Shofar FTP Archive File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day003.22
Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day003.22
Last-Modified: 2000/07/29
Q. If it fits the bill, I would suggest, Mr Irving.
A. That is not what I said. I said if it fits the
criteria.
Q. Have you got your Goebbels' book there?
A. Yes.
Q. You say on page 379 -- has your Lordship got one?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I have. 379, you say?
MR RAMPTON: Yes.
A. Yes, I have that.
Q. We are talking here about an article written by, or
probably written by, Dr Goebbels?
A. It is one of the two most important articles he wrote.
Q. You say that; it was written and published, I think,
on
16th December?
A. November.
Q. I am sorry, November?
A. 1941.
Q. 1941, as virulently anti-Semitic as anything that
Hitler
ever said?
A. Far more so.
Q. You say that, do you?
A. Far more so.
Q. You say here on page 379 in the last paragraph, the
complete paragraph, on the page: "Dieter Wisliceny,
one
of Eichmann's closest associates, would describe the
Goebbels' article in Das Reiche", that is the one I
. P-196
have just mentioned, as a watershed in the Final
Solution
of the Jewish problem". Then footnote 40 is a
reference
to the Wisliceny Report, date November 18th 1946.
That is
to be found on page 645. You go on in the text ----
A. I also reference his interrogations I see.
Q. You did.
A. Yes.
Q. "The SS took it as a sign from above Adolf Eichmann
would
admit in his unpublished memoirs it is quite possible
that
I got orders to direct this or that railroad to Riga",
and
I don't know where we go from there quite. Yes, I
will
read the whole paragraph. "On the last day of
November,
on the orders of the local SS Commander, Friedrich
Jeckelm, 4,000 of Riga's unwanted Jews were trucked
five
miles down" -- the Germans called that Dinoberg, I
think,
did they not?
A. Dunoberg, yes.
Q. -- "a highway to Skiaturbe plundered and machine-
gunned
into two or three pits. According to one army
colonel",
this is Bruns, is it not----
A. It is.
Q. --- who witnessed it, a trainload of Jews from Berlin,
those expelled three days before, arrived in the midst
of this aktion. Its passengers were taken straight
out to
the pits and shot. This happened", and here we go
again,
even has Hitler's hundreds of miles away, "Hitler", I
. P-197
emphasise, hundreds of miles away in the Wolf's Lair,
"was
instructing Himmler that these Berlin Jews were not to
be
liquidated. I am not going back to that hoary old
chestnut, you will be glad to hear, but I do want to
take
you back to the beginning of this paragraph.
A. It is a remarkable paragraph for a Holocaust denier to
write, is it not?
Q. I have no idea, Mr Irving, and anyway I am not going
to
answer your question. "Dieter Wisliceny, one
of Eichmann's closest associates, would describe the
Goebbels' article in Das Reich as a watershed in the
Final
Solution of the Jewish problem"?
A. Yes.
Q. Where did he give that description?
A. What, whether he actually used the word watershed?
Q. Yes.
A. You see that I reference his manuscript written in
Bratislava or Presburg and I also reference the
interrogations in the associated footnote.
Q. But if you read what we find here in Professor Evans'
report which is an English translation of some part of
the
Wisliceny report, what you immediately realize, you do
not
learn it from Mr Irving's books, you learn it
from Professor Evans' report, what you immediately
realize
is that Dieter Wisliceny did not see the Reich article
as
a watershed. He saw the watershed as being an order
from
. P-198
Adolf Hitler?
A. Can we have a look at the passage you are relying on,
please?
Q. The which?
A. The passage of the Wisliceny report you are relying
upon
in the Evans...
Q. One would have to go back now to ----
A. I no longer trust your paraphrases, you see, Mr
Rampton.
Q. --- where I was.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is page 340, I think.
MR RAMPTON: Yes. 345, sorry, my Lord. The passage -- I
am
not going to read it again, I have read it once
already.
Read what is said there. The German is at the bottom
of
the page, so if you are going to criticise Professor
Evans' translation, say so now.
A. The English is a slightly vague translation. I am
looking
at the paragraph at the top of page 345, where he says
this is just simply "reference in this connection also
to
the Goebbels-article" ----
Q. Yes?
A. --- "'The Jews are guilty'".
Q. What does the German say?
A. The German says: "In this connection, I draw
attention
also to the Goebbels-article 'The Jews are to blame'
in an
edition of the newspaper Das Reich" which is possibly
a
slightly more coherent way of translating it.
. P-199
Q. But he is talking about German propaganda, that is to
say,
domestic propaganda, is he not?
A. Yes.
Q. After 11th December when Hitler, perhaps rather
stupidly,
declared war on the United States?
A. Yes.
Q. He is talking about the Yellow Star and he is talking
about the article in Das Reich as examples. He then
said: "In this period of time, after the beginning of
the
war with the USA, I am convinced must fall the
decision of
Hitler which ordered the biological annihilation of
European Jews". So how is it, if that is the piece
you
were referring to, that that gets converted into
Dieter
Wisliceny saying that the article by Goebbels in Das
Reich
was a watershed?
