Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day012.13
Last-Modified: 2000/07/20

   MR RAMPTON:  I am sorry.  It is Mr Irving's fault, my Lord,
        I have to say.

.          P-109

   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  378 of what?  I have about four things open
        and none has a 378.
   A.   It is printed page 378, my Lord, of the book.
   MR RAMPTON:  It is an erroneous diversion.
   A.   Nowhere on that page is it evident that it is sent by
        Heydrich.
   Q.   Page 3 of what, Mr Irving?
   A.   Of the bundle of documents, page 378.  We are looking at
        the same document.
   Q.   No, you are looking at the wrong document, Mr Irving.
   A.   Page 378?
   Q.   377, 378 is the 11.55 telex from Muller.
   A.   And 378, the next item is the 1.20 a.m.
   Q.   If you would not mind, Mr Irving, if you turn over to page
        4 of the bundle and then to page 5 of the bundle, you will
        see the whole text of the Heydrich telex.
   A.   Very good.
   Q.   And it is signed by Heydrich ----.
   A.   This one is now the complete text, yes.
   Q.   - on page 6, thank you.  Do you agree that the essential
        guts of the Heydrich telex are set out in English on page
        263 of Evans's report, (a), (b), (c) and (d).
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Do you agree that the Heydrich telex again, whilst it
        makes some provision for protecting German property from
        the consequences of arson against Jewish property, and

.          P-110

        while it makes a prohibition against looting whilst
        encouraging destruction ----
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   -  and provides some protection for foreign nationals,
        even if they happen to be Jewish, it also says, if you
        look at the text of the actual document, in the right hand
        column of page 5 of the bundle, once again that the
        demonstrations are not to be hindered by the police?
   A.   Yes.  But I am mystified as to how this takes us any
        further.
   Q.   It is a developing tale of what happened in the hands, not
        of Dr Goebbels but of the other branch, if I may call it
        that, the Himmler branch of the hierarchy ----
   A.   The executive branch.
   Q.   - in consequence of what Hitler had said to Goebbels
        earlier that evening.  Are you following me?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  So Himmler sends this order out?
   MR RAMPTON:  Heydrich is Himmler's subordinate.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Rather, Heydrich does, in consequence of what
        Hitler said to Goebbels?  Is that the proposition?
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes, because Himmler and Hitler have spoken
        together before the dinner as well.
   A.   I know it would have no effect whatsoever on you,
        Mr Rampton, but you will notice that nobody refers in any
        these telegrams to having received orders from Hitler.
   Q.   The one we just looked at did, did it not?

.          P-111

   A.   Not the one we were looking at present, not the 1.20 one.
   Q.   Here we go, page 5.  Look at the file again, page 5,
        Mr Irving.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   The paragraph before it starts (a), (b), (c) and (d).
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Will you just read it to us in English?
   A.   In this conference the political leadership is to be
        informed that the German police has received from
        Reichsfuhrer SS and Chief of the German police the
        following instructions, and that the political leadership
        is to adapt their measures to these.
   Q.   Exactly.
   A.   So the instructions came from Himmler.
   Q.   They came from Himmler, and Himmler and Hitler, as we
        know, had already been in conversation at just before the
        dinner on the evening of the 9th, had they not?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Is it not really irresistible that -- this is nothing to
        do with Goebbels -- Himmler and Hitler had exactly the
        same sort of conversation as Goebbels had had with Hitler,
        and that Himmler had taken his orders from Hitler that
        this was to be allowed to go on and that the police were
        not to interfere, but that German property should be
        protected?
   A.   Yes.

.          P-112

   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  The answer is yes?
   A.   It is a reasonable inference.  It is not in the document
        but it is a reasonable inference, up to this level of
        course.  They are not talking about an immense nationwide
        pogrom which was subsequently developed overnight.  At
        present they are talking just about a punitive measure
        from which the police were to be withdrawn.  Adolf Hitler
        certainly gave instructions for that to be allowed, as
        I make quite plain in the Goebbels book.
   MR RAMPTON:  I am going to persist in this chronological
        exercise because I promise we are coming to your famous
        order of Hitler's intervention.  The next document I would
        like you to look at is on page 7 of this bundle.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Where is it in Evans?
   MR RAMPTON:  It is 253, I think, my Lord.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Thank you very much.
   MR RAMPTON:  The trouble is they do not run consecutively.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I can see why not.
   MR RAMPTON:  They go backwards and forwards.  There is, for the
        future, a helpful chronology prepared by Miss Rogers which
        is at the front of that little bundle.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.
   MR RAMPTON:  It does not have all the cross-references to
        Evans, but most of them.  That is how she is managing to
        coach me.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.

.          P-113

   MR RAMPTON:  Your Lordship will see an account of this
        document, it is rather a bad copy in the bundle, at
        paragraph 5 on page 253.  This is to rebut something that
        we will see in a moment in Mr Irving's book.  He says,
        does Professor Evans,.
                  "Most importantly, if he (that is Eberstein)
        really had found Hitler 'livid with rage' about the
        pogrom, then why did Eberstein send a telex later the same
        night to the Gestapo in Augsburg, Nuremberg, Wurzburg and
        Neustadt, repeating the order that the police were not to
        interfere in the 'actions against the Jews' which were
        taking place all over Germany".
                  Well, Mr Irving, what is the answer to that?
   A.   Right.  This telegram is signed by Eberstein, who is the
        police chief in Munich and it is signed to the police
        offices in Augsburg, Nuremberg, Wurzburg and Neustadt.
        The time on the copy we have is 2.10 in the morning.  It
        is not an original.  It is the time -- it is a copy which
        has been made in Augsburg by some police officers.
   Q.   It does not get any reference in your book, does it?
   A.   A lot of telegrams do not get any references in my book.
   Q.   No, it is more important than that, Mr Irving.  Can you
        look at page ----
   A.   The reason why is because this telegram repeats almost
        verbatim what the other igniting telegrams have repeated,
        and there is a limit to the number of times you can repeat

