Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day025.04 Last-Modified: 2000/07/25 MR IRVING: Embezzling, corruption? A. Corruption. "Corruption" is the key word here. These things played a role in the particular circumstance in these camps, I mean, it is clearly that the SS did not . P-46 prosecute Koch because he was killing prisoners. This was not, I mean, we have extraordinary, I mean, kommandants of concentration camps like, for instance, Ikant(?), extremely cruel and sadistic persons, but they were not prosecuted because they were killing prisoners in the camp. Q. Was Rudolf Hoess, the Kommandant of Auschwitz, under investigation by the Conrad Morgan also? A. I do not recall this now. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, even if he was, did anything happen to him as a result of Morgan's investigation? MR IRVING: My Lord, the witness said he does not know. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I was just wondering what the point of the question was. MR IRVING: I know, but, I mean, I cannot really give evidence on that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, again I am not really sure you are putting your case. Are you suggesting, Mr Irving, and please say so if you are ---- MR IRVING: This was going to be the next question. MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- please listen to the question. That the SS conducted a serious investigation and anyone who was found to have illegitimately killed any inmate in any concentration camp was punished by the SS. Is that the suggestion? MR IRVING: A number of the Kommandants were prosecuted and . P-47 severely punished for carrying out wild killings. A. May I draw the attention to this document, to the statistics. We have here the initials of Heinrich Himmler, and statistics say that we have a death rate in the camp in the second half of 1942 of 8.5 per cent in July, 10 per cent in August, more than 10 per cent in September. So Himmler was prepared to accept this high death rates with his own initials here. So he knew about it and he then, well, tried in a way to keep the death rate down to a certain extent. But, as we said, as we heard, you know, they accepted at a success, you know, actually to keep the monthly rate down from 10 to 8 per cent. So this is a kind of... MR IRVING: Dr Longerich, you are not suggesting that these are homicidal killings, are you? These statistics here are non-homicidal. A. I think killings are always -- I mean, I think a killing is a killing. Q. These are people who died from the reasons stated in the covering letter, bad conditions? A. But there is something like a system of concentration camp invented by the Nazis in the 1930s and ---- Q. Now, this is the word that I was going to pick on before ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think you interrupted the witness. Just finish your answer. . P-48 A. Here, this system was more and more, well, they worked on this system and elaborated the system. They introduced this idea of extermination through work at the beginning of 1942. So it was actually -- the purpose of the concentration camp was not to keep prisoners alive and to, like -- the purpose of the concentration camp here was, clearly, to put people to death and to use their ability to work for a certain period of time. This is the idea behind this system. It was not, you cannot compare it with a prison or anything in a civilized country. MR IRVING: Now, I want to ask two questions, one of which I was about to ask when his Lordship ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Asked you not to interrupt the witness. MR IRVING: No, I am one stage before that actually. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, anyway, ask it now. MR IRVING: The first question -- the second question is going to be about your system. The first question -- oh, dear! Winston Churchill once said, "Never say there are three important things". I was going to ask about system. You have used the word "system". Does not what I said about Conrad Morgan indicate that the whole system was ramshackle from start to finish? If I can ask you to recall that yesterday we saw that Jackeln had obviously overstepped the guidelines and he is called back to headquarters, but he does get some mild reprimand. He is sent back and nothing else happens. Is this not an . P-49 indication of a totally ramshackle system with lack of any real discipline? A. Well, I do not feel very happy in this situation. I think if you want to discuss seriously, let us say, the limits of the system that Conrad Morgan saw, then we have to discuss the document, we have to read, for instance, the evidence about, you know, in Koch's case and so on. But I am not really prepared to make these general statements about single incidents. You see, I do not have the evidence in front of me. I am not prepared to do it. There was no indication that I ---- Q. You are quite right. I am not going to ask you about things you do not know about because that would not help the court. A. Yes, but the system, the SS, as you are trying to say here, the idea that the SS had their own, had their own disciplinary measures, and they, of course, punished at the concentration camps, this has to be seen in a context, and I am very unhappy about the idea that I should comment on that without actually having a chance to look at the wordings and so on. Q. Very well. Let me ask you about this phrase you have used twice this morning now, "vernichtung durch Arbeit", destruction by labour? A. Yes. Q. You have referred to this on several occasions. Have you . P-50 produced any documents at all