Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day024.14 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 Q. If we can put it like that? Turning to page 56, please, paragraph 15.4, you refer to Hitler's guidelines of 3rd October? A. Yes. It is a mistake. 3rd March. Sorry about that. Q. 3rd March. A. 15.4, first line, should have "March" instead of "October". Q. In this directive it says, this is the directive of March 13th issued by General Alfred Jodl: "In the operation area of the Arm, Himmler is granted special responsibilities by order of Hitler for the preparation of the political administration." A. Yes, but it is also -- yes, sorry. Q. It looks pretty sinister and it probably is pretty sinister, but is this not within the guidelines of military operations, securing the rear areas? A. Yes, but it says if you take the full, if you look at the German terminology, "die sich aus dem endgultig . P-120 auszutragenden Kampf zweier entgegengesetzter politischer Systeme ergeben", this is in English "These special responsibilities arise from the ultimate decisive struggle between two opposing political systems". So it is not about just two armies fighting against each other. It is actually two political systems and the idea here is to completely, well ---- Q. National socialism, on the one hand, and Bolshevism on the other? A. Yes. Q. I think somebody once said the child with most -isms is the -ists. So they are dealing here with the Bolsheviks or the Bolshevists and the National Socialists rather than the Jews as such? A. Well, but from the context it becomes quite clear that in the views of the National Socialist, you cannot separate Bolshevism from Jewry, so it is a kind of, it is quite clear it is one of the main elements of the National Socialist ideology that Bolshevism is in a way a kind of invention of the Jews, of all Jewry, in order to conquer world dominion, I think. This is something that you cannot separate here from this. Q. Sure enough in the next paragraph it spells out what the special responsibilities are. They are going to be bumping of all the Bolshevik Chieftains and Commissarts? A. Yes. . P-121 Q. I agree with that. That is quite obviously contained in the documents. We now go on the following page to page 57 to the massacres executed by the four Einsatzgruppen? A. Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: But can I just be clear about that? Forgive me. The documents we have just been looking at, four of them, 3rd March onwards? A. Yes. Q. Do you regard those as being preliminary to the setting up of the Einsatzgruppen? A. Yes, I think one has to bear in mind that this is, you know, this is preparation of a racist war of extermination. So the result of the speeches and of these instructions are certain guidelines which are given to the troops. This is the Commissart order, the order to kill all Communist Commissarts, and this is what was called here the guidelines for special areas. And then there is the jurisdiction decree which says, basically, that every German officer is entitled to take retaliation measures on the spot, and they are the guidelines for the conduct of the troops in Russia. So the whole of it has to be seen as a whole set of regulations and guidelines, which I think can be described as a kind of package for the racist war of extermination and Hitler is intimately involved in the preparation of this. . P-122 MR IRVING: As a what for the racist war? MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Package". A. A kind of package of set of documents which actually - --- MR IRVING: You describe them as the prerequisites ---- A. Yes, exactly. Q. --- which does not necessarily mean that the one flowed from the other. The racist war of extermination would not have been possible without these prerequisites, but that does not necessarily mean that this was anticipated or planned? A. Well, I think it is quite clear from the documents that this war, you know, this racist war, is planned from at least March 1941 onwards and Hitler is playing an active role in the preparations of those guidelines. Q. Dr Longerich, if you are going to put it like that, I think you ought to point us to the passage of the March documents on which you are relying. A. Yes. Q. Am I right, my Lord, that he should ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, you are, but I do not want to assume too much, but 3rd March refers to the establishment of guidelines? A. Yes, it is an instruction from Hitler to Jodl to actually rephrase the guidelines, to be more radical in those guidelines. So it gives him a kind of idea of what he wants, and he says, this is the key sentence, "The Jewish . P-123 Bolshevik intelligentsia must be eliminated". Then they are going on and revising these guidelines, and in end it says in here that there is in the operational area of the Army, the Reichsfuhrer SS special duties, he has to carry out and these duties relates to the fight between Bolshevism and National socialism. So there is a specific political racist, I would say, element in here. It is not just a preparation of, let us say, a normal war between nations or armies. MR IRVING: Racist or ideological? A. Both. You cannot separate that. You cannot separate anti-Semitism from the anti-Communism. This is one thing. Q. But if I narrow it down, these actual documents before us refer only to the leadership, the intelligentsia. Everything beyond that is extrapolation by yourself, is it not? A. I do not know what the "Sonderaufgaben im Auftrage des Fuhrers" are. There is no -- the document does not give us any explanation for that. It is not -- the documents refer to leaders and to special tasks "im Auftrage des Fuhrers", "on behalf of the Fuhrer", so I do not know what this actually, I mean, because I was not there and we do not have a document about this, I do not know what this means. Q. This is the document of March 13th on page 56, is that