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

    Q.   Is it not likely, in fact, that Rademacher had simply read
         the Wannsee Conference report in which precisely this
         concept was stated by Heydrich that they are now going to
         be shipping them out to the east, and that Rademacher is
         doing no more than just putting into another document what
         he has read in the Wannsee report.  It is nothing to do


                                 .          59

          with direct information from Hitler.  This is now third or
          fourth hand information?

     A.   I not say it was direct information from Hitler, but,
          nevertheless, I do not think that people in Third Reich
          spoke so or wrote so, explicitly wrote in memos so
          explicitly about Hitler's orders and decisions unless they
          had very good reason for doing so.

     Q.   And yet you cannot ----

     A.   They did not invent these things.

    Q.   You cannot wish away that July 24th 1942 table talk by
         Hitler in which he says, "We are going to send them to
         Madagascar".  So Madagascar is wrong and this table talk
         is right or is it the other way around?

    A.   It is the other way around.  The table talk is quite clear
         camouflage.  Hitler has commented on the table talk on
         13th May 1942 that England is not going to surrender
         Madagascar.  He knows that perfectly well ----
    Q.   There were all sorts of places that England was not going
          to surrender ----

    A.   It is a total fiction.  It is a total fiction.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You are talking over the witness and I
         personally think Madagascar is a bit of a side track, and
         I think we have had enough on Madagascar.

    MR IRVING:  I strongly agree, but the suggestion that England
         could say, "We are not going to surrender", do you
         remember a place called Singapore which was surrendered to



                                 .          60


          the Japanese.

     A.   It is rather a different matter.

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It did not happen in Madagascar, Mr Irving.
          Why do we not get back to what you were on before which is
          really more, I think, central?

     MR IRVING:  I agree, but occasionally these little excursions
          are inflicted on me.  Page 405 of your report, please.
          You are stating that, "I did not publish the passage from
          Goebbels diary" -- this is towards the end of paragraph
         1.

    A.   Yes.

    Q.   "'We speak in conclusion about the Jewish question.  Here
         the Fuhrer remains, now as before, unrelenting.  The Jews
         must get out of Europe, if necessary, with the application
         of the most brutal means'"?

    A.   Yes.

    Q.   What inference do you draw from that -- a homicidal inference?

     A.   At this time, in March 1942, it is very difficult to draw
         any other inference than that.

    Q.   It was not the midnight knock of the Gestapo and
         instructions to get packed within two hours and you are
         only allowed to carry 28 pounds with you, and bring all
         your money and valuables -- was that not pretty brutal and unrelenting?

    A.   Pretty brutal, yes.


                                 .          61


     Q.   Pages 405 to 6 ----

     A.   The question, Mr Irving, is really about your omission of
          the statement that the Fuhrer is unrelenting.

     Q.   But I also omitted the part where it says that the Jews
          must get out of Europe which would have counterbalanced it  ----

     A.   "With the application of the most brutal means".

     Q.   At the top of page 406, you quite rightly point out that I
          have a date, March 20th, when it should have been March
         30th, is that right?

    A.   Yes.

    Q.   Will you concede that that is immaterial?

    A.   No, I will not, most certainly not.

    Q.   Why is it not immaterial?

    A.   Well, because, let me go back to what you say in 1977,
         Hitler's War: "Ghastly secrets of Auschwitz and Treblinka
         were well kept.  Goebbels wrote a frank summary of them in
         his diary on March 27 1942, but evidently held his tongue
          when he met Hitler two days later for he quotes only
         Hitler's remark, 'The Jews must get out of Europe.  If
         need be, we must resort to the most brutal methods'.".
                   So, you maintain that he made that statement
         about, which I just quoted, two days after Goebbels wrote
         this summary on March 27th.  In fact, what you are trying
         to do is to give the impression -- let me just find where
         I am on my notes.

                                 .          62


     Q.   Would it surprise you to hear that the error has been ----

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Please let the witness answer.

     A.   What you do is to quote Hitler, "The Jews must get out of
          Europe" from the diary of 20th March as if it was from
          30th March, in other words, he made that statement before
          Goebbels made a frank summary.  It is true that Goebbels
          made a frank summary of the extermination in March, but it
          is not true that he concealed it when he met Hitler two
          days later because the quote that you use to support your
         view that Hitler did not know about it after this frank
         summary on 27th March is lifted from a week earlier in the
         diary and not from two days later where it is not there.
         So I do think this is a clear piece of manipulation.  This
         diary is written in chronological order.  It is very
         difficult to get that date wrong.

    MR IRVING:  Would it surprise you to hear that the error has
         been corrected in the later editions completely ----

    A.   I know that the error has been corrected in the later edition.

    Q.   Will you not interrupt me -- completely painlessly and
         without the slightest damage to the arguments that I have advanced?

    A.   It has been corrected in the later -- in the 1991 edition,
         but, of course, there you omit all mention of the "ghastly
         secrets of Auschwitz and Treblinka" because you do not
         believe they existed, these secrets any more, whatever

                                 .          63


          they are, and it makes it easier in 1991 for you because
          you deny the gas chambers and also it has all been done on
          the initiative of Himmler and Goebbels, so ----

     Q.   Can we try to keep to the actual question that I am asking
          or we are not going to cover the ground today.  Would you
          look at page 408, the footnote -- 407, the footnote?

     A.   Well, in order to answer the question about your changing
          the text in 1991, one has to give the context.  Here again
          what you do not omit is the idea that Goebbels was
         concealing this information from Hitler.  This time you,
         in fact, make it more general.  You uncouple it from any
         specific meeting.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am afraid I must have a look at that?  Have
         you got the page there?

