text:
Holocaust Denial on Trial, Trial Transcripts, Day 26: Electronic Edition
Pages 1 - 159 of 159
1996 I. No. 113
2Royal Courts of Justice
3Strand, London
4 Monday, 28th February 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)
23(This transcript is not to be reproduced without the written permission of Harry
Counsell &Company)
1 (10.00 a.m.)
2 < Dr Longerich, Recalled.
3< Cross-Examined by Mr Irving.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
5 MR IRVING: Before we start, there is one thing I would like to
6do. Dr Longerich has used me as a post box. I have no
7idea what these things are. There are some documents
8I think that he sent for. I cannot speak to him so can
9I hand them to him now? I do not know what they are.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Mr Irving, it is sensible just to clear
11this up.
12 MR IRVING: My Lord, I have a problem. I have brought the
13wrong file with me so I am going to have to go back to
14Duke Street to get it, which will take half an hour,
15unfortunately, which is extremely stupid of me.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: These things happen. You have done pretty
17well so far. Just let us sort out these documents first.
18 MR RAMPTON: Perhaps your Lordship would deal with it. As I
19say, I have not spoken to Dr Longerich today, They arrived
20in my chambers this morning.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Dr Longerich, take us through them one by
22one. Have you got copies, first of all, for Mr Irving and
23for everyone else.
24 MR RAMPTON: I have copies here, yes.
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It is just I asked the Institute in Munich to provide me
26with a number of documents, two or three, concerning the
1vernichtung arbeit in relation to work we discussed on
2Thursday. If necessary, I can provide these documents,
3and I can quote from them. I used Mr Rampton's fax
4machine because there was no other way to get them here in
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: How do these documents help?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I do not know. It is just in case if we expand. I do not
8want to use them. I do not suggest we use them but, if we
9go and discuss this point further, I am here to provide
10evidence that the term vernichtung arbeit was used during
11the war. It is not a post war expression.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think what I will do is suggest that we
13leave this until re-examination by Mr Rampton. Does that
14apply to all of the documents you have, what you just
15said? Is that just one document you are talking about, or
16the whole lot?
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] There are two or three.
18 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] There are not any other documents?
19 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No, not at the moment.
20 MR RAMPTON: Can I suggest, my Lord, that we use a little bit
21of re-examination as evidence-in-chief to deal with these
22documents and then, if Mr Irving wants to ask anything
23arising out of that, he should do but not now.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not mind when it happens. I do not
25suppose Mr Irving minds when it happens.
26 MR RAMPTON: Dr Longerich ought to have a chance to read them
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, you handed in a clip. Should I
3spend some of the time looking through that or not?
4 MR IRVING: I can tell your Lordship what they are. You asked
5for a translation of the Wannsee protocol, and that is one
6of them. I have also provided your Lordship with a
7complete translation of the Karl Wolff manuscript,
8and ----
9 MR RAMPTON: Are we allowed to have them?
10 MR IRVING: Yes. I faxed a copy of it to the instructing
11solicitors over the weekend, but I also emailed it. My
12Lord, I think this is a proper time to say that at some
13time today I will be making submissions on the relevance
14of right-wing extremism. Quite simply, this is, I think,
15the proper time to do it, obviously not while
16Dr Longerich, his metre is running, so to speak, probably
17this afternoon some time, and I shall be asking your
18Lordship to possibly have a look at the appropriate page
19of Gatley into which I have read more deeply than Mein
20Kampf, I have to admit. I think it is page 43 of Gatley
21that I draw your Lordship's attention to and I think
22footnote 88, in particular. Your Lordship will see the
23relevance of that. It is Devlin L. It is the Butalazi
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The which?
26 MR IRVING: Butalazi, there was a case on, I am sure your
1Lordship is familiar with the kind of authorities.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is not perhaps one of the best known
3cases, but I think I know there was one.
4 MR IRVING: It is purely the question of whether extremism is
5defamatory, what is meant by extremism. I think we ought
6really to look at that.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You certainly make your submissions and
8I agree the timing is best after Dr Longerich.
9 MR IRVING: The other point which I wish to take up with your
10Lordship, very briefly, is that I am not getting the
11digital transcript.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Right.
13 MR IRVING: I am only getting a paper transcript. A dispute
14has arisen with the court reporters over the provision to
15me of the digital transcript. I have not it since
16February 3rd. It is a serious disadvantage to me. I have
17offered them money. I have offered them other
18inducements. This is a matter which I would like your
19Lordship to give a friendly word to the court reporting
20service that ----
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You will have to tell me a little bit more
22about the reasons they give for not giving the digital
24 MR IRVING: Indeed.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I mean, I have a feeling that I know what the
26problem is but you ----
1 MR IRVING: I can do that now, my Lord. Quite simply, we
2started posting the digital transcript on the internet as
3a public service, totally non-profit making at all,
4I derive only loss from that. The court reporters quite
5rightly said there is a property question at issue here.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, a copyright question, yes.
7 MR IRVING: It is between one instructing firm of solicitors
8and the court reporters. It is in a kind of limbo between
9them. I have made a cash offer to them over a week ago
10now on a per day basis. They have not come back to me,
11and I am being disadvantaged.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
13 MR IRVING: Because clearly ----
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I understand the problem, although
15I suspect one may have to go into it a bit more deeply,
16but I am anxious if you are not getting the digital
17transcript because, although it is not all that easy to
18follow, I found it perfectly possible to make use of.
19Mr Rampton, do you know anything about this or do you not
20want to get involved?
21 MR RAMPTON: No. Strictly speaking, it is none of our
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Except you are paying for it so, presumably,
24you have some sort of right over it.
25 MR RAMPTON: I know we are paying for Mr Irving to have a
26transcript for the purposes of the case, the conduct of
1his claim against us. I guess what has happened is that
2he has been using the transcripts, in all innocence, no
3doubt -- I say that without knowing anything -- for some
4other purpose.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, just putting them on his website.
6 MR RAMPTON: That is an infringement of the transcribers'
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I would have thought it might be.
9 MR RAMPTON: And to do that, you would need to pay for a
10licence to do it, I guess what has happened.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, so we do not take too long over
12this, my view would be that it is highly desirable that
13you should continue to have the digital transcript and
14I do not understand Mr Rampton to oppose that, but the
15price may be, if that is the right term, that you should
16not put it on your website because I think, technically,
17that is an infringement of their copyright.
18 MR IRVING: Until we reach an agreement.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I mean, if you can reach an agreement, well
20and good, and I can see in some ways it might be desirable
21that it should go on the website if you want publicity
22for ----
23 MR IRVING: Well, it has attracted great attention and I am now
24being bombarded with E mails from around the world. Some
25people are accusing me of keeping it off the internet
26because it is unfavourable to me and all sorts of dubious
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, if you were to offer to -- I cannot
3remember the name of the firm but if you were to
4offer ----
5 MR IRVING: Harry Counsel.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Harry Counsel, that you will undertake
7not to put it on your website, unless and until some
8agreement is reached, but would they please in the
9meantime let you have the digital transcript, I would hope
10that they would say yes to that.
11 MR IRVING: I am happy to give that undertaking here.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: If there is a problem, let me know, but
13I have expressed my wish and that may not count for much
15 MR IRVING: But it means that for three weeks I have had no
16digital transcript which has ----
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, you should have mentioned it perhaps
18before now but you have mentioned it now and ----
19 MR IRVING: Well, I have negotiated, or attempted to negotiate,
20and met with no response.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Is there any way of avoiding you having
22to go all the way to Duke Street? Is there somebody there
23who could put it in a taxi?
24 MR IRVING: My Lord, my partner is seriously ill. She is
25fighting a battle of her own.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you say it is necessary, Mr Irving, I am
1perfectly content.
2 MR IRVING: I will try to be back within half an hour, my Lord.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let a message be passed through when you are
5 MR IRVING: Yes, thank you very much.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are happy to continue in principle?
7 MR IRVING: Yes. There is no problem.
8 (Adjourned for a short time)
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry, it seems I have added to the
10delay. My room is about as far as it can be from this
12 MR IRVING: The apologies are do you from me for this one hour
13delay. I do apologise.
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Before I start, could I make some statements. I just went
15through the minutes of the proceedings of Thursday and
16I would like to correct three mistakes I make, if it is
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I have spotted one.
19 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] There is one on page 63, line 10, when Mr Irving suggested
20I translate the German term "verhungern" with go hungry.
21I think I did not listen carefully enough to him because
22the translation of "verhungern" is clearly to die of
23starvation or to starve to death so, if somebody is
24Verhungerte, he is dead.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think you did actually say that. That is
26my impression.
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I just wanted to make it very clear. On page 13 and the
2following pages we had a discussion on the statistics
3about the death rates in Auschwitz. I forgot to say the
4most obvious thing -- because I was surprised by this
5document, I have to say -- that these figures all relate
6to the camp population as a whole and not to the Jewish
7camp population, and you would come to complete different
8conclusions if you look at the Jewish camp population.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Which page is that?
10 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Page 13 and the following pages.
11 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I do not see quite where we get to the statistics on the
12pages following page 13.
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] We talked about the statistics and I should have said here
14first of all that these numbers are about the camp
15population, everybody in the camps, and it is not specific
16about the Jewish prisoners in the camp.
17 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I follow that, but I cannot find where there is any
18reference to numbers.
19 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No. We talked about the monthly death rates in the
20concentration camps.
21 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I remember that, but that is not here.
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I may be mistaken.
23 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] It is page 18.
24 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I am sorry. The third point is on page 173 Mr Irving said
25he wanted to translate bei Freilassung with "upon release"
26and I said bei Freilassung means "if released". I should
1have added here that "upon release" is nach Freilassung in
2German, "after".
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That would be one way of putting it, would it
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Pardon?
6 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Bei Freilassung could be perhaps regarded as a little
7equivocal, could it not?
8 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Bei Freilassung is, in my view, "if released".
9 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] "Upon release" might be another translation?
10 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] "Upon release," but it is definitely not "after".
11 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Thank you. That is very helpful. The slip which
12I thought you may have made, and I do not have the
13reference for it, is that I think you may have referred to
14Auschwitz when you meant Belzec, but I will not waste time
15trying to find that. It is at the foot of one of the
16pages. It is not terribly important, but I think the
17context makes it clear that you were talking about
19 MR IRVING: My Lord, I have checked four of my dictionaries on
20"verhungern" and I am ready to concede the primary
21meaning is "die of hunger". The secondary meaning is "to
22starve". I am ready to concede that point.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
24 MR IRVING: Dr Longerich, you have now received the complete
25translation of the Karl Wolff manuscript, the interview
26with Karl Wolff. Have you received the German text
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. Where is your translation?
3 Q. [Mr Irving] Have you received the German text?
4 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I received the German text on Thursday.
5 Q. [Mr Irving] So you have not received the English translation which has
6been prepared of it yet?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No. This is the first time I see that.
8 Q. [Mr Irving] Can I ask you questions on the German text? Would you
9agree that the brief extract which I made some 35 years
10ago accurately represents the parts that I extracted, if
11I can put it like that? There was no distortion by me of
12the extracts that I made?
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Except the parts you left out in your extract.
14 Q. [Mr Irving] Obviously, if it is a one page exhibit extract from a ten
15page document, then some eight or nine pages have been
16left out, have they not?
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I think you left out passages which are important, which
18have to be understood in the context of the whole
20 Q. [Mr Irving] Yes.
21 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] And I also was surprised or amazed to see that you, in
22your translation, in your transcript, translated the word
23"ausrottung" with "extermination".
24 Q. [Mr Irving] Yes.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Whereabouts is that? I have the English and
26I am not sure you have the English.
1 MR IRVING: That would be on page 1 of the original transcript,
2my Lord. It is page 00031. If you turn the page, my
3Lord, it is on line 5. As Dr Longerich rightly says,
4I have translated it there by the word "extermination".
5I have put the German text in brackets afterwards on line
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think we can be looking at the same
8document. I am looking at your translation and I have
9page 31. You say line 5? That talks about the Waffen SS
10arising as a new guard.
11 MR IRVING: No, my Lord. Page 31 follows. If you will turn
12the page, my Lord, it will be five lines down on the next
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you. I have it now.
15 MR IRVING: Dr Longerich correctly points out that I have
16translated the word "Judenausrottung" by "extermination of
17the Jews".
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Thank you.
19 MR IRVING: Yet it is clear from the context, is it not,
20Dr Longerich, that this is what Karl Wolff is referring to
21on this occasion?
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Irving] My Lord, I have lined on your copy the passages on which
24I rely. It begins on the previous page three lines from
25the bottom, "The assassination of Heydrich at the end of
26May 1942 had an exceptionally powerful effect on Himmler",
1and it carries on for the next two pages, until the page
2that is headed with the word "preparations"?
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
4 MR IRVING: I am not sure, my Lord, what is the right way to
5deal with that, whether I should put this to the witness?
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think, if you can select the main points
7out of it -- do not let us trawl through the whole of it
8unless we need to -- if you can put it as bald
9propositions, then we can pursue it if needs be.
10 MR IRVING: Yes. Would you start, Dr Longerich, with the page
11that begins with the words "and declared", the third or
12fourth of my translation?
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: In the English.
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Irving] This is talking about Himmler. "He had always regarded it
16as his task and as his duty to carry out the solution of
17this task". Wolff continues with the proposition that,
18from his viewpoint of 1952, perhaps 70 people were
19initiated in the ghastly secret, if I can put it like
20that. Have you any comment on that figure?
21 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] That is definitely too low.
22 Q. [Mr Irving] Too low a figure?
23 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
24 Q. [Mr Irving] Because the people at the killing centres must have
25known? Is that what you are saying? Not just the camp
26guards but also the people in all the killing centres?
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] He is referring to the people who were involved in the
2Juden ausrottung.
3 Q. [Mr Irving] Yes. If you have read the manuscript, you will see that
4Karl Wolff suggests that the real guilty culprits were
5Bormann and Himmler who kept to themselves what they were
6doing. Have you any comment on that proposition?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I think the statement is so far clearly self-serving
8because Karl Wolff was the liaison officer between the
9Himmler and Hitler, and of course he wanted to, well, play
10down, put it this way, the role of Hitler, because
11otherwise he would be the missing link between the two
12persons. He would be the man between them, the man who
13carried messages and would transfer information between
14these two people. Karl Wolff was sentenced in 1965 by the
15German court to 15 years' sentence. Simply the main
16document, which actually, if I may put it this way, broke
17his neck, was his exchange of letters with Ganzen Muller
18in July and August of 1942, which is on pages 262 and 263
19in the blue bundle.
20 Q. [Mr Irving] This is 5,000 members of the chosen race being deported?
21 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. So this was his main problem, that somebody could
22come and find out that he actually was involved in
23transferring messages from Hitler's headquarters through
24the apparatus which carried out the Final Solution.
25 Q. [Mr Irving] Could he not equally well have said that obviously Hitler
26knew what was going on but he discussed that only unter
1vier Augen, under four eyes, with Himmler and that he
2Wolff had no knowledge of it? He could equally well have
3exonerated himself by saying that, if he was right in a
4self-serving document, could he not?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No, I do not think so. I think his strategy was to
6systematically try to distance himself from everything
7that happens in Hitler's headquarters concerning the fate
8of the Jews.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Did he remain loyal to Hitler into the 50s
10and 60s?
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] He was absolutely loyal. At this time he never actually
12gave up his sympathy for national socialism.
13 MR IRVING: A lot of Germans never did.
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Irving] You see halfway down that page he describes Himmler as
16being in his way bizarrely religious, holding to the view
17that the greatest war lord in the greatest war of all
18times, in other words Hitler, he had to take upon himself
19these tasks.
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
21 Q. [Mr Irving] Does that fit in with your picture that you have of
22Himmler's nature and his character?
23 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] There is obviously some truth in this remark, yes.
24 Q. [Mr Irving] The loyal Heiny, the faithful Heiny?
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. On page 6 of the German document he is saying
26Himmler (German spoken - document not provided) Hitler.
1I do not know how you translated this.
2 Q. [Mr Irving] Himmler was of blind subservience to Hitler.
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Which actually is a kind of contradiction to this view
4that he would actually do it on his own. Also, I find
5particularly, because I did not have your translation,
6I studied your transcript, the transcripts you made in the
7Institute fur Zeitgeschichte and compared it with the
8German original. Also, in the German original, you find
9in the central passage that Wolff inserted the
10word "wohl".
11 Q. [Mr Irving] Yes, handwritten?
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] So he actually was saying "I am not absolutely sure about
13this, I think so" (To the interpreter) How do you
14translate "wohl" in English?
15 MR IRVING: It is on page 7, my Lord, of this same page, the
16page beginning "and declared", line 7.
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Which page in the German?
18 Q. [Mr Irving] "General Wolff also saw Bormann who was infinitely
19actively involved in these things, together with Hoess,
20the former famed murderer, Bormann and Himmler", and he
21has inserted in handwriting the word "probably", wohl,
22"represented the view that the Jewish problem had to be
23dealt with without Hitler getting his fingers dirty in the
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] That is in the German document on page 4.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You do not quarrel with the translation of
1wohl as "probably"?
2 MR IRVING: Probably, or perhaps.
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It was not in your transcript. In your transcript you
4left it out.
5 MR IRVING: Or "may well have"?
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. He obviously wanted to say that, well, he is not
7absolutely sure, he inserted the word "wohl" in the end.
8 Q. [Mr Irving] I am sorry but in the transcript I did insert it. It is
9in the second paragraph. The word "probably" is in square
10brackets inserted. I know, Dr Longerich, it is a
11difficult concept to grapple with in the witness box but
12how would this----
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It is difficult for me to deal with three documents at the
14same time, two in English and one in German, I have to say
16 Q. [Mr Irving] And to listen to my questions at the same time?
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think the point Dr Longerich is probably
19making but I do not know where I find the manuscript now,
20is that you did not put "probably" in your original
21manuscript note.
22 MR IRVING: It was, my Lord, and I am sure we will find it.
23Otherwise, I would not have known how to put it in in the
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have no idea where that is.
26 MR IRVING: I am prepared to take strichnine on that one, as
1they say in German.
2 MR RAMPTON: My Lord, it is seven lines down in the manuscript
3notes, I call them.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But where do we put those? That is my
6 MISS ROGERS: It should be in Tab 11, J2, party claimants
7bundle H.
8 MR IRVING: Has your Lordship found it?
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, in square brackets. You are quite
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] In square brackets, I agree.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you, Mr Irving.
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] In your transcript, if I may comment on it, this is the
15piece of paper you take home from the Institut fur
16Zeitgeschichte, you left out the passage where actually
17Wolff is referring to millions of dead, and also you left
18out the passage that is referring to the vergassungs, the
19idea to gassings. So your impression, when you read this
20document, was that only Wolff dealt here with Hitler's
21attitude or non-attitude towards the Jewish question, and
22you left out these important two paragraphs because you
23were not interested in them, obviously.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where do we find vergassung?
25 MR IRVING: Half way down the English translation, the new
26translation, "Whenever Himmler uttered such thoughts, as
1he did repeatedly, he never made any concrete reference
2to, for example, the Jewish problem. But one today well
3imagine that Himmler ordered the murder of millions of
4Jews in a kind of crazily perverted idealism permeated
5with the notion that the lofty objective which Hitler had
6defined was one that justified the adoption of any means".
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I have got that, but what about
9 MR RAMPTON: That is in the last line of the English before in
10square brackets 00032, "The gassing idea probably emerged
11when a genuine epidemic broke out".
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you.
13 MR IRVING: Of course I cannot give evidence, but let me ask
14this question this way, and say is it not likely that
15Wolff, when he was being interviewed in 1952, had read
16what every other German had read in the newspapers about
17millions being gassed?
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I cannot say what Wolff read in the newspapers, but he is
19referring here clearly, he is accepting the idea that
20millions of Jews were killed, and he is accepting the idea
21that they were killed by gas. So that is there was no way
22for him to know. He did not attempt to dispute this. He
23only tried to, of course, distance Hitler from these
25 Q. [Mr Irving] If you look at the last paragraph on that same page of the
26translation beginning with the words, "around August
11942", "General Wolff undertook a drive from the Fuhrer's
2headquarters to Berlin. He found Himmler there in a state
3of deep depression". Does this strike you as being
4something that he is really remembering? Is he describing
5something vividly that he has in his memory?
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] That is typical for Wolff. We know a lot about Wolff. He
7gave a lot of interviews. He made statements. He met
8people who wrote books about him, and he made this kind of
9very vivid statements. So I think he had a very ----
10 Q. [Mr Irving] Do you think this is his imagination at work, or is it his
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I think it was imagination to a large extent.
