Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day016.10 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 Q. Like Goldhagen, for example? A. I worked there a great deal. They have a collection which is a USSR folder which has lots of materials, copies from Ludwigsberg. So I have seen some of these documents sitting in Jerusalem, that once they were out, the Xerox machines worked and copies were now accessible in a number of places. Q. Can I ask you to look on paragraph 5 or the report paragraph 3.2? A. 3.2 yes. Q. You say that the Nazis sought to destroy all the documentary evidence and that is why we are so hard up. A. Yes, I mean, they certainly -- for instance, we have none of the internal papers of Eichmann's bureau. We have his correspondence in which copies ended up with the Foreign Office and elsewhere, but he seems to done a very good in destroying virtually all of his papers, as an example. There are pockets of Himmler documents that have survived, as you and I both know, but certainly some that did not. And that we have seen orders, for instance, from Heydrich to people that destroyed documents. Q. What disturbs me is your suggestion in paragraph 3.2, not so much a suggestion as a lament, that we have any amount . P-69 of evidence relating to the shootings, but virtually nothing at all relating to gassings? A. The number of written documents relating to shootings is far more extensive than the number of documents relating to gassings in Operation Reinhardt. I was not dealing with gassings elsewhere. Q. You used the useful concept of it not being symmetrical. It is rather lopsided. A. Yes. Q. Is there any methodological reason for that in your opinion? A. Well, I think if we read Globocnik's ---- Q. I mean, assuming the gassings took place on this kind of scale that is now alleged, is there any reason why the documents should not be available on the same scale? A. Two reasons, I think. First is it seems that there were much more reporting back to Berlin concerning the shootings, that is, we have the structure of these daily reports and then Heydrich formulated them into bi- monthly and monthly reports, and circulating them among up to 100 people on the Verteile, the distribution sheet. In terms of Operation Reinhardt, we have no evidence of regular reports back of this nature. We do have Globocnik's letter to Himmler in early 1944: "I have destroyed all the documents except those relating to finances. Can we get the audit done so I can destroy . P-70 those too?" Q. Yes, I am familiar with that document. Can you suggest any logical reason why they would have destroyed one category of documents but not the others? After all, they were in the killing business, you tell us, and Jews are the victims, so why should they have been more methodical in their destruction of the gassing documents than the shooting documents? A. I think they probably produced many fewer documents relating to the three camps that were centralised under Globocnik in Lublin, while the shooting we have in a sense both the reports that go back to Berlin and things like the Brest-litovsk document, individual police reports that have survived in pockets, but certainly nothing comprehensive like the Einsatzgruppen reports. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Browning, I am not sure you have quite answered Mr Irving's question. A. So that more shooting documents will survive because shooting took place in a decentralized way, and so you will have pockets of documents that survive in this area or that area. But given that the Operation Reinhardt activities were centralized, there would not be local documents about them at this police station or that police station, some of which would have slipped through and not been destroyed. So I think you have a much more centralised document base which was then systematically . P-71 destroyed and you do not have as many strays that managed to survive by inadvertence. MR IRVING: I am not sure that it is helpful that you refer to Operation Reinhardt, or perhaps you ought to define what you mean by Operation Reinhardt at this stage? A. I would take Globocnik's own definition which was that it was the camps, the deportation from the gettoes to the camps and the collection and use of the materials collected and the use of Jewish labour. I believe there those are four functions, if my memory serves me right. Q. But, of course, there is a function that you have not mentioned, in other words, the killing was not specified as a function of Operation Reinhardt. A. Well, he talks about the camps, and it is my opinion, as you clearly know, that those camps were created to kill Jews. Q. Yes, but these camps were operating on a loose rain, shall we say? They did not need the paperwork? A. I do not think -- I do not know but I do not suspect once that they were a routine and they were stationery, unlike the police that are reporting back, "We are going from here to here" and have multiple duties of which they report about. Here they have one primary function. They were not moving. You do not report every day, "We are still in Sobibor. We have not moved to somewhere else". Q. Yes, but you are familiar with the fact that the . P-72 concentration camp commandants made regular reports back to Berlin? A. But Operation Reinhardt is not under the concentration camp system in Berlin and the economic administrative office. They are under Globocnik and are not part of that chain of command and report. Q. Whom did Globocnik come under? A. Globocnik technically comes under Kruger who -- Globocnik is the SS and police leader for Lublin. He is under Kruger who is the higher SS and police leader for the general government ---- Q. That is Friedrich Wilhelm Kruger? A. Yes, and higher SS and police leaders were appointed personally by Himmler, sent out as his emissaries. In this case we know ---- Q. In parallel to Hans Frank. Hans Frank had a lot of friction with Kruger? A. No, I mean, Hans Frank is not within the SS or under Himmler. He is appointed by Hitler as the Colonial Governor of the General Government. Q. So there are two parallel systems operating here; there is the SS police system and there is the colonial government of Hans Frank? A. There is a civil administration and an SS police structure, yes. Q. What happened after Kruger was killed in, what, February . P-73 1943 or whenever? A. I did not believe he was killed. I thought he was replaced. Q. He was replaced? A. I do not recollect his fate but I certainly ---- Q. Who replaced him? A. I would have to look at that. I do not know. Q. So this killing system, or this camp system, in other words, came under Globocnik, who came Kruger, who came under Himmler direct. A. Yes, but we do know that Globocnik often was in direct contact with Himmler and got special tasks from Himmler. So it may well have been that there is only a link from Globocnik directly to Himmler. Kruger may know what is going on, but may not be getting -- this is speculation on my part because we do not have any of that kind of communication. Q. Yes. What was Globocnik's fate during the war? Did he fall into disfavour? A. He had been, earlier before the war, the Gauleichter in Vienna, I believe, had been caught up in the financial scandal. He was then used by Himmler in Lublin until the fall of '43. After this was done, he, like many of the others, were sent to fight partisans in Yugoslavia and he is replaced. Q. Yes. But was he not replaced as part of a financial . P-74 scandal? A. No, I do not believe that we have definitive evidence on that at all. Q. To what extent did the loot play an important part in the considerations of the SS, if I can put it like that, their decision to kill thousands, hundreds of thousands, of Jews, that they were eager to get their hands on their property? A. I do not believe that is a major factor at all, but it is a concern to get the loot as a by-product of the killing, you will -- that is, I believe they got to the loot because they had killed the Jews. They did not kill the Jews in order to get to the loot. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I go back to a question asked by Mr Irving earlier on and ask it in a slightly different form? If Berlin was interested in getting reports of the shootings, the numbers of the various categories killed, why (and I think this is really the thrust of his question) should they not have been interested in similar statistics in relation to gassing at the various camps? A. I cannot give you an exact answer to that because it is not discussed in the documentation. Heydrich is the one that gets the reports from the police units. Himmler is the one that is getting reports from Globocnik. It may only be they had different ways of operation. I cannot say exactly an answer to your question because I . P-75 simply have not seen documentation that will explain it. MR IRVING: Can I just hand you this document, Professor, and a copy for his Lordship as well? There is no need to read it. Just look at the general character of it. Are you familiar with these documents in the British archives? A. I have seen copies of some of them. I have not actually worked in the decrypts in the PRO, no. Q. Have you had any contact with Professor Richard Brightman? A. Yes. Q. Or with his English researcher, a Dr John Fox? A. I have had no recent contact with John Fox. The last time I saw him was 1992. Q. Are you familiar with the fact that there are in the British archives now many tens of thousands of these intercepts of German SS and police messages? A. I do not know the number, but I know there are a large number.
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