Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day024.14
Last-Modified: 2000/07/24

   Q.   If we can put it like that?  Turning to page 56, please,
        paragraph 15.4, you refer to Hitler's guidelines of 3rd
        October?
   A.   Yes.  It is a mistake.  3rd March.  Sorry about that.
   Q.   3rd March.
   A.   15.4, first line, should have "March" instead of
        "October".
   Q.   In this directive it says, this is the directive of March
        13th issued by General Alfred Jodl:  "In the operation
        area of the Arm, Himmler is granted special
        responsibilities by order of Hitler for the preparation of
        the political administration."
   A.   Yes, but it is also -- yes, sorry.
   Q.   It looks pretty sinister and it probably is pretty
        sinister, but is this not within the guidelines of
        military operations, securing the rear areas?
   A.   Yes, but it says if you take the full, if you look at the
        German terminology, "die sich aus dem endgultig

.          P-120



        auszutragenden Kampf zweier entgegengesetzter politischer
        Systeme ergeben", this is in English "These special
        responsibilities arise from the ultimate decisive struggle
        between two opposing political systems".  So it is not
        about just two armies fighting against each other.  It is
        actually two political systems and the idea here is to
        completely, well ----
   Q.   National socialism, on the one hand, and Bolshevism on the other?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   I think somebody once said the child with most -isms is
        the -ists.  So they are dealing here with the Bolsheviks
        or the Bolshevists and the National Socialists rather than
        the Jews as such?
   A.   Well, but from the context it becomes quite clear that in
        the views of the National Socialist, you cannot separate
        Bolshevism from Jewry, so it is a kind of, it is quite
        clear it is one of the main elements of the National
        Socialist ideology that Bolshevism is in a way a kind of
        invention of the Jews, of all Jewry, in order to conquer
        world dominion, I think.  This is something that you
        cannot separate here from this.
   Q.   Sure enough in the next paragraph it spells out what the
        special responsibilities are.  They are going to be
        bumping of all the Bolshevik Chieftains and Commissarts?
   A.   Yes.

.          P-121



   Q.   I agree with that.  That is quite obviously contained in
        the documents.  We now go on the following page to page 57
        to the massacres executed by the four Einsatzgruppen?
   A.   Yes.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  But can I just be clear about that?  Forgive
        me.  The documents we have just been looking at, four of
        them, 3rd March onwards?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Do you regard those as being preliminary to the setting up
        of the Einsatzgruppen?
   A.   Yes, I think one has to bear in mind that this is, you
        know, this is preparation of a racist war of
        extermination.  So the result of the speeches and of these
        instructions are certain guidelines which are given to the
        troops.  This is the Commissart order, the order to kill
        all Communist Commissarts, and this is what was called
        here the guidelines for special areas.  And then there is
        the jurisdiction decree which says, basically, that every
        German officer is entitled to take retaliation measures on
        the spot, and they are the guidelines for the conduct of
        the troops in Russia.
                  So the whole of it has to be seen as a whole set
        of regulations and guidelines, which I think can be
        described as a kind of package for the racist war of
        extermination and Hitler is intimately involved in the
        preparation of this.

.          P-122



   MR IRVING:  As a what for the racist war?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  "Package".
   A.   A kind of package of set of documents which actually - ---
   MR IRVING:  You describe them as the prerequisites ----
   A.   Yes, exactly.
   Q.   --- which does not necessarily mean that the one flowed
        from the other.  The racist war of extermination would not
        have been possible without these prerequisites, but that
        does not necessarily mean that this was anticipated or planned?
   A.   Well, I think it is quite clear from the documents that
        this war, you know, this racist war, is planned from at
        least March 1941 onwards and Hitler is playing an active
        role in the preparations of those guidelines.
   Q.   Dr Longerich, if you are going to put it like that, I
        think you ought to point us to the passage of the March
        documents on which you are relying.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Am I right, my Lord, that he should ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, you are, but I do not want to assume too
        much, but 3rd March refers to the establishment of
        guidelines?
   A.   Yes, it is an instruction from Hitler to Jodl to actually
        rephrase the guidelines, to be more radical in those
        guidelines.  So it gives him a kind of idea of what he
        wants, and he says, this is the key sentence, "The Jewish

.          P-123



        Bolshevik intelligentsia must be eliminated".  Then they
        are going on and revising these guidelines, and in end it
        says in here that there is in the operational area of the
        Army, the Reichsfuhrer SS special duties, he has to carry
        out and these duties relates to the fight between
        Bolshevism and National socialism.
                  So there is a specific political racist, I would
        say, element in here.  It is not just a preparation of,
        let us say, a normal war between nations or armies.
   MR IRVING:  Racist or ideological?
   A.   Both.  You cannot separate that.  You cannot separate
        anti-Semitism from the anti-Communism.  This is one thing.
   Q.   But if I narrow it down, these actual documents before us
        refer only to the leadership, the intelligentsia.
        Everything beyond that is extrapolation by yourself, is it not?
   A.   I do not know what the "Sonderaufgaben im Auftrage des
        Fuhrers" are.  There is no -- the document does not give
        us any explanation for that.  It is not -- the documents
        refer to leaders and to special tasks "im Auftrage des
        Fuhrers", "on behalf of the Fuhrer", so I do not know what
        this actually, I mean, because I was not there and we do
        not have a document about this, I do not know what this means.
   Q.   This is the document of March 13th on page 56, is that
        right?

