text:
Holocaust Denial on Trial, Trial Transcripts, Day 4: Electronic Edition
Pages 1 - 207 of 207
1996 I. No. 113
2Royal Courts of Justice
3Strand, London
4 Monday, 17th January 2000
10Claimant -and-
14The Claimant appeared in person
15MR RICHARD RAMPTON Q.C. (instructed by Messrs Davenport Lyons and Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of the First and
16Second Defendants
17MISS HEATHER ROGERS (instructed by Davenport Lyons) appeared on behalf of the First Defendant Penguin Books Limited
18MR ANTHONY JULIUS (of Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of
19the Second Defendant Deborah Lipstadt
21(Transcribed from the stenographic notes of Harry Counsell & Company,
Clifford's Inn, Fetter Lane, London EC4
22Telephone: 020-7242-9346)
1 < DAY 4 Monday, 17th January 2000
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Mr Irving?
3 MR IRVING: May it please your Lordship.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think this court is better. I know a lot
5of work has been put into moving everything and I am very
6grateful for those who did it.
7 MR IRVING: I am indebted to the solicitors in this action. An
8added burden falls upon them, my being a litigant in
10 May it please the court, I have addressed a
11letter to the court suggesting that we spend some ten
12minutes this morning dealing with some minor matters that
13have come up, and also I wanted to propose that your
14Lordship should appoint a date when we might have a formal
15argument, lasting perhaps one half hour for each party, on
16this important question of what is relevant and what is
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are you talking about Auschwitz now?
19 MR IRVING: About Auschwitz, my Lord, yes.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I did not realize there was a dispute between
21you as to what is or is not relevant in the Defendants'
22evidence for that matter.
23 MR IRVING: Your Lordship will remember on the very first day
24in my opening remarks I did draw your attention to the
25fact in my view what happened 50 years ago was less
26important than what happened within the four walls of my
1study, as I put it.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That point I fully understood, but I am not
3sure that knocks out the much of the Defendants' evidence,
4but we do not, I think, want to get into that today.
5 MR IRVING: I do not want to get into argument today, but
6I wonder whether we possibly ought to steer toward having
7a discussion about it, so we can clarify our minds about
8the relevance of this. I have seen that the Defendants
9have made remarks to various foreign newspapers about the
10Auschwitz lie or about Auschwitz and such. It is not. It
11is about specific libels as set out in the Statement of
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: In this court we are all agreed about that,
14but, yes, do raise that whenever is a convenient moment;
15I suspect now is not.
16 MR IRVING: Now is not the right moment.
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Because we are on another topic. You are in
18the middle of your evidence.
19 MR IRVING: I suspect we will have to prepare ourselves for
20it. But if you were to limit it to say half an hour each
21side maximum. I will try to persuade your Lordship to
22limit the ambit of the evidence and the argument and the
23hearing itself which would have a pleasing effect on the
24length of the trial, but, on the other hand, I am sure
25that the Defendants would wish to argue in the other
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, perhaps the first thing between you and
2Mr Rampton is to try to agree a time when it might be
3convenient to raise this issue.
4 MR RAMPTON: My Lord, can I perhaps intervene at this stage?
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
6 MR RAMPTON: As matters presently stand, I see that I have just
7been handed something from Mr Irving -- I expect your
8Lordship has it too -- containing some sort of a proposed
9timetable for his witnesses ----
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
11 MR RAMPTON: --- about which I have no comment to make except
12this, that Professor van Pelt, as Mr Irving knows and has
13known for some time, is arriving in this country at the
14end of this week with a view to his giving evidence at the
15beginning of next -- no, sorry not giving evidence being
16in court while I cross-examine Mr Irving about Auschwitz.
17It follows from that -- perhaps, two things follow; one
18that that cross-examination will be discontinuous, that is
19intermediate because of these other people that are
20coming. I am not going to stand in their way if it is
21inconvenient for them. I have few, if any, questions to
22ask them anyway, I suspect. But it does mean that before
23I start my cross-examination on Auschwitz, if there is a
24ruling to be made, it would need to be made before the
25beginning of next week, preferably before Professor van
26Pelt steps on an aeroplane to come to Europe.
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. We have proceeded on the basis that we
2are having two separate issues or two separate chunks of
3evidence; one related to Auschwitz and the other relating
4to everything else. You are in the middle of
5cross-examining on everything else. My impression is you
6have a little way to go.
7 MR RAMPTON: I have miles to go.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: How far to go? We may have to put Professor
9van Pelt off, may we not?
10 MR RAMPTON: It depends , because what I call the Evans part of
11the case is not a narrative I tried to keep it started at
12the end of 41, and so as far I am trying to keep on that
13track, and I will I hope this week manage to get to the
14beginning of the autumn of 1942. Maybe I will get a bit
15further than. But then there are all sorts of what one
16might call various things such as Dresden, such as
17Reichskristallnacht, which have nothing to do with the
18narrative, but everything to do with Mr Irving's
19historiography. I shall have to get to those.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think having gone down the road of treating
21those as separate issues, as being taken together and
22leaving Auschwitz on one side, we must follow that, must
23we not? It will be hopelessly difficult for everybody to
24suddenly switch back to Auschwitz and then resume your
26 MR RAMPTON: Auschwitz is more nearly a part of the narrative
1that I am launched on now, chronologically speaking, than
2for example Reichskristallnacht, which is 1938. I had in
3mind to lead up to Auschwitz by the questions I shall ask
4about other matters arising from the Evans report and
5Browning and Longerich. So Auschwitz would fit neatly in
6at the end of my cross-examination this week as part of
7the historical narrative.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I think this is quite helpful to
9debate this through. I had really understood the point
10you are on at the moment to be part of your case for
11saying that Hitler knew, if that is what it all goes to,
12and kristallnacht goes to that, so indeed did the events
13of 1924.
14 MR RAMPTON: This is all to do to with system -- two things,
15how systematic were the shootings and the gassings --
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: How high up did the instruction come from.
17 MR RAMPTON: How high up did it go. Embedded in that all are
18very specific criticisms about the way in which Mr Irving
19deals with the material.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Of course, because that is an aspect of ----
21 MR RAMPTON: The libel.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- your case in relation to whether Hitler
24 MR RAMPTON: Of course.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving has not taken account of all the
1 MR RAMPTON: That is right.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But, looking at it from my point of view,
3I would find it helpful to go through all of that in one
4bite, as it were, and to treat Auschwitz separately. If
5that is not practical, well, then we will have to live
6with it.
7 MR RAMPTON: I will find out, obviously, in the light of what
8your Lordship said, whether it is practical, but I have to
9say I think at this stage it is going to be very
10difficult. I know, that Professor van Pelt has a
11significant or substantial academic appointment to fulfil
12in, I think, March, is it March -- yes.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is a fair way off.
14 MR RAMPTON: Yes, I know.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We have to keep an eye on this not running
16out of control.
17 MR RAMPTON: I quite agree. We have allocated three months,
18give or take maybe a week or two. I am very anxious, from
19my clients' point of view, we keep to that schedule if we
20possibly can.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Of course.
22 MR RAMPTON: One of the key elements in all this is I do not
23know what Mr Irving's position on Auschwitz is.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That may emerge if we have the debate about
25how much evidence is really relevant on Auschwitz.
26 MR RAMPTON: Yes, I have two -- I make it perfectly clear,
1I have always done -- main lines of attack so far as
2Mr Irving and Auschwitz are concerned, which all really
3amount to the same thing; either he leapt on the Leuchter
4bandwagon without having bothered to think about it, which
5is very good evidence of his poor quality as an historian,
6or else he did think about it and his position is every
7bit as bad. So for that reason the detail may or may not
8be relevant, but since I do not know what his position
9is ...
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Again, I do not want to get into it too much,
11but one of the points you make is that there is a lot of
12evidence, eyewitness evidence, and the like, which, as
13I understand your case, you contend Mr Irving has not
14given proper or, perhaps, indeed, any weight to. How does
15that k-- I mean, that must be part of the case still, must
16it not?
17 MR RAMPTON: Of course it is. I could cross-examine Mr Irving
18for a month about Auschwitz if he will not concede a
19single point about the convergent evidence which, as a
20matter of probability, would satisfy the historian that it
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Well, you have put a few markers
23down. Mr Irving, I think it is helpful just to see the
24way the wind is blowing. Shall we try to deal with your
26 MR IRVING: I will reserve my position on Auschwitz. I have
1very powerful material which supports my position. The
2second point, I am just asking your Lordship to utter a
3verbal "tut tut" to the Defence as they keep on trickling
4material at me.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. You refer to Professor Evans having
6submitted a closely typed 18 page list of amendments.
7 MR IRVING: To his already very detailed report.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not totally sure that has reached me,
9but may I wrong about that.
10 MR IRVING: It is about 5,000 or 8,000 words, I estimate very
11detailed, probably about 200 separate points.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have, if I may say so, a lot of sympathy
13with that ----
14 MR IRVING: The accuracy with which he is working, on the other
15hand, it inflicts an added burden on us.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I see that. I am conscious of the heavy
17burden you are bearing. I am well aware of that.
18 MR IRVING: My Lord.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have I actually got that, Mr Rampton?
20 MR RAMPTON: I do not know, my Lord.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The addendum.
22 MR RAMPTON: If not, I can only apologise on all our behalves;
23you certainly should have done.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: At some stage I am, presumably, going to have
25to absorb it. I have noted, Mr Irving --
26 MR IRVING: The third point, my Lord. I have suggested a
1proposed timetable for witnesses.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Before we get to that, could I go back to
3your point (1)? I am a little concerned you feel part of
4your case has gone by the board.
5 MR IRVING: Indeed, my Lord. If your Lordship would indicate
6how and in what manner I would be able to introduce the
7evidence I propose to lead?
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I thought about that. Your main concern is
9you are obviously getting it into my head.
10 MR IRVING: Getting it before your Lordship.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Quite. Well, if I may say so, I think you
12have produced enough in writing and, indeed, to some
13extent in your opening, in your short evidence-in-chief,
14in regard to your reputation. I do not think you need be
15concerned about that. That certainly has not gone by the
16board, as far as I am concerned. As far as the attempt to
17destroy your legitimacy as an historian, I know what your
18case is, but I think I have to remind you that this is
19actually an action on Professor Lipstadt' book, so --
20 MR IRVING: I anticipated your Lordship would say that, but in
21view of the fact that the sources on which that book draws
22have been part and parcel of this campaign to destroy my
23legitimacy, as I would have attempted to establish in the
24evidence that I would have proposed to lead, in that
25respect I consider it to be relevant to this case.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, up to a point. I think the fact is
1that if Professor Lipstadt has jumped on board a sort of
2bandwagon of critics of yours.
3 MR IRVING: Use that phrase.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: She has to justify what she has adopted from
6 MR IRVING: It is very difficult to justify if one knows in
7advance this particular witness is not proposing to submit
8herself to cross-examination.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You do not have to do it by going into the
10box yourself, you can do it by calling experts, as appears
11to be the Defendants' intention. But do not worry about
12the point about having gone by the board. I know what
13your case is. I am very well aware of that.
14 MR IRVING: A case that is founded on documents is far better
15than a case based upon mere verbal allegations.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I see that. If I want to try and elicit more
17from your own expert witnesses when they come to give
18evidence about your own reputation and, indeed perhaps,
19about the campaign, well, to a limited extent, of course,
20you can do that.
21 MR IRVING: What about the historical documents, my Lord? For
22example, in December 1942, on Friday, we were looking at
23the December 1942 document -- I am sure your Lordship
24remembers -- when Himmler sent a report to Hitler saying
25the 300,000 Jews shot as partisans, roughly speaking, and
26this is used as evidence against me, or against my
1position. There is a similar document from the same month
2showing a conference between Himmler and Hitler where
3Hitler is authorising Himmler to sell Jews to foreigners
4for foreign currency which would indicate in the other
5direction that he is not hell bent on destroying every Jew
6that comes into his possession. How will I be able to
7submit documents like that to your Lordship's attention?
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: This is a document not in your discovery at
9the moment.
10 MR IRVING: It is in the discovery. All these kinds of
11documents are in the discovery, but unless I -- I think
12there are over 2,000 documents in my discovery, many of
13them of many pages, and I am sure your Lordship will not
14have had time to consider them all.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No I do not pretend to.
16 MR RAMPTON: Might I again, I am only trying to help, I have no
17doubt at all that Mr Irving is correct -- I have not
18looked at it myself but when he says he has disclosed
19these documents I have no doubt he has. What has happened
20is, of course, that the files, "bundles" the lawyers call
21them, which your Lordship has, are ours. Little or no
22material from Mr Irving's side, except in so far as we
23already had and want to use it. What has not happened in
24this case, I know not why, is there has not, I do not
25I think, been any request from Mr Irving to have files
26made up.
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I follow.
2 MR RAMPTON: For submission to the court in the normal way.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving is obviously free where they are
4relevant to say, well, there are other documents that put
5a different complexion on it.
6 MR RAMPTON: I do not dispute this at all, what I am
7uncomfortable about as an advocate is, and I would I think
8if I were the judge in this case be uncomfortable about,
9is having documents coming at one with very little notice
10and at sort of random intervals. I would rather some
11hearing time or at some time when Mr Irving is not doing
12something else he could sit down and make a list of all
13the documents that he wants to refer to rebut our case
14against his integrity as an historian. Then we will have
15them made up into files, which would then become the --
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think he would say I cannot really say in
17advance because it depends very much on what tack you
18adopt in cross-examination. He will hear what you say.
19 MR RAMPTON: My cross-examination merely follows the scheme of
20my expert reports. There is nothing -- there is
21nothing -- there is no ambushing. It is all there.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I accept that.
23 MR RAMPTON: What is more there were all those written requests
24for information that we served in October or early
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, you hear what Mr Rampton says, the
1problem is time. I mean, you are not going to have a day
2to sit down --
3 MR IRVING: I agree, I am looking at practicalities.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: And do a list. I think the answer must to
5the extent you want to refer to documents you must be free
6to do so, but I am not inviting you to produce a sort of
7steady trickle of odd documents as we go along.
8 MR IRVING: My tactics will be, my Lord, that I will take
9specific issues, as I intend to this morning for a very
10few minutes suggest on the basis of documents already in
11the bundle or otherwise in the discovery that my position
12is correct, and that the position which they have laboured
13to establish is incorrect. I was proposing to do that for
14two or three minutes this morning on two specific issues
15that we will come to later.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, to the extent you want to introduce
17documents then I am not going to stop you. What I am very
18anxious to do is make sure we know where they are landing
19up. I am intending to put them all in the bundle called
20"J". It may be sensible if everybody else does the same,
21including those documents you produced I think on
22Thursday. But if you can give Mr Rampton advance notice
23of any documents that are not already in the bundles then
24that would be helpful.
25 MR IRVING: I endeavour to do so, my Lord.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Now these dates for Professor Watt and so
1on. I have no problem with any of them.
2 MR IRVING: I have established each date with a view to
3providing sufficient time for adequate cross-examination
4and, of course, they are flexible to that extent.
5 MR RAMPTON: The first one is this Thursday.
6 MR IRVING: Professor Watt, yes.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton is still going to be
8cross-examining, that is what he is going to say.
9 MR RAMPTON: I will still, but I do not mind my
10cross-examination being interrupted in the slightest.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, it might in some ways be an advantage.
12I do not, like you, think there is going to be much
13cross-examination of these witnesses.
14 MR RAMPTON: I do not even know what Professor Watt is going to
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is part of the point, is it not? Shall
17we proceed on the basis these dates are all acceptable.
18 MR IRVING: Professor Watt and Sir John Keegan are appearing on
19subpoena. This brings up one minor point; Sir John
20Keegan's subpoena was dated for a different date than the
21date we proposed now to call on because --
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is agreed, is it not?
23 MR IRVING: It is agreed. If your Lordship would agree to
24amend the summons.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure I need formally to amend it.
26It is agreed and accepted --
1 MR IRVING: -- Solicitors are very anxious that they should not
2be held to be in contempt.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I can say now they will not be, as long as he
4is here on February 7th at 10.30. You want to address the
5court on the Anne Frank diary entry and on Goebbels diary.
6 MR IRVING: Yes, it is a little bundle of pages I gave you. You
7will be relieved to hear that I only want to draw
8attention to five or six passages in them.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just pause a moment, would you, Mr Irving.
10What I am going to treat this as being, as your wishing as
11part of your evidence to amplify some of the answers you
12gave on Thursday. So I think it is best if you would do
13it from the witness box.
14 MR IRVING: Very well, my Lord.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That may sound a bit of a quibble, but
16I think that is the right way of doing it. Is there
17anything else before you go back.
18 MR IRVING: I think we have dealt with point 6 already, that is
19the point about Auschwitz.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Mr Rampton, there is nothing else you
21want to raise?
22 MR RAMPTON: Not in this letter, no.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Or at all?
24 MR RAMPTON: Yes, there is. I have another letter from
25Mr Irving. It came on Saturday. I do not know if your
26Lordship has it.
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think I have.
2 MR RAMPTON: I will do it, if I may, from memory. It looks
3like that, it has two paragraphs. A very small point on
4paragraph 1. Yes, of course, he can show it to people who
5would help him answer the point, or deal with the point.
6"I do not know about my friends", I suppose that means
7"helpers". That is a very small point.
8 There is a more serious point in the second
9paragraph. The last sentence says: "Materials collected
10for the purposes of testing the witnesses' credibility and
11credentials will not be provided. If they are materials
12which have relevance to credit only, then that is
13perfectly correct, they need not be provided: If, however,
14they have relevance to the issues in the case then they
15must be provided.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Mr Irving, I think that is right as a
17matter of law.
18 MR IRVING: Yes.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not know what you are talking about when
20you refer to these materials.
21 MR IRVING: My Lord, I can be more specific. We have obviously
22a number of experts who are assisting me with advice.
23Some of them have submitted lengthy letters to me, others
24have submitted expertise to me in more a formal form,
25which is very clearly of a nature designed to test the
26credit of the witness Professor van Pelt. My
1understanding of the law is that if it is designed to test
2his credit then I do not have disclose it.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is right.
4 MR IRVING: But it is very difficult to weed out from these
5reports what is a test as to credit and what is --
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you have material which suggests that
7Professor van Pelt is wrong about --
8 MR IRVING: Specific issues.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Whatever it may be about maybe points he
10makes on the Leuchter report, something of that kind, then
11that plainly has to be disclosed. But if you have some
12sort of evidence suggesting that Professor van Pelt has an
13agenda of his own and has misconducted himself in some way
14as an expert, out of the context of this case,
15then I think you probably would not have to disclose
16that. That may not be a very clear guide to you --
17 MR IRVING: We will do so with the utmost reluctance, but if it
18is the law, then we will do so. But it is rather like
19playing poker with the other person having a mirror over
20your head.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The short answer is, if it goes to the
22accuracy of his observations as an expert, as to what
23happened at Auschwitz, then I think you ought to disclose
24it. If it is just prejudicing him as an expert in the
25general sense, then I think not.
26 MR IRVING: We will do so within 24 hours in that case.
1 MR RAMPTON: Can I pick up one thing Mr Irving said there, it
2shows not that he is trying to cheat, I do not mean that
3at all, but he may be under a misapprehension about the
4way litigation is conducted nowadays in these courts. He
5said it is rather like playing poker when your opponent
6has a mirror over your head, of course, litigation is not
7poker any more. All the cards have to be on the table
8anyway. It is like playing, what is the other game,
10 MR IRVING: My Lord, my comment on that in any case there are
11any aspersions being cast on me, I do not think any
12Defendant or any party in an action has ever made a fuller
13discovery than I have, including the disclosure of my
14entire diaries.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is fair, from my impression,
16I think that is right.
17 MR IRVING: If I am hiding anything, I am hiding it in plain
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just mention only in passing something
20you might like to think about, it relates to the Goebbels'
21diaries, in Moscow, the Moscow archive. That looks as if
22it is going to be the subject of a certain amount of
23factual evidence. I have seen the way the pleadings go,
24and I have see what the Defendants are saying and what
25they are not saying I. Just wonder whether we are wise to
26spending very much time on that issue. I say that perhaps
1for Mr Rampton perhaps to think about.
2 MR RAMPTON: He has already thought so.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I thought he might have. In due course he can
4tell me the result of his thoughts. It is just we have to
5focus on what matters in this case. I understand your
6complaint entirely, but in the end is it a matter we want
7to spend a lot of time in evidence on?
8 MR IRVING: Two minutes is not a lot of time. In view of the
9fact that the newspapers around the world from here to New
10Zealand have picked on the alleged discrepancies in the
11diary of December 13th has been proof once more of how
12David Irving cheated or suppressed. The Defendants have
13over the weekend retrieved from me the entire Goebbels'
14diaries which I obtained from Moscow I. Was going to draw
15your Lordship's attention to two pages of the diaries
16which I produced. We only had the section which I used.
17We only read that far.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, you said that on Thursday. I think you
19are misunderstanding what I mean by the Goebbels' diaries;
20I am talking about the issue whether there was a breach of
21an agreement by you. I do not understand the Defendants
22even to be alleging that now. But Mr Rampton is going to
23think about it, and shall we leave with it him because
24I think the ball is really in his court. If you would
25like to come back we will resume your evidence.
26 MR IRVING: Do you wish me to deal with that minor point of
1Goebbels' diaries?
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think it is a matter of evidence because it
3was raised with you on Thursday and you can do it in your
4evidence perfectly easily.
5 &MR DAVID IRVING, recalled
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving wants to deal with the point. Can
7he not deal with it first?
8 MR RAMPTON: I see. This is going to be evidence-in-chief, is
9it? I will sit down.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is amplification of his answers in
11cross-examination, I think.
12 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, the first page of that very small bundle is just
13to show the form in which I had the -- this was the bundle
14which I gave to you this morning, page 1, as numbered at
15the bottom -- this was the form in which I was given the
16Hans Frank diaries by the Institute of History in Munich
17some 30 years ago.
18 I draw your Lordship's attention purely to the
19little omission in the middle, the elipses. Something has
20been left out -- we do not know what it is -- just before
21the vital paragraph which I quoted. I have provided a
22translation. If you now proceed, my Lord, to page 4 of
23that bundle.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: So ----
25 A. [Mr Irving] I marked it.
26 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] --- what is actually ----
1 A. [Mr Irving] We do not know what has been left out.
2 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] You do not know what the elipses represents?
3 A. [Mr Irving] That is why one has to be extremely cautious about how one
4then uses the ensuing lines, in my submission.
5 If you proceed to page 4, my Lord, this is the
6list made by my assistant in Moscow of the Goebbels'
7diaries plates as they came to us out of the boxes. My
8Lord, you will see that they are in total chaos. There is
9no rhyme or reason in what boxes they are in. If you
10proceed to page 9, my Lord, the fourth, fifth and sixth
11lines refer to the specific entry which we found one day
12relating to Pearl Harbour and the meeting with Hitler on
13December 13th. There is one plate for December 13th. The
14next glass plate carries over from December 13th to 14th.
15You will see notice that it says in German four words ^^
16"bis vierten zila ^^ gilazin".
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: What is "zila"?
18 A. [Mr Irving] It means read until the fourth line.
19 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Fourth line?
20 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, the fourth line of that particular entry. We were
21working, I had a very good assistant working with me and
22we were as minutia as that. We kept very detailed records
23of what we did.
24 On page 11, my Lord, you will see that I sent to
25the Sunday Times a confidential survey of the unpublished
26Goebbels' diaries fragments which were in my possession.
1If your Lordship proceeds to page 14, this is important,
2right at the bottom, the last two lines, it says:
3 "Among the things which I brought back are 21
4pages of typescript from dictation" covering those dates,
59th to 13th December 1941, which is Pearl Harbour.
6 On page 16, my Lord ----
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Just pause a moment. It looks as if you did not touch at
8all on the entry which straddles 13th?
9 A. [Mr Irving] We are just coming to that, my Lord.
10 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] 14th?
11 A. [Mr Irving] That is a listing showing that there were 21 pages. That
12is the significance there. On page 16, my Lord, that is
13the folder containing the extracts which were provided to
14the Defendants and you will see they put a yellow post-it
15on it. That is the thing which I have marked. Item
16No. 45, copy from pages 1 to 21, my Lord.
17 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes.
18 A. [Mr Irving] And I have included, if you look at the handwritten
19numbers on the top, those are the last few pages of the
20bundle numbered pages 1 to 21 which is the entry for
21December 13th 1941. If I draw your Lordship's attention
22to page 20 -- I am sorry the page 20 numbered at the
23bottom -- if I just rapidly translate a couple of lines
24from line 3 onwards "Nachmittag", "In the afternoon the
25Fuhrer speaks to the Gauleiters". This was the meeting
26where we find out now that he mentioned his intentions to
1do something.
2 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] That was the 12th, was it not?
3 A. [Mr Irving] He spoke the previous day. Goebbels always wrote his
4diary up on the following day. There is a brief summary
5here at this point in the diary of the conference with
6Hitler. Then Hitler goes straight on to talk about the U
7boat war. There is only half a page on this page, my
8Lord, but it carries on straight over on the next page on
9about the U boat war.
10 I think the reason why I started a new page was
11that I was having trouble, as your Lordship will see, with
12the typewriter, and I have probably got out my screwdriver
13and fixed it. Your Lordship will see from my Moscow
14diaries that the typewriter had been pancaked by the
16 I invited the Defendants on Friday, if they were
17suspicious about that gap, to contact the library in
18Germany to whom I donated the entire diaries in 1993 where
19they could satisfy themselves that that gap is also on the
20original, my Lord. That is all I have to say on that
22 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] You have a gap on page 22 as well.
23 A. [Mr Irving] I think that I can establish, in other words, that all
24that I had in front of me when I wrote the book was the
25passage that I had in those diaries, and that what has
26been published since then is moot, is of no consequence to
1this particular action.
2 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] The other thing is the reference "Hitler speaking to the
3Gauleiter" ----
4 A. [Mr Irving] This is typical of Dr Goebbels, my Lord.
5 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] It is just one sentence and then he goes on to something
6completely different.
7 A. [Mr Irving] He goes on to something else. Then later on he will come
8back and dictate to his secretary, Richard Otte, a more
9full account.
10 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] But you say you did not have the bit where he comes back
11to it.
12 A. [Mr Irving] That would have been on a subsequent plate, my Lord, or
13possibly later on on that same plate, but we only read to
14the fourth line. So it cannot be held properly against me
15in this court that I had something in front of me which
16I should, if I had it in front of me, had used, and at the
17very end of the bundle, my Lord, you will find four pages
18which are not numbered which is the latest version of the
19Adolf Hitler biography which went to press some time ago
20which contains a perfectly proper treatment of this
21matter, including all the material now available.
22 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Just let me wait for the transcript to catch up.
23 A. [Mr Irving] I will try to speak more slowly.
24 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] No, it is all right. Yes, thank you very much. I am
25going to put this also into the J file.
26 A. [Mr Irving] Either that or you could discard it, my Lord, because I am
1sure that you have appreciated the point that I wish
2to make.
3 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, but I will not keep it in my mind for the next two
5 Cross-examined by MR RAMPTON, QC, continued
6 MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, just so that I understand what you have
7just been telling us. I am not going to explore it now,
8but I want to understand what it is that we have got
9here. These typed pages, 1 to 21, we have not got all 21?
10 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] We have?
12 A. [Mr Irving] No, you have not.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] We just have the relevant ones.
14 A. [Mr Irving] The ones that are relevant, yes, for the entry.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] They are extracts transcribed by you, is that right, on a
17 A. [Mr Irving] Let me be precise. Sitting at the table in Moscow,
18I indicated to my assistant, I said, "Please dictate from
19here down to there" from the glass plates. Now let me get
20this absolutely correct. I read the glass plates,
21I dictated them, and later on I transcribed them. Either
22I dictated them or she dictated them. We shared the work
23on that particular occasion. I think, in fact, she
24dictated because if you look on page 16, I have 11th
25December and in square brackets afterwards: "So says
26Susie". I was a bit doubtful about whether she had got
1the date right on printed page 17.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Printed page 17?
3 A. [Mr Irving] And it is on about the seventh line, 11th December, and in
4square brackets I have put in a little question mark, "So
5says Susie?"
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] Susie is your assistant?