13 Q. [Mr Irving] When he is imagining something, he actually says it, does
14he not? In the middle of the previous paragraph he says,
15"One can today well imagine that Himmler ordered the
16murder of millions of Jews". So he does make a
17distinction between what he is imagining and what he is
19 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] To sum this up, I am not in a position to accept this
20really as a true collection by Karl Wolff.
21 Q. [Mr Irving] What about the vague hint that Himmler dropped on this
22occasion: "Wolff could have no idea what one had had to
23take upon oneself for the messiah of the next 2,000 years
24in order that this man (in other words Hitler) remained
25personally free of sin". Do you think such a remark was
26made by Himmler to Hitler?
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I have no idea.
2 Q. [Mr Irving] Is it a significant remark if it was made?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] This is a hypothetical question. I cannot answer this
5 Q. [Mr Irving] He continues by saying, for the sake of the German people
6and its Fuhrer, he had to burden things on to his own
7shoulders, of which nobody must ever be allowed to learn.
8Is this self serving again, do you think, in your opinion?
9 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well ----
10 THE INTERPRETER: Vivid imagination?
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I think that Karl Wolff had a vivid imagination and
12I cannot see here -- he did not take any notes about these
13events. He did not read from notes. He did not write a
14letter about this. It is a postwar statement ten years
15post factum, and I cannot see how one can accept this as
16evidence that Hitler was not aware of the final solution.
17 Q. [Mr Irving] Then I would ask you to turn two pages please. You have
18in the middle of the page, page 34 in square brackets, the
19sentence beginning just before that, "The little clique,
20which effectively carried out the vernichtung of the Jews
21under cover of Himmler and Bormann, simply declared that
22they were relying on a Fuhrer order without this ever
23having expressly been given, and they proceeded in this
24sense on their own authority in order, as they declared,
25biologically to rid German territory of the seeds. The
26announcement of this fait accompli was going to be
1Himmler's big moment after the victory". Does this not
2fit in with some of the documents we have seen?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] If you want to refer to documents, I can recall, of
4course, the expression, the quote on page 32, "burden on
5my shoulders" is the expression he used then later on.
6 Q. [Mr Irving] It does sound like Himmler speaking, does it not?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It is the same phrase, yes.
8 Q. [Mr Irving] It has to be said, we have no documents to contradict this
9version, do we?
10 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] The document contradicts the fact that Himmler spoke to
11Karl Wolff in August 1942?
12 Q. [Mr Irving] No, the contradict ----
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The Hitler order, in other words.
14 MR IRVING: The general hypothesis that Wolff is putting up of
15Himmler acting in secret behind Hitler's back and
16intending to present him with a fait accompli when the war
17was over.
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] We went through the documents.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is Pohl and----
20 MR RAMPTON: I must intervene. That is just not so and
21Mr Irving knows it is not so. Himmler wrote to Begher on
2228th July 1942, just before this meeting that Wolff
23reports and Himmler said that the carrying out of this
24very hard order has been put on his shoulders by Hitler.
25 MR IRVING: Yes. What is the order that he is referring to,
26Dr Longerich? Do you remember?
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] This is the order to make the occupied territories of the
2East free of Jews.
3 MR RAMPTON: That is right.
4 MR IRVING: That is right, yes. Is that an explicit order to
5exterminate the Jews, or an order to deport them to the
6East, in your opinion?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] At this stage, if I look at the facts what actually
8happened in the East, it is clear for me that this refers
9to the mass killings of Soviet Jews, and to nothing else.
10 Q. [Mr Irving] Does this fit in with the general picture of Heinrich
11Himmler keeping things secret from people? He is not
12being specific about what is actually happening. He is
13writing these camouflage documents. Is this not exactly
14what Wolff is saying?
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: When you say that, Mr Irving, you are really
16going back, I think, to the communications between Pohl
17and Himmler, and between Greiser and Himmler, is that
18right, where it is true, I think, we went through those on
19Thursday, that there is not any express reference to
20Hitler's authority? That is the point you are putting.
21We have been through it.
22 MR IRVING: Now I will ask one final question on the Wolff
23manuscript, if I may, Dr Longerich. You worked in the
24Institut fur Zeitgeschichte for what, eight years? Seven
26 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Five years.
1 Q. [Mr Irving] Five years, and you have since then written a number of
2eminent books on the Final Solution of the Jewish problem?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Irving] And of Hitler's role in this?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
6 Q. [Mr Irving] Have you ever paid any attention at all to Karl Wolff's
7manuscript, the document that you are looking at?
8 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Of course. I looked also at Karl Wolff's role and I have
9to say that I completely dismissed the statement, because
10this interview is, first of all, if you look at the
11technique of the interviewer, for instance, he has a long
12conversation with Karl Wolff, then goes home and writes a
13summary of this conversation. It is not a verbatim minute
14of the conversation. The person who did this interview
15addressed Karl Wolff in 1952 as General Wolff. So this is
16for me a quite bizarre atmosphere in which this interview
17took place. I think, if you look at the history of Karl
18Wolff and the fact that he in 65 was sentenced to 15
19years, this statement in this part is self serving. But,
20on the other hand, for me it is interesting, and I did not
21recollect that, that he is quite openly referring to
22millions of people who were actually put to death during
23the World War II.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are now talking about Dr Ziegler? He was
25the interviewer, is that right?
26 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Ziegler was the interviewer, yes.
1 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] I do not quite understand why this interview came to take
2place in 1952.
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Because the Institute at this stage more or less
4systematically tried to interview everybody who was
5interesting for them.
6 MR IRVING: What was the name of the Institute at that time?
7Do you remember?
8 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Still the same name, Institute fur Zeitgeschichte.
9 Q. [Mr Irving] It was called the Institute for the Research into Nazi
10Crimes or something, was it not?
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No. In the first year, 48 and 49, it was called Institute
12for the Research of the History of the National Socialist
13Period, or something like that.
14 Q. [Mr Irving] I am right in saying that they had a number of trained
15professional historians who went around Germany
16interviewing characters like General Wolff and Ziegler was
17one of them?
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. But at this stage researchers were not able to
19actually confront most of their interviewees with
20documents that actually challenged their views. So, if
21Wolff said something like that, this interviewer was not
22able to refer to documents, the documents which we have
23now, to say, for instance, that the Hitler speech of 12th
24December 41 is ordered to Himmler, and so on and so on.
25So in a way this interview was done in quite a naive way,
26I would put it like this.
1 Q. [Mr Irving] Are such interviews totally valueless?
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Absolutely not.
3 Q. [Mr Irving] Did you make any use whatsoever of this Karl Wolff
4manuscript when you wrote your books?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I remember that I read it but I decided not to use it for
6my books.
7 Q. [Mr Irving] The same as you decided not to use the Schlegelberger
8document and various other items?
9 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] That is your comparison. I cannot comment on that.
10 Q. [Mr Irving] Would you agree that the Schlegelberger document, this
11particular manuscript and various other items that have
12been ignored until I dredged them out of the archives, all
13tend to suggest a totally different picture to that
14presented by what you call the consensus of German
16 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] If I look at this document here, the interview of Karl
17Wolff in 1955, I think it does not prove anything.
18I commented briefly on the so-called Schlegelberger
19before, because it is a third hand evidence.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am going to interrupt you. I do not think
21we need to go through the Schlegelberger document.
22 MR IRVING: Can I ask one more question on this document?
23There is a reference here to Martin Bormann and Rudolf
24Hoess, the Kommandant of Auschwitz being old buddies
25because they had both been in prison for the Famer
26murders. Is that right?
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
2 Q. [Mr Irving] Can you tell the court what the Famer murders were?
3I could not remember the translation myself.
4 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] In the early 1920s the right-wing circus in Germany tried
5to build up a secret Army, if you put it this way.
6 Q. [Mr Irving] The Freicor?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] The Freicor and other paramilitary organisations, which
8was illegal under the Versailles Treaty, and they also
9engaged in preparing Putsches and other things like that,
10and they on various occasions actually killed or murdered
11people in these groups who they thought actually betrayed
12them or passed information on the state authority and so
14 Q. [Mr Irving] Like vengeance killing, was it not?
15 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Vengeance killing, yes.
16 Q. [Mr Irving] So they were old buddies, they were not just anybody,
17Martin Bormann and Rudolf Hoess were thick as thieves
18would you say?
19 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. They spent several months together in a state prison.
20 Q. [Mr Irving] That is the only questions I have to ask on Karl Wolff
21unless your Lordship has any to ask?
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. Thank you very much.
23 MR IRVING: Dr Longerich, you wrote a book called "Politik der
24Vernichtung", is that right?
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, that is right.
26 Q. [Mr Irving] Do you remember writing in that book on page 464 -- I just
1give it to you.
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I have it here.
3 Q. [Mr Irving] You have it there. Your take on the famous Himmler
4telephone call of November 30th, 1941, this is the way you
5interpreted it. You have written, if I may say so, a very
6good account of the deportation of the European Jews, the
7German Jews, to Minsk and to Riga, and you have reported
8the fact that large numbers of them were liquidated as
9soon as they arrived, which is common ground between us.
10But then you look at the interesting business of the
11famous telephone call of November 30th 1941. On page 464
12of your book, the third complete paragraph begins: "The
13shooting of Jews from the Reichs territory, on the other
14hand, after some 6,000 in six transports from Kovno had
15been murdered in Kovno and Riga, was initially stopped.
16In this connection there is an entry in Himmler's
17telephone calendar, which has the Reichsfuhrer SS who was
18at this time in the Fuhrer's headquarters making a note on
19a telephone call to Heydrich, or a telephone conversation
20with Heydrich, on November 30th. Then there are the
21famous words, Jew transport from Berlin, no
22liquidation." You attribute to this the fact that the
23killings of German Jews abruptly stopped, to use your
24phrase in the next paragraph, "der abrupte stop", this
25telephone call from Himmler, or this telephone
26conversation between Himmler and Heydrich, led to the
1abrupt stop.
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. No. I am in a difficult position here because
3I wrote actually an expert report and I do not know how
4much we shall go back to my book, because in the book it
5says ----
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is a legitimate question about it, I think
7that is the answer, Dr Longerich.
8 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] There are two sentences. In the first sentence I say that
9these shootings were abruptly stopped. In the second
10sentence I said (German) well, we have an entry ----
11 THE INTERPRETER: Relating to this matter.
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] So I am trying not to make any conclusions. I am very
13careful to say the shootings were stopped because Himmler
14ordered this. I say we have this entry here and it is
15open. It is actually more or less, it is open for
17 MR IRVING: The conclusion you draw on in those two pages, if
18I am right, is that the killers in Riga had exceeded their
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] That is my interpretation, yes.
21 Q. [Mr Irving] And therefore the killings stopped because of this word
22effectively from Hitler's headquarters, as you say?
23 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] From Himmler, who at this time was -- I was very careful
24when I wrote this passage because I know that it is a
25disputed area. It is a minefield, if you want to say so.
26It came from Himmler and he was in Hitler's headquarters.
1I did not say he was in Hitler bunker because I do not
2know whether he was in Hitler's bunker or not. So I think
3it is very careful and I think it is ----
4 Q. [Mr Irving] Yes.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not that I know quite what the point
6is. Is the point, Mr Irving, that you are suggesting that
7the way it has been written by Dr Longerich in his book is
8to suggest that "keine liquidierung" actually meant "stop
9this altogether" rather than just "do not liquidate this
11 MR IRVING: My Lord, the point that I am making, the point
12which he makes slightly more strongly in the book than in
13his expert report, if I am right, that, in consequence of
14this telephone call from Himmler at Hitler's headquarters,
15the killings of Germans stopped because the killers had
16exceeded their authority.
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: And that "keine liquidierung" therefore had,
18according to Dr Longerich's book, a general application
19rather than a specific one to that train load?
20 MR IRVING: I am not going to go so far as to say that, my
21Lord. I just wanted to underline the point once more that
22this is a document. You do not have to join very many
23dots to find out what happened here, because of course we
24had the police decodes the following day, which
25Dr Longerich obviously did not have at the time he wrote
26the book. I am now going to move on to another document,
1Dr Longerich. We looked at this very briefly on Thursday,
2and this is the Furl letter.
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Irving] You actually have referred to this letter, have you not?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I do not think so.
6 Q. [Mr Irving] No?
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can we have a reference for it, so that I can
9 MR IRVING: I have given you a translation of it on one page.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you?
11 MR IRVING: Headed page 175, on the top left hand corner
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] But not from my book.
14 Q. [Mr Irving] No. You are quite right.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It may be that this is somewhere in the
16Defendant's bundles and, if it is, perhaps we can follow
17it there.
18 MR RAMPTON: No. I do not think it is. This is a different
19version from the one that I was given last week. Your
20Lordship was given it too. It was another of Mr Irving's
21clips. This is not a complaint against him, but I do
22confess to the impossible difficulty of keeping track of
23these things as they come flooding in.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am having the same difficulty, as it were,
25on both sides.
26 MR RAMPTON: On I think it was probably Thursday or Wednesday
1last week one got a rather larger extract from Gotz Aly's
2book, the same page but a longer extract. It is in the
3back of J2, says the boss, so that is where it will be.
4Now we have a different version, I do not know why. I am
5not suggesting there is anything sinister about having two
7 MR IRVING: You are familiar with the book by Gotz Aly?
8 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. I know the book.
9 MR RAMPTON: The new clip has a printed version of the English
10edition of Gotz Aly's book at the back of it. I have not
11had a place for this new clip allocated yet.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have only one page.
13 MR RAMPTON: Is that the page your Lordship had last week?
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have got the first page of last week's
16 MR RAMPTON: Now comes a new version.
17 MR IRVING: That is more like it. Now we have it. This clip
18is entirely connected with the Furl letter. My Lord, just
19so you can see what is the clip, on the first page is the
20translation of the passages which interest, which is all
21that we have of that letter. The second and third pages
22are the two pages from the Gotz Aly book, which is a very
23reliable authority, which quotes the letter in German.
24I will just take Dr Longerich, if I may, through the text
25of the letter. In June 1942 Walter Furl, who is a
26administrative officer based in Krakow, wrote to his
1comrades in the SS, "Every day trains are arriving with
2over a thousand Jews each from throughout Europe. We
3provide first aid here" -- I think the word he uses
4verartsten -- "give them more or less provisional
5accommodation and usually deport them further towards the
6White Sea to the white Ruthenien marshlands, where they
7all, if they survive, and the Jews from Vienna or
8Pressberg certainly will not, will be gathered by the end
9of the war but not without having first built a few
10roads. But we are not supposed to talk about it". That
11is what I want to ask you about, Dr Longerich. On the
12following page we have the translation in German, the
13original German.
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I do not have the German here.
15 Q. [Mr Irving] Pages 2 and 3. My Lord, obviously the significance of
16this passage is that the Jews were not being sent from
17Krakow to Auschwitz, which are just next door, but they
18were being shipped on to strange locations in the East.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where is the White Sea?
20 MR RAMPTON: That is up in the north of Russia, beneath the
21Kola Peninsula, near Mamansk. It is quite a long way
22away. The white Ruthenien mashes I think are probably the
23same as the Pripyat marshes as far as I know.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are they?
25 MR RAMPTON: Yes, I think so.
26 MR IRVING: Dr Longerich, your contention is, is it not, that
1this letter is camouflage? Like the Gotz Aly contention
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Irving] I have to ask you then, first of all, what do we know
5about Walter Furl? He was an official of the ----
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. He was in fact the Deputy Director of the Department
7for Population and Welfare in the government of the
9 Q. [Mr Irving] Knowing the answer already in advance, can you tell me if
10any members whatsoever of that department were ever
11prosecuted after World War II?
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I have no idea at the moment. I cannot tell you.
13 Q. [Mr Irving] None were prosecuted. Is that correct? You say you have
14no idea.
15 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It is possible, yes.
16 Q. [Mr Irving] So they were not engaged in criminal activities?
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] This is a conclusion you draw from this. We know that the
18German courts, to say the minimum, in the 50s were quite
19lenient to prosecute systematically German war crimes done
20by Germans. So this conclusion, I think, does not lead to
21anything. He was not prosecuted. It does not mean that
22he was not involved in war crimes.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Especially he would not know in 1942 whether
24he was going to be prosecuted or whether he was not.
25 MR IRVING: No. The point is, my Lord, if the Germans or the
26Poles or the Russians had determined that this was a
1criminal office, they would have arrested everybody
2involved, particularly as director, and they would have
3locked them up for a long time.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: As things turned out, they did not.
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] If they were able to find them.
6 Q. [Mr Irving] Get their hands on them?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
8 Q. [Mr Irving] Let us have a look at the authenticity of the document.
9If you turn to page 216 and look at footnote 29, am
10I right in saying that this letter comes from the
11personnel file of Walter Furl in the Berlin Document
12Centre, which was run by the Americans after the war, was
13it not?
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No. You see, the Berlin Documents Centre, this is
15personnel. Yes, it is personnel, that is true. But we do
16not know actually who put these things into his personnel
17file. It may be that the Americans just put letters
18referring to Furl into this file, so we do not know who
19actually ----
20 Q. [Mr Irving] Sometimes they did that, did they not? They put negative
21photocopies in these files.
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] And other things.
23 Q. [Mr Irving] Is there any reason to believe that the document had been
24faked after the war by anyone?
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I do not think there is any indication for that.
26 Q. [Mr Irving] Can you suggest any reason why Walter Furl, writing to his
1Berlin SS comrades, which is the first line of the
2footnote, should have wanted to pull the wool over the
3eyes of his own comrades in the SS?
4 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It was a private letter, not an official letter, and in
5his letter he is saying in the last sentence: "But we are
6not supposed to talk about it". So he is talking about a
7secret. Also in your translation, you translated the
8German term "verartzen" with "first aid". Well
9"verartzen" could also mean we deal with them in a very
10general way. It does not mean that they provide first aid
11and help them in a humanitarian manner. But coming back
12to your question ----
13 Q. [Mr Irving] Can I just interrupt you there before there are any more
14aspersions cast on my translation, and draw your attention
15to the second page from the back of that clip which is the
16English translation in the English edition of the Gotz Aly
17book? The second line says, "we provide first aid here".
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. It is probably not the best translation.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is the literal translation, is it not?
20 MR IRVING: It comes from the route "Arzt" meaning doctor, as
21your Lordship is aware.
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] "Verarzten" could also mean to deal with.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I follow what you are saying.
24 MR IRVING: Is there any reason why writing private letters to
25their SS comrades in a letter where they use very robust
26language, does he not -- he says, who cares what happens
1to the Vienna or Pressberg, which I think is now called
2Bratislava, Jews? It is a robust language, is it not?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It is the matter of camouflage. These officers in the
4government of the Generalegouvernement tried of course to
5keep this operation as a secret. What they would admit is
6they would tell a story about shipping people to the to
7the White Sea and to the marshes, but they would not say
8actually, we are going to transport them to Minsk, I think
9in this case, and they are killed there. I think the
10interpretation of Aly in this book that it was a
11camouflage letter, I think this is the most likely
12interpretation, but also it is possible that at this
13stage, because he is referring to transports from the
14Reich to Minsk, and the systematic killings of the persons
15transported to Minsk from the Reichs, started in May 1941,
16it is possible, it is not very likely but it is possible,
17that this information had not filtered through to him. So
18camouflage is one explanation, but also it is possible
19that he did not at this stage know about the systematic
20killings of people transported to Minsk at this stage. It
21is a letter to SS comrades, not to one. It is not a
22confidential letter to one of his comrades. It is to
23comrades, so it was shown to 20 people, 30 people. There
24were strict rules as far as secrecy was concerned.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you explain what significance you attach,
26if any, to Furl having written that the Jews from
1Kurfurstendam and Vienna and Pressberg will not survive?
2What is the implication?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I think this is the same implication which we heard on
4Thursday when we read through the Wannsee protocol. This
5is the idea of natural dissemination by hard labour so
6they will not survive. They will not survive the work
7labour programme they were getting involved to. If you
8read the last line, "but not without having first built a
9few roads". So this is, I think, the same idea which is
10expressed clearly by Heydrich in the Wannsee conference
12 MR IRVING: We have a logical problem here, which is best
13solved by the question do you believe that Furl, who wrote
14the letter, knew the truth, that he knew what was going
15on, he was writing a camouflage letter, or that he did not
16know what was going on?
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No. I think the camouflage letter, he is referring to the
18official story. The official story is the Jews are sent
19from Central Europe to the East, and they will be used in
20slave labour programmes, many of them will die, but some
21of them will of course survive. This is the official line
22and he is using this official version of the story. But
23at the same time the systematic killing of Jews deported
24from Germany, from central Europe to the East, had already
25started. So I think the idea Gotz Aly said here that this
26is a camouflage, still camouflage, is, I think, very
2 Q. [Mr Irving] It is one plausible explanation, is it not?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I think it is a very good interpretation.
