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Last-Modified: 2000/07/25

MR IRVING:  I agree, my Lord.  It is not fair to put these very
  important documents to him.
MR RAMPTON:  Whether they are important or not is another question.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Are we talking now about the document
  relating to the French Jews and building another camp?
  Mr Rampton, what are you talking about when you ----
MR RAMPTON:  Yes, that is the one, yes, and, apparently, there
  is some other document as well but ... I do not know.
MR IRVING:  I can summarize it, my Lord.  The Ahnet document is
  September 1st 1942.  It is a conference on the deportation
  of French Jews and the need to provide them with blankets,
  equipment, spades, shovels and food and everything for a
  camp to be constructed in Russia.  This is another
  indication that they are not going to be sent off to extermination.
Then there is a further document which I intend
  putting to the witness which is referred to again by Gotz
  Aly which is a very important letter by a man called
  Walter Furl -- are you familiar with that letter?
A.  No.
Q.  Well, I think, my Lord, I am going to suggest ----
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You are not going to finish this witness, are you?

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MR IRVING:  We are not going to finish this witness today.  I
  am going to have another half day, unfortunately now, my Lord.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Half day?
MR IRVING:  Yes, or possibly less.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, Dr Longerich, you are based in England
  anyway, are you not?
A.  Yes, that is true.
Q.  I am afraid we are going to have to ask you to come back on Monday.
A.  All right.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  There is a bit more time.  Nothing is written in stone.
MR IRVING:  I think will put the Walter Furl of which I do have
  copies.  On this one I am slightly better prepared.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Do you have copies for the rest of us too?
  Shall we decide where to put this, and indeed at the same
  time, Mr Irving or probably Miss Rogers actually, the
  other clip that came first thing this morning?
MS ROGERS:  I am told by your Lordship's Clerk there is still
  room in J2.  Since the Claimant's documents have gradually
  been fed in in date order, at the back of J2.  I think it
  is tab 11.  If your Lordship does not have tabs we will
  provide them.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I have tabs 1 to 11.
MS ROGERS:  We will provide you with an 11.

. P-201



MR IRVING:  This is a minor matter which I think will take five
  minutes, my Lord.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You have just handed in Aly Gotz.
MR IRVING:  Yes, and there is an item on it called page 175.
  Again it is from the book by Aly Gotz or Gotz Aly who is
  an established authority on the Final Solution.  He says
  in his book that this option of settling the Jews in
  Russia had already taken on a camouflaging function.  This
  is his spin on the letter which is important.  In the
  letter that Walter Furl, the leading Krakau resettlement
  organizer, wrote to his SS comrades in June 1942.  I am
  only going to rely on the text of the actual letter.
"Only in retrospect can this be seen as an
  intermediary step on the road to the Holocaust."  In
  letter Furl wrote, and this is what is important, Walter
  Furl writes in June 1942 to his SS comrades:
"Every day trains are arriving with over a
  thousand Jews each from throughout Europe.  We provide
  first aid here", he was writing from Krakau.  "He gives
  them more or less provisional accommodation and usually
  deport them further towards the white sea, to the white
  Ruthenian marsh lands where they all - if they survive -
  and Jews from ... Vienna or Pressburg certainly won't,
  will be gathered by the end of the war but not without
  having first built a few roads.  (But we are not supposed
  to talk about it)."

. P-202



Do you see in this any echoes of the Wannsee
  conference, the road building?
A.  No.  I see something completely different here.  I am
  asking myself what are your standards for quoting
  documents.  This is a part of a document.  We do not know
  where the document is.  You know, we do not know in which
  context it stood.  It is quoted by Gotz Aly, and Gotz Aly
  who has actually researched this area quite thoroughly, is
  commenting on this document, this is a camouflage document.
Q.  Yes.
A.  I think at this stage I am prepared, because he has seen
  the context and the evidence, I am prepared to follow him
  here, if I have not seen the other parts of the document.
Q.  But this is all he quotes.  He does not quote any more
  than this part.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Where does he say that it is a camouflage
  document.  Camouflaging function, I missed that.
A.  I think I trust him here.  He is right.
MR IRVING:  Once again this is a document where even though is
  a man writing to his own SS comrades ----
A.  Yes, that is a ----
Q.  --- a private letter?
A.  Part of a private letter, a quotation probably.  I do not
  know the context of the letter.  Maybe it says in the next
  paragraph:  "But this is all nonsense.  This is

