Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day004.08 Last-Modified: 2000/08/01 Q. I am afraid, Mr Irving, I cannot possibly accept that the planners in Berlin had any such idea in their head by late 1941 whatsoever. A. Mr Rampton, you and I operate from different criteria. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Before you go on, Mr Rampton, can I just ask this? My impression is -- I may be completely wrong about this -- that these reports from the Einsatzgruppen continued to come in after the 1st December 1941. A. Oh, yes. There is the famous one of December 1942 that we read. Q. The invasion of Russia. A. That is Russian Jews being liquidated. Q. Going back to Berlin? A. They are going back to Berlin and Hitler is in East Prussia. I have to keep on reminding the court of this. Q. We are not so much concerned so much with Hitler at the moment, but Berlin. Berlin must have known that the shootings were continuing on, as you would accept, a massive scale? A. I accept this my Lord, yes. Q. To that extent, would you accept it is systematic, or would you say not? A. I think to the extent that Mely was systematic, the Vietnamese war was systematic, and these things happen. They are subsequently covered up by the people in charge. . P-66 But it is very difficult to make definitive statements in the absence of any evidence one way or the other. I prefer just to leave the facts to speak for themselves, rather than try and fill in the gaps and join the dots. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you. MR RAMPTON: Look at the bottom of this document, Mr Irving. A. Yes. Q. Just above the handwritten "FN8", you will see Jaeger's total? A. Yes. Q. Of executions carried out, 137,346? A. Yes. Q. From all over the Einsatz commander 3 area, whichever that was? A. Yes. Q. But it included Kovno and Vilner amongst its places. A. Yes. Q. Have you gone done the figures on this report? A. No, but I will walk through them with you if you wish. Q. Well, it is going to be easier, of course you will have time to check whether I am right or not, of 137,000 roughly speaking, people executed, about 98.5 per cent are identified as having been Jews; men, women and children? A. Yes. Q. And this report goes back to Berlin? . P-67 A. Yes. Q. What happens to Herr Jaeger, whatever his rank might have been? Was he sacked? A. That I do not know. Q. Imprisoned? A. That I do not know. Q. Court martialled? A. Nothing happened to Jeckeln either, who was told by the chief of the SS he had overstepped guidelines. I would have thought that was about as serious a reprimand as you can get. Q. This is completely at random, really, because one can take any number of examples; the massacre of 33,000 Jews in one go, Jews from Kiev in two days 29th and 30th September 19942? A. Do you wish to lead evidence on that? Q. No, I want to know if you know about it. A. You wanted to? Q. I want to know if you know about it. A. About Babiyar (?) Q. 1941, yes. A. I do not know in detail about it. I do not know any forensic detail about it. I know what the perception is. Q. That is contained in one of these Heydrich -- A. If you say so. Q. Do not these things jump out at you, Mr Irving? This vast . P-68 number of recorded deaths is being shipped back laboriously, and carefully typewritten reports by the murderers to the head of the security service, call it what you like? A. I accept that, but this is of great interest to a Holocaust historian, but not to an Hitler historian, if you appreciate the difference. Q. I do not think there is a difference, Mr Irving. There is two reasons, at least, why I -- or more than two but the two will do for the present without going the documents out. The first is that letter from Muller to the Einsatzgruppen at the beginning of August 1941, which I am sure you are familiar with? A. I think the Fuhrer takes an interest in ---- Q. No, I am saying the Fuhrer will be getting continuous reports on the work of the Einsatzgruppen? A. The Fuhrer has asked to be given. Q. Or whatever, the Fuhrer has asked to be given continuous reports on the work of the Einsatzgruppen? A. Can you remind us when this letter came into the public domain? Q. No, Mr Irving, please do not keep changing the subject. A. Well, this is important, because I am accused of manipulating documents before me when I wrote my books, this letter has only recently come to the attention of historians. . P-69 Q. You say, you do accept it as evidence of system, I think this is the effect of your answer, going as far up the tree as Heydrich, but not as far as Hitler? A. There is now evidence from that document that Hitler asked to be kept informed of the activities of the Einsatzgruppen. Q. I cannot tell you myself when that document first came into the public domain. I will find out. -- A. Well, I can tell you from my knowledge, it came when the Moscow archives debouched what they had and historians started going through them. Q. -- you are, however, fully familiar with what we shall certainly propose is one of the progeny of that order, that Hitler should see what the Einsatzgruppen were doing, at least, which is report No. 51 signed by Heydrich Himmler on September 1941? A. I do not accept there is a direct connection between that stray document of August 1941 and the December 1942 stray document, which is one of a long series of reports by Himmler to Hitler on interesting things. Q. It is not a stray document in any sense at all. It is a sheet that actually went straight into the pen. It was destined for Hitler, and as you accepted -- I cannot remember which day -- Hitler probably saw it. A. December 29th. Q. Yes. . P-70 A. Yes. Q. It is not a stray document? A. I think I referred to in my books. I have given the figures. I have stated the facts and I