Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day013.08
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20

.          P-65

   Q.   Where the Party Courts drew the line between actions which
        could be justified, and those which were judged to have
        been committed out of vile" -- I could say base , I
        suppose, could I not? -- "motives, becomes clear in the
        various judgments of the Party Courts.  For instance, in
        the report of 13th February 1939, Goring was informed of
        the outcome of the investigations in 16 cases which the
        Supreme Party Court had undertaken.  In only two of the 16
        cases, both involving the rape of Jewish women, had the
        Party Court transferred the perpetrators to ordinary
        criminal courts (and in these two cases the party judges
        were not motivated by concern for the victims, but simply
        by the fact that Nazi party members had committed 'racial
        defilement' or in other words compromised what the party
        regarded as their own racial purity).  In all the other 14
        cases the Supreme Party Court asked Hitler to quash
        proceedings.  These cases included the brutal murder of 21
        Jews, who had been shot dead, stabbed to death or drowned
        by Nazi party members.  The worst punishment meted out to
        these murderers was an official warning and barring from
        any Nazi party office for a period of three years.  The
        great majority of offenders received even milder
        'punishments', or none at all."  Is that true or false,
        that account given by Professor Evans?
   A.   Well, Professor Evans has not given us the source of
        information for what happened to these people,

.          P-66

        unfortunately.  He has just relied on this one report
        which deals with the investigation of these cases, but he
        has not told us what he relies on for the outcome of the
        cases.
   Q.   14 out of 16, the two transferred to be prosecuted in the
        normal way being rapists?
   A.   You heard me say earlier that there were substantially
        more cases than just the 16, and I will certainly be
        presenting to the court the evidence of the other cases.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Let us stick with the 16.  You are being
        asked, do you quarrel with this?
   MR RAMPTON:  You have only two out of 16.  You have 14 that get
        let off despite being murderers.
   A.   We do not know what his evidence is for that.
   Q.   It is in the report.  He says ibid, which is his footnote
        for 130, which means the same report, the report to Goring.
   A.   In cases 3 to 16 the Supreme Party Court requests that the
        Fuhrer halt the proceedings in the regular criminal court,
        so it does look as though those 16 were not further
        prosecuted.
   Q.   Two of them were, apparently.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   So they get off just because they are jolly party members
        acting in accordance with the wish of the Fuhrer and
        murdering Jews?

.          P-67

   A.   Yes.
   Q.   How does that chime with what you wrote in Goebbels?
        "Hess ordered the Gestapo and the party's courts to delve
        into the origins of the night's violence and turn the
        culprits over to the public prosecutors"?
   A.   He did.  That is the document of December 1938.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  On the contrary, Mr Irving ----
   A.   No, my Lord ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  14 of them never went to the criminal courts.
   A.   My Lord, the sentence, he ordered the Gestapo and the
        party's courts to delve into the origins and so on, Hess
        ordered and so on, to delve into the origins of the
        night's violence and turn the culprits over to the public
        prosecutors, they did then enquire and delve, and
        subsequently in February 1939 there is this later report
        of what the outcome was.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  They just got a ticking off for raping and killing.
   A.   This is absolutely right, my Lord, but there were then
        very many other cases to which this document makes no
        reference where prosecutions were carried out, and I shall
        bring that evidence forward.
   MR RAMPTON:  You make no reference in your book to this
        absolutely scandalous manipulation of the justice system,
        do you?
   A.   I think I make any amount of reference in the Goebbels

.          P-68

        biography to the manipulation of the justice system by the
        Nazis.  There is any amount of evidence of the way that
        they twisted the system in order to prosecute Catholic
        priests and so on.  The whole way through the book I have
        shown the cynical manipulation of the German justice
        system but there is a limit to how much you can keep on
        packing into a book without making it 2,000 pages long or
        filled with the 8 pages of sludge that I referred to
        earlier.  You have to halt the story at some point and proceed.
   Q.   To avoid misrepresentation, which I suggest this is an
        absolutely scandalous example, it is much better to leave
        it out.  If you cannot find enough space to put in the
        truth, leave it out.
   A.   You are not suggesting the sentence that I wrote there is
        not the truth?  It is absolutely true.
   Q.   Of course I am.
   A.   They ordered an investigation but at some point, we are
        dealing here with December 1938, you then draw the line.
        You have mentioned how many people have been thrown into
        concentration camps, you have mentioned the murders, you
        have mentioned the huge amount of looting and destruction
        that went on, and now I am being criticised because I have
        not referred to 16 specific cases where the Nazis acted in
        a perverse way when it was not Goebbels who was acting in
        a perverse way, it is the rest of the Nazi system that is

.          P-69

        operating in a perverse way.
   Q.   You knew perfectly well when you wrote this that it was
        the intention of the Nazi Party that all but a tiny
        minority of those guilty of everything from murder
        downwards should get off.  You never said it?
   A.   First of all, there is no evidence of any such intention
        and I am not writing a book about the Nazi justice
        system.  If I was to write a book about the Nazi justice
        system, I would have gone in far greater detail into this
        kind of evidence.  I am writing a biography of the man,
        Dr Josef Goebbels, who triggered this outrage, and there
        comes a point where you draw a line and say, "That is as
        far as one is going down that particular story because we
        now have other things to relate".  Elsewhere in the book
        I have given any amount of evidence of specific
        distortions of the German justice system with which he was
        personally involved, for example, the prosecution of the
        German priests and the prosecution of Pastor Niemoeller,
        and so on.
   MR RAMPTON:  My Lord, I want to turn now, if I may, to Dresden.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, so we can put away Evans, can we not?
   MR RAMPTON:  He can be put by way, as it were.  There are one
        or two places where the full text of a document is quoted
        in evidence which we may need to look at, but I would
        recommend using what I call the Heather Rogers' Guide to
        Dresden.