7 A. [Mr Irving] That is right, because you would have had to go back about
840 pages on the glass plates to find out what the actual
9date of the entry was.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] I have certainly not seen these glass plates. Even if
11I should, I doubt I would make much sense of them. Can
12you tell me about the glass plates? How big is it? There
13is a point to this. I am not just wasting time.
14 A. [Mr Irving] I am sure. The glass plates were about four inches by
15three inches, a regular photographic glass plate,
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] This sort of thing?
18 A. [Mr Irving] Slightly smaller than a postcard. Some had 25 images on
19and some had 48 images on, depending on the format.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] Each image of those, let us say, is a page, is it?
21 A. [Mr Irving] Each image was either one page in the typescript version
22because from July 16th 1941 onwards he dictated to a
23secretary from them until the end of the war, he dictated
24them, so they were typescript. Until 16th July 1941 they
25were handwritten and there were two pages photographed at
26a time in a handwritten diary.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] And does each plate represent one day?
2 A. [Mr Irving] No.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] No?
4 A. [Mr Irving] They just filmed continuously and when one plate ran out,
5they would then put another glass plate in and film the
6next one. That is why one plate, if you will note on that
7list, is called December 13th and the next plate is called
8December 13th to 14th.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] Can I ask you -- I will ask you one more question and then
10I will ask you to look at something -- do you know from
11memory -- you do not seem to have a record of it -- how
12many pages the entry for 13th December 1941 was?
13 A. [Mr Irving] No.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] All right. Well, perhaps I can help you. I do not know.
15It is a possibility. Could Mr Irving please be given
16bundle H4(ii)?
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am afraid I have not got this, Mr Rampton
18I am sorry. Thank you.
19 MR RAMPTON: Could you turn to a handwritten FN 156?
20 A. [Mr Irving] 156?
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is about two-thirds of the way through the file. It is
22what I call a sideways document. You have to turn the
23file around in order to read it.
24 A. [Mr Irving] I have it, yes.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is a German document. It is headed on the right-hand
26column on page 487, internal page 487, 13th December in
1German 1941, yes?
2 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Just glance at this. It runs through -- I think it is the
4whole entry -- to page 501. These are double pages. So
5it does not involve turning over a lot of pages. 501 is
6where 14th December starts. Now, do you recognize this
7printed version?
8 A. [Mr Irving] I do. If you look on page FN 156, you find the passage
9that is on my transcript.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] Sorry? They are all 156.
11 A. [Mr Irving] I am sorry. It is on printed page, on book page 494. At
12line 283, 282, you see the sentence beginning
13"Nachmittags", "In the afternoon the Fuhrer speaks to the
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] I see that.
16 A. [Mr Irving] That is the passage which I got.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] You have got that passage. But you also got more than
18that, did you not? Where is your U boat war, your boat
20 A. [Mr Irving] In that same paragraph. It continues in that same
21paragraph on printed page 494, book page 494. It
22continues about the U boat.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: And on the opposite page?
24 A. [Mr Irving] And on the opposite page.
25 MR RAMPTON: Yes, I see that, what is puzzling me about this,
26Mr Irving, is this. I think you translated some of this
1or all of it for the Sunday Times, did you not?
2 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Can you turn to page 496?
4 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Dab wir im Osten", that is the last of your typewritten
6German passages, is it not?
7 A. [Mr Irving] If you say so, yes.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, it looks the same, does it not?
9 A. [Mr Irving] Page handwritten 21 of my note?
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes.
11 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is the same one. I think that was the last of the
13passages on this day that you translated for the Sunday
14Times, was it not?
15 A. [Mr Irving] It was all that I had at the time.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. It is all that you brought back with you?
17 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct, yes.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] I understood your evidence about that. Can you turn over?
19 A. [Mr Irving] 498 you probably want, 498.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] 498 has disappeared.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: So it was not 30 or 40 pages further on, it
22was two pages further on.
23 MR RAMPTON: No, well, that is----
24 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, when you see these pages, it is printed in the
25large, I forget the actual technical name for it, but we
26call it the Fuhrer typewriter, and it is printed with four
1spaces between each line. He has about 100 words on each
2page, my Lord, so it is very many further pages further
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Sorry, that is what I was trying to find out. In my
5version it is very few pages further on.
6 A. [Mr Irving] In your photocopy of the original facsimile?
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, in this printed version it is only ----
8 A. [Mr Irving] It is only a few pages further on, yes.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] Three?
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But the point is that, apparently, in the
11original diaries it is all very much spread out?
12 A. [Mr Irving] For your Lordship's amusement, I will bring one page of it
13to you tomorrow and you can see what it looks like.
14 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] If anything turns on it, I do not know.
15 A. [Mr Irving] I think Mr Rampton apprehends that this is a major point;
16it has been flashed around the world that I was wrong
18 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Well, I think you have made the point on Thursday that you
19did not actually know it was 30 or 40 pages further on
20because you did not ever read it so you could not tell?
21 A. [Mr Irving] Now we know, my Lord.
22 MR RAMPTON: This is one thing I am concerned about,
23Mr Irving. You said, and I will read you your words --
24have you had your transcript ----
25 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, I have.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- for Thursday? His Lordship is right. It was
1something along the lines of 30 or 40 pages further on
2which is just not right, is it?
3 A. [Mr Irving] What is not right, the exact phrase?
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] I will find the exact words.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is page 153.
6 MR RAMPTON: That is right. You said: "Had I read on another
730 or 40 pages in the diary for that day, I would probably
8have come across the full length description of the report
9Gauleiters' speech on which Longerich is relying?
10 A. [Mr Irving] Absolutely right. This is probably 30 pages further on,
11but it shows my guess was absolutely right ----
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] 30?
13 A. [Mr Irving] --- without even having seen it.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] Tell me, if you will, if you look at -- this is edited by
15Elke Frohlich, is it not?
16 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] But it is not any sense edited by having things omitted?
18 A. [Mr Irving] I do not believe so, no.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is a continuous text?
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, is there much mileage in this
21because I think the next day, I mean the next page,
22I asked, "How do you know it is 30 or 40 pages further
23on?" and he makes clear that he did not know it was, but
24he had a glass plate with 45 pages on it and it was on
25that, so it must have been on the next one?
26 A. [Mr Irving] It would have been 25 pages on that one, my Lord -- no, 48
1single pages.
2 MR RAMPTON: Is this glass plate that you transcribed, or some
3of it, the only one for that date that you looked at?
4 A. [Mr Irving] Well, this is the reason why I provided you over the
5weekend with a list of the actual pages that we looked at,
6the actual glass plates.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, but do you understand there is a difference -- I know
8you do -- between what you transcribed and what you looked
10 A. [Mr Irving] We looked at all the glass plates.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] You did?
12 A. [Mr Irving] Quite simply to establish an inventory. I looked through
13every single glass plate in the 1500 glass plates with
14this magnifier, established from the title line across the
15top what period was covered, put a yellow post-it on the
16glass side, not the emulsion side, of each plate
17indicating what date it was.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] So you will have read the passage that Longerich relied
20 A. [Mr Irving] You did not hear what I said. On the top of every page,
21on the top of every plate there was a title line written
22in handwriting saying the dates, the actual dates covered
23by that plate, like 13th to 14th December 1941. You did
24not have to look actually at the individual pages.
25I could see straightaway and say this is 13th to 14th
26December 1941, it is already out of our period of interest
1because we were looking at Pearl Harbour.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] How did you make your selection if you did not read the
3whole thing?
4 A. [Mr Irving] Time made the selection for us. We knew we were only
5there for a limited length of days. We had a flight to
6come back to England. You had to make judgment decisions
7and say, well, Pearl Harbour was December 7th 1941, we are
8already on December 13th, my commission from the Sunday
9Times was to get material relating to Pearl Harbour. I
10had already read as much as I considered was necessary.
11Had I known that later on in the same entry he would have
12gone on about the Fuhrer talking to the Gauleiters at
13greater length, I might have gone on, but you cannot
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] You have answered my question, I think, which is that you
16did not read it at the time?
17 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct, and it was not before me at the time.
18Even now, to buy these diaries, you have to lay out more
19than £1,000. So it is quite an expensive task. I have
20now purchased them, but they have only just been
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] While you have that out, can I ask you a little word about
23something you said on Thursday? I think you told us, if
24you look at the passage quoted in Longerich, yes?
25 A. [Mr Irving] The passage quoted in?
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, the passage quoted by Longerich is at the bottom of
1page 498 of the Frohlich edition?
2 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, "In connection with the Jewish question, the Fuhrer
3has decided to make tabula rasa".
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, and then it goes on, "He prophesized to the Jews that
5if they began yet another World War, they would thereby
6bring about their own destruction", roughly speaking?
7 A. [Mr Irving] It is a crude translation, yes.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] He is reporting there, is he not, either something Hitler
9said to the Gauleiters on 12th December, or he is
10reminding himself of what Hitler said on 30th January?
11 A. [Mr Irving] January.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] 1939 in the ----
13 A. [Mr Irving] You cannot tell from this particular quotation.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] You cannot, can you?
15 A. [Mr Irving] It is the old gramaphone record that Hitler played again
16and again.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, indeed. Then you say, well, you know from that point
18on, I think, "Das ist keine Phrase gewesen", that these
19are no longer Hitler's words because it is in direct
21 A. [Mr Irving] It is in direct speech, yes.
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] So is the first sentence, is it not? "Bezuglich der
23Judenfrage ist der Fuhrer entschlossen"?
24 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, that is correct.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is also in direct speech?
26 A. [Mr Irving] He uses direct speech.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] He is reporting that, so far as the Jewish question is
2concerned, the Fuhrer is determined to make a clean sweep?
3 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. That is direct speech, is it not?
5 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] If you look over to the other side of the page, the first
7complete paragraph, the first sentence of the first
8complete paragraph, "Im Osten sieht der Fuhrer uberhaupt
9unser kommendes Indien" is in reported speech, is it not?
10 A. [Mr Irving] No.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] No?
12 A. [Mr Irving] It would be in "osten siehe der Fuhrer", S-I-E-H-E, would
13be reported speech, that would be the subjunctive.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is fine. The next sentence is also in direct speech,
15is it not?
16 A. [Mr Irving] That is direct speech.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] And so is the next sentence, is it not?
18 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct, yes.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] And the next one, well, this is in the past in the sense
20that he is reporting that the Germans have overrun and
21settled in the past?
22 A. [Mr Irving] The whole paragraph is in direct speech.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is, is it not?
24 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] And do you say that those are Goebbels' private thoughts
26and not a report of what Hitler said?
1 A. [Mr Irving] He is reporting in his own words what Hitler's opinions
2and intentions are.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Precisely. So would you care to withdraw your criticism
4of Dr Longerich for putting what is in direct speech into
5Hitler's mouth?
6 A. [Mr Irving] Are you not referring to the same passage, Mr Rampton?
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, but it is all part of the same two paragraphs.
8 A. [Mr Irving] No, the specific allegation that you made was that
9Longerich was quoting Hitler when, in fact, he was quoting
10Goebbels which is my comment.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] How can you tell that the first paragraph on the
12right-hand side is not also just Goebbels quoting
14 A. [Mr Irving] We can refer back to the specific sentence that was the
15subject of your complaint, because we have now moved on to
16a different paragraph and you are trying to ----
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] What I am suggesting to you, Mr Irving, is very simple.
18It is simply this. You cannot tell from looking at these
19two paragraphs which is Hitler and which is Goebbels?
20 A. [Mr Irving] I think that is a very fair comment, yes.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. So if (and we are dealing in probabilities, as
22I remind you, not certainties) as seems likely, the second
23of those two paragraphs is, as you have just told us,
24Goebbels' version of what Hitler said to the Gauleiters on
2512th December, then so is it as likely that the first
26paragraph is in precisely the same case, is it not?
1 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Rampton, that is not what I said. I said it is
2Goebbels' version of Hitler's intentions, not what he
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Where do you think that Goebbels derived his impression of
5Hitler's intention?
6 A. [Mr Irving] Over a long period of sitting with him and talking with
7him over many weeks and months.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] So this is nothing whatever to do with what Hitler is
9supposed to have said to the Gauleiters, is that your
11 A. [Mr Irving] When you are writing a diary this is what happens. You
12put in information from what has just been told to you,
13but also your own external knowledge of what the person is
14thinking and saying. You cannot encapsulate individual
15phrases like that. If it was a shorthand record, it would
16be different. I prefer using shorthand records or even
17the table talk which is written in the first person form.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, I do not think I will push it any further,
19Mr Irving. We have your answer. I certainly do not
20accept it. I put it to you that it is perfectly clear
21that this is Goebbels' version of what Hitler said on 12th
22December 1941.
23 A. [Mr Irving] I think it is possible that you and I and Dr Longerich
24have different criteria when we are evaluating documents.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, does it not read very naturally as a direct
26speech account of the Fuhrer's thoughts as expressed on
1that occasion?
2 A. [Mr Irving] Which sentence are you referring to?
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Any one you like.
4 A. [Mr Irving] Well, I mean, if I give you a general statement of
5opinion, then you are going to apply it to one particular
6sentence and say, "Here you have agreed that this sentence
7is Hitler's statement on that day" and that is ----
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, look at the second paragraph. Let us leave out the
9paragraph you do not like.
10 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] Let us look at the second paragraph at the top of page
13 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] "In the East, the Fuhrer sees above all" -- you correct me
15where I go wrong -- "our approaching India".
16 A. [Mr Irving] Yes. "This is colonial territory that we are going to
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. "This is colonial territory that we shall settle.
19Here great ----
20 A. [Mr Irving] "Farmsteads".
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Homesteads" -- what?
22 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, "he already established great farmsteads for our
23peasant sons and the" ----
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, and what are the "Kapitulanten"?
25 A. [Mr Irving] I do not know what that word means, I must confess.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] No. "unserer Wehrmacht gesch werden"?
1 A. [Mr Irving] "Created".
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Created", exactly. It is all part of the same thought
3process, is it not?
4 A. [Mr Irving] It may be but it may not be. Nowhere does he say, "This
5afternoon the Fuhrer said". This is just Goebbels writing
6down, waffling about what Hitler's views on the future
7are, and it is not ----
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am sorry. Finish your answer. I do not mean to
10 A. [Mr Irving] But may I also state and remind the court once more that
11was material which was not in front of me at the time
12I wrote the book, so I cannot really see, with respect,
13I would rise if I was now sitting and say, "What is the
14relevance of this material?"
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] It may in the end turn out to be a small point, but, you
16see, Mr Irving, you are in the habit, are you not --
17I drew something to your attention on Thursday -- of
18asserting certainties where all that a cautious and
19responsible historian would do would be to say "It looks
20like it"?
21 A. [Mr Irving] I agree, this is absolutely right and in this particular
22case a responsible historian would say, "On this occasion
23Goebbels reported and it may well be that Hitler had told
24him on this occasion".
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] But you told on Thursday that it was quite certain that
26this could not be Hitler, it must be Goebbels in the
1contentious paragraph because the tense changes from the
2past in the first sentence to direct speech in the second,
3well, from the ----
4 A. [Mr Irving] To be more specific, the part that Longerich alleged was
5Hitler being quoted was not in the subjunctive tense. It
6was not in the subjunctive.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We went through that in considerable detail
8on Thursday.
9 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, and also we are not referring to this paragraph, we
10are referring to one specific sentence.
11 MR RAMPTON: Now I want to go back, please, and you will see
12how it is going to develop as we go along. I give you
13notice of what I am now going to do.
14 A. [Mr Irving] If I may just say, what alarms me is the fact that you had
15from my discovery the documents showing precisely how much
16of this diary was at my disposable when I wrote the book.
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We are moving on now, Mr Irving. I take your
19 A. [Mr Irving] I appreciate that, but I think it is dishonest for them to
20have advanced this kind of argument.
21 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] That is a comment you can make at the end of the case but
22let us get on now with the questions and answers.
23 MR RAMPTON: You will have that opportunity. What I am going
24to do is I am going to start with your Kovno train which
25we dealt with on Thursday of 17th November 1941, and then
26I am going to use that as a way of opening the door to
1what I call system. Do you understand?
2 A. [Mr Irving] Right.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Can we, first of all, start with your Kovno train. Have
4you that little bundle?
5 A. [Mr Irving] I do not, but I am quite familiar with the documents.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you take me to it, Kovno train? I am
7sorry, the significance of that is completely missing to
9 A. [Mr Irving] The train from Bremen to Kovno.
10 MR RAMPTON: Could your Lordship first turn up page 13 of the
11transcript for Thursday and the other documents, the
12little Irving documents I call them, are at tab 3 of file
13J, my Lord, or should be.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
15 MR RAMPTON: I would quite like Mr Irving to have both what he
16said in court and the Cogno signal.
17 A. [Mr Irving] It is the intercept - correct?
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Has anybody got a spare transcript? Page 5 is the
19translation, or the transcription, I know not which and it
20does not matter. Just have that open. Is it possible for
21him to have a transcript for Thursday?
22 A. [Mr Irving] I think I have the wrong bundle. Are we talking about
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is what is going to happen when you have
25all these little files knocking around. We must put them
26all in the same place. I have them in J and I hoped
1everybody else was going to put it in J, tab 3.
2 A. [Mr Irving] I have J 1.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: To save time, could somebody pass up the
4bundle which has the index on the front of it? It is
5called bundle C, Himmler.
6 A. [Mr Irving] This is bundle J 1 again.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think that is the right bundle. You
8are talking about the clip that Mr Irving handed in?
9 MR RAMPTON: Yes, I am.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Probably on Wednesday.
11 MR RAMPTON: Yes.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: He has called it Claimant bundle C Himmler.
13I had hoped everyone was putting it in J but, wherever it
14is, can somebody hand it up because every minute that goes
15by is a waste of time.
16 A. [Mr Irving] I am very familiar with the document, if you wish to
18 MR RAMPTON: I think we can get most of it anyway, Mr Irving,
19from what you said in the witness box. We will not spend
20any more time.
21 A. [Mr Irving] I read most of the document out, I believe.
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. Can I read from line 4 on page 13 of the
23transcript? "In this particular case what is significant
24is that the man in Berlin is telling his recipient in Riga
25on November 17th", in other words that same day at 6.25
26p.m., "transport train number blah has left Berlin for
1Cogno or Kaunat" -- in fact it is K A U N A S, is it not,
2and sometimes Mr Irving, pausing there, sometimes in
3German K A U E N?
4 A. [Mr Irving] That is the problem. A lot of these towns have three or
5four different names.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] But it is all the same place, is it not?
7 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, Cogno and Kauen.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Cogno is an old fortified, or fortress in the Latvian
9country side, or is it Lithuania? It matters not perhaps
10very much. "With 940 or more Jews on board, or 940 more".
11In fact it was 944, was it not?
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It obviously was. I think that is probably
13just a mistranscription. Understandable.
14 MR RAMPTON: I think so too. "That was usually the rough size
15of each train load of Jews, about 1,000 Jews. Transport
16escorted by two Gestapo and 15 police officers. Transport
17commander is criminal Ober SS Exner (?), and the man's
18name, who has two copies of the transport list with him.
19Transport provided with ...". We have not got the German
20of this. What is the German that you translate "as
21provided with"?
22 A. [Mr Irving] I would not like to hazard a guess.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] All right. "With following provisions"?
24 A. [Mr Irving] Vorversehen (?)
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Provided?
26 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, literally.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] For seeing, as it were?
2 A. [Mr Irving] We must not mention the word Latin.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Provided with following provisions", and this is the
4interesting part, my Lord: "3,000 kilograms of bread, 3
5tons of bread for a two or three day journey, 2700 (it
6should read) kilograms of flour, nearly 3 tons of flour,
7200 kilograms of peas, etc. 300 kilograms of cornflakes,
818 bottles of soup spices", -- then continuing in the next
9message, 52 kilograms of soup powders, ten packets of
10something or other, we do not know, 50 kilograms of salt,
1147,200 reichmarks in crates. What do you suppose those
12were for?
13 A. [Mr Irving] It was credits, credits.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, for whom?
15 A. [Mr Irving] I am sorry.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: What is the point of having them on the
17train? That is really the question.
18 A. [Mr Irving] I imagine it was the same with bomber crews. When they
19flew to Germany, they carried money with them. One always
20needed money. You cannot send a train load of people
21around Europe without money to pay for things.
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] This money was for the 944 Jews, was it?
23 A. [Mr Irving] I do not think I applied that it was.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am asking you.
25 A. [Mr Irving] No, presumably not. Presumably it was to cover transport
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] All right. Signed Gestapo Headquarters, Berlin, and then
2this is Mr Irving speaking: "It is quite an interesting
3document, my Lord. It is the first kind of thing we come
4across in my view to show that these trains were actually
5well provisioned. It is a bit of a dent, a tiny dent, in
6the image we have, the perception as Mr Rampton calls it,
7of the Holocaust today." Why do you say that?
8 A. [Mr Irving] The image that we have from the literature is of coal
9trucks and cattle trucks being filled. I am not saying
10that this did not happen, but I am saying that the image
11we have is that all that happened was that these wretched
12victims were stuffed into trains, with no food and water
13for three or four days, and shipped across Europe to their
14deaths, when this and the subsequent telegram which we
15British intercepted, which I quote, indicates that very
16substantial quantities of food were put on board these
17trains for the short journey, and that, in the next
18telegram, you will remember, it also added the fact that
19they were carrying their appliances with them, food and
20appliances. So obviously people were sending them, at
21least the system that was sending them apprehended that
22they were going to be doing something at the other end
23when they got there.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] What was German word for the appliances?
25 A. [Mr Irving] Gerat.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] And plural gerater?
1 A. [Mr Irving] No. You would use it in the singular form.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] That can just as easily mean kitchen utensils, can it
4 A. [Mr Irving] Could be kitchen sink. If a photographer comes in mit
5gerat, then he would be carrying his camera and not his
6kitchen sink. It is the appropriate appliances.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] We used to have tinkers in the old days in Scotland, Mr
8Irving. They would carry utensils with them. Pots and
10 A. [Mr Irving] The Germans would have a different word for that. It
11would be klamotten. It would be their things.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Anyway, your immediate interpretation of this document, it
13is clear now, is that this food was to keep the Jews well
14fed during the journey?
15 A. [Mr Irving] Well, it certainly was not for just 15 policemen.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, how far is it from Berlin to Cogno, do you
18 A. [Mr Irving] Off the top of my head, I would say of the order of a
19thousand miles.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is about 600, in fact.
21 A. [Mr Irving] Correct. In other words, a two or three day train
22shipment in wartime conditions.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Those trains went very slowly because they had to keep
24stopping to give priority to other trains.
25 A. [Mr Irving] Yes. The journeys took three days. We know the train load
26of Jews on November 27th. It left Berlin on November 30th,
1it arrived at Riga and they were shot. It is a three day
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is Riga. That is about 200 miles further East from
5 A. [Mr Irving] I am trying to give a sense of space and time.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am going to ask you some questions. Again, you have
7leapt to a conclusion. Have you actually stopped to think
8what the evidence is that this food was to feed these Jews
9during that journey?
10 A. [Mr Irving] None whatsoever.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] No.
12 A. [Mr Irving] But it would be perverse to assume that it was not.
13Excuse me. If a train is provided with provisions, then
14the provisions are quite clearly for the people on the
15train. It cannot clearly be for just 15 escort personnel.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, would you not be so hasty. Wait for my next
17question, please. Do you know how many loaves of bread
18you can make with 3,000 kilograms and 2,700 kilograms of
19flour? 500 gram loaves of bread, an average size loaf?
20 A. [Mr Irving] I did exactly the same calculation as you were reading out
21to me just now, and I thought, if there are a thousand
22people on a train, they are getting 3,000 kilograms of
23bread, then this seems to be very substantial provision.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] In fact, it is about 6,000 loaves from the loaf figure
25alone, and about another just less than, it is about 5,400
26loaves from the flour.
1 A. [Mr Irving] Actually, he is talking about 3,000 kilograms of bread, so
2that is 3 kilograms of bread per person.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] What about the flour? Are they going to make loaves on
4the train?
5 A. [Mr Irving] Why do we not just stick with the bread for the time
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, there was flour there too. That is the
9 MR RAMPTON: 2,700 kilograms of flour.
10 A. [Mr Irving] I have no idea what they were going to do with the flour.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] The point is this, Mr Irving. There is no evidence that
12this food was going to be eaten by those Jews. I can tell
13you, if you do the calculation, at half a loaf a person
14per day, they have enough bread and flour to last them for
1524 days, 944 people.
16 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, but the reason for that is that the people at the
17receiving end are protesting bitterly. They say, we have
18food shortages here already and you are dumping these
19people on us, so the Reich was sending the people not only
20with the food for the journey, but presumably enough food
21to get them started when they arrived at the camps they
22were going to.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is right.
24 A. [Mr Irving] I am speculating here, I do emphasise. I am just trying
25to give an explanation that may have escaped your
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, it had not, you see. I am concerned not with what
2actually happened, Mr Irving, but your readiness to leap
3to conclusions in favour of the SS and the Nazis on every
4single occasion.
5 A. [Mr Irving] I strongly object to that kind of aspersion.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] This is exactly what you have done here.
7 A. [Mr Irving] I strongly object to that. Here is a British telegram, a
8British intercept of an SS telegram, which has not been
9quoted by any of your experts, because of course it does
10not fit into the perception they are trying to create,
11which presents a subtly different image of how this
12deportation programme, brutal and cruel though it was,
13initially was started by the system. The train loads of
14Jews were sent off with food for two or three days and, as
15you quite rightly pointed out, enough food to carry on
16once they arrived at the other end, enough flour to make
17their own bread.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] They had enough cornflakes for about eleven days, as it
19happens, at 30 grammes per serving according to Messrs
21 A. [Mr Irving] They were going to arrive in the camp, where presumably
22the provisions would be inadequate.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is right. They must have eaten their cornflakes dry
24because there is no milk?
25 A. [Mr Irving] No doubt there were cows in Riga when they got there, or
1 A. [Mr Irving] Of course, how long would milk last on board a train for
2three or four days?
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] I should have thought in November, in that part of Europe,
4quite a long time. Would your Lordship excuse me for just
5one moment?
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
7 MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, I am going to ask you this. I do not
8normally ask a question to which I do not know the answer,
9but on this occasion I will. Who paid for this food to go
10on this train?
11 A. [Mr Irving] I do not know.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] You do not know?
13 A. [Mr Irving] No.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] You have assumed, though, from the way in which you
15characterized it last Thursday, that it was the Nazis, the
16SS who paid for it?
17 A. [Mr Irving] I can go into some detail on this in fact. Before the
18Jews were kicked out of Berlin, they were robbed. They
19were robbed blind.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] So one way ----
21 A. [Mr Irving] The German Finance Office asked them to fill in a form
22listing all their assets. These assets were formally
23seized by the German state. Page by page of these
24documents are still in the Berlin Finance Ministry files.
25They were robbed blind. I am not sure what the relevance
26is to your particular question, because I cannot prove
1that happened on this occasion.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] The relevance is this, Mr Irving.
3 A. [Mr Irving] I stated that in my books, too.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, the relevance is this. So far from this being
5a dent in Holocaust, whatever you call it----
6 A. [Mr Irving] Perception.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- Perception, it is quite possible, is it not, that, one
8way or another, directly or indirectly, this food was paid
9for by the Jews?
10 A. [Mr Irving] Quite possible, yes.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] The kindly SS provision the train so far as they have and
12the camp when they get there at the Jews' own expense?
13 A. [Mr Irving] But it is still not the perception we now have of cattle
14trucks of Jews being shipped across Europe with no food
15and water for three or four days and arriving half dead at
16the other end. It may very well have happened in the
17later phases of the war.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. That is the trouble. You are muddling up two
19pictures are you not, Mr Irving? There is the early stage
20of the German Jews. They do not even get started on
21killing the German Jews in a big way until much later on.
22 A. [Mr Irving] If you wish to talk ----
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] And then there is the much later, from the summer of 1942
24onwards, when we get into cattle truck country, are we
26 A. [Mr Irving] I remember reading in the private papers of Adolf
1Eichmann, which I found in Argentina, that he describes
2the steps he took to ensure that the trains were properly
3provisioned when they left Hungary and his indignation
4when he found that the Hungarian police officials had
5embezzled a lot of the money and food and so on so that
6the trains were not being properly provided. This just
7goes marginally to what you are saying. Undoubtedly,
8there was a lot of hardship and cruelty and barbarism.
