14 January 2000 coverage Agence France Presse Associated Press Economist Copyright 2000 Agence France Press Agence France Presse January 14, 2000, Friday 8:03 PM Eastern Time Historian says faces extradition to Germany over Nazi claims DATELINE: LONDON Controversial historian David Irving, who is suing for libel over accusations that he denied the Holocaust, told a London court Thursday that Germany was seeking his extradition for alleged racial incitement. He said that it was another example of "the kind of hatred I face and the problems I face because of the repugnant allegations against me." Irving is suing American professor Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin books whom he accuses of damaging his career by claiming he is a "Holocaust denier". On the third day of the case, he told the court that the German government "has asked for my extradition to Germany on an alleged offence I committed in 1990." He referred the judge to a January 12 press clipping from a German paper about the extradition request in case "this end of the bench should suddenly be empty." The judge said it was "unlikely" that would happen. The article shown to the judge came from the Stuttgarter Zeitung. It said that a magistrates' court in nearby Weinheim had asked the British government to extradite Irving. It reported that Irving had been indicted in 1996 for racial incitement over a lecture he delivered in the town in September 1990. It is illegal in Germany to question the Holocaust. Outside court here, Irving said the Weinheim controversy had arisen over a comment in his lecture that the gas chambers at Auschwitz had been a fake and built after the war. He said he had been fined the equivalent of 15,000 pounds (24,000 dollars) in 1992 for making the same statement in Munich in 1990, and had been banned from Germany. The extradition proceedings were launched in August 1998, Irving added. He said no attempt had been made to serve a warrant against him, but the British government had agreed to co-operate with Germany. Lipstadt and Penguin Books deny libelling Irving in her 1994 book "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory." Irving says the book alleges he denied the Holocaust and distorted statistics and documents to serve his ideological aims and to reach historically untenable conclusions. He also claims the book has generated "waves of hatred against him." On Wednesday, the second day of the case, he told the court that the idea Nazi Germany had killed millions of Jews in gas chambers was "a big lie." "I deny the gas chambers. I deny that the Germans killed millions in gas chambers," Irving added, saying he had removed the word "Holocaust" from the second edition of his biography of Adolf Hitler because it was "misleading, offensive and untruthful". As he left court Thursday, Irving was approached by a woman who said that her grandparents had died at Auschwitz, The Times reported. "You may be pleased to know that they almost certainly died of typhus, as did Anne frank," he replied, according to the paper. The case was adjourned until Monday. Copyright 2000 Associated Press AP Worldstream January 13, 2000; Thursday 6:07 PM Eastern Time DISTRIBUTION: Europe;Britian;Scandinavia;Middle East;Africa;India;England;Asia Hitler historian says Germany seeking his extradition DATELINE: LONDON British writer David Irving, waging a libel suit against an academic he says has accused him of denying the Nazi Holocaust, said Thursday that Germany is seeking his extradition to face charges of racial incitement. ''(It is) the kind of hatred I face and the problems I face because of the repugnant allegations against me,'' said Irving. He was testifying on the third day of his suit against American author Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books.'' He maintains that Lipstadt's 1994 book, ''Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory,'' alleges he distorted statistics and documents and that he denies the Holocaust. Lipstadt and Penguin deny libel. Outside the court, Irving said the controversy arose from a comment he made during a talk in Weinheim, Germany, in September 1990 that the Nazi gas chambers at Auschwitz were a fake and built after World War II. He was fined the equivalent of 15,000 pounds (dlrs 24,600) in 1992 for making the same statement in Munich, and banned from Germany. He said the extradition bid was launched in 1998 but no attempt had been made to serve papers on him. Earlier, Irving testified that he had not deliberately tried to portray Adolf Hitler as merciful or mistranslated documents to exonerate the Nazi leader. Copyright 2000 The Economist Newspaper Ltd. All rights reserved The Economist January 15, 2000 , U.S. Edition Irving's last stand AFTER reeling at Mohamed Al Fayed's allegations about the royal family's plot to kill his son and his famous brown envelopes stuffed with cash, this week the Royal Courts of Justice got down to the more serious business of Irving v Penguin Books and Lipstadt. The anodyne title disguises what is likely to be the most emotive and controversial libel trial for years. In a highly unusual case, David Irving, a historian, has taken to the courts to defend his professional integrity against allegations of malpractice and distortion made by a