Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day023.17
Last-Modified: 2000/07/24

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What is wrong with that?

    MR IRVING:  It was all in the background of his mind.  He is
         dealing with these Hungarians who are being obstreperous.
         They are not towing the line in the way that he expects
         all these visiting dignitaries to do to the Nazi dictator
         so all these things were welling up within him.  He knows
         about Katyn.  There is no question he knows about Katyn at
         this time.  Any suggestion to the contrary is rubbish.  He

                                 .          160


          know about the air raids.  He has just taken a train right
          across Germany and seen the devastation of the cities.

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is why he talks about killing the
          Hungarian Jews?

     MR IRVING:  I think that comes under the category of increasing
          the climate of barbarism.  It increases the atmosphere.
          Things that would have been unthinkable in 1939 become
          more thinkable and that is when you start talking
          tougher.  They are talking tough.  They are saying, if you
         do not want to lock them up, what alternative do you
         have?  You are either going to have to lock them up or you
         are going to have to kill them, which means effectively
         you can only lock them up.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Is there any more on Horthy because I thought
         we had dealt with Horthy this morning.

    MR IRVING:  No, we moved on from Horthy a long time ago.

    A.   I did not take that as a question, my Lord, that I dispute
         virtually everything Mr Irving has said.

     MR IRVING:  453, Professor.  You take it ill that I have left
         out entirely the Hitler Antonescu conference?

    A.   Well, you do not leave it out entirely, Mr Irving.

    Q.   The second half of it?

    A.   Yes, exactly.

    Q.   Yes.  Should I have mentioned every single diplomatic
         conference in which Hitler engaged during World War II?
    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Obviously not.


                                 .          161


     MR IRVING:  Obviously not.  That is exactly my answer.

     A.   But you do mention it.

     Q.   You accuse me of having left out the half that matters,
          the second half.

     A.   Yes.

     Q.   Because it was in two halves, this conference, was it not?

     A.   That is right.  Another two day meeting, 12th April, 13th
          April 1943, just before Hitler met Horthy.

     Q.   Does this particular conference that you set out on page
         453 add one iota to our knowledge of the whole problem?
         Is not our aim always to try and simplify the issues
         rather than just keep on repeating and repeating?

    A.   You discuss the 12th April meeting but you omit the 13th
         April because here again is Hitler giving voice to extreme
         anti-semitic sentiments.

    Q.   Well, big deal.

    A.   I know you think it is not a big deal, Mr Irving.  The
         Fuhrer took the view that one must proceed against the
          Jews, the more radically the better.  The Fuhrer said he
         would rather burn all his bridges behind him because the
         Jewish hatred is so enormously great anyway.

    Q.   Does it add anything to our knowledge?

    A.   Yes, I think it does.

    Q.   Which word adds something to our knowledge?

    A.   I think Hitler's anti-semitic statements here are another
         example of his extreme anti-Semitism at this time, which


                                 .          162



          was not a chance or temporary product, exceptional

          product, of anger against bombing raids which he dismissed
          as being trivial or against the Kateen massacre which you
          do not mention in these contexts.  These are just another
          example of Hitler's extreme anti-semitism.

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  If Mr Irving is right about the

          Schlegelberger memorandum, he is talking about a problem
          that he had already decided should be postponed until the
          end of the war.

    A.   Yes.  It does not look very much like that here, does it,
         my Lord, since he is exerting enormous pressure on these
         foreign governments to deliver up their Jews for extermination.

    MR IRVING:  Or to lock them away?  This is what the Horthy
         conference is about, is it not?

    A.   It is not about locking them away, Mr Irving.  We have
         been through this many times.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We have had that argument.  Let us press on, Mr Irving.

    MR IRVING:  Yes.  But you said to deliver them up for
         extermination, you have no evidence for the second half of
         that phrase, do you?

    A.   That is what happened, Mr Irving.

    Q.   So in other words, you are extrapolating backwards from
         what allegedly happen to the intention of this conference?

