Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day021.05 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Please do not interrupt, Mr Irving. A. That is contemporary evidence that Hitler had decided that these excesses should continue, they should continue to burn synagogues and destroy the dwellings and shops of the Jews. It seems reasonable to suppose that, if Hitler had been angry and had not approved of this, if Goebbels was making this up, then the consequences for Goebbels would have been extremely serious. I cannot imagine that Goebbels would have said that to a mass assembly of senior party officials if that was not true. Indeed, you have accepted that what Goebbels said in his speech was what . P-38 Hitler told him at the dinner. You have also accepted that, when Heinrich Muller telexed the police, ordering them again not to interfere in the excesses, the burnings and the destruction, and to arrest 20,000 Jews at 11.55 p.m., that is an order that came from Himmler to Muller, from Himmler who had had it from Hitler, i.e. that Hitler's order was the source of this Muller telegram. MR IRVING: Can we now halt your flow of verbiage and get back to the point I am asking about? A. We have a whole series of contemporary---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am finding this extremely helpful and please will you stop interrupting. MR IRVING: This is not the point I am asking about. I am asking about the events in Hitler's home. A. We have a whole series of contemporary documents going on to the telex from Heydrich, to the German police again saying they are not to interfere unless German property is threatened or foreigners are threatened at 1.20 a.m., again which Mr Irving has admitted under cross-examination was a result of Hitler and Himmler having discussed this issue. So right through the night -- and this goes on. There is a whole string of further documents, a telegram from Eberstein, a telegram from Hess at 2.56, which indicate all the way through that Hitler was fully apprised of the situation, right from the very beginning, that he approved of Goebbels' idea and ordered that these . P-39 excesses should be carried out. These are contemporary documents and therefore they undermine wholly the credibility of postwar ex post facto self-serving justifications by members of Hitler's entourage who were heavily involved in these events, that Hitler somehow did not know about it, and got very angry when he heard about it. MR IRVING: Are you saying ---- A. We know from Goebbels' diary, as I quote on pages 257 to 8, that Schaub himself was involved. Schaub is completely worked up, says Goebbels, his old shock troop past is waking up. So Schaub himself was heavily involved. Obviously, all these things are things that Schaub does not really want to admit after the war. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That was a very long answer but what are you really saying -- and this is condensing it absurdly -- is that, when you are approaching the testimony of the Adjutants, you have to weigh what they say happened against the whole background and consider the likelihoods? A. Yes. It is not a question of dismissing them totally. Q. No. I said "weigh against". A. But you have to weigh them up, yes, and particularly the circumstances in which these statements were made after the war. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: My Lord, with respect this witness has laid a . P-40 terrible choking suffocating smoke screen across the courtroom and across the points that I was trying to arrive at. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, let me explain why I think it is helpful. You say, and I quite understand, and I think there are three of them, Schaub, Eberstein and Bruckner , as supporting evidence for Hitler's angry reaction in the middle of the night. Now, they may be right, they may be wrong. What Professor Evans was doing, and it was a long answer, was summarizing all the considerations that should weigh with an objective historian in deciding whether to attach credence to what the individual witnesses say. Now, what is wrong with that? MR IRVING: With respect, I should have been permitted to conduct the cross-examination my way, which would have been to go over those documents, having dealt with this central issue, and then looked at those documents which were prior to that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I am afraid I see nothing wrong with that answer and I tried to explain why I found it helpful. MR IRVING: Well, we have had all of that. The whole of that little speech -- little is not the right word -- we have had several times in this courtroom. What I am introducing here is material going to the issue, which is whether I had no basis for writing what I did. . P-41 Unfortunately, the witness, by his smoke screen, has interrupted my cross-examination. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. What the witness was saying was yes, you have records of what these Adjutants told you, but you were in dereliction of your duty as a historian in forgetting to weigh that evidence against the background, the context. MR IRVING: Should he not have waited until he heard the third witness and then started off with his little speech? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Go on with your third witness. MR IRVING: Yes. Would you now turn finally, preferably without five-minute speeches, to the translation of the tape recorded interview of Colonel Nicholas von Below? A. Could you point me to the original German, please? Q. The original German is here. Am I right in saying -- I am trying to save time now -- that Colonel Nicholas von Below was Hitler's air force adjutant from 1937 until the last day of his life? A. Yes. Q. He was an air force professional officer? A. The last day of whose life, Hitler's life, you mean? Q. I beg your pardon? A. Last day of Hitler's life? Q. Yes. He was a professional German air force officer, he was not a Nazi Party member, is that correct? A. I think that is right, yes. . P-42 Q. On this occasion, on this night, he was in Hitler's home? A. Yes. Q. In Munich? A. Yes. Q. Is he a source whose recollections have been rightly impugned on any