Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day024.19 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us wait and see what his position finally turns out to be, and then we can argue about it if needs be. But let me know, please, in the morning and now carry on with your cross-examination. MR IRVING: I do not think it is an enormously vital point actually in the whole Holocaust denial issue one way or the other. MR JUSTICE GRAY: If it is not a vital point, it may be you will keep with your concession. MR IRVING: Mr Rampton is yelping before he is hurt actually. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not let's denigrate his motives. MR IRVING: Yes. Page 62, if you look at footnote 157, please, you quoted there a document, a wartime document, in the last three lines of that footnote there, a very confidential information report: "The number of Jews in this entire area is estimated at 6 million and in the course of the coming year they are going to be brought across the Urals or otherwise got rid of"? A. Yes. Q. Does that not also indicate that the primary German intention was the geographical movement, dumping them across the Urals? . P-166 A. Yes, it says ---- Q. Chased across the Urals? A. Yes, it says two things. First of all, it is referring to the biological eradication of the entirety of Jewry in Europe -- sorry, I am confused now. Sorry, those are two different documents, yes. You are looking here at this confidential report which are the notes of the reporter, so this is from a press conference, from a press conference, and under the heading "strictly confidential". So somebody in the press conference said that, you know, a way to solve the problem is to bring this estimated 6 million across the Urals. Q. Yes. But does that not indicate that there were two things being spoken of at that time, the geographical chasing across the Urals, generally spoken of at that time? A. Yes, I think it is quite ---- Q. "Failing which we are going to have to liquidate them"? A. This refers to -- yes, somebody in the press conference said in November '41, "It is still a feasible way of solving this problem to bring these people over the Urals". So that is all I can say. Q. It is a press conference by Rosenberg, right? A. Yes. Q. It is not a vitally important point, but there does appear, even at that time, to have been a degree of . P-167 uncertainty as to what was going to happen? A. Yes, but one should then also, if one speaks about this press conference, one should not leave out the words, you know, Rosenberg's words, "biological eradication of the entirety of Jewry". Q. They are both second-hand reporting, are they not? One is by the [German]? A. Yes. Q. Who is that? I forget who that was, Rosenberg, but, anyway, it is a second-hand report, is it not? A. Yes. Q. Over the page, of course, page 63, we have something that is very first-hand. This is the vital Heinrich Himmler note of 18th December 1941. A. Yes. Q. You probably know what I am going to ask you, if you have the phrase Judenfrager als partisan and ausurotten, what does that mean? How would you translate that into English? Als partisan and ausurotten? A. Well, to be extirpated as partisans. Q. Yes. I think there is no question in this case that it has a homicidal meaning, does it not? A. Yes. Q. And what does one normally do with partisans in warfare? Are they shot? A. I do not know what one normally does, but from the -- the . P-168 orders were here clear. I mean, I refer to this orders at the beginning. The orders here were clear that a civilian who would, you know, actually -- a civilian who ---- Q. "Who takes guns up"? A. --- who takes guns up, yes, would be shot on the spot. Q. That is the basic laws of war, the Frank tireur(?) are shot. The Americans did it, we did it. A. Well, I only can answer this question as far as the German Army and the war on the East is concerned. It was, you know ---- Q. If it had said the partisan and ausrottung, that would have been to be shot like partisans ---- A. Yes, it would be different. Q. That would have been a totally different meaning, would it not? A. It would be different, yes. Q. Does the meaning of that sentence as it stands imply that these were Jewish partisans who were to be shot as partisans? A. No. "Juden to be extirpated as partisans". It does not mean that only Jews have recognized as partisans were shot, they are just Jews were shot as partisans. MR JUSTICE GRAY: "As if they were partisans", that is what it comes to? A. Yes. Q. That is your evidence? . P-169 A. Yes. MR IRVING: Although it does say "as partisans" and not "like partisans", if I can put it in English. I do not want to hang that on the big bell, as you say in German, but there is a difference between the two words "als" and "wie", is there not? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but I think the witness is not accepting your interpretation, Mr Irving. MR IRVING: Well, the translation is specific, but he may not accept the interpretation of it, of course, the conclusions from it. Paragraph 17.7, you have Adolf Hitler, on the fifth line of that, on 30th January 1942, saying that it is clear the war can only end with either the Aryan peoples being extirpated or the Jews disappearing from Europe", "Das Judentum aus Europa verschwindet". That again implies a geographical solution, does it not? This is 10 days after the Wannsee conference. A. Well, "das Judentum aus Europa verschwindet", I think that this expression, "aus Europa verschwindet", could be seen as a camouflage language that actually disappeared from the German, from the area under German control, by, you know, anyhow. There was actually no chance how, you know, 6 million Jews could disappear at this stage from the German, from the territory under German control. Q. As you point out just