fellow historian, Deborah Lipstadt. Seldom have historians taken to the courts. But then the subject of this scholastic falling-out is the most emotionally charged historical subject of them all: the Holocaust. Ms Lipstadt is professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Mr Irving is the author of numerous books on Nazism and is acknowledged, even by many of his detractors, to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the history of the Third Reich. But his books have courted controversy with their sympathetic portrayals of Nazi leaders. In 1993 Ms Lipstadt alleged in "Denying the Holocaust: the Growing Assault on Truth and Memory" that Mr Irving was one of the most prominent of the "Holocaust deniers". Her counsel, Richard Rampton, pulled no punches in his opening statement. He branded Mr Irving a "liar", alleging that he had distorted history, especially in relation to the Holocaust, to suit his unsavoury, far-right politics. As a taste of what is to come, Mr Rampton quoted extracts from speeches Mr Irving has given, often to far-right groups, including this one from 1991: "I don't see any reason to be tasteful about Auschwitz. It's baloney, it's a legend. Once we admit the fact that it was a brutal slave-labour camp and large numbers of people did die, as large numbers of innocent people died elsewhere in the war, why believe the rest of the baloney?" In court Mr Irving flatly denied that the Nazis had killed millions of Jews in gas chambers in purpose-built establishments. It was "logistically impossible." He alleges that being branded as a "Holocaust denier" has made him a pariah in historical and publishing circles. Once he could earn over #100,000 ($ 160,000) a year from his books about Nazi Germany; now he struggles even to find a publisher. Always an astute self-publicist, Mr Irving has seen his livelihood from book publishing dry up, and he is now banned from several countries for his pro-Nazi views. He is 62 years old, and his critics suspect that he is using his three-month stint in court to try to revive the flagging public interest in his work. With costs to pay if he fails, it is certainly a high-risk tactic. But then he may feel that he has nothing left to lose. The Guardian, London, files this report with a Berlin dateline. Also, a late filing Irish Times, Dublin. Irving fears arrest over speech VIKRAM DODD AND JOHN HOOPER IN BERLIN 01/14/2000 The Guardian Copyright (C) 2000 The Guardian; Source: World Reporter (TM) Vikram Dodd and John Hooper in Berlin The alleged Nazi apologist David Irving yesterday revealed that Germany had issued a warrant for his extradition on charges of racial incitement. Mr Irving told the high court in London, where he is suing for libel over claims he is a Holocaust denier, that he feared arrest by police executing the warrant. He told the judge, Mr Justice Gray, that he was informing him about the warrant in case 'this end of the bench should suddenly be empty'. Mr Irving has been indicted since 1996 by German magistrates for allegedly breaking laws protecting the memory of the Holocaust. The charge relates to a speech the author made to a meeting organised by the far right German National Party in September 1990 in which he said: 'The gas chambers at Auschwitz which they show to the tourists are a fake.' He was indicted over the speech six years later. A hearing was fixed for the following year, but Mr Irving did not attend. An extradition plea was sent to Britain last August. Mr Irving was fined pounds 15,000 in 1992 in Germany for making the same claim. He said he feared being arrested at any time: 'I have warned my family that I might not return one of these days.' Mr Irving is banned from entering Germany. He said he did not attend the trial because his safe passage in and out of the country was not promised. Scotland Yard and the home office refused to discuss the matter. Meanwhile, back in court, Mr Irving denied accusations that he had manipulated documents to bury evidence that Adolf Hitler had ordered the mass murder of Jews. He is suing over the book Denying the Holocaust, which said he distorted documents to support his controversial views on the Holocaust. The book's author Deborah Lipstadt and her publishers Penguin books, deny libel. In his second day in the witness box, Mr Irving was tackled over his belief that Hitler did not order the annihilation of European Jewry. In his book Hitler's War he used files detailing communications between German army chiefs to claim that the Nazi leader had intervened to stop the murder of Jews. But Richard Rampton QC, representing Prof Lipstadt and Penguin, accused Mr Irving of deliberate mistranslation. One document refers to an order not to liquidate a trainload of 1,000 Jews in 1941. But Mr Irving had claimed it was an order from Hitler to halt all such killings. Mr Rampton said: 'You inflated it from one trainload of Jews and you inserted an order from Hitler for which there was no evidence.' Irving denied a deliberate error and later under questioning said: 'Why should I lie?' Mr Rampton replied: 'Because you are trying to exonerate, exculpate Adolf Hitler.' In a dramatic intervention, Mr Justice Gray accused Mr Irving of 'totally perverting' the sense of a key document in an article he had written. Again Mr Rampton had alleged the effect was to ignore evidence implicating Hitler to the mass murder of Jews. Mr Irving, who is representing himself, looked tired after a second day of cross-examination which at times dwelled on German linguistics. The case continues on Monday, in a bigger courtroom to accommodate the number of journalists and members of the public who want to attend. ............................................................................