9But the point I would wish to make is why is it that your
10experts have not quoted the documents I have put before
11the court.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you come across any other intercepts or
13any other messages referring to the provisioning ----
14 A. [Mr Irving] There are, my Lord.
15 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] For the transcript, just wait until I have asked the
16question -- any other documents evidencing the
17provisioning of these transports of Jews?
18 A. [Mr Irving] I have, my Lord, and I have put one or two more into that
19particular bundle.
20 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I have found one more. I am not sure I have seen more
21than one.
22 A. [Mr Irving] It is not strictly relevant, my Lord, to the pleadings,
23otherwise I would have stuffed the bundle with even more
25 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] But there are more?
26 A. [Mr Irving] I intend asking Dr John Fox. He is an expert on these
1police decodes and we can ask him about them.
2 MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, tell me why you think my experts paid
3no attention to these documents?
4 A. [Mr Irving] I certainly have not seen any reference in expert reports
5to those intercepts relating to the provisioning of the
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Why would that have any relevance if these documents do
8not suggest what you say they assert? What if these
9documents are no more than they appear to be, records of
10train loads of Berlin Jews going to the East with
11provisions on board for whom one knows not, but quite
12possibly to feed the Jews to some extent when they get to
13the camp before they are shot? What is so significant
14about that?
15 A. [Mr Irving] The relevance is, Mr Rampton, that, if your experts are
16doing their job conscientiously, then it is incumbent on
17them, according to their own averments at the end of their
18reports, to do so impartially without fear or favour to
19either side. They should also have included any materials
20like those which go against the notion that this was a
21systematic programme to exterminate the Jews. If you are
22going to exterminate Jews, you do not send them to the
23East on trains properly provisioned with tons and tons of
24food and appliances with which they can set up a new
25future in the East when they get there, which is the
26inference which is clearly to be drawn from those decoded
1messages. I would be interested to see if you can draw
2any other inference from those messages.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is what we are now going to do, as I promised you I
4was going to do, Mr Irving. Could Mr Irving please be
5given file H 3 (i)?
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. This one I have got.
7 MR RAMPTON: My Lord, that is the first volume of Professor
8Browning's documents. Could we please turn to footnote
98? Again, the document is identified for these purposes
10not by any stamped or printed or typed number, but by a
11handwritten F N 8 at the bottom right hand corner of the
13 A. [Mr Irving] Very well, yes.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] I expect you recognize this document, do you not?
15 A. [Mr Irving] The Jaeger report.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] This is the Jaeger report. If you turn to its 5th page,
17blatt 5 at the top of the page, this is a copy of,
18I suppose, either an original typed or an original carbon
19copy, I do not know. You do not have any qualms about the
20authenticity of this document, do you?
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: For my benefit, can you say what it is? Is
22it a report from an Einsatzgruppen.
23 MR RAMPTON: It is a report of one Einsatz commandos, Einsatz
24Commando 3, which is part of Einsatzgruppe A, and they are
25in charge. Geographically it runs, A is in Ostland, the
26Baltic states, and then B is in White Russia, C in the
1Ukraine and D in South Russia, roughly speaking I think.
2Your Lordship will see at the top of the first page,
3Mr Irving as well, it has place and date, Kauen um, 1st
4December 1941. That is perfectly good German, is it not?
5 A. [Mr Irving] No.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] So this makes you wonder about this report, does it?
7 A. [Mr Irving] You are asking me if it is good German. I would say no, a
8German would say Kauen den aus December einefurtzig (?)
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] But you have seen it elsewhere, have you not?
10 A. [Mr Irving] No, I have not.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] You have. You have seen it on some of the Auschwitz
12documents, have you not?
13 A. [Mr Irving] Are we going to get into a discussion now on authenticity
14of documents?
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] No. I just want to know what you say about that little
17 A. [Mr Irving] I am saying that it is not regular German.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, but it is a mistake, if it be a mistake, that a German
19could easily make, is it not?
20 A. [Mr Irving] It could be a mistake that an ill educated German would
21make, as would be, for example, on blatt 7, if I may turn
22to that.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Before you do that, whereabouts on this page
24are you, 1st December, Mr Rampton?
25 A. [Mr Irving] Very first line top right.
26 MR RAMPTON: Top right hand corner underneath handwritten 119.
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 5.
2 MR RAMPTON: I asked your Lordship to go back to page 1, just
3to identify it, because your Lordship wanted it
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry I missed you. Right.
6 MR RAMPTON: Kauen is one German form of Cogno?
7 A. [Mr Irving] For Cogno.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] 1st December 1941. I am going to look at much more of
9this in a moment, but it is a report. I cannot read the
10first one gezundt aus stellung (?), is it?
11 A. [Mr Irving] Gezundt aus stellung.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] A full ----
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Collective presentation.
14 MR RAMPTON: Presentation.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] Der imber Reich (?) -- What does that mean?
16 A. [Mr Irving] In the area of.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] E K 3, up to the 1st December 1941, of executions carried
18out. Is that right?
19 A. [Mr Irving] Yes. Do you wish to address briefly the authenticity of
20this document.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you are denying it, you ought to say so.
22 A. [Mr Irving] He has asked me would I accept that um ersten (?) December
23is authentic German and I would say no, it is not. It
24would be incorrect irregular German.
25 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Do you say this is not an authentic document?
26 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, I am not saying that. I am answering his
1question. I also wish to draw attention on page 7, about
215 lines down in the third complete paragraph, das zeil
3(?), halfway down there, my Lord, you will see that the
4rank of SS Oberstum Fuhrer and SS is typed as two capital
6 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] So?
7 A. [Mr Irving] All the high ranking SS officers had typewriter with the
8SS runes, my Lord. They would not type SS. It would be
9very rare to find an SS document in which SS is typed as
10two capital Ss. It is not entirely impossible, but it is
11very rare.
12 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I am baffled by this. Are you challenging the
13authenticity of this?
14 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, it is not a document I have relied upon. It is
15not a document laid before me when I wrote my book and I
16am quite happy to answer questions on the content of it.
17But Mr Rampton asked me my opinion about the document and
18I spotted straight away those two discrepancies just by
19leafing through it.
20 MR RAMPTON: You may have done, Mr Irving, but that really does
21not answer his Lordship's question. I have no doubt that
22you recognized this document immediately as soon as we
23opened the file, did you not?
24 A. [Mr Irving] I know what it is about. I have heard about it, yes.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, you recognized it. You said this is the Jaeger
1 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, by the date, 1st December 1941.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] You have never read it?
3 A. [Mr Irving] No. I have never analysed it in detail, let's put it like
4that, and I certainly did not read it when I wrote my
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] Either you have X-ray eyes or you read very quickly
7because you seemed to have spotted a mistake, as you call
8it, on blatt 7 immediately.
9 A. [Mr Irving] That is what I was looking for. That is the real
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You knew it was there?
12 A. [Mr Irving] No, my Lord, you would have seen it. When he asked me to
13look for it, I began leafing through it and looking for
14SS, which is the first thing you would look for in a
15document you are suspicious about. But, for the purpose
16of this morning, I will accept that it is authentic, with
18 MR RAMPTON: Then we have had an interesting but wholly
19academic discussion.
20 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Rampton, you asked me if I considered it to be
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] I asked you whether you accept that this is an authentic
24 A. [Mr Irving] That is right.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Anyway, now we all accept it is.
26 MR RAMPTON: Now we know that it is so far as this discussion
1is concerned.
2 A. [Mr Irving] With reservations.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. Page 5?
4 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] Under the middle of the page, months of November.
6 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Third line, 25th November of 41, Kauen F 9 is Fort 9. It
8was divided up into different sort of fortresses, was it
10 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] They kill, execute, 2,934 Jews, Jewesses and Jewish
13 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct, yes.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] In brackets underneath it says, again roughly speaking:
15Evacuees from Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt?
16 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do you agree that it is likely that that is where your
18train load of 944 well provisioned Jews wound up?
19 A. [Mr Irving] I would say it is not impossible. It is eight days
20later. There were several train loads, of course.
21I cannot speak specifically that that particular train
22load would have ended up in that particular atrocity.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] I can tell you that there are no other references to Jews
24from Berlin in this document.
25 A. [Mr Irving] In this document?
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, and this document is a complete report of the doings
1of that unit or formation.
2 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] In that place and all over Cogno up to the beginning of
5 A. [Mr Irving] May I say that this particular page was supplied to me by
6Dr Gerald Fleming in fact, two or three years ago.
7I relied on that when I wrote my Goebbels biography.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Sorry?
9 A. [Mr Irving] This particular page was supplied to me by Dr Gerald
10Fleming, and I relied on the statistics in it when I wrote
11my biography of Dr Joseph Goebbels. You will find that I
12have quoted his statistics.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] We are looking at it now, Mr Irving, as you no doubt
15 A. [Mr Irving] I recognized the figures. You will find that page in my
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] What you say in the Goebbels book is a little more
18generous in point of truth or accuracy than what you said
19just now. You said it was a possibility that it was the
20same one. In the book you said on page 377: "So much for
21Minsk". I do not know what you are saying about Minsk,
22but it may not matter.
23 A. [Mr Irving] Very much the same.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] The train load of Berlin's Jews sent to Kanas, Cogno, in
25Lithuania on November 17th probably fared no better". You
26cite the Jaeger report and that entry in it.
1 A. [Mr Irving] Yes. How can I be called the Holocaust denyer when again
2and again I put these statistics in my books, if I may ask
3the question?
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Let's get the position clear. You keep asking that
5question rhetorically as though it answered itself,
6Mr Irving. It does not. So far as the shooting of Jews
7is concerned, what do you reckon is the total number that
8were disposed of by shooting? We maybe had this
9discussion on the first day of the trial, I cannot
10remember, but tell me again if we have.
11 A. [Mr Irving] Disposed of by shooting? Where? In the East?
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes.
13 A. [Mr Irving] Order of magnitude I would say at least half million, and
14probably as many as one and a half million.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] Where we part company, Mr Irving, I think, is that you
16have repeatedly said, have you not, that these were, and
17you rely for example on the message to Jekiln (?) Of 1st
18December from Himmler? You have repeatedly said that
19these words, quasi or not even quasi, were criminal
20shootings by high Maverick commanders of the SS out in the
22 A. [Mr Irving] The phrase used by Himmler is arbitrary actions.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] We are coming back to Himmler very shortly.
24 A. [Mr Irving] And actions against the guidelines.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Your position is that these mass shootings and other
26shootings in the East were not in any sense part of a
1system, but were local acts of criminality?
2 A. [Mr Irving] The system ended when the train arrived. The system put
3the Jews and the other victims on the trains and sent them
4to the East with the food and equipment to start a new
5life. Once they arrived on the spot, the system broke
6down, and the murderers stepped in.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But these reports coming back from the
8Einsatzgruppen are going to Berlin, are they not?
9 A. [Mr Irving] We do not know, my Lord, because there is no kind of
10indication on it or initialling on whom it went to.
11 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Where do you say they were going then?
12 A. [Mr Irving] They certainly went -- unfortunately we do not know, my
13Lord, because my copy of the report ends on page 9,
14I think, so it has not even got a signature on it. It has
15a signature Jaeger, but no address list, so we do not know
16where it went to. But it would be reasonable to assume
17that the report went to the Reichzeike heis haufdampt (?)
18Of Heydrich.
19 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Which is in Berlin?
20 A. [Mr Irving] In Berlin.
21 MR RAMPTON: Because Mr Irving, in Berlin, in Heydrich's
22headquarters, from time to time -- I do not know whether
23they were regular or how frequent they are -- but there
24were these things called areignis meldungen (?)
25 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Which were actually composed in that office in Berlin, and
1many of them carry summaries of this kind of material?
2 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do they not?
4 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] So the probability is that that went back to Berlin?
6 A. [Mr Irving] The probability is that this went back to Berlin, yes, as
7I said.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Is that not evidence of some kind of system operating at
9the behest of and under the control of the authorities in
11 A. [Mr Irving] I draw your attention to the fact this is the very day
12when the very sharp reprimand went from Hitler's
13headquarters, signed by Himmler, to the people carrying
14out the murders saying these arbitrary actions are to stop
15forthwith, and the murder of the Jews stopped for many
16months, the German Jews.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] These Jews?
18 A. [Mr Irving] The murder of the German Jews stopped for many months, so
19that is indication that the system had broken down.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but you agreed on Wednesday or whenever
21it was that that message related only to German Jews and
22these reports cover all other manner of Jews?
23 A. [Mr Irving] The message did not relate only to German Jews but
24certainly the effect was German Jews. The killing of
25German Jews stopped and these are the numbers to which
26Mr Rampton has drawn attention to, Jews being evacuated
1from Berlin and Munich and other cities, I believe.
2 MR RAMPTON: The shooting of these Jews, Mr Irving, I quite
3accept, if you are right that there was to be no mass
4shootings under any circumstances of German Jews, these
5few, and in the context of this report alas there are few,
6these few German Jews, probably also the ones from Vienna
7and Bresslau in the next entry, probably would have
8infringed the Himmler order if the Himmler order had got
9to Jaeger in time to save them, which evidently it did
11 A. [Mr Irving] That is the reason why I submit that the system broke down
12upon the arrival of these train loads of Jews in the East.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Right.
14 A. [Mr Irving] And the people on the spot said: Let us just get rid of
15them, liquidate them ourselves.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] And they had food for a maximum of about three weeks
18 A. [Mr Irving] A start up food supply, yes.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] I see. So Berlin was expecting the SS in Cogno to feed
20them indefinitely?
21 A. [Mr Irving] No. The instructions were to build camps for them. They
22had to build their own concentration camps to live in.
23They were expected to build the camps and set up their own
24work shops there and start a new life in the East,
25anywhere but Germany. That sounds very nice for the
26planners in Berlin, but it is less practical on the spot
1when you have got a military disaster looming.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am afraid, Mr Irving, I cannot possibly accept that the
3planners in Berlin had any such idea in their head by late
41941 whatsoever.
5 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Rampton, you and I operate from different criteria.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Before you go on, Mr Rampton, can I just ask
7this? My impression is -- I may be completely wrong about
8this -- that these reports from the Einsatzgruppen
9continued to come in after the 1st December 1941.
10 A. [Mr Irving] Oh, yes. There is the famous one of December 1942 that we
12 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] The invasion of Russia.
13 A. [Mr Irving] That is Russian Jews being liquidated.
14 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Going back to Berlin?
15 A. [Mr Irving] They are going back to Berlin and Hitler is in East
16Prussia. I have to keep on reminding the court of this.
17 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] We are not so much concerned so much with Hitler at the
18moment, but Berlin. Berlin must have known that the
19shootings were continuing on, as you would accept, a
20massive scale?
21 A. [Mr Irving] I accept this my Lord, yes.
22 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] To that extent, would you accept it is systematic, or
23would you say not?
24 A. [Mr Irving] I think to the extent that Mely was systematic, the
25Vietnamese war was systematic, and these things happen.
26They are subsequently covered up by the people in charge.
1But it is very difficult to make definitive statements in
2the absence of any evidence one way or the
3other. I prefer just to leave the facts to speak for
4themselves, rather than try and fill in the gaps and join
5the dots.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you.
7 MR RAMPTON: Look at the bottom of this document, Mr Irving.
8 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] Just above the handwritten "FN8", you will see Jaeger's
11 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Of executions carried out, 137,346?
13 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] From all over the Einsatz commander 3 area, whichever that
16 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] But it included Kovno and Vilner amongst its places.
18 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] Have you gone done the figures on this report?
20 A. [Mr Irving] No, but I will walk through them with you if you wish.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, it is going to be easier, of course you will have
22time to check whether I am right or not, of 137,000
23roughly speaking, people executed, about 98.5 per cent are
24identified as having been Jews; men, women and children?
25 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] And this report goes back to Berlin?
1 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] What happens to Herr Jaeger, whatever his rank might have
3been? Was he sacked?
4 A. [Mr Irving] That I do not know.
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] Imprisoned?
6 A. [Mr Irving] That I do not know.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Court martialled?
8 A. [Mr Irving] Nothing happened to Jeckeln either, who was told by the
9chief of the SS he had overstepped guidelines. I would
10have thought that was about as serious a reprimand as you
11can get.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] This is completely at random, really, because one can take
13any number of examples; the massacre of 33,000 Jews in one
14go, Jews from Kiev in two days 29th and 30th September
16 A. [Mr Irving] Do you wish to lead evidence on that?
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, I want to know if you know about it.
18 A. [Mr Irving] You wanted to?
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] I want to know if you know about it.
20 A. [Mr Irving] About Babiyar (?)
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] 1941, yes.
22 A. [Mr Irving] I do not know in detail about it. I do not know any
23forensic detail about it. I know what the perception is.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is contained in one of these Heydrich --
25 A. [Mr Irving] If you say so.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do not these things jump out at you, Mr Irving? This vast
1number of recorded deaths is being shipped back
2laboriously, and carefully typewritten reports by the
3murderers to the head of the security service, call it
4what you like?
5 A. [Mr Irving] I accept that, but this is of great interest to a
6Holocaust historian, but not to an Hitler historian, if
7you appreciate the difference.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] I do not think there is a difference, Mr Irving. There is
9two reasons, at least, why I -- or more than two but the
10two will do for the present without going the documents
11out. The first is that letter from Muller to the
12Einsatzgruppen at the beginning of August 1941, which I am
13sure you are familiar with?
14 A. [Mr Irving] I think the Fuhrer takes an interest in ----
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, I am saying the Fuhrer will be getting continuous
16reports on the work of the Einsatzgruppen?
17 A. [Mr Irving] The Fuhrer has asked to be given.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Or whatever, the Fuhrer has asked to be given continuous
19reports on the work of the Einsatzgruppen?
20 A. [Mr Irving] Can you remind us when this letter came into the public
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, Mr Irving, please do not keep changing the subject.
23 A. [Mr Irving] Well, this is important, because I am accused of
24manipulating documents before me when I wrote my books,
25this letter has only recently come to the attention of
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] You say, you do accept it as evidence of system, I think
2this is the effect of your answer, going as far up the
3tree as Heydrich, but not as far as Hitler?
4 A. [Mr Irving] There is now evidence from that document that Hitler asked
5to be kept informed of the activities of the
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] I cannot tell you myself when that document first came
8into the public domain. I will find out. --
9 A. [Mr Irving] Well, I can tell you from my knowledge, it came when the
10Moscow archives debouched what they had and historians
11started going through them.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- you are, however, fully familiar with what we shall
13certainly propose is one of the progeny of that order,
14that Hitler should see what the Einsatzgruppen were doing,
15at least, which is report No. 51 signed by Heydrich
16Himmler on September 1941?
17 A. [Mr Irving] I do not accept there is a direct connection between that
18stray document of August 1941 and the December 1942 stray
19document, which is one of a long series of reports by
20Himmler to Hitler on interesting things.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is not a stray document in any sense at all. It is a
22sheet that actually went straight into the pen. It was
23destined for Hitler, and as you accepted -- I cannot
24remember which day -- Hitler probably saw it.
25 A. [Mr Irving] December 29th.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes.
1 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is not a stray document?
3 A. [Mr Irving] I think I referred to in my books. I have given the
4figures. I have stated the facts and I said it was shown
5to Hitler. I have not concealed these documents. I am
6the first person to have found them, and immediately
7brought them to the attention of the world.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Why then do you turn your face so firmly against any
9possibility that Hitler was at the heart or the root or
10the origin of this exercise?
11 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Rampton, the distinction may be a bit too subtle, but
12I am not saying that, what I am saying is there is no
13evidence that he was. Possibly we are on the same side,
14but I am saying that there is a total shortage of evidence
15that Hitler was being informed of what was going on in
16these mass shootings and that when he did know he took
17steps to stop it, and that there is this one instance of a
18document going from Himmler to Hitler which obviously has
19to be brought to the attention of my readers, which I do.
20But otherwise there is very little evidence to support any
21contention such as are you trying to make out.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, the Muller document, which I understand
23you did not know about because it had not emerged does now
24provide some support for the ----
25 A. [Mr Irving] Indeed, I put it in the latest edition of the book, my
26Lord, because it is clearly a relevant document for people
1to know about. I think so far before the December 1942
2document it would be adventurous to try and draw a causal
3link between them.
4 MR RAMPTON: There is no evidence at all that these mass
5shootings of Jews generally did stop, is there, on account
6of any order from anybody?
7 A. [Mr Irving] Mass shootings of German Jews stopped for several months.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] That, as I said the other day, is common ground between
10 A. [Mr Irving] Then they gradually picked up again because of the general
11criminality of the officers on the Eastern Front who had
12these victims in their charge.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But you are now talking about non-German Jews
14or Jews who are not German?
15 A. [Mr Irving] I do not think there was any pause in the killing of
16non-German Jews. I think they were quite happy to get rid
17of them.
18 MR RAMPTON: As a matter of fact there was. Again this was
19something which I do not know whether you have seen it
20before or not, I can tell you in a moment where it came
21from. Have you got H3(i) there still?
22 A. [Mr Irving] Yes. Page?
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Could you turn to footnote 50. It is about halfway
24through the file.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: To what, Mr Rampton.
26 MR RAMPTON: Footnote 50, FN 50. It merely reflects the
1footnote in Professor Browning's report. This is one of
2these -- I think it is one of these (German spoken) that
3he tells us that it is. No. 10 for February 1942. No
4I have given it the wrong name. If you look at its first
5page, this is a reprint.
6 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Which he translates, and no doubt correctly, as activity
8and situation of the Einsatzgruppen of the security police
9and the SD in the USSR; do you see that at the bottom of
10left hand column, Mr Irving?
11 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. If you turn over the page, the right hand column,
13halfway down the page, at letter C, you see a separate
14entry; "Juden"?
15 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Will you please, it says: "Nacht... Juden as... kind";
17tell me what that means.
18 A. [Mr Irving] After in the Baltic provinces the Jewish question can be
19regarded as virtually solved and dealt with.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] Carry on.
21 A. [Mr Irving] The clarification of this problem, the solution of this
22problem in the remaining occupied territories of the east
23is continuing, making further steps; do you wish me to
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, there is no need for that. That is Heydrich reporting
26that in the Ostland, that is --
1 A. [Mr Irving] Well, we do not know that because I have only two pages of
2this report but. You are saying it is a report by
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- I do not know, it may not be. That is what Professor
5Browning tells us. It may be something else, in fact. He
6says on page 16 of this report in early 1942 Heydrich
7reported -- you can take it up with him if you do not
8accept it is Heydrich.
9 A. [Mr Irving] I just do not have the complete document, so I cannot
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] That means, does it not, in effect this, no need to shoot
12any more of the Jews in Ostland because they would all
13have gone, nearly all gone?
14 A. [Mr Irving] It does not say that. It just --
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is what it means.
16 A. [Mr Irving] -- the problem has gone away --
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, I know, look at it as an historian as opposed to a
18literary critic; that is what it means.
19 A. [Mr Irving] -- I read out what it meant. I gave you the literal
20translation of it.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am not asking for a translation, the input, significance
22of what you read out is that there is no need to do any
23more mass shootings in the Ostland because they have all
24been killed?
25 A. [Mr Irving] This conclusion can be drawn from it, yes.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Ostland" there is referring to what?
1 A. [Mr Irving] Baltic provinces, three Baltic states.
2 MR RAMPTON: Your Lordship will see the problem in other
3Einsatzgruppen areas in a moment.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Because the East is sometimes a reference to
5the front with Russia, is it not?
6 A. [Mr Irving] Well --
7 MR RAMPTON: Yes, the Ostland is specifically though I think,
8am I right?
9 A. [Mr Irving] It is a reference to Baltic provinces.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The Baltic States.
11 A. [Mr Irving] Sometimes "the East" is also a euphemism for something
12uglier, too as I point out in my books.
13 MR RAMPTON: The very next document, Mr Irving, says Professor
14Browning, is a protocol, it is a German word, my Lord, it
15is FN 51, just the next document after the divider,
16I hope.
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
18 MR RAMPTON: The protocol, it is very difficult to read. Of a
19meeting held, I think, in Minsk on 29th January. You see
20somebody has also written "um" 29th January, do you see
21that Mr Irving?
22 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, but it is not a date, the formality for writing a
23date like "London" and December 1st 1941, in German you
24would always have "dien".
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] What does it mean here?
26 A. [Mr Irving] Here it is a sentence, effectively, saying the protocol on
1the sequence of events in the meeting of the main
2department and department heads on January 29th 1942. It
3is not the same thing at all. It is not a letter head.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is actually short for "an dien", is it
6 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, thank you very much, my Lord, yes, indeed. But in a
7letter, the formalities -- I would be very surprised if
8anyone would disagree with me with that. Although I have
9to say one or two Auschwitz documents also say "um" for
10letter heads.
11 MR RAMPTON: I have not been able to find in the brief scan
12I have just given it the actual German quoted by Professor
13Browning; that is not to say it is not there; simply
14I have just not picked it up at once. Maybe the best way
15of dealing with it is to look at the German Professor
16Browning cites. Could Mr Irving have Professor Browning's
17report, please.
18 A. [Mr Irving] What page of report?
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is page 16. Mr Julius -- yes, that is interesting
20while we are trying to find the actual text, Mr Irving, on
21the first page, at the bottom of the page, the last
23 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, I see that.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] You see that. You have seen what you might call the
25"anomalous SS"?
26 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] How odd, one in Minsk and the other one in Kovno?
2 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] The same illiterate chap with the same rotten typewriter
4going round from one place to another?
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The passage you are looking for is at page
61382 at the bottom.
7 MR RAMPTON: I am grateful to your Lordship. It is the third
8sentence of the last paragraph on page 1382. That is
9using the stamp on page 3 of the document.
10 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] It says, something like this, does it not, a complete
12liquidation of the Jews is not possible due to frost; and
13the word which is used for "liquidation" is "liquduren" is
14it not?
15 A. [Mr Irving] Absolutely specifically. They do not use "vernichtung"
16or ----
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] Because the ground is too frozen to dig pits, which would
18then be available as mass graves for the Jews. Not much
19doubt what they are talking about there, is there?
20 A. [Mr Irving] None at all.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] We are in January in Minsk, which is in the Ukraine, yes?
22 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Who are the people who are coming to that
24conclusion? I do not quite know what the document
26 A. [Mr Irving] It appears to be a session of local department heads and
1their subordinates on the spot out there rather than in
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes.
4 MR RAMPTON: Yes, my Lord, Professor Browning tells us that it
5is written by somebody called SS Sturmlandfuhrer Hoffman
6of the Security Service in Minsk and that he explained
7this to a meeting to officials --
8 A. [Mr Irving] I do not see how signature on page 6 can be made to be
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- it may be like you, Mr Irving, Professor Browning has a
11considerable knowledge of this period and this aspect of
12this period.
13 A. [Mr Irving] We shall see.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] Because he knows from extraneous evidence that it is
15Hoffman who says this.
16 A. [Mr Irving] Is there any reference to Adolf Hitler in this document?
17To the originator of this system, as you call it?
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, can I say at once I hope I do not have to
19invoke help from his Lordship, you will get a chance to
20make your clever speech at the end of this case, I do not
21answer questions.
22 A. [Mr Irving] It was not a clever speech it, was just an observation.
23This is a sample of the quality of documents which are now
24available to historians which go into the most intimate
25detail about the killing operations going on.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is not why I am looking at it at all.
1 A. [Mr Irving] I look at it as a Hitler historian. I try to find anybody
2saying, it is OK, fellows, the Fuhrer has ordered this.
3We are covered.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, that is a very literal minded way of looking at
5things if I may say so.
6 A. [Mr Irving] A very safe way of looking at things, being literal.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Very literal. If you do not have a Hitler order "shoot
8all the Jews in the East" signed Adolf Hitler, then you
9have to look at the circumstantial evidence.
10 A. [Mr Irving] This is evidence of shooting was going on, which I have
11never denied.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] As a lawyer would, to see what evidence there is which
13might suggest that this was a centrally organized and
14approved operation. That is stage one. If you get that
15far, and then you see a report telling Hitler that 363,000
16Jews have been caught, have been shot by these people, and
17put two and two together, and you make four, not five, or
19 A. [Mr Irving] It is a poor substitute for the real thing, and it is the
20real thing that I have been would have been looking for.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] We do not have the real thing, but what is your task as an
22historian, Mr Irving? It is, is it not to give an
23objective, fair, interpretation to the cumulative effect
24of all the evidence, is it not?
