Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day022.18
Last-Modified: 2000/07/24

Q.I think this is a very important and very useful discussion.
A.If it refers to that, then how can he possibly now
suddenly in March 1942 turn around and say that he has
repeatedly said that this should not happen?  It goes
against all the other documentation we have of Hitler's
orders and Hitler's views on this matter.
Q.We do have a problem, do we not?  We have, on the one
hand, people like Goebbels and Himmler saying, do this,
the Fuhrer has placed this order on my shoulder, the Reich
is going to be emptied out of the Jews, all these

.  P-160



documents that you and I are familiar with.  Yet here is a
document saying precisely the opposite, not just a mixed
race problem because that is in sentence two, saying
therefore the mixed race problem has purely theoretical value.
A.No, it does not say that.  It says, "according to the
present discussions", and discussions are on
particular
policy proposals within the mixed race complex, that
is to
say ----
Q.March 6th?
A.Yes, sterilization, or deportation, or laws to enforce
divorce of mixed marriages, all these various things.
Q.My Lord, I do not think we can extract very much more
usefully.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Nor do I .
MR IRVING:  On this particular matter.  Like so many
issues, it
is going to be left open, which does not harm my case
one
bit of course.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, I follow that.
MR IRVING: I will just draw your Lordship's attention to
two
rather disturbing matters about the report that has
been
prepared by this witness on this matter at page 383.
Professor Evans, will you look at the indented
paragraph
on page 383?
A.Yes.
Q.You quoted testimony of Ficker.  Just skim down to
where

.  P-161



he says that the Fuhrer suggested postponement, line
5.
A.Yes.
Q."Postponement for the time being of the whole problem,
i.e. what to do with half Jews and mixed marriages"?
A.Yes.
Q.Can you look at the German original and tell me if
that
passage is in there?
A.No.  That is why I provide the German original to make
it
clear that that is my interpolation, my explanation.
Q.Where does the reader find out that that is your
interpolation if he is not going to check the German?
A.It is there. That is why it is put there.  It is to
enable
you to check the German, and anybody else.
Q.Have you put it in round brackets or square brackets?
A.It is in round brackets there.  Sorry, that is a
typographical -- I also have many other interpolations
just to help the reader there.  The minister being
Lammers, the incorrect statement about the address and
so
on.
Q.So you did not wish us to assume that this was part of
the
original document then?
A.No, how could I?  It is quite clearly not there in the
original that I quote.  Otherwise, if I was hell bent
on
deceiving you, I would have put that in the original
document, would I not, in the German?
Q.I do not think you would do that, but you in your

.  P-162



scientific and academic texts insert helpful passages
like
in square brackets or in round brackets?
A.It depends.
Q.Do you elsewhere in this report insert square
brackets?
A.I am not sure I actually -- there is a square bracket
there.  I mean it is not typographically very clean, I
am
afraid.
Q.Yes.  If you look at the following page now, please,
the
second paragraph, you rather grandly say, "Further
testimony by Ficker makes it clear that all that was
discussed between Lammers and Hitler was the issue of
half
Jews and mixed marriages".  That is a rather grand
statement there to make with no kind of source
reference
because that is precisely what is at the root of this
whole argument this afternoon, is it not, what was
discussed between them?
A.This is his testimony on 20th December 1946.
Q.Where do we know that?  You just say "Further
testimony by
Ficker makes it clear".
A.Yes.  It follows on.  It is covered by the paragraph
saying it is his testimony on the 20th December 1946.
Q.But you appreciate you have not given us any source
reference for what that testimony is?
A.The source reference is down there.  You can check it
out.  It is the interrogation on notes 36 and 37.  It
is
quite clear that refers to that.  You can check it up.

.  P-163



Q.On page 386, line 2, you say that Hitler made
tasteless
remarks about cross breeding between Jews and non-
Jews.
Is that right?
A.In Mein Kampf.
Q.Yes.
A.I said cross breeding and bastards, yes.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What is the point about that?
MR IRVING:  I am wondering whether in fact a portion of the
Jewish community also do not argue against cross
breeding
between Jews and non-Jews.  I am wondering whether he
was
not actually serving their interests in some odd kind
of
way.  They also are against mixed marriages, is that
not
so, Professor.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am obviously missing the point.  Let us
go
on.
MR IRVING:  On page 388, paragraph 27, you have a meeting
under
the heading "Endlosung der Judenfrager", and you say
it
was entirely devoted to the issue of half Jews and
mixed
marriages.  Was that what the "Entlosung der
Judenfrager"
actually means, then? Is it just the mixed marriages
and
mixed races?
A.Certainly not, but it is the heading that they have
used
for this particular meeting.
Q.Yes.  I am nearly finished with this particular
meeting
document.  On page 389, paragraph 1, there is a little
bit
of mealy mouthed reporting here by you.  You say the

