Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day005.06 Last-Modified: 2000/08/01 Q. Can I read from the second sentence on 426? You tell me whether this is right or not. "Henry Picker, who took the notes at the table talk of 24th July 1942, which I promise you we are coming to, claimed that Hitler, even in his private circle, had 'never forgotten to keep silent about things for which there was no resonance among his table companions as amongst the broad mass of out people"' - - it must be "our people", unsere volkes. "Only take the persecution of the Jews, which he obscured before his table companions with references to preparations for the establishment of a Jewish national state on the island of . P-46 Madagascar, or alternatively in central Africa." That was published in, I think, Berlin in 1997 but also in London in 1994? A. 1977. Q. What? A. Can we be quite plain that this is not actually wartime writing there? Q. I realise that. A. This is writing by Mr Picker 32 years after the war was over and the climate in German where people were put in prison for having the wrong opinions. He wanted to publish a volume of Hitler's sayings, so he wrote a suitably politically correct introduction. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you tell me because I have missed it? Picker was what? A secretary or something more senior? A. He replaced Henry Heim as Martin Bormann's adjutant at Hitler's table talk, and from 1942 he took over the task of writing down Hitler's table conversations in this summary form. He died a few years ago. This was published in 1977, at the time when this persecution in Germany had already begun. MR RAMPTON: You see, this is perhaps reflected, is it not, in something -- do you remember Kurt Engel? A. Gebhardt Engel, Hitler's army adjutant. Q. Yes. You interviewed him, I think, in 1971 on several occasions? . P-47 A. On several occasions. Q. This is the only version I have of it at the moment. Do you have Professor Evans' supplementary or amendment pages? A. I have received them, but I have not even had time to look at them yet. That is the 18 pages that I referred to. Q. You have not got it here? A. I can comment on. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Put the point, Mr Rampton. I think Mr Irving is saying he can cope. MR RAMPTON: Well, I think he should have it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can he have a copy? MR RAMPTON: I have a copy. A. Thank you very much. Q. Paragraph 12 on page 16, Mr Irving. A. Yes. This is the written transcript that I made after the interview with Engel. Q. That is what I understand. I think I have the original here. A. Yes. Q. I do not know your handwriting but this must be you. Your handwriting is legible, so I can read the handwriting. A. I can explain. After every interview with one of these gentleman I sat down and wrote a formal protocol on what had been discussed between us. Q. I think it is best if you just look at this document that . P-48 I have, so that in the transcript you have identified it as your document. A. Notes on the second interview with General Gerhardt Engel at his office, WAH, which is an arms dealers, Dusseldorf and so on, 9th December 1970. Then it is the second one that you are relying on? Notes on the interview of General Gerhardt Engel at his home Dusseldorf, April 5, 1971, in handwriting. Q. Could I have it back? A. I just want to make sure that nothing has been omitted. Q. Do check it against the typescript in case of error. Thank you. I will read from your manuscript:"When I asked his views on Hitler's association with Juden Hausroten (?) he confirmed broadly Carl Wolf's statements, and added that the Fuhrerbefallen," that means Fuhrer orders. A. Is it? Can I check that? MR JUSTICE GRAY: It must be, from the sense. It is in the singular but it must really be the plural. MR RAMPTON: There is not just one Fuhrer order throughout the war, is there? It has an E on the end. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It has not in Professor Evans? A. I accept that it should have an E on the end. MR RAMPTON: It has in the manuscript. That is why I am glad I have the manuscript. "Frequently resulted from remarks F, that is Fuhrer, made at his late discussions, vo 'Hitler dutzierte stundenlang' (?). That should have a small S, . P-49 should it? Yes, it is an adverb. He referred to the Hewell tagerbruf (?) as proof." That means Hitler just rattled on for a long time. That is all that means, is it not? "He never summarized the conclusions of these discussions. Each was left to pick his own meat from the talk, Himmler in his way quiet but efficient, (that was how the three quarters of a million strong Waffen (?) SS had been born and Bormann more crudely issuing edicts on party notepaper beginning der Fuhrer hat befallen" etc. That is exactly what would have happened? A. Yes. You note incidentally that this is part of my collection in Munich which I no longer have access to. Q. We must have got this from Munich I suppose? A. It has come from the Institute in Munich as part of the early collection which is now denied to me. Q. If you would like copies of these, we can certainly give them to you. A. Very generous of you. MR JUSTICE GRAY: What is the point on this? MR RAMPTON: The point on this is that what Engel is saying there reflects what Picker has said in 19 whenever it was after the war, that if there are a lot of people, or even a few people, unless they are the two or three high ranking people alone, Hitler would use euphemism. He would use a sort of a thought process. To Himmler, for example, Siberia would mean extermination. To somebody . P-50 else who was not in the know it might mean Siberia. Do you follow me? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that really right? Picker is talking about euphemisms, but Engel is talking about something rather different. That is how a Hitler order emerges. Is that not a different point? MR RAMPTON: It is part of the same process. A. It is a very clear picture, in fact, those two lines, of how these Himmler orders emerged, that Bormann would be hanging around in the background with a note pad writing things down, and eventually an order would be drafted, sent out as the Fuhrer has ordered, and sometimes it was not what Hitler had ordered at all. There are famous examples where Hitler learned of these orders months later and said,"Who ordered this?" Q. I am sure that from time to time people got the wrong end of the stick but, if Hitler is talking about evacuation of the Jews at one of these table talks and is saying, "we must get on with it" for example, then Himmler will know exactly what Hitler is talking about, and Hitler does not have to talk about extermination, does he? A. Mr Rampton, it is precisely why not only I question but also the allied interrogators questioned all these surviving members of Hitler's staff very closely on this very point. How much discussion was there, whether veiled or otherwise? I have to say that I am not saying there . P-51 was no discussion. There is one famous episode, if I can just relate for two minute, where Hitler's film camera man personally witnessed a mass shooting of the Jews outside Minsk in August 1941. He had been there with Himmler. He is still alive. I am the one who weedled this story out of him. He came back to Hitler's headquarters with the photographs in his camera. He showed the photographs to General Schmundt, Hitler's wehrmacht adjutant, and Schmundt said to him, "If you know what is good for you, you will destroy these photographs", which is what I put in my book also. What do you make of a statement like that? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I go back to where we started and ask you whether you do or not accept that Picker is giving an accurate portrayal of talk within Hitler's private circle when he says that there is an element of camouflaging about the language that was used. Q. I do not accept that, my Lord. I fully accept his transcripts that are published as transcripts in his volume, which is very similar to the table talks but in the third person instead of being in the first person. Q. That is not really answering my point. A. I am just about to answer, my Lord. What has been quoted from, the passage you are asking me about, is not written during the war. It is written in 1977, when the climate of fear in Germany has grown to such an extent that . P-52 everybody who wants to write a book about Adolf Hitler has to put in a politically correct introduction to make sure it gets past the census. In Germany they have a book censorship body which burns books and closes down bookstores and arrests authors. In order to make sure you get past this book censorship body in modern Germany, you put in politically correct statements in order to avoid trouble. This is a typical example of the kind of politically correct statement to which I would attach no evidentiary weight whatsoever without supporting material. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is clear answer. Thank you very much. MR RAMPTON: I am still on table talks Mr Irving. In Hitler's War 1991, there is a reference on page The gulf between the actual atrocities in the east, and what Hitler knew or said about them, widened. Over lunch on May 15 Hitler again merely spoke to staff about transporting the Jews eastward; her referred indignantly to the misplaced sympathies of the bourgeoisie. How well the Jews were faring, he remarked, compared with the German emigrants of the nineteenth century - many of whom had even died on route to Australia! Goebbels, unhappy that forty thousand Jews still remained in'his' Berlin, raised the subject at lunch with Hitler on the twenty-ninth. ('I once again inform the Fuhrer on my plan to evacuate every single Jew from Berlin...') Hitler merely expatiated on the best post-war homeland for the Jews. Siberia was out- that . P-53 would just produce an even tougher baccilus strain of Jews; Palestine was out too- the Arabs did not want them; perhaps central Africa? At all events, he summed up, western Europe must be liberated of its Jews - there could be no homeland for them there. As late as July 24 Hitler was still referring at table to his plan to transport the Jews to Madagascar - by now already in British hands- or some other Jewish national home after the war was over." So you there, as it were, made use of four different records? A. Yes. Q. The table talk of the 15th May, Goebbels' diary of 30th May? A. Yes. Q. The table talk of 29th May? A. Yes. Q. And the table talk of 24th July? A. Yes. The Goebbels' diary of May 30th would refer of course to the events of May 29th. Q. That is absolutely right. I would like you again, if you will, to look at the supplement to Professor Evans' report where you will see I think on page 8, starting under the cross line, a rather fuller translation of Goebbels' diary entry for 30th May 1942. To save my voice and with his Lordship's permission, it is quite a long passage, I would ask you to read the English. If you have any problems . P-54 with it, the German is printed underneath. Starting with the small type on page 8 and ending with the words "here they will not be allowed to have any home any more" on page 9. A. (Pause for reading) Acres of sludge, is it not? If I had to put all that into a book, the book would sink under its own weight. Q. You have read that? A. Yes. Q. On the next page, page 10 at paragraph 3, Professor Evans has set out a translation of the table talk for the 29th May 1942, and again I ask you to read that. A. (Pause for reading) He is suggesting that it is two separate conversations.
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