25 A. [Mr Irving] It is surely not suggested that I have concealed any of
26that evidence in my book? The evidence is there for
1people to read.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] I know. You see you will not draw the obvious conclusions
3from the evidence before you, simply because you have not
4got a piece of paper signed by Adolf Hitler saying, "Do
5it". Where on the other hand you have a piece of paper
6which says simply "from Himmler"; it has not got Hitler's
7name on it either, which simply says to Heydrich "do not
8shoot these Berlin Jews, this train load of Berlin Jews",
9immediately that becomes incontrovertible evidence that
10Hitler gave the order. Do you say anything about double
11standards in that?
12 A. [Mr Irving] At least there is good quality evidence you advance in the
13opposite direction and I give both kinds of evidence in my
14books and I allow my readers to draw their own
15conclusions. My readers are not stupid, they are capable
16of drawing their own conclusions from what I write.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] Not only did that Himmler phonelog become evidence of an
18order from Hitler that those Jews should not be killed,
19but it became incontrovertible evidence that Hitler had
20made an order that no Jews anywhere were to be killed, did
21it not?
22 A. [Mr Irving] I think we are testing the patience of the court if you go
23over this old ground all over again, Mr Rampton.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, not at all.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, we did go over it.
26 MR RAMPTON: I know that, but Mr Irving, my Lord, supposes that
1this evidence is useless, or at any rate not much use
2without a Hitler order on a piece of paper.
3 A. [Mr Irving] That is not what I said.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Double standards, Mr Irving.
5 A. [Mr Irving] I said I would expect to find in a document of this kind,
6where you have people discussing crimes of this magnitude,
7that one person would have said, would have made reference
8to ... Fuhrer liquidierung or something like that, just so
9that everyone at the meeting is covered. What the
10cowardly call a (German spoken), a piece of paper that
11covers them if things go nasty. And they do not bother to
12do it.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] This puzzles me, you have used this argument in relation
14to some of the entries in the Goebbels' diaries, you have
15used it in relation to entries occurring, for example,
1627th March 1942, that in some sense Goebbels, by referring
17to Hitler for the more excessive anti-Semitic sentiments
18appearing in those diaries, as some kind of alibi; why in
19March 1942 or here we are in January 1942, should anybody
20think that they needed an alibi for what they were doing?
21 A. [Mr Irving] Because the war is going very badly at this moment for
22Germany. All sort nasty things can happen. People here
23on the Eastern Front can see the writing on the wall.
24They lost half the German army to frostbite.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Stalingrad is not until the next year, is it?
26 A. [Mr Irving] The winter of 1941/42 42 was touch and go for Germany
1already. Thinking people if they had any brains would
2start covering their tracks.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] These are just run of the mill janitorial level, to use
4your attractive phrase, janitorial level routine military
5reports back to headquarters in Berlin, we are doing as we
6are told, here is the number of Jews that we have killed,
7this is why we do not do it any more in the East land, the
8reason is we have done it already, does not need doing, we
9cannot do much in Minsk at the moment because the ground
10is too hard, but it goes on, does it not --
11 A. [Mr Irving] Can I correct one point you said, you said this was a
12report back to Berlin.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, that is not right, Mr Rampton?
14 A. [Mr Irving] -- minute of a meeting somewhere in East.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is why this document to me does not seem
16to carry the issue very much further in terms of whether
17it was authorised at the highest level.
18 MR RAMPTON: Except for this, Mr Irving, if this was
19unauthorized, unsystematic, contrary to orders, it would
20not be reported at all, would it?
21 A. [Mr Irving] If the calling was unauthorized -- I am afraid you escaped
22my attention there for a moment, my mind wondered.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am sorry. I will repeat it. I will put it in different
24way. when, what was his name Lieutenant Kalley?
25 A. [Mr Irving] K-A-L-L-E-Y.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] He did what at Mi Li, this is a parable you used yourself,
1so you know what I am talking about.
2 A. [Mr Irving] In a climate of barbarism he took revenge on a village and
3wiped out every man, women and child.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Did he or his adjutant or his NCO sit down and write a
5laborious, typewritten report about it?
6 A. [Mr Irving] I think there were documents, there was a paper trail
7established at the court martial.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Was there a written report signed by Kalley, "this is what
9I have done", and no reports of such atrocities sent back
10from Vietnam to Washington on a regular basis?
11 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Rampton, neither you nor I am is an expert on the
12Vietnam war and it would be wrong for me to speculate.
13Can I just point out, my Lord, even if this document had
14established the kind of evidence Mr Rampton is looking
15for, I would submit it could not be held against me
16because it is only recently submerged from the Moscow
17archives. It could not have been on my desk at the time
18I wrote my books. I could not have manipulated,
19mistranslated or distorted it.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] You would have known, this document serves three purposes;
21one it shows it was happening, but we all know that
22anyway, we do not need this document for that, the other
23is that somebody thought worth writing about it in a
24formal written note of a protocol for a meeting. And the
25other is it gives two very good reasons why there might
26have been a lull in the Eastern shootings --
1 A. [Mr Irving] Because the ground was frozen.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- yes, and in the Ostlands the job had already been done?
3 A. [Mr Irving] I appreciate that.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] You said you did not know about that document, it has only
5recently come out in Moscow. I am in no position to
6dispute that. Have you been aware of the EMs, I say that
7to avoid my awful German; have I got it more or less
9 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, commendably so.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] Thank you very much. They do go back to Berlin, or rather
11they are composed in Berlin from information sent from the
12East by the Einsatzgruppen; have you been aware of those
14 A. [Mr Irving] I am aware of their existence, yes, I have not studied
15them in detail.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] No. Have you been aware of those reports, was my
18 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] Since when?
20 A. [Mr Irving] Certainly since the beginning of this case. Over the last
21three to five years I would say I have become familiar
22with them.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Have they all come out of Moscow as well?
24 A. [Mr Irving] They have come out in dribs and drabs. Some turned up in
25the Nuremberg trial, some of them turned up subsequently.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] If they were in the Nuremberg files they were sitting
1there where they could be looked I assume, I do not know
2where the Nuremberg files are?
3 A. [Mr Irving] How big they are? A lifetime task.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] But you see, Mr Irving, if you are looking for evidence
5both ways, what was known in Berlin about what was going
6on in the East, and before launching yourself into an
7assertion that these were their unauthorized crimes of
8some wicked people in the East, you ought to be looking at
9things like that if they exist, ought you not?
10 A. [Mr Irving] I did indirectly, if you remember I offered a major reward
11for anybody who could find the kind of evidence. If it is
12provided, the kind of evidence I am sure people would
13stepped forward with outstretched hand --
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] I think, Mr Irving, you are shortly going to try his
15Lordship's patience if you are not careful.
16 A. [Mr Irving] -- that was a short and perhaps cheap answer.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] That was not an answer to my question. If you assert that
18these killings were the unauthorized criminal acts of
19certain wild SS cowboys in the East, then you ought to be
20looking for evidence both ways before you make that
22 A. [Mr Irving] Which killings are we taking about, the killings of German
23Jews, or killings of the rest, if I may put it that way?
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] We will have to do the paper chase after lunch. --
25 A. [Mr Irving] There is a very significant distinction, I think, in the
26statement I made that the killings stopped.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- no, Mr Irving, sometimes -- I know it is tiring to
2concentrate hard all the time, I know that, sometimes
3I think you just do not hear what I say. I am talking
4about the killings in the East. Leave the German Jews out
5of it for a moment, because at the beginning they were in
6tiny minority anyway.
7 A. [Mr Irving] But my reference to the wild minority carrying on was a
8reference to German Jews.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] No. You, I think, have asserted -- if I am wrong then
10I say after the adjournment we will do a paper chase to
11see whether I am wrong, if you say I am wrong -- you have
12asserted on a number of occasions, have you not, that this
13sort of thing, like what happened in Kovno, like the sort
14of thing we have seen in that Minsk document, were not
15part of policy, they were just things that happened. You
16said just now about those Berlin Jews, they got to the end
17of line, that was that and after that they were in hand of
18the wicked witch?
19 A. [Mr Irving] The system operated from Berlin out to the East. I think
20we have conceded this, so far as there was a system. But
21I think that what you failed to establish, if I may say
22so, is to establish that the system operated from Berlin
23outwards to Hitler headquarters as well, and that I should
24have known about and I ignored it.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] No. Do I have now a clear concession that what the SS
26were doing in the East, whether they were Polish, Russian
1or Berlin Jews, no, leave the Berlin Jews out of it for
2the moment; what the SS were doing in the East to the
3Russian Jews, and the Baltic Jews, to a total of perhaps
41.5 million, I do not believe the numbers matter, we have
5a concession now, do we, that that was done on the
6authority of and with the knowledge of at least Heydrich
7in Berlin?
8 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, quite clearly.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The buck stopped there, did it, did it go to
10Himmler as well?
11 A. [Mr Irving] I think quite clearly this August 1941 message to which
12Mr Rampton probably wants to proceed next is a reference
13to the overall security activity of Einsatzgruppen in the
14East, on which Hitler wished to be kept informed, and to
15try and say this obviously refers to specifically to the
16killing of Jews and only to the killing of Jews is a very
17adventurous leap to make. Obviously you have to mention
18this desire of Hitler to be kept informed, but it is
19dangerous then therefore to say therefore he must also
20have been told in great detail about everything else that
21is going on.
22 MR RAMPTON: I am trying to take it slowly, Mr Irving, because
23I want to be sure of the bricks which I am building.
24I have built brick No. One, at long last I have a
25concession that Heydrich authorized and knew about
26shootings of these hundreds of thousand of Jews in the
2 A. [Mr Irving] Which Jews are we talking about? Can we be quite
3specific. We are talking about the eastern non-German
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
6 MR RAMPTON: We are talking about the ones the
7Einsatzgruppen --
8 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, it is not a concession because I said it all along.
9I think the word "concession" is loaded. It implies
10I said something differently previously.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- that is what I will look for over the adjournment
12because I believe that you have on numbers of occasions,
13not in this court, said almost exactly that.
14 A. [Mr Irving] I shall await this revelation with interest.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] I may be wrong, if I am wrong I will tell you so.
16 Now I am going to go a stage up from Heydrich.
17I am going to go to Himmler next. This is a document
18which I perfectly well accept you did not have at the time
19when you wrote your books. My Lord, it is Himmler's note
20of the 18th December 1941. It is referred to on page 63
21of the first part of Dr Longerich's report, and the
22document itself in one of several versions is at footnote
23160 of H4(ii).
24 A. [Mr Irving] While we are looking for that, can I just say this is
25precisely the kind of document, of course, that falls
26under my strictures about is it strictly relevant to the
1issues as pleaded? If it was not available to me at the
2time I wrote the books ...
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have been wondering about that and I
4think ----
5 A. [Mr Irving] It is of historical interest and I am quite happy to...
6 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, but just wait a minute, Mr Irving. I think there is
7a lot of force in what you say, but I do not think I can
8stop Mr Rampton cross-examining about it because if he
9were, for example, able to show by producing a document
10you did not know about when you were writing, that it
11points unequivocally in whatever direction, and you were
12to deny it, he might be entitled to say to me at the end
13of the case, well, that shows that you are not objective
14when you are shown a new document.
15 A. [Mr Irving] He is a hard, cold denier, yes.
16 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] But I do accept the force of what you say and Mr Rampton
17may takes these documents perhaps rather than shorter than
18the ones that were available.
19 MR RAMPTON: I think it is very easy to do that because there
20is really only one question comes out of it. The trouble
21is I cannot find it.
22 A. [Mr Irving] I have, of course, used the document in the new version of
23the book that has now gone to press.
24 MR RAMPTON: It is about three quarters of the way through file
254(ii). Has Mr Irving got file 4(ii)?
26 A. [Mr Irving] I am very familiar with what the document says and its
1shape. "Juden frager"...
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But I am not, Mr Rampton, so can you show me
3where I go for it?
4 MR RAMPTON: Yes, my Lord, footnote 160. This reproduction of
5the note is the best I have. It comes from that little
6book, Witte. It is a Himmler manuscript, my Lord. Your
7Lordship may recognize the handwriting.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
9 MR RAMPTON: Before we look at the substance of this,
10Mr Irving, perhaps it is best to say what it says. We had
11better just tell everybody what it means. I hope I read
12it correctly. It is headed: "Fuhrer Hauptquartier", is
13it not?
14 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] Which is the "Fuhrer's headquarters". Underneath that we
16know which headquarters because Himmler tells us, the
17Wolfsschanze, the Wolf's Lair.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Did you say FN 160?
19 MR RAMPTON: Yes, 160.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mine is 17th December 1941.
21 MR RAMPTON: Yes, but on the right-hand side it should be the
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I had assumed that was what was being
24transcribed on the left-hand side.
25 MR RAMPTON: No, it is not, I am afraid. In fact, in the book
26the transcription is on the next following page behind the
1Himmler note. "Fuhrer Hauptquartier, Wolfsschanze
218.12.41 at 1600 hours", 16H that is?
3 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, that is correct.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Underneath the XII for December, the Roman 12, Himmler has
5drawn a line or somebody has, have they not? A vertical
7 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] So the page divides into two columns?
9 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] Above the right-hand column underlined is the
11word "Fuhrer"?
12 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] And in the left-hand column Himmler has written -- are
14these written in pen or pencil or what?
15 A. [Mr Irving] Himmler used a green crayon. He or his adjutant,
16Grothmann, would write a list of topics to discuss with
17Hitler on the left-hand side of the line, and then on the
18right-hand side sometimes there would be a one or two word
19comment usually reflecting what Hitler had decided.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] On the left-hand side, this is what you might call the
21agenda then, correct?
22 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Himmler's has written "Juden frager"?
24 A. [Mr Irving] The Jewish question.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] And under "Fuhrer" in the right-hand column he has written
26"aus partizan auszurotten, has he not?
1 A. [Mr Irving] "To be wiped out as partisans".
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. This ----
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Does it say "aus surotten", sorry?
4 A. [Mr Irving] "Auszurotten".
5 MR RAMPTON: This, Mr Irving, is an important document?
6 A. [Mr Irving] It is a document, but, as Trevor Roper said once, because
7it is new that does not mean it is necessarily true, and
8also you have to look at every document like that and say
9because it is new, you have to fit it into the general
10fabric. It is one mosaic stone that you have to fit into
11the rest of the mosaic. But I appreciate it is a crucial
12document, a cardinal document.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: When did you first see it?
14 A. [Mr Irving] I could not actually put a date on it. It became common
15knowledge in, I think, the summer of last year when a
16young German historian published it in a learned essay and
17sometime later I obtained the actual facsimile from ----
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] That was the first time you had seen it when you saw it
19last summer?
20 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct.
21 MR RAMPTON: And the natural meaning or import, implication,
22significance, call it what you will, for an historian, of
23course, he has to take everything into account, but at
24first blush this would suggest that Hitler had told
25Himmler to wipe out the Jews as partisans? Do you agree?
26 A. [Mr Irving] This is an interpretation which is put on that document,
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But the question was, do you agree?
3 A. [Mr Irving] Not in that form, my Lord.
4 MR RAMPTON: Tell me how you read this. I would be very
6 A. [Mr Irving] "Jewish question", first of all, the literal translation
7is: "Jewish question, to be liquidated as partisans".
8Once again we are faced with the problem of trying to
9define which Jews we are talking about, which Jews is
10Himmler likely to have been talking with Hitler about on
11that afternoon, on December 16th 1941. Presumably, it is
12the Jews in the Baltic and on the Eastern front.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Suppose you are right about that ----
14 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] What else?
16 A. [Mr Irving] --- to be liquidated as partisans. I am quite happy to
17use the word "liquidated" as that translation for "aus
18hotten" on that occasion. I think it is quite clear that
19they were going to be, I forget the phrase the Americans
20use, terminated with extreme prejudice, partisans on the
21Eastern front were shot, they were executed, and the only
22question, of course, which hangs over this document is
23which Jews specifically are being talked about.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We have agreed, have we not?
25 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
26 MR RAMPTON: I do not know, I am not an historian ----
1 A. [Mr Irving] Well, is it German Jews being deported to the East who are
2falling under that ambit or just all the rest?
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, you would say no because of the
4document that we were looking at the other day, "Keine
6 A. [Mr Irving] Precisely, my Lord.
7 MR RAMPTON: If may or may not be, Mr Irving, that is not at
8the moment what we are talking. This is evidence that
9Hitler gave authority for the massacre at least ----
10 A. [Mr Irving] Of Jews.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- of Jews in the East?
12 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. That, I think, as I recall, is the view that
14Dr Longerich takes?
15 A. [Mr Irving] I do not think there is any dispute between the parties on
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then, low and behold, almost a year later, or just over a
18year later, comes along a report from the East saying that
19just that has happened?
20 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] A report to Hitler?
22 A. [Mr Irving] December 29th 1942, yes.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] So, as a matter of historical fact, Mr Irving, you have
24always known about report No. 51 on 29th December 1942,
25have you not?
26 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] The probability that Hitler saw that report and was,
2therefore, what shall we say, implicated in the murder of
3all those 363,000 Eastern Jews is confirmed, is it not, by
4our subsequent knowledge of this document?
5 A. [Mr Irving] Yes. There is no contention between us on that point.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] So, historically speaking, the fact is that the systematic
7killing of the eastern Jews, whether in Minsk or Kovno or
8Kiev or anywhere else, was part of a Fuhrer plan?
9 A. [Mr Irving] As a part of the partisan combating. I am trying to
10specify exactly what interpretation one can safely put on
11two rather skimpy documents with 12 months between them.
12 It has to be said that this telephone notice,
13this agenda, is about as skimpy as one can imagine. One
14would only wish that Himmler had been more literary in his
15endeavours and told us precisely what was going on.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Would it be wrong to read it that they were
17to be treated in the same way as partisans were being
18treated, namely they were going to be shot just as
19partisans ----
20 A. [Mr Irving] Precisely, my Lord.
21 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] --- because they were supporting the ----
22 A. [Mr Irving] And I know that some people would say, well, the Jews
23provided the partisan reservoir, but, of course, the
24obvious argument against that is "and the women and
25children too" and the answer to that is, of course, they
26were not. So this was, undoubtedly, part of the majority
1atrocity on the Eastern Front which I have never denied.
2 MR RAMPTON: Well, then please will you look at report No. 51
3itself? I know we have looked at it before, but these
4documents are, in our submission, so intimately connected
5that it is necessary to look at it again. You will find
6that in (which I hope you have) H3(i) which is the first
7tranche of Professor Browning's documents at footnote
828(ii). H3(i), do you have?
9 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then if you turn to FN 28(ii) at the bottom right-hand
11corner of the page, you should have it?
12 A. [Mr Irving] I have it.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] This is a report -- I will not go through it all again --
14only for a part of the East. It does not say anything,
15for example, about Ostland. It talks about South Russia,
16Ukraine and the Bialystok area which is to the west of
17White Russia, is it not?
18 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] As we noticed before, under paragraph 2, listed as gang
20helpers, and what was the other word?
21 A. [Mr Irving] "Partisan accomplices" is the way I would translate that.
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] Sorry, what?
23 A. [Mr Irving] "Accused of being partisan accomplices or fellow
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, fellow travellers?
26 A. [Mr Irving] And suspects.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Or whatever. Some were arrested, some were executed,
2which is perhaps not very surprising, not in huge numbers,
3a total under B of 14,000 -- well, comparatively not in
4huge numbers, I should have said. Under C, as a separate
5entry for heaven knows why, a separate entry, 363,211
7 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] So, is it your thesis that Hitler would have been likely
9to think, "Oh, well, I am sure all those Jews were getting
10up to no good in the underground or the Resistance or
11whatever, the subversives, and there were all that many of
12them so the poor old SS had to shoot them", is that a
13realistic scenario, Mr Irving?
14 A. [Mr Irving] That being sarcastic, presumably?
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am being entirely sarcastic.
16 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, of course not.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] Not to you, but I mean that is not a credible suggestion,
18is it?
19 A. [Mr Irving] Of course it is not, no, and this document I have printed
20in several of my books. I think I was probably the very
21first person to have drawn attention to it. I may be
22wrong on that.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] This is important, Mr Irving. So you agree with me that
24this is just some kind of fiction, really, to put them
25under band helpers and band whatever the other things,
26accomplices. This is put, coldly and bluntly, a record of
1the number of Jews deliberately executed for the reason
2that they are Jews and for another, is it not?
3 A. [Mr Irving] I have no evidence of that, but that is a reasonable
4supposition. But I would also continue from that point
5and say what worries me about this document is that we
6have no evidence that Hitler took it on board, as we would
7now say. He never referred in later conferences saying,
8"I remember back in December we got that document saying
9we had killed 3,000 Jews, jolly good show!"
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] But you have had this document for a long time?
11 A. [Mr Irving] Oh, yes.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But the evidence suggests that it was laid
13before Hitler, does it not?
14 A. [Mr Irving] I agree, my Lord, but there is a difference between
15documents being laid before a Prime Minister or a Head of
16State at a time when disaster, the world is crashing
17around his ears, it is the height of the Stalingrad
18Crisis, and the fact that he actually imbibed the facts
19and figures contained in it, this may be precisely why
20Himmler put it to him at that time. This has been known
21to happen, that people -- documents are shovelled in front
22of them.
23 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] We now know that he did ask to be kept informed about the
24shootings on the Eastern front.
25 A. [Mr Irving] 18 months earlier, my Lord, yes -- that is not strictly
26accurate, my Lord. He asked to be kept informed of the
1activities of the Einsatzgruppen. Broadly speaking, their
2major activity was policing the rear areas and to them
3fell the task of killing the Jews.
4 MR RAMPTON: Have you any idea of the cost of ammunition at
5that time in the history of the Reich?
6 A. [Mr Irving] Cost of ammunition?
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes.
8 A. [Mr Irving] I would imagine the price per round was relatively low.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] So it would not be a huge economic expenditure to kill,
10let us say, 700,000 Jews by shooting?
11 A. [Mr Irving] It is much cheaper to kill them with bullets than with
12cyanide gas.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Much noisier too?
14 A. [Mr Irving] I take your word for it.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, bullets, they were not using silencers, were they?
16 A. [Mr Irving] I am afraid you have lost me there.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is more likely to come to public attention, is it not,
18and it is also, I mean, I do not know how many soldiers
19they used by per shooting?
20 A. [Mr Irving] I think there were six machine gunners, according to
21Bruns, was it not?
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] I do not know.
23 A. [Mr Irving] Who took it in turns. They were relieved.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] Evidently, at some stage it became too much for many of
25the people that had to do it?
26 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, I am sure.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Whereas -- we will come to the other matters later on.
2Now, I would like Mr Irving -- my Lord, this is the last
3thing, if I may, that I will do before the
4adjournment ----
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
6 MR RAMPTON: --- to have a copy of Professor Evans' report.
7 A. [Mr Irving] While it is being fetched, my Lord, can I ask you, do you
8read the newspaper accounts that are published at all of
9this action?
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] Not much, no.
11 A. [Mr Irving] Not much?
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, if you have been there, there is not much point in
13reading about it.
14 A. [Mr Irving] I agree, but the newspapers sometimes report things that
15have not been dealt with in the courtroom.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, I know. Why do you mention that at this stage?
17 A. [Mr Irving] Well, over the weekend I have been studying some of the
18accounts, and it would disturb me if I thought you were
19accepting what the press reported about things.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I rely on what I hear here.
21 A. [Mr Irving] This is the Evans report.
22 MR RAMPTON: Yes.
23 A. [Mr Irving] Page?
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] That will probably take us up to, at any rate, 5 to 1.
25Page 134. There may be more to come of this after the
26adjournment when I have done a bit more research, but
1these two little snippets will do for the moment. For the
2moment, I have not fished out original transcripts,
3Mr Irving, so I hope you will forgive me. If Professor
4Evans has mistranscribed what you are alleged to have
5said, then no doubt, you will tell us. Page 134(c)
6"Systematic nature of the extermination". This is
7Professor Evans: "A refusal to accept that the
8extermination of the Jews was systematically organised or
9centrally directed is a major element in the phenomenon of
10Holocaust denial"?
11 A. [Mr Irving] As defined by him.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am reading his words. You can cross-examine him about
13his words, not me. "Where does Irving stand on this
14issue? Even before he changed his mind on the numbers
15killed and the use of gassing as a murder technique,
16Irving was denying that the Nazi extermination of the Jews
17had been carried out in a systematic manner. Thus, for
18example, in 1986, two years before his change of mind on
19these issues, Irving told reporters in Brisbane,
20Australia: 'I am not attacking the figure of 6 million.
21I am not attacking the fact that the Jews were killed, but
22I am attacking or questioning whether, in fact, it was a
23tragedy ordered and organized on the very highest German
24state level, namely by Hitler himself, and I think this is
25what they find very repugnant'." Who was "they" in that
1 A. [Mr Irving] I do not know.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] "'because if my hypothesis is correct, then it means that
3all these Jews, and it maybe any figure, I don't look at
4the figure concerned, if my hypothesis is'" -- sorry, it
5is difficult to read, "'if my hypothesis is correct, it
6indicates that the Jews were the victims of a large number
7of rather run-of-the-mill criminal elements which exist in
8central Europe, not just Germans, but Austrians, Latvians,
9Lithuanians, Estonians, feeding on the endemic
10anti-Semitism of the era and encouraged by the
11brutalization which war brought about anyway'."
12 Then if we go over the page, please, and then
13there is the bit about these chaps who did it being
14motivated by revenge for bombing. 135, Professor Evans
15makes the comments: "Irving did not explain how allied
16bombing raids on Germany could have turned Latvians,
17Lithuanians and Estonians against the Jews". Maybe you
18just made a slip, did you, Mr Irving?
19 A. [Mr Irving] It is quite clearly being misread by whoever -- Professor
20Evans has misread that. He is reading into the words
21I used a much tighter link there. Quite clearly, the
22people living in the Baltic provinces had their own
23reasons for hating the Jews. I do not propose to go into
24them here.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] I do not know whether it is a speech; it is a press
1 A. [Mr Irving] It is a verbatim press conference probably.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. Paragraph 3?
3 A. [Mr Irving] But, as far as the German killers and the Austrian killers
4went, certainly there are very clearly links between some
5of the killers concerned and what they experienced in the
6air raids.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. I will read the next sentence, paragraph 2, if I
8may? "He did make it clear, however, that he thought the
9mass killings of Jews in the Second World War resulted
10from local initiatives in East Central Europe, not from
11any overall coordination by the Nazi leadership or,
12indeed, by any part of it. His view was that these local
13initiatives were excusable. It comes through clearly as
14well as he told at an interview in the same month in 1986,
15the millions of Jews or the hundreds or thousands of Jews,
16I am not going to name any figure, who were liquidated
17during the Second World War by the Germans and the
18Latvians or the Ukrainians or all the rest who carried out
19liquidations, they were the victims of a large number of
20nameless criminals into whose hands they fell on the
21Eastern Front. Mostly around Eastern Europe the
22liquidations occurred and these men acted on their own
23impulse, their own initiative, within the general
24atmosphere of brutality created by the Second World War in
25which, of course, the allied bombings had played a part".
26 Mr Irving, that first part, leave the allied
1bombings out of it for a moment because we will get on to
2Dresden later in the case.
3 A. [Mr Irving] I think I am absolutely right. I think the documents that
4have come to light have established that a hundred times
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] What?
7 A. [Mr Irving] The fact that the mindless criminals on the Eastern Front
8who carried out these killing operations had a motive of
9their own to do the killing even when they were ordered by
10Berlin or by Hitler's headquarters to stop and they
11carried on with the killing. People like Altemeyer, that
12young man we talked about earlier, the 22 year old, who
13sniggered and said, "We have got this order to stop the
14mass shootings but we are going to carry on anyway so no
15one sees it".
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That may be true, Mr Irving, but it is not
17really the point, is it?
18 A. [Mr Irving] Oh, I am sorry. I must have missed the point that
19Mr Rampton is asking about.
20 MR RAMPTON: Yes, you have missed the point. What you are
21denying here is system?