.  P-164



detailed investigation by David Irving is wrong to
claim
with certainty that the document was dictated by Franz
Schlegelberger in spring 1942.
A.Yes.
Q.In the very next sentence you say this is the most
convincing explanation.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No.  I think you have the emphasis wrong.
Wrong to claim with absolute certainty.  I think that
is
the point that Professor Evans is making.
MR IRVING:  He still continues by saying this is the most
convincing explanation.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving, you are missing the point,
I think.  The criticism of you is not so much -- tell
me
if I am wrong about this -- that you have the
interpretation of the Schlegelberger memorandum wrong,
because I think Professor Evans probably would say it
is a
possible explanation, but I think the criticism is
that a
responsible, objective historian would indicate to the
reader that it is not quite as crystal clear as your
text
suggests.
MR IRVING:  Perhaps I can ask a couple more questions to
bring
that out, my Lord.
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Does that misrepresent your view?
A.It does, my Lord.  What I am saying is that Mr Irving
has
used this document in his work to trumpet what he
regards
as Hitler's declaration that the Jews should not be

.  P-165



exterminated or evacuated, and he is in difficulties
there
because, as I have already explained, if it means
exterminated, then Hitler must have known about it.
But
any responsible historian who did not want to use it
for
that particular biased purpose would inform the
readers
that this is an extremely problematical document, that
because of its lack of dating, difficulties about its
provenance, uncertainties about who wrote it, who it
was
addressed to, and so on and so forth, all the things
that
we have been through, should alert the reader to the
fact
there are a number of possible different
interpretations
and that, as we have seen in the discussion, almost
any
one of them actually throws up rather serious problems
when you compare them with other documents.  I think
that
would be the way that a responsible, objective
historian
would proceed.  That is what I am saying.
MR IRVING:  Can I therefore draw your attention to my
treatment
of this very document in the Goebbels biography on
page
388 of the Goebbels biography?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.  That is exactly what I was looking
for.  Actually I was looking at Hitler's War.
MR IRVING:  I will not said I am sadder, but I am certainly
wiser than when I wrote Hitler's War.  I think the
Goebbels one is the most up to date version of my
state of
mind.  Page 388, paragraph 2.  The treatment I give it
is
as follows: On the following day he took note of an

.  P-166



extensive report prepared by Heydrich's office,
probably
on Wannsee conference.  Was that accurate, do you
think,
that Goebbels had received this report and it probably
was
a summary of the Wannsee conference, in other words
the
January 20 conference?
A.I would have to check.  Does this really matter?
Q.It does not really matter, no, but, if Goebbels
received
it on March 5th or March 6th, I think this is the only
point there, there were still 11 million Jews in
Europe.
He dictated, Goebbels, summarizing the document, for
the
time being they are to be concentrated in the East
until
later, possibly an island like Madagascar can be
assigned
to them after the war.  Undoubtedly there will be a
multitude of personal tragedies, he added airily, but
this
is unavoidable.  The situation now is ripe for a final
settlement of the Jewish question.  In a covering
letter
Heydrich invited Goebbels to a second conference on
March
6th.  Goebbels sent two of his senior staff.  Eichmann
talked crudely at this meeting of forwarding the Jews
to
the East like so many head of cattle.
A.That is Boley presumably, so you accept that there?
Q.Yes.
A.But you cast doubt on it a few minutes ago.
Q.No.  I asked if it was a self-serving statement.
A.You do not say it is a self serving statement there do
you?

.  P-167



Q."The Ministry of Justice handled the report on this
new
discussion like a hot potato".  This is a reference to
the
March 12th letter in which Schlegelberger asks Lammers
"it
looks like ugly things are brewing, we are going to
have
to take this up, you and me, before this goes to the
Fuhrer".  The Reichschancellery referred it all to
Hitler?
A.That relies on Ficker and I do not think that is an
accurate statement.
Q."Hitler wearily told Hans Lammers that he wanted the
solution of the Jewish problem postponed until after
the
war was over, a ruling that remarkably few historians
now
seem disposed to quote"?
A.Yes.  That is a complete misrepresentation of what we
are
calling the Schlegelberger memorandum.
Q.In what way is it a misrepresentation?
MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Do not let us go through it all over
again.
A.There is nothing weary about it.  He did not tell
Lammers.  There was not a ruining.  The Schlegelberger
memorandum was not a ruling transmitted to the
Ministry of
Justice, otherwise why would the Ministry of Justice
have
gone ahead quite shortly afterwards and arranged for
the
Jews in State prisons to be taken out and sent off for
extermination?  It beggers belief that this is
actually a
ruling which then does not leave a paper trail, as you
describe Hitler rulings doing, throughout the
bureaucracy
saying, oh, the Fuhrer has ordered that the solution
has

.  P-168



to b e put off, hold it everybody, let us stop.  The
whole
thing goes on.  It goes on in the Ministry of Justice
which is actually where this document comes from.  It
is a
completely incredible interpretation you are giving
there.
MR IRVING:  You have just referred to a subsequent decision
to
take the Jewish prisoners out of prisons and send them
to
be exterminated.  Was that your word?
A.Yes.
Q.And what is your source for that?
A.Let me have a look here. It is one of my arguments.
Q.Your expert report pages 391 to 392, paragraph 4.
A.Yes.
Q.September 1942, you say a meeting between Himmler and
the
new Minister of Justice at which they decided on
annihilation through labour.  Have you given us the
original document or the original German of that?
A.I cite it in the footnote there.  The German is in
footnote 51 about again the October 1942 note.
Q.Have you provided the German for the phrase
"annihilation
through labour"?
A.Not there, no.
Q.Can you hazard a guess at what the German was?
A.Vernichtung deutsche arbeit, yes.

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