A. I beg to differ with you. I think that even this
source
bears me out. He said the words you omitted in your
summary, he says: "The second wave of radicalization
began" and the instance of this he gives is the
publication of the article. This is what triggered
off
the off the second wave of radicalization. But you
have
also overlooked, and I am sorry I tripped you up on
this
when you referred to the Goebbels' Diaries, would you
like
to read out the reference for the passage that I gave
you? You implied that it relies only on the Wisliceny
report.
. P-200
Q. No, you refer to something else, but so what? Sorry,
I am
not following you.
A. If you look in the source reference, it clearly says:
"Wisliceny report and interrogations of Wisliceny in
the
national archives" which Professor Evans has obviously
not
bothered to look at.
Q. I am quite open-minded, Mr Irving. If you tell me
that in
the interrogations, as opposed to the report, there is
a
positive statement by Wisliceny to the effect that
Goebbels' article was the watershed or a watershed,
then
I will accept it, if you tell me to find it?
A. Mr Rampton, I am under oath and I am not going to make
a
statement from memory for something that I cannot back
up
without going home and checking the files. All that
I do
say is that Professor Evans has made no reference to
the
fact that I used other sources to justify that one
sentence and that he, apparently, has not bothered to
go
and have a look at those interrogations of Wisliceny
because they are so many thousands of miles away.
Q. We may just have time to go over to the other side of
this
page in Evans' Report, 346 at paragraph 4. This is a
further extract, says Professor Evans -- of course,
you
may prove that he is wrong about it -- this is an
extract
from the same document, apparently, where Wisliceny
says
this:
"According to Eichmann's own report, which
he
. P-201
made to me, Globocnig (sic) was the first to use gas
chambers for the mass extermination of humans.
Globocnig
had set up big labour camps for Jews in his area of
command, and he got rid of those who were unable to
work
in the manner described. As Eichmann explained,
this 'procedure' was 'less conspicuous' than the mass
shootings". The German is "Massenerschiessungen". Do
you
remember those words? Do they ring a bell?
A. Yes, indeed.
Q. Something to do with General Bruns? Does that ring a
bell?
A. Well, there were mass shootings occurring all over the
Eastern Front. It is not specifically a reference
just to
that one. There were mass shootings at Riga, there
were
mass shootings at Minsk, mass shootings elsewhere in
the
Ukraine. So it would be specious just to say this is
a
reference to the Bruns Report.
Q. My point is a slightly different one. Indeed, it is
not a
reference to the Bruns Report.
A. Well, you mentioned the Bruns.
Q. Exactly, and I will tell you why. What Bruns said he
was
told by Altemeyer was to precisely the same effect,
"These
mass shootings, or mass shootings of this kind, mass
shootings, must stop. That must be done more
discreetly"?
A. Yes.
Q. It is almost a mirror image of what Wisliceny reports
. P-202
Eichmann having said, this procedure, gassing, was
less
conspicuous, "unauffalliger" ----
A. Yes.
Q. --- than the "Massenerschiessungen"?
A. This was the tendency in the SS; they did not like
shooting people. Shooting took it out of them.
Q. Sure.
A. Yes.
Q. And that is why they took to gassing people, is it
not?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: But you accept, do you, Mr Irving, that -
---
A. Gassing did occur, yes.
Q. --- the Bruns Report corresponds with what is,
apparently,
recorded in Eichmann's report?
MR RAMPTON: In Wisliceny's report, my Lord.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry, in Wisliceny's report.
MR RAMPTON: It is double hearsay, if you like, but so what
if
you are an historian.
A. It is indeed and the word "report", of course, is
slightly
sharpening it up. He is actually just saying,
"According
to what Eichmann said", he is saying.
MR RAMPTON: Do they not echo one another?
A. Yes.
Q. Bruns is talking about shootings in the Osland in
Latvia?
A. Yes.
Q. Here Wisliceny is talking much more generally, is he
not?
A. Indeed, yes, and we do not know about what period he
is
. P-203
talking about, we do not know about what region he is
talking about.
Q. Do you not detect in the convergence of those two
completely otherwise unrelated pieces of evidence ----
A. Yes.
Q. --- even a hint of a suggestion that the reality was
that
mass shootings were embarrassing because they could
get
out because it upset the soldiers too much, because it
was
expensive in bullets, a shift in policy from shooting
to a
more discreet means of disposal, that is to say,
gassing?
A. I am afraid that was such a long question that I had
lost
you halfway through again.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I think it is the end of a longish
day
for Mr Irving and I think we will...
MR RAMPTON: I will repeat the question first thing on
Monday
morning.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Will you?
MR RAMPTON: It will be on the transcript.
A. Can you put it in two halves so that ----
MR JUSTICE GRAY: It was a long question. Anyway, we are
adjourning now.
A. --- a bear of limited brain can follow it, but I lost
it.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: So it is 10.30 on Monday in court 73.
(The court adjourned until 10.30 p.m. on Monday, 17th
January 2000)
. P-204
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