Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day012.12
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20

   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Right.  That is very helpful to know that,
        but can I tell you why I am a little puzzled?  Before the
        adjournment I think we had reached a point where Hitler
        had gone home or wherever he went before the dinner, which
        was at about 9 o'clock in the evening.  We have now got to
        about midnight.  Did nothing happen in between times?
        I think that is what Mr Irving is suggesting, that there

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        was another Goebbels order.
   MR RAMPTON:  I do not think even Mr Irving is saying that.
        Things had already happened before ever Hitler and
        Goebbels had a conversation about it in the late afternoon
        or the early evening.  It had already starting happening.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I follow that, but are you saying nothing of
        relevance happened between 9 o'clock in the evening and
        the date of this message from Muller?  That is the point.
   MR RAMPTON:  There is nothing recorded in the documents as
        having happened, save that it must be a reasonable
        inference that it was all still going on.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I mean happened anywhere in connection with
        Kristallnacht, not the actions against the Jews in the
        synagogues there. Did Goebbels, for example, not make a
        speech?
   MR RAMPTON:  He did and, as we saw this morning, during that
        speech to the old party comrades at the old town hall he
        actually said on the Fuhrer's orders that this is to be
        allowed to continue.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It would obviously help me if we could be
        chronological about it.
   MR RAMPTON:  That is what I am trying to be.  The last thing
        I looked at was the Nazi party court report of February,
        which records what Goebbels said at the 9 o'clock dinner
        on the 9th.  That is tab 2, my Lord, page 2.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  This is what Goebbels said in his speech that

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        night, is it?
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes.  It says: "On the evening of 9th November
        1938 the Reichs propaganda minister, Dr Goebbels, ...
        said ...".  We had a translation of that from Mr Irving
        this morning?
   A.   Yes.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is one of the problems about operating off
        a German text.  Anyway, this is Goebbels speech.  I am
        afraid I had not realized that.  Yes.
   A.   It continued by saying that he said that the Fuhrer had
        decided on his briefing that demonstrations like this were
        neither to be prepared by the party, nor were they to be
        organized and so on, but however -- --
   MR RAMPTON:  What he said was that, in effect, rather like the
        pogroms shortly after Barbarossa, it was OK so long as, as
        it were, they were anonymous.  The police were not to
        interfere of course, which meant that the thugs could have
        a free hand.  Your Lordship will find, if the translation
        is a problem, some translation of that on page 244,
        paragraph 5, of Evans, where Evans unsurprisingly makes
        the point that I made this morning, that whereas Goebbels
        might have lied to his diary, he certainly was not very
        likely to lie to the old party comrades at the dinner.
   A.   I would thought it would be the other way round.
   Q.   Well?
   A.   If Hitler had given him those instructions, he would have

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        written it in his diary.
   Q.   He did write it in his diary, Mr Irving, did he not?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We have not looked at the diary on this, have
        we, yet?
   A.   We have not and, if we do, we will not find that Hitler
        gave the instructions.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I must say I think it would be easier to work
        off Evans than doing this.
   MR RAMPTON:  As I say, the problem with that is that every time
        I try and use Evans, the witness disputes what Evans has
        written and insists on going back to the original.
   A.   Vehemently.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Then I ought to have translations of any
        documents that matter.  Anyway, let us try and press on.
        I am just getting a bit puzzled by the sequence.
   MR RAMPTON:  My Lord, can I back?  The starting point is the
        Goebbels diary entry of 10th November 1938, recording his
        meeting with Hitler, his conversation with Hitler, before
        the dinner that evening on 9thth November.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.
   MR RAMPTON:  Mr Irving has accepted that, although he
        translated it somewhat differently, I think he has
        accepted, that translation by Professor Evans is accurate.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Page 240, paragraph 4.
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes, top of the page, 241.  The German is on 240.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.

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   MR RAMPTON:  The top of 241 is Professor Evans' direct
        translation.  "I brief the Fuhrer about the matter.  He
        orders:  let the demonstrations go on.  Withdraw the
        police.  The Jews must for once feel the people's fury".
   A.   That is correct.
   Q.   That is the starting point.  Then Goebbels goes to the
        dinner, and in effect says more or less the same thing to
        the assembled company at the dinner.  Then, so far as
        I know from the documents, there is not any record of
        Goebbels or anybody else having said anything about what
        was to happen or not happen until five to 12?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What you have just said has actually
        clarified my mind.  Thank you very much.
   MR RAMPTON:  I am sorry.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is probably my fault.
   MR RAMPTON:  I am trying to go as fast as I can.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is just that sometimes one plunges into
        things and one needs to be --
   MR RAMPTON:  I know. I do recognize.  We are all so familiar
        with it that sometimes somebody who is not quite so
        familiar may easily get left behind and I do apologise for
        that.  I will try to take it more slowly.  Can I then jog
        back one step to page 2 of tab 1 of the new bundle?
   A.   The Muller telegram?
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes, please.
   A.   Which of course is sent from Berlin, not from Munich.