22 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, of course.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, and you have readily ----
24 A. [Mr Irving] The overall system, that link that you are looking for
25between Berlin and Hitler's headquarters.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] We have found it. We have found it easily going to
2 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] And, no doubt, therefore, to Himmler and now we have found
4it going to Hitler, have we not?
5 A. [Mr Irving] There must be something between the lines that I have not
6been able to read.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Between which lines?
8 A. [Mr Irving] That you have read out because where is the link to Hitler
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, sorry, we are at cross-purposes. This will be my last
11question, I hope. The effect of what you are telling this
12audience in Australia, or these two audiences in
13Australia, that this was unauthorized criminality behind
14or beyond, you know, on the East?
15 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Right. I thought we had agreed this morning in court
17that, in fact, and contrary to what you are suggesting to
18these people in Australia in 1986, the whole thing was
19organized and approved by Berlin?
20 A. [Mr Irving] Again which Jews are we talking about?
21MR RAMPTON; We are talking about the Eastern Jews. I am being
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, non-Berlin Jews.
24 MR RAMPTON: I am using oranges and oranges.
25 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, I think we have established quite clearly that that
26is ----
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] And that is completely contrary to what you are saying to
2these Australians, is it not?
3 A. [Mr Irving] In 1986?
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes.
5 A. [Mr Irving] Where I said mind that it was the mindless killers on the
6Eastern Front who did the killing?
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] "These men acted on their own impulse, their own
8initiative", that means without orders, does it not?
9 A. [Mr Irving] When we are talking about the German Jews?
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, we are not.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, we are not there.
12 A. [Mr Irving] Well, we do not know because we have only been given these
13fragments of a transcript.
14 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] No, just focus on the question. What is being put is that
15what you said in 1986 about these men on the Eastern front
16having acted on their own impulse is at any rate now known
17by you not to be right because, in fact, it was authorised
18at the highest level, namely by Hitler?
19 A. [Mr Irving] What was authorized, my Lord? The killing of Jews, the
21 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, you accepted that, I thought, a few minutes ago.
22 A. [Mr Irving] The Jews to be liquidated as partisans, 16th December, the
23conversation, yes. If we can expand that very meagre
24note, that skimpy note, into that interpretation which I
25think is a legitimate expansion, certainly Hitler
26sanctioned the killing of the Jews on the Eastern Front,
1all the rest Jews, the non-German Jews, and that has never
2been a matter contention for me.
3 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I think what is being suggested is that what you said in
41986 can now be seen to be wrong because you were
5suggesting in 1986 that these killings on the Eastern
6Front of Jews was done on the initiative of the commander?
7 A. [Mr Irving] They acted on their own impulse and their own initiative,
8yes, but, clearly, you cannot have the systematic killings
9without the people on the Eastern Front who are willing to
10kill. It is no use having a killing system if you have
11not got mindless killers out there who are prepared to do
12the killing. This is an attempt, really, to explain the
13mentality of the people who are doing the killing on the
14Eastern Front.
15 MR RAMPTON: I will put the question one more time, then I will
16leave it and I will tell you where to find the full
17transcript of this press conference or as such of it as we
19 A. [Mr Irving] Yes. I think I would like to read the whole transcript
20rather than just fragments.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] You should and I tell you so if you want to glance at it
23 A. [Mr Irving] Because both Evans and Browning have a habit of not even
24indicating where they have left out whole sentences.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] They can answer for themselves in due course.
26 A. [Mr Irving] Professor Evans on one occasion left out three sentences,
1eight full stops, three semi-colons and 86 words.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am going to make a joke about that and say "Good Evans!"
3Maybe we can get on, Mr Irving. My suggestion is this,
4that those words you used in Australia on those two
5occasions in 1986 (and it maybe we shall find some others,
6I do not know) are apt to suggest to the audience that
7this killing of the Eastern Jews on a vast scale went on
8without the knowledge or approval of Hitler and his
9cronies, all of them, in Berlin?
10 A. [Mr Irving] If that impression is given, it is the wrong impression.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, it is.
12 A. [Mr Irving] By me, quite clearly.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that a convenient break?
14 MR RAMPTON: My Lord, yes, thank you.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: 2 o'clock.
16 (Luncheon adjournment)
17MR DAVID IRVING, recalled
18Cross-Examined by MR RAMPTON QC, continued
19 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, can I make one small correction?
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
21 A. [Mr Irving] I am wrong about one point on that German, the date line,
22where it says "am", I am informed that in certain regions
23of Germany it is proper to use "am"; it is a dialect.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I am not surprised to hear you say so,
25thank you for that correction.
26 A. [Mr Irving] Thank you.
1 MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, before lunch we looked at some remarks
2that you had made to audiences in Australia in 1986.
3 A. [Mr Irving] 14 years ago.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, 14 years ago. Do you take any point on the fact that
5those remarks were made 14 years ago?
6 A. [Mr Irving] I just wanted to emphasise the fact these remarks were
7made 14 years ago.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Can I now show you something you said in October 1992.
9 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] Thank you. My Lord, Mr Irving will need bundle D5(ii),
11and D3(i).
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry D5 I have not got.
13 MR RAMPTON: Well --
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I mean, have not got here.
15 MR RAMPTON: Thank you, no. My Lord, I think we can supply
16everybody with a copy.
17 A. [Mr Irving] D5?
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] D5(ii), page 25, I have the copy loose. I think this is a
19wrong reference, I am afraid.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I think it must be.
21 MR RAMPTON: I am looking, Mr Irving, I will tell you what I am
22looking for. I am looking at the wrong thing anyway.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is it a transcription of a speech?
24 MR RAMPTON: No, it should be a letter from Mr Marcellus dated
2516th January 1992. We cannot ----
26 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, it is on page -- it is page 141, identified as No. --
1It is in the section after tab 29.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes.
3 A. [Mr Irving] At page, handwritten bottom right 28.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Oh.
5 A. [Mr Irving] No, it is -- handwritten at the bottom, 26. . "Dear Tom".
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] Has the judge got that?
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, not yet.
8 A. [Mr Irving] Alternatively 25, 25 is a longer letter. It is a fax.
9 MR RAMPTON: The reference was right. Does your Lordship have
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I have now.
12 MR RAMPTON: It is a fax, is it not?
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
14 A. [Mr Irving] I was looking at this very letter only last night, in
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Good. I am only interested in the last part of this for
17the moment. Right at the end, you say this: "My position
18remains unchanged, that there were certain Mi Li type
19atrocities by troops in Russia, that the gas chambers and
20factories of death are Hollywood legends and that there is
21no wartime evidence of a Hitler order that what I consider
22in these papers is 'hearsay'." This was, was it, in
23preparation for an IHR conference that year, do you think?
24 A. [Mr Irving] The second paragraph indicates that I was methodically
25working my way through the Eichmann papers and evaluating
26them, planning perhaps to do something with them at this
1Institute of Historical Review, as you know.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, because in D3(i) at I suppose tab 30, there is a
3transcript, I think we looked at this for another purpose
4not long ago, page 18, could you turn to, it is marked
5twice, in tab 30 of this file, we start at the beginning,
6so we see what it is. It is headed "the suppressed
7Eichmann and Goebbels papers David Irving presented at the
811th IHR conference October 1992", the date is correct, is
9it, Mr Irving?
10 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] Now can you turn to the page marked 172 with a stamp or 21
12in print.
13 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] And you say this in the last paragraph: "Now you probably
15know that I am a revisionist to a degree, but I am not a
16revisionist to the extent that I say there were no murders
17of Jews. I think we have to accept", can I pause there
18and ask you why you use that form of words, "we have to
20 A. [Mr Irving] The general public has to accept.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] Why should not the general public accept? There is bags
22of evidence for shootings of Jews, is there not? Do
23I sense a some feeling of reluctance in that form of
25 A. [Mr Irving] I do not consider a film with Robert Mitchum called "War
26of Remembrance" to be evidence which the general public
1should necessarily accept.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Can I repeat my question "in the form of words I think we
3have to accept"?
4 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do I sense a note of reluctance in that?
6 A. [Mr Irving] No, not at all. What you have also to remember I was
7speaking to an audience largely comprised of revisionists
8who are loath to accept this kind of thing, so I am saying
9to them --
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You say "we" not "you"?
11 A. [Mr Irving] I am part of this audience, I am part of this -- part of
12this function.
13 MR RAMPTON: You are really meaning, are you not --
14 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- we, the revisionist movement?
16 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- have, and I insert the words, Mr Irving, reluctantly
18got to accept --
19 A. [Mr Irving] Excuse me, I did not say "reluctantly got to".
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- you do not accept that is the sense of it?
21 A. [Mr Irving] Not at all. What I am saying quite clearly here is that
22that let us get one thing quite plain, we have to accept
23there were these mass murders on the Eastern Front.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] So we may not wish to do?
25 A. [Mr Irving] These are your interpolations --
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, they are --
1 A. [Mr Irving] -- manipulations and distortions --
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- I was making a suggestion about what was in your mind
3when you spoke to this like-minded audience.
4 A. [Mr Irving] -- so are you now a mind reader, Mr Rampton.
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, you said it was a conference of revisionists?
6 A. [Mr Irving] I assume --
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The point is made, we have the answer.
8 MR RAMPTON: The more often your Lordship pushes me in that way
9the happier I shall be.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I hope you will not take it unkindly.
11 MR RAMPTON: Of course not. I am, as your Lordship knows, very
12used to do jury actions and sometimes old habits die hard
13that is all it is.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is an understandable lack of
16 MR RAMPTON: You go on. I think we have to accept there were
17Mi Li type massacres, where SS officers, the
18Einsatzgruppen commanders, did machine gun hundreds, if
19not thousands of Jews -- oh hundreds if not thousands,
20sorry, I must get it right, did machine gun hundreds if
21not thousands of Jews into pits on the Eastern Front at
22Riga at Minsk and at other locations, this kind of thing
23did happen?
24 A. [Mr Irving] -- I think quite clearly this is not hundreds of
25thousands, I mean this is...
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is not hundreds of thousands?
1 A. [Mr Irving] I mean the evidence I have given is quite clearly we are
2talking about hundreds of thousands, not just hundreds or
3thousands in cases ----
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] We do not need the hundreds, do we?
5 A. [Mr Irving] Hundreds of thousands.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think Mr Irving is saying it is a misprint
7or whatever the word is he said and what he meant was
8hundreds of thousands not if not thousands?
9 A. [Mr Irving] Because if at this meeting I have read out the Bruns'
10report where alone several thousand people were machine
11gunned into one pit one could not talk about hundreds.
12 MR RAMPTON: This is one of these speeches, presentations
13lectures, I do not know, that you will have approved
14before it went into print in this whatever it is?
15 A. [Mr Irving] This is correct, yes.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. Never mind, it is a small point.
17 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] The main point is this, Mr Irving, this is another
19statement in exactly the same vein as the statements you
20made at Brisbane in 1986, is it not, Mi Li type massacres?
21 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, I am being accused of being consistent, am I?
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, you are, you are accused of consistently and
23knowingly reducing the extent of the responsibility for
24these massacres?
25 A. [Mr Irving] Very well.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do you accept that charge, or not?
1 A. [Mr Irving] Trying to identify the responsibility, yes. On the basis
2of very meagre evidence.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] The words "Mi Li type massacres" mean this, do they not,
4to any educated or half educated audience, these massacres
5were done by criminal gangers unauthorized in the East
6without the approval, consent or knowledge of the people
7in Berlin?
8 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is correct, and it was wrong, was it not?
10 A. [Mr Irving] That was wrong, yes.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] And you knew that it was wrong?
12 A. [Mr Irving] No, I did not, not at this time.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Not in 1992?
14 A. [Mr Irving] No.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] When did you learn that it was wrong, Mr Irving?
16 A. [Mr Irving] I suppose once I began studying the documents for this
17case in detail, and we started looking at the individual
18documents of the kind we have been looking at in court
19today that becomes quite plain.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] Sorry. Yes, I did not mean to interrupt.
21 A. [Mr Irving] It becomes quite plain that there was a co-ordination,
22there was a degree of direction. For example, the
23killings in the Eastern territory - in the Baltic
24provinces which carried out admittedly by the local
25populations, the SS were told to join in and help and it
26turned a blind eye. So there was a lot of nodding and
1winking going on in a degree that quite clearly indicates
2a systematic direction going on between Berlin and the
3Eastern Front where the killings were taking place.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] I missed the last part of that answer, it ended systematic
5direction, you are saying --
6 A. [Mr Irving] Systematic direction going on between the Eastern front
7and Berlin in connection with these killings.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- I am grateful to you. It is in this same speech is one
9of places where you refer to the Bruns evidence, is it
11 A. [Mr Irving] I believe so, yes.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am sorry, I am being harassed from all sides. I will
13try to make both points at once if I possibly can but I do
14not think I can. Can you turn back, please, to, where is
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 24. Are you on Bruns?
17 MR RAMPTON: Sorry.
18 MR RAMPTON: You were asked a question on page 23, you will
19find right hand column under "Questions": "What do we
20know about the people who are responsible for the
21massacres of Jews by firing squad in Minsk and other
22areas? How high did the responsibility go?" Were you
24 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] And it was at that point we come to Bruns, is it not?
26 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] And as I think we have been through already so I am not
2going to go through it again, you do not when reporting
3Bruns' evidence make any reference to the order which
4Altemeyer said he had, which were Fuhrer orders, that it
5should happen, nor to the qualifications and the second
6conversation that must happen more discreetly?
7 A. [Mr Irving] If I read it here says, one particular Bruns described to
8his pals in appalling detail the massacre he himself saw
9near Riga on November 30th 1941, I am not going to read
10that out one here, so I did not read out any of it
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] But the direct answer to the question, would it not,
13difficult for you when you said these were "Mi Li type
14massacres". This chap Bruns actually said he had been
15told it was a Fuhrer order? "But I do not think it is
16probably right" you could have added, of course?
17 A. [Mr Irving] I think we have gone over this point in some detail on a
18previous occasion.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, we have.
20 MR RAMPTON: I rather agree. I had not spotted the question
21before, that was all.
22 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, might I just read out ten lines of continuation
23of that particular speech, because it goes to
24how unreliable a lot of this evidence is?
25 MR RAMPTON: Where are you, Mr Irving?
26 A. [Mr Irving] At the top left of page 24. It is just a typical --
1problem we have with eyewitness evidence where apparently
2equally credible document gives a version of a story which
3is on the face of it highly unlikely.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, yes, if you want to read it out.
5 A. [Mr Irving] If it would be a useful exercise, or if your Lordship so
6directed I would not, of course.
7 MR RAMPTON: I do not object.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: There is no objection taken, if you want to,
9then do.
10 A. [Mr Irving] Purely as an exercise in how unreliable evidence can be
11from prisoners of war. Here is a prisoner of war in a
12conversation on December 20th. A man called Obergaufreiter
13Till, who was captured in August 1944. He claimed to have
14been guarding the railway at Auschwitz in July 1943 when a
15train load of Greek Jews arrived. This again is an
16intercepted and overheard conversation. Till said: "The
17SS man kicked a Jewish woman who was highly pregnant. He
18kicked her right in the stomach and knocked her down and
19the unborn baby came almost out. He took hold of it
20pulled it out, threw it on the ground and told the woman
21to get up. He put that child on the truck that was
22standing there to take away the dead people to be
23burned." The British officer is then heard asking: "The
24child was dead, of course?" Till then said: "Yes, and the
25woman could not get up she was hardly dressed and he
26grabbed her by the breast. He wanted to pull her up. He
1just ripped her skin and everything out of her breasts.
2There was a captain there from the army. I think his name
3was Captain Klug. He went after that SS guy, he took him
4by the shoulder, turned him round and said: "Are you
5crazy to do something like that, are you not ashamed of
6yourself?" And so on.
7 As I comment this is the kind of rubbish that
8gets into these interrogation reports and part of the job
9of being a responsible writer or researcher is to sift the
10wheat from the chaff and try evaluate which ones are
11credible. It may be that this is an entirely true story,
12but on the face of it I considered it was not. That is the
13kind of problem we have, it is all very well in court look
14at documents which have been singled out by the
15Defendants, and say, look at this one, look at that one,
16why have you ignored this? As an historian working in the
17archives you are confronted with tens of thousands of
18documents and you have to make your own choice.
19 MR RAMPTON: Yes, Mr Irving. You made a statement to -- why
20did you want to read that out, as opposed to just drawing
21attention to it, saying this is something you could not
23 A. [Mr Irving] Why did I wish to read it out?
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] Why did you want it read it out?
25 A. [Mr Irving] It is self- evident. It is material of precisely the same
26quality as General Brun's eyewitness account; it comes
1from precisely the same provenance, from the Combined
2Services Detailed Interrogations Centre transcripts and
3yet we have to make a value judgment and say this document
4I believe, that document I do not believe or this document
5I believe this much, that portion I am less inclined to
6believe. And on balance, as I think I explained to the
7court earlier, when it came to Bruns' recollection of what
8Altemeyer said about, "we have got the Fuhrer's order but
9we are going to disregard it", I am afraid I attach the
10value to it which I consider to be proper.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, if I put General Bruns' Report of Lieutenant
12Altemeyer's words in those terms you would have given me
13the most terrible rocket, would you not? "We are going to
14disregard it"; he did not say that at all, did he?
15 A. [Mr Irving] I beg your pardon? Disregard --
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] He did not say "we are going to disregard it"?
17 A. [Mr Irving] -- no, discount certain elements of it.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, I see.
19 A. [Mr Irving] Which on -- prima facie less likely than others. We can
20believe the part where he says he can see the girl in the
21flame red dress in his mind's eye because all experience
22tells us that is the kind of detail people do report.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] We have done it before --
24 A. [Mr Irving] We have also dealt with SS braggarts who shoot their
25mouths off --
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- we have done that one, Mr Irving, I will not pick up
1the conflict again. I would not be allowed it anyway.
2 I want to ask you this about your Mi Li remark,
3which I have now lost, of course. We have to accept that
4there were Mi Li types massacres. You have accepted it
5was wrong. You could have found out that it was wrong
6before you made it, could you not?
7 A. [Mr Irving] -- find out what was wrong?
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] The characterization of these organized, systematic
9shootings known to Berlin in the East of the eastern Jews;
10the characterization of those Mi Li type massacres was
11wrong, you have accepted it was wrong, and you could have
12known it was wrong before you made that --
13 A. [Mr Irving] I think to be more specific, there were Mi Li type
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- I am sure there were?
16 A. [Mr Irving] But there were also others that were clearly on orders
17from above.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] I do not want to go back over old ground again.
19 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] But my question was not that to which you gave an answer;
21my question was, you had the means of knowing it was wrong
22before you said it, did you not?
23 A. [Mr Irving] What would those means have been?
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] You could have done the same research in the EMs going
25back to Berlin as everybody else has done?
26 A. [Mr Irving] I do not think everybody else does done it for a start;
1secondly, I am not a Holocaust historian, as I keep
2reminding the court.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then why are you discussing it here and why are you making
4a categorical assertion that they were simply unauthorized
5gangster killings?
6 A. [Mr Irving] I am being asked by a member of the audience my opinion on
7this and I am giving the opinion based on my knowledge at
8that time.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] Now I want to come to something different that arises from
10some things you were saying on Thursday. I promised you
11that I would come back to it and I will. It is Hitler's
12log note, telephone log note, of the 30th --
13 A. [Mr Irving] November 1941.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- yes. It has to do with the manuscript, not the sense,
15the manuscript, and your transcription of the
16word "haben -- "
17 A. [Mr Irving] This is December 1st?
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] November 30th 1941.
19 A. [Mr Irving] December 1st 1941?
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] There was a copy of it -- December 1st, you are quite
21right, I got the wrong date. There was a copy of it in
22your little bundle, my Lord, at the back of J3.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes?
24 A. [Mr Irving] December 1st.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Have you got it, Mr Irving?
26 A. [Mr Irving] No.
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We all know it by heart by now?
2 A. [Mr Irving] I know it by heart.
3 MR RAMPTON: No, for this purpose the witness will need the
4actual copy.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you got that little clip?
6 A. [Mr Irving] No my Lord I no longer have it.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is there a spare copy? Bundle C.
8 A. [Mr Irving] I thought we had passed on from this matter.
9 MR RAMPTON: No, because I promised you that I did not accept
10that that you made an honest mistake in the transcription
11of that word "haben" and if I had any more to say about it
12I would come back to it, and that is what I am now going
13to do.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 13, I think.
15 MR RAMPTON: It is page 14 is the transcript. Sorry is the
16photograph and page 13 is the transcript.
17 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, I have it.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Now I am going to do something else, if I may, Mr Irving.
19I am going to pass up to you, and to his Lordship a
20somewhat better copy than the one you gave us.
21 A. [Mr Irving] Which is completely immaterial, of course.
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] So you say, but you may not think that when you have heard
23how I am going to use it.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Shall we slot this into ----
25 MR RAMPTON: Yes, my Lord.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- that file?
1 MR RAMPTON: Yes. 13A, my Lord, says Miss Rogers. I will just
2ask you, I am not going to ask you any questions about
3that at the moment, I want to ask you some preliminary
4questions. Your copy which we find at page 14 of your
5little bundle ----
6 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- was taken from what?
8 A. [Mr Irving] From a microfilm.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] From a microfilm. Look at the one I have just handed in.
10 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is a copy taken from a microfilm too, is it not?
12 A. [Mr Irving] I will take your word for that, yes.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, it looks like it, does it not?
14 A. [Mr Irving] Except there is a distinction. There is a handwritten
15No. 318 on the top right-hand corner.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is as may be but the fact that it is ----
17 A. [Mr Irving] No, that implies that it is taken at a different time and
18also what looks like a staple in the top left-hand corner.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, but the fact that it is white on black, Mr Irving,
20suggests that it is a photocopy taken from a microfilm
21negative, does it not?
22 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, but not from the microfilm that you obtained from me.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] How did you make your photocopy that we have here?
24 A. [Mr Irving] I took it to a Messrs Rank Xerox Limited who ran it off on
25a copy flower machine about 20 years ago.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Ran what off?
1 A. [Mr Irving] The microfilm.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] The microfilm?
3 A. [Mr Irving] They printed it out and then chopped it up and I sent it
4to be bound.
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] What I have here, is that as good as it gets or is the
6original ----
7 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, I had the actual bound volume in court with me
8last week and that was what I operated from. This is a
9photocopy from that bound volume which is as good as it
10got. I am quite happy to bring it into court again
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, it may not be necessary. I would say I hand up the
13better copy, only for the purposes of checking it in case
14you do not agree with what I am going to ask you. Can you
15have out your English -- sorry, your typescript transcript
16of the manuscript?
17 A. [Mr Irving] It is the previous page.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Page 13?
19 A. [Mr Irving] Page 13?
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. I think I am right, am I not, that there are only
21two words in the whole of this transcript which you have
22mistranscribed? One is, well, you have altered the
23"haben" from "Juden". You have made it into "haben", you
24tell us?
25 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] You have also mistranscribed "truppen" of "truppenschule",
1have you not?
2 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Those are the only words you have mistranscribed. The
4"haben" is now correct?
5 A. [Mr Irving] I have only just spotted the "lappenschule"" was
6mistranscribed as well, yes.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, that is right. Take the first line. Look at your
9 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] The word is "recrutenzahlen" which is numbers of recruits,
11perhaps, is it?
12 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Now look at the German, the manuscript?
14 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] The "U" has a thing like a hockey stick over the top of
16it, does it not?
17 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct, yes.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Look at the word, third line, which you transcribe as
19"ulab vager"?
20 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] The small "b" at the end "ulab" looks like a small "b",
22does it not?
23 A. [Mr Irving] Look likes a small B?
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, it is like an ordinary schoolboy "b", is it not?
25 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Look at the "U" in the next line in "tabung", again it has
1that scallop on top of it, has it not?
2 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Look at the word in the next entry which is a single entry
4"flieger mel dingung"?
5 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] Look at the "D"; it has a loop on the top, has it not?
7 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, if you look two lines down, please, at "executionen",
8and on "executionen" there appears to be no little hat on
9the U.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] That may be, Mr Irving.
11 A. [Mr Irving] That rather destroys the point you are trying to make.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do not try to always second guess me; it does not really
13help. It just slows things down.
14 A. [Mr Irving] I am just trying to help court.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Flieger mel dingung" has both the loop on the "D" and the
16little sign on top of the U, has it not?
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is not umlaut sign, is it?
18 A. [Mr Irving] No, it is not. It is to distinguish the "U" from the "N"
19in handwriting in German.
20 MR RAMPTON: Then the next line where there is an entry against
21the name of Heydrich in Prague?
22 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Schreibdamen", you have both the "B" and the "D" there,
24have you not?
25 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] The ordinary "B" and the "D" with the loop?
1 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Look at the last H of "Heydrich"?
3 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] It looks like a capital J in English, does it not?
5 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then the first line of the entry against "Pohl Bezuch",
7that has the little scallop on it, has it not?
8 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then "Lappenschuhe"?
10 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] L-A-P-P-E-N-S-C-H-U-H-E?
12 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Both the "H"s look like "J"s, do they not?
14 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, but they appear to have no scallop on the "Uhe".
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is difficult to tell because the "G", or whatever it
16is, of whatever the "zu", I think it is, the Z loop has
17come down on to the U, has it not?
18 A. [Mr Irving] I do not see any scallop.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] Check it against the good copy and you will see that it
20has. It matters not very much.
21 A. [Mr Irving] I am checking the good copy; but there is no scallop on
22the "executionen" and quite clearly there is nothing on
23the "U" on that one.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] But you have transcribed both those "H"s which look just
25like "J"s to the English eye correctly as "H"s?
26 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] There is no scallop on the word you transcribe as "Juden"?
2 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] You must have known the first letter was an "H" and not a
4"J", and it must be quite certain that you knew that the
5third letter was not a "D"?
6 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Rampton, this is a sterile exercise. We are looking at
7a page that was not lying in front of me. The page that
8was lying in front of me was the one that was in my
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is what I have been looking at. I have been doing
11this by using your copy.
12 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, but you had this as a cheat, did you not?
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] No.
14 A. [Mr Irving] I did not have this as a cheat.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] Look at your own copy. Ignore the good copy. That is
16just so everybody shall not think I am making it up.
17 A. [Mr Irving] This is what we call a cheat.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Oh, you think so?
19 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] I would not have given you the good copy in that case.
21Look at the right-hand column. Look, for example,
23 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] That, even in your fairly poor copy, loop on the "D" is as
25clear as daylight, is it not?
26 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Now look at "schreibdamen", the "b" and "d" both together?
2 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] So if you wanted to be sure what that word was at the
4beginning of the indent against the "Pohl" entry ----
5 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- you could tell perfectly well that it must be a "B"
7and not a "D".
8 A. [Mr Irving] You have the great advantage of hindsight, of course. You
9know what the word should read and now you can read it.
10I did not know what the word should read. I had this
11very, very poor copy to work from.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Every time that Heinrich Himmler writes the letter "d" in
13lower case, he puts that loop on it, does he not?
14 A. [Mr Irving] I do not think so; not even on the one at 1315 on the
15left-hand column. I cannot see the loop on that. But
16I can only repeat I regard this (and you will disagree
17with me) as a very sterile exercise. You are looking at
18the quality of photocopy that was not in front of me.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am not. I am looking at this wretched thing that you
20handed out yesterday.
21 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, indeed, but you had the benefit of this now to tell
22you which letters are which.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] As a matter of fact, Mr Irving, I had the benefit of
24somebody who had bothered to learn how to read Heinreich
25Himmler's handwriting which you had too. Had you not?
26 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, and it is amazing that I was first person who ever
1made use of these.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, Mr Irving, great credit for that, but the fact is
3that you had before you the evidence if you had cared to
4look at it?
5 A. [Mr Irving] I disapprove of the word "cared". Your use of the word
6"care" implied that I perversely and deliberately and
7following an agenda misread the word when, quite clearly,
8I did not. Quite clearly, that is a reasonable reading of
9that word, and as soon as the improper reading of the word
10was brought to my attention, I immediately changed it. It
11is the kind of thing that, unfortunately, happens when you
12work from original records and not from sitting in book in
13a book-lined cave which is what most of the academics and
14scholars do.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, Mr Irving, this is either deliberate or it was a
16mistake of the most colossal magnitude for a proper
17historian, was it not?
