Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day007.07 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 MR RAMPTON: Auschwitz denial plus Holocaust denial. That is where I propose to start. Professor van Pelt has only just got here. I do not have the technical stuff in court with me, but I do have one more question in relation to Hitler's knowledge, Hitler's orders, which I could not ask yesterday because I did not have the document, but I have it now. MR JUSTICE GRAY: How long will that take? MR RAMPTON: Well, unpredictable, but it is about two questions. That is not fair. MR JUSTICE GRAY: About half an hour. Shall we dispose of that and then have the argument and, if it is after lunch, it is after lunch. If it is slightly before lunch, so be it. We will have a five-minute break. (Short Adjournment) (MR DAVID IRVING, recalled. Cross-Examined by Mr Rampton QC, continued.) MR RAMPTON: May Mr Irving be supplied with the Dr Longerich report, please? A. Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry, Mr Rampton. For some reason which I do not understand, my Longerich has gone missing. We were looking at it this morning so it must . P-54 have got left behind. MR RAMPTON: It may be that we can manage without it, but I rather think not. MR JUSTICE GRAY: If there is a spare, I would be grateful. Otherwise I will do my best. MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, could you please turn to page 71 of the first part of this report? I will start on page 70. As usual, I always forget the context. I would like to start at 19.6 on page 70, my Lord. Now we are at the end of 1942: "For a report to Hitler on 10 December 1942 Himmler set up a handwritten list of the points which he wanted to bring up. Under 'II. SD and police affairs' Himmler specified as point 4 the following key words" -- I have added the S -- "Jews in France, -- 6-700,000, other enemies". Then on page 71 Dr Longerich writes this: "Next to these key words can be found a tick and in Himmler's own handwriting the word 'abolished' (abschaffen): Himmler had thus brought up these points with Hitler and received permission from him to 'abolish' ie to liquidate (says Dr Longerich) the estimated 600,000 to 700,000 Jews in France as well as 'other enemies'." I am going to read on, if I may: "After the meeting, Himmler sent a note to Muller, head of the Gestapo, in which he stated: The Fuhrer gave orders that the Jews and other enemies in France should be arrested . P-55 and deported. This should take place, however, only once he has spoken with Laval about it. It is a matter of 6-700,000 Jews. "Two months later, in February 1943, Eichmann, on a brief visit to Paris visited submitted a maximum programme for the deportation of all Jews living in France including those with French citizenship. "At the meeting on 10 December 1942 Himmler presented Hitler with a proposal to set up a work camp for Jewish hostages from France, Hungary and Romania, for altogether 10,000 people. According to a handwritten note by Himmler, Hitler accepted this proposal. After the meeting, Himmler sent an order to Muller to concentrate these 10,000 people in a 'special camp' (Sonderlager). He stated: 'Certainly they should work there, but under conditions whereby they remain healthy and alive'". So far as the documentary references there are concerned, or citations are concerned, Mr Irving, do you quarrel with anything that Dr Longerich has written? A. With very many things, yes. First of all, the figure of 600,000 to 700,000 is completely improper. I am not saying it is not a genuine document, but it is characteristic of the gross exaggeration that SS indulged in. There were not 6 or 700,000 Jews in France. There were a total of 240,000 Jews, of whom about 40,000 had already been deported by the time this conference took . P-56 place, so it is an exaggeration by a factor of three or four. It is characteristic of what goes on. We were talking yesterday about this bus in Serbia with 90,000 people or 70,000 people being gassed in the space of 35 days. That would have meant 38 people being gassed every hour in each bus. That kind of figure is completely impractical. Q. Pause there. That is the first thing you do not like about this, but it is not a criticism of Dr Longerich's account of the document, is it? A. You asked me if I had any comments and you gave a very pertinent comment, that this is characteristic of the exaggeration which goes on when we come to numbers. Q. I follow that. That is a criticism of Himmler, not of Longerich? A. I do have criticisms of Longerich, of course. Q. We will come to those in a moment. Let us deal with one thing at a time, otherwise we are going to be shadow boxing and I do not like that, Mr Irving. A. You are relying here on the handwritten note. Of course, Himmler typed up a memorandum in which he used different words after this. Q. Mr Irving, please do not second guess. Do not jump your fences until you get to them, please? A. You asked me for comments, Mr Rampton. I am sure you do not like the comments I give you. . P-57 Q. I asked you for your first comment. I am now going to deal with your first comment, and I am going to deal with your comments, to use your word, seriatim. Could Mr Irving and his Lordship please be given these documents? This has a marking on it. The other document your Lordship can just throw away afterwards. It is only in case there is anything in it which Mr Irving wants to refer to. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where shall we put them? MR RAMPTON: The first one is probably going to go eventually into the core file, but it is a Longerich document which was, until last night, not there. I now have a copy of it. It could, my Lord, at the moment just go perhaps at the front or back of Longerich, part one, or, as I have done, hole punched on the other side opposite the passage in the text. The other two pieces of paper, my Lord, which I have stapled together so that it is clear they are separate are two pages from the Himmler dienstkalender? A. From this book? Q. Yes, that is right, by Witte and others, the version of it. One reason to give your Lordship the dienstkalender extract is that the way in which the words are printed in the dienstkalender shows that this is a document which comes from the Berlin archive and not from the recently discovered Moscow archive? A. I have had this one for a long time. I have had this one for 30 years. . P-58 Q. Yes, exactly. That is point number one. Point number 2, if one looks at the Himmler manuscript, at the very top right hand corner, somebody has written 10.12.42. Your Lordship need not look at it, but it is to be noted, I expect Mr Irving knows this, that the editors of the dienstkalender say that that has been written in by an unknown hand? A. It was not on it when I had it because that is not on my photocopy. Q. Exactly, so I am not asking anybody to accept that that is Himmler's dating. A. No, the date is 10th December. I had a lot of trouble -- these are all loose pages in the original file but, using internal evidence, you can put them back into the correct sequence. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not let us get into the minutia if we do not need to be. MR RAMPTON: No. I do not need to know the history. I just need to know whether the date ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: The figure of 600 to 700,000 Jews is challenged as being a wild exaggeration. MR RAMPTON: Against that entry, on the manuscript "Juden in Frankreich 6-700,000 zunstiger Finde", is the word, is it not, in Himmler's spidery Gothic, "Abschaffen"? A. Yes, in green crayon actually - "Abschaffen". Can we look in your Langenscheit dictionary? . P-59 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, because if we are agreed that is what it says, let us move on. MR RAMPTON: No, will you stop asking me questions, please, Mr Irving. A. I am not asking questions. I am stating that it is the wrong translation by Longerich. He said quite happily "Abschaffen" means "abolish" which he then by a quantum leap says "exterminate". Q. You must give me credit for having had some foresight about what you are going to say. Give us, please, your version of the word "Abschaffen"? A. Well, why don't we just see what Langenscheidt, the dictionary, says? Q. No, tell me what you think it means. A. "Abschaffen" means ---- Q. Get rid of? A. Well, I mean, even "get rid of" in this kind of context is difficult, but we are aided by the fact that there is another version of this document which you have not put before the court, Mr Rampton. Q. I have not got it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us do one thing at a time. What do you say "Abschaffen" signifies? Do not worry about the translation of it, but what do you say that Himmler had in mind when he wrote "Abschaffen" against the French Jews? A. "Remove". . P-60 Q. "Remove", right. A. It is a neutral word, in other words, my Lord, with no kind of -- yes, you have. MR RAMPTON: The root of the word -- I am doing a little bit of etymology myself, Mr Irving, if you will forgive me -- -- A. I thought that was butterfly clothing. Q. --- the root of the word is "create". So the word means literally "discreate", does it not? A. I disagree. "Schaffen" is one of those words like "get". It is a word which has any number of different meanings, like get in, get out, get up, get hot, and so on. It is a multi-purpose word, a multi-purpose root. Q. You quite like my little schoolboy -- it is not mine, it is my son's -- Langenscheit, do you not? A. You are going to ambush me, I can sense it. Q. You actually put your head in the noose yourself, Mr Irving. You asked for it literally. "Abschaffen", verb transitive, abolish, discontinue, repeal, abrogate, redress, suppress, do away with, get rid of, give up keeping, end of definitions? A. I like the tenth meaning there, "do away with". But we are helped, fortunately, as I have mentioned, by the fact that we have a typed version of this document also. Q. And? A. On that it says "Abtransportieren" which means "transport away". . P-61 Q. Yes. That is exactly my point, as you probably understood, Mr Irving. When Himmler is sitting in private with Hitler, in response to his request for information or instructions what to do with these French Jews, and I am coming to the number in a moment, these 6 to 700,000 French Jews, he writes down, not the word "Abtransportieren", or whatever it is, he writes down the word "Abschaffen". A. Yes. Q. Now, when it comes to the point about what is to go into the official record and how the orders are to be transmitted onwards via Muller, it translates itself as a necessary first step towards extermination, "arrest and deportation"? A. Well, if we leave out the bit about "as a necessary first step towards deportation", yes, that is absolutely what it says, but the rest was your personal interpolation. Q. Of course, but, you see, Mr Irving, do we find this anywhere in your books, this ---- A. Yes. Q. --- Himmler log entry? A. Yes. Q. And you ---- A. I am the first person to have found it and have used it, if I can keep on making that point. Q. I have not the references so maybe you will tell me and . P-62 I will look at them later. How in those books do you translate the word "Abschaffen". A. Bear with me for a moment. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where is it, "Hitler's War"? A. It will be in "Hitler's War" in all the editions. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us look at 1991, shall we? Are you on '91? A. Well, I only have the bound volume of the original edition.
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