Shofar FTP Archive File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day002.07
Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day002.07
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20
Q. You are saying that, yes, there were multiple shootings by
Einsatzgruppen and so on during the invasion of Soviet
Russia --
A. There was mass murders of Jews committed by Nazis in their
satraps --
Q. -- but it was not pursuant to any systematic programme, is
that your case?
A. -- again, I would have to -- I am not caviling, but these
are important definitions, my Lord. If the
definition -- if by using the word "systematic" you are
implying that the system, the Third Reich as such
originated these massacres, then I would have to
quibble
with that. I would say that certainly at a lower
level a
system emerged and that it was systemized somewhere in
the
hierarchy; does your Lordship appreciate --
Q. Yes, I follow what you are saying.
A. -- yes. I submit that the Defendants will find it
very
difficult to suggest that it was a Third Reich
decision.
In other words an Adolf Hitler decision, which is of
course the open water between us at present.
Q. Can I ask a similar question; do you accept or deny
totally that there was any systematic gassing of Jews
in
gas chambers, whether at Auschwitz or at elsewhere?
I know we are not dealing with Auschwitz but I think
that
. P-157
that ought to be part of --
A. Yes, I think if we can leave out the word "systematic"
which is contentious, I do not deny that there was
some
kind of gassing at gas chambers in Birkenhau, it is
highly
likely that there was.
Q. -- on a solely experimental basis or --
A. That is the word I have used to give an indication of
scale and to give an indication of the authority on
which
it was conducted, and, well, I leave it at that. But
now
you appreciate the reason why I am reluctant to insert
the
word systematized into that, because that implies that
it
was conducted on authority from above and that there
were
guidelines, and in some of the killings they were very
definitely guidelines, my Lord, and I will lead some
evidence on that later. Because Heinrich Himmler in
fact
refers to guidelines in a message he send to one of
the
commanders which has not been revealed previously.
Q. -- do you want to add anything more in advance of
cross-examination about the allegation that you are a
Holocaust denier using the term "Holocaust" in the
narrow
definition?
A. I do, my Lord, I wish to say that if you are not
allowed
to examine components of the Holocaust as I described
it,
the tragedy that was inflicted on the Jewish people in
the
Third Reich, if you are not allowed to examine
individual
components of that and say, yes, this definitely
. P-158
happened. This is slightly exaggerated, that bit I
find
little evidence for. In other words not to carry out
normal kind of analysis that you would do as a writer
or
as an historian without being accused and defamed as
being
a Holocaust denier instantly by the assembled mass
media,
then I would think would be a very sorry state of
affairs.
To that extent I find it offensive to be called a
Holocaust denier because there are aspects of the
Holocaust as currently portrayed that I find
questionable,
debateable and they need to be debated. But that is
not
Holocaust denial in my view, my Lord.
The defence contention that somebody who
challenges the figure is a Holocaust denier ipso
facto, I
have read Professor Evans' report in great deal here
where
I think he gives four criteria of what a Holocaust
denier
is. Somebody who says that Adolf Hitler did not give
the
order, somebody who challenges a figure. Somebody who
says there were no gas chambers. I forget the fourth
one. It is almost as though those four criteria have
been
tailor made in the way that you would have a suit
tailor
made for this very action, my Lord. I do not think
that
your Lordship will set much store by those four
criteria.
I hope you will not. Because if it is not possible to
question the 6 million figure, for example, that I
have
been I accused of being a Holocaust denier, you run
into
immediate difficulties, because the Auschwitz
authorities
. P-159
themselves removed the memorial stone for 4 million
dead
and replaced it with a memorial stone for one million
dead; are they Holocaust deniers under Professor
Evans'
definition? It is an absurdity.
Q. Again, take your own course, but I was being to move
on
and I was going to skip for the purposes of my so-
called
examination-in-chief of you, skip altogether the
section
dealing with Auschwitz and indeed the one...
A. If you had not, my Lord, I would have reminded you of
what
we agreed this morning.
Q. Yes, quite. I am also going to skip Treblinka,
Sobibor
and Belsic, because it seems to me they really belong
in
the same compartment of the case as Auschwitz.
There is a section though in a subsection in
section 2, you may be able to find the page 28, which
is
headed: "Mass Murder of Jews by Shootings", I am not
sure
that really belongs in that particular section, but I
can
see why it has landed up there; do you want to say
anything at this stage about that in fairly general
terms? I think the criticism is made of you that
whilst
you recognize that many, to use a neutral word, many
Jews
were shot and killed in horrific circumstances, you
have
downplayed it, you have underestimated the number of
deaths which occurred in this fashion?
A. I do not like playing numbers games, my Lord, and a
lot of
these numbers are very suspect. Your Lordship may not
be
. P-160
familiar with this, but there was the case against
Field
Marshall Manstein, conducted by British War Crimes
Court
in Germany, where Manstein was represented by very
eminent
and able QC, I think it was Paget, who subsequently
wrote
a book called "Manstein and His Trials" and he led
very
good evidence indeed on these figures, proving how
totally
impossible many of the figures were relating to the
Einsatzgruppen, but I say this with the utmost
diffidence
as I am not a expert and I have no intention of
becoming a
expert on that. What I am an expert on is the role
played
by Adolf Hitler in these killings and if I can just
spend
two minutes of the court's time describing the sequel
to
what happened yesterday, the November 30th 1941
episode,
documents we have here in the British archives. They
are
of the utmost importance because they go a long way to
refuting what Mr Rampton said yesterday about my
interpretation of that Himmler document.