4 Q. [Mr Irving] It is one possible interpretation, but the other
5interpretation is that Furl is writing to the best of his
6knowledge what happens in a very brutal letter to his SS
8 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] As I said, it is possible that this information that the
9Jews arriving from the Reich in Minsk were systematically
10killed, it is possible at June that this information had
11not filtered through to the office in Krakow.
12 Q. [Mr Irving] You would have noticed that there are two echoes of
13previous documents here, are there not? There is the echo
14of having first built a few roads. Does that remind you
15of the Wannsee conference?
16 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
17 Q. [Mr Irving] Is that the language that was used at the Wannsee
18conference, that they are going to be put to work building
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, that is used there.
21 Q. [Mr Irving] And this idea of sending into the marsh lands, does that
22remind you of the October 25th 1941 table talk, where
23Hitler says, "who says we cannot send them to the
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, of course, but I cannot fully ignore what happened in
26Minsk at the same time in other places.
1 Q. [Mr Irving] Yes, but we are looking here at chain of command and at
2system and, if you are looking at parallels with the late
31941 killings, which turn out to have been carried out
4without authority, then this would explain how the people
5who are on the route, shall we say, on the track, the
6train loads heading East, would think that one thing is
7happening, whereas the people at the other end who
8actually receive them with anything but open arms, know
9that something quite ugly has happened to them.
10 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes but this is not an official letter. This is a private
11letter from Herr Furl to his SS comrades, so it is nothing
12to do with the chain of command.
13 MR IRVING: Does your Lordship have a question on that letter?
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. Thank you very much.
15 MR IRVING: I am anxious, my Lord, from the timetable point of
16view to leave sufficient time before lunch for
17re-examination, so that the doctor can leave at lunch
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not worry too much about that.
20 MR RAMPTON: I think it unlikely that he will be able to
21anyway, my Lord.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us wait and see. Do not rush it because
23the timetable may have slipped a little.
24 MR IRVING: Dr Longerich, I am now going to go to a memorandum
25written by a man called Horst Arneirt. Now, when I asked
26you about this on Thursday, it seemed unfamiliar to you.
1Have you had time to review your recollection about it?
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I cannot recall the document you are referring to at the
4 Q. [Mr Irving] You cannot recall it?
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It was not available on Thursday. That is
6why we passed over it. Is that not right, Mr Irving?
7 MR IRVING: You did edit a book called (German title)?
8 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
9 Q. [Mr Irving] This document is printed in full at the end of this book,
10pages 240 onwards, and that should be one of the clips
11that I gave to ----
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It has not arrived yet.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think it was faxed and emailed to the
14Defendants over the weekend. Is that right?
15 MR IRVING: It was faxed to me from Australia this morning.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: So it is not one of the ones that went over
17the weekend?
18 MR IRVING: No. That was just the Wolff translation.
19Dr Longerich, will you accept that you published the
20memorandum of Arniert as document No. 94 in your book?
21 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I do not have it in front of me. Yes, I published the
23 Q. [Mr Irving] This is a conference relating to the deportation of the
24Jews from France?
25 MR RAMPTON: No, I am sorry, this cannot proceed. I do not
26want to be horrible, but it cannot proceed without our
1having the document.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you not got it?
3 MR RAMPTON: No. I have a piece of Gotz Aly. I have something
4from a book by Serge Klasfeld and that is it.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: This is headed "Die Endlosung der
6Judenfrager" on the front.
7 MR RAMPTON: I have got it. Sorry, my fault.
8 MR IRVING: There are two versions of it, my Lord. One is in a
9book published by Serge Klasfeld, who is a well-known
10French lawyer, but this morning I received a copy of the
11book which is actually published by the witness, edited by
12the witness, in which the same document appears as
13an appendix. This is a report by a man called Horst
14Arniert dated September 1st, relating to a meeting held on
1528th August, at the SS headquarters, the
16Reichssicherheitshauptamt, with Adolf Eichmann in the
17chair, and he informs the participants that the current
18evacuation programme of the Jews from France is to be
19completed by the end of that quarter. I am going to look
20just at some of those paragraphs. You have now a number
21of paragraphs in the document A, B, C, D and E. A is the
22reinforcement of the deporting transports in October. B
23is loading difficulties due to the longer hours of
24darkness in October. C is provision of blankets, shoes
25and eating utensils. D is the nationality problem. E is
26the purchase of barracks. Now I am going to look at C and
1E, in particular, Dr Longerich, and ask you to answer some
2questions on those paragraphs. First of all, this is a
3genuine document, is it not?
4 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
5 Q. [Mr Irving] Paragraph C, I am going to translate it and you can
6correct me if I am wrong: "Giving with them blankets,
7shoes and eating utensils for the transport participants.
8The commandant of the internment camp at Auschwitz has
9demanded that the necessary blankets, working shoes and
10eating utensils are without fail to be put into the
11transport, in with the transports. In so far as this has
12not been done, they are to be sent on to the camp
13afterwards immediately"?
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Irving] Now, if these Jews were being sent to Auschwitz to be
16liquidated, they would not need blankets, shoes and eating
17utensils, would they, and there would be no great urgency
18on the part of the commandant of Auschwitz to have this
19stuff sent on after the train had arrived.
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I think we went through this before. It is quite obvious
21that not all the Jews in Auschwitz were killed on the
22spot. From late summer 1942 onwards, the trains stopped
23in a camp called Kausal, it is near Auschwitz, and the
24people fit for work were actually unloaded and spent
25several months in slave labour camps in Silesia. Some of
26them actually survived. So I would guess that the
1reference here to shoes and other things refers to the
2people they wanted to keep alive for a couple of months.
3 Q. [Mr Irving] Paragraph E, the purchase of barracks: "SS Major Eichmann
4has requested that the purchase of the barracks that have
5been ordered by the commander of the security police in
6the Hague should be immediately put in hand. The camp is
7going to be erected in Russia. The departure transport of
8the barracks can be arranged in such a manner that each
9transport train can take three to five barracks with
10them." What does that tell you about the final
11destination of where these train loads of Jews were going
12to go?
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I have no indication actually that these barrack were
14actually, you know, in the end were loaded on these
15trains. It is only said that -- Eichmann expresses his
16intention that this should be done. I have no idea
17whether they did this or not and I have no idea what the
18purpose of this barrack was. It is referring here to the
19commander of the security police in Den Haag, so this
20relates to the Netherlands, and at the moment I cannot say
21either whether this happened or what the purpose of this
22barracks was.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: This is talking about Dutch Jews, not French
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It refers here under E [German- document not provided].
26So this refers to the Dutch Jews only. He had no
1responsibility for the Jews in France. So it is obviously
2-- maybe they had a plan to, I do not know, whether they
3had a plan to build barracks somewhere for Dutch use. I
4have at the moment no idea.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Like they did for the French Jews?
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Definitely here it is nothing to do with the French Jews.
7 MR IRVING: Dr Longerich, you say you have no idea but in your
8book you reference another document which is in a note by
9a man call Roethke, R-O-E-T-H-K-T, dated August 26th 1942,
10instructing him to raise a list of points at a meeting on
1128th August 1942, which is the one we have been looking
12at. Here it says, point 8: "When can we count on the
13construction of the barracks of the Dusseldorf camp? Has
14construction already been commenced? Where exactly will
15the camp be situated?" There is a marginal note:
16"Attended to".
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I do not have the document in front of me, I have to say.
18 Q. [Mr Irving] Yes, but that is a document referenced in the book
19which ----
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, I should not comment on the document ----
21 Q. [Mr Irving] Do you remember the Roethkt document?
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Pardon?
23 Q. [Mr Irving] Do you remember the Roethkt document, the memorandum?
24 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, the book was published in '89, so I cannot recall
25every document in the book, and it should not be a big
26problem to have it in front of me and to read it simply.
1 Q. [Mr Irving] And on Thursday, of course, we did look at the other
2document quoted in the book "Auschwitz [German]" from
3Himmler to the Ministry of Finance also talking about how
4nice it would be to have the funds to buy the barracks so
5we do not have to ship the Jews over to Auschwitz and then
6back to the barracks they are building in Germany, they
7would save the transport costs ----
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think it says anything of the kind.
9I did look at that again. We can go back to it if you
10want to, but it seemed to me that actually what that was
11saying was: "There are problems transporting the French
12Jews right across the Reich to Auschwitz. Therefore, as a
13sort of security measure we will build barracks for them
14on the western side of the Reich".
15 MR IRVING: Which will spare the cost.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Which will avoid -- no, but the bit I do not
17agree with is I do not think there is any reference to
18transporting French Jews back westwards to the barracks on
19the western side of Nazi Germany, as it then was.
20 Q. [Mr Irving] I am indebted to your Lordship for having attended to this
21matter with such concentration. My reading of the
22document was that they were -- I have the quotation here
23[German- document not provided] "The costs on paragraph
24B, and paragraph B concerned the section of the trip from
25the Reich frontier to the Auschwitz camp, can in future be
26dramatically cut or substantially cut, reduced, by the
1erection of a reception camp in western Germany", which
2means they are not going to go to Auschwitz. They are
3just going to stay at the reception camp.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Quite. They are not going to come back
5from Auschwitz. That is the point.
6 MR IRVING: That is right. They are trying to avoid this two
7way trip. We may be arguing about the same thing.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I cannot find the reference.
9 MR IRVING: But I mean the general question which arises is,
10why are they building all these camps, Dr Longerich, in
11Russia, the White Sea, Western Germany at Dusseldorf for
12the deported Jews if the extermination is the homicidal
13intent of everyone from Hitler downwards?
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I cannot comment on this question because I have not seen
15any evidence, you know, for the building of camps. I have
16seen some scattered documents which refer to plans or
17ideas to build camps. One is referring to probably a camp
18for Dutch Jews in Russia. The other one is referring for
19an idea to build a camp for French Jews on the western
20part of the Reich. Then we have a letter from an SS man
21to his comrades referring to -- which is, in my opinion, a
22camouflage letter. So I do not think we have a story of a
23number of -- you know, we do not have here a story, you
24know, can establish a story of camp building for Jews in
26 Q. [Mr Irving] Can we look at it in two sections? Suppose we admit for
1the moment that no such camps were built, and I have no
2idea, can we say that it is evident from the documents
3which have been put to you on Thursday and today that
4there was an intention at high level, certainly Adolf
5Eichmann, certainly the Reichssicherheitshauptamt to build
6camps and to obtain the barracks, to purchase the
7barracks, to build reception centres elsewhere than
8Auschwitz for these deported European Jews, and the
9intention was there, regardless of whether or not the
10barracks were actually built?
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, I would not draw this conclusion from these
12documents because I only can say Eichmann expressed his
13view in this letter here that one should actually order
14barracks, or that the commander of the security police in
15Den Haag should order barracks. It could also be a part
16of this camouflage operation, and I cannot see how you
17connect this document, this quote from Eichmann, with
18other documents and can build up this story, kind of
19intention or story that actually they planned to build a
20system of camps, whereas, on the other hand, we have
21plenty of evidence what actually happened to the people
22who were deported from France, from the Netherlands and
23from Vienna and Bratislava to extermination camps. So
24I cannot see the kind of alternative history.
25 Q. [Mr Irving] Yes, but we are looking at intentions here and the
26possibility that the people at the top level were issuing
1orders and living in possibly cloud cuckoo land, imagining
2that nice things were happening and that the Jews were
3being sent, at the worst possible extent, to build roads
4until they dropped in the White Sea or in Ruthenia or
5elsewhere, and that they were actually making concrete
6provisions for it. They were saying, "Send the boots and
7the shoes and the blankets and the eating equipment and
8build the barracks and provide the funds to purchase the
9barracks", and this kind of thing was going on?
10 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, that is the official line. This was a part of this
11system of camouflage. You can probably, if you read, for
12instance, the official declaration of the Party
13Chancellory, what happened to the Jews, you find the same
14sorry. You send them to the East, they will live in
15barracks, they have to do hard labour. This is the
16official camouflage story and this is reflected to a
17certain extent in these documents as well.
18 Q. [Mr Irving] Yes, it is right, is it not, that there was camouflage
19evident in the euthanasia programme? There are great
20similarities between the euthenasia programme and the
21Final Solution, are there not?
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Irving] And that no one denies that the truth was kept from the
24parents of the unfortunate mentally disabled children and
25so on. There was camouflage there, was there not?
26 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
1 Q. [Mr Irving] But here we have the problem that some of the documents
2seek with brutal frankness about what is going on and a
3lot of documents which do not fit in with your consensus
4you dismiss as camouflage, and this is the only way you
5can get over the other documents. You roundly dismiss the
6other ones as camouflage?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, I would not agree with you and I made my statements
8concerning these documents, and I do not agree with this
9view, with this view.
10 Q. [Mr Irving] I am now going to come to vernichtung durch arbeit which
11is page 76 of your report, I think. My Lord, I am now
12just going to pick up a few remaining points on his report
13and then ----
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Right. Just for the transcript, I am putting
15Arnott, this little clip you have just handed in about
16Arnott, in tab 13, but I would be grateful if somebody
17could provide me with another file because this one is
19 MR IRVING: Page 77, Dr Longerich, you say that the SS invented
20the expression "annihilation through labour", "vernichtung
21durch arbeit", now you have produced to the court this
22morning three or four documents you obtained from the
23Institute of History, is that right?
24 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, I did not produce them. I have them with me. I can
25produce them.
26 Q. [Mr Irving] I have not had time to scan them in any detail, but I can
1see we have here vernichtung [German - document not
2provided] and there is vernichtung durch arbeit in one of
3the documents. Is there reference there to destroying
4only the Jews through labour or is it ----
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No. There was a programme vernichtung durch arbeit, there
6was an agreement between ----
7 Q. [Mr Irving] Tirack and Himmler, is that right?
8 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Himmler, and this refers to the killing of so-called
9asocials and then in the letter it says who the asocials
10are, and among one of the groups are the Jews actually,
11people actually kept in German prisons.
12 Q. [Mr Irving] Just any Jews or Jewish convicts?
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Oh, no, convicts.
14 Q. [Mr Irving] Were they going to be destroyed as Jews or were they going
15to be destroyed as convicts?
16 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I do not think for the people who were destroyed it
17mattered, it really mattered, but I think it is clear that
18the definition asocialist, the definition is given in this
19document. It says "Asocials are Jews", and so on in other
20groups. So I do not think, we cannot make a difference
22 Q. [Mr Irving] Asocials are Jews or Jewish convicts?
23 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Jewish convicts and others, yes.
24 Q. [Mr Irving] So I have to ask the question again. Which was the most
25important element in this particular homicidal equation,
26the fact that they were Jews or the fact that they were
1convicts exposed them to vernichtung ----
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, the fact that they were Jewish convicts made them
3asocials, so I cannot separate these two issues.
4 Q. [Mr Irving] Are you saying that they said the other convicts were not
5asocials, the non-Jewish convicts were not asocials?
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, I think in the letter it is clearly said who
7actually were the others. I do not have the document in
8front of me. If you want to read out the others, I think
9it becomes clear what the definition of "asocials" is.
10 Q. [Mr Irving] Does the word "vernichtung durch arbeit" appear in the
11other documents that you produced?
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, there is a ----
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have I got the documents you are now
14referring to?
15 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I do not think so. They just arrived this morning and
16Mr Rampton gave them to me.
17 MR RAMPTON: I think we made copies of them, my Lord. I am
18hoping that somebody has got them.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is becoming a bit of a nightmare, this
20case, with odd documents cropping up and getting slotted
21in, here, there and everywhere.
22 MR RAMPTON: I agree. I have my own copy which I will
23willingly surrender.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, do not do it if it is the only one you
25have. Maybe I have them, but I do not know what they look
1 MR RAMPTON: They look dirty.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I may have them then. I
3have certainly some dirty documents. I think I may have
4them. Have they got 285 written on them?
5 MR RAMPTON: Yes, there are actually three documents. The
6first one is a four-page document and then there are, I
7think, two single sheet documents. So far as I can tell,
8they are three different documents.
9 MR IRVING: I have to say that a rapid scan produces the word
10vernichtung durch arbeit on the first page, 2864 at the
11bottom, but I cannot see it on any of the other pages.
12I am sure Dr Longerich knows ----
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] There are two different things.
14 MR IRVING: Yes.
15 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] There was a programme of vernichtung through work. This
16was according to the agreement between Tirack and Bormann
17and, as you said, this was a programme for the murder of
18asocials and asocials included as a category convicted
19Jews. I used the expression here just to show you that
20the expression vernichtung durch arbeit was used during
21the war by German authorities. I used the term in my
22report in a wider sense, saying that if you look at the
23Holocaust, the vernichtung durch arbeit in this wider
24sense, was a complementary element. So the best -- and it
25was not -- the terminology was sometimes different.
26 So the best, I think, proof, the best evidence,
1for this complementary element is the Wannsee protocol
2because here Heydrich referred to Jews sent to the East
3used in labour gangs. They would become, they would die,
4you know, out of natural dissemination and the fittest
5would survive and have to be dealt with else in another
6way. So I think this is the best ----
7 Q. [Mr Irving] By [German]?
8 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] --- this is the best evidence I think I have that this
9method, extermination through labour, was also used on a
10wide scale to exterminate Jewish, to exterminate Jews as
11slave labourers.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just ask this one question? So what
13you are saying is that you do not think whether the label
14was being used during the war ----
15 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
16 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] --- is of particular significance?
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, that is true.
18 MR IRVING: I was about to say exactly the same. I was going
19to put it like this. The fact is that the phrase
20vernichtung durch arbeit occurs in scattered documents, is
21that right?
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, that is true.
23 Q. [Mr Irving] And, in your opinion, it could be applied to what Heydrich
24was proposing at the Wannsee conference?
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Exactly.
26 Q. [Mr Irving] But it was not absolutely used in the documents, the
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] The phrase vernichtung durch arbeit, as far as I know,
3relates, as the documents relate to this limited
4programme, if I may say so, the killing of asocials.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not myself think that we need to put
6these anywhere in the papers.
7 MR RAMPTON: No, I agree. There is one of them which may have
8some significance in a different context which is the
9longest of the three.
10 MR IRVING: It is construction of Auschwitz, I think, is it
11not, or expansion of Auschwitz?
12 MR RAMPTON: It is not the construction of Auschwitz. It is
13the expansion of Auschwitz which is rather significant
14because this document is dated 16th September 1942.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, would you like to suggest where it
16goes? Probably in Auschwitz, will it not?
17 MR RAMPTON: It will best go in the Auschwitz file.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, is that all right?
19 MR RAMPTON: In tab 4 of ----
20 MR IRVING: Indeed, my Lord.
21 MR RAMPTON: Tab 4 of K2, I think it is.
22 MR IRVING: It would be nicer to have a legible copy of it and
23I am sure his Lordship will agree.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I agree with that entirely. I do not know
25whether that is possible.
26 MR IRVING: If a legible copy is provided, I can have it
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Tab 4, did you say, Mr Rampton?
3 MR RAMPTON: Yes, that is the one with the written documents in
4it, I think, tab 4, K2. 3A following.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where are you suggesting?
6 MR RAMPTON: Tab 4, 3A, B, C, D.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
8 MR IRVING: Page 77, paragraph 9, Dr Longerich, you say in
9Auschwitz between February 1942 and January 1945 between
10900,000 and 1 million Jews were murdered. I have to ask
11you what documentary evidence do you have for the
12statement that 900,000 or a million Jews were murdered as
13opposed to merely being sent there?
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Sorry?
15 Q. [Mr Irving] As opposed to merely being sent there?
16 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, I followed here because I am not an expert on
17Auschwitz, and we have an expert here. I followed,
18basically, the research which was done during the last
19years, mainly by van Pelt, and also by Piper. So, of
20course, you have to make a distinction here between the
21people who died, sent to gas chambers and the people who
22actually died in the camp.
23 Q. [Mr Irving] From other causes?
24 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] From other causes, but I think the whole working
25conditions in the camp were such that you can, in general,
26say that somebody who was transported to Auschwitz and
1died there because of exhaustion, hunger and of other
2causes was murdered. This was a part of a murderous
3programme in this general sense, I use the term here.
4 Q. [Mr Irving] That is important. I think this needs to be fixed,
5therefore. You are saying, therefore, that the 1 million
6people who died in Auschwitz were murdered, not
7necessarily homicidally killed by violence, but you
8include in that figure the numbers who died from typhus
9and the other epidemics?
10 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, if you look at the figures, the vast majority of
11Jews who were sent to Auschwitz were directly sent into
12gas chambers, and it is -- I am referring to, I would
13definitely say that this was a murderous operation and
14I would also include the other people who died there.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I am not sure you quite really grappled
16with Mr Irving's question which was are you actually
17including in your 1 million figure those who died as a
18result of forced labour?