= ............................................................ World News: Libel trial will hinge on precise facts of Holocaust RACHEL DONNELLY 01/12/2000 Irish Times Page 13 Copyright (C) 2000 Irish Times; Source: World Reporter (TM) One of the most sensitive libel trials to be heard in Britain got under way at the High Court in London yesterday when the rightwing historian, Mr David Irving, began his long-awaited courtroom battle against a US academic, Prof Deborah Lipstadt , and Penguin Books, who have accused him of being a 'falsifier of history' over his published views on the Holocaust. Over the next three months of the trial, questions will be raised about historical facts of the second World War and the limits of free speech. Ultimately, the trial will decide Mr Irving's reputation as a historian. Mr Irving (62), whose books include Hitler's War and Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich, has been condemned across the world for questioning in print and in public whether the Nazis killed six million Jews during the second World War and the extent of Hitler's knowledge of such killing. He is suing Prof Lipstadt and Penguin over her book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, in which she accused him of being a 'Holocaust denier' who manipulated history to cast Hitler in a positive light and questioned the existence of the gas chambers at Auschwitz. Mr Irving is seeking as yet undisclosed damages and an injunction against Prof Lipstadt 's book. Rising to his feet at 12.15 p.m. to begin reading his opening argument, Mr Irving said the action had arisen from his publication Hitler's War, but he insisted he had never held himself out to be a Holocaust expert and had not written books about the Holocaust. If he was an expert on anything, he told the court, it was on the role that Hitler played in the propagation of the second World War, the decisions Hitler made and the knowledge on which he based those decisions. But such were the 'waves of hatred' generated against him by Prof Lipstadt and Penguin Books that publisher after publisher had turned away from him. His income from writing had vanished, he said, 'as assuredly as if I had been employed by one of those companies taken over by the late Mr Robert Maxwell'. Mr Irving said that the phrase 'Holocaust denier' had become 'one of the most potent phrases in the arsenal of insult'. 'The word 'denier' is particularly evil: because no person in full command of his mental faculties, and with even the slightest understanding of what happened in World War Two, can deny that the tragedy actually happened, however much we dissident historians may wish to quibble about the means, the scale, the dates and other minutiae.' He continued: 'Yet, meaningless though it is, the phrase has become a part of the English language. It is a poison to which there is virtually no antidote, less lethal than a hypodermic with nerve gas jabbed in the neck, but deadly all the same: for the chosen victim, it is like being called a wife-beater or a paedophile. Two hours later, when Mr Irving had finished reading his opening remarks, Mr Richard Rampton QC, for Prof Lipstadt and Penguin Books, opened his case with a strong attack on the historian's reputation. Mr Irving was not a historian at all, he said. 'To put it bluntly, he is a liar. Lies may take various forms and may as often consist of suppression or omission as of direct falsehood or invention, but in the end all forms of lying converge into a single definition: wilful, deliberate misstatement of the facts.' Counsel continued: 'Mr Irving has used many different means to falsify history: invention, misquotation, suppression, distortion, manipulation and not least mistranslation. 'But all these techniques have the same ultimate effect: falsification of the truth.' Mr Irving's views on the Holocaust had undergone a 'sea-change' between the publication of the first edition of Hitler's War in 1977 and the second edition in 1991. In the first edition he accepted the historical truth of the Holocaust but by 1991 all trace of it had disappeared from the book. Mr Irving, he said, had become convinced by a researcher's bogus report on Auschwitz that it was nothing more than a slave-labour camp. Copyright 1999 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2000 Agence France Presse Agence France Presse January 14, 2000, Friday Historian says faces extradition to Germany over Nazi claims DATELINE Controversial historian David Irving, who is suing for libel over accusations that he denied the Holocaust, told a London court Thursday that Germany was seeking his extradition for alleged racial incitement. He said that it was another example of "the kind of hatred I face and the problems I face because of the repugnant allegations against me." Irving is suing