If you remember, my Lord, on November 30th
1941,
an event to which both the defence and I in our
opening
statements have referred occurred. A train load of
1,035
Jews from Berlin arrived after a two or three day
journey
at Riga. They were unloaded from the train that
morning
in ice cold conditions and had the misfortune to
arrive in
the middle of a mass extermination, a mass shooting of
Jews being conducted by the local SS commander. They
were
shot immediately in the pits, and, my Lord, I am sure
you
. P-161
will vividly remember the description of that very
shooting that was given to us by General Bruns in the
Bruns Report, to which I have repeatedly referred.
Q. Yes.
A. So that one episode, when great good fortune, having a
lot
of documentation, the defence as I understand it are
going
to seize on the fact that in the Bruns Report the
local SS
junior says it is the Fuhrer's orders. I think there
are
very grave reasons for doubting that because Heinrich
Himmler, as we heard yesterday, at 1.30 p.m. on that
same
Sunday, November 30th 1941, was called into Hitler's
bunker and at or about that time, and I am going to be
quite careful how I say this, he had reason to make a
telephone call to SS Obergruppen Fuhrer Reinhardt
Heinrich, who was his henchman, his closest
lieutenant.
He was the head of the killers, shall we say, he was
above
the Gestapo, Reinhardt Heinreich, and in that
telephone
conversation he said certain things as a result of
which
he jotted down two lines in his note pad. I have the
actual handwritten notes on the table next to my stand
there. The first line says: ( German spoken) Jew
transport from Berlin. I appreciate quite readily
that in
the first chapter of my "Hitler's War" book I wrongly
put
that in the plural. The second line continued with
the
words ( German spoken) "no liquidation".
Now, many things can be said about that
. P-162
document, my Lord, the first is, how is it that it was
not
until 1974 when David Irving took the trouble to
transcribe Heinrich Himmler's note, 30 years after the
war
was over that this extraordinary note came to the
attention of the historical community. Well, I do not
know why they do not want to read Heinreich Himmler's
handwriting. It is a very difficult handwriting and
I have to plead that as being my partial excuse for
having
misread ( German spoken) and also on the following day
for
having misread word "juden" as "haben" (?) or vice
versa.
Q. I think the point they make is not so much about
legibility, but that this on its face looks as if it
is
talking about a single train transportation to --
A. Yes, this true, my Lord.
Q. -- to Riga from Berlin.
A. I should have put in the word "the". I left out the
word
"the" in my text based on it. I should not have said
"transportation of Jews" I should have said "the
transport of Jews". But I corrected this as soon as
this
was pointed out to me, my Lord.
But I can continue because the inference
that
I drew from this, if this telephone call is made (
German
spoken), from the bunker, from Hitler's bunker at the
Wolf's lair in Rustenberg, East Prussia, Himmler has
been
required to telephone Reinhardt Heydrich and tell
somebody
these Jews from Berlin were not to be liquidated, you
have
. P-163
to very interesting conclusion, namely the liquidation
was
in the air and people have pointed this out to me and
I do
not dispute that for one moment. But what interested
me
is Adolf Hitler's biographer is that here is a case of
Hitler intervening in a negative way. But it gets
more
interesting, my Lord, because we now have 20 years
further
down the road at the end of the 1990s in the Public
Record
Office the intercepts of the radio messages sent by
Himmler the very next day to the man who had carried
out
the killings, SS Obergruppenfuhrer Joachim. Now this
may
be new to your Lordship. It is certainly new to
everybody
in this court; December 1st 1941, the day after the
killings, Joachim gets a message from Heinrich Himmler
in
top secret SS code which we broke reading, and I have
this
there memory, I have the actual document on my desk
over
there but the sense is, the words are: These shootings
that have been carried out in Riga, concerning the
shootings in Riga, any excess, any further excesses,
arbitrary excesses and actions against instructions
given
to you -- no. You have been given clear guidelines.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think we ought to look at this document
I am not familiar with it.
MR RAMPTON: Nor are we.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Then I think we should look at it.
A. My Lord, it has been supplied to the Defence several
weeks
ago.
. P-164
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not doubting that for a moment. Can
you
indicate where it is so we can get it for you?
A. It is large yellow sheets headed "Most Secret" in my
case,
at the bottom of the inside of my case. Then I do not
have them with me, because I was intending to lead
this
material tomorrow.
Q. So I understand what you are saying, you are saying
there
is a message from Himmler to Joachim?
A. From Himmler to the Chief of the SS saying: There
were
very clear guidelines for the outsettlement, the
outplacing of the Jews from Berlin.
Q. So it is about the Jews from Berlin?
A. It is talking about Jews from Berlin, clearly
referring to
this train load. He then continues: Any further
arbitrary
actions and actions against instructions will be
severely
punished, and he ordered Joachim to report immediately
to
Hitler's headquarters. On December 4th, my Lord, and
this
I do have there in the big blue volume -- can you give
it
to me, the Himmler Diary, have had that volume now for
20
years -- on December 4th 1941 Joachim then turns up at
Hitler's headquarters and he is raked over the coals,
there is no question, because the killings of German Jews
stopped for the next few months. On December 1st I would
say ----
Q. Is there a copy of this document? If there is not there
should be one.
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