19 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
20 MR IRVING: And the starvation, pestilence, plague, epidemics,
21all the other ancillary causes?
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, as far as I am familiar with the history of
23Auschwitz, this is a situation which was deliberately
24prepared by the camp authorities. So it is not simply a
25camp, you know, where things went wrong, but this is a
26camp designed to systematically kill people, also the
1labour camp.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are you basing yourself on basically
3Professor van Pelt?
4 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Van Pelt also.
5 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Because I am not sure that his evidence was quite to that
6effect, but at all events that is what you say?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
8 MR IRVING: Are you aware of the book by Professor Arnott
9Myard, "Why did the heavens not darken" ----
10 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
11 Q. [Mr Irving] --- in which he said, in his opinion, two things, first of
12all -- I will ask you first of all -- he said that in his
13opinion by far the greatest number of deaths at Auschwitz
14were from what I would call non-homicidal causes?
15 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] That is definitely not true.
16 Q. [Mr Irving] That is definitely, in your opinion, not true. In his
17opinion he said, "The only evidence to the contrary is
18unreliable, being based on eyewitnesses"?
19 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I am afraid to say, Professor Myerd, his book is
20particularly weak, as far as Auschwitz is concerned. This
21number here is based on the calculation that about 865,000
22Jews actually were not registered in the camps. It was
23865,000 were directly sent to the gas chambers and
24100,000,, about 200,000 Jews were registered in the camp
25and of these 200,000, 100,000 died because of the
26conditions in the camp.
1 Q. [Mr Irving] What documentary evidence do you have -- just a brief
2question -- for this non-registering of the ones who were
3sent directly to the gas chambers?
4 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, these are calculations and estimations based on the
5reconstruction of the deportations from the different
6places to the camp. They were done by different scholars
7at different times in different countries, and this is,
8I think, the number 900,000 to 1 million, is the best we
9know at the moment.
10 Q. [Mr Irving] So this comes back to the first question I asked in this
11series which is what evidence do you have for the fact
12that the 1 million who were sent to Auschwitz stayed
13there, effectively, and were not transported somewhere
14else? None of them, it was not just used as a transit
15camp to any effect?
16 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] We know that some of the people sent to Auschwitz were
17actually sent to other camps, but it does not, I think the
18statement here that between 900,000 and 1 million Jews
19were murdered represents the knowledge we have at the
20moment about the events in this camp.
21 Q. [Mr Irving] Dr Longerich, those are the only questions I have to ask
22on your expert report, but I am afraid I am going to ask
23you (as a facility of which his Lordship is aware) just to
24comment on two documents. One is the Horthy conference
25with Hitler. Do you have it, April 16th 1943? It is two
26pages, my Lord.
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Just a moment.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I have it. Thank you very much.
3 MR IRVING: Your Lordship will remember that we were looking at
4the reasons why they wanted the Hungarians to take steps
5against the Jews. I was invited to produce evidence that
6there were reasons. Also, I have translated rather more,
7in other words, than was put into the expert reports.
8Does your copy have the German original?
9 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I am sorry, I do not find the copy at the moment. I am
10sure you gave it to me.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It looks like this. It is headed "Horthy
12conference with Hitler". Is there a spare? Yes, there is
13a spare coming up.
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
15 MR IRVING: Does it have the German original attached to it at
16the end?
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, it is not the original, it is ----
18 Q. [Mr Irving] The Hilgruber text?
19 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
20 Q. [Mr Irving] I am only going to rely on a few words there. Eight lines
21down, we have ----
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] In your translation or in the original?
23 Q. [Mr Irving] In the translation. "Germany was standing today with her
24morale firm because she had removed the Jews of which even
25those remaining would also soon have vanished to the
26East." That is Hitler talking. Is that an accurate
1translation of the words used in the original?
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, let us look at the original.
3 Q. [Mr Irving] It is the last line.
4 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Which page?
5 Q. [Mr Irving] Six lines down on page 240. "Vanished to the East [German
6- document not provided]".
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
8 Q. [Mr Irving] OK. Of course, you would probably say "to the East" is
9just camouflage, would you?
10 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, what is happening here is that Hitler tries to
11persuade Horthy to hand over his Jews and he would not
12actually say in this conversation, "Actually we are going
13to kill them" because it is an official visit, they are
14minutes, and Hitler would have avoided that. In these
15minutes you find the term, you know, "We are going to kill
16them in the East". He would use this phrase "They
17vanished to the east".
18 Q. [Mr Irving] Is pressure not actually being put on Horthy not to hand
19them over but to lock them up, to lock them away?
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No. I think if you look at the history of deportations
21from other European countries, it is quite clear what the
22Germans did at this time. They were sending deportation
23trains to extermination camps.
24 Q. [Mr Irving] Four lines from the bottom of the translation, please, the
25first page: "For the present war and the shape which it
26had taken, they", the Jews, "were responsible particularly
1for the bombing of the civilian population and the
2countless victims among women and children". My Lord, you
3will remember that Professor Evans disputed that bombing
4was talked about in this conference. You will find the
5original German on the same page, 240, towards the end of
6the paragraph.
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
8 Q. [Mr Irving] Yes?
9 MR RAMPTON: No, he did not say that.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think what he said was -- I am trying to
11remember -- the Hungarians were co-operative or felt
12resentful against the Jews because of the allied bombing
13in, I think, Hamburg and places like that. It is a
14slightly different point, is it not?
15 MR IRVING: I am sure your Lordship will look up the
16appropriate reference when the time comes.
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Am I right about that, Mr Rampton?
18 MR RAMPTON: I do not remember that. What I do remember
19Professor Evans reporting is that Hitler had mentioned the
20bombing, but had said that it was a bit irritating but
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I remember that too. Was that in reference
23to the Hungarians?
24 MR RAMPTON: I think it is in reference to them, but I could be
25wrong. I think that was the Professor's evidence.
26 MR IRVING: Well, I remember lecturing Professor Evans on the
1air raids that had taken place on Essen and Nuremberg in
2the previous days.
3 MR RAMPTON: Yes, I dare say he did not take it too well.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think what Evans said was that it was
5ridiculous to suppose that the Hungarians could care less
6about what had happened in Essen.
7 MR IRVING: Well, some days ago.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Some days ago.
9 MR IRVING: My Lord, over the page we now go to the translation
10at page 245.
11 MR RAMPTON: Yes, my Lord. It is day 23, 21st February, page
12159, yes. This is Professor Evans, line 15: "Hitler says
13the attacks themselves have been irritating but wholly
14trivial", so the bombing was talked about.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much.
16 MR IRVING: We are now looking at the second page,
17Dr Longerich, of the translation. At the end of the first
18paragraph, this is the famous piece, of course, "He had
19done, he said, everything one decently could" -- this is
20Horthy -- "he had done, he said, everything one decently
21could against the Jews, but one could not very well murder
22them or bump them off somehow. The Fuhrer replied that
23there was no need for that either. Hungary could
24accommodate the Jews in concentration camps just like
25Slovakia". Now, is that an accurate translation of those
26two sentences? It is on page 245. "One could not very
1well murder them or bump them off somehow to which Hitler
2replied that there was no need for that either". Of
3course, I rely on this following sentence: "Hungary could
4accommodate the Jews in concentration camps just like
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. At this time -- I am sorry to interrupt -- at this
7time the majority of the Slovakian Jews were already
8killed in concentration camps, extermination camps.
9 Q. [Mr Irving] So can I remind you of the little exchange we had a few
10minutes where I said that the Germans were not pressing
11the Hungarians to hand over the Jews; they were merely
12asking them to lock them up?
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. They invent this story that all the Slovakian Jews
14are at the moment still kept, locked in concentration
15camps. This is the way he tries to persuade Horthy, you
16know, to hand over his Jews. If he had agreed, he would
17have done the same, the same with them as he did in 1944
18when he systematically killed the Hungarian Jews. I do
19not -- I cannot see the point actually of this.
20 Q. [Mr Irving] Is there another explanation for why Hitler would say
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, he was more explicit than on the meeting on 17th or
23the 18th.
24 Q. [Mr Irving] On the following day.
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] So when actually he used the quite different and quite
26clearer language a couple of days after that.
1 Q. [Mr Irving] One day later?
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] One day later.
3 Q. [Mr Irving] Is it possible that the reason why Hitler compares Hungary
4with Slovakia is because Hitler does not know what is
5happening in Slovakia, is that possible?
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No, that is impossible. It simply defies reason that
7Hitler at this stage in '43 does not know what is
8happening in extermination camps.
9 Q. [Mr Irving] April 1943?
10 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
11 Q. [Mr Irving] So everything is camouflage, illogical, defies reason, yet
12it all seems to be in the same direction; there is this
13parallel version of history, is there not?
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No, there is no parallel ----
15 Q. [Mr Irving] There is your version, there is the German consensus among
16modern German historians and there is this alternative
17version which is suggested by quite a few documents.
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, I tried to explain that the Nazis in a systematic
19way tried to build up a system of camouflage. This is, of
20course, sometimes reflected in written documents as this
21one here, for instance. There is no alternative history.
22I think it is -- if one analyses these documents in a
23careful and systematic way, one can separate the
24camouflage language from actually their real intentions
25and their real aims.
26 Q. [Mr Irving] Well, the only last ----
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry to ask you this (and I think
2I have asked you before and I have forgotten the answer),
3the Hungarians Jews were not in the end handed over, were
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] They were handed. In 1944 they were handed over one year
7 MR RAMPTON: 450,000 of them were sent to Auschwitz.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is the evidence ----
9 MR RAMPTON: In 1944.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is the evidence there that they were killed
11at Auschwitz, that they were gassed?
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, the evidence is there.
13 MR RAMPTON: It was called the Hungarian action and 450,000
14Hungarian Jews, by which time Hungary had been invaded by
15the Nazis and Horthy put on one side, they were gassed at
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry to have asked that question. I
18forgot ----
19 MR RAMPTON: In the summer of 1944.
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] In the next, in the meeting which actually, the meeting
21actually which preceded the German invasion of Hungary in
221944, Hitler had literally, you know, threatened Horthy
23with really physical force. Actually, his life was in
24danger in 1944. So this was the moment when he more or
25less had to agree that actually, yes, the Germans were
26invading his country and the deportation programme was
1then started after that.
2 Q. [Mr Irving] You have not referred to the Hungarian episode in your
3expert report, have you?
4 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I think only in a very short way in the second report, the
5systematic character.
6 Q. [Mr Irving] I do not really see any need to cross-examine you on that,
7unless his Lordship wishes me?
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, is it contentious that the Hungarian
9Jews were----
10 MR IRVING: Certainly on that scale, my Lord. If you ask
11Mr Rampton to explain how one could liquidate 450,000 Jews
12in three weeks, your Lordship will see part of the
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not asking you him do that, but I am
15asking you whether there is a dispute. The answer is yes
16as to numbers.
17 MR IRVING: The answer is yes.
18 My final question is that if Adolf Hitler was
19really bent on exterminating all the Jews, then are you
20aware of his conference with Antonescue at about the same
21time as the conference with Horthy ----
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Mm-mm.
23 Q. [Mr Irving] --- in April 1943? This is related in a book by Seymour
24Finger who has written a book called "American Jewry
25during the Holocaust". It is document NG 5049 which is a
26Nuremberg document.
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I do not have it in front of me.
2 Q. [Mr Irving] But in this record of the talk between Hitler and
3Antonescue, Hitler approved a proposal to permit 70,000
4Jewish children to leave Rumania to travel to Palestine.
5Are you familiar with that episode?
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I am not familiar with this particular episode, but I know
7that during the end of the war it is quite common that
8Hitler made exceptions and he allowed groups of Jews to
9leave his...
10 Q. [Mr Irving] This is April 1943?
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
12 Q. [Mr Irving] That is not the end of the war, is it?
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No.
14 Q. [Mr Irving] This is the height of what you would describe as the
15homicidal Final Solution, and yet here is Hitler, the man
16at the top?
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes -- sorry.
18 Q. [Mr Irving] I am sorry.
19 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Is it not interesting that it actually needed his personal
20approval to save these relatively small groups of Jews,
21you know, from the extermination programme? One had to go
22to Hitler if one wanted to save a group of Jews. We have
23presented earlier in those proceedings, you have presented
24a document actually where Goring complained that he had to
25go to Hitler to save two Jewish scientists from the
26deportations. So it shows you this complete and total
1will of extermination. One had to go to Hitler actually
2to ask him for his permission to exempt a single or a
3group of Jews from deportations and death.
4 Q. [Mr Irving] Of course, Hitler's name would cut through any red tape,
5would it not?
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
7 MR IRVING: I have no further questions, I do not think.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have timed it very well.
9 MR IRVING: It was not done with that in mind, my Lord. It is
10literally I have no further questions.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, thank you very much. Mr Rampton, would
12you rather re-examine after the adjournment?
13 MR RAMPTON: Yes, it probably would be less fragmentary if
14I start after the adjournment.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, that is what I would have thought. So
16shall we say 5 to 2?
17 (Luncheon Adjournment)
18Dr Longerich, Recalled
19< Re-Examined by Mr Rampton QC.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I have seen the correspondence
21with Harry Counsel and that seems to have sorted that
22problem out.
23 MR IRVING: Yes. Thank you, my Lord.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Good. Yes, Mr Rampton?
25 MR RAMPTON: Dr Longerich, I have some questions. It may take
26a little bit of time because some of the topics are a
1little intricate. I think on last Wednesday you gave us a
2description, in general terms, of the relationship between
3Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler as you saw it. Do you
4remember doing that?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, I remember that.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] And you told us really, in essence, this, the idea that
7Hitler did not know about the systematic extermination
8which was being carried out by Himmler and the SS was, to
9use your words, absolutely absurd.
10 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do you remember saying that?
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] I would like to expand on that a little bit, if I may?
14How often on average during the war years did Hitler and
15Himmler meet?
16 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, we have a quite clear picture from the Dienst
17calendar, so I think they met at least once a week,
18probably more.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] How long had they known each other?
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] They knew each other since at least 1923.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] Himmler was part of the 1923 Putsch, was he not?
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, indeed.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] What was the date of Himmler's appointment as Reichsfuhrer
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It is 1929.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] And as to the antlosen of the Judenfrager, can you give us
1some dates for Himmler's acquisition of jurisdiction over
2the solution of that question, if necessary, by reference
3to different parts of Europe.
4 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, jurisdiction ----
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] Jurisdiction. The SS were ultimately responsible for
6carrying out the Final Solution, is that right?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Did Himmler always have complete jurisdiction over this
9question or did he have to fight for it?
10 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No. The jurisdiction for the responsibility for the
11Jewish question, or so-called Jewish question, or
12jurisdiction, laid first with the Minister of Interior and
13he had in a way to get this responsibility on board. He
14had to fight for it. There is an entry in the Dienst
15calendar at the end of 1940: "Judenfrager [German]". So
16you can see here that there was a kind of struggle going
17on between him and the traditional administration in
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] And was it resolved in his favour or not?
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, I think it is clear from 1942 onwards that it was
21resolved in his favour.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You give that date because of the speech
23about this "heavy responsibility being put on my
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. The difficulty is -- it is difficult to answer this
26question because you get this impression from his entries
1in the Dienst calendar from speeches, and it is not easy
2to say, you know, the formal responsibility for the Jewish
3question, you know, was when this was taken over by
5 MR RAMPTON: Was there any stage at which Hitler had, as it
6were, to arbitrate jurisdiction as between Himmler and
7other people such as the Reichs Commissarts and people
8like that?
9 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, I think you can -- it is quite clear throughout 1940
10and 1942 that Hitler was engaged with this question.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] I want to take July 1942 as a particular illustration, if
12I may, of what you were telling us last Wednesday. Can
13you take the blue bundle and turn to page 247, please?
14Here you should find copied -- you may need to turn the
15file round -- a run of entries from the Dienst calendar.
16Have you got 247? It should be an entry for 11th July
171942. It may be my page numbering is a little bit -- that
18is right, is it?
19 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do we have translations of this or is it not
21really necessary?
22 MR RAMPTON: Is it what, sorry?
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Translations or not necessary?
24 MR RAMPTON: It is not necessary. They are very simple entries
25-- even I can manage! If anybody should want to deal
26with the footnotes, that is different, but I am not
1bothered with them at the moment. Sonnabend which in
2those days was German for Saturday, was it not?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Sonnabend is Saturday, yes.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is still Saturday?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] 11th July 1942. He makes a journey after 12.30 to the
7Fuhrer headquarters. It does not matter where they are
8for the moment. Do you know which headquarters Hitler
9would have been at at that date?
10 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I think he is still in Wolfschanze.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] And he has a meal, presumably we could call it lunch, at
122 o'clock with the Fuhrer?
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] And if you turn over two pages to 249, on 14th July, which
15is Tuesday, he speaks to Wolff on the telephone and then
16-- this is the left-hand column -- at 12.30 he goes to
17the Fuhrer headquarters, yes?
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] And again at 2 o'clock they have a meal together?
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] And they have a conversation, or Himmler does, with
22General Thomas and SS Oberfuhrer Werlin. Who were they?
23 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, General Thomas is the head of the wehrmacht armament
24department and Werlin, if I am not mistaken, is head of
25Daimler Benz company.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] He is an industrialist?
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, with an SS rank.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then if you turn over the page once more, I do not know
3what the page number is, 250 might it be? I do not know.
4Do you see Friday, 17th July 1942?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] The right-hand column. He goes from Berlin to Catovitz in
7Upper Silesia, do you see that?
8 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] And then he meets Gauleiter Bracht who is the Gauleiter of
10what area?
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Of Silesia.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Of Silesia, and some people called Schmaze Kasen Vogel,
13but also Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz?
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] And after that he goes to Auschwitz, does he not?
16 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] That is true, yes.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] And he stays in Auschwitz until later on that day when he
18goes and has a meal with the Fuhrer Heim -- that is not
19Hitler, that is the ----
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No, that is the ----
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is the local man, is it not?
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Bracht and he spends the evening with Gauleiter Bracht?
24 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Next day, which is again a Saturday, 18th, he goes from
26Auschwitz to Catovitz and he goes from there to Lublin,
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Where he meets Kruge, Globocnik and somebody called
4Schelenberg. Is Schelenberg a significant figure in this
5story or not?
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Schelenberg was, as far as I am aware, head of the
7Auslans, the special espionage service of the SDs -- thank
8you very much.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] If you turn over the page we see a family photograph on
10the left-hand side of these people actually in the
11Stammlager at Auschwitz. Then the right-hand side at
129 o'clock in the evening he meets with Kruge Pohl who is
13head of the concentration camp system, right?
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, Kruge is the SS and police leader of the
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Oh, right. So he is the SS -- and what position is
17Globocnik then?
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, Globocnik is the SS and police leader, so the man
19who has the overall responsibility for the SS of police
20forces in the district of Lublin.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] Of Lublin. So Kruge is Globocnik's superior?
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, the highest SS police leader.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] But Pohl is there in a different capacity because he is
24the head of the concentration camp system, is that right?
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] And so we come to the 19th over the page, 252, I think
1I am on, but I may be wrong.
3 MR RAMPTON: Sunday 19th, he goes to Travniki. What happened
4at Travniki?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] At this day?
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, 8.30 in the morning on Sunday 19th?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, this it says: "Inspection of a schutzmanschaft
8battalion. This is an auxiliary police battalion. So we
9know that this Travniki men were used as guards in
10concentration camps -- in particular in extermination
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] So was it, in effect, a training sort of establishment?
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then he goes back to Lublin in the evening and at
158 o'clock he has a meal with Globocnik and what is the
16abbreviation "NSCHL"?
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Sorry?
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Bottom part of the page, [German- document not provided]
19Globocnik and then "Anschleisen"?
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, Anschleisen, after that.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then there is a meeting or a conversation is it?
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, followed by "versprechen" is a ----
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Discussion?
24 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] --- meeting yes.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] With Kruge and somebody called Rickert?
26 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then on Monday, finally, on Monday 20th, he leaves at half
2past 12 midday back for Berlin, is that right?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] From Lublin?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then if you turn over, please, to page, I think it is 254
7or 53/54, this is taken from the second part of your
8report, a letter that Himmler wrote, apparently, to Kruge
9on 19th July while he was still in Lublin. Do you see
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] Can you look at the German for us, please?
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] Which is in a printed document. It does not matter what
15it is because there is no dispute about this letter. He
16says: "I order that the umsiedlung which literally
17translated means what?
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Literally "resettlement".
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, "of the whole of the Jewish population of the General
20Government shall be ended by 31st -- carried out and ended
21by 31st September 1942", is that right?
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] That is right.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] How do you take the word "umsiedlung" in that context.
