Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day024.20
Last-Modified: 2000/07/24

   Q.   That does not really explain why you then talk about it in
        camouflage language at the table talk; why not keep your mouth shut?
   A.   I think, if you remember the speech Himmler gave on 4th
        October, he said, "Well, actually we do not speak among
        ourselves about this.  It is a question of taste.  We do
        not speak about this".  It is a history which has not been
        written which will never be written, and I think they went
        so far that even among themselves they would, you know,
        hesitate at this wonderful day in spring 1942 actually to
        say, "Yes, actually we are killing them".  So that is the
        best explanation I can offer.  It is clear from the
        documents that it stood in clear contrast to what they were doing.
   MR IRVING:  Dr Longerich, in the Institute have you read the
        memorandum by Karl Wolf who was Himmler's adjutant and
        liaison officer to Himmler for sometime?
   A.   Which?
   Q.   There were several handwritten memoirs by him, SS General
        Karl Wolf.  Can I put to you one passage from them which

.          P-175



        might help to explain this kind of conversation and ask
        you if you remember it?
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   Where Karl Wolf says: "I am certain that Hitler did not
        know what was going on.  I think it was kept from him.  We
        had to keep the Messiah of the coming 2,000 years clean of
        this matter"?
   A.   Well, I think one has to again ----
   Q.   Do you remember that passage?
   A.   --- I have to look at the document.  I do no think -- they
        are not published.  I do not think they are accessible to everybody.
   Q.   I have seen them.
   A.   Yes, but I think ----
   Q.   And they are in my discovery.
   A.   --- as far as I am aware of, this is not a source which is
        accessible to every historian.  They are not in a public
        archive on a library.  If we, I mean, I would be happy to
        see them, but I think I would have to be in front of - ---
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think that is fair.  It is very difficult
        to comment on an extract like that.
   MR IRVING:  But can I just put it this way?  Is the suggestion
        that Karl Wolff or the SS were anxious to do the dirty
        deed without getting Hitler, the Messiah of the coming
        2,000 years implicated himself, would that explain how
        this situation would arise?

.          P-176



   A.   Wolff was sentenced in, was it, 199 -- 1965 or something,
        I think he was sentenced to a 15-year prison sentence,
        I think, so, really, he was -- his main occupation after
        the war was, actually his main problem after the war was
        to distance himself from these murderous actions.  He did
        not want to spend the rest of his life in prison, so I
        would be very, very cautious to take this as face value,
        to, you know, what he knew, what Hitler knew.  The whole
        attitude of Wolf is to say, "I was just a military man.
        I had nothing to do with these things.  This was even not
        mentioned in my presence".
                  So I am really, first of all, I have not seen
        the document, but really, in general, would be very, very
        hesitant to draw -- to follow him.
   Q.   Would that not explain Heinreich Himmler's later remark on
        October 4th 1943, that this is a matter about which we
        never talk, if they wanted to keep it away from Hitler,
        would that not be the explanation?
   A.   I do not think he said in the speech, "We kept it away
        from Hitler".  He says, basically, "We do not mention
        it" ----
   Q.   Among others?
   A.   " --- among ourselves".  If you go to the Himmler speech
        and if you do it in a more systematic way, you can see
        that actually he refers to higher orders which were given
        to him.  So I think you can link this speech with Hitler.

.          P-177



   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That is the awful responsibility?
   A.   Yes, for instance.
   MR IRVING:  On page 66 near the end of that, five or six lines
        up, you say:  "Even talking to his closest associates
        Hitler avoided speaking openly on mass killing".  This is
        your kind of gloss you put on paragraphs like that, that
        you are trying to explain how it is that in the documents,
        contemporary documents there are these baffling passages,
        if I can use the word "baffling"?
   A.   No.  I have only seen one, this is the one in 1985, and
        I think we do not have many examples of that.
   Q.   On 69 there is I think the one you were just referring to
        in paragraph 19.3, July 28th 1942, Himmler wrote to
        Gottlegberger, an SS General, saying: "The Fuhrer has
        placed on my shoulders  the implementation of this very
        difficult order and the responsibility cannot be taken
        away from me in any case."  What order was that?
   A.   That is left out in the translation unfortunately.
        One had to add the first sentence in German.  The first
        sentence of this quotation is: "The occupied Eastern
        territories will be free of Jews", and then he goes on:
        "The Fuhrer placed on my shoulders the implementation of
        this very difficult order."
                  This is in July 1942.  I think that quite
        clearly Hitler gave Himmler the order to kill every Jew in
        the occupied Eastern territories, and Himmler saw this a