other occasion, to your knowledge, of any other historical event? A. My memory fails me here, Mr Irving. They are a source of variable quality but it is a valuable source. Q. Professor, you have held yourself out to this court as an expert witness on the Third Reich. You have spent 18 month in investigating these sources in particular, and I am just asking you if you have any impression about colonel von Below? A. I think Colonel von Below gave a number of different testimonies, parts of which are valuable and parts of which are not so valuable, is that enough? Q. Is right that in general you are inclined to criticise my interview technique and suggest that I may have asked leading questions, or in some way browbeaten my Nazi sources? A. Where do I use the word "browbeating". Q. You know what I am getting at, that in fact I used improper techniques? A. I know what you mean by attempts to browbeat, Mr Irving, but I do not say that you do that with people cited in . P-43 this report. Q. Browbeating is part of the job of somebody in cross-examination, is it not, obtaining information from a reluctant witness, shall say? Is there any sign here ---- A. I thought you were complaining I was not reluctant, I gave too much information, Mr Irving. Q. Is there any indication from this transcript? Would you agree it is a verbatim transcript? A. Yes. Q. From a tape recording? A. Yes, it appears to be such. Q. Is there any indication that I am asking leading questions? MR JUSTICE GRAY: The first one is a leading question, but let us move on. MR IRVING: My Lord, my interview technique is part of the criticism against me, that I have distorted history. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but you asked whether there were any leading questions and the first question is a leading question, Mr Irving. Let us get to his answer. A. "You were with Hitler at his home when the news of the Reichskristallnacht arrived there in Munich and he was rather surprised by that, can you depict that who else was there, suggest to the witness that he was surprised". What you should have asked was, "you were with Hitler in his home on the eve of Reichskristallnacht, can you say . P-44 what happened", something neutral like that? MR IRVING: Is it not likely---- A. You are suggesting things here. Q. Is this an extract from an interview or is it the whole interview? A. It is an extract. It starts with one question as well. Q. Is it likely that there had been some discussion of this before this extract begins therefore? A. You will have to show me documentation of that previous discussion if I am to answer that question, Mr Irving. Q. Would you look at the second question from the end, please? Irving asked, "back to the Reichskristallnacht", is that a leading question, "back to the Reichskristallnacht"? A. Sorry, I cannot find it. Q. On the first page. A. First page, yes. Q. At the bottom of the page, Irving asks, "back to the Reichskristallnacht"? A. Yes. Q. Is that a leading question? A. No. Q. And the answer comes, "the first thing that came to us was a phone call from the Four Seasons Hotel". Do you wish to follow this in the German original and correct me if I am wrong in the translation? . P-45 A. Yes. Q. "Those of us who were on duty with Hitler always lived at that time in the Four Seasons Hotel and on this day we were billetted in rooms that were quite high up. The staff phoned to us". Where was he then at this time? A. In Hitler's residence. Q. "The staff phoned us to say we ought to come right over and pack our bags as in a neighbouring building the synagogue was on fire and the sparks were flying right over the building". Does this sound like he is recalling the actual conversation? A. Yes, sounds like that. Q. It is verisimilitude, is it not? A. Sounds like that. Q. "It was just a matter of security. Brandt", he is the doctor, "always lived in that hotel too. He said, 'Ought we to drive over or not? Somebody" and this is the adjutants speaking to each other, is it not? A. Yes. Q. "Somebody said then, 'Well, one of us ought at least to go and take a look'. Whether anybody did drive over, I don't know. Then further reports came. I don't know on the basis of what facts, whether it was Schaub asking or the fire brigade or the Gaul headquarters. Shortly after that it became known that the synagogue had not cut fire by itself, but had been set on fire and that there was a . P-46 demonstration going on. Thereupon that was immediately passed on by Schaub to Hitler. Thereupon the Police President of Munich, von Aberstein, was immediately sent for. Herr von Aberstein then appeared soon after at the Fuhrer's residence. He was an SS Obergruppenfuhrer. He was now interrogated by Hitler. Then there was a conversation between Hitler and Goebbels by" -- has he been led with any of this by me, to your knowledge? A. Yes, by the opening question. "You were with Hitler in his home when the news of the Reichskristallnacht arrived there in Munich and he was rather surprised by that. Can you depict that?" and that is what he is doing here. Q. Have I mentioned in my opening question Aberstein or telephone conversation with Goebbels? A. "Can you depict that, who else was there?" That is your question. Q. Then the we carry on now from the bottom of the page when I asked, "What was Hitler' reaction to the first news report?" Is that a leading question? A. Well... Q. And then does he answer? A. Well, it depends. I mean, it makes the assumption, of course, that these were the first news reports. But if it refers just to reports of the synagogue burning in Munich, then it is not a leading question. Q. "Then Below admittedly recalling the events 30 years . P-47 later", because it is, it is 1968 this interview with von Below, is it not? A. That is right. Q. He records Hitler's reaction as being, "What is going on? Please find out. I have to know what the game is." A. I cannot find this in the German, I am sorry, for the moment. Q. "It was my impression that we all and even Hitler"? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Pause a second, would you mind, mr Irving? A. Yes. MR IRVING: "It was my impression"? A. Yes, "What is going on?" Yes. Is
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