18 A. [Mr Irving] It was a mistake of a pathetic magnitude, less than 10
19cents would I give for that mistake, Mr Rampton, less than
2010 cents on a scale of 1 to $10.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] What, when you are trying to exonerate Hitler by saying
22that Himmler sent an order the next day to say the Jews
23were to stay where they were? Come on, Mr Irving.
24 A. [Mr Irving] Excuse me. This is not that page. This is the page
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] But you run the two together in the same passage in your
2 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Rampton, are you implying that the strength of that
3paragraph has been diminished by one jot, by one comma, by
4the omission of this sentence? Of course not.
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, the strength of it is increased by the inclusion of
6that sentence is what my suggestion is.
7 A. [Mr Irving] But it has not been diminished by the omission of the
8sentence in any way at all.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is not my suggestion.
10 A. [Mr Irving] In fact, we have even better material to replace it with.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] My suggestion is this, that wherever you can, you distort
12the material before you so as to put Adolf Hitler in the
13clear so far as you possibly can. It is quite clear.
14 A. [Mr Irving] The use of the word "distort" implies that this was a
15wilful misreading, and that is an interpretation which
16I reject here most emphatically and under oath.
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, issue is well and truly joined on that,
18is it not, now so...
19 MR RAMPTON: It is, is it not?
20 A. [Mr Irving] I think, my Lord, I will bring back tomorrow the bound
21volume of the Himmler diaries on which I worked. I will
22lay the actual volume before your Lordship.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It will look very similar to page 13, will it
25 A. [Mr Irving] It will, indeed, my Lord, but in view of the fact that
26they appear to hang their whole case on this misreading.
1 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Well, I do not think I would go that far.
2 MR RAMPTON: No, I do not think you should make that
3assumption, Mr Irving.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Anyway we have got the ----
5 A. [Mr Irving] Well, Mr Rampton keeps on coming back to it like a dog
6that keeps on digging up an old bone.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- question and the answer.
8 MR RAMPTON: Yes, I have had the great good fortune,
9Mr Irving, to learn how to read Himmler's handwriting last
10night or whenever it was, Friday maybe, which you already
11knew. Now I want to turn aside or I want to go into the
12future, rather. Can you have your Hitler's War book of
131991, please?
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Which part?
15 MR RAMPTON: Part 2, my Lord. Please turn to page 464. My
16Lord, I had better read from the beginning of where the
17text comes out of quotation.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Right.
19 MR RAMPTON: "Given his table company", that is Hitler's table
20company, "Himmler, Lammas and Colonel Hanzeitzer on this
21occasion, this is surely a significant private discourse
22by the Fuhrer"?
23 A. [Mr Irving] Would it not be more to point to read the paragraph?
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am not really going to ask you about that, but I will if
25you want me to?
26 A. [Mr Irving] Please do.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] On January 25th, we are in 1942, are we not? It starts at
2the bottom of 463, my Lord.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are you going to be discussing the Roman Jews
4at this point?
5 MR RAMPTON: No.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I really do not think, Mr Irving, it is going
7to be relevant. We will obviously read anything that you
8think is relevant but I do not think ----
9 A. [Mr Irving] Well, it is just a passage that is incompatible with the
10notion that Adolf Hitler was simultaneously giving orders
11for the liquidation of Jews.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: All right, well, let us have it. I was
13trying to save time.
14 MR RAMPTON: We are going to have to come back to it.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Of course.
16 MR RAMPTON: Because again it is, what shall we say, to put it
17neutrally at the moment, it is another crass error
18by Mr Irving ----
19 A. [Mr Irving] Another.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- so we say. "Hitler reflected out loud: 'If I extract
21the Jews today, our citizens get uneasy, what is happening
22to him then, but did these same people care one hoot what
23happened to the Germans", in italics, "who had to
24emigrate. We've got to get it over fast. It is no better
25to pull out a tooth a bit at a time over three months.
26Once it is out, the agony is over. The Jews have got to
1get out of Europe, otherwise we'll never reach a European
2consensus. He is the worst troublemaker everywhere and
3really aren't I, in fact, terrifically humane? During the
4... ceremony in Rome the Jews were maltreated. Up to
51830 they hounded eight Jews through the city on asses
6every year. All I say is he has got to get out. If he
7drops ... in the process, I can't help it. I do see one
8thing, however, their total elimination, absolute
9ausrotung, if they won't leave willingly.
10 "Given his table company, Himmler, Lammas and
11Colonel Hanzeitzer on this occasion, this is surely a
12significant private discourse by the Fuhrer. On January
1327th, he repeated the same arguments over dinner to a
14different audience, 'The Jews have got to get out of
15Europe. The best thing would be for them to go to Russia.
16I have no sympathy with the Jews'
17 "Three days later speaking in the Berlin Sport
18Palaste he reminded his audience of his prophetic warning
19to the world's Jews in 1939.
20 "Early in March 1942, Heydrich held a second
21interministerial conference to examine the awkward problem
22posed by half and quarter Jews. If allowed to remain,
23they might, perhaps, be sterilised. The top level
24opinion, i.e. Hitler, is quoted to the effect that they
25must draw a sharp distinction between Jews and non-Jews as
26it would not be acceptable for a mini race of semi Jews to
1be perpetuated in law. This classification process would
2call for a colossal administrative effort, so the idea was
3shelved. A subsequent memorandum in Reichjustice ministry
4file cited this highly significant statement by Hans
5Lammas headed 'The Reich Chancellory', 'The Fuhrer has
6repeatedly stated that he wants ... (reading to the words)
7... After the war they might be allocated a remote
8territory like Madagascar as a national home."
9 Much of that, Mr Irving, we are going to come
10back to later on. This is the bit. I read that by way of
11chronological introduction:
12 "Dr Goebbels, agitating from Berlin, clearly
13hoped for a more speedy and ruthless solution although he
14held his tongue when meeting his Fuhrer. On March 19th he
15quoted in his diary only this remark by Hitler: 'The Jews
16must get out of Europe. If need be, we must resort to the
17most brutal methods'. That Goebbels privately knew more
18is plain from his diary entry on 27th. 'Beginning with
19Lublin', he recorded, 'The Jews are being pushed out
20eastwards from the General Government. A barbaric and
21indescribable method is being employed here and there is
22not much left of the Jews themselves. By and large, you
23can probably conclude that 60 per cent of them have to be
24liquidated while only 40 per cent can be put to work."
25 "Dr Goebbels recorded further that ... (reading
26to the words) ... And the cycle started over again. 'The
1Jews have nothing to laugh about now' commented Goebbels,
2but he evidently, never discussed these realities with
3Hitler. Thus, this two-faced minister dictated after a
4further visit to Hitler on April 26th: 'I have once again
5talked over the Jewish question with the Fuhrer. His
6position on this problem is merciless. He wants to force
7the Jews right out of Europe. At this moment Himmler is
8handing the major transfer of Jews from the German cities
9into the eastern gettoes."
10 Now, you cited two Goebbels' entries there in
11part, and you make it clear that it is only in part. The
12first question, for the entry of 27th March 1942, had you
13read the whole of the entry?
14 A. [Mr Irving] I did, and I read it not only in the original paper
15diaries in the Hoover Library in California where that
16particular page is now kept, the original, I also read it
17on microfilm in the American national archive's version
18that was microfilmed in 1947 because, obviously, this was
19a very contentious entry and a lot of right wing radicals
20tried to make out that this was a fake entry in some way,
21and that the CIA or the OSS or someone had dumped it, had
22inserted it into the Goebbels' diaries. When I went to
23Moscow, that was one of the first plates I looked for,
24just to complete the circle of evidence that it was a
25genuine entry. So I read it many times.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] You have, so you have read the whole of that entry?
1 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, indeed.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, then could I ask that Mr Irving be given ----
3 A. [Mr Irving] Of course there is much more to than that.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. Can I ask Mr Irving be given Professor Evans'
5report, please?
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You may already have it. I think it is
7coming up from behind.
8 MR RAMPTON: What about the entry of 26th April?
9 A. [Mr Irving] You want me to find a particular page in the report first.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I think Mr Rampton wants to know whether
11you have read it?
12 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, of course. I read that one on microfilm because
13I have the entire diaries that were then available on
14microfilm since 1970 about, my Lord.
15 MR RAMPTON: I am going to ask you if you will to look at the
16translation (and the German is set out there too) at page
17400 of Professor Evans' report?
18 A. [Mr Irving] Are we going to challenge my translation or just the
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, do not leap ahead, Mr Irving.
21 A. [Mr Irving] I need to know what I am looking at.
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] You fall at the fences if you do that. Could you just
23read to yourself, either way round, it matters not to me,
24first of all or second of all, the English and the German
25to yourself. I want you to say whether you think the
26translation is a fair one.
1 A. [Mr Irving] In other words, the translation?
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am sure you know the German very well, but I would like
3you to see whether you agree or not that Professor Evans'
4translation is a fair one, then we can all get on with the
6 A. [Mr Irving] Well, let us assume that it is a fair translation. If I
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, that may save time in the end,
9I suspect, because you are going to come to particular
11 MR RAMPTON: Yes, I do not want to ask questions about a
12passage in English which the witness may dispute. That is
13all. Your quotation if you still have it open on page
14464 ----
15 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- stops, I think, well, as a direct quote it stops,
17first of all, in the penultimate line of page 464 as a
18direct quotation?
19 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then you go on to report the next sentence in Goebbels'
22 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Carefully and unobtrusively you say Professor Evans that
24does not work too conspicuously?
25 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] I do not think you have got any of the rest of it?
1 A. [Mr Irving] It is pure Goebbels' waffle, yes.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] What?
3 A. [Mr Irving] If you have the read Goebbels' diaries, you know he
4waffles endlessly. He is dictating to a diligent
5manservant who takes down everything he dictates. He
6waffles. If he was writing this in handwriting, he would
7have done it in half the length. It is the old Goebbels'
8gramophone record that he is putting on again.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] There is a reference, if you can go back, please, to
10Professor Evans' version, again to the Reichstag prophecy,
11is there not?
12 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] And he says "that prophecy is beginning to realize itself
14in the most terrible manner"?
15 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] "And must not allow any sentimentalities to rule in these
17matters. If we did not defend ourselves against them, the
18Jews would annihilate us. It is a struggle for life and
19death between the areas and race and the Jewish
21 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] Now, "the Jewish bascillus" was not Goebbels' ugly concept
23but Hitler's, was it not?
24 A. [Mr Irving] That is correct. Hitler repeatedly, particularly in 1941
25onwards, started talking about the Jewish bacillus.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] He did indeed.
1 A. [Mr Irving] Which I quoted in my book, of course.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] He talked about eliminating the Jewish bacillus on a
3number of occasions?
4 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, or "combating" the bacillus rather than "eliminating"
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] What? Sometimes he uses the word "eliminierum" which I
7suppose means "eliminate". "No other government and no
8other regime could muster the strength for a general
9solution of the question. Here too the Fuhrer is the
10persistent and the word is "Vorkampfer"?
11 A. [Mr Irving] "Pioneer", yes.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Pioneer?
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is "protagonist" really, is it not?
14 A. [Mr Irving] Even better.
15 MR RAMPTON: "Protagonist"?
16 A. [Mr Irving] And it would be an accurate, a deliberate, 100 per cent --
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] And "Wortfuhrer", is that a spokesman?
19 A. [Mr Irving] "Champion".
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] A "champion", yes, stronger than "spokesman" of a radical
21solution of the question -- sorry, "of a radical solution
22which is demanded by the way things are and thus appears
23to be unavoidable". You never in this book, or the
24previous edition of this book, make any reference to that
25statement by Goebbels about Hitler's position in this
26general solution, do you?
1 A. [Mr Irving] This is Goebbels reporting Hitler's position.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is indeed.
3 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, but does it really advance our sum knowledge of what
4Hitler's position was?
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] Indeed it does, indeed it does, Mr Irving. It at least,
6one might put it like this, might lead one to be a bit
7cautious, might it not, about saying that Goebbels kept
8the ghastly truth from his leader, Adolf Hitler?
9 A. [Mr Irving] Well, I have a reason for saying that.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] What is that?
11 A. [Mr Irving] The fact that he never records in any of his diaries that
12he did and whenever he put suggestions to Hitler, then he
13records it in his diary. This is the subtle distinction.
14If you read all the diaries and not just one glowing ember
15which is thrust into your hands by one of your experts,
16when you are familiar with the entire diaries, then you
17know how to use them.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Which is how, Mr Irving?
19 A. [Mr Irving] The way I just described to you. I would have been
20looking here for a passage where Goebbels then says,
21"I then put to the Fuhrer the proposal that we do, this,
22that and the other and Hitler agreed", but there is
23nothing of that. This is just Goebbels ranting on,
24happily coming back in the after glow of having sat with
25the Fuhrer, and once more the Fuhrer has put the
26gramaphone record on about the prophecy.
1 I mean, if I am an author of a book which has
2not got to be a two volume book, writing a book that is
3going to come down to a reasonable economic length, you
4have to make judgment calls on what you put in and what
5you take out. If something you are going to leave out
6does not really advance the argument one way or the other,
7then you leave it out.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] But, you see, your omissions of the Goebbels' references
9to Hitler are the omissions of all those references which
10put Hitler in a bad light?
11 A. [Mr Irving] Let me also put something in a legal sense. This entry
12can be held against Goebbels' evidence but not against
13Hitler, of course.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] We are not conducting a legal enquiry when we are writing
15a history book, Mr Irving, are we?
16 A. [Mr Irving] We are to a certain extent. The man, the people we are
17writing about are dead. They are entitled that we should
18marshal the same kind of criteria that we would in a court
19of law. We are looking at serious crimes that have been
20committed, indeed, the worst atrocities this last century.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I am about a quarter of the way with
22you. I think the fact it does not come from the horse's
23mouth reduces its weight, but it has weight nonetheless?
24 A. [Mr Irving] Unquestionably it has weight, my Lord, but then you come
25up against the problems of the other weight, the weight of
26the tome you are writing; you are already facing a
1problem. I have had to shorten the book already down from
2the 1977 edition by approximately one-third in order to
3put the first volume in as well, and you have those weight
4problems you have also have tempo problems. You do not
5want to bog the whole text down by repeating yet again
6with has been said elsewhere. The fact that Adolf Hitler
7had planned a radical solution for the Jewish problem,
8whatever he meant by that, has been spelt out innumerable
9times elsewhere in the book.
10 What is far more interesting in this particular
11quotation, the real meat of this quotation is Dr Goebbels
12having learned somehow, presumably from an SS report, that
13what happened to the Jews in Lublin when they arrived, as
14I said, beggars all description, as a caption I have used,
15I believe, in the Goebbels' biography, where I quoted it
16at far greater length, my Lord. You will find I quoted it
17at far greater length in the Goebbels' biography because
18in the Goebbels' biography it is important. The material
19goes to what Goebbels' own knowledge was.
20 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Will you forgive me, Mr Rampton, just to ask a couple of
21questions. If you look at that paragraph at the top of
22page 465, tell me if I am wrong, but it appears to me the
23point you are really conveying to readers there is that
24Goebbels did not discuss the disposal of the Jews or the
25realities of the disposal of the Jews ----
26 A. [Mr Irving] With Hitler?
1 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] --- with Hitler and, secondly, that Hitler was still
2talking about getting the Jews right out of Europe.
3 A. [Mr Irving] This is a very important point that I make, and he
4continues to say this ----
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] But if you look -- just let me complete the point, then
6add whatever you like -- at what Goebbels' diary actually
7records, it includes the phrase "The Fuhrer is the
8persistent pioneer and spokesman of a radical solution
9which is demanded by the way things are and thus appears
10to be unavoidable"?
11 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, but what is ----
12 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] And Goebbels has referred earlier to only 40 per cent of
13the Jews being available for work, the rest being
15 A. [Mr Irving] In my submission, my Lord, the way I used this material
16was absolutely correct. I quoted the meat of the
17quotation from the diary, I quoted what we know from the
18diary about how far his conversation went with Hitler, but
19I certainly did not try to get cleaver in reading between
20the lines and suggesting that either he got this
21information from Hitler, which is most likely, he got it
22almost certainly in the form of a report, a so called
23esdebricht, the same as you have got the report from the
24Bunzig conference and so on; and that he then went to see
25Hitler and he sat basking in Hitler's glow for a while.
26They exchanged anti-Semitic remarks, but Goebbels did not
1venture to put this material to him, and he came back to
2Berlin, dictated his diary reflecting, "Well, Hitler is
3after all the champion and protagonist of radical
4solutions, he is the one". But at the same time Hitler
5is, apparently, talking about pushing them out and the
6Madagascar solution, about pushing them out to Russia and
7that kind of thing.
8 This is the discrepancy in the records that you
9are confronted with, as I say in the table talk passage
10that I insisted should be read out. This is a first
11person record taken by a qualified stenographer, Heinrich
12Heime, and the people who are present are the people who
13are actually conducting the massacre, Heinrich Himmler,
14and yet here is Hitler apparently saying something which
15is totally at variance with what is at that very moment
16happening. This is why it is so significant, my Lord,
17that how could, unless there is a lot of hypocrisy
18going on here, but for what purpose? These were Top
19Secret memoranda, taken down by Heinrich Heim, signed by
20Martin Bormann and then put in the files, the so-called
21table talk.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you.
23 A. [Mr Irving] You see, it is very easy to look at just one diary entry
24like the Goebbels' diary and mull backwards and forwards
25across that without realising that there is a lot of
26collateral evidence that reinforces the position one takes
1and how one edits it, which is not necessarily perverse
2and certainly is not manipulation.
3 MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, it is difficult for me, without having
4had a response from you to our various reports -- it is
5not a criticism -- to know when I am looking at a
6particular Goebbels' diary entry whether you have read
7them or not as your reading seems per force to have been
8somewhat selective. That is not a criticism either.
9 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Rampton, I have read the entire Goebbels' diaries as
10they were available on microfilm from left to right twice.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] When?
12 A. [Mr Irving] Once when they arrived in 1970, in other words, when
13I obtained them from the American archives, and once again
14when I wrote the Goebbels' biography in the late 1980s or
15early 1990s.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Sorry, I am not understanding, but I thought we had,
17unless I have gone completely mad, a discussion this
18morning about the entry for 13th December 1941?
19 A. [Mr Irving] That was not available. I am talking about the Goebbels'
20diaries when they were available. The Goebbels' diaries
21only became available, well, they became available in
22several chunks over the last 50 years.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] So this is one you had read?
24 A. [Mr Irving] March 27th 1942?
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes.
26 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am going to have to ask you that question every time,
2you see, when we look at these entries. It is one you
3have read and you chose not to include the reference to
4Hitler being the leader and spokesman of the radical
5solution; instead, you included, if it was a question of
6space, the last sentence, in your words, "The Jews have
7nothing to laugh about now", did you not? You skipped
8right down ----
9 A. [Mr Irving] "The Jewry had nothing to laugh about" in Evans' words,
10yes. Very similar.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. His translation is slightly better than yours ----
12 A. [Mr Irving] Except it is less literate, less literary. Occasionally,
13when you make a translation for a book that will be
14published, you have to go for the literary rather than the
15wooden. This is a slightly more wooden translation.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] This is not an important point, but it is dangerous, is it
18 A. [Mr Irving] I try to avoid wooden translations for documents if I am
19writing a book for publication. I try to put a literal
20translation. With Goebbels, it becomes very difficult
21because his diaries are written in a vernacular -- a lot
22of slang put in them.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] You do record fairly enough the diary entry of 20th March
24and the remark on 19th by Hitler -- I have it in here, it
25is at the bottom of page 464 -- "The Jews must get out of
26Europe. If need be, we must resort to the most brutal
1methods", do you not?
2 A. [Mr Irving] I cannot find it in the book.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am so sorry. It is in the last paragraph on page 464.
4 A. [Mr Irving] On March 19th he quoted in his diary, yes, that is right.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, only this remark.
7 A. [Mr Irving] Yes. "We must resort to the most brutal methods".
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] In your first edition, you got the chronology wrong, did
9you not?
10 A. [Mr Irving] It is possible, yes.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, you did. You said that Dr Goebbels' meeting with
12Hitler on 20th came after that entry of the 27th which we
13have been looking at.
14 A. [Mr Irving] It is possible.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is not a criticism, it is a fact, so nobody should
16confuse themselves by looking at the 1977 edition. Then
17you go on: "That Goebbels privately knew more is plain"
19 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- etc. What was the evidentiary foundation for the
21assertion that Goebbels plainly knew more?
22 A. [Mr Irving] Privately knew more.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] What?
24 A. [Mr Irving] That he privately knew more.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, than Hitler did.
26 A. [Mr Irving] He quoted a remark by Hitler that the Jews must get out.
1He privately knew more because the SD had sent to him,
2Goebbels, the report on whatever is going on that beggars
3all description, the killings at 40 per cent, 60 per cent.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, I am sorry about this. I am not trying to
5rewrite history; I do not have to. I am trying to put
6myself in the position of an historian who is writing an
7account of these dark days, and sees that Hitler on 19th
8when evidently he and Goebbels had had a meeting saying
9that the Jews must get out of -- I will get it right --
10Europe. "If need be, we", that is the German government,
11"must resort to the most brutal methods ----
12 A. [Mr Irving] To get them out.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] What is the most brutal way of getting somebody out,
14oustvotting somebody?
15 A. [Mr Irving] No, it is not. It is being knocked up at 2.00 or 3.00 in
16the morning by Gestapo hammering on your door and saying,
17"You have got 15 minutes to pack and come down to a
18central collecting point and then you are going to be put
19on a train with the aforementioned three tonnes of bread".
20That is a brutal means of getting people out in any
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is a brutal means, but if we are going to be literal
23minded and go into the school room, we know that "most" is
24a superlative, do we not?
25 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] What is the most brutal means of removing people?
1 A. [Mr Irving] Most brutal means of getting people out? Using brute
2force, getting the Gestapo, dogs.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am going to see if I can find what word is attributed to
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not know where that diary entry is.
6 MR RAMPTON: I do not either; that is the trouble.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure it is going to matter very much
8because Mr Irving is making the point that in the end we
9are talking of getting them out of Europe and not anything
10else, so it does not really matter what word is used.
11That is what you are saying, Mr Irving, is it not?
12 A. [Mr Irving] Indeed, my Lord, yes, all that it is safe to say on the
14 MR RAMPTON: What he actually said I think was this or was
15recorded as having said. One must be careful. This is
16the Goebbels' entry: "Wir sprechen zum Schlub noch uber
17die Judenfrage" which means -- if you want to see it, it
18is on page 405 of ----
19 A. [Mr Irving] "Finally we speak on the Jewish question".
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. "Hier bleibt der Fuhrer nach wie vor
21unerbittlich" -- relentless, unmerciless, is it not?
22 A. [Mr Irving] "Vor unerbittlich", yes, merciless.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Merciless, yes. "Die Juden mussen aus Europa heraus"?
24 A. [Mr Irving] "The Jews have to get out of Europe".
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Wenn notig"?
26 A. [Mr Irving] "If necessary".
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Unter Anwendung der brutalsten Mittel"?
2 A. [Mr Irving] "With the employment of the most brutal methods" or
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] What is there in anything that you have seen in the
5evidence of this time to suggest that Hitler and Goebbels
6did not discuss the very questions raised by Goebbels'
7later diary note at that meeting of 19th March?
8 A. [Mr Irving] The fact that Hitler in the table talk which is recorded
9first person and I have seen the actual original paper,
10with Martin Bormann signing every single page in the
11bottom right hand corner as being an accurate record of
12what had been said, stated in the presence of people like
13Heydrich and Himmler at their table talk remarks which
14were only consistent with the knowledge that they were
15being physically and geographically expelled from Europe.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] He was muttering on about Madagascar in late July 1942?
17 A. [Mr Irving] He was also muttering on here, as you said, about Russia
18and the marshy swaps.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] We will come to your marshy swaps entry fairly soon,
20Mr Irving, but the references to Madagascar and Russia are
21perhaps in late 1942 are a complete nonsense; they cannot
22be taken seriously?
23 A. [Mr Irving] With all that mass of paper that we have, not only taken
24by Heydrich, but also by Rosenberg's Adjutant, who also
25wrote table talks, which I discover in the archives, with
26all this mass of paper of Hitler talking in private at
1this time I would just ask for one piece of sheet where he
2is explicitly saying "sure we are liquidating them".
3There is nothing. It is this negative mass of evidence,
4this absence of any evidence I find impressive. Even when
5he is in private talking to people who are actually doing
6the killing there is no such mention, on Hitler's part.
7I found that very disturbing.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You now know, of course, that is not right,
9do you not, because of the document we were looking at
10this morning?
11 A. [Mr Irving] Which document are you referring to, my Lord?
12 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Killing the Jews as if they --
13 A. [Mr Irving] December 1942 -- my Lord, tomorrow I will bring to you one
14of these irritating individual documents, 10th December
151942, the discussion between Himmler and Hitler on a
16proposal that they should sell their Jews to foreign
17customers, and Hitler saying: "Yes, this is quite all
18right, sell what you want. We want hard currency for
19them"; which is inconsistent with the desire to liquidate
20all the Jews at that very same time. It is a document not
21without evidentiary value in this particular argument.
22 MR RAMPTON: I think we are going to have to look at these
23table talks, I have quite a lot of them here, in some
24detail, probably tomorrow, Mr Irving. Your basis for
25saying that Goebbels privately knew more is simply that
26there is no document that you know of where Hitler says,
1I too know what Labotznich is doing in the East or
2whatever or I order him to do it?
3 A. [Mr Irving] -- there is no documentary evidence he derived any
4information from such reports as has obviously been shown
5to Goebbels, yes.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] I still do not understand how that leads to the positive
7assertion that Goebbels obviously knew more.
8 A. [Mr Irving] Because there is a negative proof here, we have an absence
9of documents where there should have been documents to the
10contrary, with a huge volume of record of Adolf Hitler's
11remarks in later years, in 1942, September 1942 onwards,
12his war conferences were taken down verbatim, just like
13here. Every word he said and spoken to the shorthand
14reporters. We have the documents. We have the diaries.
15We have the table talks. We have Kopen's records, and yet
16nowhere is there any reference indicating that Hitler was
17privy to this kind of information. I say that with
18absolutely certainty you will not be able to prove me
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] I already have, Mr Irving, we have talked at some
21considerable length already about report number 51, have
22we not?
23 A. [Mr Irving] That is why I refer to this as being an orphan, because it
24is so totally impossible to fit it into the general
25framework of all the other documentation which is of equal
26evidentiary weight.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Therefore you jettison it?
2 A. [Mr Irving] Not at all. It frequently happens, probably in major
3court cases of a criminal kind too, that you have one item
4for which you cannot find a ready explanation, the whole
5of the rest of picture is -- there is this one which item
6which bothers you for the rest of your life. That item
7will bother me for rest of my life. But I am quite
8satisfied that all the other evidence I have; the table
9talks, the transcripts, the telegrams, the intercepts;
10which all fit into one general picture flowing one way,
11I am quite prepared to have one document flowing the other
12way, but that does not make me change my opinion.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, you have two more now that you did not know
14about before.
15 A. [Mr Irving] Good.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] You have the Muller letter of 1st August 1941?
17 A. [Mr Irving] But that is only of very low evidentiary value purely
18saying Hitler wants to be told what is going on with
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] You cannot put things in isolation, as you keep telling
21me. You have to put that together with the report No. 51,
22and you have to put it together with the Himmler note,
23which is plainly a note of something Hitler said. You have
24to ask yourself the question; overall in the context of
25the whole of the evidence?
26 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Rampton, if you were proposing --
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Wait a minute, does this not lead to the conclusion Hitler
2probably did know?
3 A. [Mr Irving] -- if you propose to link those two documents that you
4keep on intending to do, the August 1941 document and the
5December 1942 document, I would refer you to the German
6Civil Service practice, that the second document in its
7reference lines on the top left would automatically
8say, "Referring to Fuhrer order" such and such a date
9August 1941 then that would immediately state: "This is
10in response to that triggering document" even if it was 18
11months earlier. You will frequently find this in the
12records, that it will specifically make reference to the
13document to which the report is issued in response.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] Could we try it a different way, Mr Irving; since it clear
15Hitler knew about the mass shootings by the Einsatzgruppen
16in the East, we can deduce that from report No. 51 --
17 A. [Mr Irving] Well, can we phrase that slightly differently? Since
18Hitler had no reason not to know it may sound quibbling to
19you --
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- I do not mind. You see I am not driven to make any
21proposals about history, as I said, only about
22historiography. You have written that the unequivocal,
23categorical statements about Hitler's lack of knowledge,
24not I.