in your report where that phrase actually occurs or is it just a deduction you make? A. No. Q. An inference? A. My report is not about particularly this issue. I think I mentioned it somewhere in my report, I am not sure here, but we have documentary evidence from Himmler in his writings to Pohl and to -- that this system was introduced at the beginning of 1942. Q. But you do not actually reference it in your report. A. At the moment, I would have to look at my report, whether this is here. Q. I did actually look for it. A. You see, this is a different system separate from the killings, separate from the extermination by gas. This is actually what happens to the prisoners which were sent into the camps actually fit for work, and then they used him for a couple of months, a couple of weeks and a couple of months and then they sent them to the gas chambers. This is a similar, if you want to say, a subsystem of the whole system. But in my report I am dealing primarily with mass executions, with deportations and extermination camps, and so on. Q. Dr Longerich, it does not make much sense, does it, to have a slave labourer who is working for you and work him to death so you then have to replace him with somebody . P-51 else because, presumably, his output drops off as he is dying? Does it make sense? A. Well, in which way do you think it makes sense? I do not understand the question. Q. Well, your proposition that they deliberately took a slave labourer for two months and said, "Work him until he drops and then replace him". A. That is what is -- actually there is a reference in the document you presented here when you, about the duties of the doctors. They said they have to make sure the exchange of prisoners, this is exactly the process. They fought a war of racist extermination, so they ---- Q. Well, so we hear, yes. A. --- one of their main aims in this war was to exterminate the Jews in Europe, and they used this as one of the methods, and they worked on the assumption that they had enough slave labourers at their disposal, and if they had exhausted this source, they would use, from their perspective, they would use other sources of slave labour, like, for instance, the Russians or Poles and so on. They work on the assumption that they had, there was an abundance, you know, there was an endless number of slave labourers who they could force to work for them. But this is an irrational and completely wrong assumption, but it is still they are working on this assumption. Q. My problem is, Dr Longerich, and this was the reason for . P-52 the question I asked you, that you make this very bold and adventurous statement about a deliberate plan to exterminate by hard labour, and yet you have not actually produced any reference documents or sources to enable us to establish whether ---- A. Well, you have forced me in a way to make ---- Q. --- that is your conclusion? A. Yes, sorry, but you forced me in a way to make those adventures and bold statements because you put in front of me some documents and asked me for general statements, and my statements may not -- may be adventurous, they may be very general, but this is the result of this kind of interrogation. In my report, as far as I see, I dealt with the programme of exterminations and mass executions and deportations into extermination camps, not with this particular aspect. Q. Dr Longerich, in your report, you do on at least two occasions use the phrase "extermination by labour" - Vernichtung durch Arbeit - and you do not give any references for this ---- A. Then let us go to the ---- Q. So we do not know if it is your phrase or a wartime phrase? A. "Vernichtung durch Arbeit" is a wartime phrase -- extermination through labour. . P-53 Q. But you do not give any references for it in your report; that is the problem we have. A. We have to look at the pages are you referring to. Q. Can we now go to your report and we will perhaps stumble ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us find the reference to "extermination by labour". MR IRVING: I am sure Mr Rampton's staff would have found it a long ago, if it was referenced. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I expect that Dr Longerich probably remembers where it is: Do you Dr Longerich? A. Not at the moment. MR IRVING: I have to take care that these slogans do not embed themselves in the court's subconsciousness without any archival basis. A. Well, in the conclusion, I refer in my report in ---- MR RAMPTON: Can I interrupt, please? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON: It is page 77 of the second part of the report. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much. A. Yes. This is the conclusion of my report. So in my report I am trying to explain the systematic character of the killings, and I am trying to explain the emergence of the programme. So I think that in the last section of this, I am referring to, well actually the machinery of mass murder and full operation from 1942 onwards. I base . P-54 my comments here, on my writing here on generally well-accepted work, because I thought it was not something which is really disputed among historians. We also had an expert witness on Auschwitz here who actually was able to fully explain the system. So I think that this idea, that prisoners in the camps were systematically worked to death, is something which is not disputed by historians in this field. MR IRVING: There is a general ---- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving has put before you this morning documents showing an overall mortality rate of 10 per cent in all the concentration camps. Does