Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day013.01
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE            1996 I. No. 113
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

Royal Courts of Justice
                                           Strand, London
                                 Tuesday, 1st February 2000

                                Before:
                            MR JUSTICE GRAY

B E T W E E N:
DAVID JOHN CAWDELL IRVING
                                                Claimant
-and-

(1) PENGUIN BOOKS LIMITED
                  (2) DEBORAH E. LIPSTADT
                                                Defendants
   The Claimant appeared in person
   MR RICHARD RAMPTON Q.C. (instructed by Messrs Davenport Lyons
and Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of the First and Second Defendants
   MISS HEATHER ROGERS (instructed by Davenport Lyons) appeared on
behalf of the First Defendant Penguin Books Limited

MR ANTHONY JULIUS (of Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of
        the Second Defendant Deborah Lipstadt

        (Transcribed from the stenographic notes of Harry Counsell
& Company, Clifford's Inn, Fetter Lane, London EC4 Telephone: 020-7242-9346)
(This transcript is not to be reproduced without the
            written permission of Harry Counsell & Company)

PROCEEDINGS - DAY THIRTEEN



.          P-1



(Day 13. Tuesday, 1st February 2000.)

   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving?
   MR IRVING:  May it please the court.  Your Lordship will have
        appreciated that the Defence relied to a certain degree on
        that document about crematorium capacities.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.
   MR IRVING:  I was going to ask your Lordship's leave to have
        Professor van Pelt back in the box for 10 minutes to put
        further points about it to him which he may not be able to
        answer, but which would give the chance then for their
        other experts later on in the procedure to come back and address.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think your position on that document was
        that you doubted its authenticity.  Is that fair?
   MR IRVING:  This is, I think, the only document whose integrity
        I am challenging.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I do not think it is the only one but it is
        certainly one that you are challenging.
   MR IRVING:  It is a very important document.  I did not
        appreciate at the time that we went over it the degree to
        which Professor van Pelt was going to rely on it.  You
        remember the diagram he drew with the tall green column,
        and so on?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Subject to what Mr Rampton says, as Professor
        van Pelt is here, I do not see any reason why he should
        not be further cross-examined, do you?

.          P-2



   MR RAMPTON:  No, I do not mind at all, provided he does not.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am not sure he has a choice.
   MR RAMPTON:  He has not got any of his papers and I do not have
        the document here myself.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am sure he will manage.  Let us have him
        back, shall we, now?  Professor, would you mind coming back?

  ( PROFESSOR VAN PELT, recalled.  Further Cross-Examined by MR IRVING.)

   MR IRVING:  It is in the Auschwitz core file No. 2.  I have
        provided a set of documents to the Defence to operate
        with.  It is under tab 4, item 49.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I have it.  What about these odds and
        ends, Mr Irving?  Where are you suggesting we put them?
   MR IRVING:  If we come to Dresden during the day, my Lord.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  These are Dresden, are they?
   MR IRVING:  They are Dresden, my Lord.
   A.   This is Kristallnacht, so this is my own report.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Can he have a copy of K2?
   MR IRVING:  This is the actual document.  The first thing is
        that Jean-Claude Pressac on page 247 himself points to the
        fact that this document did not surface until 1981.  Would
        you agree with that, Professor?
   A.   No, I do not agree, because it was available in the Vienna
        trial.  The first copy I found was in the Vienna trial.
        What I actually had in my hand was, I think, in file OM

.          P-3



        461 at the Dejaco and Ertl trial.
   Q.   When was that trial?
   A.   That trial was in 1971.
   Q.   Are you aware of any earlier occasions when that document
        surfaced, shall we say?
   A.   I think that Jan Sehn had it his hands in the early 50s,
        but I cannot be sure about that.  When I talked about the
        Domberg version of the document -- there is a version of
        that document, as far as I know, in the Hoess trial
        transcript, and that would have been there in '48.  I am
        not yet absolutely sure any more that I have seen that
        document in the Hoess trial transcript.  I went through
        the Hoess trial transcripts.  This was in 1990, but I am
        not absolutely any more sure that I have seen the Domburg
        copy in that transcript.  I thought it was brought up -- I
        have certainly seen the Domburg copy.  A copy was
        elsewhere in the Auschwitz und Bauleitung files.
   Q.   These would be useful pointers to the defence to research
        the document over the next few days.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Sorry, Professor van Pelt, you referred to
        the Domburg document.  I do not know what you mean by that.
   A.   There is an archive in the DDR, in Domburg.  They sent at
        a certain moment a copy of that document to the State
        Museum.
   MR IRVING:  Would that be in 1959 that that transfer took

.          P-4

        place?
   A.   I am not sure.  If indeed it is in the Hoess trial
        transcript it should have happened earlier because Hoess
        was in 1947, and then, of course, the other camp SS men
        were tried in 1948, and some of these files of the Hoess
        trial and that of Grapner and the others are
        actually combined, so it is kind of difficult to determine
        exactly what comes from where.
   Q.   The operative word in that response is the word "if" of
        course, "if it was in the trial".  Is it right that the
        document as published, or a version of the document as
        published, in a 1957 volume published by the East German,
        the DDR, the German Democrat Republic?
   A.   I am not sure.  I wonder, do you remember -- do you mean
        the Petsalt book?
   Q.   I do not know the title of the book.
   A.   I cannot comment on that.  I am not absolutely sure,
        I think that Petsalt did it, but I thought the Petsalt
        book was later.
   Q.   Can I now draw your attention to the document in front of
        you which is in facsimile?  This is taken from the Defence
        bundle, the Auschwitz core file No. 2.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   This is an original document, is it not?  It is not a
        postwar transcript, to the best of your knowledge?
   A.   Yes, this is a copy of an original document.  I mean a

