Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day021.14
Last-Modified: 2000/07/24

   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Put the evidence to him, Mr Irving, and then
        we will see what it amounts to.
   MR IRVING:  Is the evidence given by Hitler's other adjutant'
        Fritz Wiedemann in writing in his own manuscript on board
        a ship in February 1939 as he sails to a new life in the
        United States not evidence?
   A.   Well, I cite this, do I not, on page 278?
   Q.   You discount it.  You say, OK, Mr Irving had evidence but
        again this is another piece I am going to discount because ----
   A.   I am afraid, I am sorry to interrupt you ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I have read it.  It is hearsay.
   A.   Yes, it is hearsay, it is reporting gossip.  The fact that
        he is who he is is neither here nor there.  It says it is
        reliably reported that Goebbels as well repeatedly
        telephoned from Munich during the night's worst outrages.
        It is hearsay.  That is why I do not give much credence to

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        it.
   Q.   If Hitler's adjutant Fritz Wiedemann -- who had been in
        fact his adjutant in World War I too had he not?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Fritz Wiedemann writes that it is reliably reported, and
        he writes this in his own handwriting and I am the first
        historian to have found it and deciphered it and used it,
        that Goebbels spent much of the night making these phone
        calls to stop the worst of the atrocities, and there is no
        value at all to be attached to that, is that right?
   A.   It is merely hearsay.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Professor Evans, does the fact of him making
        telephone calls trying to stop the rot, as it were, fit in
        with the general picture of the events of that night?
   A.   No.
   MR IRVING:  Is that why you discount it?
   A.   That is another reason.
   Q.   So anything that does not fit in with your picture you
        discount?
   A.   It is not my picture.  It is the picture that emerges from
        the documents.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think we have dealt with that.
   MR RAMPTON:  Can I go back two steps please?  I am sorry about
        this. My interruptions do not help the speed of
        proceedings either, I know.  I am perhaps not as quick on
        the ball as I should be, but I notice now that what this

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        Hederich business arises from is it arises directly from
        the text of Mr Irving's book Goebbels at page 274.  I see
        now why Professor Evans used the form of words that he did
        about a speech by Hitler.  Right at the bottom of the page
        before the indented quotation Mr Irving writes this:
        "Several people who heard Goebbels' firebrand speech were
        uncomfortable.  Karl Hederich, one of his department
        heads, felt that it conflicted with the tenor of Hitler's speech".
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.  I think I have the point.  That is
        based on nothing more than -- and I say this rather
        rudely to Mr Irving -- the reference to what Hederich had
        understood Hitler to have said.
   MR RAMPTON:  The whole cross-examination was based upon the
        premise that it was Professor Evans who illegitimately
        turned that passage in the German into a speech by
        Hitler.  It was not he at all.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I did realize it was really the other way
        round.
   MR RAMPTON:  I am sorry, I had not.  I was a bit slow.
   MR IRVING:  You do accept, Professor Evans, do you not, that
        there is some evidence, no matter the fact that you
        discount it and I accept it, to the fact that there were
        phone calls made by Goebbels during the night?
   A.   Could you point me towards it, please?
   MR IRVING:  That is Wiedemann.

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   A.   That is hearsay.
   Q.   Hearsay is acceptable in civil cases.  Do you accept also
        that there were phone calls from Hitler made to Goebbels
        on the evidence of the eyewitnesses like von Below, the
        Adjutants, that Hitler telephoned Goebbels to express his
        disfavour?
   A.   Could you point me towards the piece of evidence you are
        referring to, please?
   Q.   This is not evidence.  This is the von Below interview
        which was put to you this morning, the transcript.
   A.   Right.  No, I do not because the von Below memoirs say
        that he was not in the room when Hitler made a phone call.
   Q.   Are you saying that none of those three sources states
        that he was furious with Goebbels, he made a frightful
        scene with Goebbels?
   A.   No, I am not.  I am saying the sources were unreliable.
        We have been over this, Mr Irving.
   Q.   You will see the point of this in a minute.  Then there
        was a conference between Hitler and Goebbels by phone
        about the situation.  That is what von Below says.  Is
        that not right?  He saw this?
   A.   Where is this?
   Q.   This is on page 4 of the bundle.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Assume it is there.  I would have thought it
        was pretty obvious they would have spoken on the telephone.

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   A.   Yes.
   MR IRVING:  There is a reason for this, my Lord.  We now come
        to the question of why Goebbels felt it necessary to draft
        an order which he issued later on in the following
        morning, or you say the afternoon, do you not?
   A.   You are referring to the next day, as it were, now?
   Q.   That is right.  We are now after midnight.
   A.   Well after.  We are now into the daylight hours, as it
        were, or perhaps that is dawn.
   Q.   No, we are after midnight.
   A.   Exactly what time are we talking about, Mr Irving?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Where is the document?
   A.   Yes.
   MR IRVING:  First of all, I am saying, do you accept that there
        is one statement at least, namely by von Below, that
        Hitler telephoned Goebbels about the situation during the
        night hours?  This on page 4 of the interview.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Assume that.
   A.   Yes.
   MR IRVING:  Yes.  If therefore, and I now ask you to look at
        the little bundle of documents which has the anodnung in,
        if you still have it.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  L2, tab 1, page 10.
   MR IRVING:  If therefore on the following day, 10th November,
        at some time Goebbels issues this order ----
   A.   This is 10th November.