    A.   That again is in my letter of 10th of ----

    Q.   But have you got the page reference in ----

    A.   Hitler's War.

    Q.   --- 1991 of Hitler's War?

     MR RAMPTON:  It is page 464.  It is in the second part, my Lord.

    A.   464.

    MR RAMPTON:  It is a paragraph which starts:  "Dr Goebbels,
         agitating from Berlin".  It goes down to the end of the
         paragraph at 465.

    A.   Here it says, "Although he held", that is Goebbels, "his
         tongue when meeting his Fuhrer" which suggests on every


                                 .          64



          occasion that he met him he held his tongue about, well...

     MR IRVING:  What he knew?

     A.   What he knew, yes.

     Q.   Do you have any evidence otherwise?

     A.   Well, we have already been through this.

     Q.   Well, do you have any evidence in any of the files that
          Goebbels told Hitler:  "Mein Fuhrer, there is something
          I have to tell you that I have found out"?

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think we have had that, and I think the
         answer is there are two documents to which you point
         Professor Evans to support his contention that Hitler
         knew, had been told by Goebbels.

    MR IRVING:  No, Goebbels telling Hitler which is something
         slightly different, my Lord.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  There are those two documents.  We had this
         point a little while ago, did we not?

    A.   Yes, we have dealt with it.

    MR IRVING:  Which arguments are you referring to, Professor?
          I have to know what I am answering here.  Which documents
         are you referring to?  Goebbels telling Hitler about the
         Final Solution ----

    A.   Do I really have to go through this again?

    MR IRVING:  --- in a homicidal sense.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  If can find it, I will just -- if you know
         the dates of the documents, we are not going to go through
         them again, but I do not have them.  One is 30th --- -

                                 .          65


     A.   27th March and 30th May, I think, from memory.

     Q.   30th May is one and 27th March?

     MR IRVING:  The one that I gave you as the facsimile, your Lordship?

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  We can go all over it again, Mr Irving, but we have ----

     MR IRVING:  I do not really want to, but I cannot allow this
          court assumes that this final gap has been bridged by the
          bald statement that there are ----

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  The court is not assuming anything; it is
         listening to what Professor Evans has said and he has said
         that one document is 30th May ----

    MR IRVING:  Which is the ----

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  --- and the other is 27th March.  You know
         which those two documents are.  You may not agree with
         what Professor Evans says, but you know why he says what he does.

    MR IRVING:  But 3rd May is the Siberian one and that is the
          exact opposite?

    A.   Sorry...

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  All right.  We will go through it all over
         the again.

    A.   29th May, yes.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  29th May.

    MR IRVING:  29th May?

    A.   Yes.  That is the diary entry of 30th May for the previous

                                 .          66


          day.

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Can you give me the page reference in your report?

     A.   This is pages 8 to 9 of my supplementary letter, my Lord.
     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What do you want to ask about that,
          Mr Irving?  30th May 1942.

     MR IRVING:  30th May 1942, is this?

     A.   Yes.

     Q.   This is the passage that we went through about 20 minutes ago.

    A.   Yes.

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is exactly what I have just suggested,
         that we have actually been through these two documents in
         some detail.  Do we need to go back and go through them
         all over again?

    MR IRVING:  No, I do not because I would not accept that this
         is evidence of Goebbels telling Hitler about a homicidal
         Final Solution.

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I follow you do not accept it, but Professor
         Evans says the opposite, you see.

    MR IRVING:  But this is what I call the Siberia reference which
         showed is exactly the opposite sense, and unless one
         assumes that evacuating Siberia is a euphemism for killing?

    A.   I am very loath to go into this all over again, my Lord.
         I think it is clear.


                                 .          67



     Q.   Can you just state simply ----

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  What is the benefit?  We have been through
          this.  I can go back and get it up on the screen, but we
          have been through this document in some detail.

     MR IRVING:  We have indeed, but can I just ask ----
     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I know what you say about it, I know what
          Professor Evans says about it and, in the end, I have to
          decide what a sensible, objective historian would make of it.

    MR IRVING:  Professor Evans, one simple question then and I
         hope you can answer yes or no, is your belief that the
         phrase evacuating to Siberia and evacuating to Lapland are
         euphemisms for killing when used by Hitler?

    A.   I cannot this yes or no because that is not the key
         passage in this entry of 30th May 1942.  The key passages
         come earlier.

    Q.   Then we will move on.  Will you now look at the footnote
         on pages 407 and 408?

     A.   Yes, I apologise for the glitch in the word processor there.

    Q.   It actually begins five lines from the bottom, does it not?

    A.   Yes, it has repeated a whole lot.

    Q.   On the second line from the bottom, you find the words
          "auswanderten" and "auswanderer", is that right?

    MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Where are you, Mr Irving?

                                 .          68


     MR IRVING:  In Professor Evans' report.

     MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You must remember that I have to follow what
          you are putting.

     MR IRVING:  I am moving too fast, my Lord.  407 to 408.  We are
          looking at the footnote that begins on the foot of page
          407.  My simple question is two lines from the bottom,
          does the witness see the words "auswanderten" and
           "auswanderer" and it follows over, two lines down on the
          same footnote on the facing page, "Auswanderung" and
          "Auswanderungsziel".

    A.   Yes.

    Q.   How would you translate the root "auswanderer" there,
         "emigrate" or "kill"?

    A.   We have already been through this.

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