Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day021.14 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Put the evidence to him, Mr Irving, and then we will see what it amounts to. MR IRVING: Is the evidence given by Hitler's other adjutant' Fritz Wiedemann in writing in his own manuscript on board a ship in February 1939 as he sails to a new life in the United States not evidence? A. Well, I cite this, do I not, on page 278? Q. You discount it. You say, OK, Mr Irving had evidence but again this is another piece I am going to discount because ---- A. I am afraid, I am sorry to interrupt you ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have read it. It is hearsay. A. Yes, it is hearsay, it is reporting gossip. The fact that he is who he is is neither here nor there. It says it is reliably reported that Goebbels as well repeatedly telephoned from Munich during the night's worst outrages. It is hearsay. That is why I do not give much credence to . P-125 it. Q. If Hitler's adjutant Fritz Wiedemann -- who had been in fact his adjutant in World War I too had he not? A. Yes. Q. Fritz Wiedemann writes that it is reliably reported, and he writes this in his own handwriting and I am the first historian to have found it and deciphered it and used it, that Goebbels spent much of the night making these phone calls to stop the worst of the atrocities, and there is no value at all to be attached to that, is that right? A. It is merely hearsay. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Evans, does the fact of him making telephone calls trying to stop the rot, as it were, fit in with the general picture of the events of that night? A. No. MR IRVING: Is that why you discount it? A. That is another reason. Q. So anything that does not fit in with your picture you discount? A. It is not my picture. It is the picture that emerges from the documents. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think we have dealt with that. MR RAMPTON: Can I go back two steps please? I am sorry about this. My interruptions do not help the speed of proceedings either, I know. I am perhaps not as quick on the ball as I should be, but I notice now that what this . P-126 Hederich business arises from is it arises directly from the text of Mr Irving's book Goebbels at page 274. I see now why Professor Evans used the form of words that he did about a speech by Hitler. Right at the bottom of the page before the indented quotation Mr Irving writes this: "Several people who heard Goebbels' firebrand speech were uncomfortable. Karl Hederich, one of his department heads, felt that it conflicted with the tenor of Hitler's speech". MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I think I have the point. That is based on nothing more than -- and I say this rather rudely to Mr Irving -- the reference to what Hederich had understood Hitler to have said. MR RAMPTON: The whole cross-examination was based upon the premise that it was Professor Evans who illegitimately turned that passage in the German into a speech by Hitler. It was not he at all. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I did realize it was really the other way round. MR RAMPTON: I am sorry, I had not. I was a bit slow. MR IRVING: You do accept, Professor Evans, do you not, that there is some evidence, no matter the fact that you discount it and I accept it, to the fact that there were phone calls made by Goebbels during the night? A. Could you point me towards it, please? MR IRVING: That is Wiedemann. . P-127 A. That is hearsay. Q. Hearsay is acceptable in civil cases. Do you accept also that there were phone calls from Hitler made to Goebbels on the evidence of the eyewitnesses like von Below, the Adjutants, that Hitler telephoned Goebbels to express his disfavour? A. Could you point me towards the piece of evidence you are referring to, please? Q. This is not evidence. This is the von Below interview which was put to you this morning, the transcript. A. Right. No, I do not because the von Below memoirs say that he was not in the room when Hitler made a phone call. Q. Are you saying that none of those three sources states that he was furious with Goebbels, he made a frightful scene with Goebbels? A. No, I am not. I am saying the sources were unreliable. We have been over this, Mr Irving. Q. You will see the point of this in a minute. Then there was a conference between Hitler and Goebbels by phone about the situation. That is what von Below says. Is that not right? He saw this? A. Where is this? Q. This is on page 4 of the bundle. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Assume it is there. I would have thought it was pretty obvious they would have spoken on the telephone. . P-128 A. Yes. MR IRVING: There is a reason for this, my Lord. We now come to the question of why Goebbels felt it necessary to draft an order which he issued later on in the following morning, or you say the afternoon, do you not? A. You are referring to the next day, as it were, now? Q. That is right. We are now after midnight. A. Well after. We are now into the daylight hours, as it were, or perhaps that is dawn. Q. No, we are after midnight. A. Exactly what time are we talking about, Mr Irving? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where is the document? A. Yes. MR IRVING: First of all, I am saying, do you accept that there is one statement at least, namely by von Below, that Hitler telephoned Goebbels about the situation during the night hours? This on page 4 of the interview. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Assume that. A. Yes. MR IRVING: Yes. If therefore, and I now ask you to look at the little bundle of documents which has the anodnung in, if you still have it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: L2, tab 1, page 10. MR IRVING: If therefore on the following day, 10th November, at some time Goebbels issues this order ---- A. This is 10th November. . P-129 Q. It is the one immediately following the anodnung? A. Yes. Q. This is the actual order issued by Goebbels, is it issued to all the Kreisleiters and all Kreispropagandaleiters, which are the district propaganda officials? A. That is right, yes. Q. Does the document say, I refer to my announcement today concerning ending the anti-Jewish demonstrations, and so on? A. May I just go on, concerning the anti-Jewish demonstrations and actions which have already also been published in the press and by radio. Q. Yes. A. And preceding that is the press notice which, according to the footnote here, was issued at 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Q. We are going to deal with that time in a minute. A. Yes. Q. Can you accept therefore that it is likely that a telephone conversation from Hitler to Goebbels was concerning the drafting of such a stop order, or stop orders, with the maximum possible dispatch? A. A telephone conversation, according to Goebbels' diary, on the morning of the 10th, before they met to finalise the order in the Osterea restaurant. Q. On page 282 of your report we now look at how that order . P-130 came around. A. Yes. Q. You say that, when Hitler and Goebbels talked, it is reported in the diary entry and no decision had yet been taken. A. Yes. Q. You say that, following this first conversation with Hitler, on the morning of 10th November, Goebbels drafted an order to bring the pogrom to a halt? A. Yes. Q. You quote his diary entry written on the following day referring to the morning of the 10th, "I prepared an order that put an end to the actions, I report to the Fuhrer at the Osterea". A. Yes. Q. Is it not extremely likely on the balance of probabilities that he prepared the order on the basis of his conversations with Hitler, whether in person or by telephone, and he then took the draft order round at Hitler's request to him at that restaurant? A. That is how I read it, yes. Q. So Hitler had ordered everything to stop? A. That is right. MR JUSTICE GRAY: On the morning of the 10th? MR IRVING: On the morning of the 10th, yes, my Lord. Why did they take this decision to stop everything then? Had . P-131 things got out of hand? Had the forest fire suddenly developed on to a scale that they began to fear they could not halt it? A. Let us just get quite clear when the order went out. MR JUSTICE IRVING: 4.00 pm. A. It went out, in my view, in the afternoon of the 10th. I think they decided that the action was complete. That is to say that the synagogues had been burnt down, the shops had been destroyed and wrecked, people were in the course of being arrested, and it was time to call it to an end. MR IRVING: My Lord, can I ask you where you get 4 pm from? I know it is there. MR JUSTICE GRAY: At the foot of page 10 of this file it says 10th November and then gives a reference for it. MR IRVING: I am looking for it in the expert report. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Does it matter where it is? MR IRVING: Well, yes, because there is a footnote. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is page 10, L2, tab 1. A. Yes. MR IRVING: Because I have said that that order was issued at 10 a.m. that morning, my Lord, and I wanted to check the actual source. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where do you get the 10 a.m. from? MR IRVING: That is why I wanted to check the actual source for it in the book, which is a radio monitoring report, . P-132 I believe. A. Ah, but this order goes out after the radio broadcast. Q. Can you tell me what page? MR RAMPTON: Yes. It is the bottom of 286, my Lord, top of 287, and the source is given. I think it is a deduction because he uses the word "probably", does Professor Evans. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It looks to me that, if you go back to the document I was inviting attention to, would S 117 an meldung 114 be a reference to the timing? A. Yes, page 107, and note 144. MR IRVING: Is it not correct, as is evident from my book on page 277, that at 10 a.m. he broadcast a live appeal for order over the Deuchslandsender, which is the national broadcasting system? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Before he met Hitler at the Osterea. MR IRVING: My Lord, yes, 10 a.m. A. Note 53. MR IRVING: This is another of your unreliable sources? A. Ingrid Weckert. Q. Is it only Ingrid Weckert or is it tape recordings or recordings or disks? A. You seem to have derived the information from Ingrid Weckert not to have seen the recordings in the Frankfurt radio archives yourself. Q. Yes. In other words, I am referencing the recordings of the broadcast made at 10 a.m. which she has found and she . P-133 has referred to, is that correct? A. First of all, I would have to see the document to accept your account of what is in it or rather ---- Q. Do you always ask to see documents? A. Yes, of course I do, Mr Irving, because I do not trust your account of what is in documents. Still less do I trust the account ---- Q. Do you know your own name without being shown a document? A. Still less do I trust the account that is given by Ingrid Weckert, whom I explain in my report as a notorious anti-Semite. Q. Anti-Semite? A. In Germany, not a serious historian, who ---- Q. Invented these recordings, has she? Is this what you are suggesting? A. I am not saying she has invented the recordings. I am saying that I cannot trust her account of what is in them. In order to be able to assess the point that you are putting to me, I would need to see an accurate transcript of these recordings. You would ask no less if you were in the witness box yourself, Mr Irving. Q. If we are concerned only with the time the broadcast was made. MR JUSTICE GRAY: We are not concerned only with the time. I am sorry, I am now interrupting you. We are concerned with the content because your point, as I understand it, is . P-134 that in effect this order was in place from 10 a.m. because it was broadcast. That is all very well if indeed the broadcast did say effectively what the order says. That is what the witness is wanting to be reassured about.
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