Archiv /File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day012.15
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20

   Q.   They do not mention houses.  They do not mention
        apartments?
   A.   That is correct, yes, they do not.
   Q.   Do you remember Heydrich's telex which talked about being

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        careful that arson to Jewish shops did not, as it were,
        affect German property?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   That is what this reflects, is it not?
   A.   No.  I think they realized now that the big boss is not
        very pleased about the way that things are spreading, and
        they are sending out the most briefest possible message
        they can.  Instead of sitting down dictating a
        15-paragraph message which is going to take ages to telex
        out and to be printed out at the other end, they are
        sending out a very brief message to saying, "This has got
        to stop".
   Q.   They are not.  They are saying:  "Jewish shops are not to
        be burned", are they not?
   A.   "And the like".
   Q.   Whether Jewish shops, Jewish workshops, Jewish garages, or
        burned or whatever the like to burning is I do not know.
   A.   We do not know, as I say, whether "the like" refers to
        acts of arson or stores.
   Q.   But, Mr Irving, this is not a general order to stop
        damaging Jewish property, is it?
   A.   It is not a general order.  He does not mention
        synagogues.  He does not mention other property.
   Q.   What buildings were the principal victims of this
        appalling two nights or night and a half?
   A.   Subsequently of course the Germans realized they had

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        inflicted a colossal injury on themselves, because the
        actual properties were owned by non-Jews and just rented
        by Jews.
   Q.   How many synagogues were destroyed during the course of
        this 24 hours?
   A.   Of the order of 100 or so I believe, several hundred.
   Q.   All over Germany?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   How would you put it in German if you were Opdemhoff
        writing on Hess's explicit orders derived from Hitler:
        "This madness has got to stop.  All Jewish property must
        be left alone from this moment"?
   A.   Not very differently from that, but I agree he could have
        added in things like synagogues and things like that.
   Q.   What do you mean "things like synagogues"?  Hundreds of
        synagogues or 100 synagogues were destroyed.
   A.   Yes, but this is an order coming from Hitler to order an
        end to the damage.  Even in the most narrowest, even in
        the narrowest interpretation this is an order coming
        clearly from Hitler to limit the damage.
   Q.   Mr Irving, when I asked to you to translate it, and I did
        it deliberately, you are a good German speaker, you
        translated it as "shops or the like", did you not?
   A.   "Geschafte" is also businesses.
   Q.   Businesses, OK.  What about houses and synagogues?
   A.   Well, we do not know what "the like" is referring to.  It

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        is ambiguous German.  It is a poorly phrased telegram.
   Q.   What is the German word for "property"?
   A.   Well, "eigentum" would be.
   Q.   "Hess's staff began cabling, telephoning and radioing
        instructions to Gauleiters and police authorities around
        the nation to halt the madness."
   A.   If you read on you will see that at the end of that
        paragraph I said: "20,000 Jews were already being loaded
        on to trucks.  Hitler made no attempt to halt this
        inhumanity.  He stood by and thus deserved the odium that
        now fell on all Germany."
   Q.   He had ordered  it.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   He had ordered the arrest of 20,000 to 300,000 preferably
        prosperous Jews, had he not?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   This little sentence in your book at 256 down to "halt the
        madness" is just another piece of invention, is it not,
        Mr Irving?  No such thing that cable from Hess?
   A.   Well, the burning of all these Jewish businesses and the
        like was total madness.
   Q.   They are now businesses, are they?  I see.
   A.   Total madness.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Is there any evidence of what actually
        happened as a result of that message going out 2.56?
   A.   You find it trickling down through the system and then

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        people frantically back peddling, inasmuch as you can try
        to halt a forest fire by sending out a telegram in the
        middle of the night.  This confirms precisely what
        Hitler's adjutants told me, both from the content and from
        the timing.
   MR RAMPTON:  Only one last little thing on this interesting
        tale, Mr Irving.  On the same page in the preceding
        sentence, you say: "Fritz Wiedemann another of Hitler's
        adjutants, saw Goebbels spending much of that night of
        9th/10th 'telephoning ... to halt the most violent
        excesses'"?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   The reference is to ----
   A.   A handwritten manuscript by Wiedemann which he wrote in
        February 1939.
   Q.   Am I right that the handwritten manuscript of Wiedemann
        says:  "There is absolutely no doubt that this action
        slipped out of the hands of those who instigated it"?
   A.   What are you reading from now?
   MR IRVING:  Page 278 of Evans.  "'It is reliably reported that
        Goebbels as well repeatedly telephoned from Munich during
        the night to stop the worst outrages"?
   A.   If that is a quotation from the Wiedemann manuscript that
        I used, then that is probably an accurate translation, yes.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I have not got the point, Mr Rampton.

