Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day002.08 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 . P-165 A. My Lord, there are copies made. I had all this bundle ready to be produced tomorrow. MR RAMPTON: Can I help? A. Because of the importance ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think Mr Rampton knows where it is. MR RAMPTON: I do not know if it is he same document. From its wording I very much suspect it is, but on page 353 of Professor Evans' report at paragraph 6 ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor who? MR RAMPTON: Professor Evans page 353, paragraph 6, he has a quotation from a document: "The Jews have been resettled out of the territory of the "Ouslander" (?) only to be dealt with in accordance with guidelines issued by me or the Reich Security Head Office on my authority. I will punish individual initiatives and contraventions. Signed H. Himmler", and it is annotated as being Himmler to Joachim, 1st December 1941 at 7.30 p.m. in the Public Record Office HW16/32. A. That is correct. MR RAMPTON: It is the same document. A. Does he also have the following message, let me ask Mr Rampton, where he instructs Joachim to report to headquarters immediately? MR RAMPTON: I do not have that document. A. Clearly the significance of that is even more important than this rap on the knuckles about the arbitrary . P-166 reactions and acting against authority and disobeying the guidelines. On December 1st, the day after the killings, the same day as these telegrams, here is in Himmler's own handwriting a telephone call at 1315 to SS General Heinrich about the executions in Riga which everybody agrees is referring to this appalling atrocity where the Jews had been shot into the pits. The significant feature is, as all the historians on both sides now agree, that from that time on the killing of German Jews stopped for many months. The fact that this instruction had come in the first instance from Hitler's bunker and on the following day from Heinrich Himmler who had been to see to Hitler who sends him a message that I would describe as "panic stricken" to General Joachim saying "any further actions of this nature, any arbitrary actions against the guidelines, will be severely punished and you are ordered to report to Hitler's headquarters", is a matter which I think is so serious that this is the reason why I was preparing a very detailed bundle on it, my Lord, with complete facsimiles and translations for your Lordship's attention, because it goes very closely to the central issues in this case: How far was Hitler personally involved and what were his intentions? Q. In relation to the shooting? A. Of European Jews as opposed to Russian Jews. Q. Yes, but in relation to death by shooting. . P-167 A. And also in relation to my contention, as your Lordship will be aware, that there is a chain of documents of varying magnitudes of integrity and weight which indicate that Hitler was a negative force in this matter, whereas there are no comparable documents indicating the opposite. I know it is barely credible, but if one comes to this with a open mind and then 20 years later one comes across yet another document like this extraordinary British intercept, this decode of the SS message from Himmler to the man on the spot who had done the killings, saying any further such actions will be subject to punishment and ordering him to report to Hitler's headquarters. It is an extraordinary episode and I find it also highly significant that the German historians have so far not been prepared to refer to this episode with a single line as far as its significance is concerned, because they are mortally terrified under the consequence of the new laws passed in Germany. It has been the foreign historians, like myself, who have drawn attention to this exchange of documents. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Your case really, as I understand it, that that particular example of the transport from Berlin demonstrates what you say was Hitler's role in relation to it? A. My Lord, it is one indication. It is not the only evidence that I rely upon, my Lord. . P-168 Q. No, that is what I meant by "demonstrate", "illustrates" is a better word? A. I am careful there, because when I introduced in my previous book, the November 30 handwritten annotation by Himmler, my opponent said, "this is his only evidence, this is what he relies on", and it was not, I had more. My Lord, we shall be hearing at a later stage in these proceedings Dr John Fox, who is an expert, among other things, on these police decodes, and I shall be asking him, with your Lordship's permission, the condition of these decodes and are they wall to wall? Is everything there, or are there gaps? If one finds an item like this, of course, it is a nugget, one is not entitled to expect to find it, but one find it and here it is, suddenly in our faces, you cannot ignore it. There are several documents like that, my Lord. Q. Well, I was going to invite you to perhaps pass on now from the shootings of the Jews and to skip section 3, which is the Leuchter Report? A. While I am in full flood can I move on to another Hitler document just three months later? Q. Yes, of course. A. After the Danzig Conference, which was an interministerial conflict on the executive measures for the Final Solution, whatever it was, there was a lot of paperwork in 199 - - Q. In 1942? . P-169 A. In 1942, the Danzig Conference was held on January 20th 1942, my Lord. After the Danzig Conference the ministries engaged in a lot of paperwork, and at one stage the necessity was ventilated of bringing up this matter with Adolf Hitler, whatever the Final Solution was, the Ministry of Justice began to get uneasy about it, because they could see it had ugly connotations; there were illegalities being adumbrated, and the head of the German Civil Service, Dr Hans Lammers, who was a minister, a Reich minister, telephoned