Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day025.01
Last-Modified: 2000/07/25

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE1996 I. No. 113
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

Royal Courts of Justice
 Strand, London
  Thursday, 24th February 2000

  Before:
 MR JUSTICE GRAY

  B E T W E E N:
DAVID JOHN CAWDELL IRVING
Claimant

-and-

(1) PENGUIN BOOKS LIMITED
(2) DEBORAH E. LIPSTADT
Defendants

The Claimant appeared in person

MR RICHARD RAMPTON Q.  C. (instructed by Messrs Davenport Lyons
and Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of the First and
  Second Defendants

MISS HEATHER ROGERS (instructed by Davenport Lyons) appeared on
behalf of the First Defendant Penguin Books Limited

MR ANTHONY JULIUS (of Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of
  the Second Defendant Deborah Lipstadt

  (Transcribed from the stenographic notes of Harry Counsell
& Company, Clifford's Inn, Fetter Lane, London EC4
  Telephone: 020-7242-9346)
(This transcript is not to be reproduced without the
written permission of Harry Counsell & Company)

PROCEEDINGS - DAY TWENTY-FIVE

. P-1

(Day 25. 10.00 a.m.)

(DR LONGERICH, recalled. Cross-Examined by Mr Irving, continued.)

MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving?
MR IRVING:  May it please the court.  My Lord, you requested
  yesterday that I should state my position on the
  Einsatzgruppen and I place before your Lordship a two-page
  summary of my position.  I do not know whether your
  Lordship wishes to address it now?  I gave a copy to
  Mr Rampton.  If Mr Rampton wishes to address it now, it
  now because it just could affect some of the
  cross-examination later today.  (Pause for reading) I am
  bound to say that I think that differs very, very
  substantially from the position that you seem to have
  adopted in your cross-examination by Mr Rampton.
MR IRVING:  Does it?  In which respect?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It seems to me that this is a rather partial
  acknowledgment of Hitler's knowledge and therefore
  responsibility for what went on in the Eastern territories.
MR IRVING:  Of course I did not mention the October 1943
  watershed, that is true.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Do not worry about that because you accepted

. P-2



  everything, as it were, after that.  Mr Rampton?
MR RAMPTON:  I regard it as a fairly enormous step backwards.
  However, it does not trouble me in the very slightest,
  I have to say, because by a combination of the actual
  evidence of what was happening at the time and what
  Mr Irving said when first confronted with it, I am quite
  happy to leave that matter to be made by way of submission
  at the end of the case.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think that is right and it seemed to me
  that, when you were saying you might have to recall
  Browning and so on, I do not think that is right.
MR RAMPTON:  No, it was off the cuff and it was not meant
  interrorem, but it was a thought that occurred to me.
  I think actually, having regard to this, that this is so
  inconsistent, in my submission, with what was first said
  in cross-examination, that I am happy to leave it like that.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think it is a matter for comment later on.
  Mr Irving, that must be right.  To the extent that there
  is a difference between the position you took in
  cross-examination and this document, then Mr Rampton
  obviously must be entitled to make whatever comment he
  thinks fit.
MR IRVING:  Or indeed to cross-examine me further on that document.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  He may want to do that, I do not know.

. P-3



  Probably not I guess. Anyway, I have that now.  Again
  I think it is sensible to try to work out where it should
  go.  I think probably it goes in -- this is really for the
  transcript so that everybody knows where it is --
MR IRVING:  L, was it not?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I was thinking more, because in a way it is
  statement of your case, I wonder whether it belongs in C
  or, indeed, in the pleadings.  I think that is right.  I
  will tuck it behind your defence in bundle A.  
MR IRVING:  Very well, my Lord.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Thank you very much for doing that anyway.
  When I say "defence", I mean, of course, reply, tab 4.
  Yes.  Is there anything else before you resume?
MR IRVING:  No, I can begin cross-examination.

(Dr Peter Longerich, Recalled Cross-examination by Mr Irving, continued.)

Q.  Dr Longerich, good morning.
A.  Good morning.
Q.  We touched yesterday briefly on the existence in the
  Institut fur Zeitgeschichte of manuscripts written by Karl
  Wolff.  You said that it was of a confidential nature and
  that it was not open for general research.  I stated that
  in my discovery there had been extracts or a transcript of
  part of that.  Can I ask you to look at the little bundle
  I just gave you?  My Lord, this is on page 14 of the
  little bundle which is in sections.