24 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, in this context, also dealt with in the glossary,
25I think, it is quite clear that, it is absolutely clear,
26sorry, that the term "umsiedlung" means in this sense the
1murder, the killing.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Why should it not mean deportation further
3East from the General Government?
4 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Because it is clear from other sources that in this
5context the term "umziedlung" is used as a camouflage word
6for "killing". And also we know then what happened after
7the 19th July. The systematic programme to kill the Jews
8of the General Government started particularly in this
10 MR RAMPTON: With a heavy prod from his Lordship, you have got
11ahead of where I want to be because I am coming to that.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry.
13 MR RAMPTON: No. It is important that this little narrative is
14done in blocks because it does tell a tale when one has
15been through it with care. Could you translate for us
16(because it is not in the text that you have translated in
17your report) could you with the help of your interpreter,
18if you need it, the second paragraph in this letter from
19Himmler to ----
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, the paragraph that starts with "mit dem".
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, that is it.
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, "After the 31st" ----
23 THE INTERPRETER: By 31st?
24 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] "By 31st December 1942, no person of Jewish origin is
25allowed to stay in the Generalgouvernement".
26 MR RAMPTON: Yes.
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] "The only exception -- unless that they are in the
2sammlager, collective camps, sammlager".
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It may be "transit", I do not know.
4 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No, not "transit".
5 MR RAMPTON: "Collection"?
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Collection, collection camps, I would say. "Sammer" in
7German means "collection".
8 MR IRVING: "Assembly"?
9 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] "Assembly" is a very good translation. "Assembly", yes,
10thank you, "assembly camps in Warsaw, Krakau ... Lublin.
11All other ----
12 THE INTERPRETER: "All other work volume"?
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] "... work volume which employ Jewish labour have to be
14ended by this date or if the completion is not possible,
15they have to be moved into one of the assembly camps, the
16labour assignments or labour", what did we say?
17 THE INTERPRETER: The workforce?
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, "workforce", yes.
19 MR RAMPTON: If I have understood it correctly, all the Jews of
20the General Government, about how many people are we
21talking about at this date, July '42?
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] In '42, we are talking about roughly 1.9 million.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] And with the exception of some that are in the assembly
24camps and will be put to work, all the Jews, the 1.9
25million, have got to be resettled, whatever that may mean,
26by the end of the year?
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is an order from Himmler?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Well, now let us see what happened next, if we may. If
5you turn over the page to 258, I think it is, there is
6another entry, I hope, from the Dienst calendar for
7Saturday, 25th July '42, is there? 259. I am sorry. My
8numbering has gone wrong again. 259. There we see
9that -- I do not know where Hagelvalt or Eichenhan are.
10Hagelvalt is where he lives, is it not, Himmler?
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, they now moved to their new headquarters in
12Ukrainia, as far as I know. So the Hagelvalt is still the
13code word for Himmler's own headquarters, but he edits
14this Eichenhan to make sure that this is not the same
15headquarters in Eastern Prussia.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] We can see it is a two hour journey. Then once again he
17has a meal with Hitler. Then there is another of these
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry, Hagelvalt is some sort of fairly
20advanced headquarters?
21 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Sorry, maybe I made mistake here. Hagelvalt is the code
22word for his old headquarters in East Prussia and
23Eichenhan is, as far as I know, the new code name for his
24new headquarters in Ukrainia. So I think he moved at this
25date, he moved from ----
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, Hagelvalt to Eichenhan?
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I have to say I am not sure whether Hagelvalt is still the
2code word for the old headquarter or whether the new
3headquarter has the same name, is also cold Hagelvalt.
4I am not sure, I have to say, at the moment.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Anyway, he has lunch with Hitler?
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
7 MR RAMPTON: He has lunch with Hitler afterwards?
8 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No, sorry, again Hagelvalt is his headquarter. It has the
9old name Hagelvalt. He was kept, so Hagelvalt is
10Himmler's headquarter. It was near Wolfschanze, now it is
11near Schitomeir(?) ----
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] So it is a name he just carries around with him?
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, as far as I can see it.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] He is a bit like Macbeth's enemies, he goes with burning
15wood on his head, as it were?
16 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] You may not ----
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Not a particularly close analogy.
19 MR RAMPTON: It is a wood, I think.
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, I see. Then after he has had lunch with Hitler, he
22has a discussion or a meeting with Bormann and Speer.
23What precisely was Speer's jurisdiction at this date?
24 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Speer was the Ministry for Armament, armament and
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then if you turn over two pages, please, three days after
1that meeting with Hitler, we find, do we not, a document
2that we glanced at this morning, I hope, a letter which is
3taken off a microfilm of 28th July 1942 from Himmler to
4Berger, yes?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] Who was Berger?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Berger was the head of the SS Hauptamt, SS main office.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] The second sentence says: "The occupied Eastern
9territories will be Jew free", does is it not? Yes?
10Second sentence [German] -- third. Have I miscounted?
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The third sentence.
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, this is in the first paragraph, the third sentence:
13"The occupied Eastern territories will be free of Jews".
14 MR RAMPTON: Yes. "The carrying out of this very hard order
15has been placed on my shoulders by the Fuhrer". Is that
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Can you think of a reason why if this operation merely
19involved transporting large numbers of Polish Jews to, let
20us say, nice work camps in the White Ruthenian Marshes or
21the Pripyat Marshes, if they are not the same thing,
22should have seemed to Himmler to be sehr schwer befehr?
23 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No, this would not be exceptional because he was
24responsible for large resettlements of millions of people
25the years before, so this was not exceptional for him.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] It would have been a routine administrative operation,
1would it not?
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The limited order though, correct me if I am
4wrong, Dr Longerich, which you said related only to the
5Pripyat Marshes was the instructions about driving the
6women into the swamps, was it not?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, this has to be seen in the context of an operation of
8this SS ----
9 MR RAMPTON: Yes.
10 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] --- fragen.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] But that was a year earlier, was it not?
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] This was in '41, yes.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] That was in August '41?
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] And it did not succeed because the women would not sink,
16is that not right?
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, this is one of the officers reported back ----
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is right.
19 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] --- they could not do it because the ----
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] The second SS cavalry regiment.
21 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] --- swamps were not deep enough.
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] The water was not deep enough?
23 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It was your reference to the Pripyat Marshes
25that made me think back to...
26 MR RAMPTON: I know, but I am coming to the White Ruthenian
1Marshes in a moment which I think are the same thing,
2though I am open to correction on that.
3 MR IRVING: Can we ask what the witness thinks is meant by
4the phrase "die Bedesten Ostgebiet"?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. "die Bedesten Ostgebiet" are the occupied Eastern
6territories. This is, in the terminology of this time,
7the occupied Soviet territories, including the territories
8the Soviet Union had annexed between 1939 and 1941. So
9the Baltic states, and so on.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But excluding the General Government?
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Normally, the terminology is, "Bedesten Ostgebiet" means
12the Soviet territories, not the Generalgouvernement.
13 MR RAMPTON: Do you know of any evidence -- this is getting a
14little bit of ahead of myself but I may as well deal with
15this part of it first -- Dr Longerich, whether eyewitness
16testimony or contemporaneous documents, whether clear or
17needing interpretation, that speak of large scale
18transports or deportations of Jews from the occupied
19Eastern territories further East?
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] At this stage, no.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] As a matter of practical reality, is there any evidence
22that it happened?
23 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do you take this document to be an indication that Himmler
25found the -- I think I have asked this already -- the
26administrative task of, I do not know how many Jews that
1there were left in the occupied Eastern territories by
2this date, do you?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Definitely several hundred thousand.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Right, presumably, they have got to go -- how Far East had
5the German Army got by this date?
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, this was in summer 1942, they were in their, I think
7just started their summer offensive so they were quite,
8I mean, advanced, so they had large parts of Ukrainia, for
9instance, under their control.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] And they were pushing out as far as Koursk and Stalingrad,
11were they not?
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] In due course?
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] So there would have been plenty of room behind them to
16which to transport all the remaining Jews of the occupied
17Eastern territories, would there not?
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] But you know of no evidence that it ever happened?
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] Can we compare for a moment what Himmler wrote in that
22letter about the very difficult order that the Fuhrer had
23laid on his shoulders with what Mr Irving relies on as
24evidence of the truth, the historical truth, which is what
25Karl Wolff told Dr , I cannot remember, was it Fiegler or
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Ziegler.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Ziegler?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Ziegler, sorry.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Von Ziegler in 1952. Have you still got that German of
5that document ----
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I hope so.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] --- with you? It is on page 5 of the German and, my Lord,
8it is the fifth page of the English under the square
9bracket 00032. Do you mind if I use the English of
10Mr Irving?
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No, I do not have the -- I could not find the...
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] You do not have the document. I am sorry.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where are we going to put this?
14 MR RAMPTON: Day 2, tab 11, my Lord. 14A the page number is.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That will do.
16 MR RAMPTON: It is one of the documents that was passed up this
17morning, I think. It is only short. In your German
18version, Dr Longerich, it is the second paragraph on page
195 with page numbers at the top. It is the sentence which
20begins "es war im August 1942". Do you have that? Page 5
21at the top or 00032 at the bottom.
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Sorry, the German sentence begins?
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] The German sentence begins "es war im August 1942".
24 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, I have the German sentence.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Have you got that?
26 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do you mind if I read out the English?
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] But do follow it in the German because you can check the
4translation at the same time if you want. "Around August
5942 GW", that is?
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] General Wolff.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] General Wolff, yes, I thought his name was Karl, I must
8say, "... General Wolff undertook drive from the Fuhrer's
9headquarters to Berlin. He found Himmler there in a state
10of deep depression. To General Wolff's questions as to
11what was up, Hitler dropped dark and vague hints. Wolff
12could have no idea what one had had to take upon oneself
13for the Messiah of the next 2000 years" -- we can say that
14is Hitler, can we not?
15 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] "... in order that this man remained personally free of
17sin. He, the Reichsfuhrer, was beyond mortal help. For
18the sake of the German people and its Fuhrer, he had had
19to burden things on to his own shoulders of which nobody
20must ever be allowed to learn". If you have to choose
21between a postwar interrogation of Karl Wolff, which
22resulted in that account, and the letter which Heinreich
23Himmler wrote to Berger at the time in 1942, which source
24do you prefer?
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I would prefer contemporary documents like this source.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then, finally, there is one other document in here that
1I would like you to look at. It is the next document on
2from the Himmler to Berger in the main blue file?
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: This is part of the same sequence,
4Mr Rampton, is it?
5 MR RAMPTON: It is, my Lord.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Because I want to ask something after you
7have finished.
8 MR RAMPTON: Absolutely. Then I am coming to the Furl letter
9in a moment. Do you see that this is some kind of a copy
10of a letter written by somebody called Guntzen Muller to
11Karl Wolff on the same day, 28th July 1942, is it?
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, that it is in front of me.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Does it recount that 5,000 Jews are going every day from
14Warsaw to Treblinka and twice a week 5,000 from a place
15whose name I cannot pronounce, it is something like
16"Schimmel" to Belzec?
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Premisul(?) to Belzec, yes.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] To Belzec. So that is a total of 45,000 a week, you can
19take it from me, at that time. That has been going on,
20has it not, since 22nd July 1942? Yes?
21 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, this is clear from this letter.
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then does the last part of the letter tell us that in due
23time, I think in October, transports will go from Warsaw
24via Lublin to Sobibor?
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. They do not tell us in what quantities, do they?
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No, because they are just working on the track, on the
2railway track.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] On the track, yes. The transports are held up from the
4track. But assume for a moment that that little
5collection of documents is evidence of a massive
6extermination programme underway at the General Government
7and in the occupied Eastern territories, that Himmler is
8in charge of it, and we have seen the contacts between
9Himmler and Hitler during this time. How credible does it
10seem to you that Hitler, Himmler's old chum, Hitler, did
11not know what was going on?
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, I find this absolutely incredible that he should not
13have known that.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just ask you a question because I am a
15bit puzzled at the moment. Your evidence is that the
16order that Hitler gave Himmler related to the Jews in the
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
19 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] And they accounted for, I think you said, about 600,000
20out of about two and a half million?
21 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
22 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] The thing that is slightly going through my mind at the
23moment is, well, that leaves a bit of question mark over
24the remaining, whatever it is, 1.9 million.
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Sorry, you are referring to?
26 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] To the Jews who were in the General Government?
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
2 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] But not in the Eastern territories?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] What was the position, as far as they were concerned? Is
5there any evidence one way or the other?
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I am sorry. I am not sure whether I could follow the
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I think you have not followed the
9question. Perhaps I did not put it very clear.
10 MR RAMPTON: My Lord, perhaps I could deal with it?
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, all right, do.
12 MR RAMPTON: Undoubtedly I see the question that your Lordship
13has asked. Himmler's letter to Berger deals with the Jews
14in the occupied Eastern territories, in other words,
16 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] And they have to be cleared by the end of the year?
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] These trains which we are talking about here in the letter
20from Guntz Muller to Wolff are not Russian Jews at all?
21 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No, this is the Generalgouvernement, Poland.
22 Q. [Mr Rampton] This is the General government?
23 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] And they are going variously in, one might think, rather
25large numbers from Warsaw, this place Premisul, and so on
26and so forth, to the three Reinhardt camps?
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor, are they not?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] My question is where were they going?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, they would be deported to these camps, to the
6extermination camps, and would be killed there.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do you know of any evidence that any of those three camps
8was at any time a work camp?
9 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No, this is particularly, these were particular
10extermination camps, very small camps, only one purpose,
11to kill as many people as possible in a very short time.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That does not though actually quite meet the
13point that I was trying to put. I will try again.
14 MR RAMPTON: I am sorry.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, it does partially. We are concerned in
16this aspect of the case really very much with what Hitler
17knew and authorized. You have been taken through a series
18of documents which you have given evidence establishes to
19your satisfaction at least that Hitler did order Himmler
20to free the Ostgebiet of Jews by, as Mr Rampton says, the
21end of December 1942.
22 My question really related to the vastly greater
23number of Jews who were at that time in the area of the
24General Government, and what I was really seeking to ask
25you is do you have any knowledge of any documents or are
26there any inferences that one can draw as to what Hitler
1said, if anything, about what was to be the fate of the
2Jews in the General Government?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] We do not have the same document for the General
4Government. We have this document for the 28th July, but
5not a comparable document for the Jews of the
6Generalgouvernement. So we are relying here on a
7construction, a reconstruction, of events and, as
8Mr Rampton has, I think, lead me through these documents,
9it is clear that we have a number of important meetings
10between Himmler and Hitler, and right after these meetings
11Hitler, sorry, Himmler gave the order to make the
12Generalgouvernement of Judenfrager until the end of the
13year. So we do not have the same kind of documentation
14for the Generalgouvernement.
15 MR IRVING: My Lord, there is, of course, the 22nd September
161942 handwritten document, "Judenfrage dies wie wir
17weiterfahren", how shall we continue, "Auswanderung", the
18Himmler and Hitler plan, 108.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I appreciate you say they were going to be
20dealt with differently, but, I mean, can I ask the
21question that was in my mind anyway to ask, which is would
22you think that it is a legitimate inference or not from
23the fact that there was an expressed Hitler order in
24relation to the Jews in the Ostgebiet that may be the
25position was in some way different with regards to the
26Jews who were to the West of them?
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No, we only have this, we have this reference by Himmler
2by chance because he wrote this letter to Berger. We have
3not, we have not got the full correspondence of Himmler,
4so it is impossible to answer this question really.
5 MR IRVING: The note I referred to is page 274 of this blue
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you.
8 MR RAMPTON: I do not want to be -- for once in my life, I will
9not be diverted if it is all right.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It was not intended to be a diversion.
11 MR RAMPTON: No, no, no, by Mr Irving, I meant. It was not
12intended as a diversion, of course not, but I will not go
13to that document at the moment.
14 MR IRVING: I was trying to be helpful.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I meant that was not intended to be a
16diversion by me which you may or may not accept.
17 MR RAMPTON: No, it has not been in the very slightest because
18it leads to this question (and I have not quite finished
19Dr Longerich on this area of the evidence) does it not,
20here you have apparently on the contemporaneous evidence a
21series of meetings between Himmler and Hitler, and you
22have really a massive logistical operation underway,
23taking thousands, literally thousands, of Jews every week
24from various parts of the General Government to these
25three camps which are not work camps. I ask the question
26again. As a matter of inference (and it is inference
1because we do not have the comparable document for the
2General Government) do you think it likely or not that
3Hitler knew because Himmler told him what was happening?
4 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It is very likely.
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] In your mind, does it matter one way or the other whether
6Himmler said to Hitler: "This is what I am going to do,
7Adolf" and Adolf said, "Yes, it is sounds a jolly good
8idea" or whether Adolf said to Heinrich, "Heinrich, this
9is what you have got to do"? Does it matter?
10 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, I think there was a high degree of consensus among
11them, so I do not think it really -- it does not change
12the question of responsibility.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Can we then turn to one of Mr Irving's documents? I pause
14to remind you of this, before we get to Mr Irving's Furl
15letter, in the report of Professor Browning which I expect
16you have read, have you ----
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] -- it was not challenged so I can recite it for you, he
19tells us that at this time and after this time, Jews,
20train loads of Jews, were coming westwards to Belzec from
21Lemberg or Lewolf, westwards from Kolemeer, which is
22southeast of Lewolf by a long way, 225 kilometres, to
23Belzec and from Bialystok westwards to Treblinka. Does
24that help you assess what kinds of places these might have
25been? Does it help you to assess the question whether
26they might have been transit camps leading further to the
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well, you have almost answered the question yourself, it
3is the transports from East to the West.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is my job.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Not in re-examination.
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I would not describe this as a -- of course, I would not
7describe this as a movement from West to East.
8 MR RAMPTON: Yes. Can we turn to the page from Gotz Aly's book
9"Endlosen"? I hope you have it there somewhere. I have
10it in English. You have probably got it in ----
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I have it in English, yes.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] You have it in English?
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] The English will do, it seems to me. I hope you have the
15longer version, the one we had last week, because I, first
16of all, want to draw your attention to the last paragraph.
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Which page is that?
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is page 275, Mr Irving tells us.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: 175 -- sorry, no, I beg your pardon.
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] 175 or?
21 MR RAMPTON: Of Gotz Aly's book?
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] 175 -- you have the German version there?
24 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I have the English version here.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Oh, you do?
26 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] I have not so...
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is it page 175, I think?
3 MR RAMPTON: It is page 175, I think. Use the bound copy,
4Dr Longerich.
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] You are referring to the Furl letter?
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes.
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, I have it here.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] Before we look at the text of Furl's letter or the bit we
9have there, can we look at the next succeeding paragraph
10which begins "Also in the summer of 1942"?
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Also in the summer of 1942, the Germans transported 3,000
13Jews from the eastern Galician town of Droyobic", that is
14an attempt by me, "to the Belzec death camp. Here too
15they used the excuse that the deportees were needed for
16reclamation of the Pripyat Marshes". Do you know where
17that place "Droyobic" is?
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It is East, as far as I remember, it is East of the Belzec
19death camp.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] You are right. Then look at the text of Furl's letter.
21Ignore the first sentence. "We provide first aid", or it
22might be some other meaning of that, it does not matter,
23"and give them more or less provisional accommodation and
24usually deport them further towards the White Sea to the
25White Ruthenian marsh lands where they all", and then we
26will leave out the next bit, "will be gathered by the end
1of the war but not without having first built a few roads
2(but we are not supposed talk about it)". Do you know of
3any evidence, Dr Longerich, that there were any transit
4camps in the White Ruthenian Marshes?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] On the way to the White Sea, which is, we observed this
7morning, right up in the north of Russia?
8 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do you know of any train schedules showing trains going
10from Cracau or Auschwitz or Warsaw or Lublin to the
11Ruthenian Marshes?
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Any orders for lorry loads of Jews to be taken to those
15 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Any evidence that the Jews were used to build roads into
17that area of Russia?
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] In the light of that and all the other evidence we have
20just looked at, how likely does it seem to you that we
21should take this little piece of whatever it is from Herr
22Furl to his SS chums in Berlin seriously?
23 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Absolutely irrelevant on a reconstruction of the events.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] Thank you. Now I want to go to another related topic,
25but, in a sense, slightly separate and those are the
26documents that Mr Irving produced last week about trying
1to keep the illness down in some of the camps so as to
2preserve the population level. Do you remember those
4 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, I remember them.
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] Have you got those here?
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] The one I would like you to look at first is dated 28th
8December 1942. It is from Oranienburg.
9 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I do not think I have it here at the moment. This is
10concerning the doctors?
11 Q. [Mr Rampton] The doctor's letter, yes.
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I do not have it in front of me unfortunately.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] It is headed SS. Then there is a very long German word.
14What does that long German word mean?
15 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] This means economy administration main office.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Right. Who is in charge of that?