American professor Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin books whom he accuses of damaging his career by claiming he is a "Holocaust denier". On the third day of the case, he told the court that the German government "has asked for my extradition to Germany on an alleged offence I committed in 1990." He referred the judge to a January 12 press clipping from a German paper about the extradition request in case "this end of the bench should suddenly be empty." The judge said it was "unlikely" that would happen. The article shown to the judge came from the Stuttgarter Zeitung. It said that a magistrates' court in nearby Weinheim had asked the British government to extradite Irving. It reported that Irving had been indicted in 1996 for racial incitement over a lecture he delivered in the town in September 1990. It is illegal in Germany to question the Holocaust. Outside court here, Irving said the Weinheim controversy had arisen over a comment in his lecture that the gas chambers at Auschwitz had been a fake and built after the war. He said he had been fined the equivalent of 15,000 pounds (24,000 dollars) in 1992 for making the same statement in Munich in 1990, and had been banned from Germany. The extradition proceedings were launched in August 1998, Irving added. He said no attempt had been made to serve a warrant against him, but the British government had agreed to co-operate with Germany. Lipstadt and Penguin Books deny libelling Irving in her 1994 book "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory." Irving says the book alleges he denied the Holocaust and distorted statistics and documents to serve his ideological aims and to reach historically untenable conclusions. He also claims the book has generated "waves of hatred against him." On Wednesday, the second day of the case, he told the court that the idea Nazi Germany had killed millions of Jews in gas chambers was "a big lie." "I deny the gas chambers. I deny that the Germans killed millions in gas chambers," Irving added, saying he had removed the word "Holocaust" from the second edition of his biography of Adolf Hitler because it was "misleading, offensive and untruthful". As he left court Thursday, Irving was approached by a woman who said that her grandparents had died at Auschwitz, The Times reported. "You may be pleased to know that they almost certainly died of typhus, as did Anne frank," he replied, according to the paper. The case was adjourned until Monday. Copyright 2000 The Atlanta Constitution The Atlanta Journal and Constitution January 14, 2000, Friday, Home Edition Holocaust writer admits he made error in book BY: Bert Roughton Jr., Staff Correspondent DATELINE: London Historical writer David Irving was accused in court Thursday of fabricating an order from Adolf Hitler calling for a halt to mass murders of Jews in 1941 --- a key element in his long-held argument that the Nazi leader had initially opposed the genocide. In his controversial 1977 book, "Hitler's War," Irving wrote that he had discovered "incontrovertible evidence" that Hitler had ordered that there would be "no liquidation" of Jews. However, Irving acknowledged Thursday that he had based this assertion on a misreading of a 1941 handwritten note from Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler. Instead of demanding the end of the killing of all Jews, the note actually suggested that Himmler spared just one trainload of 1,000 Jews transported from Berlin to Latvia. The evidence connecting Hitler even to the Himmler order is merely circumstantial: Irving said he deduced this from the fact that Himmler issued this order from a telephone in Hitler's bunker after meeting with the Nazi leader. "To conclude that it was Hitler's order was reasonable rather than perverse, " Irving said. He maintains that there is no clear evidence that Hitler was aware of the mass killings before 1943. He rejected statements produced in court of soldiers, Hitler intimates and Nazi officials that tend to suggest the German leader was at the heart of the drive to exterminate the Jews. Irving dismissed these accounts as either secondhand or flawed in some other way. Irving is suing Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher Penguin Books for libel over her 1994 book, "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory." The book depicts the self-made historian as a "Holocaust denier" who twists history to support his belief that the scope of the mass murder has been greatly exaggerated. He believes Jews have sought to use the Holocaust story in a campaign to get increased reparations from the German people. The book also says he is motivated by his desire to exonerate Hitler, a charge Irving denies. In his second day of being cross-examined, Irving said his interpretation was a reasonable one of the evidence at the time. He denied that he had intentionally distorted the truth. However, lead defense attorney Richard Rampton accused Irving of misleading the readers of his book by intentionally distorting the contents of the documents and suggesting he had hard evidence that Hitler had halted the killing of Jews. "You invented a Hitler order," Rampton icily told Irving, who stood in the witness box. "You deliberately inflated it in a way to suggest that it