.          P-114

        a telegram without your readers getting board.  You can do
        it here in court because you have all the time in the
        world, but my readers do not.
   Q.   It repeats what Muller had said in his telegram before
        midnight, had it not?
   A.   Yes.  In other words, this is already old hat.  This is
        being rapidly overtaken by events, even as this telegram
        is going out.
   Q.   Oh, yes, you say so.
   A.   It is not just me who says so.  All Adolf Hitler's staff
        say so.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have not yet been told what is in the
        document we are looking at the moment.
   MR RAMPTON:  It is what written in Evans essentially.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Evans does not actually quote it.  It is
        repeating the order that the police were not to interfere
        with any action against the Jews.
   A.   It is basically reiterating.
   MR RAMPTON:  It is practically verbatim.
   A.   It is reiterating the instructions from Berlin.
   Q.   They are not to be interfered with, the demonstrations
        that is to say.
   A.   What Eberstein is doing is repeating an order that has
        come to him from his superior headquarters in Berlin to
        his junior headquarters, to ones beneath him in Augsburg
        and the other cities.

.          P-115

   Q.   Absolutely?
   A.   He is required to do that quite obviously, but in the
        meantime this is very rapidly being overtaken by orders
        from the boss himself.
   Q.   So you say.  Turn, please, to page 276 of your book,
        Goebbels, the Mastermind of the Third Reich.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Just scan -- well, I will read it:  "What if, Himmler
        Hitler, both were totally unaware of what Goebbels had
        done until the synagogue next to Munich's Four Seasons
        Hotel was set on fire around 1 a.m."
   A.   Not that time, "around 1 a.m."
   Q.   Indeed I do.  "Heydrich, Himmler's National Chief of
        Police, was relaxing down in the hotel bar.  He hurried up
        to Himmler's room, then telexed instructions to all police
        authorities to restore law and order, protect Jews and
        Jewish property, and halt any ongoing incidents."
   A.   There is a source for that.
   Q.   That is your account of the Heydrich' telex, is it?
   A.   Let us see what telex that is an account of perhaps.
   Q.   It is one sent at 1.20.
   A.   276.
   Q.   The footnotes are on 612 and following.
   A.   I would not have invented that.  I would definitely have
        had the telegram in front of me when I wrote that.
   Q.   Really?  Well, let us have a look.  What is the reference

.          P-116

        you give for it?
   A.   Nuremberg document 3052 PS.
   Q.   30 -- well, if you look at page 4 of the bundle, maybe you
        have the number wrong, document ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Page 4 of which tab?
   MR RAMPTON:  Tab 1, my Lord.  We have looked at it already.
        This is the Heydrich telex to which you are referring I
        suspect, Mr Irving, I suspect, 3051 PS.  This is a
        Nuremberg document.  If this is the document to which you
        refer in the text, it says nothing like what you said?
   A.   Well, quite clearly this is not the document because it
        has a different number.  I have 3052 and you have 3051.
   Q.   So you say.  Do you have that document?
   A.   No, I do not have it here, but it would have been in my
        discovery.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Where do you get 3052?
   A.   From my footnotes in the book, my Lord.
   Q.   You said they have 3051 and you have 3052.
   A.   They challenge me with a different document.
   Q.   Yes, but where do you get the number off the document that
        they have produced?
   MR RAMPTON:  The number on our document is on page 4, my Lord,
        bottom of the right-hand column, document 3051 PS.  My
        Lord, on page 362 of his report Professor Evans says:
        "The footnote in Goebbels mistakenly refers to Nuremberg
        document 3052 PS instead of 3051 PS."

.          P-117

   A.   On what page does he say that?
   Q.   The bottom of 262, footnote 262.
   A.   262.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Are you going to want me -- I am finding this
        extraordinarily difficult to follow.
   A.   I want to know on what basis Evans says that I have got
        the wrong document number.
   MR RAMPTON:  Are you aware of another Heydrich telex of this
        date and time, Mr Irving?
   A.   There was a whole flurry of telegrams that night.  I mean
        I do not think how long we will be discussing this, but I
        certainly bring what I find from my files here for the
        court tomorrow.
   Q.   I am going to have to leave it like this, Mr Irving, that
        you have deliberately misrepresented in your text, and one
        can tell this, if it be right, from looking at page 263 of
        Evans, where the guts of it are translated, you have
        deliberately misrepresented the text of this Heydrich
        telex.  If you can lay hands on a different telex which
        says what you say in the text, well, then I shall climb down.
   A.   But, with respect, Mr Rampton, you are being perverse.
        I have quoted a different telegram with a different file
        number, with a different content, and you are saying it is
        different from the one you are showing the court.
   Q.   Mr Irving ----

.          P-118

   A.   Nothing more and nothing less.
   Q.   Mr Irving, it would not be the first time that you have
        given the wrong Nuremberg reference number, would it?
        I am not suggesting that is deliberate, but it can happen
        to anybody, can it not?
   A.   I am still going to tell the court of other examples.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Do not let us go on to other examples.

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