.          P-104

   Q.   I understand that.
   A.   That is quite important, as Hitler is in Munich and
        Goebbels is in Munich.
   Q.   You mean Muller and Hitler, leave Goebbels on one side if
        you will for the moment, cannot communicate by telephone?
   A.   It would have been an unorthodox chain of command because
        Muller ----
   Q.   The strict chain of command would have been this, would it
        not, Mr Irving?  Hitler speaks to Himmler, and you
        remember there is a British diplomatic report saying that
        Himmler and Hitler were in close conversation before the
        dinner?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Himmler speaks to Heydrich, Heydrich speaks to Muller?
   A.   Or, more likely, that Muller gets word from his local
        police officers that Goebbels has issued instructions,
        which we have heard about, for these kind of things to
        happen, and Muller then sends out this telegram, which
        begins with the words, "There are going to be outrages
        against the Jews in a short time all over the Reich", and
        the orders are that no one is to intervene.
   Q.   That is right.  Now, do you really think that Muller,
        whose immediate boss is Heydrich, whose immediate boss is
        Himmler, whose immediate boss is Hitler, would have
        written [German- document not provided], they are not to
        be interfered with, the demonstrations, on the faith of

.          P-105

        some utterance by Goebbels?  It has to come from his own
        chain of command, has it not?
   A.   Well, we are not advised by the document as to what
        actually happened.
   Q.   No.  We are not, but we are trying to be honest, open
        minded, objective historians, looking at the true effect
        of the evidence?
   A.   Each in his own way, yes.
   Q.   And the fact is, is it not, Mr Irving, that, if Muller is
        prompted to send that telegram at five to 12 on 9th
        November 1938, he has had authority to repeat what Hitler
        has already said to Goebbels, that the police are to be
        held back?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   And he will have got that authority not from Goebbels, he
        will have got it from Heydrich Himmler or Hitler.
   A.   Well, we are not informed by the available documents you
        have managed to dig up so far.  All we can say is that
        these instructions are not broadly different from what we
        know from other sources that Hitler was saying, namely,
        "Do not intervene, fellows".
   Q.   No, exactly.
   A.   "Let things run their path".
   Q.   "Do not intervene, fellows. Bad as it gets, do not
        intervene".  Now look at what was sent on the evening of
        9th November.  Turn back to page 1, please.  My Lord, I am

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        going to try make this easy by finding it in Evans.  My
        Lord, 249 is the correct reference, paragraph 6.  I will
        read it from Evans, first of all.
                  "The leader of SA group Nordsee, Bohmcker, in
        the evening of 9th November 1938 issued the following
        instructions from Munich to his subordinates: All Jewish
        shops are immediately to be destroyed by SA men in uniform
         ... Jewish synagogues are to be immediately set on fire,
         ... The police are not permitted to interfere.  The
        Fuhrer want the police not to interfere ... All Jews are
        to be disarmed.  In case of resistance immediately shoot
        them down".  How many Jews were killed in the course of
        this period?
   A.   I think overnight 36 were reported as being killed.
   Q.   The eventual total was about 91, was it not?
   A.   The same order of magnitude, yes.
   Q.   Now, if you look back at page 1 of the new bundle ----
   A.   Just looking at this telephone message from Munich, it
        does not really advance us.  It just repeats what we know
        from the other sources also.
   Q.   Mr Irving, it does.  It is another event in the unrolling
        catalogue of events that take place during the night.
   A.   The only sentences of interest really to the court I think
        is the Fuhrer wants the police not to intervene, which is
        exactly what we know from other documents.
   Q.   Yes.  Is there any point during the whole of these events

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        at which, on the evidence, Hitler intervened to save the
        day for the Jews?
   A.   You know very well there is.
   Q.   Which?
   A.   2 a.m., the message signed by Rudolf Hess's office of the
        Deputy Fuhrer, on the orders from the very highest level.
   Q.   That is your version of Hitler's intervention to stop the
        rot, is it?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Shall we look at that straightaway?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You can if you like, but it would help me if
        one was doing there chronologically.
   MR RAMPTON:  I am trying to.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I thought you were being distracted then.
   A.   My Lord, he asked.  He knew what the answer was.  He knew
        perfectly well I was going to bring up that telegram.
   MR RAMPTON:  It is on my list.  It is not 2 o'clock, it is 2.56
        actually, is it not?
   A.   You have a different version from the one that I use, yes.
   Q.   But it is in Hess's office and he sends a message at 2.56
        in my copy.
   A.   Yes, but on my copy you will find it is headed "The Deputy
        of the Fuhrer", signed Deputy Fuhrer.
   Q.   Absolutely fine.  I am quite happy with that, Mr Irving,
        because it is 7th on my chronological list.  We will look
        at it in due course.

.          P-108

   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think, if you would not mind doing it that
        way, it is going to be much easier for me.
   MR RAMPTON:  I am now on 3, which is Heydrich's telex of 1.20
        a.m. which we find on page 4 and 5 of this bundle, but
        I will not trouble you with the German because I think
        I can find the English, I hope I can, in Evans.  The
        trouble is that they are all over the place, but the text
        is set out on page 263 of Evans.
   A.   Again, it does not advance us one iota from where we were
        with the previous telegrams.
   Q.   I think you may be wrong about that.
   A.   Except that this one comes from Munich.
   Q.   It comes from Heydrich, does it not, who is a rank above
        Muller, is he not?
   A.   On page 3 we do not have any signature.  We do not know
        who sent it -- of the documents.
   Q.   Which?
   A.   I am looking at the bundle of documents, page 3.
   Q.   Well, if you would not mind, you will see Gestapo to
        Muller on page 3 at 378  of the document.
   A.   378 of what?
   Q.   378 of the actual document, page 3 of the bundle.
   A.   OK.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Sorry?

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