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        particularly unpleasant and difficult task, but he was of
        course, as obedient as he was, prepared to carry on.  So
        this is my reading of the document.
   Q.   Of course the document does not reply to another letter
        referring to the killing of the Jews, does it?
   A.   No.  It is mentioned in a letter to Berger, but I think
        this is one of the clearest statements we have.
   Q.   It is indeed very clear.
   A.   "The occupied Eastern territories will be free of Jews",
        it is, "The Fuhrer placed on my shoulders the
        implementation of this very difficult order, the
        responsibility cannot be taken away from me in any case".
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  "Detesbefehl" must refer back, you would say,
        to making the Oskabitte free of Jews.
   A.   Yes, I explain this just for the minute.  In the
        translation I left unfortunately out the first sentence.
   Q.   I follow that.
   A.   And the first sentence is:  "The occupied Eastern
        territories will be free of Jews".  It is in the German
        text but not in the English text.
   MR RAMPTON:  My Lord, the full text, in case anybody thinks it
        is important, which it may well be, is in the new bundle N
        whatever it is.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  You mean the words before the omitted words?
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes.  There are two paragraphs and this is a microfilm.

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   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think this is worth looking at.
   MR RAMPTON:  I think it might be important for this witness in
        particular.  261, my Lord, we have reproduced
        Dr Longerich's short English translation of two sentences,
        and, as he says, defective translation of two sentences.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Not defective but deficient.
   MR RAMPTON:  No, but the whole of the German text is in a
        microfilm copy on the right-hand side.
   MR IRVING:  My Lord, just for the record, I have no objection
        to any of the extracts this witness has made.  He has left
        nothing out of any importance.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, I accept that.  Should we just have a
        look.  Did you say 261, Mr Rampton?
   A.   261, yes.
   MR RAMPTON:  261 I think I was told to say.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I see, it is paragraph 1.
   MR RAMPTON:  It is in paragraph 1.  It is the second part of
        paragraph 1.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Can you just translate?
   A.   The whole thing?
   Q.   The first sentence on paragraph 1.
   MR IRVING:  Yes:  "I urgently ask you not to have any ordinance
        about the concept of the word "Jew" issued.  With all
        these stupid determinations we are just tying our own
        hands.  The occupied Eastern territories will be free of
        the Jews. The execution of this very difficult order has

.          P-180



        been placed on my shoulders by the Fuhrer.  So nobody can
        take that responsibility from me."
   A.   I would agree.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  So there has been some sort squabbling about
        what comes within the definition of a "Jew".
   MR IRVING:  Who is a Jew.
   A.   He did not want them to issue a regulation about the
        definition of the Jew because it was not necessary any
        more, because the problem has ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  And Himmler is saying: "I have been ordered
        to sort the problem out by getting rid of the Jews and get
        on with it."
   A.   Yes.
   MR IRVING:  Yes.  So the question which arises from that,
        Dr Longerich, is does this not fit in with the scenario
        that I suggested, that Hitler had said to Himmler: "You do
        the job, keep me out of it, I will keep people off your
        back, just get on with it, but don't bother me with it"?
   A.   Well, it says here, this is my reading, that Hitler has
        given Himmler the order that the occupied territories
        shall be free of Jews.  So which way this happened I do
        not know, whether this was ----
   Q.   So, "I can do what I want and buzz off"?
   A.   Yes, you can speculate about this, but I do not have the
        minutes of the conversation between Hitler and Himmler.
        It could be a very explicit order, a very clear order.  It