meant all of the Jews." And even after Irving discovered his error, he allowed the 1991 edition of his book to go to press without correcting it. Yet, he did manage to edit the word "Holocaust" out of the book because he concluded in 1988 that the traditional Holocaust story was a myth. Irving said this was an oversight he described as a "sin of omission." Rampton dismissed this response. "Your failure to remove it was deliberate because you wanted to keep this picture of a benign Adolf Hitler," he said. Irving, 62, also announced in court that a German judge is seeking his extradition from Britain to face 1990 charges of racial incitement. This stems from statements he made that the gas chambers at Auschwitz were tourist attractions built by the Polish government after the war. He said he decided to tell the judge about the action in case "this end of the bench should suddenly be empty." The trial is scheduled to resume Monday. ### Copyright 2000 Midland Independent Newspapers plc Birmingham Post January 14, 2000, Friday GERMANS WANT TO EXTRADITE ME - IRVING Controversial historian David Irving yesterday revealed that the German government was seeking his extradition for alleged racial incitement. The 62-year-old author told the High Court in London that it was another example of "the kind of hatred I face and the problems I face because of the repugnant allegations against me". On the third day of his libel action over claims that he was a "Holocaust denier", Mr Irving told the court that "the German government has asked for my extradition to Germany on an alleged offence that I committed in 1990". He referred Mr Justice Gray, the judge hearing his case against American academic Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books, to a January 12 press clipping from a German newspaper about the extradition request. Mr Irving said he drew the article to the court's attention in case "this end of the bench should suddenly be empty". The judge said it was unlikely that would happen. The article shown to the judge, from Stuttgart Zeitung, stated that "Weinheim magistrates court has requested the British Government to extradite David Irving". It further reported that "there has been since 1996 an indictment for racial incitement" relating to a lecture Mr Irving delivered in Weinheim in September 1990. The article stated that Mr Irving "had made a name for himself on that occasion among the circles concerned because he challenged Hitler's blame for the war and among other things maintained that the Holocaust had not occurred". And it added that it was "doubtful that there will be any trial of Irving as the allegations against him will run out of time in September this year". After the end of the sitting, Mr Irving said that the controversy arose over a comment he made during a talk at Weinheim that the gas chambers at Auschwitz were a fake and built after the war. Such a statement was a criminal offence in Germany, he said. He said he was fined the equivalent of pounds 15,000 in 1992 for making the same statement in Munich in 1990. He was also banned from Germany. The extradition proceedings revealed in court were launched in August 1998, said Mr Irving. No attempt had been made to serve the warrant against him but the British Government had agreed to co-operate with Germany. He said he had warned the Home Secretary that if they tried to serve a warrant on him he would prosecute the Home Office for assault and he had written to Jack Straw a few weeks ago. Professor Lindstadt and Penguin Books deny libelling Mr Irving in her 1994 book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. Mr Irving, of Duke Street, Mayfair, central London, says the book alleges he has denied the Holocaust and has distorted statistics and documents to serve his own ideological purposes and reach historically untenable conclusions. The hearing was adjourned until Monday. Copyright 2000 Guardian Newspapers Limited The Guardian (London) January 14, 2000 Irving fears arrest over speech BYLINE: Vikram Dodd and John Hooper in Berlin Vikram Dodd and John Hooper in Berlin The alleged Nazi apologist David Irving yesterday revealed that Germany had issued a warrant for his extradition on charges of racial incitement. Mr Irving told the high court in London, where he is suing for libel over claims he is a Holocaust denier, that he feared arrest by police executing the warrant. He told the judge, Mr Justice Gray, that he was informing him about the warrant in case 'this end of the bench should suddenly be empty'. Mr Irving has been indicted since 1996 by German magistrates for allegedly breaking laws protecting the memory of the Holocaust. The charge relates to a speech the author made to a meeting organised by the far right German National Party in September 1990 in which he said: 'The gas chambers at Auschwitz which they show to the tourists are a fake.' He was indicted over the speech six years later. A hearing was fixed for the following year, but Mr Irving did not attend. An extradition plea was sent to Britain last August. Mr Irving was fined pounds 15,000 in 1992 in Germany for making the same claim. He said he feared being arrested at any time: 'I have warned my family that I might not return one of these days.' Mr Irving is banned from