Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day008.17 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 Q. Nowhere do I find -- correct me if I am wrong -- in any of your published works at least one natural explanation of this passage in Hitler's speech on 26th May 1944, which is this: "I solved the matter simply in the most simple way I could which is by killing them. I am sorry that it was not more humane". You could of course have gone on to say, I am sure that is what he meant to say. You have to explain away what Himmler had said on the previous occasion as well. But I do not even find that explanation anywhere do I ? A. If you look on page 632, Mr Rampton, at the end of the Adolf Hitler speech, May 26th 1944. Q. Yes I see that. A. We have spirited applause at the end of the speech and then the two lines as follows. This is me, David Irving. "In Auschwitz"In Auschwitz, the defunct paraphernalia of death- idle since late 1943- began to clank again as the first trainloads from Hungary arrived." Does this not say everything to you? Q. No, it does not. That is exactly my point. . P-152 A. After we have listened to these two speeches set out at unusual length, if I may say so, almost the whole page of the book, I then say: For once, I give the reader a little hint as to what cause and effect is. Q. Why does the poor little reader -- in 91 they have just become slave labour at the I G Farben plant but that is a different point. We will come to that. A. I think this is quite an important point. This is the way do things when you write books. You give the document, you give the quote and, in case you think the reader is not going to get the point, you spell it out in one and a half lines. You say what you are going to say, you say what you say and then you say what you have said. Q. Mr Irving, surely, in a book like this, had you not been set on exculpating Adolf Hitler, you would have said, would you not, and evidence, evidence, of what Hitler was referring to by the simple means was killing, is that in July of 1944 or before, in consequence of the fact that the Hungarians had surrendered their 400,000 Jews, by order of the high hierarchy in Berlin, Auschwitz started up again? A. Well, how many lines is that? Q. So what? A. You say "so what" but ---- Q. You put in what, if I may say so, is a lot of Hitler's sludge which you did not need? . P-153 A. Well, I thought -- this is not Hitler sludge. This is a pure speech. I am the first person to find it and you will find that when I found something for the first time, I tended to put more than usual in so that other historians can have a bite at it too in case they cannot get hold of the original transcript. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I, if you are about to leave that, Mr Rampton, just ask ---- MR RAMPTON: I am, I am going to go away from that now. MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- Mr Irving what the defunct paraphernalia of death at Auschwitz actually were? A. I prefer to leave it like that at that point. Q. No, but I am asking you now, when you wrote that you must have had something in mind. A. When I wrote that, I assumed that they had gas chambers, the whole factory of death paraphernalia, yes, my Lord. You will find that when we get to the 1991 edition, that sentence has been changed. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I follow that. Thank you. MR RAMPTON: My Lord, I am going to leave that aspect of Hitler's knowledge in the spring of '44 and move backwards in time because it is dealt with as a separate topic in Professor Evans. That is what Mr Irving calls the Schlegelberger note. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can we spell that for the benefit of the transcriber? . P-154 MR RAMPTON: It is "S C H L E G E B E R G E R". Before I come on to this and, Mr Irving, I call it the so-called Schlegelberger note because, whatever you may think, we and I, that is to say, are by no means certain that that is what it ought to be called. The reasons for that will emerge in a moment. But before we start on this topic, you just said about Hitler's May 26th speech that you do not extrapolate "I am inclined to stick more closely to what we find in the record with no quantum leap", yes? A. Yes. Q. Well, bear that in mind, will you, as we look at your treatment of this particular document. My Lord, it starts, this exercise, which I am afraid is a little bit tedious, however it must be done, on page 363 of Professor Evans' report. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have we got the Schlegelberger note somewhere? Is it worth looking at that or not? MR RAMPTON: It certainly is. It will be necessary to look at it. Yes, it will. A. I have the entire file with the original just in case we need it. Q. The best copy, well, there are two copies of it. There is a translation of it at the top of page 364 of Professor Evans. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That will do, I suspect. MR RAMPTON: Well, no, it will not, I am afraid, because, as . P-155 often in these cases, the markings on the note may be thought to have some significance. It is necessary to look at the actual note. That, my Lord, is to be found in two places. It is in H1 (viii) at page 368, which is the Evans' copy, but it is also to be found on Mr Irving's web site -- in some senses this is a more satisfactory copy -- at page 1561 of file D8(iv). MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have not got that either -- yes, I have. That is better actually. MR RAMPTON: Your Lordship might appreciate looking at that one too. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Instead? MR RAMPTON: No both, and maybe put the Evans one away. That is matter for your Lordship entirely. It is the same document. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I will stick with the one I have got. Page, sorry? I did not catch that in the web site. MR RAMPTON: In the Evans' one, my Lord? MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, the web site one. MR RAMPTON: Web site one is 1561. It is in a box at the top of the page. A. That has the translation with it? Q. Pardon? A. That has the translation with it. Q. It does too. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you got it? . P-156 A. I have it here. MR RAMPTON: You translate it as meaning: "Mr Reich Minister Lammers told me, informed me, that the Fuhrer had repeatedly declared to him that he wants to hear the solution of the Jewish problem has been postponed until after the war is over". Which are the words which say that he wants to hear? A. "Wissen", he wants to know that, he wants to -- I am trying to remain, adhere as closely as possible to the sense of the document, "wissen volle". Q. I see. Then you go on: "That being so, the current discussions are of purely theoretical value, Mr Reich Minister Lammers' opinion. He will moreover take pains to ensure that, whatever happens, no fundamental decisions are taken without his knowledge in consequence of a surprise briefing by any third party." Now, that document is undated, is it not? A. That is undated, yes. Q. It comes from a file of somewhat miscellaneous documents, does it not? A. Well, it is a Ministry of Justice file headed "Treatment of the Jews". Q. Yes? A. "The Reichs Ministry of Justice", the label on the jacket of the file is [German]. Q. My understanding, however, is that this file was one that . P-157 was used by the Allies or may even have been put together by the Allies; is that right? A. A photocopy of the file was made at the 777 Berlin Document Centre, and the photocopies were supplied to the prosecution authorities at Nuremberg, where they were handled by Dr Kempner. Q. Can you look -- I do not want to read it out because it is really too boring in a sense -- I wonder if you could look, read to yourself, and I would ask your Lordship to do the same, please, paragraphs 4, 5, 6 and 7, the first sentence of 7, perhaps the whole of 7, of Professor Evans' report starting on page 364? To hear me read it out would drive everybody mad, I am sure. A. Yes, he obviously has problems with it. Q. Well, do you not? A. Not at all. Q. Have you read the whole of that? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just pause a moment. I am sure Mr Irving knows it by heart. I do not. A. I am rather amused by the problems he has with it. This is one document that just does not fit into the Holocaust historians' repertoire. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON: You have been absolutely categorical that this document comes from March 1942, have you not, Mr Irving? A. Yes, the end of March or early April. . P-158 Q. Do you see on your copy in the web site the name "Freisler"? A. Yes. Q. What do you think of those letters or digits which appear before Mr Freisler's name? A. Staatssekretar, STS, big S, little T -- this is old German handwriting -- [German] handwriting it is called -- capital S, little T, full stop, S, Staatssekretar. He was State secretary in the Ministry of Justice. Q. Why has it got his name on it? A. That is the routing list. It is going to go, first of all, to the State Secretary, then to the person whose department is listed on the next line, department 4, then to department 5. Normally, you would expect there to be a little tick or a check mark next to it or an initial to indicate that, yes, they have seen it. So this is not a man who has written it. This is who it is intended for. Q. Then, please, let us remind ourselves of what you said about this document. First of all, page 464 of Hitler's War 1991. When did you discover this document, by the way? A. In stages, if I may put it like that. Beginning in 1970, I found the reference in a summary of it, and then I received the actual document itself from a German historian in about 1978 and simultaneously, I believe, from the United States national archives. . P-159 Q. You did not have it then when you first -- I do not know if it is in '77 Hitler's War or not. I am not interested if it is? MR JUSTICE GRAY: It could not be if he did not have it until '78. MR RAMPTON: No, I would not have thought ---- A. My Lord, let me be just slightly more specific. Your Lordship will recall that I said that photocopies went to the prosecution authorities in Nuremberg. The location of the origin, of the originals, I do not know thereafter, but the photocopies remained in Nuremberg. The Americans produced what was called a staff evidence analysis sheet which listed the contents of that little clip of documents which I have here in my hand. It listed five documents in that clip, and document No. 4 was note stating that Hitler intended to postpone solution of the Jewish problem until after the war which, obviously, is something which immediately attracted my attention. This staff evidence analysis sheet is dated June 22nd 1946, in the middle of the Nuremberg trials, in other words. When I went to the file which this referenced, all the other documents, the photocopies, were in that file. This one had vanished. It took some years to locate the originals with the original file still in it, the original document still in it. I can only surmise that this is possibly totally uncalled for, that the allied prosecution . P-160 authorities in Nuremberg did not want that document to surface. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Why not? A. Because it would have been used by Lammers, in particular, who was on trial in 1947 as a document to mitigate punishment or in some way to disculpate himself for any part in the Final Solution; that he would have pointed out that, as far as he knew, Hitler had ordered that nothing was to happen. We conducted quite a paper trail. I contacted Mr Kempner which drew up this staff analysis sheet and we had quite a long search for it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You eventually got it in about '78? A. Yes, a rival historian got hold of the original document Professor Jekkel(?) because by that time the German Government archives had processed the file and found it. But it took 23 years just to process that file. MR RAMPTON: Can we please go, therefore, to page 464 of Hitler's War? A. Of the? Q. 1991. My Lord, that is volume 2, but your Lordship will shortly need volume 1 because I am going to refer to the introduction. I want to look at the text first. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I have 464.
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