Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day003.02 Last-Modified: 2000/07/29 MR IRVING: Yes, my Lord, except that at that time it does . P-9 indicate at that time he did not have the German originals. MR RAMPTON: I am sorry, Mr Irving. I beg your pardon. May I intervene to ask your Lordship to insert it in that bundle? It comes from Mr Irving's discovery. There is no mystery about it. Professor Hinsley's reply. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It was not there. MR RAMPTON: Yes, we have it now. MR IRVING: I could not find it last night, my Lord. In is Professor Hinsley indicates that he has obviously not yet seen himself the German originals of the British intercepts. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: It is quite interesting. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The postscript is perhaps of some significance. MR IRVING: It is interesting the British Official Historian and British Secret Service had either not been allowed to see or had not found in general chaos the documentation, these are the originals, which are now in the Public Record Office. But the German originals are very, very informative in their scope, breadth and depth. That, my Lord, is 04. This is the first of the notes of the telephone conversations from Himmler's telephone log to the Chief of the SS, and the one on which I rely is the one timed 12.15. It is the fourth . P-10 conversation. I am afraid I have not attached a translation of it, but I will do a translation on reply on the one or two lines that matter. It is a 15 minute conversation with Heydrich who on that day was in Berlin. We do not know who initiated the conversation, my Lord, but Heydrich phoned Himmler or Himmler phoned Heydrich. We never see them. We have to infer. Conference with Rosenberg, conditions in the government general, getting rid of the Jews, beseitigung of the Jews, and then the third line -- the fourth line rather, juristen nuralseerater, roughly lawyers just as advisers. Nothing else on that page to which I will refer. Merely it shows there were conversations going on between these two gentlemen on liquidation or getting rid of the Jews. MR JUSTICE GRAY: What is the significance for my purpose of that? MR IRVING: It is the context in which the principal document is embedded, my Lord. The inference that has been drawn against me is that I have one cardinal document and I would go around the world waving this document and saying "here it the proof". It is, in fact, showing that they were constantly talking about getting rid of the Jews, using -- MR JUSTICE GRAY: There is no issue, is there, that that was something that both Himmler and Heydrich were intent upon . P-11 doing. MR RAMPTON: Yes. The word " beseitigung" is interesting. You can look at it either this way or that way, literally as getting rid of, which can be sweeping under the carpet or liquidation. I am quite happy to accept that here they were talking about liquidation, these two gentlemen. It now becomes more interesting, my Lord, on page 5. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you just let me highlight? MR IRVING: We come to the intercepts and Mr Rampton does not wish me at this point to bring in this material. I am quite happy to turn the page, but I think it is useful to bring it in all in chronological sequence. MR JUSTICE GRAY: When you "intercept" -- MR IRVING: This is the Bletchley Park intercept of the -- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Messages to Berlin. MR IRVING: Messages between Berlin and the Eastern Front for police commanders, and also a whole number of other SS units, but these are the ones I rely on. No. 35 is a message addressed from Berlin on November 17th, that same day as the previous conversation, to the commander of security police, Dr Lange, L-A-N-G- E, in Riga, concerning, and I use the next word in original German -- these are my translations, concerning the evakierung of the Jews. "Evakierung", my Lord, is one of those words we will probably tussle over. The literal translation is "evacuation", but I am perfectly ready to . P-12 accept for the purposes of this action that "evakierung" is occasionally used by the SS as a euphemism for a more ugly means of disposing. But in this particular case what is significant is that the man in Berlin is telling the recipient in Riga, on November 17th, in other words, that same day, at 6.25 p.m., transport train No. DO 26 has left Berlin for Kovno or Kornas, with 940 more Jews on board. That was usually the rough size of each train load of Jews, about 1,000 Jews. Transport escorted by two Gestapo and 15 police officers. Transport commander is Criminal Overassessor Exner, the man's name, who was two copies of the transport list with him. Transport provided with following provisions, and this is interesting part, my Lord, 3,000 kilogrammes of bread, three tonnes of bread for a two or three day journey. 