right? . P-124 A. Yes. "Sonderaufgaben", special tasks on behalf of the, by order of the Fuhrer for the preparation, and so on, and so I do not know what this really, how far ---- Q. Is it likely that Himmler went to see Hitler a bit jealous because the Army and the Air Force and the Navy had been given all these great tasks for this great ideological campaign in the East and Himmler has been to see Hitler and said, "Mein Fuhrer, I want jobs too. What are you going to give me?" and Hitler says to him, "Well, you are going to do this and you are going to do that. Your job is in the rear area, mopping up the partisans, holding down the population, securing the transport routes"? A. No. What happens is that I think the initiative came from Hitler because he is the one who is revising, first of all, the instruction, the guidelines by giving Jodl this instruction. So he is the one who thinks that the Army is not radical enough about, the Army has not completely understood the task ahead of them. Q. The ideological nature? A. The ideological was, so he is giving this instruction. Then in the end it is ended in these guidelines where these special tasks are mentioned. Q. Dr Longerich, you are interested in the special tasks, are you not? We do not know what they are, but can I remind you of the meeting after Barbarossa began on July 16th 1941 where Himmler is given special tasks, is he not? . P-125 A. Well, he is then -- what he gets then is special tasks. He gets ---- Q. Pacifying the rear areas? A. Yes, he wanted more. He wanted the overall political -- he wanted a political -- he wanted the responsibility, the political responsibility, in a way to reorder the whole area. What he got there on 16th is the competence for the political -- for the security -- for securing. Q. Securing the rear area? A. Securing the rear area. So it is the word "police" is the crucial word in this. Q. "Police"? A. "Police". Q. So did Hitler on that 16th July 1941 meeting effectively give Himmler carte blanche? I am anxious not to lead you in any way on this. If you disagree, then please say so. A. Yes, I think the meeting is decisive and we can see after the meeting that actually Himmler sent more men to the East and the killings were radicalized and, you know, and the whole process escalated. Q. And is it possible (and I put this as a hypothesis to you and it may militate against me or for me, I do not know) that Hitler may have said to Himmler, "Herr Reichsfuhrer, do what you see best, do whatever you think is right, but do not tell me what you are doing"? Would that be possible? "Just keep me out of it"? . P-126 A. It is difficult for me to speculate about this. Q. On the basis of their relationship, as we know? A. It is really difficult for me to speculate about this question, what he actually said, because I do not have minutes or anything about that. I find it difficult to answer this question. Q. But later on we do find in 1942 the documents where Himmler says: "The Fuhrer has ordered the Eastern territories to be rid of the Jews. He has placed this burden on my shoulders. Nobody can take it off me"? A. Yes. Q. And that rather fits in with that kind of hypothesis? I only want to put it you if you think you are comfortable with it. A. I find this difficult to answer. You can, of course, argue that, in general, how this system, the political system, worked, the decision-making worked, that Hitler would make a general statement, gave general guidelines, and then leave it to other people responsible for this area actually to fill this out, you know, with their own energy and their own ideas, but really I do not know about the exact content of this guidelines. Q. If it repeatedly happened that somebody like Hans Lammers went to see Hitler to protest about this or that, and Hitler would answer, or Ribbentrop would go to Hitler, and Hitler would answer, "Keep me out of this. Take it up . P-127 with Himmler. It is his pigeon, it is his business"? A. Well, I think, if we want to, if we want to discuss it, I think we have to discuss these individual letters or pieces of documents. Q. It is just a general impression I was asking you about from your knowledge of the papers. So what we differ on, Dr Longerich, is this, am I right in saying this, that the March 1941 documents, you think it was an ideological preparation for the ideological war in the East, that Himmler was being given orders for, and I say it was a typically military securing the rear areas kind of job he was being given? A. Well, you cannot separate the Nazi ideas of warfare in the East from their ideological goals. I mean, for them it was not contradiction to speak about securing of areas and to speak of ideological goals. I do not think one can separate these two issues. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just ask you this, Dr Longerich. Do you regard it as legitimate in deciding what the objective was to look and see what actually happened? A. Yes, of course. Q. Because we know pretty precisely what happened? A. Yes, of course. MR IRVING: I will come to that question as question B, but, first of all, I will ask question A, if I may, my Lord? Would you agree that the documents before us fit entirely . P-128 with the notion of military securing of rear areas? A. No, because it says, if you just look at the documents and leave out what happened after that, it says here: "Special responsibilities by order of the Fuhrer for the preparation of the political administration. These special responsibilities arise from the ultimate decisive struggle between two opposing political systems". So it is not just about policing and security. Q. Would that include the murder and extermination of the political and military leaders on the other side, the intelligentsia? A. Yes, I think so. Q. Now, if we turn the page and now we come to the four Einsatzgruppen, page 57? A. Yes.
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