. P-4



MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Is this a manuscript?  Manuscript, Karl
  Wolff, I see.
MR IRVING:  Yes.  If you go to page 16, which is the last page
  in that little clip, you will see a handwritten version of
  it.  That is the original German.  Page 14 is the original
  German transcript.
A.  May I ask, is this your transcript?
Q.  Yes, that is my handwriting.
A.  So I have to rely on Mr Irving's summary?
Q.  Yes, extracts.
A.  I have to say I am not happy with that because, as we
  experienced yesterday, Mr Irving tends to shorten
  documents and I do not agree with him on the principles in
  the way he shortens documents.  I am not very happy to
  comment on his transcripts or excerpts from documents.
  I would like to see the original.
Q.  If you look at line 6, you will see that I have put three
  dots, and line 7 I have three dots.
A.  Yes, but I have not seen the original, so I cannot --- -
Q.  You stated, of course, that you were not permitted to see
  the original because it was a confidential document.
A.  Yes. Still I would like to see the original.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think I know what the problem is.  Where is
  the original, Mr Irving?
MR IRVING:  It is in the Institut fur Zeitgeschichte in Munich.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  To which Mr Irving does not have access.

. P-5



  I take your point entirely, Dr Longerich, but shall we
  just see what the question is and see whether you can
  cope.  If you do not feel you can  ----
MR IRVING:  My position would be of course, my Lord, that this
  was the document that was before me when I was writing my
  book, this handwritten extract.
A.  But you were allowed to make photocopies from the
  document. I would really prefer to see a photocopy instead
  of your handwritten notes on the document.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Do you have a photocopy, Mr Irving?
MR IRVING:  No, my Lord.  I was not allowed to make photocopies
  on this particular one.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Proceed fairly cautiously.  What is the point?
MR IRVING:  If you will now look at the translation, which is
  on page 10, this is an explanation, is it not?  It is an
  extract, first of all, from a confidential manuscript by
  Karl Wolff dated May 11th 1952, and he is referring to the
  effect on Himmler of the assassination of Heydrich.  In
  the second paragraph Wolff expresses the rather
  extraordinary view that perhaps 70 men all told from
  Himmler to Hoess were involved in the extermination of the
  Jews.  Then there is something which I put in quotation
  marks.  The inference is that it is actually words from
  the document:  "Bormann and Himmler probably represented
  the view that the Jewish problem had to be dealt with

. P-6



  without Hitler getting his fingers dirty on it."
Then the next paragraph says:  "After the mass
  epidemic at Auschwitz, the idea of deliberate mass deaths
  probably occurred.  Himmler was in his way bizarre and
  religious and held to the view that for the greatest war
  Lord and the greatest war of all times he had take upon
  himself tasks which had to be solved to put Hitler's ideas
  into effect without engaging him", that is Hitler
  personally ----
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving, I am sorry, I am going to
  interrupt you now.  This is, it seems to me, of fairly
  central potential importance.
MR IRVING:  In two ways, my Lord.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I did not know what it was going to say.  It
  is wholly unsatisfactory, is it not, to have your
  manuscript rendition, if that is the right word, of parts
  of this document?  Is there an insuperable problem about
  getting hold of a photocopy of it?
MR IRVING:  I will ask the Institute if they will provide me
  with a photocopy.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Or even the Defendants might get a more
  helpful reaction to a request for a photocopy of this document.
MR RAMPTON:  We might, but I have to say this is a note of
  something that Karl Wolff, a high ranking SS officer close
  to Himmler and Hitler, said in 1952.

. P-7



MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is potentially self-exculpatory, I can see that.
MR RAMPTON:  That is a comment that I would make about it.  The
  reason I say that now is that I do not know that I believe
  that it is worth, frankly, our time and trouble going to
  get the original from Munich.
A.  Can I make a comment here, or a question?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, please do.
A.  This is your interview with Karl Wolff?
MR IRVING:  Good Lord, no.
A.  You referred yesterday to a confidential manuscript by
  Karl Wolff.  This is not a part of the confidential
  manuscript.  This is part of the collection of testimonies
  collected by the Institute in the 1950s.  You can
  recognize it by these reference numbers shown in German.
  It is an open class.  I think, if you phone the Institute,
  you can get a photocopy within three hours or so.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is what I would have thought.
A.  It is open class.  There is no need to rely on handwritten
  excerpts, anything of this kind.
Q.  You see, I am a bit unhappy, I will be frank, Mr Irving,
  that there are dots immediately before and immediately
  after the passage that you rely on.
MR IRVING:  Yes.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I do not think that is satisfactory and
  I think the witness is entitled to take the position,