27 kilogrammes of flour, nearly three tonnes of flour; 200 kilogrammes of peas; 200 kilogrammes of nutriments; 300 kilogrammes of corn flakes; 18 bottles of soup spices. They continue in the next message; 52 kilogrammes soup powders, 10 packets of something or other, we do not know; 50 kilogrammes of salt; 47,200 Reich Marks in crates. Signed Gestapo Headquarters, Berlin. Quite an interesting document, my Lord. It is the first kind of thing we come across in my view to show that these trains were actually well-provisioned. It is a bit of a dent, a tiny dent in . P-13 the image that we have, the perception, as Mr Rampton calls it, of the Holocaust today. The next one, page 6, is a message intercepted on 20th November. It is unimportant for our purposes on what day it was decoded. It was decoded 10 days. It takes 10 days to decode it. The actual message is dated three days later, 20th November 1941, again, dressed do commander of order police and the SS in Riga, concerning evacuation of Jews. The same kind of thing, transport train No. DO56. Has left Bremen, destination Minsk with 971 Jews on 18th November. Escort command regular police Bremen, transport commander Police Meister Bockhorn, B-O-C-K-H-O-R-N, is in possession of two lists of names and 48,700 Reich Marks in cashiers' credits. Jews are well-provisioned with food and appliances. My Lord, on the next page you will see the actual intercept, page 7 is what the actual intercept looked like. They are headed "Most Secret". It is the second paragraph, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Most secret" is put on at Bletchley, is it not? MR IRVING: Indeed, of course. There is no indication on the intercepts themselves, as intercepted here, what security classification they have. But I want to draw attention only to the word "gerat" in the fifth or sixth line of the intercept, which means appliances. Any German speakers in . P-14 the room I am sure would agree the word "gerat" is the tools of the trade, roughly, they are being sent to the East with food, with provisions, and with the tools of their trade. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have translated that as what? MR IRVING: Appliances. It is a rough cover all, tools of the trade would be a little bit too specific, I am sure Mr Rampton will probably eventually object. But the sense of gerat, if a cameraman comes into this room he would bring his gerat with him, his appliances with him. The next one is No. 15, I rely on this because it shows in the first line, I am sorry I am still on page 6, my Lord, the second message on page 6 SS Obergruppen Fuhrer Jeckelm, transferred from Kiev to Riga. So that was the day this criminal was transferred to Riga, round about November 20th, and in fact it is a pretty low level message. They are worried about what happened to motor cars and things like that if I remember correctly. If we can now turn straight over to page 9, my Lord, I took the trouble during the night to dig out of my files, the war diary of Hitler's headquarters, which I have. These are all my documents. All my documents when I obtained them for the book, I had bound in these volumes because I anticipated perhaps Mr Rampton would say, well, we have no proof that Hitler was in his headquarters, that he was at home on the day of crucial . P-15 message November 30th. MR RAMPTON: No, he would not say that, my Lord, because Himmler recalls that he had lunch with Hitler on that day. MR IRVING: Well, I am just dotting the Is and crossing the Ts. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The point is not made, so we need not trouble with that. MR IRVING: It also talks about the arrival of the Fuhrer's train that very morning. On the following day is the photocopy from the page of war diary at Hitler's headquarters. We then come to the crucial document we were talking about yesterday evening, which I ... MR JUSTICE GRAY: I still have your copy of that. MR IRVING: I put it in the bundles for sake of completeness. It is referred to in the third conversation. I draw attention only to the first lines, which says: "Telephone conversation on November 30th 1941". The next line "Wolf stanche" means Wolf's Lair. The next line "ausdemzung" it means from the train. Himmler is still in the train going to Hitler's headquarters. Three lines down, ausdembunker, from the bunker, he is at the bunker now, in the Wolf's Lair, 13.30 he telephones Heydrich, as we know only the third and fourth line of the notes are important, "Jew transport from Berlin, no liquidation". MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: If I may proceed now to page 13, my Lord. This is . P-16 the one that I am alleged mysteriously to have misread and the implication being I deliberately misread it or deliberately changed word the Gerhartens Fuhrer (?) into "juden", which would be quite a feat. My Lord on the page 13 the question of the line, the contentious line is third from the bottom, haben zubleiben. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have to remain. MR IRVING: You will notice, my Lord, the word "haben" has obviously been retyped, a bit of squeeze getting it in. It was retyped by my when I realized my error in transcription. That typewriter was disposed of some or ten or 15 years ago. That is how early I realized my error. I do not know if it is significant one way or the other, it may count against me. I do not know. It is also significant to see in the following line, my Lord, I have written the words "truppenschuhe", and this is another misreading by me. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It does not really matter, does it. MR IRVING: My Lord, I am just trying to say as you will see from the next page, which I now ask you to turn. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Before you leave that, I thought there was another point made on this document, which is your translation of the words -- MR IRVING: That is Verwallueys Fuhrer. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Am I not right about that? . P-17 MR IRVING: This was the point Mr Rampton sought to make, and I corrected him, my Lord, and said that was not the word that I misread. It was the word on the following line haben, which I misread as Juden, and this is why I was going to ask your Lordship, respectfully, to turn to the next page, page 14, where you will see the words in question, three lines from the bottom on the right, that is the quality of the original I was working from. I do not know if your copy is highlighted, the crucial word is not perhaps...
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