. P-203



  camouflage".  I do not have the letter.  Give me the
  letter and I am happy to comment on it, but I am following
  here Gotz Aly's interpretation, because it seems quite
  reasonable for me and consistent with what I am saying here.
Q.  I am sorry, Dr K Longerich, quite clearly if Gotz Aly had
  found any evidence in that letter of the kind you
  mentioned, he would certainly have put it in, would he
  not?  If there is any other clue in the letter that it was
  camouflage, then, boy, wouldn't he have put it in?
A.  I do not know.  I cannot speculate about Gotz Aly's
  attitude here.  You are representing a document, only part
  of a document, no context, and you clearly said that the
  author did not accept this as an authentic, as a kind of
  document which reflects the intentions of the Nazis.  He
  says it is a camouflage document, and as long as I have
  not seen the document itself I think he is quite right in
  doing so.
Q.  But is it not another reference to the white sea which is
  what Heydrich talked about in Prague two months earlier?
A.  I think I do not have to repeat what I am saying.  Yes,
  but ----
Q.  Is it not also a bit of a feeble answer, if I may say so,
  that every time a document comes up that it does not fit
  in with your own preconceptions, like the Schlegelberger
  document or something like that, you say:  This is

. P-204



  unimportant or that is camouflage or you cannot believe
  what this document says?
A.  This is not a document.  This is a quotation from a book
  somebody quoted add part of a document.  This is not a
  document.  This is a quotation from a book, and the author
  of the book quite clearly states that he does not believe
  what -- he thinks that this is a camouflage document and
  one should not trust what this SS man is saying.
Q.  Dr Longerich, in your own expert report you have quoted
  any number of documents printed in other people's books,
  have you not?
A.  I have done that, but I have not presented here as
  evidence for actually, you know -- I have not actually
  dared presented them here and saying, well, actually I am
  quoting from a document but I am not going along with the
  conclusions the author drew from this document.  So it is
  a different case.
MR IRVING:  My Lord, I do not want to add any more to that
  document.  I have put the document in.  I think it is
  significant.  The witness thinks it is camouflage.
A.  No, I do not have any reason to mistrust Gotz Aly in his
  comment on this document, on this part of this document.
MR IRVING:  Does your Lordship wish to comment on it?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, I do not.  Thank you very much.
MR IRVING:  In that case, I would respectfully submit that we
  might adjourn now, it is a useful hiatus point, unless

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  Mr Rampton wishes to make a point.
MR RAMPTON:  No, I do not want to make any points.  I am
  concerned about the length of time everything is taking.
  It means I think the schedule has to be rewritten.  It
  means probably we will not get to Professor Funke until Wednesday.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Why do you say that?  Another half day and
  I hope it will be less.
MR RAMPTON:  Another half day and then I have a day or a day
  and a half cross-examination.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is half a day more than your previous estimate.
MR RAMPTON:  No, it is not.  I told somebody, I hope it was
  your Lordship, that I thought it might go over one day, beyond a day.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Can you Dr Funke lined up for Tuesday midday
  just in case?
MR RAMPTON:  Yes, I will.  He will be in court on Tuesday.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.
MR RAMPTON:  There is only one other thing.  I have from Munich
  now the relevant transcript which, contrary to the thing
  that Mr Irving produced, is not dated 11th May but 12th
  December 1942.  It makes it difficult to find things if we
  do not get the right reference.  I will pass them out, if
  I may.  They are the Karl Wolff and it is the whole thing
  as well, instead of being a redacted version.

. P-206



MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Whilst we have that in mind shall we just
  have a look and see what it says at the relevant bit?
MR IRVING:  Yes.  I think possibly the witness might like to
  look at it and be asked if he ----
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Absolutely, that is what I meant.
MR RAMPTON:  The relevant page has 4 at the top of it,
  I think.  I would prefer actually, my Lord, if it is
  possible, it is a good idea of Miss Rogers, that the
  witness really ought to be given time to read the whole thing.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  He can come back to it, but would you mind
  for my benefit whilst it is in my head just to find -- --
MR RAMPTON:  It is the bottom half of page 4.
MR IRVING:  Page 31 it starts.
MR IRVING:  I think it is a useful exercise, my Lord, if
  I translate the entire document.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I would be grateful if you would translate
  now for me: "Nach dem rautign Uberglick".  I can guess
  what it means, but I am probably wrong.
MR IRVING:  On which page is that?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is the bottom of page 4, about eight lines
  up from the bottom, six lines up from the bottom.
MR IRVING:  "According to what we know now that it was perhaps
  70 people from Himmler to Hirst.
MR JUSTICE "GRAY:  According to what we know now".
MR IRVING:  Yes, that is the way I would translate that, or

. P-207



  seen from the present standpoint.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You would rather have a bit of time to
  consider this, would you, Dr Longerich?
A.  Yes.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am going to put this immediately after 14A
  in your clip.
MR RAMPTON:  The only thing I would point though is that at the
  bottom of page 4 of what I might call the authentic
  version there is a sentence relating to Martin Bormann
  which naturally makes a link with Hitler which is missed
  out of Mr Irving's version.
A.  Which page is that?
MR RAMPTON:  Page 31 at the bottom or 4 at the top, there is a
  sentence "G.W. Bormann" and so on and that is not in the
  version that was presented this morning.  It is an earlier
  sentence, two sentences earlier, has been missed out as
  well.  I do not know whether it is significant.
MR IRVING:  I will translate the entire document and I will fax
  it through to you at the weekend.
A.  As far as I can see from the document, he is basically
  saying two things.  He is saying, yes, we carried out the
  Holocaust, the Final Solution, we killed, we tried and we
  were able to, we killed millions of Jews.  He talks about
  Millionen Morden on page 5, and on the other hand he is
  saying, well, actually Himmler did it on his own
  initiative because he thought that he could fulfil

