Shofar FTP Archive File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day002.19
Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day002.19
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20
A. Firstly, I accept the document was in all probability
shown to Hitler. Secondly, I think in all probability he
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paid no attention to it. The reason being the date. This
is the height of the Stalingrad crisis. Every waking
moment he is waiting for news that the fourth army that he
sent to rescue the sixth army, to relieve the sixth army,
had broken through the ring, the battleship Sharn Horse is
out on the high seas in the Arctic Circle just about to be
sunk that same day as it is shown to him. He has an awful
lot of things on his plate. You asked me to imagine, my
Lord, the situation and I can imagine the situation that
the Fuhrer, Heydrich Himmler has thought that this is an
opportune moment to slip a document into the heap to be
shown to the Fuhrer which he can use one way or the other
as time may come later on, either to say, "look how well
I did, mein Fuhrer", or on the other hand to say, "But
I told you at the time we had done that." There is a
reason why I say this because we have another document
later on called Korherr report with which I am sure
the
Defendants are familiar, where Himmler goes to some
lengths to camouflage the documents so Hitler cannot
see
what is going on, and references to special treatment
and
so on are actually excised from the document before it
is
shown to Hitler. So taking this in conjunction with
other
documents, but I would attach no evidentiary value to
what
I just said whatsoever, because it is literally
speculating on the basis of very thin evidence, on the
basis of the date, on the basis of my knowledge from
other
. P-265
source of what else was going on at that time in
Hitler's
War. It is a mistake to contemplate documents like in
vacuo.
MR RAMPTON: Oh yes.
A. At the same time as documents like this are happening,
if
I can put it like that, all sorts of other things are
happening.
Q. Sure, but one, only one, and you see, Mr Irving, we
are
not on this side of the court setting out to prove
what
did happen, we are only interested in the evidence
which a
reputable historian would put into the scales and
weigh
before arrival at a conclusion, one obvious
explanation of
this document, which in fact is generated by the
document
before it in the bundle if you look at it, is it not?
The
original report is dated 26th December 1942 and comes
from
the higher SS and police leader in South Russia, etc.,
does it not?
A. Yes.
Q. So somebody has taken the trouble back at Berlin to
have
this typed up in the large Fuhrer type?
A. Yes.
Q. Somebody has taken the trouble to put it in front of
Himmler who has signed it as we see on its fourth
page, my
Lord, that is page 9, and somebody has taken the
trouble
to put it in front of Hitler.
A. Yes.
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Q. Why should they do that?
A. Somebody has sent it to be put in front of Hitler,
yes.
Q. And you agree that the probability is that he saw it?
A. Yes.
Q. Or that it was put in front of him?
A. Yes.
Q. Why should they do that if they did not think he would
want to see it?
A. Because Hitler has personally given orders for the
security operations on the Eastern Front. Hitler at a
very early date after the operation Barbarossa began,
the
attack on Russia, issued instructions to Heydrich that
he
wanted to be kept regularly informed on the operations
of
the Einsatzgruppen.
Q. And on 1st August 1941 Mullar, the head of the Gestapo
told Einsatzgruppen that, did he not, or reminded?
A. Yes, that is correct. That is the document I am
referring
to.
Q. That is the beginning of the system, if I may call it
that, and this is one of the end results, is it not?
That
is how the system matures?
A. We are trying to justify the word "systematic"?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not worry too much about what Mr
Rampton
may or may not be trying to do.
MR RAMPTON: It is not a joint exercise with you, Mr
Irving.
A. I was in the dark as to what was contentious about
this
. P-267
document, because I have actually used in document in
my
book Hitler's War, my Lord. I have given the data. I
have given the figures. I have reported it in detail.
There is no mystery about it. I have not tried to
conceal
it the way that my opponents have concealed the
documents
they do not like.
Q. Mr Irving, I am not here representing your opponents
except in so far as you have sued some people for
libel.
Beyond that I have no role.
A. You are representing my opponents.
Q. In this case.
A. Yes.
Q. What, you mean Professor Lipstadt has suppressed
documents, is that what you are trying to say?
A. You said I am not representing your opponent.
Q. No, I am not. You said "in the way that my opponents
have
suppressed documents". I said I do not answer for
those
opponents.
A. Those opponent you are not representing.
Q. No, I do not represent them. Here is a document which
appears to represent a part of a systematic reporting
to
Adolf Hitler about the numbers of people killed by the
Einsatzgruppen in the East.
A. I strongly disagree. This document is an orphan. Can
you
produce to me one other document shown to Hitler with
figures of that magnitude reporting crimes on that
scale?
. P-268
Q. Earlier they would have been less. We do not have the
other 50 or do we?
A. I am saying that these reports ----
Q. Have you got ----
A. No. What I am saying is that the other reports in the
Meldung series are not necessarily statistics. They
may
be as I gave one example, a typical thing would be a
report on a two-man midget torpedo operation against
the
Tirpitz where Himmler's men had caught the British
seamen
involved and had them executed and that would go to
Hitler
as a meldung to the Fuhrer at exactly this time. So
what
I am saying is that this kind of meldung with these
kinds
of statistics to Hitler on an Einsatzgruppen operation
is
an orphan. You cannot produce to me one similar
document
in that series.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have we got any of numbers 1 to 50?
A. I have at home, my Lord, yes.
MR RAMPTON: Do they look like this? I am not saying the
wording is similar, but do they look like this?