entering Germany. He said he did not attend the trial because his safe passage in and out of the country was not promised. Scotland Yard and the home office refused to discuss the matter. Meanwhile, back in court, Mr Irving denied accusations that he had manipulated documents to bury evidence that Adolf Hitler had ordered the mass murder of Jews. He is suing over the book Denying the Holocaust, which said he distorted documents to support his controversial views on the Holocaust. The book's author Deborah Lipstadt and her publishers Penguin books, deny libel. In his second day in the witness box, Mr Irving was tackled over his belief that Hitler did not order the annihilation of European Jewry. In his book Hitler's War he used files detailing communications between German army chiefs to claim that the Nazi leader had intervened to stop the murder of Jews. But Richard Rampton QC, representing Prof Lipstadt and Penguin, accused Mr Irving of deliberate mistranslation. One document refers to an order not to liquidate a trainload of 1,000 Jews in 1941. But Mr Irving had claimed it was an order from Hitler to halt all such killings. Mr Rampton said: 'You inflated it from one trainload of Jews and you inserted an order from Hitler for which there was no evidence.' Irving denied a deliberate error and later under questioning said: 'Why should I lie?' Mr Rampton replied: 'Because you are trying to exonerate, exculpate Adolf Hitler.' In a dramatic intervention, Mr Justice Gray accused Mr Irving of 'totally perverting' the sense of a key document in an article he had written. Again Mr Rampton had alleged the effect was to ignore evidence implicating Hitler to the mass murder of Jews. Mr Irving, who is representing himself, looked tired after a second day of cross-examination which at times dwelled on German linguistics. The case continues on Monday, in a bigger courtroom to accommodate the number of journalists and members of the public who want to attend. Copyright 2000 The Irish Times The Irish Times January 14, 2000 Irving tells court he expects to be arrested in Britain BY: By RACHEL DONNELLY The right-wing historian, Mr David Irving, said yesterday he expects to be arrested in Britain on foot of a German extradition warrant concerning comments he made in 1990 claiming the gas chambers at Auschwitz were built by Polish communists after the second World War. The claim was made on the third day of a libel action at the High Court in London. The historian is suing the US academic, Prof Deborah Lipstadt, and Penguin Books over allegations in her book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory that he is a "Holocaust denier" who deliberately mistranslates and manipulates historical documents to cast Hitler in a positive light. The introduction of a press clipping from yesterday's edition of Stuttgart Zeitung, in which the extradition request was described, surprised the court. Mr Richard Rampton QC, representing Prof Lipstadt and Penguin, insisted the article had not been inspired by any intervention by the defendants. But Mr Irving said he wished to draw Mr Justice Gray's attention to the clipping in the event that "this end of the bench should suddenly be empty", in the event of his arrest. He said the Home Office was in receipt of the warrant and he "wouldn't at all be surprised" if the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, ordered that it should be acted upon. On the second day of cross-examination by Mr Rampton, the historian denied deliberately mistranslating a document used in his books Hitler's War and Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich, in order to portray Hitler as "merciful". Mr Irving insisted in both books that a document from November 1941 showed there was "incontrovertible evidence" that Hitler had ordered there should be no liquidation of the Jews. However, the German translation of the reported order from Hitler did not prohibit the liquidation of Jews generally, Mr Rampton argued, but referred to a particular "Jew transport from Berlin" of about 1,000 Jews to Riga, Latvia. "You inflated it from one trainload to a general ruling against the liquidation of Jews," Mr Rampton suggested. After circular arguments about the position of a full stop in the document, Mr Irving eventually conceded: "I interpreted that line as being Jews (in general). We now know it was probably a reference to that particular transport of Jews." However, Mr Irving insisted there was not a "shred of evidence" of deliberate mistranslation and in subsequent editions of his books he had inserted the "narrower interpretation" of the translation. Moving on to the diary entries of a Reich General Governor based in east Poland, Mr Rampton said that during a visit to Berlin in 1941 the general heard Hitler deliver a speech in which he referred to the "annihilation of the Jews". The governor later wrote that he had been told in Berlin "why all this trouble (with the Jews). . . we've got no use for them. . . liquidate them yourselves." Mr Rampton said this reference was evidence that the Berlin authorities, and possibly even Hitler, had told the general to liquidate a fresh transport of European and Polish Jews. It was not, as Mr Irving would have it, the general telling Berlin to stop "dumping" Jews in