Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day008.38 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 Q. No, it is projected at some stage. I will have the projection figures for you tomorrow, but if these are registered people that are being talked about here, then I quite agree, it is utterly absurd. If, however, what is contemplated is that the majority of these people who are going to be incinerated are never registered at all but are merely killed on arrival off the train, why then it is not the least bit absurd, is it? A. It is absurd when you look at the individual figures and you know that those figures wildly exceed anything that the top company who actually designed and specified the crematorium furnaces had provided for by many multiples. . P-155 Q. Not at all. We will get to the figures. You will probably get to the figures with Professor van Pelt, but that is the whole point about the design of these top multiple muffle ovens, is that you can incinerate up to four corpses at a time in any one muffle. Do you know why you do that, Mr Irving? Because they self-combust. You mix fat corpses with thin corpses and then you do not need much coke supply; it keeps going under its own steam? A. Mr Rampton, you are not mortician. I am not a mortician, but one thing I do know is that bodies are largely made up of water, not fat. Nine tenths of a body is water, and unless you find a way of burning water then they are not going to self-combust. Q. We might have to look at the patent application. Did you read that in these papers, Mr Irving? A. The patent for the furnaces actually installed? Q. Yes, it is in this bundle. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are you about to leave the document which Mr Irving challenges? MR RAMPTON: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just ask you one question, Mr Irving? If for the sake of argument it is an authentic document, it is about as incriminating as one could possibly find? A. My Lord ---- Q. When I say "incriminating" you know what I mean? A. Yes, it looks incriminating until you realize the trauma . P-156 they have been through in 1942, with people who were dying at the rate of 400 or 500 a day and not knowing what lies before them in 1943 when conditions are undoubtedly going to get worse because the camp is expanding. Q. So you think they might, in order to guard against a repetition of 1942, have been constructing crematoria capable of taking nearly 5,000 people a day? A. I do not accept these figures could possibly be true for other considerations, from the coke consumption considerations alone. It takes 30 kilograms of coke to burn one body, whatever Mr Rampton is about to say now. There is no provision for coke supplies on this scale in the entire encampment. MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, the top [sic - Topf] patent application runs in two parts it is, but it runs from pages 6 to 18 in this part of the file. It is much to long for us to struggle through this afternoon. It is all in German. It is cited by Professor van Pelt in his report. MR JUSTICE GRAY: 539 did you say? MR RAMPTON: Yes. Mr Irving, if you have not read it already I suggest you read it overnight in case you are going to fall out with Professor van Pelt about its effect. A. Is it suggested these were crematoria actually installed? Q. No. A. Then what on earth is the relevance? Q. What is suggested is that this is the model for, this is . P-157 the patent application after all, the prototype or model for those which were actually installed, yes, and the key to it was that you had to keep, well, I will start at the beginning. Under German law, Mr Irving, correct me if I am wrong, you had to burn only one corpse at a time, because you had to be able to identify the ashes at the end of the operation? A. Even in 1940 Himmler ordered this was to be the situation in concentration camps too, yes. Q. This was a direct breach of German law, no doubt sanctioned by the SS, because what they were proposing was to incinerate more than one corpse at a time? A. On account of conveyor belt system by the look of it. Q. Yes, absolutely right, and what they observe in their patent application is that if you do not keep the process continuous you hit problems. If you operate it periodically it does not fully satisfy. That is how, Mr Irving, they can reach such high numbers. It is also how -- I have made a mistake. The patent used -- I made a mistake. Anyhow it is the description of the process I am interested in. A. Well, I cannot quite see the relevance of this to what is before us, because you yourself say these were not ever installed in Auschwitz. Q. I may have to come back to that. A. It is grisly and gruesome stuff to read, but, believe me, . P-158 my brother was Regional Commissioner in Wiltshire and he tells me what we were planning for the event of nuclear war in this country and that was equally grisly and gruesome as to what to do with the bodies that would come from a nuclear war. They are planning for worst case contingencies here. Q. Mr Irving, the reason why it was possible to contemplate such a large daily incineration was that they could burn, according to the design of these ovens, one more than one corpse at a time in each muffle? A. Yes, a zigzag or something like that. Q. No, they were just laid in lines. A. Yes. Q. That is number one. A. But it was never installed, this is the whole point. Q. Yes, that is exactly. If you read the eyewitness descriptions, if you go and look at the wretched things in Auschwitz, that is exactly what they are. They are multi-muffle ovens. MR JUSTICE GRAY: But having read the extracts that Professor van Pelt has cited in his report, it seems to me that they are at best of equivocal significance on this question of whether human fat will cause them to incinerate more frequently. It is page 540 just about the middle. MR RAMPTON: What I think I misunderstood ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is