the head of the German Ministry of Justice, whose name was Schlegelberger, we shall be hearing quite a bit about the Schlegelberger document and in this telephone conversation which Schlegelberger wrote a minute on, or what a lawyer would probably call an "attendance note", Lammers said "the Fuhrer", Adolf Hitler, "the Fuhrer", Adolf Hitler, "has repeatedly said he wants the solution of the Jewish problem postponed after until the war is over". This is a document that is caused my opponents immense difficulties. The difficulties they solved initially by pretending it did not exist, by which I mean they did not quote it. They did not adduce it in their history books, and when that thorn in the flesh, David Irving, kept on reminding them of existence of this document, which tripped them up whatever their hypotheses were, that is when the real battle began, the skirmishing began. But I think your . P-170 Lordship will appreciate that I am entitled to point to that document as being another document in that chain of evidence, unless of course I have deliberately mistranslated it, or misconstrued it. Q. No, I do not think that is suggested. A. Yes, but it is clearly a very important document. A wartime document written by a lawyer on a phone call from the head of the German Civil Service, who is the next one up to Adolf Hitler, saying the Fuhrer has repeatedly said he wants the solution of the Jewish problem postponed until after the war was over, which was typical Adolf Hitler, anything like that he wanted put on the back burner he had fought this ghastly war through. There were several problems like that, the church problem was another one. Q. What was Schlegelberger's position? A. He was at that time, as I understand it, Secretary of State, which is the equivalent of a permanent Under Secretary in a British ministry. In the Ministry of Justice, his Minister was Dr Franz Goertner, who I believe had died recently at that time, so he was effectively in charge of the Ministry, Schlegelberger, and the minute he wrote was directed to a few notorious names including Rowland Friessler. It is quite an interesting document and interesting about the document, my Lord, is at the time of the Nuremberg trials it vanished. It remained in . P-171 original in the Ministry files, but the photocopies provided to the lawyers at Nuremberg, this extraordinary document, vanished. It was not there, and it gave me a lot of trouble locating the original eventually. Q. Yes. Would you like to pass on now, do you accept that the Leuchter report is plainly part and parcel of the Auschwitz issue? A. Yes. Q. I think that must be right. Then the next section in the Defendant's summary of case, which is -- A. The Leuchter Report, of course, exists in two incarnations, my Lord. The original Leuchter Report was an affidavit drawn up as an expert report for the Canadian courts and what we published was a glossy version truncated and streamlined. Q. -- but it was basically the same? A. Made the same allegations and on the same contentions. Q. We will leave that on one side, shall we. A. Yes. Q. I can see it comes in in some other context. Then there is a heading called "Historiography", this is really the section where there are a whole series of detailed criticisms made of you, it being alleged that you have skewed documents and generally behaved in a -- A. Reprehensible -- Q. -- disreputable way as a historian in your treatment of . P-172 the evidence. Now it is up to you how you deal with it, you can either deal with it generally, or you can make some specific points on the instances that are cited against you? A. -- well, the general statement I would say is Mandy Rice-Davies, they have to say this, my Lord, they would say, would they not? My opponents, who I could also categorise as my rivals, dislike the fact that I get to the documents before them. For 30 years I have been the one to dig out the diaries. By way of a general remark I would say I that I would visit the widows and obtain the papers, not because I was more industrious than them, but purely because I took the trouble. I visited the widow of State Secretary Anstrom Wiedsecher, who had been Ribbentrop's State Secretary. She was Baroness Marianne von Wiedsecher, who was subsequently the mother of the State President of Germany, President von Wiedsecher and it turned out that she had all her husband's diaries and letters, which she made available to me, and was rather puzzled that she had not made them available to the German historians and her reply was, "Mr Irving, they never asked". It was the same with very many other historians -- many other historical sources. Purely by virtue of visiting the widows or next of kin or digging around I have obtained these diaries and private papers. . P-173 Q. But leaving aside digging out the evidence. A. Well, this generated the envy and jealousy which is unfortunately what has fuelled lot of the criticism. Q. I hear you say that, but what about the criticism of the use that you make the evidence once you have got it because what is said against you is that you pick and choose? A. My Lord, this is almost certainly something which can only be dealt with on piecemeal basis, they will put individual documents to me in cross-examination and to their delight I may occasionally concede that, yes, I got something wrong. I will concede that I misread the word "harbun" in Himmler's appalling handwriting, and if you were to have a look at his handwriting you will see how very similar it is. I will provide the documents to your Lordship tomorrow to the alternative word. This kind of thing happens. Q. Well, if I may say so, I think you are right that this particular topic has to be dealt with on a ... A. Piecemeal basis. Q. Well, case by case basis, I think that is it probably right, but if you want to say anything more generally at the moment about your --
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