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It is Pohl.
18 Q. [Mr Rampton] Did Pohl have any responsibility or jurisdiction over the
19extermination programme?
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] As far as the extermination programme was carried out in
21his camps, so it is not for the camps of the Aktion
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] That was going to be my next question. His camps being
24those which had workers in them?
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Like slave labour?
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am a bit lost. Pohl was in charge of what
3you might call labour camps?
4 MR RAMPTON: He was head of the SS
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, and there is Ampsgruppe D, this is the subdepartment
7concentration camps, this is a subdepartment, if you want
8to say that. He was in charge of all the concentration
9camps, and concentration camps, the Aktion Reinhardt
10camps, are different type of camps.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Concentration as opposed to death camp?
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
13 MR RAMPTON: If we look at the abbreviations in paragraph
14numbered one, lager doctors of the concentration camps,
15the camp doctors of the concentration camps, then we have
16a whole list of abbreviations, including Auschwitz and a
17number of others, do you see any reference there to any of
18the Reinhardt camps, Treblinka, Sobibor or Belzec?
19 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] You told us last week that the reference to Lublin would
21be a reference to Maidonek?
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Which did have a working facility?
24 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] How many of the Reinhardt camps were operating at the end
26of December 42?
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] All three were still in operation.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Did none of them have a labour side to them?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No.
4 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] They were all purely death camps?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Only a very small number of prisoners were used for labour
6assignments, only several hundred, several dozens.
7 MR RAMPTON: Now I am passing to something completely
8different, Dr Longerich, and that is this. You were asked
9last week by Mr Irving to comment on the police decodes,
10do you remember, the British police decodes of the
11messages which passed between Himmler and Jeckeln at the
12beginning of December 1941?
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] In which it is clear that Jeckeln had done something that
15Himmler was not pleased about, but did not, as you pointed
16out, result in any kind of sanction or punishment against
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] This is true, yes.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] There is a document which was disclosed by Mr Irving which
20you may feel needs to be explained. It is not a document
21which is part of your original report and therefore we
22have not really looked at it before but perhaps one could
23do it now. You will find it at page 110 of the blue
24file. I think it is 110. It is a somewhat fragmentary
25copy of a document that looks a bit like a Nuremberg
26document. That is 111, sorry. That is the one I want you
1to look at first, if you will, 111?
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Has it got some words missing from the first line of the
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] Ich habe die (blank) Juden execution, yes?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] I think you were good enough to find us the complete
9version of that, and this is terrible. The Americans or
10whoever it is even managed to muck up the German grammar
11because in fact it is execution ----.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I see, you are 111 and 110 is what he
13has found.
14 MR RAMPTON: If you go back to 110, it is the real thing, or
15much closer to the real thing anyway.
17 MR RAMPTON: Sorry. You are quite right. I missed a page.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That may be the same as 110. I think we all
19have different pagination.
20 MR RAMPTON: Thank you very much. It is letter dated 15th
21November 1941, although the 4 is missing from the date
22line, I think from a man called Lohse, who I think is the
23ReichsKommissar for the Ostland, is he not?
24 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] That is the Baltic States, essentially, is it not?
26 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] And white Russia.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] And white Russia. He has written a letter to the
2Reichsminister for the occupied Eastern territories in
3Berlin, who I think was Rosenberg, was he not?
4 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] On the left-hand side we have made a translation -- this
6is a somewhat literal translation. Does your translation
7start, "I have forbidden the wild executions of Jews in
9 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I have forbidden the uncontrolled ----
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, he has the same one as me. Does your Lordship's
11translation ----
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have got "wild executions". Does it really
13matter in the end?
14 MR RAMPTON: Probably not. Lepeier is a town in Latvia on the
15coast, is it not?
16 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] I will just read it, if I may. I will read it in the
18version that his Lordship has: "I have forbidden the wild
19executions of Jews in Lepeier because they were not
20justifiable in the manner in which they were carried out.
21I should like to be informed whether your enquiry of 31st
22October is to be regarded as a directive to liquidate all
23Jews in the East. Shall this take place without regard to
24age and sex and economic interests of the Wehrmacht, for
25instance, in specialists in the armament industry?" Then,
26for some reason, Mr Irving has put in "note in different
1handwriting". I do not understand that. Not on the copy
2I have got. "Of course, the cleansing of the East of Jews
3is a necessary task". I prefer, Dr Longerich, a "priority
4task". Is that not a better translation?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] "But its solution must be reconciled with the requirements
7of the war economy". I am sorry, I am reading from my own
8translation. Is that right in the German?
9 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, that is right in the German.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Neither from the orders concerning the Jewish question in
11the brown file nor from any other ordinance have
12I hitherto been able to infer or deduce such an order or
13instruction". Is that correct as a matter of translation?
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] What are they actually talking about, Dr Longerich?
16 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] They are talking -- Lohse is complaining about, as he
17called it, wild uncontrolled, unauthorized probably,
18execution of Jews, mass execution of Jews in Lepeier. He
19says, well, what is the meaning of that, does it mean that
20all Jews in the Ostland, this is his territory, should be
21liquidated? This would of course bring the economic
22consideration of Wehrmacht into danger, and it is not
23according to the guidelines I have in my own handbook, in
24the brown ----
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] No. Can we then turn back to what prompted that letter,
26which is page 104/105, for which also we have to thank you
1I think. Now this is a very short letter from somebody
2I think called Librandt?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] He is in Rosenberg's office, is he?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] He has written to Lohse, or to somebody in Lohse's office,
7saying, in effect, "The RHSA has complained that the
8Reichs Commissioner for the Ostland has forbidden the
9execution of Jews in Lepeier in the matter referred to
10above. I request urgently a report from you". Yes?
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] So then we get the response from Lohse saying: "Am I to
13take (this letter we are looking at) as an order that
14I have to kill all the Jews?" Is that right?
15 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] Is that what happened?
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] So then again we went through the second letter, and then
18Lohse writes this letter, well, what do you want me to do
19about that? We just went through the letter.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. He explains that he forbad the executions because of
21the way in which they were carried out.
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] . Yes,.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Unauthorized or uncontrolled?
24 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton] Now we can look and see what the response was, which comes
26on 18th December 1941, I think.
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] We can find that, curiously enough, the same day as the
3meeting between Hitler and Himmler, page 181/182, I hope.
4I do not know what translation you have beside you, but
5I much prefer you look at the German anyway. This comes
6from Rosenberg's office, signed by a man called Brottigan?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Brottigan has signed it.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] He is in Rosenberg's office?
9 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] He is writing to Lohse, and he says, "clarification of the
11Jewish question has most likely been achieved by now
12through verbal discussions". Yes?
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] Is that all right?
15 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Economic issues or considerations must fundamentally or
17generally be disregarded in the settlement or disposition
18of this problem"?
19 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, generally.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] Generally, yes. "As for the rest, moreover, I would ask
21that any questions arising should be settled directly with
22the higher SS and police leaders". Is that right?
23 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] This is right, yes.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] What historical conclusions do you draw from this exchange
25of correspondence?
26 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I think there was a kind of battle or a kind of conflict
1going on between the SS representatives, through the
2higher SS police leader, and the civil administration.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] The higher SS and police leader was Jeckeln, was it not?
4 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] Carry on.
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Because the civil administration, in their own handbook
7they were not aware of the fact that actually the aim of
8the SS was to kill all the Jews in Ostland, and so this
9letter first of all led to Lohse stopping these executions
10in Lepeier, and then asking the ministry for the occupied
11territories in Berlin, what shall I do? It took them
12about five weeks to reply, and here the answer is quite
13clear, the economic considerations do not play a role any
14more. You can leave this aside and, if there is any
15further problems, discuss this directly with the higher SS
16and police leader.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] So in effect he is being told to surrender, am I right
18control over this interpretation?
19 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It would be my interpretation of this exchange.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Surrender control to the SS?
21 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
22 MR RAMPTON: Yes.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is it significant or is it not that this is
25 MR IRVING: I am just about to point that out, my Lord.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Were you?
1 MR IRVING: Yes. I was wondering how to do so, in fact.
2 MR RAMPTON: Just say it. I do not mind.
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The significance being that, on the face of
5it, this is not a desperately secret communication?
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Sorry?
7 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] If you take at face value, it is not a terribly secret
8communication, is it?
9 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I think it is quite clear from this communication that, if
10you take the three letters that this means the death of
11the Jews in the Generalegouvernement. There is no way the
12civil administration can interfere any more.
13 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] That is why they put Geheimer Reichsacher on it?
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] That is what I assume.
15 MR IRVING: Just note who signed that letter. It is Brottigan,
16is it not?
17 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Brottigan, yes.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: He is an adjutant of Rosenberg?
19 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, one of his closest advisers.
20 MR RAMPTON: Rosenberg, Lohse, Brottigan, they are all civil
21servants, are they not?
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Are you familiar with -- I call it the evidence -- the
24conversation of General Walter Bruns, which was recorded
25by the British when he was in captivity?
26 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, I am familiar with this document.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do you recall that they recorded him -- I am going to
2torture you with some of my German but it saves getting it
3out -- as having said that a man called Altemeyer, he had
4been upset, so he said, with these shootings?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] They sent somebody back to Berlin they said with a message
7for Hitler via Canaris. You know the story?
8 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, I know the story.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton] This SS person Altemeyer comes back from Berlin with
10triumphantly a message, and saying this: Here is (German)
11do you remember that?
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] I expect you know it off by heart.
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] The question is whether that last remark of Bruns has in
16your mind any resonance with this exchange of
17correspondence between Lohse and Rosenberg?
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Well ----
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The date of Bruns, that was 1st November, was
21 MR RAMPTON: He was talking about what had been going on in
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but 1st November being the date when
24that conversation ----
25 MR RAMPTON: I cannot the remember the date. It was sometime
26in 1945, I think.
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I mean when whatever his name was came
2back ----
3 MR RAMPTON: Early December, after the message from -- I think
4early December. I think we are agreed about that.
5 MR IRVING: It was a few days later.
6 MR RAMPTON: Yes, after the message from Himmler to Jeckeln.
7My question is this. Do you see any relationship or
8resonance between what Bruns said later in captivity and
9the correspondence between Lohse and Rosenberg about the
10manner of the shootings?
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] This correspondence means, in a way, a carte blanche for
12the SS to carry on with the executions, so I think it is a
13complete contradiction to this.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] Contradiction?
15 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Sorry, maybe I did not recall the ----
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am sorry, perhaps you should have the Bruns in front of
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is the problem, is it not, in a
19way? I am trying to find it and I cannot remember where
20it is.
21 MR RAMPTON: I am reading it off Mr Irving's website. Your
22Lordship has it in J1, tab 4, but not the German. Do not
23look at the English. It is very bad English. It is a bad
24translation. Can we just put that in front of witness,
25please and one for the judge. (Same handed) The relevant
26piece of German, Dr Longerich, is at the top of the page,
14 of 5. Do you have it there?
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] What Altemeyer is reported by Bruns as having said is
4this, and I will do my best in English: Here is an order
5come that mass shootings of this kind in future must no
6longer happen". Is that all right?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, that is right.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] I am getting on like an interpreter. I am doing well
9today! "That shall be done more discreetly in future".
10 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. I was a bit confused at the moment because I did not
11take the second ----
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] No, I am sorry. It is my fault. You should have had it
13in front of you.
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Because he does not say that the mass executions are
15supposed to be stopped, but it says clearly this should be
16done in different, more careful way. So obviously, it
17does not give any date for that. This is a kind of
18reaction to the complaints of the civil administration
19that one should not allow these wild executions to be
20carried out. I think that is quite clear.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] I think we are now are on the same ground. Lohse has
22stopped the shootings in Lepeier, perhaps elsewhere, one
23does not know, because of the way in which they were
24carried out. He is then told by Berlin that that is
25wrong, in effect?
26 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] And here comes Altemeyer at about the same time, am
2I right?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] Saying, you must not do it in this way any more, you must
5do it more discreetly.
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do those two pieces of evidence in your mind corroborate
8each other?
9 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, I think they corroborate each other.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Except for this, that Altemeyer is describing
11an order which prohibits mass shootings (underlined) on
12that scale.
13 MR RAMPTON: No, of this kind.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Oh. I am reading from the translation.
15 MR RAMPTON: No. That is why I do not want to use the old
16English translation, because it is wrong.
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Even so, I think the point needs to be
18answered, of this kind and they need to be carried out
19more discreetly. You do not find that in the 31st October
21 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: There is a discrepancy between the two. That
23has to be accepted.
24 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Discrepancy?
25 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Difference.
26 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Why is there a discrepancy? I do not get the point.
1 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] The point I am putting to you is that, if you look at the
2message from Berlin, the top secret message from Berlin
3signed by Brottigan, all that is really saying is, well,
4do not worry about economic considerations, just leave it
5to the local SS. I think Mr Rampton was really asking you
6whether Altemeyer was not referring to that message when
7he triumphantly showed General Bruns the order just
8issued. That was the question, was it not, Mr Rampton?
9 MR RAMPTON: More or less.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am just wondering whether that is well
11founded, because it appears that he is referring to
12something slightly different.
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Altemeyer? Who is Altemeyer.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: He is a junior officer.
15 MR RAMPTON: He is a junior SS officer.
16 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] So it obviously is not the same letter.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] No?
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] The background is that obviously the civil administration
19found these mass executions unpleasant, the way they were
20carried out, and they are looking for guidance from the
21Ministry for the Eastern Territories, and they come back
22and say, well, basically these executions have to be
23carried out and any problem has to be solved together with
24the highest SS and police leader. So I think this
25Altemeyer's response could reflect the same kind of
26discussions which was going on, that one has to do it in a
1different way. It did not say that the mass executions
2have to be stopped.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I understand that.
4 MR RAMPTON: That is all. I was anxious to put the two beside
5each other, because, my Lord, plainly, when they are side
6by side, what Bruns said about the continuation of
7shootings implicitly is supported by the contemporaneous
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You did use the word resonance.
10 MR RAMPTON: Yes, resonance. Then I want to ask you about
11something else very briefly, Dr Longerich. You were asked
12again last week by Mr Irving in effect this. Did they not
13always have to have a pretext when they shot the Jews in
14the East, such as, oh well, they were plundering, or they
15were partisans and so on and so forth?
16 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It becomes clear from the Einsatzgruppen reports.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] You said, well, there was one absurd case where they
18killed 7,000 Jews because the NKVD had massacred
19some Ukrainians.
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] Can we just have a look at the Jager report, with which
22I know you are familiar. You find that at page 147 of the
23blue file, I hope. It is awfully long and it is very
24grisly reading, so I am certainly not going to go through
25it, but it is Einsatzkommando 3, which is part of
26Einsatzgruppen A, is it not?
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] This is by the subordinate officer, somebody called Jager,
3and it reports that by the 1st December, or the end of
4November, they have succeeded in slaughtering 137,346
5people. That is on the sixth page.
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Pass over the first few pages to page 3, will you? Now we
8are in the middle of August 1941, and one needs only to
9glance at the page, does one not, to see that they are
10recording the murder of large numbers of Jewish men, women
11and children without any reference to any kind of pretext,
12excuse or justification?
13 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton] Very occasionally, if you turn, for example, to page 151,
15page 5 of the document, you see a pretext. You also see
16incidentally, do you not, that some people from Berlin,
17Munich, Frankfurt, Vienna and Breslow were killed in
18November, towards the end of November, but you see in
19brackets, after some of the entries for October and at the
20bottom of the page, some kind of excuse or pretext, do you
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Sorry, pretext of the killing of the German Jews?
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes. For example, the last entry for 2nd September 41, a
24teil kommando in Vilner shot a total of about 3,500 Jewish
25women and Jewish children in what they called a
26Sonderaktion because some German soldiers were shot at or
1shot at by some Jews. Is that right?
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Do you know why it is that, throughout this document, such
4pretexts or excuses are so scarce?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I think the Jager report is simply a different kind of
6document than the Eignismeldung, so I think the people who
7had to write Eignismeldung had clear orders to give a
8reason for every killing. This is a different kind of
9report. This is a summary report.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Then you have partisans listed and then just
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
13 MR RAMPTON: This is the raw material, is it, upon which the
14Eignismeldungen would have been written, do you think?
15 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] I am not absolutely sure, because the Eignismeldung were
16written on a daily basis, or on a monthly basis, and this
17is a summary report. So it is part of a different
18reporting system, if you want to say so.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] Who would this have been reported to, do you know? You
20cannot tell from looking at it.
21 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It says five copies. I do not know whether it is actually
22mentioned here.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] My document runs out on page 9 ----
24 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] One has to look at the end whether there is a list of
25distribution, but it definitely would go to the
26Einsatzgruppen R.
1 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes.
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] And probably, I do not know, a copy to the civil
3administration, but I am not sure about that.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] What I was driving at is quite a simple point really. Do
5you think, Dr Longerich, that it is possible that, if this
6was, as it were, a local document, in other words this
7document is kept within Einsatzgruppen A's area, yes,
8before the figures were compiled and sent to Berlin, that
9there would be more openness than there was when the
10figures went on from wherever it was to Berlin?
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. I think it is simply the number of copies is very
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes.
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] We know that the Eignismeldung had 55 and more copies. So
15I think this is a confusion which is possible.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] I have one final thing I want to ask you about, which will
17not take very long, and it is this. You were telling us,
18I think it was on Thursday last week but it might have
19been Wednesday, about a system which either was planned or
20which evolved whereby the Jews and the General Government
21were deported and killed at the extermination camps to
22make way for Jews from the West or from the south.
23 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] At the beginning, yes.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] I would like, because I think this will help us all and
25certainly me, at the end of the day if we could do a short
26chronology. The gassings in the Warthegau at Chelmno
1began on 8th December 1941?
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, that is correct.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Who were the Jews that were killed there, first of all?
4 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] The local Jews. The Jews from villages from the
6 Q. [Mr Rampton] And then?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Then the Jews from the Lodz ghetto beginning in January.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] The German for Chelmno is Kulmhof?
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: How is that spelt?
10 MR RAMPTON: K U L M H O F. Chelmno, I call it.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I call it Chelmno.
12 MR RAMPTON: Do you know roughly how many of the local Jews
13were killed at Kulmhof or Chelmno?
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] The estimation is about 140,000 minimum, plus then the
15German Jews who were ----
16 Q. [Mr Rampton] I was coming on to that. Were some German Jews killed at
17Chelmno in due course?
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. We know about one so-called action where about
1910,000 Jews from Central Europe, Germany, Austria the
20Protectorate, were killed in Chelmno in May 1942.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] In May 1942?
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] And what about the Reinhardt camps? Belzec was being
24built in late 41, was it not?
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] They started to build it in November 1941.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] And when did they start killing people at Belzec?
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] They started in March 1942.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] March 42?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton] And the other two, Treblinka and Sobibor?
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] They started to build Sobibor approximately in February,
6and it became, what do you say about an extermination, it
7became operational, I think, in May 1942. Then Treblinka,
8they started to build Treblinka in May and the systematic
9killing in Treblinka started in July 1942.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] Systematic killings at Treblinka and Sobibor?
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Sobibor started a little bit earlier.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Did they have the same pattern, Treblinka,
13Sobibor and Belzec, starting by killing the local Jews?
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Justice Gray] Then the Jews from Germany?
16 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It is a little bit different from camp to camp. In Belzec
17they started first of all to kill the local Jews and then
18later on also, as far as I recall it rightly, other Jews.
19It is a different operation. Belzec was built first of
20all to kill the Jews of the district of Lublin whereas,
21when you move on two or three months, you can see that
22actually the three Reinhardt camps were there to kill all
23the Jews in the Generalgouvernement, so it is different.
24You can see that they moved a step forwards during spring
26 MR RAMPTON: Did they eventually start killing Jews from the
1outReich, the Protectorate and other parts of Europe
2systematically at these three camps?
3 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Not at these three camps. You can see that the systematic
4killings of Jews from central Europe started, for
5instance, in Minsk. It is the same pattern, like in
6Chelmno. They first of all brought into the ghetto, but
7then from May 1942 onwards they killed them on the spot
8before they came into the ghetto in a small concentration
9camp called Malitrostiness.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: By shooting them?
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] By shooting them, yes.
12 MR RAMPTON: Then of course we have left out of account
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] Most, I believe I am right, I do not know whether you
16agree, of the Jews that were taken there were not Polish
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, but I should add this. In Belzec, of course, they
19started to kill the local Jews and then, a little bit
20further, the German Jews who were brought into the
21ghettoes in the district of Lublin. Then, as far as they
22survived the conditions of the ghetto, taken to Belzec
23from approximately May/June 1942 onwards.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] I just want to look finally, if we may, Dr Longerich, at
25one document which illustrates, I think, at least
26I believe I am right, what you have been telling us about
1the way this system worked, or how it developed. It is at
2page 243, I think. This is one document, my Lord, for
3which I humbly apologise we have no translation.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is unusual in that respect.
