Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day029.10 Last-Modified: 2000/07/25 Q. As we discussed earlier today in this court, recent discoveries have very little bearing on your competence or honesty as an historian. Page 86 Mr Irving. What is it . P-84 that Professor Fleming is reciting on the top of that page? A. He is referring to the Muller document, about which of course I have made representations to this court, dated August 1st 1941. Q. Yes. The Muller document saying the Fuhrer is to have running or continuous information, or reports, about the work of the Einsatzgruppen in the East. A. Got to be kept au courant. Q. Laufend is the German. A. I was using a French phrase on the work of the Einsatzgruppen in the East, yes. Q. Do you remember that I put it to you in cross-examination that, contrary to what you said in court, you were indeed familiar with the Muller order of 1st August? A. You put to me, yes. Q. Are you saying you did not read this passage in Fleming's book? A. I have to say that you are asking me about something 18 years later but I can say with great confidence that, as there are no kind of markings on those pages, then, with the high degree of probability, I did not read them. Q. Then I asked you by reference to this very passage, "Have you read Gerald Fleming's book?" And your answer is, "I have not read that book". A. I have not read the book as such, no. But may I also say . P-85 that had I seen that passage about the Muller document, which is very interesting, obviously, I would have written to my friends at the Institute of History or the very next time I went there, because that is the source he gives there, footnote 172, and on my next visit to Munich after 1982 I would have said, "Can I, by the way, have a look at that file, please?" and, obviously, that is one indication that I did not see that document. But I have to say that I will have submissions to make about that document when the time comes unless the Defence can produce the exact file of where it is stated to be. Q. Do not worry; we are working on it, Mr Irving. Don't you worry about that. A. Well, I am just reminding... Q. We have plenty of time and lots of contacts. Many rabbits ---- A. Well, I need time after I have been told the file number, of course, to make use of it. Q. There are many rabbits in this burrow. Do you remember, Mr Irving, that in your account of the conference on 16th and 17th April 1943 you transposed a remark made by Hitler on 16th as though it had been made on the 17th? A. Yes, that is one of the two errors I have corrected in the new edition of my Hitler book. Q. I am pleased to hear it. My reason for asking you that is this. You have been aware of what the true chronology was . P-86 at least since 1977, have you not? A. Yes -- wait a minute, wait -- yes, since 197. Q. Martin Broszat pointed it out to you? A. Yes. Q. Do you remember writing to a Mr Ashton on 31st December 1978? A. Oh, yes, clearly. What did I say? Can we see the letter, please? Q. I will but I will just read it out. A. I am being sarcastic. Q. We may not need to get it out. "As for your views on the 1943 Horthy document, I believe I have replied to you quite fully about this, drawing your attention to Hitler's explicit remark to the Reichs vorweise" one day previously? A. Yes. Q. --- "to the effect that nobody was asking him to kill the Jews"? A. Yes. Q. So in 1978 you were fully conscious that Hitler's remark, "There is no need for that" ---- A. Was one day earlier. Q. --- was made on a previous day? A. Yes. Q. And you never corrected it, did you? A. No. But you know my views on that, Mr Rampton, that . P-87 whether the remark is dated in my book on April 6th or April 17th, I think that is a very flimsy peg and the hat falls on the floor ---- Q. I hear what you say, Mr Irving. A. I beg your pardon? Q. I said I hear what you say. A. Well, you interrupted me before I had finished. Q. That was the excuse, if I can put it like that, that you gave us last time. A. In fact, it is one of the errors I corrected in the latest edition because it is a minor error, but it is worth picking up. Q. Yes. I want to ask you about another document from 1942. My Lord, this is the Kinner Report from Zamosk in Poland on 16th December 1942. I believe your Lordship will find that in file K2, tab 4, page 19A (vi). For once, my Lord, we have the English as well as the German. This is an English translation, Mr Irving, but you would probably prefer to use the German, I do not know. A. I have them both here. Q. It concerns, does it not, a transport of 644 Poles to the work camp at Auschwitz on 10th December 1942, am I right? A. Yes. Q. If you turn to look at the second page under the subheading or by the underlined subheading "arbeit Einsatzfahigskeit". . P-88 A. In German, yes, I have that. Q. Yes, or the English. "Capacity for employment as labour". We find this: "SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Halmeier", in fact, that is a mistake for Almeier, "explained that only Poles capable of work should be delivered so as to avoid as far as possible any useless burdening of the camp and also of the delivery traffic. In order to relieve the camp, limited people, idiots, cripples and sick people must be removed", the word is "entfernt", "from the same", that is the camp, "by liquidation". The word there is "liquidation", is it not? A. Yes -- very explicit. Q. It is very explicit. There again we see another example, as in Himmler's closing speech of 4th October 1943, of removal and liquidation, evacuation and extermination being used synonymously, do we not? A. Yes. Q. "This measure", that is to say liquidation, "however becomes more difficult to implement because, according to an order from the RSHA", the English is translated as "in opposition to"? A. "In contrast to", I think. Q. Yes, "in contrast