A. No. This is just something that Himmler sent in
because
he thought it is just as interesting to Hitler midget
torpedo operations or the rubber plant that he is
working
on.
Q. We are know at the end of 1942 with this document.
A. Yes, but you are trying to justify the system, the
fact
that they were systematically put in on the basis of
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reports like this and I am saying this is the only
such
report.
Q. It is the only one which has survived?
A. No. There is a complete series.
Q. How many are there in this form with a large Fuhrer
type?
A. I have only seen one such report reporting statistics
of
this kind. All the others are in the large Fuhrer
type.
Q. They are?
A. Yes, the ones about the two-man torpedoes and things
like
that. They make fascinating reading. They are
obviously
of great interest.
Q. Would you suggest that that report to Hitler of
363,000
plus Jews executed in those eastern territories by the
end
of 1942 bore no relation to the order that the
Einsatzgruppen should report to Hitler on the
activities,
on their activities, on their work, in the East?
A. Yes, it may have born, and we know from the decoding
operations of the Einsatzgruppen regularly reported
their
killing operations and there are enormous figures
involved
in them.
Q. Then, Mr Irving, can we face reality? There is an
order
in August 1941 that these people shall report to the
Fuhrer on their activities?
A. The Fuhrer wishes to be kept constantly informed on
the
Einsatzgruppen operations.
Q. That is right, he wishes to have continuous report.
. P-270
A. That is right.
Q. In the result, as I have put it, in the result in
December
1942 he gets just such a report?
A. Oh, I do not think you can say that because somebody
gives
an order in August 1941 and a document turns up, what,
16
months later this is the result of that.
Q. Why not?
A. It may have been but it may not.
Q. Why not?
A. If it had turned up two weeks later then I would say
yes
there is probably a very clear link between one and
the
other.
Q. If in August 1941 at the time that the Einsatzgruppen
were
just starting their work there is an order in place
that
the Fuhrer is to be supplied with regular reports of
their
work, it is not at all surprising that by December
1942
that system is still in place and these reports are
still
coming in, is it?
A. I disagree. Suppose in August 1941 you ask for a
plumber
to come and fix a sink, and finally in December 1942 a
firm of plumbers contacts you and says, "here is an
estimate for fixing your sink", it does not
necessarily
mean there is any connection between them.
Q. It is not a very good analogy, Mr Irving. I do not
ask
the plumber for continuous plumbing over a period of
time
all over a large part of Eastern Europe. Better keep
off
. P-271
those sorts of analogies.
A. But then where are the other continuous reports,
Mr Rampton? I have not seen them.
Q. No, I do not know where they are, Mr Irving.
A. This is one report.
Q. But this is a report of some of the work of the
Einsatzgruppen in the East to be placed before the
Fuhrer.
A. But this was not the only task of Einsatzgruppen. The
Einsatzgruppen had a whole bunch of tasks they carried
out.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I really do think that you
ought
to consider the position. Hitler gives an order that
he
wants to be kept regularly informed about the
shootings by
the Einsatzgruppen.
A. No, he wants to be kept informed of the operations of
the
Einsatzgruppen.
MR RAMPTON: The work.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: The work, whatever you like, kept
informed.
That suggests he wants to be told on a repeated basis
what
is going on?
A. Yes.
Q. Are you suggesting that for some reason he
countermanded
that order or that it was not obeyed or what?
A. No, I am not, but I am not saying that it is
established
to my satisfaction at any rate that this document
. P-272
is -- I am sure what the relevance is -- that this
document is the direct product of that order.
Q. Well, forget about whether it is the direct product.
Would you not think it a reasonable inference that
there
would have been reports in one shape or form or
another to
him reaching Hitler's desk of the number of people
being
shot by the Einsatzgruppen?
A. One would have expected it, but this is the only one
we
have and this is what surprises us.
Q. So you agree that one would expect that there would
have
been other similar reports?
A. Yes, my Lord.
MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, let us look at it in a slightly
different way. If, as you have proposed on occasion,
the
killings by the Einsatzgruppen in the East and some of
the
police battalions and some of the local malitia were
merely, I say "merely" I do not mean to diminish what
happened, but in the sense of structure, merely
criminal
acts by local maverick SS commanders and others,
nobody
would have dreamed of putting this document before
Hitler,, would they?
A. You are regarding it in vacuo again. The episode
which
I recounted was at the end of 1941. The clock has now
moved on one year, many things have happened. Germany
has
started to lose. People are getting frantic. The tide
has
turned as Churchill himself said, it was no longer the
. P-273
beginning of the end, but it was the end of the
beginning
I think Churchill said. This was Stalingrad, it was
encircled, El Allgemeine, the battle had been won.
The
Germans were now seeing the writing on the wall and it
may
well be that Himmler thought this was a good time to
show
this kind of thing to Hitler.
Q. And for why?
A. Can I just remind you once again, this document is in
my
books.
Q. Yes. We are going to look at your books in some
detail
further on down the road, not today, Mr Irving, except
for
one remaining purpose.
A. That is what worries me about why we are spending the
court's valuable time on looking at this document when
I have gone into in great detail in my book.
Q. Because, Mr Irving, I think your position is that mass
killings ----
A. Yes.
Q. --- not by gas but by other means were not systematic?
A. I have said all along mass killings occurred on the
Eastern Front. This is the Eastern Front.
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