.          P-70

   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I do not think I have got it.
   MR RAMPTON:  No, it is coming.
   A.   But, I will, in fact, be in a position to call the
        evidence of the other convictions that resulted from the
        Kristallnacht ----
   MR RAMPTON:  By all means do.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, do.
   A.   --- if you attach importance to it.
   MR RAMPTON:  My Lord, neither your Lordship nor Mr Irving has
        seen this document.  I would like to use it because, as
        far as I am concerned, it is both comprehensive and
        accurate.  When I say that it contains a comprehensive
        catalogue in date order of all the material to which
        I want to refer.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What I think I will do with it is put it in
        your summary of place, is that a good idea?
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes, that is a good idea, in the Dresden section.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Are you producing a file on Dresden?
   MR RAMPTON:  There is a file on Dresden.  Sorry, my Lord, about
        this conversation.  It is meant to be helpful.
   A.   My Lord, I also provided your Lordship with a small clip
        of documents.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We might put it in the same file, I suspect.
   A.   Yes, that is why I was mentioning that.
   MR RAMPTON:  I have here two sets of documents, one of which
        one might call the David Irving original research file, or

.          P-71

        clip, the other is some of what Mr Irving has said on this
        question.  I am trying to not refer to those if I possibly
        can because I want to use this schedule here.  My Lord,
        there is an empty file on the bench, I think, if those
        could go in as tabs 2 and 3?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I do not think I have this empty file.  Has
        it got anything on the back of it?
   MR RAMPTON:  L1.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  L1, yes.  This is going to become Dresden, is it?
   MR RAMPTON:  Well, the first part is history.  That is not what
        I meant.  The first part is Hitler/Horthy which is a very
        slim clip of, I think, two pages or something, and the
        next two tabs can be Dresden.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am going to ask if somebody can put this
        into tab 2 because they have been individually hole
        punched so that it is half an hour's work.
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes.  Before I start on this topic, my Lord,
        I think I need to know from Mr Irving through your
        Lordship whether he has any objection (and he has not seen
        it before) to using this tabular schedule that I have just
        handed in.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Does it contain anything that is not in the
        other documents?
   MR RAMPTON:  It is all taken from the documents.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Are you happy with that, Mr Irving?

.          P-72

   A.   Well, with reservations, yes.  I think it contains
        prejudicial material which does not -- but it depends how
        he presents it
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Let us work off it anyway, shall we?
   MR RAMPTON:  Let us start off anyway.  My Lord, I start on page
        3.  I should preface that by saying on page 1 your
        Lordship will see as the first four items listed four
        authentic German, that is to say Nazi German, wartime
        documents dealing with the numbers of dead as a result of
        allied bombing at Dresden in February 1945.  As your
        Lordship will see, there is no dispute about the
        authenticity of any of those four documents.  That is
        right, is it not, Mr Irving?
   A.   I do not have them in front of me yet.
   Q.   You know what they are, 15th March 1945, final report?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   22nd March 1945, situation report 1404; the real
        Tagesbefehl 47 of 22nd March 1945, not the fake, and the
        situation report 1414 of the Chief of Police of 3rd April
        1945.  You are well familiar with all those documents, are you not?
   A.   I am sure about No. 3 and 4 until I actually see them.  Do
        they come from my discovery?
   Q.   As far as I know.  I think perhaps the last one comes from
        Bergander, but I am not sure.  There is no doubt that the
        real Tagesbefehl was obtained, I think was sent to you by

.          P-73

        Bergander, but I am not sure, in 1977.  Have you seen the
        real Tagesbefehl -- the non-faked one?
   A.   Well, I am afraid my bundle is not assisting me here.
        Where do I find these four documents in the bundle?
        I have got 15th March one.
   Q.   I do not know that I can tell you that.
   A.   I have 22nd March one.
   Q.   Because for one thing I can hardly read it.  There is a
        document on page 7, for example, which might be anything.
        There is a document of 22nd March at page 8.
   A.   Yes, those two I am familiar with.
   Q.   Right.  That goes on and on.
   A.   That goes on and on.  I am lacking the next 22nd March one
        which you say is Tagesbefehl 47.
   Q.   I do not know if there is a next 22nd March one.  I
        really cannot help.  But these documents all, I think --
        we think that these documents came from your discovery,
        such as we have.  But you know what I mean by the real
        Tagesbefehl 47, do you not?
   A.   Well, I do not.  The only one that I am familiar with is
        the one turns out to have been faked by the German
        Propaganda Ministry.
   MR RAMPTON:  I see.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Where is the original?  I mean the genuine
        one?  It does not look as if it is in the bundle.

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