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        could also be something general.  Why should I speculate
        about it?  I do not have the text in front of me.
   Q.   Now let me take you ahead to page 72, please, the first
        indented paragraph, and we get a little bit closer to what
        I am asking for.  This is the second closing speech on
        October 6th 1943.
   A.   Yes.
   Q.   "I ask you that which I say to you in this circle be
        really only heard and not ever discussed.  We were faced
        with the question "What about the women and children?"
        I took the decision to find a very clear solution to this
        problem here too." "I took the decision".  Now is Himmler
        saying Hitler took the decision or is Himmler saying "I,
        Himmler, took the decision"?
   A.   Yes, you answered the question yourself I think.
   Q.   Yes, and that is pretty clear, is it not?
   A.   Yes, but he did not say in this, he does not say in this
        speech that he took the decision without having the
        consent of Hitler.
   Q.   Oh, yes, he has been given the overall blank cheque by
        Hitler, has he not?
   A.   Yes, I think it is fair to argue -- I think he is
        referring here to the extension of the shootings in the
        Soviet Union, the extension of the shootings to women and
        children, which happened between the end of July 1941, end
        of October 1941, where actually the various killing units

.          P-182



        extended their shootings to include in the mass executions
        also women and children, shot also women and children.
        I think, as far as I am concerned, as I tried to
        reconstruct as precisely as possible the decision-making
        process, that clearly there is some kind of initiative
        coming from Himmler, but I have no doubts that this was in
        full consent and that Himmler acted under the -- that
        Himmler was convinced, deeply convinced that he acted with
        full consent of Hitler.  I have no doubt about that.  Also
        in this he says for the organization which had to execute
        this task.  I think also this organization, it could be
        read as a reference to a higher order, an order which was
        given from, well, somebody above Himmler.
   Q.   I strongly disagree, Dr Longerich.  If he says, "I am the
        one who took the decision that the women and children had
        to be killed too", and that the people who had to do this
        job, it was very unpleasant for them, there can be no
        doubt at all what job he is talking about and who gave the
        order, he Himmler?
   A.   Well, I think you can read this sentence, it also can be
        read as that the SS, a reference to a higher order, but
        I cannot dispute, I do not want to dispute, that Hitler is
        referring here to his own initiative, but I on the other
        hand, looking at the whole history in 1941, in the second
        half of 1941, I have no doubts that he came to this
        conclusion with the deep conviction that he acted

.          P-183

        according to the wishes of Hitler.  I mean this idea to
        separate in a way Himmler from Hitler and to insinuate
        that Himmler would have carried out this operation behind
        Hitler's back, I really have to say that this looks quite
        absurd to me, because if you look at Himmler's
        personality, for instance, Himmler was obedient, he was as
        loyal as he could be to Hitler.  He was an anxious
        person.  I think the whole personality, Himmler can only
        be explained as somebody who, it is really a remarkable
        example of somebody who really did the utmost to carry out
        the wishes of Hitler.  The whole died of idea that this
        whole operation, this enormous operation, killing
        operation of 6 million people could be started and could
        be carried out on a large scale with implications, you
        know, transportation, the building of extermination camps,
        the involvement of 10,000 people who had to carry out this
        programme and the ramifications as far as the foreign
        policy was concerned, the policy towards the German Allies
        was concerned, all this, that this could be carried out by
        Hitler not asking, not being sure that he actually acted,
        you know, on Hitler's, according to Hitler's wishes, this
        whole notion seems absolutely, I hate to say this in a
        very strong way, absurd.  I think we cannot build this
        case on three or four documents you find in the archives.
        I think you have to look at the whole system.  You have to
        look at the relationship between Hitler and Himmler.  You

.          P-184



        have to look at the way this was carried out.  I simply
        cannot follow this line of argumentation.

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