5 MR RAMPTON: No. We have improved a lot. A lot of the
6documents do have translations. Is this a printed
7version, the document No. 218, of a Gestapo report from
8Lodz dated 9th June 1942?
9 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, it is.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] There is a table above it. Do you know who compiled that
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] They are two different documents.
13 Q. [Mr Rampton] I know they are.
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It says here, the Meldeburo, the registration office.
15I think that is probably the registration office of the
16Jewish Council of Lodz, because they would do the
17registration work.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is deaths in the ghettoes, is it not?
19 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
20 MR RAMPTON: These are the comings and goings into the ghetto
21and out of the ghetto, are they not?
22 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] There are some people coming in on the left-hand side
24under zugang?
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Ein gesiedelte aus dem Reich und - what is WRTL?
1 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Wartheland.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton] Yes, I see. In May 7,000 odd came into the ghetto, but
3I am interested more in the Abgang column which is the
4people who had gone for one reason or another. The left
5hand column, Gestoben, are the dead people, are they not?
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] Then the greatest number by far, a total I think of about
855,000, are said to have gone, they have been ausgesiedelt
9nach Kulmhof?
10 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. Kulmhof is a very small village.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is Chelmno.
12 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] That is Chelmno.
13 MR RAMPTON: Some were ausgesiedelt zur arbiet, do you see?
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton] Not very many but some were. Then the totals. Can we
16look at the Gestapo report of 9th June which is just
17underneath that table. Can I read to you a translation,
18if you would not mind following it in the German. It is
19on the subject of the Jews or Judentum, is that right?
20 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton] You tell me, with the help the interpreter, when I go
22wrong. "With regard to the Jews" or Jewry "the work of
23the State police focused on the Gau Ghetto in
24Litzmanstadt". That is German for Lodz, is it not?
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, the German name.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] Litzmanstadt, "which was to be built according to the
1instructions of the Gauleiter".
2 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Rampton] Good. I did not do this translation so I take no credit
4for it. "Upon instruction of the Gauleiter all Jews not
5fit for work shall be evacuated and those fit for work in
6the whole Gau collected in the Litzmanstadt ghetto". Yes?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
8 Q. [Mr Rampton] "From here larger proportions of Jews shall be used in the
9Gau area for various kinds of work (building of rail track
10and roads) and shall be returned into the ghetto again
11after the end of work. Those Jews remaining in the ghetto
12shall be without exception used for work there. In the
13course of building the Gau ghetto, firstly, it appeared
14necessary to create space for the Jews who were to be
15settled there. For this purpose a larger number of Jews
16not fit for work was evacuated from the ghetto and handed
17over to the sonderkommando". Correct?
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton] Now I am going to struggle on my own because my
20translation runs out there: "Of the Polish Jews since
2116th January 1942 a total of 44,152 were outsettled". We
22do not have that word but that is what it means, deported?
23 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Of those from the outReich, the Ostmacht and the
25Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia who came in October
261941, in das hiesige" - what does that mean?
1 THE INTERPRETER: The ghetto here.
2 MR RAMPTON: "In the here ghetto", yes, "who came in, 19,848
3Jews", the total that is, "10,993 were evacuated", yes?
4 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
5 Q. [Mr Rampton] "So that", nunmehr?
6 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Now.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton] "Now we have made room in the ghetto for about 55,000
9 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes, that is correct.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton] Is that correct?
11 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton] I do not need to go any further. Does that illustrate
13precisely the process that you have been describing to us?
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, up to a point. What is puzzling me
16about that is that some of the Jews who were being
17evacuated out of ghetto, presumably to Chelmno, were in
18fact Jews from the outReich, 10,000 of them?
19 MR RAMPTON: Yes, it look like it, nearly 11,000.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It seems rather an odd way of going about it
21in a sort of way.
22 MR RAMPTON: Presumably there is pressure from those coming in.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
24 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] It does not say what happens. I would assume that the
25largest number of the 19,000 Jews are dead at this time.
26 MR RAMPTON: I can tell you that, if you read the text, the
1total number that were ausgesiedelt, whether from Poland
2or originally from the outReich or whatever, is 54,145.
3If you look at the table, almost all of those went to
4Kulmhof, because the total that went to Kulmhof or Chelmno
5is 54,990.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: So they were not dead?
7 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes.
8 MR RAMPTON: They were.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: They were dead later.
10 MR RAMPTON: Did this happen quite often, that 11,000 Jews
11brought in from Berlin in October and other parts of the
12greater Reich would then be taken off to Chelmno and
13gassed six months later?
14 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] These are the transport in October 1941, about 20,000 were
15transported to the ghetto, and a large number of them died
16during the winter.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton] I see.
18 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] They then transported 10,000 to Chelmno and the rest of
19them they could obviously use for work assignments.
20 Q. [Mr Rampton] More would come in to take their place?
21 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Yes. They make place for the local Jews in the Warthegau
22who actually are brought into the ghetto.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton] Is there any more of this report that we need to look at?
24It is your document, it comes from your report.
25 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] No, I do not think so.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton] No. My Lord those are all the questions I have in
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much, Mr Rampton.
3Dr Longerich, eventually that concludes your evidence
4I think.
5 A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich] Thank you.
6 < (The witness stood down).
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Mr Irving. Now are you going at this
8stage to make the submissions you mentioned this morning
9about the ----
10 MR IRVING: After two or three other minor points, my Lord.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, all right. Deal with the others first.
12 MR IRVING: Firstly, my Lord, the defendants are relying quite
13heavily on the Muller document of 1st August 1941. I do
14feel that I need to see the original, or at least to know
15where the original is. The Bundesarchive, as I told your
16Lordship, has told me it is not in the file that has been
17quoted by the Defendants as the source. We have only been
18shown transcripts of it. I would like to see either a
19facsimile or to know reliably where the document is.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just let us have a look.
21 MR IRVING: I showed your Lordship my correspondence with the
22German Federal Archives in which they said they had
23checked the file and they have not found the document in
24the file as stated by the Defendants.
25 MR RAMPTON: I think this has been sorted, but, my Lord, can I
26just ask Dr Longerich, because I think he probably has the
1answer to this. I think the short answer is, from what
2I remember of what I was told, is that, when Mr Irving --
3it is not Mr Irving's fault -- telephoned to look for the
4document, they looked in the wrong file. I think it is as
5simple as that. I am quite certain that the document is
6there and elsewhere. I have a belief that it is at
7Ludwigsberg, which is the centre for prosecutions, but can
8I just take instructions?
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, do.
10 MR RAMPTON: Can we have a small conference, my Lord?
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, please do.
12 MR IRVING: Quite simply, my Lord, the reason is that I would
13like to know what else is in that file, of course.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Pause a minute and we will see what the
15result of the huddle is.
16 MR RAMPTON: I am sorry about that, my Lord, but I think I am
17right. The united brains of German historical research
18tell me that the file number which was given by Mr Irving,
19through no fault of his own, to the person at the
20Bundesarchive was the wrong one. It is in the
21Bundesarchive, but it is also in the Zentralstelle at
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are they both Abschrifts?
24 MR RAMPTON: That I do not know.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Because what Mr Irving is really looking for
26I think is the one that is not an Abschrift, if there is
2 MR RAMPTON: By picking up the telephone, if Mr Irving's
3attempt failed, we will try and have a successful attempt
4to get it from both places, if it is going to be possible
5at any rate before the case is finished. Whether it is an
6Abschrift or not, I do not know.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: What you may not have heard Mr Irving say was
8that he is also interested in knowing what else is in the
9particular file which it is in, if it is in any file.
10 MR RAMPTON: Then I think he must go and look for that himself.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think he has the problem, at any rate with
12some of the archives, that he has not got access to them.
13Is that what you would say?
14 MR IRVING: The German government archives are corresponding
15with me because I am offering them something by way of a
16horse trade at present.
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Why do you not keep that up? What are you
18asking me to do?
19 MR IRVING: I need to know the actual file number of course, my
20Lord. I need to know the correct file number.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is fair enough. Mr Rampton, when you
22have found out which file number or numbers it is in, will
23you pass that on to Mr Irving?
24 MR RAMPTON: Yes, we will let Mr Irving know.
25 MR IRVING: The second problem, my Lord, it is not a problem,
26is that I learned from yesterday's Israeli newspapers that
1the Defendants are applying for access to Adolf Eichmann's
2private papers.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I saw that this morning.
4 MR IRVING: I welcome this initiative. Would they also apply
5to the Israeli government for access to Heinrich Himmler's
6private diaries which are in the Israeli archives?
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That, I am afraid, is something that is
8beyond my power, because I can only order that things that
9are within their power be disclosed and I do not think
10that they have the power.
11 MR IRVING: Perhaps it will resonate off your Lordship on to
12the defence side and, if they hear from me that Himmler's
13diaries are in Israeli hands----
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is very flattering to me, Mr Irving
15but I think it is overstating the position.
16 MR IRVING: The third point is that, once again, the Defendants
17have dropped on me from a great height on Friday evening
18several hundreds of pages of documents, expecting me to
19read them in time for the cross-examination. These are
20the bundles RWE1 and 2, which your Lordship probably has
21also received.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I am afraid I have not had time even to
23dip into them.
24 MR IRVING: I apprehend that RWE stands for right-wing
25extremism, which takes me on to the main point which I am
26going to make now, the main submission I am going to make.
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
2 MR IRVING: My Lord, I have taken the opportunity to go back to
3the original pleadings to see what the issues are. The
4issues as pleaded, as set out in my Statement of Claim,
5I have looked through for any reference to right-wingism
6and to extremism and, if I can just hand your Lordship
7this page, it is the only reference in the Statement of
8Claim to either extremism or right-wingism.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I suggest that the starting point
10probably is to see what Professor Lipstadt wrote in her
11book? Would you agree with me that the references to what
12you might call right-wing extremism is the passage on page
1314, am I right? Have you got the Statement of Claim or
14her book?
15 MR IRVING: I do not have the Statement of Claim in front of
16me. I only have the words complained of and the meaning
17which I attach to those words.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, yes, the reason for starting with what
19is written is that what you attach to Professor Lipstadt's
20words by way of natural and ordinary meaning is not, as it
21were, the last word. You have to see also what was
22actually written by the Defendant.
23 MR IRVING: Yes.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Which is why I suggest you should start
25with -- have you not got the Statement of Claim?
26 MR IRVING: Yes.
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Shall I read to you, and you will remember
2it, what it says: "The confluence between anti-Israel,
3anti-semitic and Holocaust denial forces was exemplified
4by a world anit-Zionist conference scheduled for Sweden in
5November 19922, and then says it is cancelled, but there
6were a whole lot of scheduled speakers, including black
7Muslim leader Ferikan, Faurisson: "Also scheduled to
8participate were representatives of various anti-Semitic
9and anti-Israel organizations, including Hamyat,
10Hesbollah, Hamas, and then I think I am right in saying
11that later on she returns to the same general topic.
12 MR RAMPTON: Yes, your Lordship might also read 161.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I knew there was another relevant bit.
14 MR RAMPTON: 122 to 130.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: There is a reference to your having appeared
16at IHR conferences. I do not want to read great chunks of
17this out.
18 MR IRVING: No, my Lord. It is the extremism we are looking
19for, and really the relevance of any extremism. I believe
20the allegation is association with extremists.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
22 MR IRVING: Or extremist associations. I am anxious to try to
23shorten the whole process, particularly I am anxious to
24shorten any other public flogging which is held in
25prospect for me.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us just take in what I hope logical are
1stages. I think I am missing out a passage which may be
2relevant to this, but anyway those are things that
3Professor Lipstadt writes. Then you, as you say, put on
4those words as one of the meanings ----
5 MR IRVING: The only relevant meaning is that in the next
6paragraph 9.1, that the Plaintiff is dangerous
7spokesperson for Holocaust denial forces, who deliberately
8and knowingly consorts and consorted with anti-Israel,
9anti-semitic and Holocaust denial forces, agreeing to
10appear in public in support of and along side violent
11extremist speakers, and I emphasis the words "violent and"
12because associating with extremists is not in itself
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Perhaps one ought just to read to the end of
15that, because it is all part of the meaning you put on the
17 MR IRVING: Indeed, yes.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Including, to take it shortly, Hesbollah,
19Ferikan, Jew baiting black agitator, and so on.
20 MR IRVING: That is right.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Admirer of Colonel Gadaffi.
22 MR IRVING: In my submission, if the Defendants intend to
23cross-examine me in any great detail on either my opinions
24or state of mind or correspondence or speeches or
25activities, it is perfectly entitled to go to any
26associations I have had with violent extremists who are
1not many, if I can put it like that.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Why not non-violent extremists?
3 MR IRVING: My Lord, non-violent extremism is not defamatory,
4if I can put it that way round. If I were to associate
5with somebody who held extremist views, this would not be
6in the least bit reprehensible. I could associate, for
7example, with Lawton LJ or with Cumming-Bruce LJ who both
8held extreme political views in the 1930s, but nobody hold
9it the least bit against me if I were to associate them
10now because of course I believe they sit next to each
11other in the Court of Appeal. So holding extreme views
12has never been held to be reprehensible. I think this has
13been established in law, that it is not defamatory to call
14somebody a communist. It is not defamatory,
15unfortunately, to call somebody a Nazi or a fascist except
16in certain circumstances. The context can sometimes make
17it defamatory, but per se it is not actually defamatory as
18such to accuse somebody of having extremist views.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure about that. I think it may be
20defamatory of somebody to say that he or she consorts or
21associates with what you might call extreme extremists,
22i.e., really the lunatic fringe of extremist because.
23 MR IRVING: Without any question, if the extremism is expressed
24in violence.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let me just finish, because, and this is what
26we call the sting of the libel, you are being, to put it
1mildly, careless in your choice of friends. That is the
2way in which I think it becomes defamatory to make that
3kind of allegation.
4 MR IRVING: Careless in their choice of friends, probably all
5of us is careless in their choice of friends, my Lord, and
6I would not consider that to be a very severe libel at
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It may not be the most severe libel, but the
9question we are on at the moment is whether it is
10defamatory at all.
11 MR IRVING: The real defamation here, and if we are looking for
12a scale of defamation, the sting of the libel is that
13I associate with people who are violently extremist, who
14express their extremism by violent means and whose
15extremism goes towards the overthrow of the democratic
16rule of law or the overthrow of governments. That is
17allegation that is made in the allegation that I consort
18with Hamas or Hesbollah or terrorists leaders, that I am
19willing to go on the same platform with them and speak
20next to somebody like Louis Ferikan. That is the sting of
21the libel, and to use that as a door to open my private
22files to the exposure of the public, to suggest, well, he
23has also got all sorts of other sleezy and unsavoury
24friends or associates, whether it is true or false, is
25I think highly prejudicial.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think you are making two different points,
1if I may say so. The first question is whether it is
2defamatory at all to say that you consort with extremists,
3leave aside what sort of extremists they are, and, as
4I understand it, the second argument you make is that what
5actually Professor Lipstadt wrote is that you consort with
6a particular kind of extremist, namely violent extremists,
7and that the Defendant's particulars of justification do
8not really include those sorts of extremists; they include
9other extremist but not the violently sort like
10Hesbollah. Is that a fair summary of the way you put it?
11 MR IRVING: Your Lordship has summarized eminently well. It
12was precisely the point I was going to make, and I was
13only going to draw your Lordship's attention to the
14authorities given by Gatley.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do you mind before we go to that, just
16remind, because I did not at lunch time take with me the
17Defendants' Summary of Case, to see how exactly they
18summarize their ----
19 MR IRVING: I am sure Mr Rampton will.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I would rather -- not "rather", that would
21not be right to say at all, but I think it is helpful to
22look at this stage at the written document.
23 MR IRVING: What I am asking your Lordship to do is to issue a
24ruling to the Defendants on how far their
25cross-examination can go, and what kind of associates or
26associations or what kind of consorting they are entitled
1to cross-examine on, to have it go into the issues as
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. The summary: "The Plaintiff", you,
4"are associated with right-wing extremists and right-wing
5extremist groups in Germany, Britain and North America.
6You have regularly spoken at events organised by
7right-wing extremist groups, sharing a platform with other
8right-wing extremists. You are a right-wing ideologue
9whose participation in public affairs have been part of
10and has assisted in the cause of Holocaust denial." The
11last sentence is not relevant. But you are saying that is
12not a defamatory meaning at all?
13 MR IRVING: I am inclined to use the words "so what?" Even if
14true, so what? Even if it was true that I associate with
15right-wing organized bodies or whatever it is, are they
16kind of bodies that advocate the use of extreme violence?
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We must take this in stages. Are you saying
18that that assertion is not a defamatory assertion at all
19to be making about you?
20 MR IRVING: No, I do think so, my Lord. I think your Lordship
21would agree, although I may be arguing against myself, it
22is not defamatory for somebody to be called an extremist
23or to say somebody holds extreme views, that is not
24really, in law, defamatory.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: So that is your first submission.
26 MR IRVING: Yes, and to say someone holds right-wing views is
1not defamatory, except in certain circumstances.
2Obviously if he was in the Soviet Union, then he would
3probably be defamatory.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: In some way you could put your case higher.
5They are not saying you are an extremist, well, in this
6part of the case. They are saying you associate with
7these right-wing extremists. Do you follow the
9 MR IRVING: I would confidently expect your Lordship to say we
10do not have any guilt by association in this country.
11 MR RAMPTON: I think it only right to remind your Lordship of
12the summary, because one cannot take this little summary
13at the beginning ----
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: There is another one at the end.
15 MR RAMPTON: There is one at the end in box 80 on page 27 which
16is really perhaps the nub of it.
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Shall I remind you of that, Mr Irving?
18 MR RAMPTON: I am bound to say I think that is highly
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Claimant is a right-wing pro-Nazi ideologue,
21as is demonstrated by the views you have expressed in
22speeches and publications".
23 MR IRVING: That is something different.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is saying you are a right-wing
25ideologue, and then the Defendants say they will refer to
26the anti-Semitic racist and misogynistic tone and content
1of your speech in publications.
2 MR IRVING: That is again something different.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Including those referred to above". With
4respect to Mr Rampton, I think that is a slightly
5different point. That is directing the allegation at you
7 MR IRVING: I can meet that one head on. I have no problem
8with that.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think maybe your concern is more about what
10you would describe as "guilt by association".
11 MR IRVING: Guilt by association for which there is no place in
12an English court of law, my Lord.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That depends on the case. As to whether it
14is defamatory, my present view is that it is defamatory,
15at all events in the context of this case, to say that you
16associate with right-wing extremists. Try to dissuade me
17from that view if you want to, but I think in the context
18of this case that is probably is defamatory.
19 MR IRVING: I have to say that to associate with people who
20hold right-wing views is not defamatory. To associate
21with people who hold extreme views, and I gave the example
22Lawton LJ as one example, is also not defamatory. The
23allegation, the implication, innuendo is that I associate
24people like the Hamas or Halbollah's terrorist leaders or
25with Jerry Adams, to put it into an English context,
26somebody like that, who would advocate the use of violence
1or applaud the use of violence. Of course, for that there
2is not the slightest evidence. I would ask your Lordship,
3therefore, to direct that the cross-examination should go
4only to any associates of mine whom they can adduce who
5have advocated violence or advocated the overthrow of
6governments by violent means or that kind of extremism.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are on a separate point at the moment.
8Just to complete the first argument that you are
9advancing, would you not accept that if the Defendants
10were able to adduce evidence that you were sitting there
11on a platform, where others sharing the platform with you
12and maybe participants from the floor are expressing
13themselves in the most rabidly and repulsively
14anti-semitic way, to make that allegation against you
15could be defamatory of you. It is a hypothetical case.
16 MR IRVING: If they could establish that, yes.
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. It is all a question of degree in a
19 MR IRVING: It is a question of what is meant by "extremism"
20I think. I think "extremism" in the eyes of the libel
21courts has always been the extent of extremism towards
22unlawful ends or unlawful means. That is what the
23innuendo is.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You wanted to go to Gatley in this
26 MR IRVING: I was going to draw your attention to note 88 of
1page 43 of Gatley, where it does make the distinction, the
2last three or four lines of that note,, after referring to
3Devlin's L own ruling, it says:
4 "See Boater v. Moray [1974]", and the brief
5summary is: "Not all communists' methods and techniques
6are reprehensible", in other words, calling somebody a
7communist alone is not necessarily defamatory. But then
8it points out that in Butalazi the advocacy of violent
9change is the kind extremism which is held to be
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. In a way that rather suggests it is all
12a question of degree.
