Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day016.18 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 Q. Yes. But, as you are familiar, you say with the Hans Frank diary, both in the printed version and on the microfilm, will you agree that there is no diary entry relating to a separate meeting with Hitler in December 1941? A. No. He reports on the 16th that he had a visit with the Fuhrer. Q. So his subsequent remarks may or may not have been an allusion to what he learned from Hitler's private meeting? Is this the point you are trying to make? A. I am saying there is the possibility that, in addition to witnessing the talk that Goebbels records in his diary, that he also had a private meeting with Hitler. Q. Yes. A. But we cannot prove that definitively. Q. Yes. Will you turn to page 77 of this little bundle, please? A. This is? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think we are back on J1. MR IRVING: Back on J1. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is another untranslated German document. MR IRVING: Well, my Lord ---- A. I have three here. I am not sure which one we are dealing with. MR IRVING: In my little bundle, which is the one with the . P-130 intercepts in, your Lordship will probably find it translated. A. J1? MR JUSTICE GRAY: L1. It could scarcely be more unsatisfactory. A. Yes, I have 77. MR IRVING: Do you have the text? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am afraid I have not yet. Sorry. A. I have the German. I do not have the... MR IRVING: The English translation. A. Yes, but that is all right. Q. But you have the transcript? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry, where have we put your documents, Mr Irving? Do you know? Was it E? MR IRVING: E. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Does anybody on the Defence side know? Frankly, this is so inconvenient and time consuming. MR RAMPTON: Yes, I quite agree. I do not know what is even being referred to actually. MR IRVING: The little clip of documents on decodes. I think it was called "Himmler". MR RAMPTON: I do not have a J file, as you know perfectly well. J1, tab 3, page 23, my Lord. There is no English. It is some Himmler writing, my Lord. It is the entry of the 18th December 1941 where Himmler writes under "Fuhrer": "Als partisanen auszurotten." . P-131 MR IRVING: Have you found it in German? A. Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry. MR IRVING: Can you read the words either in the ---- MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, I think you had better wait until the Judge finds it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I fear what may have happened is that, unless I have put it back in the wrong place, my J1 is -- J1, tab 3, page, sorry, Mr Irving? MR RAMPTON: My Lord, page 23. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: Can you read the first word? A. It would be "Fuhrer Hauptquartier Wolfsschanze", 18th day of the 12th month of '41 at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, "Fuhrer, Judenfrage". Q. Then on the left is "Judenfrage". A. "Als partisanen auszurotten". Q. How would you translate those two things, first of all, the "Judenfrage"? A. "Judenfrage" I would translate as meaning a discussion on the Jewish question. It would be one word as the topic of the discussion and "als partisanen" and "auszurotten" would be a note that he had made to remind him of what the substance or conclusions of that talk had been. Q. Yes. The handwriting is different, is it not? I think we are agreed on both sides that this is the conclusion, that . P-132 they have come to the conclusion "als partisanen" and "auszurotten". A. Yes. Q. How would you translate that? A. "To be destroyed as partisans", depending how we translate "auszurotten" which has multiple meanings, but I would say to exterminate or to destroy as partisans. Q. "As partisans" or "like partisans"? I hear groans from the public gallery, but, in fact, this is an important point. A. Yes. No, it is a good point and I think, in fact, I have translated it as partisans. In German it could be ---- Q. In other words, it is an equity between "Juden" and "partisanen" and not a comparison which would be "vie", not "als". If it had said "vie partisanen auszurotten", that would be a different meaning, would it not? A. "Vie" would be in the same way. Q. In the same way as? A. Yes. Q. But it does not say that, does it? A. It does not use vie. Q. It says "als partisanen", so the Jews who are being referred to here are to be liquidated as the partisans they are? A. No, I do not believe that is necessarily---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I am extremely sorry to . P-133 interrupt. I am still trying to find this. I have J1, tab 3. There are two pages 23, neither of which appears to be the document you are asking about. MR RAMPTON: That is because the one on the bottom of the page, which is Mr Irving's page number, has become obliterated. Try a little printed 293, can I suggest? MR RAMPTON: It is the one after 22, which is legible. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Which nobody has bothered to transcribe, is that the problem? MR RAMPTON: I do not know why. MR IRVING: Transcribe or translate? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Transcribe, or indeed translate. MR IRVING: In my little clip it is transcribed, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I wonder why I do not have that advantage? MR IRVING: That would be in the same one as my SS police decodes, I think, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is this translated anywhere or indeed transcribed anywhere? MR RAMPTON: Yes. I will find it in the bundle. Page 11 of Professor Browning's report, my Lord. It is also in Longerich. MR IRVING: Shall I wind back my argument a little bit? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am afraid you will have to. I am sorry you are having to do it. It is increasingly frustrating, having to deal with the documents. MR IRVING: The only reason for doing this is because . P-134 I apprehend that both the defence and also opposing historians pin a lot of faith on this document. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. It is a very important document, which is why one would like to have it in an easier form. MR IRVING: We have only four words to go by, Judenfrager, als Partisanen and auszurotten. I am not going to argue about the meaning of the word auszurotten there. It is quite plain. But I am going to argue about the significance of the word als. Quite clearly the intention here is that these Jews are to be liquidated as partisans and not like partisans. If it was to be like partisans, the word would be vie Partisanen auszurotten? A. And as partisan is how I have interpreted it, that this is a convention, or the way in which the killing will be organised or justified or disguised. Q. Professor, this is a later stage of the argument. First of all, I want to establish this stepping stone in my argument. To make the point, to hammer home what I mean by this rather subtle difference, I eat n orange like a tangerine, you use the word vie. We now have Hitler as Fuhrer, as is als. One is the equation. The other one is a comparison? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I have the point. It is a perfectly comprehensible point. What is the answer? MR IRVING: Yes. Your answer again, Professor? A. As I said, it was agreed, the annihilation or . P-135 extermination of the Jews would take place, they would be annihilated as if they were partisans, as partisans, that will be the conventional way in which they speak about it or the guise under which it will be done. Q. But then the correct German would be vie and not als? A. No. If you were going to kill them, the operation, we all use the same operational methods against them, but they did not because they killed women and children, partisans they did not, so it is not we will do it in the same way, but we will kill the one as if they were the other, as the cover under which to kill the other. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The point that is being put is that als does not mean as if. There is another German expression for that. Not just vie, there is another one as well, I think. A. I think vie would be, we will kill them in the same way as we kill partisans. It applies to an identical method. The als I would interpret as the justification for it or the cause for it. MR IRVING: Perhaps I could put in two different ways? This is like when you have a dictionary which gives two or three different meanings of the word in different orders of likelihood, and the one that I give is the primary meaning, but there is a possible secondary meaning which is the one you are offering? A. I do not know in which order they came in the dictionary . P-136 so I cannot say which is first or second. Q. I know which order they come in the German language, and this is that als means as direct equivalence, whereas vie means like, which is not direct equivalence. A. I have translated as. We will both agree we are using the primary---- Q. You were using the correct translation and I am drawing attention to the significance of that. They are to be liquidated as the partisans that they are, and that is the meaning? A. That is adding a whole series of phrases that is the birth of your imagination. There is nothing in here. Q. The burden of the word as or als, whether we like it or not, and if we are going to make this a key document of our argument, it is dangerous to try and suggest that, well, the secondary meaning is probably the one I am looking for because that is the one that fits in with my theory. A. I have used the primary word. It is you who are inventing a whole series of words that do not exist on the page, and that is the sheerest fantasy in which I do not share. Q. I do not want to labour the point, but als is definitely an equivalence rather than a comparison, is it not? A. I have translated it that way, but I did not add a whole further series of words which you have chosen to add which have no documentary basis. . P-137
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