. P-208



  Hitler's ideas.  So I do not know, I mean I do not know
  how you put your case, you know, how you want to deal with
  the document.  Are you saying this is a kind of
  confirmation that millions of Jews were actually killed in
  extermination camps?  I mean what is the way you want to
  deal with the document?  Are you only relying on parts of
  it and you would then refuse other parts of the documents?
MR IRVING:  At first blush does the document look self-serving
  to you?
A.  Yes, I think so, because he wants to, I mean Wolf's aim
  was of course to distance himself from the events.  So he
  is saying, well, actually this operation was only carried
  out by 70 people.  So he did not of course admit that it
  was a much, much larger operation.  So there is a kind of
  self-serving in it.  Also this is his personal, the
  impression he had.  He is in talking in 1952 about events
  ten years earlier.  Wolff was of course an admirer of
  Hitler and he tried to distance Hitler from the Holocaust,
  from this history.  I do not see how much
  I should -- I mean I can accept this is Wolf's view in
  1952, but I do not see how this could destroy the other
  evidence.  Also which part of the story are you accepting,
  the part that Himmler ordered Millionen Morden, the
  killing of millions of people, or the other part that
  Hitler was not involved in?
Q.  Well, you have accepted that the order of a million Jews

. P-209



  were killed on the Eastern Front, I think, there is no
  question about that.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Despite your acceptance that it is
  self-serving, I think it may be quite important to have
  another look at this on Monday morning.  I think it might
  be as well perhaps to have in my mind on Monday morning
  the reference when it was first introduced in evidence
  today, because my recollection is that you put it forward
  as being a document which could be relied on.
MR IRVING:  Indeed, my Lord, yes.  I certainly will not depart
  from that.  I am just about to ask one final question of
  the witness.  Dr Longerich, this is an interview between
  Karl Wolff which he has requested to be kept confidential,
  is it not?
A.  No, I do not think so.
Q.  Did you yourself say that the Karl Wolff collection at the
  time you wished to see it was kept confidential?
A.  No, you confuse two points.  You referred yesterday to
  memoirs of Karl Wolff, and they are not generally
  accessible, but the collection S Zeugenschrift, I
  know this collection quite well, is open, everybody can go
  in the Institute and make a photocopy and use it.  These
  are the internal interviews the Institute made in the
  1950s.  By the way, the interviews are in a way not
  verbatim transcripts.  These are a kind summary that the
  person who made the interviews actually made.

. P-210



Q.  Were they originally kept confidential, these interviews?
A.  Not that I am aware of.  I am using this since the 1970s
  and I think they were publicly accessible to everybody.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I notice that Mr Irving's manuscript is - ---
A.  Not this one, but I know the collection.  I spent a lot of
  time reading this.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving's manuscript is headed
  "Confidential" I notice, but that does not appear to be
  on the original.
A.  Where is that?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is page 14 in the clip you got this morning.
MR IRVING:  Yes.  My Lord, access to a lot of these documents
  is going to be on the basis of confidentiality by the
  Institute, because these people are still alive.  My final
  question is, this is an interview by an historian and not
  by a prosecutor, is it not?
A.  An historian, yes.
Q.  Would you expect an interview by an historian to obtain
  other information from a witness than a prosecutor would,
  a different kind of overall picture?
A.  One has to discuss the quality of this particular
  interview.  An historian, I do not know this person, I do
  not know who -- I think it was Wolfgang Ziegel, as far as
  I can see -- I have my doubts about his quality as a good
  interviewer I have to say.  I think he was sitting

. P-211



  together with people, chatting with them, and then he was
  going home and made a kind of summary.  It is not an
  accurate verbatim protocol, a minute of a meeting.
Q.  Do you have any basis for saying that it is not an
  accurate protocol?
A.  It is not a verbatim, it is not countersigned as far as
  I see from Wolff.  So he visited Wolff in Munich in his
  flat, chatted with him, went back to the Institute and
  wrote down, you know, his general view about this.
Q.  Would he have taken notes, do you think, during the interview?
A.  I do not know.  I have no idea.  Sometimes interviewees
  say:  "Please do not take notes".  I do not know what
  Wolff's attitude was.  I have no indication of that.
MR IRVING:  Thank you.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We will resume on Monday at 10.30.

(The witness stood down).
(The Court adjourned until Monday, 28th February 2000


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