25 A. [Mr Irving] -- but you are not suggesting I did not print that No. 51
26in the appropriate place in the Hitler biography.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is there somewhere, but you attach no importance to it?
2 A. [Mr Irving] I attach -- merely putting the document into the book is
3not enough?
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Most of these documents, or many of them you just put them
5in the footnotes very often, do you not?
6 A. [Mr Irving] I strongly suspect that is the way it was put to Adolf
7Hitler in December 1942, as a footnote.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I must say that I hesitate to accept, for
9this reason; it is quite a simple document, and it is
10referring to the killing by shooting of 300,000 Jews.
11Well, you have to be quite a man to just pass over that,
12do you not?
13 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, as is quite evident from a study of the history
14of that period at this moment in time, December 29th 1942,
15Hitler's primary concern was focused on saving the Sixth
16Army in Stalingrad.
17 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] That I accept, but that does not mean, does it, he is not
18going to notice a document telling him that 300,000, on
19the face of it, innocent civilians were being shot by his
21 A. [Mr Irving] It could go either way. All I am entitled to do is to put
22the document in the book in its proper place, not in the
23way we are looking at it in this court surrounded only by
24documents about the Holocaust, putting it in the Hitler
25biography where you have it surrounded by everything else
26that is happening at that time. That may be described as
1putting in as footnote, but that is precisely the way it
2probably came to him and Himmler probably slipped it
3before. But I have not even suggested that. I have just
4put it in the proper place.
5 MR RAMPTON: Let us, Mr Irving, think about this orphan
6document for a moment, if we may. Another way of looking
7at this orphan document is this, is it not, if it is clear
8enough, as I would suggest to you it is, that this
9information was conveyed to Hitler and if the result of it
10was not that a whole lot of people were sacked or put in
11prison because they had done something illegal, and
12killing, shooting 363,000 Jews, people, never mind unless
13they are soldiers, is a fairly remarkable achievement, is
14it not, and if it had been against Hitler's policy, surely
15we would know, would we not, because of the consequences
16for those that had done it and authorized it?
17 A. [Mr Irving] This was typical Hitler, when people acted in this way he
18did not move to take recriminations against them, he just
19allowed things to slide. He was typical (unintelligible)
20as they say in Latin, he was a procrastinator.
21 I also make this point, which is not
22unimportant, Mr Rampton, you have seen the agenda,
23Himmler's agenda, on which he would go and see Hitler and
24put reports to him, like this one, or the one a few days
25previously about the selling off the Jews to the highest
26bidder, this kind of thing, and you have -- can I finish.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Carry on.
2 A. [Mr Irving] You would then have in the Himmler files a paper trail
3saying what Hitler's response had been. We have no such
4paper trail. We have no response. We have no letter by
5Himmler writing two or three days later saying "the Fuhrer
6has studied report 51", there is nothing like that and
7that is what I mean when I call it an "orphan". I am not
8trying to insult the document's integrity. I am
9suggesting that we lack the paper trail which shows it was
10brought into Hitler's cognisance.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] You accepted not very long ago, last week, he probably had
12seen it?
13 A. [Mr Irving] On the balance of probabilities, because of the use --
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am only interested --
15 A. [Mr Irving] On the top, just the same as these documents are lying in
16front of me here, that is not to say I know what is
17written 20 or 30 pages down the heap.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- oh.
19 A. [Mr Irving] Because there is no subsequent paper trail --
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] You have evidence that the Fuhrer had a stack like this in
21in his intray, he got to about page 30 and then fell
22asleep and the next morning he did not bother to read the
23particular report?
24 A. [Mr Irving] -- you may want to put it as sarcastically as that --
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Of course I do.
26 A. [Mr Irving] -- I knew his Adjutants, who are now all dead very well,
1and they would describe to me in very great detail the
2procedure by which they try to get him to attend to
3documents and it was precisely that, the same as Winston
4Churchill, they would have their boxes, Churchill used to
5read his box in bed in the mornings, Hitler's box was put
6outside his bedroom with all the documents in it which he
7was supposed to read. That is what they mean by
8"foregelegt". It means of course that he has other
9things on his plate that day.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] Even for an idiot like me it is an easy word, it means
11"placed before"?
12 A. [Mr Irving] No, "lagen" is to lay --
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Laid before, more gently than placed before.
14 A. [Mr Irving] -- something which should be more impressive for me would
15have been the phrase (German spoken) "the Fuhrer has taken
16cognisance of"; you will always find that on the
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] At all events, I am right it does not have any
19consequences for the murderers of these 363,000 Jews?
20 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Rampton, this is not a hanging document; I think if
21this document were to be shown to an English jury in a
22murder case they would say, well, it is interesting and
23probably the guy did it, but I will not send him to the
24gallows just on the basis of this one document.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Probably, that is right.
26 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, well, I have allowed that word.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Thank you very much, probably, that is all I need, thank
2you, Mr Irving, Hitler, as we observed before is not on
3trial here.
4 Will you have a look with me, please, at an
5earlier event, which is a table talk of Hitler's on the
625th, it was your remark --
7 A. [Mr Irving] 25th October 1941?
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- that put me in mind. Here I am afraid we are going to
9get involved in an argument about German grammar, but
10never mind, I think I can cope. On page 323 of Professor
11Evans' report, this comes from page 377 of Goebbels, under
12letter A. I will read what Professor Evans says:
13 "In his book "Goebbels" Irving comments on the
14deportation of Jews from Berlin, starting in October
151941: 'Hitler was neither consulted nor informed'.
16 As a matter of fact you know that to be untrue,
17do you not, Hitler was --
18 A. [Mr Irving] I was reading Hitler --
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- I am so sorry, I quoted from the book. "Hitler was
20neither consulted nor informed".
21 A. [Mr Irving] -- deported the Jews from Berlin -- I would need to read
22the whole paragraph I am afraid in my book before I allow
23a judgment on that one sentence.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] OK. I will come back to that. That is a minor point.
25But if you like to we my be just to deal with this
26quickly. Perhaps we better have the Goebbels book to look
1at. It is page 377. Have you got your own copy there?
2 A. [Mr Irving] 300 and?
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] 377, chapter 43 entitled "Exodus". I will put it in
4context by reading the top of the first complete
6 A. [Mr Irving] By Holocaust denier, David Irving, right?
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, Mr Irving. "His mass expulsion of the Jews from
8Berlin was beginning. On October 14th 1941 SS General...
9signed the formal order as National Chief of Police and
10the deportations began the next day. 500 or 1,000 at a
11time, family by family, the Berlin Jews were rounded... in
12synagogue in ... loaded aboard passenger trains...
13freighting to the East."
14 Then you list some of the trains. "All four
15were bound for the ghetto at Lodz between October 18th and
16November 2nd confirmed Speyer's diaries, some 400,500
17Jews were'evacuated'" releasing to him... Gauleiter
18Goebbels one thousand ... (reading to the words) ...
19supposedly for bombed out Berliners ... went to their
20closest... Hitler was neither consulted nor informed";
21about what, Mr Irving?
22 A. [Mr Irving] About --
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Was he neither consulted nor informed?
24 A. [Mr Irving] About this particular deportation phase, this wave of
25deportations from Berlin.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- can you turn on to page 330 of Professor Evans'
2 A. [Mr Irving] 330?
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] 329. It is a few pages on from where we were, but keep
4your finger where I was, paragraph 2:
5 "As far as the expulsions are concerned,
6Goebbels noted in his diary on 19th August 1941 that
7Hitler had approved them in principle: 'Apart from...
8Fuhrer gave me approval to ... (reading to the words) ...
9as soon as first possibility of transport offered
10itself'." Is that a correct translation of what is in it
11Goebbels' diary?
12 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, it is, it is also in my Goebbels biography.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] I did not ask you that, is it a correct translation?
14 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] You have answered my second question, and it is an entry
16of which you were aware?
17 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then says Professor Evans this: "On 18th September 1941
19Himmler in fact had told his subordinate in the
20Warthegau"; that would be Griser (?) I suppose, would it?
21 A. [Mr Irving] The --
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] What?
23 A. [Mr Irving] -- well, no, Griser was not Himmler's subordinate. Griser
24(?) would have come directly under Hitler.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] It does not matter. "Himmler in fact had told his
26subordinate... Fuhrer wishes the old Reich and the
1Protectorate to be ... (reading to the words) ... as
2quickly as possible. I am thus aiming to transport the
3Jews of the Old Reich and Protectorate if possible before
4the end of this year into the eastern
5territories ... (reading to the words) ... two years
6ago... as a first step, in order to move them further
7still to the east next spring." This is September 1941?
8 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] "One month later" says Professor Evans "on September 24th
101941 Goebbels noted in his diary that Hitler had made a
11final decision on the matter.
12 I can bring the Fuhrer... of internal political
13problems to decide upon: the Fuhrer is of the opinion
14that the Jews must be taken out of the whole of Germany
15bit by bit. The first... free of Jews are Berlin, Vienna
16and Prague... I have the hope that we shall succeed even
17in the course of this year in transporting a significant
18portion of Berlin's Jews off to the East."
19 Now I suppose you were aware of that entry too,
20were you not, Mr Irving?
21 A. [Mr Irving] You suppose wrongly, that was a diary entry which I have
22not got.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is a diary entry you never had?
24 A. [Mr Irving] I have not got it, no, I have never seen it.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then I think one has to look at page 374 of Goebbels. It
26may not be right.
1 A. [Mr Irving] I thought my memory was correct, September 23rd I have,
2but not the 24th.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, I think that is right.
4 A. [Mr Irving] It is difficult for me to remember over the last ten years
5to remember which entries I have seen and which I have
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] I would accept it in general that is probably right, you
8have not seen this entry? Had you seen the Himmler note or
9whatever it is?
10 A. [Mr Irving] No.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] Have you seen the Himmler document?
12 A. [Mr Irving] The Griser, yes, of course.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, right. It is very unlikely, is it not, that in the
14light of these two entries of 19th August by Goebbels and
1518th September by Himmler that Hitler did not know about
16the deportation?
17 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, you are right, I should have phrased it differently,
18I should have said there is no evidence that Hitler was
19consulted or informed.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] Little point in a way, Mr Irving, but again you see these
21points are cumulative. Perhaps significant, because once
22again you are giving Hitler a clear acquittal when the
23evidence is suggestive that he probably did know about it?
24 A. [Mr Irving] On the contrary, an acquittal of what? I have made it
25perfectly plain beyond peradventure that Hitler gave the
26orders for the expulsion of the Jews. And the fact he was
1not informed on a particular phase of it is not
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] So, it is only four trains or whatever it is you are
4talking about?
5 A. [Mr Irving] The fact it is now beginning in Berlin, and that it is
6happening at this moment.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is not a big point in your narrative?
8 A. [Mr Irving] The fact that I decided to write in the short form rather
9than the long form part is part of the general tendency to
10books as short as possible.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is a complete non-point, is it not? Why on
12earth should it matter whether Hitler was informed about
13these four particular trains?
14 A. [Mr Irving] It is really a non-point.
15 MR RAMPTON: Yes. Thank you very much. No, I am sorry,
16Mr Irving, unusually I have made a concession that
17I should not have done. You take your Goebbels book
19 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] This is why I need a team of 40 people, because I do not
21have your memory.
22 A. [Mr Irving] Be glad you do not have my memory.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] I have not done years of research on this subject, only a
24few months. 274 of Goebbels.
25 A. [Mr Irving] 274?
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] 374, I beg your pardon. After the bit you notice
1September 23rd?
2 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] There is an asterisk, then there comes this: "Hitler had
4confirmed to him that little by little all Jews were to be
5expelled from Berlin Vienna and Prague, note 91"?
6 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Please turn to page 642, note 91, diary September 24th,
9 A. [Mr Irving] Very good. Yes.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] Once your memory failed you did it not, Mr Irving?
11 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] So you had seen this entry?
13 A. [Mr Irving] Shot out of water on that one, I am afraid.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. Why if it is not in historical terms a significant
15event, because you concede that Hitler had ordered the
16deportations generally from the Outreich and the
17Protectorate, and indeed from Berlin?
18 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] Why bother to mention whether or not Hitler was consulted
20or informed?
21 A. [Mr Irving] When you write paragraphs you should have a topic
22paragraph, a topic sentence beginning -- it is a
23literary -- not a ploy, a device, a literary device, at
24the beginning of a chapter you should have a topic
25paragraph at the beginning of a chapter and a topic
26sentence at the beginning of a paragraph. It is a way of
1helping the reader, a little clue to reader what is
2following. So what matters in this paragraph is not that
3opening floscal (?) as the Germans would say, not that
4little opening throw away line, but what then follows,
5which is the quotation from the table talk. I do not
6blame you for concentrating on a throw away line, but I am
7going to concentrate on the table talk which now follows.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] This was by way of introduction to the table talk,
9Mr Irving. It is a little point, but I am going to
10suggest at the end of this case that every time Hitler
11floats into the picture in your books, it is in order for
12him to be, as it were, conferred innocence.
13 A. [Mr Irving] Every time? Every time?
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] More or less.
15 A. [Mr Irving] Ah.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] There is no point in putting in that sentence except to
17say "poor old Adolf did not know about this beastly
18business", yet again.
19 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Rampton, have you ever written books that have to
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, as a matter of fact, I have.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Not sure how well they sell.
23 MR RAMPTON: Well, they are meant to be sold.
24 A. [Mr Irving] I had an exceedingly good American editor who taught me
25will over again how to write books, that is one of the
26things he taught me, always have a topic sentence at the
1beginning of a paragraph, that is what I would call a
2topic sentence.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But where does the reader of "Goebbels" learn
4this was all Hitler policy anyway to transport the Jews
5out of the Reich?
6 A. [Mr Irving] I beg your pardon?
7 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] That is a question to you; where does the reader of
8"Goebbels" learn that this was all Hitler policy anyway
9to transport the Jews out of the German Reich?
10 A. [Mr Irving] Probably where I quote the Griser telegram --
11 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I am sure, but where do you --
12 A. [Mr Irving] -- I would have to look in the index.
13 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] -- do not take time, you do somewhere refer to that
15 A. [Mr Irving] Yes. I repeatedly say that on Hitler rests the initiative
16for ordering the expulsion, but what happens when they
17arrive there is the moot point.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I just does not have the reference in mind.
19 A. [Mr Irving] I will find it.
20 MR RAMPTON: It is not an important point, and I apologise if
21I spent a bit too long on it, but there it is. It is the
22next part I am truly interested in. "Ten days after the
23forced exodus began [he, that is Hitler]
24referred ... (reading to the words) ... to the way the
25Jews had started this war. 'Let nobody tell me Hitler
26added that despite that we cannot park them in the
1marshier parts of Russia" By the way he added it is not a
2bad thing that public rumour attributes to us a plan to
3exterminate the Jews. He pointed out however that he had
4no intention of starting anything at present. 'There is
5no point in adding to one's difficulties at a time like
7 A. [Mr Irving] I am ready for you.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] You may be ready for me in some sense or another,
9Mr Irving; first can I ask you this; this is intended to
10suggest to the reader, is it not, (a) that there is no
11actual extermination planned at this point, it is only a
12matter of public rumour; and (b) that to do anything like
13that at this time would be to add to one's difficulties,
14or do you say "yes" simply adding to one's difficulties at
15a time like this?
16 A. [Mr Irving] Postpone it to the war is over, yes.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] Pardon?
18 A. [Mr Irving] To postpone it until the war is over to quote
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] Have you read this passage in Professor Evans' report?
21 A. [Mr Irving] No -- yes, I have, but that is not the translation I used.
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] What is not?
23 A. [Mr Irving] Professor Evans has his own clever translation of that
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Of course, he has, because he has done it correctly.
26 A. [Mr Irving] You are implying I used a deliberately perverse and
1distorted translation?
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Oh, yes, indeed so. For one thing there is no reference
3in what Hitler says to the marshier parts of Russia, is
4there, actually says?
5 A. [Mr Irving] What did he say?
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] He said: (German spoken).
7 A. [Mr Irving] So you are accusing me of having mistranslated?
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, added words.
9 MR RAMPTON: You have added in some words, a small point.
10 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, I will have a statement to make about this in a
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Pardon?
13 A. [Mr Irving] Shall I make the statement now? You will be familiar with
14the facts that Weidenfeld & Nicholson published the
15edition of Hitler's table talk back in about 1949, with an
16introduction by Hugh Trevor-Roper, a very good volume, it
17is almost unobtainable now. I read that when I was about
1814 from cover to cover, and that is the translation I have
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I remember that.
21 A. [Mr Irving] The official translation. I have not changed one dot or
22comma of the official translation as published by Hugh
24 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] You mean the Weidenfeld translation?
25 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
26 MR RAMPTON: This book is published in 1996, "Goebbels"?
1 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is what I read from, page 377.
3 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] The German edition, which I am sure you have used at other
5times and for other purposes of the monologue, has been
6available since 1980.
7 A. [Mr Irving] The original German text of that was available to me since
8much earlier than that, because I had the original Martin
9Bormann typescript text.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] So you had it, as you wrote these words you had the
11original German available?
12 A. [Mr Irving] But I used official translation by --
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] I hear what you say, the question is not whether you did,
14but why. You had the original German available to you at
15the time?
16 A. [Mr Irving] -- let me be more specific. When I wrote the Hitler's War
17in the 1970s, I had the English text in front of me, when
18I reissued it in Germany I contacted the Swiss owner of
19the original Martin Bormann files, who had the original
20German texts and I obtained from him on that occasion
21German texts of these passages. But I did not translate
22it, Mr Rampton. The translation was done by either
23Trevor-Roper or by Weidenfeld and I have used the exact
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Why?
26 A. [Mr Irving] Why?
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. I thought you were somebody who did not read other
2people books, if you have original document why did you
3not refer to that?
4 A. [Mr Irving] That was the publication of the original document, this
5was a published edition of Hitler's Table Talk and at that
6time that was the only edition that was available.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] What in --
8 A. [Mr Irving] I beg your pardon?
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- sure, but this Goebbels book is published in 1996.
10 A. [Mr Irving] Yes and I have used exactly the same translation.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] Why?
12 A. [Mr Irving] I find it an adequate translation.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] But it is a terrible translation, Mr Irving.
14 A. [Mr Irving] By whom?
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] By whoever did it. For one thing it has got its tenses
16all wrong. It has added words. Look at the top of page
17324 of the Professor Evans' report.
18 A. [Mr Irving] 300 and?
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] 24. The German is set out in footnote 18, I think. This
20time I do ask that you just read the two one after the
21after in whichever order you like.
22 A. [Mr Irving] Which is the part you are saying is the bad translation?
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, for example, he pointed out, however, well, there
24are several appalling translations. There is no reference
25in the German to a plan to exterminate the Jews. "The
26fear precedes us that we are exterminating".
1 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Correct?
3 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is a much closer and uglier thing in the original
5German than in this rather namby-pamby translation which
6includes references to public rumours and plans?
7 A. [Mr Irving] I do not think so. "Schreiken" is a spook. It is a
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] A spook. It is a word of fright and fear, is it not?
10 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Which is it, because they are quite different
12in this context?
13 A. [Mr Irving] My Lord, the imputation is that I have deliberately
14mistranslated or distorted.
15 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Well, adopted what you should have appreciated was a
16mistranslation, I think is the way it is put.
17 A. [Mr Irving] At the time I wrote Hitler's War I only had the original
18English text.
19 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, but by the 1991 edition you had the German
21 A. [Mr Irving] And I still accept that my translation is not a serious
22deviation from that.
23 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] You would translate "schreiken" as a spectre or a spook
24rather than as a fear?
25 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, schreiken is the idea of a childish kind of spook,
26the idea of a goblin.
1 MR RAMPTON: Do you think this is a reliable dictionary?
2 A. [Mr Irving] It helped us a lot with the word "vernichtung", did it
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] OK. "Schreik", fright, shock, terror, alarm, panic,
5consternation, dismay, fear, horror?
6 A. [Mr Irving] What were the first two?
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Fright, shock, which is the word I used.
8 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, fright or shock, you see, once again your expert has
9taken the tertiary or fourth meaning of the word because
10he prefers to manipulate it in that way.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] I do not mind which of those words you want me to use, but
12I am certainly not going to use "spook", still less am
13I going to use "public rumour". Not even you would use
14"public rumour" deliberately, would you, Mr Irving?
15 A. [Mr Irving] I think that Hugh Trevor-Roper is perfectly adequate when
16he translates like documents like this or the translator
17employed by George Weidenfeld who was a Jew certainly,
18could certainly not be accused of having wanted to
19exonerate Adolf Hitler.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] In your pleadings, Mr Irving, my Lord, this is, I do not
21know but it will probably be in the reply somewhere, we
22will find it -- my Lord, this is page 27 of the reply, no
23paragraph number at that stage. It is (i) and following
24on from page 26. You tell us this, Mr Irving, and you are
25talking about this particular issue and you mention the
26Trevor-Roper translation, you say this:
1 "When the plaintiff", that is you, "thereafter
2prepared the German edition and subsequently revised the
3book, he was the only historian in world to whom the
4original German texts were made available by their
5physical owner, namely in October 1977."
6 A. [Mr Irving] That is probably from the date stamp on the documents that
7I received, yes.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] I do not know.
9 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] These are your words. I cannot tell you whether that is
11right or not.
12 A. [Mr Irving] Well, if I have written that, then it is right.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] So you have had the original in your possession since
15 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] You could not have used it for the first edition of
17Hitler's War?
18 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] But thereafter, knowing you, am I wrong to assume that you
20would ordinarily go back to the original when you come
21back to this table talk in later books?
22 A. [Mr Irving] If this had been a delinquent translation I would
23certainly have done so, but the translation was not so
24delinquent that I would have wanted to interfere with
25this. I should explain that one of the reasons the
26Professor Boischott attacked me very bitterly, as you are
1familiar, in a 50-page attack on the book in 1977 was
2because he could not recognize my table talk translations,
3and for this reason I decided it was important not to
4interfere with the original English if it was in the
5Trevor-Roper and Weidenfeld edition because I did not want
6to be subjected to more unfair attacks like that.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But really public rumour is not a correct or
8even arguably correct translation of "schreiken". It is
9fairly elementary that, is it not? It is a common word.
10 A. [Mr Irving] It is not so widely deviant that I would have wanted to
11tamper with the original quotation and risk exposure to
12criticism from other historians who were familiar with
13Weidenfeld text which was the only one then available. In
14the German edition of course we used the original German.
15 MR RAMPTON: In fact you did concede, or point out perhaps
16I should say, in a speech to the International Revisionist
17Conference in 1983 that, "the German original 'is
18completely different from the published English
20 A. [Mr Irving] Of this particular one?
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. Do you remember saying that?
22 A. [Mr Irving] I notice that the English translator had actually allowed
23himself to put in an entire sentence that was not in the
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Terror is a salutary thing" he put in?
26 A. [Mr Irving] That is right.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] And it is not there at all?
2 A. [Mr Irving] That is not there at all.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Nor is the word "plan" in the German, is it?
4 A. [Mr Irving] Well, I think that this is a literary translation again.
5You are faced with the problems of doing a literary rather
6than a wooden translation.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Mr Irving, really. It is a question of absolutely crucial
8substance. "There is a public rumour that we are planning
9to exterminate the Jews". That is nasty enough, but
10consider this sentence: "The public are terrified because
11we are exterminating the Jews"?
12 A. [Mr Irving] Does he say that? I do not think he says that. I think
13that the point I am about to make when you have finished
14chasing this particular hare is to point out that what
15matters in this quotation is not whether the
16word "schreiken" is translated as "public rumour" or
17"fright" or "shock", but the fact that once again this
18document shows quite clearly that Hitler had something
19completely different in mind, and he is telling it to the
20people who are actually doing it. How do we explain this
21kind of discrepancy? That is what matters in this
22document, not whether one word had been mistranslated by
23Hugh Trevor-Roper or not.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is good if the terror, fright, shock, fear, panic goes
25before "that we are exterminating Jewry"?
26 A. [Mr Irving] This is the least important part of the document. Are you
1saying that if that sentence was taken out then that
2paragraph collapses? On the contrary what matters ----
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am not saying that.
4 A. [Mr Irving] Excuse me, let me finish. What matters in this paragraph
5is Hitler saying: "Let nobody tell us we cannot push them
6out into the marshy parts of Russia", that is the first
7part. The second part which matters is him saying:
8"Anyway, let's leave the whole thing until the whole war
9is over, we have enough problems".
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am coming to that.
11 A. [Mr Irving] That is what matters.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Because that is not what it says either. You see, it does
13matter. It is not that it would have mattered if that
14part had been left out. It is that you wilfully used in
151991, if it is in Hitler's War, in that edition, I do not
16know, but in 1996 in Goebbels where it certainly is, you
17wilfully used a translation you knew to be rubbish,
18because it is softer in its effect than the original
20 A. [Mr Irving] No, on the contrary. When I was writing the Goebbels book
21I would have taken Hitler's War in English as my source.
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, that is only to repeat your earlier error.
23 A. [Mr Irving] No, not my earlier error, but to reuse the translation of
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] But when you wrote Hitler's War in 1991 you had the
26original German, you had it since 1977?
1 A. [Mr Irving] I did not write Hitler's War in 1991. I reissued Hitler's
2War in 1991.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is the second edition. It is much more than a reissue,
4Mr Irving. You rewrote whole passages in that book?
5 A. [Mr Irving] No, I did not rewrite whole passages. I inserted a lot of
6fresh material like the diaries of Hitler's doctor,
7Hermann Goring's diaries, papers like that.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] And the Holocaust disappeared hook line and sinker, did it
9not? You had plenty of opportunity between 1977 when you
10got the original German and doing the rewrite of 1991
11Hitler's War to get this right?
12 A. [Mr Irving] It was not wrong in the first place.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] We will stop arguing about that, Mr Irving. That sentence
14is plainly completely wrong.
15 A. [Mr Irving] Even if that sentence is plainly completely wrong, it
16leaves the other two sentences which are the burden of
17that paragraph, namely who says we cannot push them out of
18Germany and park them somewhere nasty, and then he
19continues to say, "Anyway, let's leave it until the war is
20over. We have other more important things to do."
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can we come back to the "we cannot park them
22in the marshier parts of Russia", because, this is pure
23supposition on my part, the phrase about sending them into
24the marsh looks as if it might be some sort of saying?
25 A. [Mr Irving] That is what it looks like to me. It is rather like
26sending somebody, somebody going for a Burton, something
1like that. It is not impossible.
2 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Exactly. Do you know whether that is so or not?
3 A. [Mr Irving] In schreiken I think it does not have the sense of killing
4somebody, but it has the sense of rather like sending them
5to Coventry might be even closer, who knows. But I would
6have to take advice from a German who is familiar with the
7vernacular of that particular era.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think Mr Rampton is maybe going to ask you,
9I am sure he is, where on earth you get "parking them in
10the marshier parts of Russia" from?
11 A. [Mr Irving] Weidenfeld has it, my Lord.
12 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I follow, but you have trotted along behind.
13 A. [Mr Irving] Weidenfeld's translation, if I may say so, is extremely
14good and very literate. You are faced constantly with the
15dichotomy of having a literate translation or a wooden
16translation, and I would aver that this is not one of the
17most important parts of that paragraph. The most important
18part is (a) Hitler saying he is pushing them out
19geographically, and (b) he does not want to be bothered
20until the war is over with, this problem, which goes along
21with my perception of the involvement of Hitler.
22 MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, I have to put it to you, you just say
23any old thing to get yourself out of a corner. Have you
24got Goebbels' book, page 377?
25 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] We have read what you wrote as being the translation of
1the table talk in that paragraph. You see it is footnoted
3 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Now please turn to page 643.
5 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] So far from your having used the rotten old Weidenfeld
7translation two or three generations down the line, in
8fact you did use the original. Footnote 16 on page 643:
9"Heinreich Heinn, note on Hitler's dinner table talk,
10October 25th junet papers", those are ----
11 A. [Mr Irving] That is where it is now to be found, yes, the original.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] And you stuck with the translation that you can see now to
13be complete rubbish, and bears very little relationship
14with the original which you actually used?