13 MR IRVING: It is a question of degree, my Lord, and in view of
14the fact that the Second Defendant specifically instanced
15Hamas, Hesbollah -- and I know they are putting that in
16Section 5, but I am certainly not -- that is what worries
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think you are slightly moving on to your
19next argument, which is that the sting of the libel
20actually published by the Defendants is that you associate
21with these sorts of violent extremists, and that the
22evidence they are apparently wanting to call does not
23really link you with violence, although it may link you
24with extremism. That is your second point.
25 MR IRVING: It may satisfy the court of course to the contrary,
26that I am linked with violent extremists. It may be that
1is what the intention is. That is why I would ask your
2Lordship to rule that unless they can produce that
3evidence or cross-examine on that kind of evidence, then
4they should limit their cross-examination purely to that
5kind of association, otherwise we do go into day after day
6of looking at isolated relationships or happening to be in
7the same room or whatever, which is very unsatisfactory
8I think.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I understand the submission you are making,
10but I should tell you this, that as I understand, anyway,
11the law, the Defendants are entitled to put forward by way
12of justification material which would support any
13defamatory meaning which the words can bear. If they are
14able to persuade me that somebody reading Professor
15Lipstadt's book could take the view that what she is
16saying is that you associate with right-wing extremists,
17even if they are not violent extremists, then it appears
18to me that, arguably at any rate, the Defendants probably
19are entitled to rely on this body of evidence.
20 MR IRVING: Except that is not an issue that I have pleaded in
21my Statement of Claim.
22 MR RAMPTON: Oh, yes it is.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think you have.
24 MR IRVING: My Statement of Claim.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We went through it. That is why it was
26relevant to go through what Professor Lipstadt wrote as
1well what you complain of as a meaning, because the
2Defendants are not confined, you must take it from me, to
3the meaning you put on the words. They are entitled to
4justify what she wrote in any meaning that the words can
5bear. This is all a bit technical. I am trying not to be
7 MR IRVING: I appreciate it is technical. I have read the
8authorities as far as I have been able to. It is just my
9understanding of the law was that the allegation of
10extremism alone is not defamatory; holding extreme views
11is not defamatory, and to be in the same room as people
12who told extreme views is also not necessarily
13reprehensible, unless they are advocating the overthrow of
14governments by violence or something like that.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It may be a question of degree. Shall I hear
16what Mr Rampton says and then you can reply?
17 MR RAMPTON: I am going to be both technical and I hope
18common-sensical all at the same time. First of all, if
19your Lordship turns to page 2 of the Statement of Claim,
20probably so-called, as it happens, page 14, one notices
21that there is nothing, and this is a technical point,
22about violence at all. The actual drift or thrust of this
23is: The confluence between anti-Israel, anti-semitic and
24Holocaust denial forces, including of course Mr Irving.
25There is no mention of violence there. It may be, I know
26not, that in the public mind some of the persons mentioned
1there, perhaps Mr Faurisson or perhaps Mr Leuchter,
2perhaps even Mr Irving, is associated with an intention to
3commit violence. I doubt it.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: And the groups particularly.
5 MR RAMPTON: Sure, but it would have to be pleaded as an
6innuendo and it is not. That is the technical point.
7Even if it had been, it would make no difference at all to
8the Defendants' right to justify the words which actually
9appear on the page, which are that Mr Irving has
10contributed to a confluence between anti-Israel,
11anti-semitic Holocaust denial forces. It is that
12contribution which he, along with his associates, has been
13making these last 10 or 20 years that we wish to set out
14to prove, showing him not just sitting in a room with
15whoever might happen to be in a waiting room in a railway
16station with whoever might happen to be there, but leading
17a banner-waving bunch of neo-Nazi thugs. Your Lordship
18will see the video tomorrow.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: This would confine you to anti-Israel,
20anti-Semitic and Holocaust denial.
21 MR RAMPTON: Yes, but anybody who advocates the return of
22Nazism as a credo or ideology is automatically going to
23fit all those three categories. The fact that they may
24also wish to see a return of the Reichsmark or whatever it
25might be, has nothing to do with the case at all.
26 The fact is that the material which is punted,
1if I may use that word, around these meetings is all
2anti-Semitic and Holocaust denial stuff. Your Lordship
3has seen quite a lot of it already. I am afraid to say,
4whether in German or in English, it is all of the same
5water. That is the first thing.
6 The second thing is this, that if one goes to
7the pleaded meaning (i).
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry to interrupt you, Mr Rampton, is
9there anything else that is relevant in the book?
10 MR RAMPTON: In the book, yes, under 161, line 123. These
11lines are so squashed together I cannot separate them.
12"An ardent admirer of the Nazi leader, Irving placed a
13self-portrait", etc., etc. "Irving, a self-described
14moderate fascist, established his own right-wing political
15party founded on his belief that he was meant to be a
16future leader of Britain, he is an ultra-nationalist",
17whatever that may mean, "who believes that Britain has
18been on a study path of decline accelerated by its
19misguided decision to launch a war against Nazi Germany".
20 Hitler apology is one of the leading features of
21neo-Nazism, certainly in Germany and, in my belief, in
22other parts of the world as well. It will be seen, and
23that is one of the features of this material, that its
24common theme, they celebrate the Fuhrer's birthday
25every year; they celebrate the birthdays of his close
26associates like Rudolf Hess and Martin Bormann. That is
1very much a feature of anti-semitic, anti-Israel Holocaust
2denial scene, of which I am afraid Mr Irving is very much
3a figure of in front of the stage, at least was until the
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I was just going to ask you if it is right to
6say that really there is no justification put forward for
7what one might call the violence sting which might be
8conveyed even without an innuendo being pleaded.
9 MR RAMPTON: Miss Rogers has corrected me. She says there is
10strictly an innuendo, but I mind not about that. She is
11quite right. It is on page 7 of the pleading somewhere or
12other. Yes, paragraphs 11 and 12. So I was wrong about
13that, but it does not make any difference because I am
14still entitled to justify the natural and ordinary
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But you are not seeking, which is the
17question, to justify any meaning that Mr Irving associates
18with the sort of violent types who one rather infers for
19most of the membership of Hamas?
20 MR RAMPTON: Maybe. I am certainly not seeking to justify ----
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Maybe is yes, is it not? You are not?
22 MR RAMPTON: I do not know whether one does or whether one does
23not associate those people with violence.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, you are not justifying that invitation.
25 MR RAMPTON: No, I am not justifying association with
26terrorists. I am justifying association with the most
1ugly kind of neo-Nazi types, in particular in Germany and
2in America. One sees how he pleads the case on page 5 at
3the bottom of the page in (i), that the Plaintiff is a
4dangerous spokesman for Holocaust denial forces who
5deliberately and knowingly consorts and consorted with
6anti-Israel, anti-semitic and Holocaust denial forces.
7One can stop there because the "and who" is then
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: There is a bit over the page.
10 MR RAMPTON: Yes, but it is disjunctive.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I see why you say that.
12 MR RAMPTON: Because it would to have say "Holocaust denial
13forces who advocate and resort to violence", etc., but it
14does not. It falls into two distinct parts.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. The next question I suppose that
16arises, I have not looked at RWE 1 and 2 beyond glancing
17at them, you are saying, are you, that they all come
18within the umbrella of the confluence of anti-Israel,
19anti-semitic and Holocaust denial forces?
20 MR RAMPTON: Your Lordship has seen some of the material which
21has come from Mr Irving's own pen or his own lips on these
22occasions, and unless I am completely up a gum tree, it
23does seem to us that that is some of the most virulently
24racist and anti-Semitic material that one has ever seen.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not worry about that.
26 MR RAMPTON: No question. That is our case and it is not one
1that I am going to back off very easily, I have to say.
2Those are the sorts of occasions when like-minded people,
3and we shall identify them one by way, what the
4organizations are, what they stand for, who their
5personnel are, how the personnel all link up together,
6that you have, in effect, for example in Germany a network
7of what may properly be called "neo-Nazis" and there is no
8other word for them, of which Mr Irving is a member.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: There is another aspect which I should have
10put to Mr Irving and I will in a minute, but I just want
11to ask you about it. One of the main thrusts I suppose of
12the libel, and certainly of the way you put your plea of
13justification, is really the historiographical thrust,
14namely that ----
15 MR RAMPTON: Yes.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- there is misinterpretation, as you say,
17after misinterpretation, and that races the question of
18reason ----
19 MR RAMPTON: Motive.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- or motive, yes. Would you say that one
21may see, I will not say a truer side, but another side of
22Mr Irving's approach to these issues, if one looks to see
23not only what he says himself but what he is prepared to
24have said by those with whom he has consorting?
25 MR RAMPTON: Yes. I do not mean this in any literal sense, but
26he has prostituted his skills and his talents, and they
1are considerable, in the service of I can only say a
2restoration of a kind of Nazi anti-semitic ideology. That
3is I have always said the obvious motive for the lies
4which he tells when he writes history about Adolf Hitler,
5and that is the motive for his Holocaust denial. The
6whole thing hangs together. If we are allowed to pursue
7this line of defence, your Lordship will see it, what this
8is what happens when he goes to these gatherings, whether
9they are the United States or in Germany or in this
10country or whether ever it may be.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes,.
12 MR RAMPTON: Then one sees the picture of the whole man;
13perhaps not the whole man, but three important parts of
14the man: What he thinks, who he speaks to and how he
15speaks, and then when he comes to his so-called history
16how he writes. The three strands together form a powerful
17picture of a man who is writing, falsifying history
18because he worships Adolf Hitler, Nazi doctrines and hates
19Jews and other people of different backgrounds.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I am still of the view that what
21is written about those with whom you consort is defamatory
22or potentially defamatory. I am also of the view that
23what the Defendants are seeking to set up by way of
24justification of that defamatory meaning is something that
25is open to them. One of the reasons, which I have not
26asked you about and therefore I ought to put it to you
1now, is that it may well be that all this material, quite
2apart from being relevant to justify the words, is also
3relevant or may be relevant to explain how it comes about
4that these errors to which the Defendants point in your
5writings, how they can be explained. Do you follow me?
6It is the point I raised with Mr Rampton.
7 MR IRVING: This is very similar to the idea that I omitted to
8present your Lordship in the original presentation of the
9submission, which is that another form of extremism which
10is illegal is of course extremism in the way of a foreign
11government, and this would be something similar, holding
12extreme views in being beholden to ----
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, in some ways that is another motive.
14 MR IRVING: I appreciate that could be defamatory. I have no
15objection at all to them leading evidence on that or
16cross-examining on that kind of matter, but I think that
17the court should very properly rein in any kind of
18cross-examination that goes to guilt by association, and
19I am sure your Lordship would quite clearly be able to
20identify what any attempt of that is. If they can
21establish that I have had any kind of associations with
22any kind of neo-Nazis or Nazi subversists or
23revolutionaries or people of the kind that Mr Rampton was
24fantasizing about, then by all means let them try.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: What I think they are entitled to do is to
26call evidence to the effect that you have either
1associated with groups that are in themselves right-wing
2or in some way anti-Semitic or anti-Israel or involved
3with Holocaust denial, and that they are also entitled to
4put to you statements made by those who are intimately
5involved with organizations of that kind or indeed
6statements made at meetings when you were on the platform
7or even present.
8 MR IRVING: My Lord, we are faced then with the problem of
9definition. They say Mr Irving addressed the Women's
10Institute of Los Angeles or something which we claim is an
11extremist neo-Nazi organization, how does your Lordship
12know? They are not going to put in the expert reports.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I listen to the evidence, is the answer, or
14look at the evidence.
15 MR IRVING: Yes.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: And see what it amounts to.
17 MR IRVING: But for them just to say that a Mr Webber Mr Smith
18or Mr Bloggs is an extremist and say "Mr Irving has met
19him, we can prove it, we have photographs of him standing
20to next to Mr Bloggs", this is going to be a problem is
21going to confront the court.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Maybe what we had better to do to cater for
23that concern, and I do understand it, we cannot have a
24completely wide, open-ended kind of discussion about all
25these organizations, unless the ground work is laid, is
26for me to invite Mr Rampton perhaps to take Mr Funke
1through some of the main organizations, IHR and maybe some
2of the others, to lay the foundation for saying that they
3are the sorts of organizations on which the Defendants
4should be entitled to rely.
5 MR RAMPTON: That is what I had hoped your Lordship might allow
6me to do, because the tangle of interlocking personalities
7or personnel and organizations in Germany is a nightmare.
8Professor Funke is probably the only person in the world,
9apart from Mr Irving who knows his way round it, and what
10I had hoped was that I am going to try to show some film.
11I will have to did it in cross-examination first, I will
12point out some faces, and your Lordship will see exactly
13what I have been talking about. Then Professor Funke who
14will by then have instructed me, I will know who the faces
15belong to and, roughly speaking, what their political
16colour is. I can start off in that way. Then your
17Lordship will find at the back of Professor Funke's report
18a list of abbreviations which nobody should have to try to
19memorize, but much more useful a sort of dramatis
20personae, that is to say, a short biographical sketch of
21each of the main right-wing extremists with whom Mr Irving
22is associated in Germany. That is an extremely useful
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
25 MR RAMPTON: Herr Funke has also produced a short executive
26summary of his report, explaining the evolution and
1history of neo-Nazi right-wing extremism in Germany. As
2soon as I get back to the office I will release copies of
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Mr Irving, there we are. That is the
5view I take on your submissions. What it comes to is we
6will look carefully at any organizations, and indeed any
7individuals statements, on which the Defendants are
8relying, but in principle, for the reasons I have given,
9it seems to me they are entitled to advance this as part
10of their plea of justification.
11 MR IRVING: Yes.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But we will look at it closely because it
13cannot get out of hand.
14 MR IRVING: I am very anxious that it should not get out hand.
15It is liable to turn into a shooting gallery of the most
16random sort in which any numbers of names are dragged in
17and presented as being neo-Nazis who happen to have been
18in the same room as I or in the same continent or in the
19same county.
20 MR RAMPTON: I would not dream of doing that. It would be a
21monstrous waste of the court's time, and anyway it would
22get me nowhere which is perhaps more important. It will
23consistent of showing Mr Irving's intimate relationships
24over periods of time with individuals, ranging from them
25turning up at his meetings, this kind of thing, him having
26dinner with them. It is nothing like finding two people
1in the same waiting room at a railway station. It really
2is not.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: There are two propositions, both have to be
4put together. One is an association.
5 MR RAMPTON: Exactly.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Which is a pure question of fact.
7 MR RAMPTON: Then they have to prove who the person is.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Then you have to prove the colour of their,
9whatever it is ----
10 MR RAMPTON: Yes, that is exactly right.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- cut of their gib. It is not an easy
12area. I think rogues gallery, which is what this in a way
13comes to, is always difficult. We have to watch it.
14 MR RAMPTON: Rogues' gallery I have always hated as an
15advocate. I have always found it difficult, and it is a
16question of fine judgment in each case. But this is not
17rogues gallery, if I can prove that Mr Irving is one of
18the rogues.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is always true of rogues gallery.
20 MR IRVING: My Lord, in response of course, if I am going to be
21subjected to this kind of public flogging, then course
22I shall expect or hope for a greater degree of latitude in
23presenting my own bundle E when the time comes, because
24that is also a kind of rogues gallery of its own kind.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Who are rogues?
26 MR IRVING: The international endeavour to destroy me.
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
2 MR IRVING: There are certain parallels there which I would
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think this can be approached on the
5basis of tit for tat, as it were, but I hear what you
6say. You would be entitled to say, Mr Irving, that you
7wanted a formal ruling from me. I think as we have the
8transcript, and as there are a great many other things for
9all of us to do overnight, as it were, you are entitled to
10ask for it, do you want me to do a formal ruling?
11 MR IRVING: Not a formal ruling, my Lord, but I would like to
12know what the timetable is now for the next two or three
13days so that I can plan.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is a very good question.
15 MR RAMPTON: I am in your Lordship's hands. I am in
16Mr Irving's hands. I say with not with any pride or
17whatever, but I do say that we have made very good
18progress in this case. We are at least four, maybe five
19or six, weeks short of the estimate even now. We have
20nearly finished the evidence. I quite agree, those files
21actually landed on me on Friday too, and my heart sank
22too. I have in fact read them. They do contain a lot of
23material about Mr Irving's activities because they are
24taken from his diary and from his correspondence and so
26 MR IRVING: Selected from my diary.
1 MR RAMPTON: Yes, maybe. That is right. The human brain is
2very good at selection. I would like him, if he needs it,
3to have the time to read them before I cross-examine him
4about them. I have got a residuum of cross-examination
5about history still to do, loose ends. I am entirely in
6your Lordship's hands.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is it Herr Funke, is it, or Dr Funke?
8 MR RAMPTON: Dr Funke is here.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Presumably, the sensible thing then would be
10to take his evidence next.
11 MR RAMPTON: Before I cross-examine Mr Irving?
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I am completely easy. It is just a
13waste of time, I would have thought, to have Dr Funke
14hanging about while you cross-examine.
15 MR RAMPTON: Well, they want me to cross-examine first.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us ask Mr Irving because your view
18 MR IRVING: My Lord, I would like to cross-examine Dr Funke
19before my cross-examination. The simple reason is this
20may enable us to knock out a number of personalities or
21organizations which would probably be useful. If we
22establish the number of personalities or organizations are
23perfectly clean, and not criminal and are non-violent and
24non-revolutionary and not anti-Semitic and none of the
25things that Professor Lipstadt has said in her book, then,
26presumably, your Lordship would not be interested in my
1relationship with them.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is a fair point. Mr Rampton, do you
3want to ----
4 MR RAMPTON: No, it is all right.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: What Mr Irving has just said (and there is
6something in it) is that if he manages one way or another
7to knock out any of the organizations, basically,
8I suppose in his own cross-examination of Dr Funke, Herr
9Funke, then he does not need to face cross-examination
10from you on that particular topic?
11 MR RAMPTON: Well, it may be. On the other hand, from
12Professor Funke's point of view and certainly from mine,
13it is going to be a very great deal quicker, I mean, if
14Mr Irving is going to be able to knock out an
15organization, he can do it in answer to my questions.
16 MR IRVING: What I would prefer to do is to put to Dr Funke
17certain extracts from diaries pre-emptively, if I can put
18it like that, which shows that I have shown a proper
19respect and distaste for some of these people and that
20would be the time to do it.
21 MR RAMPTON: This is all the wrong way round. It is Mr Irving
22who is the Claimant in this case. I cannot say I have a
23right because nowadays those sorts of procedural rights no
24longer exist. But it is unsatisfactory that the Claimant
25in the case should, as it were, get first shot at the
26Defendants' experts.
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well ----
2 MR RAMPTON: It should not be that way around.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Save for this, this may be unfair and wrong
4-- if so, tell me -- my impression was that you
5deliberately reserved for a later stage of
6cross-examination the whole issue of extremist
7associates. Indeed, I think at one time you were not sure
8you were going to necessarily want to cross-examine on
10 MR RAMPTON: I think that is true. I have not deliberately
11reserved it. It just got left. I mean, it was going to
12be last in the queue anyway.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: All right. I think I am going to suggest
14that Herr Funke gives evidence before you resume your
15cross-examination of Mr Irving because I think that may
16have the effect to some extent of short circuiting things.
17 MR RAMPTON: If your Lordship says so. I do believe it will be
18quicker the other way round, but I am sure Professor Funke
19can deal with it, but if that is going to happen, then
20I, with your Lordship's permission, would want a little
21bit of time in chief with Dr Funke first.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sure that is sensible.
23 MR RAMPTON: Which I think would speed things up. So perhaps
24we can do that tomorrow or whenever, I do not know.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do you want to, as it were, introduce him and
26make a start with him?
1 MR RAMPTON: What, now? Yes, well, no, I do not want to
2because I have not got the kit together.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: All right.
4 MR RAMPTON: As I was expecting to cross-examine first, quite
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I understand why you do.
7 MR RAMPTON: We need videos too which we have not got in
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We will have that first thing in the
11 MR RAMPTON: We will have them first thing in the morning.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I ask for everybody's benefit what the
13likely duration of Dr Funke is going to be?
14 MR RAMPTON: As I am not having first shot at him, I am not
15saying ----
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, you will, first shot at Mr Irving, you
17mean? You are going to have first shot with Herr Funke.
18 MR RAMPTON: Yes, but only in chief. I will only be,
19I suppose, about an hour in chief.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, that is what I assumed.
21 MR IRVING: I will take the rest of the day, that is all.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The rest of the day and that is all?
23 MR RAMPTON: Then we can, subject to Mr Irving's having had
24time to read those files if he wants to, finish the
25evidence this week.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. That is what I was rather hoping.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: In that case we will adjourn now and Herr
3Funke tomorrow morning at 10.30.
4 (The court adjourned until the following day)