Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day022.14
Last-Modified: 2000/07/24

Q.Are opinions divided on that?
A.It is very difficult because it does not actually have a
formal date on it, so you have to weigh up the
possibilities.  I think there are two possibilities.  One
is that it came into existence on 17th July 1941, which is
the day after an important meeting at which arrangements
were made about the administration of the Eastern
territories, at a time when the decision to, as it were,
solve the Jewish question in the Nazis' own terminology
had not been taken.  Or it is possible that it belongs in
a series of discussions that took place between the
Ministry of Justice and other instances in the spring of
1942, in the wake of the Wannsee conference about the fate
of half Jews and Jews in mixed marriages.  That second
context indeed is the one in which it is placed in this
made up set of documents.
Q.Would you agree that on the Staff Evidence Analysis sheet,
which is page 18 of the bundle, it states that the date
covered by the file is March to April 1942?

.  P-123



A.Yes.  That is wrong, of course, because one of the
documents dates from 21st November 1941.
Q.Yes.  Is that document out of numerical sequence?
A.The documents are not in chronological order.  That is
to
say, it depends how you look at it, but sheet 153 is
what
we are calling the Schlegelberger memorandum, and then
sheet 154 is a document of 21st November 41, sheet 155
is
12th March 1942, sheet 156 is the 18th March 1942, and
157
is 5th April, and 159 is 20th November.  So, if you
are
going in strict chronological order of the pagination
on
the top right hand of the page, you would have to say
that
this document came from 1941, because the next
document is
21st November 1941.  However ----
Q.Mr Rampton , do you want to say something?
A.-- because this is a made up collection, you cannot be
sure that it is in chronological order.
MR RAMPTON:  Miss Rogers --  I will do at some stage --
asks me
to point out that the clip that Mr Irving is using is
missing a document.
MR IRVING:  In November 1941?
MR RAMPTON:  No, no, no -- is missing.  If on that list is
the
minutes of the meeting on 6th March 1942, it is
missing
from Mr Irving's clip.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am not sure I quite followed that.
Does it
matter?
MR RAMPTON:  I am not sure that I do either.

.  P-124



MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think we might just press on a little
bit.
MR IRVING:  Yes.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It could be 41, it could be 42.  I think
in
the end, if I have understood you right, Professor
Evans,
you were inclined to accept that it might well be 42?
A.On balance, but it is a very fine balance, my Lord.
Q.I understand that.
MR IRVING:  It is exactly the position I am trying to steer
towards.
A.One has to make it very clear to anybody reading this
document its peculiar nature, uncertainties about its
date, its origination, who made it, and all of these
sorts
of things.
MR IRVING:  In that case I will put to the witness the
evidence
that goes towards supporting the 1942 dating.  Is
there a
letter from Schlegelberger to Lammers after the March
16th
1942 conference?
A.Yes.
Q.We will come back to the March 6th 1942 conference
because
I know we want to discuss the contents of the
memorandum.
At present we are just dealing with the dating.
A.Right.
Q.Is there a letter from Schlegelberger to Lammers in
which
he says words to the effect: I have read the report on
the
meeting.  Decisions appear to be brewing here which
look
pretty murky.  They must not get away with this.  You
are

.  P-125



going to have to brief the Fuhrer.  Can we talk about
it?
A.Which document is this?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think you must if you can -- I know it
is
difficult for you, but if you can help me a little as
to
where one finds that document?
MR IRVING:  I have only been given a very truncated version
of
the Schlegelberger bundle, I am afraid.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I see.
MR IRVING:  It will be in the Schlegelberger bundle, one of
the
25 pages, with a complete translation of that letter.
It
will be dated March 1942.  I have provided your
Lordship
in that bundle with the complete translation of it.
It is
about a whole page letter.
MR RAMPTON:  I do not have the translation.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think it is page 13?
A.Page 2 is the translation that I have got in J1.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well done.  We have found it.
MR RAMPTON:  It is the document with 155 at the top right
corner and 371 at the bottom.
A.Yes.
MR IRVING:  Would you agree with my brief gloss on it, that
is
Schlegelberger saying that he has read the report on
March
6th conference, things appear to be brewing, someone
is
going to have to discuss this with the Fuhrer, can I
meet
you first?
A.Well, not precisely.  It is important to say that it
says,

.  P-126



"My assistant has just briefed me on the result of the
meeting of the 6th of the 3rd about the treatment of
Jews
and mixed race Jews".  Then he goes on to say that
there
are decisions in preparation which he says are
completely
impossible, as you say.  Then he wants to have a talk
with
Lammers about this because of this.  Yes.
Q.Before the matter goes up to the Fuhrer, is that
right?
A."As the outcome of the talks is to form the basis for
the
decision of the Fuhrer, it would be urgently desirable
for
me to have a personal talk with you in good time about
the
affair".
Q.Would you agree this helps us to narrow down the
period
when the meeting, the date of the memorandum?
A.It is an indication, yes.
Q.Was there a meeting then between Schlegelberger and
Lammers in consequence of this?  Did Lammers write
back a
three or four line letter saying, sure, let us meet?
A.Yes.
Q.What date is that letter, please?
A.That is 18th March, and Lammers says he is coming back
to
Berlin at the end of the month.
Q.At the end of March he is going to come back to
Berlin?
A.Yes.
Q.He offers to meet Schlegelberger on this matter,
whatever
the matter is?
A.Yes, that is right.

