Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day024.10 Last-Modified: 2000/07/24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, perhaps you should in that case. A. I will only read the second -- well, I should read the whole passage: "In my life I have often been a prophet and was generally laughed at. During my struggle for power it was mostly the Jewish people who laughed at my prophecies that I would some day assume the leadership of the state and thereby of the entire folk, and then among many other things achieve a solution of the Jewish problem. I believe that in the meantime the then resounding laughter of Jewry in Germany is now choking in their throats. Today I will be a prophet again. If international Jewry within Europe and abroad should succeed once more in plunging the people's into a world war, then the consequence will be not the Bolshevization of the world and therewith a victory of Jewry, but on the contrary the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." So "Jewry" is here in the German original Judentum, and the annihilation is the vernichtung, annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe. MR IRVING: Yes. The words "on the contrary" you just interpolated that. They are not in the original, are they. MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Sondern". MR IRVING: Sondern, it just means "but"? . P-84 A. But, yes. Q. It is the word "but" that comes in after a negative, is it not, as in French? I am going to draw your attention to the fact that this speech is on January 30th 1939? A. Yes. Q. Had not a few days earlier Adolf Hitler through Hermann Goring as head of the four-year plan, appointed Reinhardt Heydrich to set up an agency to speed the emigration of the Jews from Germany? A. Yes. That is true, yes. Q. Yes. That was just four our five days previously, was it not, or about two weeks previously, something like that? It was one of the consequences of the Kristallnacht? A. Yes. Shall I explain the context? Q. Was that genuine or was that camouflage? A. Sorry? Q. Was the setting up of the Heydrich agency genuine or camouflage? A. I think this was at this stage genuine, but I think I have to explain the background, if you do not mind. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. A. You know there were international negotiations going at this time between the so-called international government for refugees and the German Government represented by Hischaft. So the idea was that actually one could, you know, force world Jewry, as the Nazis perceived it, to pay . P-85 for the emigration of the Jews from Germany. In my interpretation I think they really thought this was a serious idea, a serious plan, that one could actually let them pay for the emigration of 400,000 Jews from Germany. So I think we have to look at Kristallnacht in this context, because I think the policy of the Nazis was to start a policy of terror against the Jews, to terrify them to leave the country, but also to force the Western powers actually to give in and to support this emigration programme. I think the speech has to be seen in this context. It is a threat, it a very violent threat: Look, if you don't agree and if we are getting in a kind of dispute again and if this dispute again will lead to another world war, then of course the life of the Jews in Europe is threatened, we are threatening the life of them. So if you look at the context they were, on the one hand, planning and preparing a programme for emigration, but on the other hand they were looking at the consequences if this programme would fail and if they would be involved in a military conflict with the Western powers again. So if you threaten somebody, you know, it is a possibility. The whole idea I think of, well, threatening people is that you, in a way, leave a kind of uncertainty what you actually will do with the people you are threatening. . P-86 MR IRVING: I am sorry, did you want to say anything else? No. Would you regard this speech by Adolf Hitler as being a further twist to the Jewish arm, saying: "Get out while you can"? A. I think the motive behind the speech, there are various motives behind the speech, and one motive is clearly to threaten German Jews to leave the country as soon as possible. This is one of the motives behind the speech. MR JUSTICE GRAY: On what matters, which is what "vernichtung" means in that context ---- A. Yes. Q. You say it does mean extermination or extirpation? A. I actually said here in the text "annihilation". You know, historians are debating this question. Some of my colleagues would say this is clear, Hitler actually at this stage had a clear programme to kill European Jews. I am not sure. I think the motives behind the speech are, there were different motives between the speech. It is a violent threat. It includes the possibility to kill the Jews in Europe, but I am not sure whether, you know, actually one can interpret this as a kind of programme which was already there. MR IRVING: What possible proof is there for the fact that Adolf Hitler had at this time, at the beginning of 1939, a programme or a plan or intent to liquidate the Jews of Europe or anywhere else? . P-87 A. The historians who would take this line would argue the events which followed to actually give us a kind of clue that Hitler probably had this plan at a very early stage. I do not agree with this view. I think he still, you know, was not sure whether he preferred emigration or whether he was going to the next step and actually envisaging, was actually trying to envisage what would happen in a case of a war. So I think it is a kind of a watershed here. Q. Is he effectively saying: "We will hold the Jews hostage"? A. I think this is the message. There are various motives behind the speech. The fact that he is referring here to a world war, not simply to a war, a war against Poland, let us say, but a world war, which implies the involvement of the Western powers. I think this is a threat against, the Western powers against Great Britain, in particular against the United States. But this speech is really open for interpretation. I cannot prove at this stage that Hitler had a programme, a blueprint to kill European Jews during the next years. I think it would go too far to draw this conclusion from this speech. It is definitely a very violent threat. It is three months after Kristallnacht, and actually I think one has to bear this in mind that, you know, it is saying we could actually repeat Kristallnacht on a much, much wider scale. I think . P-88 something like is implied here. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I am conscious that time is passing and we are spending huge amounts of time on the meaning of these various words. In a way you have been rather pushed into doing it because of the form of the glossary, but it does not seem to me terribly helpful all this, because it all depends, and Dr Longerich's last answer reveals, that exploring what the context of a document is can be quite a complicated exercise. MR IRVING: I agree, my Lord, but I hope I am gradually bringing it home to your Lordship that when Adolf Hitler is concerned, which is the person I am largely concerned with, we are all at sea and anyone can draw whatever conclusion they want. MR JUSTICE GRAY: We are at sea in 1939. I am not so sure about 1941 and 1942. MR IRVING: Which I hope we will reach in the course ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, let us move on. MR IRVING: In that case I will not draw attention to what he said two days previously. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I think 41 and 42 is the time, when the shooting started on the Eastern Front, paragraph 5.7 maybe. MR IRVING: I was up to 5.8 already. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Good. MR IRVING: At 5.8 you refer to the Goebbels diary entry, Adolf . P-89 Hitler speech? A. Yes. Q. To the Gauleiters on December 12th 1941? A. Yes. Q. Here the reference is, well, actually the reference is not, the "vernichtung" does not come in a speech; it comes in the second part, in the Hans Frank diary four days later. A. According to the Goebbels diary he says "vernichtung" in this speech, and again the full reference is in, the translation is in the other report, in the first report which is in chronological order so we should find it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: 61? A. Yes. There is footnote 156, so if we look at the German text in the first report, page 61, then we have the translation I think in both. MR IRVING: That is in fact harking back to precisely that speech, is it not. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is completely circular. A. Yes. MR IRVING: It is exactly the same. A. Yes, he did this a lot of times. He always came back to this speech. I think he have five or six or more examples where Hitler is actually referring to this prophecy, particularly at this time. It is not only on 12th December; it is also on 1st January, 30th January and 24th . P-90 February. He is always giving the same text. On 21st February he is actually replacing the word "vernichtung" by "ausrotten". So he is actually saying, he is indicating that things become actually more violent and more threatening. Q. You then look at what Hans Frank said on December 16th? A. Yes. So we are back in the glossary? Q. Yes, back in the glossary, paragraph 5.8. A. Yes. Q. Is it plain that the word "vernichtung" as used by Hans Frank is unambiguously referring to liquidation there? Immediately before the passage you quote, has not Frank told subordinates that a great Jewish emigration is about to begin, meaning the Jews of the German government are going to be deported and adopted by the Soviet Union? A. Yes, again I would prefer to see the text here. I do not know who has the full. MR RAMPTON: I think we probably need the new file. That is much the best way of doing it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am just wondering where we get with this. This is Frank putting a gloss on Hitler had said in 1939. We have looked at what Hitler said in 1939. MR RAMPTON: No, my Lord, I think the case is Frank is putting a gloss, if that be the right word, on what Hitler said on 12th December 1941. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do we need to trouble with what Frank says? . P-91 MR RAMPTON: The witness makes the point, and indeed Mr Irving accepts, that the understanding which Frank had of what he had been told by Hitler in Berlin was quite unequivocal. It was about physical liquidation. A. Yes. He came back from Berlin -- it is four days after Hitler's speech -- saying he had discussions in Berlin and he is referring to this discussion. I think it is fair to assume, because Frank was as Reichsleiter present at the Reichs and Gauleiter meeting, so it is fair to assume that he is referring to this speech and may be other discussions they had. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I thought he was referring back to 1939. A. Yes, but if you look at the ---- MR RAMPTON: I think, my Lord, it would honestly be helpful because what we have done in this file is to put in fact a long translation provided by Professor Browning against the German text. Would you turn to 172, first of all? That is the English of Professor Browning. . A. Where will I find that? MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is called N1. It is also in another file but this is probably the best place. MR RAMPTON: Do not worry about the other file. N1 is the one you need. I hope this should be a long paragraph in English indented. My Lord, may I ask the witness whether that is what he has? A. Yes, I have got that. . P-92 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON: If one turns to page 6 in a bold crayon, 178, one finds a third of the way down the page the words "mit den Juden". A. Yes. MR RAMPTON: That I think is the passage we are looking for. A. Yes. MR RAMPTON: I will leave it there. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much, Mr Rampton. MR RAMPTON: I should add that it goes over the page to the end of a paragraph, the next paragraph beginning "Die ucheiner". A. Yes.
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