Poland for him to deal with. But another entry in the general's diary "completely demolishes" that theory and Mr Irving's argument that the Jews were not gassed by the Nazis, Mr Rampton said. He quoted the passage: "For us the Jews are also particularly useless. . . We have approximately 3.5 million Jews. We can't shoot them. We can't poison them. But we have to be able to do something which will one way or another lead to their successful annihilation. . . " The case continues on Monday. Copyright 2000 The Scotsman Publications Ltd. The Scotsman January 14, 2000, Friday IRVING TELLS LIBEL TRIAL OF GERMAN WARRANT FOR RACIAL INCITEMENT BY: Cathy Gordon THE controversial historian, David Irving, revealed yesterday that the German government was seeking his extradition for alleged racial incitement. The 62-year-old author told the High Court in London it was another example of "the kind of hatred I face and the problems I face because of the repugnant allegations against me". On the third day of his libel action over claims that he was a "Holocaust denier", Mr Irving told the court that "the German government has asked for my extradition to Germany on an alleged offence that I committed in 1990". He referred Mr Justice Gray, the judge hearing his case against American academic Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books, to a 12 January press clipping from a German newspaper about the extradition request. The article , from Stuttgart Zeitung, stated that "Weinheim magistrates court has requested the British government to extradite David Irving". It further reported that "there has been since 1996 an indictment for racial incitement" relating to a lecture Mr Irving delivered in Weinheim in September 1990. The article stated that Mr Irving "had made a name for himself on that occasion among the circles concerned because he challenged Hitler's blame for the war and, among other things, maintained that the Holocaust had not occurred". It also added that it was "doubtful that there will be any trial of Irving, as the allegations against him will run out of time in September this year". After the end of yesterday's sitting, Mr Irving told the media that the controversy arose over a comment he made during a talk at Weinheim that the gas chambers at Auschwitz were a fake and built after the war - a statement which was a criminal offence in Germany. He said he was fined the equivalent of GBP 15,000 in 1992 for making the same statement in Munich in 1990. He was also banned from Germany. The extradition proceedings revealed in court yesterday were launched in August 1998, but no attempt had been made to serve the warrant against Mr Irving. Professor Lindstadt and Penguin Books deny libelling Mr Irving in her 1994 book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. Mr Irving, who is representing himself, says the book alleges he has denied the Holocaust and has distorted statistics and documents to serve his own ideological purposes and reach historically untenable conclusions. He claims the book has generated "waves of hatred against him". The hearing was adjourned until Monday. ### Jewish Chronicle, Jan 14 2000, * Shevat 7, 5760 http://www.jchron.co.uk/jcdat/current/TW/front_main4.stm Irving in court: aspects of Shoah "debatable" By Lee Levitt HISTORIAN David Irving questioned the extent of the Holocaust as his libel action against an American academic continued in the High Court this week. Mr Irving - who is suing Professor Deborah Lipstadt, author of "Denying the Holocaust," and her publishers, Penguin Books - acknowledged that the Nazis had murdered "criminally large number of Jews." He suggested the figure was "certainly more than one million, certainly less than four million." But he told the packed court: "I am prepared to deny the possibility that the Nazis liquidated millions of people in gas chambers." Under cross-examination from Richard Rampton QC, Mr Irving, who is presenting his own case, said that in the second edition of his book "Hitler's War," printed in 1991, he had abandoned his previous view that Auschwitz was a dedicated extermination centre, depicting it as a slave labour camp. He had also removed the word "Holocaust" from the book. During an exchange with Mr Rampton, Mr Irving said: "I do not deny that= there was some kind of gassing in gas chambers at [Auschwitz] Birkenau. It is= highly likely that there was." But "there are aspects of the Holocaust as currently portrayed that are questionable, debatable - and they need to be debated" The word "Holocaust" is misleading, offensive and unhelpful. It is too unscientific and should be avoided." Mr Irving told the court that, after the death last September of his eldest daughter, who had been brain-damaged and limbless, he had received a wreath of roses and lilies, signed in the name of the head of the Nazi euthanasia extermination programme, saying: "It was truly a merciful death." "This is the kind of hatred that this [Lipstadt] book has subjected me to. This was intolerable and unjustifiable." Mr Irving is suing Professor Lipstadt over allegations in her book that he distorted history. She is not due to testify during the trial, which is expected to last three months. The case continues.
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