15 A. [Mr Irving] It is not complete rubbish, Mr Rampton. It is very close
16to the original. The colouring is different. The
17colouring assigned to it by the English translator with
18whom I have no connection whatsoever. I adopted the
19colouring adopted by George Weidenfeld and his publisher.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] Why did you not acknowledge them in the footnote?
21 A. [Mr Irving] Because I in the meantime had the original which is
22available now to historians.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] You mean you gave a reference ----
24 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- for a book written in 1996?
26 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- to some papers from which you had not taken the
3 A. [Mr Irving] I gave the superior reference. It is a superior
4reference. I perhaps should have said: "See also
5Weidenfeld, table talk, Ed Trevor-Roper" and so on.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, Mr Irving. What you should have done, as you know
7perfectly well, is to have retranslated the thing
8correctly. You knew it was wrong?
9 A. [Mr Irving] Let us argue it the other way round. I really do not want
10to labour this point, Mr Rampton.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] I do.
12 A. [Mr Irving] I am not sure how long the Court will allow you to labour
13this point, Mr Rampton.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is a matter for the Court, Mr Irving.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am getting the hint though.
16 A. [Mr Irving] Mr Rampton, if I were to retranslate that sentence
17following Mr Evans' admirable translation to which you
18refer, would that in the slightest degree alter the
19arguments which I seek to make in that paragraph?
20 MR RAMPTON: Oh, yes, it would, because what Hitler is then
21saying is something very much stronger, much more
22sinister. He is saying: "It is a good thing that the
23fear that we are exterminating the Jews goes before us"?
24 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, he says that.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Never mind. We will pass on to the next thing.
26 A. [Mr Irving] He does say that.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Because here now we come to a huge ellipse in the
2translation which you have given.
3 A. [Mr Irving] So you accept that even that translation would not alter
4the argument that I have made?
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] Of course it would alter it. It would put much stronger
6words, threatening words into Hitler's mouth than you have
8 A. [Mr Irving] Use of the word "fear" instead of "public rumour".
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, fear, shock, terror.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Shall we move on to the next passage.
11 MR RAMPTON: And the absence of any plan. I think your
12Lordship has my point?
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do.
14 MR RAMPTON: Good. You jump or your translation jumps, the
15translation you used jumps from "des Judentung
16aulsgrotten", yes?
17 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] To the words, [German spoken], does it not? No, it goes
19even further. Sorry, that is not right. It goes to
20[German spoken]. That is where your translation starts
21again from "aulsgrotten", does it not?
22 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Now look at what has been missed out. You have missed
24out ----
25 A. [Mr Irving] Yes. Shall I translate it for you?
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, please.
1 A. [Mr Irving] The words which I missed out: "I find myself forced,
2I have been forced to keep piling up a lot inside me.
3That does not mean to say that I forget about it without
4taking cognisance of it, without taking cognisance of it,
5without showing it immediately." This is the sense of it.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] The sense of it is he does not forget?
7 A. [Mr Irving] That is right.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] He does not necessarily take action at once, but it goes
9into the account and it stays there.
10 A. [Mr Irving] It says, "I am keeping it on the books and one day the
11books are going to be taken out."
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. It goes into an account, one day the book is taken
14 A. [Mr Irving] That is right, which rather implies that nothing is
15happening yet.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Wait, now read the next sentence, please.
17 A. [Mr Irving] This is part I quote, right?
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Where?
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Look at the tense.
20 MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, tell me which is the point, which is
21the sentence that you translate? Show me in the English?
22 A. [Mr Irving] I am sorry. It continues: "Vis-a-vis the Jews I also had
23to remain inactive for a long time. I also had to remain
24inactive for a long time."
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Had to"?
26 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Where do I find that in your text?
2 A. [Mr Irving] It is not there. The book is already nearly 1,000 pages
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] But it is the critical -- it is the critical passage?
5 A. [Mr Irving] He is throwing them out. He remained inactive and now he
6is throwing them out. He is sending them to the marshy
7parts of Russia, the most radical measures.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] What it means is -- bear with me Mr Irving -- what it
9means is that the time has, he uses the plue perfect we
10would call it in English, "I had to remain inactive
11against the Jews for a long time, but that does not mean
12much because now the book of account has been taken out
13and the time has come", is it means?
14 A. [Mr Irving] He does not actually say that of course. He does not say
15"The book has now been taken out".
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry, it is probably my misunderstanding.
17Mr Irving, I think you just said that you have not
18translated that sentence beginning "alt den Juden", but
19you did, did you not? Is that not where you write: "He
20pointed out, however, that he had no intention of starting
21anything at present"?
22 A. [Mr Irving] It is bundled up in that sentence. It is precise'd in
23that sentence.
24 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] You use the word "precis", but you have changed the tense,
25"missed" stays in the past tense?
26 A. [Mr Irving] That is the next sentence we are taking up.
1 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] No, it is the same sentence, unless I have misunderstood.
2 A. [Mr Irving] "It has no sense to make additional difficulties for
3oneself", he then continues.
4 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Yes, but go back to the previous sentence. Am I not right
5in thinking that your rendition of that previous sentence
6is where you write: "He pointed out, however, that he had
7no intention of starting anything at present"?
8 A. [Mr Irving] What he no doubt said, if he was speaking in direct
9speech, is, "For a long time now I have done nothing,
10I have been inactive towards the Jews."
11 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] In the past?
12 A. [Mr Irving] In the past, yes.
13 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] But that is not the same thing as saying that you have no
14intention of starting anything at present or in the
16 A. [Mr Irving] At present.
17 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Is there not a real distinction between the two on
18reflection now?
19 A. [Mr Irving] No, because the sense of the next sentence, my Lord, where
20he goes on to say, "I am not looking for difficulties.
21I am not going to try to make difficulties, there is no
22point in it, there is no sense in doing it."
23 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Look at the tense again. It is "hat". That may be a bad
25 MR RAMPTON: No, my Lord, I do not think it is.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It may be a neutral point.
1 MR RAMPTON: Maybe, but I have a reason why I say it is not a
2bad point.
3 A. [Mr Irving] Can I use Professor Evans' translation?
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, please do.
5 A. [Mr Irving] Where he said: "I had to remain inactive for a long time
6against the Jews too. There is no sense in artificially
7making extra difficulties for oneself. The more cleverly
8one operates the better." In other words, "We are not
9doing anything for the moment, but the time will come when
10I get my book out".
11 MR RAMPTON: No, Mr Irving. You know that is nonsense.
12 A. [Mr Irving] I would not say it was nonsense, Mr Rampton.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am afraid I have to suggest it is nonsense and you know
14it is nonsense. He is talking actually about what he is
15going to do with Bishop Galen who is grumbling about the
16euthanasia programme. That is the context?
17 A. [Mr Irving] Then he goes on to Galen, yes.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, and he uses the past tense to describe his previous
19inactivity against the Jews to, you miss out the
20word "ough" also and then he says: "There is no since in
21artificially making extra difficulties for oneself".
22There is no "at this time" as there is in your English.
23He simply observes, no doubt with some pride, "The more
24cleverly one operates the better", and what he is saying
25is this: "Look, leave Galen for the moment, don't let's
26make extra difficulties for ourselves in relation to
1Galen. I had to remain inactive against the Jews for a
2long time too", and then the implied parentheses or
3sequence, "but the time has now come"?
4 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, but you are hanging all your proof on this implied
5parentheses which just does not happen to be in the
6document, Mr Rampton. It is not hanging document again.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] It does not hang Hitler. There are plenty of other ways
8of doing -- I was going to say skinning a cat, but it
9hangs you as an accurate recorder of German history,
10because it is a deliberate misuse of a translation which
11you knew to be wrong, so as to exculpate Hitler and make
12it appear that on 25th October 1941 he was yet again
13postponing taking any action against the Jews. You know
14perfectly well, because the German says it, that that is
15not what he said?
16 A. [Mr Irving] I totally disagree with you.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] It was a long question.
18 A. [Mr Irving] I have taken a very lengthy entry of some 20 lines.
19I have had to condense it into a paragraph of three or
20four or five lines for that particular passage and I think
21I have done an adequate job. If I was going to write a
22book two or three times as long endlessly boring, as the
23academics write them, then no doubt I could have put in
24the whole of that quotation undigested, unanalysed.
25I have had the difficult job that all authors face which
26is to condense something into a reasonable length while
1not losing any of the essence. You can pick your
2individual sentences where a word is wrong and take that
3sentence out and the weight of the sentence remains the
4same. Hitler says: "I wanted to send them out." Hitler
5says: "I have been keeping a little book and one day it is
6going to come out." Hitler says: "I don't believe in
7looking for problems if we don't have problems. Look at
8the case of Galen, that is another one that I am going to
9put on the back burner." This is typical Hitler.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] "That is what I did do with the Jews. I had to remain
11inactive for a long time too."
12 A. [Mr Irving] Do not forget, Mr Rampton, we have a whole series of
13documents which lie in my direction and not in yours.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] What is worst, Mr Irving, I suggest and then I am going to
15leave it, what is worst is that not only have you used a
16translation, not even your translation, a translation by
17somebody else which you knew to be wrong, but you have
18given a reference to the original which will make the
19reader suppose that this is first generation, mint new
20Irving translation?
21 A. [Mr Irving] I do not think it says that in the footnotes at all. It
22is the historian's job to give the most accurate source
23reference he can give which will point the reader in the
24direction of the original document, rather than in some
25second or third ----
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] This is a direct quotation of that passage?
1 A. [Mr Irving] If I were to act like your experts and just take books
2down off a shelf and use those as sources, this would be
3improper. I would far prefer to point people reading my
4books to where they can find the original documents so
5they can check it for themselves.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is exactly what you have done in this case, is it
7not? You have actually used some rotten old translation
8by Trevor-Roper or somebody, you have repeated it again
9and again through your editions. You have the original in
10your ----
11 A. [Mr Irving] Indeed in discovery.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- in your office all the time. You do not use it, but
13you tell the reader you have?
14 A. [Mr Irving] No. I am satisfied that the translation I use is an
15accurate representation of the document I have, apart from
16that one sentence which has obviously been interpolated by
17the English interpreter which I find absolutely
18unconscionable to put a sentence into a translation that
19does not even exist. I know that the other historians are
20jealous that I have got all these documents and they did
21not, but they should not start poking fingers and sneering
22at me because I get these things.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] I do not know. We will have this bit of the transcript
24relayed to, Professor Evans is here, but some of the
25others are not.
26 A. [Mr Irving] I am looking forward to when they come.
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But not to Trevor-Roper because it was not
2his translation. It was not Trevor-Roper's translation.
3 MR RAMPTON: Can we take that bit of the transcript out and put
4in the right ----
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think in fairness, yes.
6 A. [Mr Irving] He was the editor actually. It is a very good
7translation. It is a very flowing translation.
8 MR RAMPTON: Now I want to go back, if I may, because that is
9where all this started, to Hitler's War, page 465 in the
101991 edition.
11 A. [Mr Irving] Yes. Is this where I say: "Upon arrival thousands were
12simply murdered"? Is this the passage you are referring
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am sorry, Mr Irving, I have just lost my place because
15I moved. I have found it. I am just going to ask you one
16quick question about the top of the page, referring back
17to the diary entry of 27th March 1942. You write in the
18middle of the first paragraph on 465:
19 "But he evidently never discussed these
20realities with Hitler. Thus this two-faced Minister
21dictated after a further visit to Hitler on April 26th:
22I have once again talked over the Jewish question with the
23Fuhrer. His position on this problem is merciless. He
24wants to force the Jews right out of Europe. At the
25moment Himmler is handling the major transfer of Jews from
26the German cities into the Eastern gettoes".
1 Why is it evident that this two-faced Minister,
2the odious Dr Goebbels, never discussed these realities
3with Hitler? Is it the same point we discussed earlier?
4 A. [Mr Irving] Is it what?
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] The same point as we discussed earlier?
6 A. [Mr Irving] Which point is that?
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, you said in the earlier part that we looked at:
8"That Goebbels privately knew more is plain from his
9diary entry of 27th"?
10 A. [Mr Irving] No, the point I am making there is that had Goebbels
11discussed this kind of thing, what he privately knew, with
12Hitler, this two-faced Minister, then undoubtedly Hitler
13would not have been able to make the kind of remarks he
14did in private conversation with Himmler, Lamus and
15Bormann which are recorded in the table talks.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Why not?
17 A. [Mr Irving] Then that would have evoked gusts of laughter from
18Himmler. Himmler would have said: "Mein Fuhrer, don't you
19realize what's going on?"
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] Sorry, I am not following that at all.
21 A. [Mr Irving] Right. We have seen, and we can see until the Court
22screams for mercy, in the documents, in the table talks,
23how Hitler repeatedly makes statements which are only
24reconcilable with the notion that he was familiar with the
25expulsion, which cannot be brought into conformity with
26the notion that he knew what was happening when they got
1there, the European Jews.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Suppose, as many people have proposed, I do not know with
3what persuasiveness, Mr Irving, in your mind, but suppose
4as they have proposed Hitler was as often as not simply
6 A. [Mr Irving] Why should he? He is sitting there at the table with the
7arch gangsters, with Himmler, Bormann and the rest who
8know perfectly well what is going on. Why should he
9euphemise to them when he is sitting with them? This is a
10secret record. It is never going to be published. They
11did not know about George Weidenfeld and Hugh
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do you have a view of who was at which table talk when you
14read the table talks?
15 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, usually there is a line above the table talks saying
16who is present as the guests of honour. Usually three or
17four people are listed. Verna Kopen did the same in his
18records of the table talks.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am a bit puzzled about this, because if you
20interpret the table talk as meaning that Hitler really was
21thinking only in terms of deportation, I know it has been
22a long day, but how do you reconcile that with your
23acceptance, because I understand you do accept it ----
24 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
25 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] --- that he knew all about the shooting on a massive scale
26on the Eastern Front?
1 A. [Mr Irving] I think your Lordship has grasped the nub of the whole
3 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] What is the answer?
4 A. [Mr Irving] The answer is I think that he drew a distinction in his
5own mind between the Eastern vermin, the enemy, and the
6Germans and the Europeans whom he still regarded as being
8 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] That is not clear from this passage in your book, is it?
9 A. [Mr Irving] It will be clear from the other passages that he does draw
10this distinction, my Lord, and perhaps I ought to look
11some of these passages out and draw your Lordship's
12attention to them. But this is the only way you can
13explain this very evident dichotomy which does exist in
14the records, that on the one hand he is saying these
15things and on other hand he is evidently knowing other
16things. Also I think you have something which probably
17only psychiatrists can explain, that people can
18compartmentalize their knowledge of certain things. There
19is a kind of Richard Nixon kind of complex comes in
20saying: "Fellows, do it but don't let me be told". I am
21quite happy to believe that this kind of thing also went
22on. But in the absence of any evidence it would take a
23very adventurous writer to set it down, except in the most
24speculative terms.
25 MR RAMPTON: Well, Mr Irving, I am going to have to ask you to
26look at some of these table talks, I think, because
1contrary to what you say they are nowhere near as
2sanitized, I do not believe, as you say they are. We may
3also have to look at some of the Goebbels' diary entries.
4Would your Lordship wish me to start on that exercise now?
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Shall we make a bit of a start.
6 A. [Mr Irving] Would it be useful to start with the very last one, July
71942 where Hitler is still talking about Madagascar.
8 MR RAMPTON: I am sorry, it would not be convenient to me.
9When you cross-examine you will find you have a particular
10order in your head or on your piece of paper.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You must follow your own course.
12 A. [Mr Irving] I was trying to cut to the bottom line which is a way of
13speeding things on.
14 MR RAMPTON: One might not agree that it is the bottom line.
15Can we start, please, I am taking these from Professor
16Evans's report because there is a collection in this part
17of the report which the court might find useful, first of
18all on page 413, this is the bit we looked at before, in
19paragraph 15, we read the earlier bit before about the
20donkeys in Rome or wherever it was, Hitler says:
21 "Ich sage nur, er muss weg", "I am just saying
22he", that is the Jews, "have got to go. If he goes kaput
23in the course of it I can't help that. I only see one
24thing, absolute extermination if they don't go of their
25own accord." The German for "absolute extermination" in
26English is "absolute Ausrottung", that is at the bottom of
1the page.
2 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, literally routing out, "Ausrottung".
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, it is a word which may change its sense like so many
4words in so many languages according to its context.
5 A. [Mr Irving] And who is speaking it and in what century and in what
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] I do not have to the Ausrottung argument every time we
8come across the word.
9 A. [Mr Irving] We have not had it yet.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is an argument that could go on until next Christmas.
11 A. [Mr Irving] We the vernichtung argument but not the Ausrottung
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have touched on it. Let us move on.
14 MR RAMPTON: I am interested in the words "wenn er dabei
16 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] What do you say those words mean?
18 A. [Mr Irving] If he goes "caput".
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] And what does "going kaput" mean?
20 A. [Mr Irving] The word "caput" is like "going for a Burton", it is one
21of those words which is a piece of vernacular, a piece of
22slang, all the wheels drop off. It is that kind of
23thing. If a car goes caput the wheels have dropped off.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] If I achieve my object of achieving a complete Ausrottung,
25let us compromise, call is extirpation or annihilation, I
26do not know, of the Jew, it does not matter to me in the
1slightest if that means death?
2 A. [Mr Irving] I am sure it did not, not to Hitler, no. He did not
3really apply his mind very much to what happened once they
4had got out.
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then look at the next ----
6 A. [Mr Irving] You mean by merciless or pitiless?
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Let us see how it goes on:
8"Why should I look at a Jew with other eyes
9than at a Russian prisoner of war? Many are dying in the
10prison camps because we have been driven into this
11situation by the Jews. But what can I do about that? Why
12then did the Jews instigate the war?"
13The whole undercurrent Hitler's, I hesitate to
14call it thinking, but his ideology seems to have been that
15somehow the Jews were responsible for having started the
17 A. [Mr Irving] I would look at the sentence before where he says: "Why
18should I look at the Jews differently than from a Russian
19prisoner of war? Many are dying", he says, many of the
20Russians are dying. I think you omitted the emphasis that
21that sentence needed.
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] I do not know. I shall get caput, collapses, dies, it
23does not matter whether you kill them or whether they die,
24it does not matter, does, it, so long as they are all got
25rid of?
26This is Professor Evans: "Hitler came back to
1his prophecy of the extermination of the Jews is a
2widely-transmitted speech in the Reichstag on 30th January
31942", no doubt it was taken to be an anniversary of the
4speech on the ----
5 A. [Mr Irving] This is the old gramophone record. He keeps playing it.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] But on the same date two or three years later?
7 A. [Mr Irving] He does it on various dates, 8th November 1942.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Irving merely comments that in his speech Hitler reminded
9his audience of his prophetic warning to the world's Jews
10in 1939." That is page 464 of Hitler's War 1991 which
11I think, well, is it, it does not seem to be on my page
12464, but never mind. It might be a different edition
13I suspect.
14 A. [Mr Irving] You are looking at the eye for an eye and the tooth for a
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] I have that. Where is that in Hitler's War?
17 A. [Mr Irving] It is not in it.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] We will read it then: "In fact Hitler was much more
19explicit. I have already pronounced in the Reichstag tag
20on 1st September 1939, and I guard myself against
21premature prophecies, that this war will not end as the
22Jews imagine, namely that the European Aryan peoples will
23be exterminated." The word is?
24 A. [Mr Irving] "Ausgerottet".
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] I cannot find it in the German text?
26 A. [Mr Irving] Line three of the footnote.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. How would you render that?
2 A. [Mr Irving] Render what?
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Ausgerottet" in that context?
4 A. [Mr Irving] He is clearly not saying that it is going lead to the
5destruction or killing of all the European Aryan peoples.
6That is a clear indication that "ausrottung" is a very
7elastic word. I did not think we wanted to have the
8argument about "ausrottung" today.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Zondern das Ergebnis dieses Krieges die Vernichtung des
10Judentums sein wird", but that the result of this war will
11be the ----
12 A. [Mr Irving] Destruction.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- annihilation, destruction, extermination, call it what
14you like, of Jewry. "For the first time the truly old
15Jewish law being applied this time", "Aug um Aug, Zahn um
16Zahn", yes?
17 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes?
19 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, a rebel-rousing speech to the German Parliament.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] A rebel-rousing speech. What is he rousing the rebels to
21do or approve of, do you think?
22 A. [Mr Irving] I have no idea, but when people make speeches to
23Parliament they tend to shoot their mouth off and they say
24what the people listening want to hear. Quoting the Old
25Testament, two anti-Semitics is quite effective.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Now 25th February.
1 A. [Mr Irving] Your criticism is, of course, that I did not quote that
2particular sentence in my book.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is my consistent criticism that whereas anything that
4puts Hitler in the least danger of being, what shall we
5say, done for the murder of the Jews, to put it crudely,
6you take it out or you leave it out.
7 A. [Mr Irving] I do not agree. I put in the meat of that which is that
8once again he repeated his prophetic warning to the Jews
9that if they started a war they would not survive it,
10which is the crude way of putting that prophecy of his,
11and that there is no need to embellish it really with this
12kind of anti-Semitic jibe that he made in Parliament.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Which bit did you not include?
14 A. [Mr Irving] The bit about the eye for the eye last, the sentence my
16 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] The rest I think you did include?
17 A. [Mr Irving] The rest I did include, and one has to remember the
18constraints that are on an author not to overwrite, not to
19write a book that is twice as long as the publishers are
20going to accept.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Speaking for myself I would have thought you
22did get the guts of it, if that is all you left out.
23 A. [Mr Irving] I appreciate the point Mr Rampton makes.
24 MR RAMPTON: Page 415, I have not run a check to see whether we
25find all these passages in your books or not at the
26moment, but on a slightly different tack it is a question
1of whether the table talk is really so, what shall we say,
2unmisstated as you put it, as you suggest.
3 "At Hitler's table talk on 22nd February 1942,
4the following statement was recorded: It is one of the
5greatest revolutions there has ever been in the world.
6The Jew will be identified! The same fight that Pasteur
7and Koch had to fight must be led by us today.
8Innumerable sicknesses have their origin in one bacillus:
9the Jew. Japan would also have got them", the bacilli, I
10think, "if it had remained open any longer to the Jew. We
11will get well when we eliminate the Jew", and the word he
12uses, is reported as having used, is "eliminieren"?
13 A. [Mr Irving] "Eliminieren", yes.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is pretty blunt, is it not?
15 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, but there is no suggestion that I have not repeatedly
16and on every occasion stated when Hitler referred to the
17Jews as "bascilli" that need to be eliminated. Of course,
18I did.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] What does antibiotic medicine do to bascilli?
20 A. [Mr Irving] Good Lord! You are not asking me as a medical expert,
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] Come on, Mr Irving, you are older than I am. I do not say
23you remember Pasteur and Koch, but, for heaven's sake, we
24all know what antibiotics do, they kill germs?
25 A. [Mr Irving] Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is what Pasteur discovered, was it not?
1 A. [Mr Irving] He has not actually talked about antibiotics in here, has
2he? I do not want to start nit-picking which is the
3opposite of what you are doing.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] The meaning of this is kill the germs, the Jewish germs,
5is it not?
6 A. [Mr Irving] Eliminating them.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] How do you get rid of germs except by killing?
8 A. [Mr Irving] I have no idea. You can wash your hands in soap and
9water. There are various different ways of getting rid of
10germs. That is why he has used word "eliminate".
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is right, you send them to Madagascar or Russia in a
12plastic bag.
13 A. [Mr Irving] That is the July 1942 entry which you did not want to have
14read out.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am coming to that. I do not use the same kind of
16ellipses, Mr Irving, as I suggest you do.
17 A. [Mr Irving] I am aware of the fact that we are coming up to the end of
18the afternoon and you have left the public without some of
19the best items which are in my favour, if they are going
20to be mentioned at all.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think we can co-ordinate the
22evidence. It is a nice idea! Let us have one more, shall
24 MR RAMPTON: We are going to have the next one on 24th
26 A. [Mr Irving] Can we not have July 1942?
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] We will get to it tomorrow and you can have your audience,
2but you cannot be my stage manager, I am afraid,
3Mr Irving.
4 On 24th February 1942 a statement by Hitler was
5announced to NSDAP party members in Munich which again
6made a reference to his prophecy."
7 Before I read it, Mr Irving, I want to know
8whether you say this is something which was cooked up by
9party officials without reference to Hitler?
10 A. [Mr Irving] I am not going to express an opinion on that. It is taken
11out of Max Demarus' collection of press clippings,
12effectively. So it is a published statement, published in
13the German press. So it actually cannot have a very
14sinister connotation, surely.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] I do not know.
16 A. [Mr Irving] I thought this was top secret what was going on.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] I do not know if you read it.
18 "Today the idea of our National Socialist, and
19that of the fascist revolution, have conquered great and
20powerful states, and my prophecy will find its fulfilment,
21that through this war Aryan humankind will not be
22annihilated, but the Jew will be", ausgerottet werden
23wird, will be ausgerottet?
24 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, he has used the fifth or sixth meaning of the word
25"ausgerottet" rather than the primary meaning.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, we might go back to the Langscheite overnight or
1some greater authority, I do not know.
2 A. [Mr Irving] I have a whole shelf of dictionaries.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am not going to do it now.
4 "Whatever the struggle may bring with it or
5however long it may last, this will be its final result,
6and only then with the removal of these parasites with a
7long period of understanding between nations, and with it
8true peace, come upon the suffering."
9 Again, it is similar to the reference to the
10"bacillus". Of course in one sense it is metaphorical.
11 A. [Mr Irving] It does not really help us, does it, actually, getting rid
12of the Jews?
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] If you talk about ridding a house of its parasites ----
14 A. [Mr Irving] "Beseitigung", getting rid of, yes.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, or exterminating them ----
16 A. [Mr Irving] I am thinking of somebody with a broom, like, "get out of
17here, "get out of here".
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Parasites, no, I think not, Mr Irving. What I am
19suggesting is that Hitler did not need at his table talk
20or in his public occasions to talk about gas chambers or
21shootings, indeed he would not have done, but he is
22talking in terms of genocide, is he not?
23 A. [Mr Irving] So he is announcing it in the press, "We are going to be
24carrying out genocide"? This is a press clipping.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] This is an announcement to party members?
26 A. [Mr Irving] It is in the press, the VB in the footnote that has been
1printed in the press. It is a public statement, the party
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] It portrays a state of mind if you put these things
4together, does it not?
5 A. [Mr Irving] Yes, but, on the other hand, I do emphasise this is a
6public statement, so he is hardly going to out saying,
7"yes, we are going to be liquidating all the Jews".
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] If we had but this one public statement to say that Hitler
9intended physical annihilation of the Jews, "biologische
10vernichtung" but this one document, I would not be
11suggesting ----
12 A. [Mr Irving] Excuse me, he does not say "biologische vernichtung" in
13this document.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] Wait, Mr Irving. Sometimes you do not listen.
15 A. [Mr Irving] That is manipulation again.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, Mr Irving, you do not listen. I said if we had this
17document and this document alone to convict Hitler of an
18intention to achieve a biologische vernichtung, it would
19not be very good evidence. Do you see? I do not take
20documents one by one. I take the cumulative effect.
21 A. [Mr Irving] This is part of your chain of documents.
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] If you like, Mr Irving, yes.
23 A. [Mr Irving] This chain against chain.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that a convenient moment? You have
25finished with that.
26 MR RAMPTON: Yes, my Lord. I am going to come on to one or two
1more of these table talks. As I promised I would,
2tomorrow morning.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: At some stage will you be looking, if not,
4well, so be it, at the very early statements which are
5pretty much the same.
6 MR RAMPTON: They are very much the same. They are all
7collected in the first part of Longerich.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That may be sufficient.
9 MR RAMPTON: That may be sufficient.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving may want to comment on whether he
11takes those into account when he is evaluating Hitler's
13 MR RAMPTON: If I may say so, that is very fair. Perhaps I
14ought to do that ----
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Not this evening.
16 A. [Mr Irving] I shall certainly be taking it into account in
17cross-examination of Longerich, which is probably the
18proper time to deal with them.
19 < (The witness withdrew).
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: 10.30 tomorrow.
21 (The court adjourned until the following day)