Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day024.05 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 A. I do not know about Hitler's plan, you know, it is a hypothetical question. It is assuming that the Munich agreement would not have happened, and so I do not know what was going on in Hitler's mind about the future of the Czechoslovak people, you know, in the case that would have been in 1938. So I cannot answer this question outside this. Q. Is Hitler telling the Czech State President, "Good thing you signed on the dotted line at midnight or 2 a.m. otherwise I would have liquidated your entire people", is that what he was saying? A. Forgive me, I do not know to which text you are referring now. Q. That is the context there. If the word "ausgerottet" used in Hitler's mouth talking about ---- A. Well, we have another document from the conversation between Hacha and Hitler where actually Hacha himself says, "Well, actually our people felt that -- our people are quite relieved because they feel now because they were on the assumption that they were going to be vernichtet in the case that, you know, the Munich agreement would not have kept ---- Q. How many Czechs were there? About 10, 15, 20 million? A. Are we talking about the Czech Republic? Q. Yes. . P-38 A. I think 7, 8 million or something like that, yes. Q. So Hitler is at this time, is this what you are saying, "I would have exterminated 7 million Czechs if you had not signed"? A. First of all, I do not know whether actually, but this is verbatim document, whether it implies some kind comment on Hitler, and then I am not sure -- it is a hypothetical question because what happened is that Czechoslovakia and the Western powers gave in and the Czechoslovak people were actually saved from a major catastrophe, may I say it like this, and I do not know what was going on in Hitler's mind in '38 about the future of the Czech people in case that, you know, he had not signed the Munich agreement. Q. Yes, but ---- A. But ---- Q. --- you do get the drift of my question, that here is that word "ausgerottet" in connection with a volk and Hitler saying, "I would have done it to them if you had not signed"? A. You know, it is a hypothetical. It is also, you know, Hitler sometimes uses, you know, he made threats and he threatened people and he made completely, you know, remarks which shows that he was out of control. So, you know, I do not know the context whether this is a kind of emotional reaction or anything like this. MR JUSTICE GRAY: What you are saying, it all depends on the . P-39 context? A. That is absolutely true. Q. And is it also right that sometimes politicians, or Hitler anyway, would use a term like "ausrottung" meaning "wipe out"? A. Yes. Q. Which is not to be taken literally? A. Yes, that is what I would say. Q. That is why I am not really ---- MR IRVING: That is precisely the point I was going to ask. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is all context, Mr Irving, is it not, really? MR IRVING: The final question on that quotation, therefore, is, is it not likely that Adolf Hitler was just saying, "If you had not signed, I would have ended Czechoslovakia as a power"? A. I think that is much, much stronger than that, "ausrottung", and again from the conversation with Hacha I know that Hacha was under the impression that the Czechoslovakian people would be vernichtet. Q. What did he mean by "vernichtet"? I know you used this in your glossary. A. I think that people had ---- Q. Gas chambers for the entire Czechs? A. No, but I think that people had felt, that people in Czechoslovakia in '38, felt that probably their existence, . P-40 probably their life was under danger. I think that is quite fair to say. Q. The entire Czech nation or just a few left wingers and ---- A. That people felt that their life was in danger. Q. Move on to the next passage, please? This is one you have quoted, is it not? This we do not have to argue whether he has been correctly reported or not because this is from a transcript of a speech that Hitler made to the Nazi editors on November 10th 1938. A. Yes. This is actually the day, the day after Kristallnacht, so the day, during the night approximately I think 90 or more people were killed, so this gives you a kind of background. Now, the term here Hitler is hesitating in this speech. He says, "Well" -- may be I should go, I have to go to my ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is quite a complicated sentence. Can you translate it? A. Sorry, I have to go to my own text and I have to compare the two text. I am sorry about this. MR IRVING: While you are doing that, can I set it in context? Is Hitler saying ---- A. I am sorry, I cannot do this and listening to you. I have to find my ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just pause a moment, Mr Irving. A. I have to find my own text. I know that it is somewhere. . P-41 MR RAMPTON: On page 21, in paragraph 6.12. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, thank you very much, Mr Rampton. A. Yes. Yes, and then the sentence -- you did not give the, you stop in the middle of the sentence and you did not include the last five words, and the last five words in German are "aber man brauch Sie leider", "but we need them, unfortunately". So the context is that he is going to say, "Well, actually, you know, I could when I look at the intellectual classes in Germany, you know, one could, I could come to the conclusion", and then he is hesitating and saying "ausrottung", and then he goes on and says, "Well, unfortunately, we need them". So he is saying this idea to ausrottung, to kill the intellectual classes is completely illusionary, and so he has to come back and says, "I cannot do it". You see, I have difficulties with this kind of, you know ---- MR IRVING: My Lord, can I just translate the sentence for you? MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, do not interrupt. A. --- I have difficulties actually to with these kind of documents which come in the last minute and leave out an important passage of the sentence, of the German sentence. Please give me sometime always to find the original if I have not got it in my report, I actually would like to insist that the original is here because I think this is not the way one can do it. . P-42 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Dr Longerich, I have some sympathy with that, particularly as you have pointed out that there is quite an important bit of that same sentence omitted in Mr Irving's piece of paper. MR IRVING: Can I just read out the translation of that sentence to you, my Lord? MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, because it has just been read out. MR IRVING: I do not think he has actually read out the translation. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I have read it; I thought he did. THE WITNESS: I can do it if you want to. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do if you want to, but include the last words because they make quite a big difference, it seems to me. MR IRVING: Not in my submission, but there we are. "I look at the intellectual classes amongst us, then, unfortunately, well, you need them, otherwise, I do not know, you could ausrotten them or something like that, but unfortunately you need them". I do not understand why you say I left out the words "man brauch Sie an"? A. Because you stop the sentence here with the colon and, in fact, the sentence is not stopping. You give as reference [German - document not provided] and this is not a complete, a complete sentence. You stopped in the middle of the sentence and left out the last five words. You should have used -- I mean ---- MR IRVING: Which are the words that I left out? . P-43 A. If your interpretation differs, you should have used, you know, the normal, you know, these little dots one uses if one does not insert the complete sentence. Q. Dr Longerich, which are the words you say that I left out? MR JUSTICE GRAY: He has said many times, "aber man brauch Sie leider"? A. "So you cannot kill them because we need them". MR IRVING: Are those words not on the fourth line of my quotation on page 7? "Man brauch Sie"? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, they are, but they come in twice and don't let us spend too long on this. MR IRVING: Precisely, my Lord, but the whole point I am looking at there is this is Adolf Hitler in 1938 when nobody is liquidating anybody ---- A. Except the 90 people who just died the night before, and this is the little exception one has. I mean, you have to realize the context is that this is the most brutal killing which happened in Germany since, I think, the Middle Ages. There are more than 90 people, I would say several hundred people possibly were killed the last night, and in this atmosphere Hitler is giving a press conference and speaks about the ausrottung of intellectuals. I think one cannot, you know, one has to look again at the historical context because this is, you know, an atmosphere which is dominated by brutality and a kind of absence of public order and law. I think, you . P-44 know, this has to be included here. Q. Your answer invites two questions, unfortunately. The first question is was Adolf Hitler, to your knowledge, at the time you made this speech on the afternoon of November 10th aware that 90 people had been killed during the night? A. I do not know. I do not know that. Q. The second question is, are you, therefore, suggesting that the verb "ausrotten" is not a mass extermination but a midget extermination, if I can put it like that, of just 90 people? Is that the scale you put "ausrotten"? I thought that "ausrotten" meant extermination on a huge scale. A. No, I am just saying that when he made this, he made the statement and the statement says, "I can't kill them, I would like to but I can't kill them", but one has to look at the atmosphere of this very day. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It always comes back to context? A. That is what I am trying to say. MR IRVING: Precisely, but a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the word "ausrotten" there would be get rid of them, abolish the intellectual classes, abolish the ---- A. The translation here ---- Q. --- upper classes? A. Sorry. I think the translation, the proper translation, . P-45 is to kill them all, but, unfortunately, I cannot do it. I have said this now three times and I think it is-- I do not want to ---- Q. Adolf Hitler was telling the editors of the leading newspapers in Germany, "I just wish I could kill all the intellectuals" in 1938? A. Yes, "But I cannot do it, unfortunately". That is what it says in the text here. Q. Yes. This is the image you now have of that kind of thing 55 years later, but how would the editors have picked up at the time if that was the meaning of the word "ausrotten" in 1938? You appreciate that the meaning of words change over the years and when Adolf Hitler uses the word in 1938, the editors sit there thinking, "Yes, he wants to abolish them, he wants to get rid of the upper classes", just the same as Tony Blair gets rid of the House of Lords? MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, not the upper classes. I do not think that is right. A. The intellectual classes -- well, then he could have said, "Well, actually I want" -- I said this here in my report, I said if he were just referring to a kind of, you know, social, you know, reform or reform of the educational system or some leveling of class, something like that, he could have said so. He could have said, "Actually I want, you know, to be more, Hitler jungen in the universities. . P-46 I do not want to get -- I would like to get rid of the sons of academics, well-established people", but he says he used the term "ausrotten". I cannot help this-- it is here and ----
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