Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day003.20 Last-Modified: 2000/07/29 Q. So your point on "man" and whether that is significant is a different point. A. Perhaps I am jumping the gun on that, yes. MR RAMPTON: You are. You are not seeing, whether deliberately or not I know not, you are not seeing what I am putting to you. What I am putting to you, and I will put it directly, although I would have thought it was pretty obvious, is that with this little phrase in Hitler's War both editions and with Hitler in East Prussia, this can only be taken as a reference to Heydrich's agency, "continue, they tell us", etc., "to liquidate them yourselves". By doing that what are you actually telling the reader is that Hitler was not in Berlin at the time when Hans Frank was given this instruction? A. I think probably the parenthesis should have been shifted forward two or three words to include "also people tell us", "in Berlin people tell us", so that i makes it quite plain that I am relying on the parenthesis both on the "in Berlin" and the rather depricatory world "people tell us". MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is not quite an answer to the question. MR RAMPTON: It is not. A. Very well. Yes, I will accept the point which you make, yes. MR RAMPTON: Had you sought historical accuracy, that parenthesis would have been attached to December 16th . P-178 1941, would it not, at the top of the page: "Announcing to his Lublin cabinet on December 16th 1941 Hitler was in East Prussia at the time", if it was of any interest to anybody. What you have tried to do, you have distorted the chronology in order to make perfectly certain that Hitler cannot have anything to do with this appalling instruction to Hans Frank? A. I have not distorted any chronology at all. The dates are perfectly certain. On December 16th, at the time of this speech by Governor Frank to his cabinet, Hitler is in the Wolf's lair in East Prussia, as I said. Q. Mr Irving, perhaps you are tired, perhaps I am tired. A. I am not so tired that I do not remember dates that I have written in books. Q. Mr Irving, I am sorry, it is not the problem that you do not remember the dates. I am afraid I think you remember them only too well. I will try once again then and I am going to leave it. Why do you not have the text of Hitler's War in front of you? A. I have it open, yes. Q. 428, it does not matter which edition: "Hans Frank announcing to his Lublin cabinet on December 16th 1941 that Heydrich was calling a big conference in January on the expulsion of Europe's Jews to the East, irritably exclaimed", blah-blah-blah "! 'In Berlin' and with Hitler in East Prussia, this can only be taken as a reference to . P-179 Heydrich's agencies", blah-blah-blah, "liquidate them yourselves." A. Yes. Q. Now that is apt to suggest to any person who is even marginally literate that Hitler was not in Berlin at the time when Hans Frank was and was given that instruction? MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have got a "yes" to that already, Mr Rampton. MR RAMPTON: I have, have I? A. I fully understand the point you are trying to make and that is a narrow interpretation of those words which you are trying t slant or guy rope in the direction you want them. The point I am making is that Hitler's headquarters is historically in East Prussia. The seat of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt under the SS is in Berlin, and Governor Frank making his speech is in Krakow. When he talks about Berlin he is talking about the SS. When he wants to talk about Hitler he will say "East Prussia". When he says, "in Berlin they tell us this or tell us that", he is not talking about a specific meeting or a specific event where they have been given these instructions. He is just talking about these block heads, these mutton heads in Berlin who imagine that life can be made so easy that they just put the people on trains and send them to Poland. Q. Yes, Mr Irving. Then why insert the reference to Hitler . P-180 at all in relation to what Frank was told in Berlin? A. Because I was trying to put into one terse line of text given the constraints of writing a book that is going to be less than 1,000 pages what I just set out to you in probably ten lines of text. Q. Why? What has Hitler got to do with this? A. This is his Hitler's biography. This is about Adolf Hitler. Q. Unless there is evidence that Hitler said this to Frank himself, you would not bother even to mention Hitler? A. It may be that ignorant people will assume that because Adolf Hitler is the Reichschancellor and his capital is Berlin, therefore, the reference to "people" is Adolf Hitler. I am trying to make sure that ignorant people do not draw the wrong reference. Q. In order that ignorant people should not have to have it explained why it is not likely this order came from Hitler, I beg to differ with you about that, but in order that ignorant people, as you call them, should have that explained to them neatly, you actually tell a neat little fib. You get Hitler out of Berlin when in fact he was there? A. But there is nothing that is the least bit wrong about the sentence I put in there. With Hitler in East Prussia, his headquarters were in East Prussia, the references to Berlin can only be taken as references to the SS, the . P-181 Heydrich's agencies, who were in fact wholly responsible for these operations. As we know from other sources, Hitler was intervening constantly to stop these things being done. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have got the point anyway. MR RAMPTON: Yes, I am not going on. A. It is the reference to general geography; not to specific meetings or conferences that you have only recently heard about, no matter how dramatic these discoveries may be or made to seem. Q. Will your Lordship forgive me a moment? May Mr Irving please be given bundle H3 (ii). I think these are Professor Browning's documents. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is one I have not got here I am afraid. A. This is the actual conference. MR RAMPTON: At tab 11, no sorry. A. 10. Q. It is open at the right place but I just want to identify the document. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Tab 9, page 458. MR RAMPTON: It is called "Footnote 88" which is the Hans Frank extract which is printed in Professor Browning's report at paragraph 5.1.13 on pages 31 and 32. He has quoted some of that diary, but there is another passage here which I would like you to look at in the German, please, Mr Irving, while I read slowly a translation. . P-182 A. Presumably the second paragraph? Q. The first complete paragraph on page 458. This is the Hans Frank so-called "diary". Correct me as soon as I go wrong. No, I will read it once and then when we go through it again you tell me how this translation is in error, if it is. "For us the Jews are also particularly useless, might be damaging, consumers of food, mouths. We have approximately 2.5, perhaps with those related to Jews and all that belongs to that 3.5 million Jews. We can't shoot these 3.5 million Jews. We can't poison them. But we will, however, be able to undertake interventions which in some way lead to a successful annihilation, and indeed in connection with the large scale measures to be undertaken from the Reich and to be discussed. The General Government must become just as free of Jews as the Reich is. Where and how that happens is a matter for the institutions which we must put into action and create here and the effectiveness of which I will report on to you in good time." Is that roughly an accurate translation of that paragraph? A. Just two minor beefs, as I would call them. I would say in connection with, where he says "in connection with the measures to be discussed from the Reich", I would say "in the context of" is probably a more apposite description. . P-183 When he talks about "the institutions", "is a matter for the institutions", "instansun(?)" would be more accurately translated as "departments" in the sense of government departments. Q. Yes. I am happy to wear that correction for the moment. I do not know whether the translator is. I will find that out later. Does that not, Mr Irving, completely demolish the idea that in Berlin it was Frank who was telling the people in Berlin "liquidate the Jews yourselves"? Is he not here expanding on the instruction from Berlin, "liquidate them yourselves"? A. May I first of all make plain that I had not seen this passage at the time I wrote the book. So this is not something that lay before me when I wrote my books. Can I make that quite plain on oath? Q. Yes. A. You will find this when I produce the materials that I had that were given to me by the Institute from the Hans Frank diaries. Secondly, it confirms what I said about them already having more Jews in the Government General than they could handle. They could not feed and house the ones they did have and they were very indignant at any more being dumped on them given the problems they had of feeding the mouths they already had. Q. He is saying: "We have got two and a half, maybe three and a half million Jews in this part of the Reich occupied . P-184 territories, we cannot shoot them all, we cannot poison them." A. He says "we can't shoot them". He does not say "all". There is a subtle difference there. Q. Is it? A. Yes. Q. Oh. A. Yes, otherwise it implies they can shoot some. If I am saying I cannot shoot all the people in this room, that implies half the people in this room have a rather bleak lookout. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but making the place phrase "Judenfrage" is pretty unambiguous. A. No, the actual phrase that has been translated here, he says: "These 3.5 million, we can't shoot them. We can't poison them", and Mr Rampton just slid in the word "all". MR RAMPTON: Oh, no. I am paraphrasing. Be kind to me, Mr Irving. A. You put in the word "all". We all heard you say it. Q. Of course it does, but that is what it means? A. No. What it means is quite plain. "We can't shoot them". Q. How do you make the General Government "Judenfrage" if you do not get rid of all the Jews, if you do not achieve a vernichtung serfolg? A. I do not want to labour the point. If you say that we cannot shoot them all, that implies we can shoot some of . P-185 them. If he says we cannot shoot the Jews that implies we cannot shoot any of them. Q. That will do. We cannot poison them. We cannot shoot 3.5 million. We cannot poison 3.5 million? A. But we will be able to do something, he goes on to say, which will lead to wiping them out, getting rid of them, vernichtung. Q. Getting rid of? A. Vernichtung. Q. Vernichtung is to get rid of? A. I am just saying the sense of this sentence is, "we can't kill them, we can do something that will get rid of them." Q. It is not. A. He just said, "We can't poison, we can't shoot them". Whatever ways would you suggest? Q. Gas, Mr Irving, gas? A. Vergeltung? It sounds like poisoning to me, poison gas. Q. "Gift gas" is poison gas. Vergeltung is poison? A. That is right, he says "we can't do it". Q. Yes. He does not say anything about gassing. This is an evolutionary document. A. No point using gas if it is not poison gas.
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