three days earlier in one of the . P-170 table talks, this is now the following page, the second indented paragraph: "The Jew must get out of Europe. The best would be if they went to Russia! I have no sympathy with the Jews. They will always remain an element which stir up the peoples against one another". Again he is talking of a geographical solution even in private, to his own private staff? So why would camouflage be necessary there? A. Well, when you refer to the so-called [German], the table talks, one has to take into account that the table talks, you know, there were various people present on the table, so you could not, you cannot just assume that this is what Hitler really thought, that this really, you know, you are getting deep insight into his real world. This is always addressed to all kinds of people who were just present there. So he would be very cautious to speak about his real intentions, as far as the Jews are concerned. So I would hesitate to draw this conclusion from that. Q. He never had any outsiders at these table talks, did he? They were always members of his private staff. A. Yes, but the members of his private staff, I mean, for instance, his secretary and others were not to, you know, Hitler has very specific rules about keeping secrecies and they were not, you know, just because they were his coworkers, they were not allowed to share all the secrets with him. . P-171 Q. But on occasion in his table talks he speaks pretty tough. He talks pretty violent language, does he not, in the table talk? A. Yes, that is true, but I do not think that the table talks are the best, the ideal source to find out, you know, what was really going on in Hitler's mind because Hitler was very careful, particularly as far as the Holocaust is concerned, very careful what he was saying there. Q. Well, the only justification for saying that kind of thing, of course, is if you have anything explicit anywhere else and there is not, is there? Is it not possible that he is just saying what is in the table talk and in Goebbels' diary and elsewhere is an accurate reflection of what Hitler really knew? Is that not a more logical explanation? A. Well, I think the Goebbels diaries are different from the table talks but I ---- Q. Can I take you to paragraph 18.7 which is two pages later, page 56? The last paragraph there, you do not quote it in full, but this is the paragraph, my Lord, that we were looking at yesterday which is ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I remember. MR IRVING: --- the deportation to Siberia. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Central Africa too. MR IRVING: Central Africa, yes. Is that also more camouflage and even with Dr Goebbels sitting there who knows very . P-172 well what is going on or suspects what is going on? A. Yes, you know, if we look at the situation what was going on in April '42, we know that probably three quarter of a million or one million Jews in the Soviet Union were shot. They had started to systematically kill Jewish women and children in Serbia. They had opened the -- if this is the right way to say it -- extermination camp in Chelmo in December, they had just opened the extermination camp in Belzec and were carrying out mass extermination there. So one has to take this into account. Really, I have difficulties, I have to say, to find, you know, an easy answer to this document because, I mean, they are in the middle of mass extermination and Goebbels is quite aware of that, and they are still talking about the idea that they could force the Jews out of Europe. I find this really difficult to explain. Q. Can you not see any possible explanation? A. Possible explanation ---- Q. That Hitler did not know? A. The possible explanation would be that they just used among themselves this kind of camouflage language because they did not, they did not -- I mean, I have no trace, no evidence, that they spoke among themselves really about, "We are going, we are about to kill 6 million people. We are going to kill men, women, children, everybody", so they would use this kind of, this kind of language among . P-173 themselves, and, yes, that is the explanation which seems most plausible to me. Q. They were in a state of denial then, they were doing these things but pretending they were not? A. Among themselves, I think, you know, they were in a way or Hitler was in this way using double standards. He was, I think, I am convinced that he was quite aware what was happening ---- Q. You keep saying that. A. --- but among one of his best friends, so among themselves they would use a different language, they would not speak about, they would not say, you know, "We are actually killing so many children per month". They would just ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: But if he knew, supposing, assuming that Hitler knew all about the death camps and all the rest of it, what puzzles me a little bit about this camouflage theory is I do not quite see why it was necessary to talk about the Jews at all. Would you not keep your mouth shut rather than have this pantomime going on? A. Well, if you look into the conversation between, you know, Goebbels and Hitler, this was a constant, you know, a topic which was constantly raised among them. It was a kind of tour de raison. They would cover every interesting, evert aspect which looked interesting from their point of view. They would speak about the war, the conduct of war, they would speak about the -- the . P-174 situation, the foreign policy, and they would cover this topic, the Jews, the Jewish question, and they would - - this is my reading of this -- they would encourage themselves, "Yes, they are dangerous, we have to do something against them, we have to carry on with our policy".
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