.          P-124



   A.   Yes. "Sonderaufgaben", special tasks on behalf of the, by
        order of the Fuhrer for the preparation, and so on, and so
        I do not know what this really, how far ----
   Q.   Is it likely that Himmler went to see Hitler a bit jealous
        because the Army and the Air Force and the Navy had been
        given all these great tasks for this great ideological
        campaign in the East and Himmler has been to see Hitler
        and said, "Mein Fuhrer, I want jobs too.  What are you
        going to give me?" and Hitler says to him, "Well, you are
        going to do this and you are going to do that.  Your job
        is in the rear area, mopping up the partisans, holding
        down the population, securing the transport routes"?
   A.   No.  What happens is that I think the initiative came from
        Hitler because he is the one who is revising, first of
        all, the instruction, the guidelines by giving Jodl this
        instruction.  So he is the one who thinks that the Army is
        not radical enough about, the Army has not completely
        understood the task ahead of them.
   Q.   The ideological nature?
   A.   The ideological was, so he is giving this instruction.
        Then in the end it is ended in these guidelines where
        these special tasks are mentioned.
   Q.   Dr Longerich, you are interested in the special tasks, are
        you not?  We do not know what they are, but can I remind
        you of the meeting after Barbarossa began on July 16th
        1941 where Himmler is given special tasks, is he not?

.          P-125



   A.   Well, he is then -- what he gets then is special tasks.
        He gets ----
   Q.   Pacifying the rear areas?
   A.   Yes, he wanted more.  He wanted the overall political --
        he wanted a political -- he wanted the responsibility, the
        political responsibility, in a way to reorder the whole
        area.  What he got there on 16th is the competence for the
        political -- for the security -- for securing.
   Q.   Securing the rear area?
   A.   Securing the rear area.  So it is the word "police" is the
        crucial word in this.
   Q.   "Police"?
   A.   "Police".
   Q.   So did Hitler on that 16th July 1941 meeting effectively
        give Himmler carte blanche?  I am anxious not to lead you
        in any way on this.  If you disagree, then please say so.
   A.   Yes, I think the meeting is decisive and we can see after
        the meeting that actually Himmler sent more men to the
        East and the killings were radicalized and, you know, and
        the whole process escalated.
   Q.   And is it possible (and I put this as a hypothesis to you
        and it may militate against me or for me, I do not know)
        that Hitler may have said to Himmler, "Herr Reichsfuhrer,
        do what you see best, do whatever you think is right, but
        do not tell me what you are doing"?  Would that be
        possible?  "Just keep me out of it"?

.          P-126



   A.   It is difficult for me to speculate about this.
   Q.   On the basis of their relationship, as we know?
   A.   It is really difficult for me to speculate about this
        question, what he actually said, because I do not have
        minutes or anything about that.  I find it difficult
        to answer this question.
   Q.   But later on we do find in 1942 the documents where
        Himmler says:  "The Fuhrer has ordered the Eastern
        territories to be rid of the Jews.  He has placed this
        burden on my shoulders.  Nobody can take it off me"?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   And that rather fits in with that kind of hypothesis?
        I only want to put it you if you think you are comfortable
        with it.
   A.   I find this difficult to answer.  You can, of course,
        argue that, in general, how this system, the political
        system, worked, the decision-making worked, that Hitler
        would make a general statement, gave general guidelines,
        and then leave it to other people responsible for this
        area actually to fill this out, you know, with their own
        energy and their own ideas, but really I do not know about
        the exact content of this guidelines.
   Q.   If it repeatedly happened that somebody like Hans Lammers
        went to see Hitler to protest about this or that, and
        Hitler would answer, or Ribbentrop would go to Hitler, and
        Hitler would answer, "Keep me out of this.  Take it up

.          P-127



        with Himmler.  It is his pigeon, it is his business"?
   A.   Well, I think, if we want to, if we want to discuss it,
        I think we have to discuss these individual letters or
        pieces of documents.
   Q.   It is just a general impression I was asking you about
        from your knowledge of the papers.  So what we differ on,
        Dr Longerich, is this, am I right in saying this, that the
        March 1941 documents, you think it was an ideological
        preparation for the ideological war in the East, that
        Himmler was being given orders for, and I say it was a
        typically military securing the rear areas kind of job he
        was being given?
   A.   Well, you cannot separate the Nazi ideas of warfare in the
        East from their ideological goals.  I mean, for them it
        was not contradiction to speak about securing of areas and
        to speak of ideological goals.  I do not think one can
        separate these two issues.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Can I just ask you this, Dr Longerich.  Do
        you regard it as legitimate in deciding what the objective
        was to look and see what actually happened?
   A.   Yes, of course.
   Q.   Because we know pretty precisely what happened?
   A.   Yes, of course.
   MR IRVING:  I will come to that question as question B, but,
        first of all, I will ask question A, if I may, my Lord?
        Would you agree that the documents before us fit entirely

.          P-128



        with the notion of military securing of rear areas?
   A.   No, because it says, if you just look at the documents and
        leave out what happened after that, it says here:
         "Special responsibilities by order of the Fuhrer for the
        preparation of the political administration.  These
        special responsibilities arise from the ultimate decisive
        struggle between two opposing political systems".  So it
        is not just about policing and security.
   Q.   Would that include the murder and extermination of the
        political and military leaders on the other side, the
        intelligentsia?
   A.   Yes, I think so.
   Q.   Now, if we turn the page and now we come to the four
        Einsatzgruppen, page 57?
   A.   Yes.

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