. P-8



  "I am not prepared to comment unless I have the entire
  document in front of me".  Whether it has any weight or
  not is another matter.
MR IRVING:  The only weight that it might possibly have is of
  course that I relied heavily on my extracts from the Wolff
  manuscript in writing my books.
A.  This is not the Wolff manuscript.
MR IRVING:  Your Lordship will recognise passages from this
  manuscript as they are represented and summarized in the
  Hitler's War.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  My response to that is whether an objective
  historian could and should have placed weight on this
  document must depend on the whole terms of it, not just on
  selective extracts.
MR IRVING:  Of course I saw the whole document when I sat there
  making the extracts.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Of course you did, but I think we need to see
  the whole document to see whether you should have attached
  the weight you say you did attach to it.
MR IRVING:  I will try to obtain it, but of course I cannot
  obtain it today.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am wondering whether, if it really is a
  matter of three hours, and I do not see why it should not
  be, as Dr Longerich says, somebody could not perhaps even
  go and place a telephone call now.
MR RAMPTON:  The best person to do that is the gentleman in the

. P-9

  witness box.  I may be speaking out of turn but I think he
  is the one that carries the clout so far as the Institute
  in Munich is concerned.  It may be that one of my German
  researchers would be able to do it and see if we can get
  it before close of play today.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is what I was hoping.  I will leave it
  to you.  I think I am going to ask you to leave this
  document and come back to it.  We will come back to it
  anyway but come back to it if we get the proper document.
MR RAMPTON:  I am told that they do not feel they can do it.
  Could I have permission to speak to Dr Longerich about it
  at the adjournment?  Maybe he can make a telephone call at
  lunch time.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, if it really cannot be done before then.
MR RAMPTON:  I am told, I do not know reasons are, that it
  would be difficult for anybody but him to do it.  Perhaps
  I could be a little unorthodox and ask him now?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, why not?  Do you mind, Mr Irving?  It is
  a bit unorthodox.
MR RAMPTON:  Could you make a telephone call at lunch time?
A.  If you give me a phone.
MR RAMPTON:  We will give you a phone.
A.  Yes, sir.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.
A.  (After a pause) Sorry, is this a break?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, it is not.  Mr Irving, carry on.

. P-10



MR IRVING:  While you still have that bundle in front of you --
  my Lord, this is just by way of putting documents in - -
  page 1 is a German document which is a conference dated
  August 6th 1942, on the face of it.  Right?  It is from an
  American microfilm T 501 which is the records of the
  military government, the generalgouvernenent.  Is it a
  record of the conference of 6th August 1942, Dr Longerich?
A.  Again, I have to say I got this document five minutes ago
  and I should really have the time to read it.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Let us read it together.  I am sure we will
  be able to manage.
MR IRVING:  My Lord, I am just really going to pay attention to
  the title of the document and in the most general terms.
  Is this a document relating to increasing air raid
  precaution measurements in the government general?
A.  The translation is guidelines for the building up of air
  raid defence in the area of the command of the military
  force in the generalgouvernement.  That is the title.
Q.  The remaining four pages just give guidelines for how to
  do this, to build air raid shelters because of the
  increased danger of British air attacks?
A.  It does not say British air attacks.  I think it could
  also refer to Soviet or American attacks but I just trust
  you that this is the case.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Just so that I understand the relevance, this
  is back to Auschwitz?

. P-11



MR IRVING:  Back to Auschwitz, my Lord, yes, crematorium No.
  (ii).  The next document I want you to look at briefly is
  on page 5.  First of all, I draw your attention to the SS
  runes on the first line under be Abschrift.  Do you have
  page 5?
A.  Yes.
Q.  You see the SS runes after Reichsfuhrer SS?
A.  Yes.
Q.  So this is probably a genuine wartime document?  I have to
  put it like that.
A.  Probably.
Q.  Are you familiar with this document, signed by the chief
  of the concentration camp system, Pohl?
A.  I cannot recall the document.  I am really curious to know
  from which archive the document is.  I also have to say
  I did not have the time to read the document.  So would
  you say where this document is from, from which archive
  you have that?
Q.  It has been provided to me by a lawyer in Dusseldorf who
  is heavily involved in wartime cases.
A.  So you cannot say from which archive.
Q.  I will obtain it for the court.
A.  It is difficult for me to comment on the document if I do
  not know where the original is.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I see that.  Was this in your discovery, Mr Irving?

. P-12



MR IRVING:  My Lord, no it was not.

MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I thought not.  It is typical of last minute
  documents being provided to me by lawyers around the world
  and they know these things.  If your Lordship has any
  objection, then I would not take it further.

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