said it was shown to Hitler. I have not concealed these documents. I am the first person to have found them, and immediately brought them to the attention of the world. Q. Why then do you turn your face so firmly against any possibility that Hitler was at the heart or the root or the origin of this exercise? A. Mr Rampton, the distinction may be a bit too subtle, but I am not saying that, what I am saying is there is no evidence that he was. Possibly we are on the same side, but I am saying that there is a total shortage of evidence that Hitler was being informed of what was going on in these mass shootings and that when he did know he took steps to stop it, and that there is this one instance of a document going from Himmler to Hitler which obviously has to be brought to the attention of my readers, which I do. But otherwise there is very little evidence to support any contention such as are you trying to make out. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, the Muller document, which I understand you did not know about because it had not emerged does now provide some support for the ---- A. Indeed, I put it in the latest edition of the book, my Lord, because it is clearly a relevant document for people . P-71 to know about. I think so far before the December 1942 document it would be adventurous to try and draw a causal link between them. MR RAMPTON: There is no evidence at all that these mass shootings of Jews generally did stop, is there, on account of any order from anybody? A. Mass shootings of German Jews stopped for several months. Q. That, as I said the other day, is common ground between us. A. Then they gradually picked up again because of the general criminality of the officers on the Eastern Front who had these victims in their charge. MR JUSTICE GRAY: But you are now talking about non-German Jews or Jews who are not German? A. I do not think there was any pause in the killing of non-German Jews. I think they were quite happy to get rid of them. MR RAMPTON: As a matter of fact there was. Again this was something which I do not know whether you have seen it before or not, I can tell you in a moment where it came from. Have you got H3(i) there still? A. Yes. Page? Q. Could you turn to footnote 50. It is about halfway through the file. MR JUSTICE GRAY: To what, Mr Rampton. MR RAMPTON: Footnote 50, FN 50. It merely reflects the . P-72 footnote in Professor Browning's report. This is one of these -- I think it is one of these (German spoken) that he tells us that it is. No. 10 for February 1942. No I have given it the wrong name. If you look at its first page, this is a reprint. A. Yes. Q. Which he translates, and no doubt correctly, as activity and situation of the Einsatzgruppen of the security police and the SD in the USSR; do you see that at the bottom of left hand column, Mr Irving? A. Yes. Q. Yes. If you turn over the page, the right hand column, halfway down the page, at letter C, you see a separate entry; "Juden"? A. Yes. Q. Will you please, it says: "Nacht... Juden as... kind"; tell me what that means. A. After in the Baltic provinces the Jewish question can be regarded as virtually solved and dealt with. Q. Carry on. A. The clarification of this problem, the solution of this problem in the remaining occupied territories of the east is continuing, making further steps; do you wish me to continue. Q. No, there is no need for that. That is Heydrich reporting that in the Ostland, that is -- . P-73 A. Well, we do not know that because I have only two pages of this report but. You are saying it is a report by Heydrich. Q. -- I do not know, it may not be. That is what Professor Browning tells us. It may be something else, in fact. He says on page 16 of this report in early 1942 Heydrich reported -- you can take it up with him if you do not accept it is Heydrich. A. I just do not have the complete document, so I cannot tell. Q. That means, does it not, in effect this, no need to shoot any more of the Jews in Ostland because they would all have gone, nearly all gone? A. It does not say that. It just -- Q. That is what it means. A. -- the problem has gone away -- Q. Yes, I know, look at it as an historian as opposed to a literary critic; that is what it means. A. -- I read out what it meant. I gave you the literal translation of it. Q. I am not asking for a translation, the input, significance of what you read out is that there is no need to do any more mass shootings in the Ostland because they have all been killed? A. This conclusion can be drawn from it, yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Ostland" there is referring to what? . P-74 A. Baltic provinces, three Baltic states. MR RAMPTON: Your Lordship will see the problem in other Einsatzgruppen areas in a moment. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Because the East is sometimes a reference to the front with Russia, is it not? A. Well -- MR RAMPTON: Yes, the Ostland is specifically though I think, am I right? A. It is a reference to Baltic provinces. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The Baltic States. A. Sometimes "the East" is also a euphemism for something uglier, too as I point out in my books. MR RAMPTON: The very next document, Mr Irving, says Professor Browning, is a protocol, it is a German word, my Lord, it is FN 51, just the next document after the divider, I hope. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON: The protocol, it is very difficult to read. Of a meeting held, I think, in Minsk on 29th January. You see somebody has also written "um" 29th January, do you see that Mr Irving? A. Yes, but it is not a date, the formality for writing a date like "London" and December 1st 1941, in German you would always have "dien".
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