    A.   From what happened, and it seems a reasonable connection


                                 .          163


          to make.

     Q.   My Lord, the next point is the deportation of the Jews
          from Rome, and here again I am not sure whether I have to
          attend to this or not.  I am prepared to attend to this or
          not. I am prepared to attend to it but I am not sure if
          Mr Rampton ----

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  On Thursday I think you said that you were
          wanting to because it was a completely false criticism.

     MR IRVING:  Obviously there are bits that I want to take out of
         it but if I can just look at page 457, line 4, the
         allegation or the comment is made that I omitted a
         sentence from the 1991 edition of Hitler's War.

    A.   Yes.

    Q.   The SS liquidated them anyway, regardless of Hitler's order.

    A.   Yes.

    Q.   Now, is the quality of information on the liquidation as
         good as it is for the deportation as far as Hitler is concerned?

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You are going to have to just slightly set
         the scene for me, Mr Irving.  If we dart from one topic to
         another, I have not spent 30 or 40 years on this, so can
         you help me a little bit?

    MR IRVING:  I will do it in two lines rather than allow the
         witness to do it in 25.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY: That was what I was inviting you to do.

                                 .          164


     MR RAMPTON:  I do believe that Mr Irving should stop being so
          offensive.  It does not improve the climate in court and
          this is a distinguished scholar.  He may not be an expert
          on the Holocaust, and I really do think Mr Irving ought to
          mind his tongue, if I may respectfully say so.

     MR IRVING:  I will do it in two lines then.

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think that is a point to be heeded.  I know
          tempers run high and they inevitably do, but I think, if
          one can try and keep it civil on all sides, that does help.

    MR IRVING:  My Lord, with respect, for seven days and in 750
         pages of this report, I have had to listen to the most
         defamatory utterances poured over my head by witnesses who
         speak in the knowledge that their remarks are privileged.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is why I said I understand that tempers
         run high, but lack of civility is not the way to deal with
         an attack of the kind that is mounted on you in Professor
         Evans' report.  That is all I was saying.

     MR IRVING:  I would hate to think that I had been uncivil on
         any occasion in the previous seven days, my Lord.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Let us move on.

    MR IRVING:  Undeservedly uncivil, anyway.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You were going to tell me in two lines.

    MR IRVING:  In two lines as opposed to -- well, in two lines.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  A few lines.  Do your best.  I know you are
         darting from one topic to another as well.


                                 .          165



     MR IRVING:  On October 6th 1943 the SS chief in Rome said we
          have received orders to transfer 12,000 Jews from Rome to
          northern Italy and liquidate them.  This message went to
          Ribbentrop, who dashed across to Hitler's headquarters and
          back went the message from the Foreign Ministry down to
          Rome, saying they are not to be liquidated they are to be
          taken to Mauthausen and kept as hostages.

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I know.  I have read about it but now
          you have reminded me, thank you very much.

    A.   My Lord that is Mr Irving's version.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Wait for the question?

    A.   I make it clear I do not accept it.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What is the question?

    MR IRVING:  Professor Evans, which part of that statement do
         you not accept?

    A.   Well, if I can just say that the actual context is that
         the German military diplomatic representatives in Rome,
         which had been occupied by the Germans, the local
          representative there wanted to stop the Jews of Rome being
         killed by proposing that they should be employed locally
         as forced labour in military installations.  Hitler
         intervened via Ribbentrop to override them and ordered the
         Jews to be taken off and murdered, which eventually they
         were in Auschwitz.  So that what Mr Irving is portraying
         as an intervention by Hitler in order to save the Jews
         was, when one looks at the documents and restores the bits


                                 .          166


          which he suppressed, actually the opposite.

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Does it depend a bit what is meant by taking
          them to northern Italy and keeping them as hostages?