that say anything to you, Dr Longerich, about what was intended to go on there? A. Yes, this is exactly what I mean. It is an extremely high rate of death and, as we learn from the other document, it was a task of the doctors to make sure there was a proper exchange of prisoners. So this is a machinery to put prisoners to death by work. MR IRVING: My Lord, I am indebted to you for reminding me of the documents because, of course, is this right, Dr Longerich, the documents do refer purely to nourishment, proper nourishment, proper medication, proper clothing ---- A. Yes. Q. --- and not being made to stand in these ridiculous three- or four hour-long parades and so on? . P-55 A. Yes. I stated this before that, in the document about the duties of concentration camps, it is quite clear that it is not the duty of the doctor to care for the welfare. Q. Just so that it is a matter of record, Dr Longerich, page 77, where you used the phrase annihilation through labour, you give no reference, do you? MR RAMPTON: I was going to interrupt because that is a false point, too. On page 89, three lines up from the bottom, there is, in the bibliography, a reference to a book by Ham and Keienburg called Vernichtung durch Arbeit: Der Fall Neungamma von 1990. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, thank you. A. I think I made it clear in this final section of the report that the annihilation through labour is part of the extermination system. I was trying to explain the system in a kind of summary because I think that, from 1942 onwards, it is absolutely not possible to dispute that there was such a system for extermination. MR IRVING: Can we be absolutely specific and make quite plain for the record that this phrase Vernichtung durch Arbeit is not a wartime phrase used by SS, but is a title of a post-war book, a secondary source on which you relied, is that right? A. No, this is one of the major studies about this problem and it refers to a wartime phrase which was currently used among the SS. . P-56 Q. You have not referenced the actual wartime document, you just referenced somebody's secondary source, the title of a book? A. My report tries to explain how this system of systematic murder was built up. Maybe it was mistake, and also you did not have the chance to ask me for more evidence for that a month ago, it was not my intention here to explain in great detail the existing system of extermination after 1942, because I thought that this is something which is generally acknowledged and there is no major dispute about that. I am trying to explain that the building up of the system mainly through the years 1940, 1941 and 1942. Then the system is in operation and the annihilation through work is one aspect of this system. I am referring to second-hand literature. I did not go into detail here; I am just referring to general works on this topic in which this is described in full detail. Q. If there had been one document referred to that secondary literature, which was particularly tempting because it used that actual phrase, you would no doubt have drawn our attention to it, would you not? A. As I said, this is a summary, this is not the main purpose of this report. I actually I wrote a book on the policy of destruction. I had a chapter on this matter in the book. . P-57 Q. So you are all feeding upon each other, all the historians are just feeding upon each other. A. This is a research process and, of course, you rely, in your central parts of argumentation, on primary evidence, but you do not have to invent the reel every time. This is why i accept that you can rely on the research of others, if their work is generally accepted in the historical profession. This is nothing which is exceptional. Q. Can we rely on a German historian's consensus that the consensus of opinion among German historians. What happends to a German is ---- A. It is an internationally well-established consensus. Q. What happens to a German writer who adopts a different position on Auschwitz in Germany today, can you tell us? A. You are quite free to express if you have -- as historians have doubts and you are quite free to express your doubts and to put them down in writing, I do not see what the consequences could be. Q. I do not want to labour the point, but are you familiar with the fact that a number of writers in Germany have been sent to prison for expressing these doubts? A. I am only aware of the fact that there is a law in Germany, paragraph 130 of the German penal code, which is against the denial of genocide. I do not know whether you refer to this case, but I think if you want me to discuss . P-58 that, you ---- Q. My actual question was more specific. Were you aware that certain historians who have written doubts, shall we say, about Auschwitz and the Holocaut, have been sent to prison for expressing these doubts? A. I do not know a historian who actually wrote something on Auschwitz and whose works is suppressed for that. Q. I think we have had better start making progress on his report, my Lord. On page 3 of your report, you refer to an SS General called Bach-Zelewski, and you referred to him again on page 28, 311 -- I am sorry 3.1.11. This paragraph on page 28 shows General Bach-Zelewski carrying out the most appalling murderers and atrocities, murdering women and children on a huge scale, 2,208 Jews of both sexes and so on. A. In this paragraph, it is only said that one Company of the Police Battalion 322 Mogilev killed, according to their own reports, 2,208 Jews and in this town was Bach-Zelenski's headquarters and he was ----
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