An excerpt from the examination of David Irving at the 1988 Zuendel
trial. Taken from:
http://www.webcom.com/ezundel/english/01.ftp.kulaszka.6M/35.Irving (page does not exist)
on October 5, 1996.
Christie turned to the subject of the Posen speech of Heinrich
Himmler. Said Irving: “In October, 1943, Heinrich Himmler, the
chief of the SS, delivered two speeches, one to the SS generals
and one to the Gauleiters – the Nazi party district chiefs, the
governors of the districts.” Irving had examined the transcripts
of the speech and other archival materials: “I looked at Heinrich
Himmler’s handwritten notes on the basis of which he delivered
those speeches, I looked at the typescript of the transcript made
from the recording of the speeches, I looked at the final copy
made that have typescript in the special large typewriter face
that was used for Adolf Hitler to read, so the speeches exist in
several copies and I understand that in the National Archives,
there is also a sound recording of the two speeches.” (33-9368)
Did he have any reason to question the accuracies of the Posen
speech?, asked Christie.
“[In] both speeches which I referred to,” said Irving, “Heinrich
Himmler made startling admissions to his very select audience
which amounted to the fact that he was – he had given orders
personally not only for the killing of certain Jewish men, but
also for the killing of certain Jewish women and children and he
tried to justify what he was doing, using, if I may say so, rather
the same kind of language as [Israeli Prime Minister] Mr. Shamir
now uses in the West Bank, saying that we have to carry out this
task in order to be able to live in security in future. This was
the language that Himmler used and I arrived at the very strange
discovery when I looked at the transcript of both those speeches
that those two pages had been retyped at some other date. I can’t
say whether it was retyped before or after the bulk of the speech,
but they had been typed by a different secretary on a different
typewriter using different carbon paper. Obviously you only
discover this if you look at the original documents which the
average historian is not patient enough to do. They had been
retyped and they had been repaginated in pencil at that point and
I have to say to preempt your question, I have no explanation why.
It just raises the fact that a document – if a document has been
retyped at a key point, then I hold that document to be suspect.”
(33-9368, 9369)