.  P-127



Q.To which matter we will certainly come back, I assure
you.
A.It is pretty obviously a reply to the previous letter,
which is about the treatment of Jews and mixed race
Jews.
Q.So, on the balance of probabilities, the meeting
between
Lammers and Schlegelberger was some time at the end of
March, or possibly running on into early April, as
other
historians suggest now?
A.Yes.
Q.Jaeckel suggested it may have been a meeting on April
10th, which he has identified.
A.Yes.
Q.There is no point really quibbling one way about ten
days,
is there?  We can accept therefore that, on the
balance of
probabilities, if the 1942 scenario is correct, this
was
when the meeting took place between Lammers and
Schlegelberger?
A.It looks like it, yes.  There are other possibilities
in
this very uncertain document.
Q.So?
A.That is one possible interpretation.  We are dealing
with
matters of interpretation here.
Q.So if we can accept this is a minute written by or
dictated by Schlegelberger -- and that is an "if" --
then
when he begins by saying, "Reichsminister Lammers
informed
me", he may very well, on the balance of
probabilities, be

.  P-128



talking about something he has heard at the end of
March
or early April 1942?
A.Indeed, yes.
Q.About the Hitler desire that the solution of the
Jewish
problem be postponed until after the war is over?
A.Yes.
Q.Does your Lordship wish to ask any further questions
about
the dating of the document?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No.  If I may say so, you have put it
very
clearly.
MR IRVING:  Thank you very much.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  May I just ask one question?
MR IRVING:  Yes.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Professor Evans, is there anything (and
I cannot remember) between the date when Lammers says,
 "Yes, we can meet", and the date, the assumed date,
on
the 1942 hypothesis of the Schlegelberger memorandum,
to
indicate what the discussions were?
A.No.  It follows from the -- it all follows from the
meeting of March 6th.  So there is -- it is an
inference
that the so-called Schlegelberger memorandum belongs
in
that period.
Q.What I am really getting at, is there any evidence
what
the substantive discussion was about, whether it was
about
Jews generally or whether it was about Mischlinger --
sorry?

.  P-129



MR IRVING:  That is what we are going to be dealing with in
this part of the cross-examination, my Lord.
A.It would appear that what we are calling a
Schlegelberger
memorandum is the indication we have that there was a
meeting or to suggest that there was a meeting.
MR IRVING:  Now we will tackle the topic, Professor Evans.
We
will try to mutually and jointly arrive at some
conclusion
as to what was discussed in these deliberations.
There
were two meetings of importance early in 1942, were
there
not?  There was the Wannsee conference on January 20th
1942?
A.Yes.
Q.And there was this follow up conference on March 6th
1942?
A.Yes.
Q.Both of them, effectively, chaired by the
Reichssicherheitshauptamt, by Heydrich?
A.Yes.
Q.And with representatives of a not very high level from
all
the Ministries involved in the Jewish problem?
A.Yes.
Q.The Wannsee Conference, I do not think we need to look
at
in this context, unless you particularly want to make
any
comments about it?  Your submission is, of course,
that
the Wannsee conference discussed the killing
operations
because Eichmann admitted this under interrogation, is
that correct?

.  P-130



A.That is right, yes.  It certainly reached -- there was
a
very elaborate lengthy discussion of what should be
treated, how the Jews of Europe should be treated, and
the
memorandum -- the minutes of the Wannsee Conference
speak
in terms of evacuation and so on from all countries of
Europe, even those which were not yet under the
Germans'
control.  Eichmann said later when he was in the hands
of
the Israelis that, of course, that is the language
used
about evacuation disguised the fact that people had
been
talking about killing.
Q.Disguised it from whom, from the general public or
from
each other?
A.From anybody who should be, from anybody who should
get
the minutes of the Wannsee Conference.
Q.I am only going to dwell a minute or two on the
Wannsee
Conference, Professor.  Your basis for saying that it
was
disguised language and euphemisms is only the Eichmann
interrogation in 1961, is that right?  None of the
other
participants backed him up on that?
A.Well, one can infer from the fact that large scale
killings of Jews were already going on, that that is
what
is meant by evacuation.
Q.Yes, but none of the other participants, probably
about a
dozen of them, were questioned about this after the
war,
when questioned under various conditions either by
myself
or by the American or the British interrogators,
confirmed

.  P-131



what Eichmann had said, the killing was talked about.
A.No, I think it is unlikely that they would wish to do
so.
There was a representative, I think Freisler was there
who
represented the Ministry of Justice, so the Ministry
of
Justice knew perfectly well what the conclusions of
the
Wannsee Conference were, whether they were concerned
with
extermination or simply with forced evacuation of
Europe's
Jews from their resident countries to the East.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We do not want to get sidetracked.  The
point
about Wannsee was that there was not any particular
discussion about Mischlinger there or was there?
A.There was, my Lord, yes, yes -- quite extensive.  They
spent a great deal of time talking about them because,
although they seemed to have found it easy to decide
what
to do with Jews, they found it extraordinarily
difficult
to reach some decision about what to do with so-called
Mischlinger and Jews married to non-Jews.

Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor