Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day016.23 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 Q. He claimed he got it from Eichmann. Was Hoertel prosecuted at all in any way at the end of the war for his role as a member of the Gestapo? A. I do not know, but I have certainly not come across him as having been involved in the Final Solution. But there are many people ---- Q. Did he give evidence in Nuremberg on behalf of the Allies? A. That again I cannot say. Q. Will you go to page 16 of your report, please, paragraph 4.2.8? Can we have a look at the source document for that one, please? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is it page 78? MR IRVING: I beg your pardon? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure it is, but it might be. MR IRVING: Yes. Your Lordship is way ahead of us. Would you go to page 2 of that transcript which again is unfortunately in German, but I wanted to draw your attention to the bottom three lines. Am I right in saying it says that two categories of Jews are to be distinguished from each other? A. Yes. This is a document I believe that relates to Minsk and the other heading a Russian Jewish ghetto and a German Jewish ghetto, that they had a very strict separation in Minsk. Q. Yes, and that these Jews, the Nazis had to distinguish . P-169 between these two categories of Jews ---- A. In this case ---- Q. --- once they began the killings when the ground thawed? A. I am not sure if I understand the question. Q. Well, the question is that they made once again a distinction between killing Russian Jews and the treatment of German Jews at this Minsk conference? A. They made a distinction between them, but they are virtually all killed within six months. So it is a distinction that delayed the executions not a very great time. MR JUSTICE GRAY: What is the point of the distinction in that case? A. They are kept in different ghettoes at the moment is one thing, and I believe, as you see from document, I think they consider the work skills of the German Jews would be viewed as higher and therefore would be kept longer. It goes on to say that Russian Jews, the following paragraph, after separation, it says: "Russian Jews are of a stubborn nature and unwilling to work. The German Jews work with much more vigour and they believe after victory that they will return to the old Reich". This is the result of having sent these people with in the fall with all of their Gerat, their utensils and suitcases and whatever else. Q. You quote in your report a passage about a complete . P-170 liquidation of the Jews not possible to due to the frost. MR RAMPTON: It is the bottom of page 2, my Lord, above the little letters (a) and (b). MR JUSTICE GRAY: I see. A. Yes, the quote I made ends, and then they say there are two categories to distinguish German and Russian, and then they explain that the German Jews are much better workers than the Russian Jews, and that is a reason why there would be differentiated treatment. MR RAMPTON: My Lord, again this may be a document which it would repay having rather more translated of. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think in view of the point Mr Irving has just made, that would probably be right. MR RAMPTON: I think that must be right. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much. MR IRVING: We now come to a rather sensitive area which your Lordship may feel is not relevant, and this is the question to what extent did the local population participate in or even instigate the killings of Jews on the Eastern Front, the Russian front and in the Baltic countries, and to what extent were they themselves murderers? In other words, what percentage of the killings were their responsibility and what percentage went on to the Nazis? A. That is the question you would like my affirmation on? Q. Yes. . P-171 A. In terms of the pogroms that is something that was a brief phenomenon in the very opening days of the war, sometimes instigated by the Germans, sometimes starting spontaneously. Q. Are we talking about the Eastern Front or the Baltic countries? A. Both. Baltic countries is part I would say of the Eastern Front. More success, I guess more pogroms in some parts of the Ukraine and Lithuania than -- here I do not know the detail of where the pogroms occurred, but clearly they were supported and instigated by the Germans. How many were spontaneous would take a research that I have not gone into. What is more important is that by late July Himmler has approved the formation of auxiliary police units, that these police units reach about 30,000 by the end of 1941, about 300,000 by the end of 1942, and comprise one of the major manpower sources for why a small number of Einsatzgruppen ---- Q. And they were not all engaged killing though, were they? A. No. Many are in police stations, but they are at one point when it comes the day to kill the Jews in that region, often it is the local police that would be part of the liquidation process. They do not move about. Some do. There are two concepts: The ones kept in police stations and then there are the mobile battalions. Q. If I introduce the concept of the interregnum between the . P-172 time that the Soviet troops pulled out of the Baltic countries and the Nazi troops arrive, a period of, say, one or two weeks? A. I am not sure that it was that long in many places. Q. Was there much killing went on in that time? A. That would have represented an infinitesimal fraction of the total number of Soviet Jews killed. Q. You are not familiar with the private diary Otto Reutigang? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, before you go further, is this your best point? If there really were 300,000 of these people, Nazi ---- MR IRVING: Auxiliaries. MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- auxiliaries, how far are you going to get with the idea that it was the local population that was either participating or instigating. MR IRVING: I appreciate your objection, my Lord. I will not press that matter any further. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Press on if you want, but it seems me it is not perhaps a particularly good point. MR IRVING: My Lord, I have come to the end of my preparations for today's cross-examination. With respect, I would ask that, unless Mr Rampton has any further points to make, we will adjourn now. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I told you I will give you as much latitude as you reasonably want. You have gone quite . P-173 expeditiously. So, Mr Rampton, you do not object to that? MR RAMPTON: I am absolutely relaxed about that. I would like to know because I have to get Professor Evans ready, whether we will finish with Professor Browning tomorrow. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sensible timetabling. MR IRVING: I think we will finish with Professor Browning tomorrow. MR RAMPTON: In that case, I will prepare to have Professor Evans here for Thursday. MR IRVING: I might want possibly one or two hours more on Thursday, but it is certainly not to inconvenience Professor Evans. MR JUSTICE GRAY: One or two more hours more on Thursday with Professor Browning? MR IRVING: If I have not quite finished with him by then. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am just wondering whether he is not wanting to go off somewhere else. MR RAMPTON: He wants to go back home to America. So if he is not finished tomorrow, which is Tuesday, I would ask that he could be finished on Wednesday morning. MR IRVING: I was thinking Wednesday morning, yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: What we will do, Mr Irving, is we will carry on on Wednesday. Do not worry, you will get your day, but it may be a split day, if you follow me, a day's time for preparing Evans. . P-174 MR IRVING: It makes sense for me to prepare properly the way I have for today. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Of course. In the end it saves time which is why I think it is perfectly sensible. MR IRVING: Unless Mr Rampton wishes to cross- examine him now on some of the points I have made. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Re-examine. MR RAMPTON: No, I would not dream of cross- examining, even if I were allowed to. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I would let you, but I do not think it is actually sensible. MR RAMPTON: There is one little problem about Professor Evans. It probably does not matter enormously because I can use Friday with remaining cross-examination of Mr Irving. Professor Evans has rearranged everything because he thought we were not sitting on Friday. So he has, as it were, pushed everything into that one day. So even if he was started on Thursday I would ask him to be released for the Friday. Friday will not be wasted. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, do you have a view about that? MR IRVING: No, my Lord. I am in your Lordship's hands. I am much more relaxed than I was last week. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The overall progress has actually been quite good. MR RAMPTON: Very good. My hope is that we are actually going to save about a month of the estimate, which means we . P-175 might get a little time off to write our closing speeches. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That may have been partly to due to a bit of prereading. It did save a bit of time. Then we will have Evans on Thursday and resume him on Monday. MR IRVING: My Lord, you must not forget that I have one more witness to call and that is Dr John Fox. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You tell me when it is convenient for you to call him. MR IRVING: I will arrange with the Defence on a date for that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, discuss it together. 10.30 tomorrow. (The witness stood down). (The court adjourned until the following day) . P-176
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.