.          P-5

        wartime copy.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  A 1943 document?
   A.   Yes.
   MR IRVING:  Yes.  But you have not seen this particular one in
        the Auschwitz archives, or have you?
   A.   No, this one is in Moscow.
   Q.   This one is in Moscow?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   This is from the captured files of the Auschwitz
        construction office which are at present in the Moscow
        archives?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   I draw your attention to the first line, the date 28th
        June 1943, right?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   How many documents have you seen in carbon copy which do
        not include the word "Auschwitz" and the following word,
        "Den", D-E-N?
   A.   If this is a carbon copy, I presume it was a carbon copy
        of an original which was on a letter head.
   Q.   Yes.
   A.   On the letter head it does actually say "Auschwitz", so in
        carbon copies one can have quite often just the date and
        no information about the place.
   Q.   Very well.
   A.   But I cannot give a quantity in this case of how many

.          P-6

        documents I have seen.
   Q.   We go down now to the next line, which is what I will call
        the letter register line, which begins with the
        No. 31550.  You will notice that that number is typed in
        and not handwritten in?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   How many documents have you seen in the Auschwitz
        construction archives that have that letter register
        number typed in on a carbon copy?
   A.   I cannot say.  I have seen it, but I cannot say how many copies.
   Q.   Very well.
   A.   If I had my files with me right now, maybe I could show
        you examples of it typed in, but at the moment I am
        standing here just with one document.
   Q.   I agree.  I draw the attention of the Defence to what
        I call this discrepancy.  The next event in that line is
        an oblique, stroke, followed by "JA.",  JA period.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   How many items have you seen in the Auschwitz construction
        office files which have a period after the JA?
   A.   I am sorry.  I cannot answer that.
   Q.   Yes.  I appreciate that.  I draw your attention to the
        next item which is an oblique stroke and the initials
        "Ne.-".  How many items have you in the Auschwitz
        construction office files which have the initials "Ne" as

.          P-7



        a secretary, signing a letter dictated by Jahrling or
        Jahrnish, or by the man whose initials are "JA"?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am not quite sure I follow that question.
   MR IRVING:  I am sorry.  Let me phrase it in two parts.  Am
        I correct in saying that the man whose initials are "JA"
        was the man who dictated the letter?
   A.   Yes.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is Jahrling?
   MR IRVING:  Yes.  Am I correct in saying that the following
        initials "Ne" would be his secretary?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Have you seen any other letters whatsoever in the entire
        50,000 documents in the Auschwitz archives which have a
        secretary whose initials are "Ne"?
   A.   Since you brought up the challenge a few days ago,
        I thought it was an "M" here.  I mean, it seems to read as
        "M".  I actually checked.  I think I mentioned the name
        of the secretary a couple of days ago.  It should be in
        the transcript because I checked.  A 28 year old woman
        employed as a secretary at that moment in the
        Zentralbauleitung, I think.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You cannot remember her name?
   A.   Sorry, I cannot remember her name.  I had all the
        documentation with me on Friday and on Wednesday.
   MR IRVING:  Very well.  Are you aware that his secretary,
        actually her name began with an "L" or his name began with

.          P-8

        an "L", and that of the 50 items which are in the
        collection which we control or which I am advised exists,
        dictated by this man, 49 of them have the secretary's
        initials as "L" or "Lm"?
   A.   I cannot comment on that.
   Q.   Very well.  And that in none of these cases is there a
        period after either the "JA" or after the secretary's
        name?  Can you comment on that?
   A.   No, I cannot comment on that.
   Q.   Clearly, the reason I am saying this, my Lord, is to give
        the Defence a chance to come back possibly with documents
        proving me wrong on these points?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I think that is fair.
   MR IRVING:  Will you now look five or six lines lower down to
        the address:  "SS Wirtschafts-Verwaltungs-hauptamt,
        Antsgruppenchef C".  I draw your attention now to the
        following line.  Is there anything missing from that line
        "SS Brigadefuhrer u. Generalmajor"?
   A.   Generalmajor SS that would have been normally.
   Q.   Generalmajor der Waffen SS?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Have you seen any other documents whatsoever in the entire
        construction files of the Auschwitz office, either in
        Moscow or in the Auschwitz archives now, in which the
        words "Der Waffen SS" are omitted after the
        word"Generalmajor"?

.          P-9

   A.   I cannot comment on that.
   Q.   In other words, the address is improper in its present
        form; is that correct?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, he cannot comment.
   MR IRVING:  Yes.  Well, my Lord, it is an incorrect rank.
   A.   It is an incorrect designation of a rank -- a very
        important one because they were very particular,
        particularly if they had the rank of a Brigadier General.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You can be a Brigadefuhrer.
   MR IRVING:  They were a Brigadier General in the SS and
        Simultaneously they had a military rank in the Waffen SS.

Home ·  Site Map ·  What's New? ·  Search Nizkor