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   MR RAMPTON:  My Lord, I am sorry.  Fritz Wiedemann, another of
        Hitler's adjutants, saw Goebbels spending much of that night.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I see that.  What do you get from 278 of Evans?
   MR RAMPTON:  What Wiedemann actually said was:  "It is reliably
        reported that Goebbels repeatedly" -- Wiedemann never saw
        him at all, did he?  Did he, Mr Irving?
   A.   Not on the basis of this particular source, no.
   Q.   Well, why did you write that he did?
   A.   Well, now I do not know whether you have got the same
        source that I have or not.  Wiedemann, he handwrote his
        notes in a very illegible handwriting and I used the
        original handwritten text.  He also over subsequent years
        typed up notes, which may or may not have differed from
        the original handwritten version.  I would have to go back
        and have a look at my Wiedemann file before I gave you a
        definitive answer on that.  It may well be you are right,
        Mr Rampton.  I am not going to argue with you on that, but
        it is 14 years or so since I actually wrote that passage
        and I do not know what the actual handwritten text said.
   Q.   This is the problem, is it not, Mr Irving?  (A) you are
        dealing with post events eyewitness testimony?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   (B), if I am right, if this is right, you are dealing with
        hearsay.  You cannot convert that into a categorical

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        statement of historical fact that Wiedemann saw Goebbels
        telephoning round trying to put a stop to it?
   A.   I do not mind conceding that I may have made a mistake on
        that.  I may have read his text and taken it as being that
        he was an eyewitness of this when, in fact, it was just
        reliably reported to him by those who had seen it.
        Wiedemann, of course, was on very good terms with all the
        rest of Hitler's adjutants, but at this time, February
        1939, he had been posted to San Francisco as Consul
        General and it was on the boat that he wrote this passage
        up.
   Q.   Can I finally ask you to look at page 280 of Evans'
        report?  Now at page 281 -- I am sorry, the page numbering
        is confusing because we are about the same place in
        Goebbels -- you quote somebody called Ulrich von Hassell?
   A.   Yes.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Sorry, are we on Evans or Irving's book?
   MR RAMPTON:  I am on both.  It is 281 of Irving's book and page
        280 of Evans.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Right.
   MR RAMPTON:  You have quoted, I think, Ulrich von Hassell, have
        you not?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   What Professor Evans writes is this:  "What Irving does
        not do, however, is to quote the following passage in von
        Hassell's diary, relating to a conversation he had on 17th

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        December 1938 with the Prussian Finance Minister, Johannes
        Popitz, about the destruction and violence of 9-10
        November".  Quote from von Hassell's diary:  "'Popitz said
        to Goring, those responsible must be punished.  Answer'",
        quote from Goring, "'My dear Popitz, do you want to punish
        the Fuhrer?'"  Now, were you aware of that entry when you
        wrote this book?
   A.   I probably did, yes.  I probably was aware of it.
   Q.   Did you not think it right to draw to your readers'
        attention, at the very least, some evidence at the least
        that in Goring's mind the person responsible for what had
        happened was Hitler?
   A.   Yes, it would be marginal to put it in or leave it out.
        It does not add very much to our knowledge and I would
        certainly consider that covered by that sentence that I
        read out to you, "Hitler made no attempt to halt this
        inhumanity.  He stood by and thus deserved the odium that
        now fell on all Germany".
   Q.   That was the arrests.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Where was Goring?  Was he in Munich or Berlin?
   A.   Goring was in Munich and he travelled back to Berlin that
        night by train because as he arrived, as the train went
        past Haller he saw the planes in the sky and he said,
         "What is going on?"
   Q.   So he would not have been around at what you might call

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        the material time that night?
   A.   Well, that is precisely how I would regard that kind of
        evidence, as iffy.  But an interesting and a quotable
        quote, and there is a great temptation with the diary of
        Hassell to use the material because it is very quotable,
        it is usually in quotation marks and very apposite, but
        sometimes you have to resist the temptation.
   MR RAMPTON:  I am sorry.  There is one thing about Wiedemann
        that I got stuck on the first part of 278.  I meant to go
        on to the second part, starting at paragraph 9 on 278 of
        Evans:  Wiedemann claiming, in fact, by reference to some
        hearsay report that Goebbels had spent the night on the
        phone trying to stop the outrages which you represent as
        his having seen Goebbels do it.  Paragraph 9:  "In any
        case, Wiedemann's suggestions are incorrect.  Goebbels was
        certainly not engaged in stopping excessive violence
        against Jews, as Irving well knows.  What Goebbels was
        actually saying on the phone on the night in question is
        amply documented by other reliable historical sources.
        The Supreme Party Tribunal report of 13th February 1939"
         -- my Lord, that is pages 9 and 10 of tab 2 of the new
        bundle -- "states that when Goebbels was phoned at around
        2.00 in the morning on 10th November 1938 with the news of
        the first death of a Jew in the pogrom:  'According to the
        statement of the deputy Gauleiter of Munich-Upper Bavaria,
        Party Comrade Dr Goebbels answered to the effect that the

.          P-136

        man reporting it should not get upset because of one dead
        Jew; thousands of Jews would have to believe in it in the
        coming days".
   A.   That is a very poor translation, "they would have to
        believe in it" is the German expression for "going for a
        burton".  So it actually means "would have to die over the
        next few days".
   Q.   This is the trouble, my Lord, when one tries to use Evans.
        I am going to go directly then, if I may ----
   A.  "Daranglauben" is a German ----
   Q.   Go, please ----
   A.   --- vernacular.
   Q.   Please, Mr Irving, can you turn to tab 2 in the new
        bundle?  Turn to page 9 which is a red number in a red
        circle on the bottom right-hand side of the page, bottom
        right-hand corner of the page.  You can probably start
        with the sentence which begins "Der Inhalt dieses
        Berichts..." at the bottom of page.  Do you see that?
   A.   What page are we on?
   Q.   Page 9 in a red circle, 187 with a stamp, 28 in print.
   A.   The content of this report confirms this view.

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