Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day012.09 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 Q. A prank? A. He sent them out to go and steal the entire contents of a bank to pay people back or something, did he not? MR JUSTICE GRAY: He sent them out? A. Hitler sent these people out to go and rob a printing works and steal all the money. Q. He sent them out to rob the bank? A. Yes. I put this in the book, I think, no doubt Mr Rampton will tell us. MR RAMPTON: You said in Goring that Hitler sent armed men into the city to requisition funds? A. Yes. It is rather the same way as the great train robbers went to requisition funds. Q. "It took 14 and a half billion Reichsmarks from the Jewish bank known as Parvis & Company and gave a Nazi receipt in exchange. Meanwhile Hitler acted to maintain order". The truth was that these thugs just went and stole 14 and a half billion Reichsmarks from the Jewish printers, did they not? A. That is right, which was of course just paper. They went and stole all the paper and left a Nazi receipt. Q. Why did you not write it like that, requisition, Mr Irving? Really! They were not even the government. A. I do not know if you have read Noel Coward's poems? This is the way the English write. They write with a delicate touch. They do not write acres of stodge if they can help . P-73 it if they are not professors of sociology or history. They write books that are going to get read. To send a Nazi gang to go and requisition funds from a printing works is like the great train robbers requisitioning funds. MR JUSTICE GRAY: How is the reader going to gather that from what you have written? A. Well, maybe I have not written it with as much dexterity as normal, but the intention was to put a light touch on it. MR RAMPTON: Then finally this, Mr Irving ---- A. Giving a Nazi receipt in exchange surely gives the flavour, does it not? Q. The attack on the Jewish delicatessen and Hitler's supposed reaction to it, which you used in support of the statement that Hitler acted to maintain order, notwithstanding that he sent thugs to steal a large sum of money from some Jewish bankers, that raid on the delicatessen was not part of the putsch of the 8th and 9th November, 1923 at all, was it? A. I do not know. You tell us. Q. If you have read Hoffmann's testimony, you would know that it referred to some earlier and quite unconnected occasion. A. I do not know. Does Professor Evans say this? Q. Yes he does. . P-74 A. Perhaps you can draw attention to it. Q. Last bullet point on page 228. A. I cannot accept that without knowing what he relies on. Q. I think you will see at the top of 229 what he relies on in Hoffmann's testimony. A. He just says "It is quite clear that". Frankly, I do not accept that unless he gives us a source. You remember, I have read the 6,000 pages of testimony and he has just read some printed text. Q. Well, I think what he is probably referring to, which is perfectly obvious if you look at it, and I am grateful to Miss Rogers, is on page 227, the very first line of the quote from Hoffmann is: "Apart from this, I want to mention a previous incident because acts of violence which individuals have committed have always been ascribed to him. I once went along to Hitler when I was still in the force and said to him: this and that have happened again. Some elements had attacked..." It was a quite separate occasion, nothing whatever to do with Hitler's restoring order during the putsch of 1923. A. Mr Rampton, will you read the German original of that first line, please? Q. "Austerdem mochte ich einen Fall vorher erwahnen..." A. Not "einen vorher Fall erwahnen". He does not say, "I want to mention a previous incident". He says, "I would first . P-75 like to mention an incident". Q. Yes, but read on. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I see. A. It is a bad translation, of course. Q. You say vorher qualifies erwahnen, not einen Fall? A. It is an adverb, my Lord, it is not an adjective. MR RAMPTON: You can take that up with Professor Evans. It is no good arguing with me about that. A. I have quite a few things to take up with Professor Evans when he comes. MR RAMPTON: My Lord, I do not think I have anything more on this little topic. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. I think that was better than just adjourning for 20 minutes. We have actually had the 20 minutes and the file is here or is not here? MR RAMPTON: It is. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is. MR RAMPTON: Can we have five minutes just to sort it out? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes of course. I will adjourn for five minutes. (Short Adjournment) MR RAMPTON: Your Lordship should have a new red file. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I have, L2. MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, for this purpose I am going to concentrate on your latest account of Reichskrissallnacht . P-76 which is that given in your 1996 book on Goebbels. If you tell me that you want also to refer to what you have written on Hitler's War or on any other book, I will come back to is that tomorrow. A. Would you your Lordship like the book itself? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I will probably operate off the transcript, thank very much, then I can mark it. A. I have a spare copy. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have one already actually of Goebbels. MR RAMPTON: Can we start on page 273, and I am not going to going to read out page 273. What you do there is give an account of what had happened in Paris, and earlier, on 7th November 1938 which was that it was said that an assassin called Grynszpan had shot a Nazi diplomat called vom Rath, is that right? A. Yes. Q. He did not die immediately. I think he died some time in the afternoon of the 9th. Is that not right? A. That is correct, yes. Q. The news of his death was transmitted to Berlin at about 5 o'clock that evening, or a bit earlier, and then was released on the news? A. That is correct. Q. Whether directly or indirectly, as a consequence of that, a number of disturbances began to take place in different places in Germany which were all directed against Jewish . P-77 property. Is that a fair account? A. I think the disturbances actually begun before the death was announced. Q. After the shooting? A. After the shooting the disturbances begun, yes. Q. Prompted by the shooting. Can I start right then at the bottom of page 273: "Events that evening, November 9th, are crucial to the history of what followed. As Goebbels and Hitler set out to attend the Nazi reception in the old city hall, they learned that the police were intervening against anti-Jewish demonstrators in Munich. Hitler remarked that the police should not crack down too harshly under the circumstances". Your source for that -- have you got it? A. Yes. Q. 274. Your source for that, I think, is eyewitness testimony, is it not? The footnotes are on page 612 and following, I can tell you that. A. Yes. It was a statement by Juttner. Q. What follows next, however, is a quotation from the Goebbels' Diary written, no doubt, on the 10th? A. Not necessarily. If you remember, the Goebbels' Diary, over these days, was written up subsequently, I think, so it is dangerous to assume that a diary was written --- - Q. I do not. I have no quarrel with Dr Goebbels' Diary in this part of the tale, I have to say. . P-78 A. Yes. Q. "'Colossal activity' the Goebbels diary entry reports, then claims: 'I brief the Fuhrer on the affair. He decides: Allow the demonstrations to continue. Hold back the police. The Jews must be given a taste of the public anger for a change'." So when you say in the earlier part that Hitler remarked that the police should not crack down too harshly, that means that they should not crack down too harshly on the anti-Jewish demonstrators, is that right? A. That is correct, yes. Q. What word did Goebbels use to represent his report of Hitler's decision that the police should be held back? A. I do not know. Can we see the diary? Q. I think it is probably best, neatest, easiest, to see it. Sorry. It is easiest for everybody else if we look at it on page 240 of the Evans' report, although it is in this new bundle. A. The sense that I give is clearly that Hitler wanted the demonstrations against the Jews to continue. Q. Yes, but my question was what word did Goebbels use which you translate as "hold back"? MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Zuruckziehen". A. You must remember, it was eight or nine years since I actually wrote this. It is eight years since I saw Goebbels diaries. . P-79 Q. Well, the answer is "Zuruckziehen", I think, is it not? A. "Zuruckziehen". MR RAMPTON: If Goebbels had meant "hold back", he would have written something like "Zuruckhalten would he not"? A. Or "Zuruckneimen", yes. Q. "Zuruckziehen" is more active, it means ---- A. Pull back. Q. "Pull them out"? A. Pull back, yes. Q. "And let the demonstrators get on with it"? A. Yes. Q. And he says simply that the Jews for once shall feel the anger of the people. That is all he says in the next sentence, is it not? A. "The Jews must be given a taste of the public anger for a change", yes. Q. Where is the "taste" in the German? A. What is the difference? I have talked before about the need to make literate translations or literary translations of diaries. The Goebbels diary presents particular problems because it is written in the vernacular, and it is very difficult to give the exact flavour, or in this case the taste, of the vernacular in the translation you give. He is writing slang. It would be like translating cockney into German. Frequently he is writing in a Berlin cockney. . P-80 Q. But it is perfectly correct to translate it as Professor Evans does, "The Jews must for once feel the people's fury". That is more accurate. A. Well, can we see the actual German original perhaps? Q. The German original is at the bottom of page 240 of Evans. You want to see the actual document? A. No, no, I just want to no. "Die Juden sollen einmal den Volkszorn zu verspuren bekommen" -- "The Jews must have a taste of the people's anger". My translation is better than his, I am afraid. Q. You say so. MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Verspuren" means track of, or something like that, does it, or trace of? A. I think "to have taste of something", to have a taste of the public anger. MR RAMPTON: Now, much more important than that ---- A. I hope so. Q. --- well, much more important than that, Mr Irving, is this, really it is the foundation, is it not, of your whole account of this event, or series of events, which later came to be known as Reichskristallnacht? Goebbels, it must be, according to you, when he wrote that the Fuhrer said, "Let the demonstrations go on and withdraw the police"? A. Yes. Q. Goebbels must be lying? Because, on your account, Hitler . P-81 did not know anything about it and was shocked and angry when he found out what was happening early on the morning of 10th? A. Surely this is a reference to what has been going on during the day before the Kristallnacht. Q. Big demonstrations against the Jews in Kassel and Dessau? A. Yes.
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