Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day024.08 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 Q. We will come to them. A. So we have documents from 42, where Himmler said, "the . P-65 occupied Eastern territories have to be made free of Jews, this is a burden on my shoulders, it was laid as a burden on my shoulders". We have more documents like this, which gave us a kind of insight into the relationship. They actually were discussing the issue of the Holocaust among them. MR IRVING: Is it not a danger you refer to the December 18th 1941 document. That of course only turned up two years ago. Does that mean to say that for 53 years people were really reaching these conclusion without such a document, finally like a drowning man they found a straw? A. No. The other documents are not known, and it added to our picture. As you suggested yourself, it is luck that we actually opened, that we have access now to Eastern European archives, but they were not in the dark before that. It adds to our knowledge. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just so I am clear, you say that the informed speculator would draw the conclusion that Hitler and Himmler were discussing the Holocaust. By the Holocaust in that connection you do not just mean the shootings by the Einsatzgruppen? A. No, I mean the systematic killing of European Jews. Q. By whatever means? A. By whatever means, yes. MR IRVING: What would you say to the historian who says that such speculation is without foundation if one looks at it . P-66 objectively? A. I would reject this view. Q. Yes. Would you say that one's personal political viewpoint come into it, that the extreme right-winger would adopt one view and the cautious German historian, aware of the laws in Germany, would adopt a different view? A. I do not know to which laws are you referring. I publish all my books in Germany. I never felt any restrictions on publishing books. Q. I am sure. A. As far as the own political viewpoint is concerned, the ideology, I think we have to rely on our professional work. So we have to just try to exclude this fact as far as it is possible. We have some rules how to interpret sources, how to deal with material, and I think what we do is, generally speaking, reliable. You can rely on that. Q. Would you classify the great body of German historians as being diligent and applying themselves to the task? A. Yes. Q. Why did they wait for 25 years before looking at Heinrich Himmler's handwritten notes of his telephone conversations with Hitler? A. Which ones are you referring to? Q. The notes in Himmler's handwriting which were in the National Archives in America and available on microfilm . P-67 since the 1950s and I was first person to use? A. If you give me a specific reference to one quote, and you can go through the works of my colleagues and find out whether they left something out, I think that -- well, stop here. Q. Yes. Let me put the question this way round. I do not want to go too far down this avenue, but are you aware of any other German historian who, before 1975, made any use of Heinrich Himmler's handwritten notes on his telephone conversations or meetings with Hitler? A. Before 1975? Q. Approximately, when my book Hitler's War was published. A. Actually, I cannot recall that. Q. Yes. A. I cannot actually answer this question because I cannot recall every word which was published before 1975. But, if you are making the point that you were one of the first, or probably the first, who was using the documents, I agree. Q. That is not the point I am trying to make. I am suggesting that, if an historian has not shown proper diligence in turning up and using the sources, then how he cares to speculate is not worth the paper he writes his speculations on. A. I am reluctant to make a general statement about the historians. If you talk about a certain person, a certain . P-68 author, you can discuss his books, whether the sources are available or not, but I am really hesitant to make a general sweeping statement about all my colleagues in Germany. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The answer you gave me just now about what the informed speculator would infer was based on all the now available evidence including the Himmler diaries? A. One would try to include these documents into one's own interpretation, yes. MR IRVING: It is right that we are learning the whole time, are we not, that more and more documents become available, particularly from the Moscow archives and from your own work, for example, on the Martin Bormann papers? We are constantly adding to our information, so we are correcting misinterpretations, we are correcting even mistranslations sometimes, or misreadings? A. Yes. It is a research process, that is true. Q. You rightly point out the fact that Muller in January 1942 said the word liquidierung was not to be used? A. Yes. Q. Which is understandable. If you are familiar with my Goebbels biography, do you know that it was Dr Goebbels who first issued that order? A. No. Q. Sometime in November or December 1941, Goebbels issued a propaganda directive that the word liquidate is only going . P-69 to be used in connection with the Soviet killings? A. Interesting. I am not aware of that, no. Q. But liquidierung is quite plain. We do not have to argue about the meaning of that word of course. A. No, definitely not. Q. But on paragraph 2 we now come to Umsiedlung and the various other words with this settlement route. A. Yes. Q. It is correct to say that these words are used in both homicidal and non-homicidal senses throughout the documentation. Sometimes Umgesiedlung means they are going to be literally, as we saw in one document, in the same paragraph concerning Brestitovsk Jews in October 1942, we saw one document where at the beginning of the paragraph it referred to, I think, 15,000 Brestitovsk Jews had been Umgesiedelt, which is shot, and then at the end of the same paragraph it said, "The village of A, half the Jews had been shot and the rest had been Umgesiedelt to a neighbouring village", and that is a typical case of the problem facing us, is it not, with this particular word? A. I do not have this document in front of me but in general I could agree. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Assume it is true because we have been through it more than once. A. That makes it so important to look at the context. MR IRVING: Sometimes we just do not have the context to judge, . P-70 is that right? A. We try our best to establish the context. Q. Sometimes when the Jews were sent just to ghettoes, that is where the word "umgesiedelt" is used, is it not? A. Give me please some kind of reference and I will comment on it, because it is a very difficult subject because the meaning, as you rightly said, changes and can change in the same document. So I should refer, I should in my answer refer to single documents. Q. Yes, in paragraph 2.2, you refer to a Wehrmacht report. It is not even an SS report, is it? A. Yes. Q. So the German Army was also involved in the camouflage. A. Yes. Q. They replaced the word "shooting" with the handwritten word "resettlement"? A. Yes. Q. Which is a rather pointless kind of change if it is possible for us years later to see both words written down? A. Yes. Obviously, this man was not very intelligent who did this. Q. In paragraph 2.4 you quite clearly give an example here where "Umsiedlung" is unambiguously used in its homicidal sense: "There are two pits there and groups of 10 leaders and men working at each pit relieving each other every two . P-71 hours". A. Yes, and ---- Q. So that is what you are talking about when you are talking about the context, in context like that there is undoubtedly no question? A. Yes, exactly. Q. The clarity is beyond dispute, and it would take a lunatic to say or to continue to argue that the word "Umsiedlung" there does not mean that, it does not mean killing? A. I agree. Q. But in the case of the key documents that we are looking at with Adolf Hitler, which is all that interests me really, we do not have that degree of clarity, do we? A. I think I would like to suggest we should look at the documents and then we could ---- I think I should not make these general statements, I think I should always refer to ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think particularly in the light of that question, if there is a document, and I do not have one in mind, where Hitler uses the word "umsiedeln" ---- MR IRVING: With that degree of clarity. MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- Then it would be helpful to put it to the witness. I do not recollect if there is one or there is not. MR IRVING: What I am suggesting is that there is no such document with that degree of clarity. . P-72 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is there a Hitler document using the word "umsiedeln"? MR IRVING: I do not believe there is, my Lord, in which case ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Then the point is academic. MR IRVING: Your Lordship will know that I do not attach much important for my purposes. I attach more importance to the words "Vernichtung" and "Ausrottung". MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us move on to Vernichtung; we have done Aurottung. A. My list is not complete; it is just what I found. MR IRVING: In paragraph 3, page 3, we are dealing with section 3 now, Evakuieren. A. Yes. Q. You do incidentally accept that the word "Umsiedlung" referred equally sometimes to the westward movement of ethnic Germans? A. Yes. Q. And similarly "Besiedlung" can be the resettlement, for example, we have a September 1942 document where Lublin is being besiedelt with Volksdeutschen? A. I will always say that I would like to prefer to see the document and not to speculate about this, but you may be right. Q. "Evakuierung" does not always mean the killing, does it? It does not always have homicidal context either, does it? . P-73 A. It always depends on the context. Q. Yes. It usually means deportation under rough conditions or sometimes? A. Sometimes, yes, it also, you know, there was a scheme for, what is the expression, Luftkriegsevakuierung ---- THE INTERPRETER: The evacuation from air raids. A. In the context of air war, this was also the official term. So it could be used in a different context. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think you are really agreed about Evakuierung, that ---- MR IRVING: On paragraph 3.2, we come to the 6th March 1942 meeting where Eichmann is talking about the evacuation of the Jews to the East. A. Yes. Q. The second and third line it says: "Further evacuation of 55,000 Jews", and you conclude that they are being sent to Auschwitz, and they should, you quote a document there, the Reich's security. A. No, I do not conclude that these Jews on 26th were sent to Auschwitz. One should, to make it clear, it would have been better to start on 20th with a new paragraph. This is a completely different issue. Q. On 20th February, the Reich's Security Head Office issued guidelines on implementation of the evacuation of Jews to the East, Auschwitz Concentration Camp. A. Yes. . P-74
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