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   Q.   It is the one immediately following the anodnung?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   This is the actual order issued by Goebbels, is it issued
        to all the Kreisleiters and all Kreispropagandaleiters,
        which are the district propaganda officials?
   A.   That is right, yes.
   Q.   Does the document say, I refer to my announcement today
        concerning ending the anti-Jewish demonstrations, and so
        on?
   A.   May I just go on, concerning the anti-Jewish
        demonstrations and actions which have already also been
        published in the press and by radio.
   Q.   Yes.
   A.   And preceding that is the press notice which, according to
        the footnote here, was issued at 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
   Q.   We are going to deal with that time in a minute.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Can you accept therefore that it is likely that a
        telephone conversation from Hitler to Goebbels was
        concerning the drafting of such a stop order, or stop
        orders, with the maximum possible dispatch?
   A.   A telephone conversation, according to Goebbels' diary, on
        the morning of the 10th, before they met to finalise the
        order in the Osterea restaurant.
   Q.   On page 282 of your report we now look at how that order

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        came around.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   You say that, when Hitler and Goebbels talked, it is
        reported in the diary entry and no decision had yet been taken.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   You say that, following this first conversation with
        Hitler, on the morning of 10th November, Goebbels drafted
        an order to bring the pogrom to a halt?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   You quote his diary entry written on the following day
        referring to the morning of the 10th, "I prepared an order
        that put an end to the actions, I report to the Fuhrer at
        the Osterea".
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Is it not extremely likely on the balance of probabilities
        that he prepared the order on the basis of his
        conversations with Hitler, whether in person or by
        telephone, and he then took the draft order round at
        Hitler's request to him at that restaurant?
   A.   That is how I read it, yes.
   Q.   So Hitler had ordered everything to stop?
   A.   That is right.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  On the morning of the 10th?
   MR IRVING:  On the morning of the 10th, yes, my Lord.  Why did
        they take this decision to stop everything then?  Had

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        things got out of hand?  Had the forest fire suddenly
        developed on to a scale that they began to fear they could
        not halt it?
   A.   Let us just get quite clear when the order went out.
   MR JUSTICE IRVING: 4.00 pm.
   A.   It went out, in my view, in the afternoon of the 10th.
        I think they decided that the action was complete.  That
        is to say that the synagogues had been burnt down, the
        shops had been destroyed and wrecked, people were in the
        course of being arrested, and it was time to call it to an end.
   MR IRVING:  My Lord, can I ask you where you get 4 pm from?
        I know it is there.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  At the foot of page 10 of this file it says
        10th November and then gives a reference for it.
   MR IRVING:  I am looking for it in the expert report.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Does it matter where it is?
   MR IRVING:  Well, yes, because there is a footnote.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is page 10, L2, tab 1.
   A.   Yes.
   MR IRVING:  Because I have said that that order was issued at
        10 a.m. that morning, my Lord, and I wanted to check the
        actual source.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Where do you get the 10 a.m. from?
   MR IRVING:  That is why I wanted to check the actual source for
        it in the book, which is a radio monitoring report,

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        I believe.
   A.   Ah, but this order goes out after the radio broadcast.
   Q.   Can you tell me what page?
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes.  It is the bottom of 286, my Lord, top of
        287, and the source is given.  I think it is a deduction
        because he uses the word "probably", does Professor Evans.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It looks to me that, if you go back to the
        document I was inviting attention to, would S 117 an
        meldung 114 be a reference to the timing?
   A.   Yes, page 107, and note 144.
   MR IRVING:  Is it not correct, as is evident from my book on
        page 277, that at 10 a.m. he broadcast a live appeal for
        order over the Deuchslandsender, which is the national
        broadcasting system?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Before he met Hitler at the Osterea.
   MR IRVING:  My Lord, yes, 10 a.m.
   A.   Note 53.
   MR IRVING:  This is another of your unreliable sources?
   A.   Ingrid Weckert.
   Q.   Is it only Ingrid Weckert or is it tape recordings or
        recordings or disks?
   A.   You seem to have derived the information from Ingrid
        Weckert not to have seen the recordings in the Frankfurt
        radio archives yourself.
   Q.   Yes.  In other words, I am referencing the recordings of
        the broadcast made at 10 a.m. which she has found and she

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        has referred to, is that correct?
   A.   First of all, I would have to see the document to accept
        your account of what is in it or rather ----
   Q.   Do you always ask to see documents?
   A.   Yes, of course I do, Mr Irving, because I do not trust
        your account of what is in documents.  Still less do
        I trust the account ----
   Q.   Do you know your own name without being shown a document?
   A.   Still less do I trust the account that is given by Ingrid
        Weckert, whom I explain in my report as a notorious anti-Semite.
   Q.   Anti-Semite?
   A.   In Germany, not a serious historian, who ----
   Q.   Invented these recordings, has she?  Is this what you are
        suggesting?
   A.   I am not saying she has invented the recordings.  I am
        saying that I cannot trust her account of what is in
        them.  In order to be able to assess the point that you
        are putting to me, I would need to see an accurate
        transcript of these recordings.  You would ask no less if
        you were in the witness box yourself, Mr Irving.
   Q.   If we are concerned only with the time the broadcast was made.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We are not concerned only with the time.  I
        am sorry, I am now interrupting you. We are concerned with
        the content because your point, as I understand it, is

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        that in effect this order was in place from 10 a.m.
        because it was broadcast.  That is all very well if indeed
        the broadcast did say effectively what the order says.
        That is what the witness is wanting to be reassured about.

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