentively and regularly to German language BBC broadcasts, even though it was illegal for them to do so. Moreover, the BBC German service took considerable pains to convey accurate and believable information about the annihilation of the Jews. These efforts were particularly noteworthy considering that they were frowned on by the British Foreign Office which did not regard Jewish persecution as an efficacious theme for propagandists to take advantage". MR RAMPTON: So Mr Irving, your story is now this, is it not, . P-135 if this story was an invention, it was the BBC, the wicked journalists and their informants who invented it, it was not the British Government? Is that right? A. I think at all material times the BBC was in arm with the British Government and the Ministry of Information. It certainly did not operate in a kind of independent way. I think it would be useful if I do draw up a schedule of references, including whether it specifically referred to gassing or not and the dates. This will... Q. I am moving to another topic now, my penultimate topic, Mr Irving, you will be pleased to hear. The first page in this clip should be a page from the transcript in this trial on day 23, Monday, 21st February 2000, is it? A. Yes. Q. Do you see what his Lordship was asking you on page 140? You were cross-examining. A. Gita Sereny, yes. Q. You were cross-examining Professor Evans about a passage in his report which asserted that you had falsely accused Gita Sereny, or having ignored Gita Sereny's assertion that Christa Schroeder had said that Hitler knew about the Holocaust. I am paraphrasing. A. Yes. Q. Mr Justice Gray at line 18 on page 140 asks you this: "Is it your case that there is not any record, whether tapes, notes or anything, of Gita Sereny's interview with Christa . P-136 Schroder and she is, in fact, making the whole thing up?" Mr Irving, "Yes". Is that still your position? A. I beg your pardon? Q. Is that still your position that Gita Sereny made the whole thing up? A. On the basis of what I have seen in her discovery in the other action, yes. Q. Now we are going ---- A. You are familiar with the fact that I requested to see all her-- I had discovery from her. Q. The date of this exchange between his Lordship and you is Monday, 21st February 2000. A. Yes. Q. I am now going to show you some papers from your case against Gita Sereny and whichever newspaper it is, I forget, the Observer, I think. The second page in this little clip is a letter from you to the solicitors for those Defendants ---- A. Yes. Q. --- Lovell White Durrant, dated 4th January 2000. You say this: "I note from my discovery item No. 545 that your client, Sereny, took notes of her conversations with Gunsche, von Welloff and Schultzer and that Frau Schroeder also wrote to her" -- notice those words, please. "These items appear to be missing from your client's discovery and I would request that" ---- . P-137 A. "She". Q. --- "you give disclosure" or "she" it might be "give disclosure of these within a reasonable amount of time". I do not know what the second document is. A. To which I received no reply. Q. I see. 545 is what you enclose with your letter. A. Yes. Q. It is a letter from the Associate Managing Editor of the Sunday Times dated 13th October 1997 to you: "Dear Mr Irving, thank you for your letter. With regard to the first point, you will be interested to see the enclosed letter which appeared in the Sunday Times two weeks after publication of the original article. It indicates that a misunderstanding on this point has already been publicly acknowledged and corrected. With regard to the second point, there is no such necessity. We have records of Gita Sereny's conversations with Walter Gunsche, Colonel von Welloff and Richard Shultzer supporting what was said in our article. Christa Schroeder's comments on the subject of Hitler and the extermination of the Jews were conveyed to Miss Sereny in a letter. Under the circumstances, therefore, I think you will agree that there is no basis for the complaints made in your letter". In response to your letter to them, Lovells replied on 27th January: "Thank you for your letter dated 4th January 2000. We have raised your request with . P-138 Miss Sereny and will revert to you again in this connection once we have received her response. We take the opportunity to note that we have not", and so on and so forth. That is something else. Then they write again on 10th February, this is but 11 days before you gave your evidence in this court. A. Yes. Q. "We write further to our letter dated 27th January 2000, having now discussed your request with Miss Sereny. The documents which you seek have already been disclosed. There were no notes in Miss Sereny's conversations was Gunsche, von Welloff and Schultzer, only tape recordings. These have been disclosed to you. The letter to Miss Sereny from Frau Schroeder was disclosed as item 2.57 in schedule 1 part 1 of the same list". The rest is irrelevant. The last page, please, here is the letter, please tell me what the penultimate paragraph says. The first of the two letters printed on this page is from Frau Schroeder herself, is it not? A. Yes. "Dear Miss Sereny, I regret that for health reasons I have not been able to receive you", for an interview, in other words. So there was no interview. Q. Carry on. A. "As far as the telephone conversation that you sketched of 1976 is concerned, what you write about, what you mention . P-139 about Himmler in connection with me appears, you appear to have fallen victim of having heard, misheard something. Himmler has not", underlined "not", "spoken with me", underlined "with me", "in this manner. I have tried to arrange an interview between you and his, Himmler's, daughter, but I have unfortunately failed for which I request that you leave out this passage. As far as the Judenfrager is concerned: I consider it improbable or unlikely that Hitler did not know -- that Hitler knew nothing. He had frequent conversations with Himmler which took place as tete a tete. More than that, I unfortunately cannot tell you as I am ignorant of the things". Q. Now 10 days after being reminded of that letter because it had been in the discovery originally according to Lovells ---- A. Yes.
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