Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day024.11 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Mr Irving, have you got N1? Were you able to follow all that? MR IRVING: I am going with your Lordship's view that what Hans Frank's use of the word means is really not of much relevance, having gone to all that trouble. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The way it is put is, and just decide whether you want to ask a question, is that Frank had just come back from Berlin where he had heard Hitler speaking, so he is not harking back in all of what he says to 1939 but to four days before. MR IRVING: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think the way it is put is that vernichtung is used fairly unambiguously in Frank's speech as a record . P-93 of what he had been told in Berlin. It is really that one phrase, is it not, Dr Longerich? "In Berlin we were told why all this trouble, we cannot use them in the Ostland or the Reichskommissariat either, liquidate them yourselves"? A. Yes. That is I think the main paragraph, the main sentence. Q. It may be that you do not want to cross-examine about that, Mr Irving? MR IRVING: Not really, because it is not the word vernichtung unfortunately. A. It is the words Juden vernichtung. That is in there, in the German text. (German spoken). The term vernichtung the term vernichtung is clearly in here. When he is not sure about the means how to vernichtung the people, he is saying we cannot liquidate, we cannot execute them, we cannot poison them, so what shall we do? MR IRVING: That is the problem we have with that particular passage, of course, my Lord, is it not Frank says earlier, we cannot poison them, we cannot shoot them. A. Yes. We are looking -- this is on page bold 7, second paragraph. So they are looking for a kind of solution, how to vernichtung the people. MR IRVING: Without shooting or poisoning them? A. Yes. Poisoning could be a possible method. They are looking for a kind of solution to this problem and then it is explained here that we will have a meeting in Berlin, . P-94 and this is obviously the Wannsee conference. Then it becomes clearer what would happen in the Generalgouvernement. Q. If you went back to the Klauserwitz example and somebody said to a German general, we have Eisenhower's armies in front of us, we cannot shoot them, we cannot poison them, how are we going to destroy them? The answer is, cut off their water supply, cut off the power, deprive them of the shipping lines, the oil. There are all sorts of ways of destroying an enemy. A. That is why I am trying to explain how difficult it is to make comparisons because clearly von Klauserwitz is referring to an army, and in your example you refer to an army, but here it is about the Jews. Q. An enemy? A. An enemy, but the Jews are the Jews. This is the people, the human beings, and if I destroy, vernichtung, human beings, and I discuss then the methods, whether I should liquidate them, execute them or whether I should poison them, I think then the context is pretty clear. There is not much room for interpretation, I think. Q. Dr Longerich, it is even clearer than that because he says, we cannot shoot them and we cannot poison them. A. Yes, because they have not been told from Berlin what method they should use. Then, if you into the Wannsee protocol, actually the suggestion comes from von Below, . P-95 they had the Secretary of State, "We could like to deal with the Jews on the spot, we do not want to send them to the East, we would like to do it here". Then it goes on in the Wannsee protocol. The various methods were discussed how to solve the problem. Then they were discussing what to do, poisoning, gassing, probably executions. This is preWannsee. He was sure that they were going to vernichtung the Juden, because it came back from Berlin and heard the speech, but the method was unclear. Q. You are not suggesting, although I am sure you quite accidentally gave the opposite impression, that in the Wannsee protocol there is any reference to killing at all, is there? A. I do not know whether we will go to the Wannsee conference in more detail. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The problem with all of this is that it is not Mr Irving's fault at all, because he has been confronted with this glossary and I can understand why he is going through it, but to me it is unhelpful, this whole exercise. We are coming across odd documents from 39 or 35 or 43. MR IRVING: Rather the same thing happened with the previous witness, my Lord. We came across topics that the witness urgently wanted to talk about and which no doubt will get raised later on. . P-96 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think it is better to look at these words when we come across them in the context of examining the substantive issues rather than having a kind of linquistic sequence of questions. MR IRVING: That would be the other way of slicing the same cake. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I know it would. I say again -- it is not intended critically of you at all -- that darting from one document to another is not I think particularly helpful. MR IRVING: I am very rapidly going through the remaining part of the glossary to see if there are any important points to take. The fact that Robert Lie used a word a certain way does not mean to say necessarily that that was the standard meaning of the word? A. I am only referring to Lie. He was one of the top Nazis and he used the term in a quite open way. I find our discussion quite interesting but ---- Q. Very well. In that case that finishes the with the glossary I think. I may wish to come back to it. Dealing now with your first report, Dr Longerich, page 10, you say there in your opening sentence that there can be no doubt that Hitler's behaviour during his entire political career was characterised radical anti-Semitism. A. Yes. Q. Was he always an anti-Semite, in your view, or did it come . P-97 upon him in his youth? A. I think this way of radical anti-Semitism, which means that he wants to basically remove the Jews from, let us say, German soil, I think this is a product of the First World War and appeared immediately after the First World War. Other historians would argue that actually he learnt this in Vienna, but I think one has more to emphasise. Q. There have been all sorts of weird theories, have there not, about where it came from? A. Yes, there are all kinds of theories. I think we are on safer ground if we look at the period after the First World War. Q. Were all the top Nazi leadership equal in their anti-Semitism, or were some more anti-Semitic than others? Were some more motivated than others? A. Quite clearly some more anti-Semitic than others. Q. Some were more homicidally anti-Semitic than others? A. Yes. Q. Obviously you have worked for 20 years now in the records so you must have gained some impression that you can tell us about, the kind of league table of anti-Semitism. Would Martin Bormann be high up the list of anti-Semitism as an active anti-Semite? A. Absolutely, yes. Definitely. Q. Dr Josef Goebbels, would he be more or less anti- Semitic than Bormann? . P-98 A. I have never thought about a kind of hierarchy, but I think, if you look at the top Nazis, I think you can fairly say that radical anti-Semites, people who wanted to remove by any means the Jews from Germany, I think you would count among them Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Bormann, I think, and some others. Q. Hermann Goring, for example, was always getting in trouble because he had Jewish friends, did he not? A. Yes, but the fact that one has Jewish friends does not necessarily exclude that one can be an anti-Semite or even a radical anti-Semite. I think probably Goring looked at this more from a kind of political or tactical point of view. I am not sure. I think the anti-Semitism of Goring and his role in the Final Solution has not been fully researched. That is all I can say to that. Q. Goebbels was the real mover and shaker, was he not? He was the propagandist, he was the little poison dwarf, the evil genius? A. He was definitely a radical anti-Semite, and he was trying to push forward anti-Semitic policy, this is right, but I would not make a kind of hierarchy where I would place Goebbels at the top. Q. The reason why I am asking this is this. Goebbels, for example, would never have dreamed of employing a Jew on his staff or a half Jew on his staff, would he? I do not think he did. . P-99 A. I cannot say anything about his dreams, but I think he did not, as far as I know. Q. That is an English expression. Adolf Hitler of course did have some half Jews on his staff, did he not? A. I do not know. I cannot recall any names. Hitler? Q. Yes. His private chauffeur, Emile Morris. When it turned out that Emile Morris was Jewish, did not Hitler protect him and keep him on to the end? A. I cannot recall this. Q. Do you know Peter Hofmann, Professor Peter Hofmann? A. Yes. Q. He is a well-known Canadian German historian, is he not? A. Yes. Q. Have you read his book, Hitler's Personal Security? A. I know the book but I cannot recall this detail. I simply do not know. Q. Does it not strike you as odd that an anti-Semite like Hitler would not mind having a Jewish chauffeur, Emile Morris? A. I cannot comment on this story. I do not know whether it was an established fact that Morris was a Jew. I cannot comment on that. Again I would say, if you look into the history of anti-Semitism, the greatest anti-Semites had sometimes Jewish friends. They would say, well, this is my friend, he is an exception, he is not like others. This is a typical stereotype. . P-100 Q. You are damned if you do and damned if you do not, effectively? A. It is a typical stereotype. I do not think one can draw major conclusions from the fact that somebody protected a Jew or had Jewish friends. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just pause a moment, Dr Longerich. MR RAMPTON: Can I say something? I am not criticising Mr Irving in the very least for having gone through that glossary, and he did it really rather quickly, but I am a bit concerned now because Mr Irving conceded one question and answer to the effect, I think, that Hitler was from 1919 onwards a profound anti-Semite and that anti-Semitism was one of the important planks of Nazi ideology. MR JUSTICE GRAY: So, in the early years you say that this is really not an issue? MR RAMPTON: I have made it specific. From 1919 onwards and that anti-Semitism became an important plank of Nazi ideology or policy call it what you like. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Adding the rider that, as far as Hitler personally was concerned, he had other things on his mind from about the invasion of Russia. MR RAMPTON: He may have had other things on his mind. Being an anti-Semite is not exclusive of other things. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, but I think Mr Irving's case, and he will correct me if I am wrong, is that anti-Semitism was not really something that was concerning Hitler from -- am . P-101 I right about this -- about 1941 onwards, because he was fairly preoccupied. MR RAMPTON: No. He said from the time he came to power. From 1933. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You tell me, Mr Irving. Have I misunderstood your case? MR RAMPTON: I have misunderstood Mr Irving's concession, if that be right.
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.