     A.   That does to some extent, my Lord, yes, but also
          Mauthausen of course is notoriously a concentration camp
          in a class of its own, where the purpose was essentially
          to kill the inmates off by working them to death.

     MR IRVING:  How would you keep 12,000 just as hostages, if you
          kill them off by working them to death?

    A.   Let us have a look at the document, shall we?  We are
         getting down to business here.

    Q.   You have none of these documents in your head, Professor?

    A.   I need ----

    Q.   Have you noticed that throughout this cross-examination I
         have ----

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Irving, that is unhelpful.  If he does not
         have it in his head, I, for one, would not criticise him
         for a second.

     A.   I want to be absolutely clear about what the documents
         said, say, and we must look at them in order to do that
         because your interpretations are so often wildly
         implausible.  The problem with that is that there seems to
         be nowhere at this time where they could have been kept.
         There is a not a concentration camp there.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mauthausen does not sound as if it is
         northern Italy.


                                 .          167


     A.   Mauthausen, no, it is...

     Q.   It is in southern Germany?

     A.   Yes -- as it was at that time.  So, talk of "Upper Italy"
          seems to be camouflage language.

     MR IRVING:  Who was talking of "Upper Italy"?  Hitler or the SS?

     A.   Let us have a look.

     Q.   It was the SS, was it not?  The SS said:  "They are to be
          taken to northern Italy and liquidated" which is quite
         plain.  They do not even use euphemisms, do they?

    A.   No, that not quite true.

    Q.   Well, "liquidated" does not appear to be a euphemism?

    A.   No, I do not think it is the SS who say that.

    Q.   "Liquidiert"?

    A.   Yes, I do not think that is the SS.  I think it is the
         local consul in ----

    Q.   Consul Eitl Moellhausen?

    A.   Yes, it is the local Foreign Office official in Rome.  It
          is not the SS who say that.

    Q.   Yes.  He says:  "The SS have told us they are going to
         take 12,000 Jews from Rome to northern Italy and liquidate them"?

    A.   That is right, yes.

    Q.   And the message goes straight to Hitler's headquarters?

    A.   An extremely tactless use of language by this man.

    Q.   No euphemisms, no "auswanderung", no "umsiedlung",

                                 .          168


          nothing?

     A.   No, but, of course, he was trying to stop this.

     Q.   What you cannot get around is the fact that the order
          comes back after Ribbentrop goes to see Hitler saying,
           "They are not to be liquidated.  They are to be kept
          alive as hostages in Mauthausen".  It could not be more specific?

     A.   Yes.

     Q.   And all the other messages are irrelevant in that connection?

    A.   No, I am sorry, that is not true at all.  What you
         suppress is the fact that the local officials wanted to
         use them for, as it says, the telegram 201, "prefer to use
         the able-bodied Jews of Rome for fortification work
         here".  So the local Foreign Office and military officials
         are proposing two telegrams, in fact, that it would be
         better business, says the other one, to use the Jews for
         fortification work rather than bringing them to Upper
          Italy where they are to be liquidated".

                   So, let us get this quite clear.  We are not
         talking about hostages in Upper Italy.  I will read this
         telegramme in full.  "Obersturmbannfuhrer Kappler has
         received orders to arrest the 8,000 Jews resident in Rome
         and bring them to upper Italy where they are to be
         liquidated ... (reading to the words)...  Please advise
         Moellhausen".


                                 .          169


                    Then another telegram, Field Marshal Kesselring
          has asked Oberstrunbannfuhrer Kappler to postpone the plan
          Juden Aktion for the time being, but if something has to
          be done, he would "prefer to use the able-bodied Jews of
          Rome for fortification work here".

                    So that is their proposal that they are making
          to the authorities in Berlin, particularly to Ribbentrop,
          and they, in other words, the idea, the notion of Upper
          Italy, since there is nowhere they could be taken there,
         is, I think, a euphemism for taking them off to somewhere
         like Auschwitz ----

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