the theory of the thing rather than . P-159 whether it is the particular relevant patent. MR RAMPTON: But the eyewitness testimony, Mr Irving, of, for example, Henrich Tagebuch tells us that that is exactly what they did. A. We will see what we have to think of Henrich Teuer when the time comes. Q. The time has now come for you to outline, if you will, but I just want to ask one more thing before I move to the eyewitness evidence. A. Let me say just briefly about Henrich Teuer. He was clearly briefed as to what to say. MR JUSTICE GRAY: We are coming on to that. MR RAMPTON: You can tell me in a moment about Mr Teuer, Mr Irving. I am sure we should like to know because then Professor van Pelt can deal with it. The other reason why it is an efficient process, if indeed it worked in the way in which we have been told that it did, is that of course you need much less fuel, do you not? A. We know exactly how much fuel on average is required to cremate one corpse in existing crematoria. Q. Please listen to my question. If it works in this way, that the corpses fuel one another and so the continuous combustion process, then you need less coke? A. This is yet another "if" on which you base your case, but unfortunately these were not the muffles actually installed in Auschwitz and we know precisely what their . P-160 efficiency was. Q. So you say, Mr Irving. I am sorry, I just do not believe that you know what you are talking about on the question of what muffles, I am sorry, what quantity of corpses were put into each muffle. A. We know because we have precise figures relating to the these types of crematoria in, for example, the Gusen concentration camp. We know precisely how many tons of coke were needed to burn how many hundred bodies, and we have I think an average of 30.5 kilograms of coke per body being cremated. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that in a single body crematoria? A. They were the identical muffles that were installed in Auschwitz, the identical crematoria, is my understanding. MR RAMPTON: But are you saying that in that crematorium at Gusen they burnt more than one body at a time in a muffle? A. They were the identical furnaces. Q. You do not answer my questions, Mr Irving, too often. Are you saying that they burnt more than one body at a time in those muffles? A. I should certainly, if you attach importance to that, go back and look at it, but I do not see what the difference is ---- Q. It is critically important. A. --- because if it is an average figure and you need that much coke to burn one body, then stuffing them in four at . P-161 a time is not going to make it any better. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are missing Mr Rampton's point. MR RAMPTON: You are missing the point. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think the reason you are missing it is because you just do not know really the answer, whether you do burn one body ---- A. Yes, I would have to go and check up on the sources. Q. --- more quickly if you have another body being burnt simultaneously. A. I said repeatedly I am not a Holocaust expert. I did not want to become a Holocaust expert. I have to defend my position here. Q. We cannot take it any further I think. MR RAMPTON: I agree, we cannot take it any further. My Lord, I will ask one question and Mr Irving can put in what he likes to say about Mr Teuer or anybody else. I will ask one question about the eyewitness evidence, and then I believe I am in a position where I can sit down on this part of the case. Mr Irving, what do you say about all the eyewitness evidence about Auschwitz for a start? A. What an extraordinary question. Q. Well, is it ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, answer it. Do not worry about whether it is extraordinary or not. MR RAMPTON: It is not an extraordinary question at all. . P-162 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Answer it. A. All can I say in general is that I would attach less importance to the eyewitness evidence than I would to the British intercepts, to the aerial photographs, to the concrete evidence, literally the archeological evidence, to the documents I find in the archives, way down all the documents of that sort, sources of that nature, I would put way down believe that whatever any eyewitnesses might say. MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, if it be the case that the eyewitness evidence is broadly consistent with the documentary -- it is an "if" I know, so do not say "if" -- if the eyewitness evidence is broadly consistent with the documentary evidence, then we can pay quite a lot of attention to the eyewitness evidence, do you not agree? A. Except on one premise. Q. What? A. If the eyewitnesses have been briefed on the basis of the documents as to what to say. Q. Of course. A. Right. Q. If they have been sitting in a room with a pistol to their head and they have been shown a document and said, "That mean it's a gas chamber, doesn't it?", and they have said "Yes, of course"? A. If, for example, they describe as having seen a building . P-163 which turns out to have existed only on paper, then we know they have been shown the architectural designs and they are describing what they have seen on the design and not what they have actually seen in real life or concrete. Q. No, you do not know that. A. Well, we do. There is one particular case, Mr Teuer. Q. There may be one particular case, but you do not know that a person who is shown a drawing does not recognize it as what he has seen in real life, do you? A. Except if the drawing was never actually put into effect in that shape but was subsequently amended. Q. One has to be very cautious about eyewitness testimony, particularly when it is remembered sometime after the events in question, does one not, Mr Irving? A. Yes. Q. And one will test it by reference to material by which it cannot have been contaminated, yes? A. Yes.
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