to", I was going to suggest that, "in contrast to the measures applied to the Jews, the Poles must die a natural death." Does that not mean, Mr Irving, in fairly unvarnished terms, that whereas Poles must be . P-89 kept alive until they die, the Jews can be killed? A. I think that is the interpretation on those words, yes. Q. And this is in relation to procedures at Auschwitz, is it not? A. It is in relation to Auschwitz, yes. Q. Yes, because Aumeier was at Auschwitz, was he not? A. Yes. Q. Is that not some sort of rather powerful evidence that Auschwitz, so far as Jews were concerned, was so far from being a work camp a place where they were being exterminated, liquidated? A. Well, I am not saying they were being exterminated; it is a place where they are not being protected and ---- Q. They can be killed at will, can they not? A. That is right, yes, according to this document. Q. Are you mistrustful of this document? A. No. I am not challenging the authenticity of the document at all, but it is ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: But are you challenging what is said here, that the policy appears to have been, in relation at least to this transportation, that any Jews who were not fit for labour would be liquidated? A. The comment I would I make on this document, and obviously it is an important document, I am not challenging that respect, but is written by an SS, what, Untersturmfuhrer which is, what -- I have to look at my military dictionary . P-90 and see the rank, but it is an SS corporal, I think. Q. Well, he is quoting an SS Haupsturmfuhrer which is going slightly higher up the hierarchy. A. He is what? Q. He is quoting Aumeier. A. But the actual document has written or drafted by an SS corporal and we have had this kind of problem with documents before, that you have to be very careful if you are going to look at actual words used or actual senses conveyed, and I do not want to put it more strongly than that, just to say that -- I do not want to put it more strongly than that. I just want to say that it is -- the corporal's language, he is not a lawyer drafting a document. MR RAMPTON: No, if he had been, Mr Irving, he might have used rather more guarded language? A. No, I do not ---- Q. That is the advantage of these janitorial documents, is it not, that one sees the truth? A. I agree it is an important document. It says the Jews are being killed at Auschwitz and this has not been denied. Q. The word is actually "liquidate"? A. Yes. Q. "Liquidation". A. Yes. Well, that is why I say that this is the kind of language the corporals would probably have used to each . P-91 other. Q. Yes. Now we are going to go even further back in time, Mr Irving. We are going to go back via your book Goebbels 1935, 33, 34, and 32, but we are going to do it in one sentence, as it were. Have you got your Goebbels book, Mr Irving? A. Yes. My Lord page. Q. My Lord, page 46 of Goebbels. A. Yes. Q. My Lord, this relates to pages 692 to 698 of Professor Evans' report. It has to do with criminal statistics in Berlin and to some extent Germany but Berlin in 1932 to '35, and the way in which Mr Irving has represented the Jewish share of those criminal statistics, if I may put it like that. Generally speaking, in this part of the book you are discussing, in general terms, how it was that Goebbels came to be so radical and anti-Semite? A. No. Q. This is general context, is it not? A. I do not think so. I am explaining how Goebbels came to be so successful in Berlin with his anti-Semitism, if I can put it like that? Q. OK. It does not matter. It is all about Berlin, is it not? A. Yes, and why his anti-Semitism found a fertile audience. . P-92 Q. Yes, in the first, second and third paragraphs on page 46 there are some references to the Jewish deputy police chief, Dr Wernhart Weiss, and then at the bottom of the page, it starts: "Dr Goebbels would shun no libel to blacken his", that is Dr Weiss's, "name. Instinctively carrying on an ancient tradition of name calling he seized on Dr Weiss' nickname of 'Isidor' and commissioned the scurrilous Nazi marching song about him. He would highlight", that is Goebbels, "every malfeasance of the criminal demimondes and identify it as Jewish. In these closing years of the Weimar Republic he was unfortunately not always wrong." So now, Mr Irving, we are getting a recitation of the true facts as opposed to Goebbels' propaganda. "In 1930 Jews would be convicted in 42 of 210 known narcotics smuggling cases; in 1932 69 of the 272 known international narcotics dealers were Jewish. Jews were arrested in over 60 per cent of the cases concerning the running of illegal gambling dens; 193 of the 411 pickpockets arrested in 1932 were Jews. In 1932 no fewer than 31,000 cases of fraud, mainly insurance swindles, would be committed by Jews". Then we are referred to footnote 29 which we will find on pages 547 to 548. The footnote for that last statement "In 1932 no fewer than 31,000 cases of fraud, mainly insurance swindles, would be committed by Jews", footnote 29 on page . P-93 547 says: "Interpol figures" ---- A. Excuse me. The footnote refers to everything ---- Q. OK. A. --- prior to that.
Home ·
Site Map ·
What's New? ·
Search
Nizkor
© The Nizkor Project, 1991-2012
This site is intended for educational purposes to teach about the Holocaust and
to combat hatred.
Any statements or excerpts found on this site are for educational purposes only.
As part of these educational purposes, Nizkor may
include on this website materials, such as excerpts from the writings of racists and antisemites. Far from approving these writings, Nizkor condemns them and
provides them so that its readers can learn the nature and extent of hate and antisemitic discourse. Nizkor urges the readers of these pages to condemn racist
and hate speech in all of its forms and manifestations.