[David Irving testified as the twenty-third and final witness in the
Zündel trial on Friday, April 22, Monday, April 25 and Tuesday, April
26, 1988.]
David Irving, the British historian and author, was permitted to testify
as an expert in the area of the history of the Second World War. (33-9346)
Irving had worked as a professional historian since 1963 and was the author
of between twenty and thirty books. These included Hess: The Missing Years,
1941 - 1945, The Service: The Memoirs of General Gehlen, Accident: The
Death of General Sikorski, The Destruction of Dresden, The Secret Diaries
of Hitler's Doctor, The Trail of the Fox, The War Between the Generals:
Inside the Allied High Command, The German Atomic Bomb, Convoy: The Destruction
of Convoy PQ 17, The Mare's Nest, The War Path, Hitler's War, The Morgenthau
Plan, Breach of Security, Uprising, and Churchill's War.
As a historian, he was interested in contemporary history; that of the
twentieth century. Irving himself came from an English service family.
His father was a Royal Navy service officer. For twenty-five years, Irving
had researched in archives around the world, including Canada, the United
States, France, East and West Germany and other countries. He had also
had the co- operation of the archives in Israel and the Soviet Union. (33-9312
to 9325)
He was "very familiar with the records of the German High Command
and the other German wartime government agencies." He had acquired
this knowledge and expertise initially at Alexandria in Virginia, where
the archives were originally stored after they were seized by the American
army. The documents had been subsequently sent back to West Germany. They
were still available in Washington partly in original form and partly on
microfilm. A number of records were also held by the British government.
(33-9325)
Irving had also done in-depth research into the life of Adolf Hitler: "For
ten years I researched Hitler's life based entirely on primary records.
I don't believe in buying other people's books or reading them on Adolf
Hitler. We can readily surmise there must be many tens or hundreds of tons
of books. I think it's easier to go to the archives and look at the documents.
That way you avoid soaking up other people's prejudices...Dealing with
Adolf Hitler, I would look for the private papers of his personal staff,
people who were directly associated with him from secretarial or adjutant
level, up to Field-Marshal. I would try and amass a great body of documentary
evidence which passes certain criteria. And these were the criteria which
the great English historian, Hugh Trevor-Roper, laid down in particular;
three criteria for a document to be acceptable to a historian. The first
criterion is quite obviously, is the document you are looking at genuine?
The second criterion is, was the person who wrote the document in a position
to know what he is writing about? A street sweeper in Berlin may have been
in Berlin in the last days of the war, but he doesn't know what's going
on in Hitler's mind. The third criterion you ask yourself, why does this
document exist? Why has it come into existence? You may look at a document
that is apparently honest but you find out later on from other sources
that the general wrote the document to protect himself. So you ask yourself,
how did this document meet these three criteria and in the ten years that
I worked on the Hitler project, I built up a shelf of about seventy feet
of original documents that probably no other historian had ever seen. I
persuaded Hitler's staff to trust me with their private papers that they
had not shown to anyone else. I also built up a card index of ten or fifteen
thousand filing cards on a day-by-day basis so you knew exactly what Hitler
was doing, rather like a diary. You could say exactly what he was doing
which meant that you had a useful tool to check any document. Any document
that was shown to you had to fit with that card index. If it didn't, then
there was something phony about the document." (33-9326, 9327)
Irving was very familiar with German documents, "...with the way they
look, the way they smell - they have a certain physical smell - with the
way they are phrased and with the archives they come from and the language
they use, of course. I'm very fluent in the German language." (33-9328)
He had also conducted scientific tests as part of his research: "In
the twenty-five years I have done research, on occasion documents have
been offered to me that I had reason to suspect. On one occasion I was
offered the private diaries of the German Vice Admiral Wilhelm Canaris...who
is the chief of the German Secret Service. We knew that these diaries existed.
We have been looking for them. They haven't been found to this day. In
the end I persuaded the man who had offered these diaries to me and the
English publishers, Collins, to come to London bringing one page of those
diaries. In return, we paid 50,000 pounds into his bank but we didn't release
it into his account until we carried out laboratory tests on the paper.
This was in about 1970. And the laboratory tests carried out on the paper
and the ink and the typewriter showed that the paper was wartime paper.
It didn't have the whiteness that modern paper has; it didn't have melamine
formaldehyde added that modern paper has. The paper had been cut to the
German size with scissors, as microscopic examination showed. Also the
signature had been written in a ball point pen. The chemical tests showed
that quite clearly. Tests were carried out on the ink of the signature
normally to show how old the signature is. This laboratory in London which
I use, Hehner & Cox, carried out a test normally on the iron content
[of the] ink. Normally, if you write a signature with ink, the iron oxidizes,
so I am told, and you can tell the degree of oxidization, and tell how
long a signature has been there. This document was signed in a ball- point
pen and was clearly a forgery. I had the man prosecuted for criminal fraud
and he avoided the consequences by dying, or by purporting to have died.
At any rate, he submitted a death certificate which I was prepared to accept
as genuine. And of course, I was involved in the very famous discovery
of the Hitler diaries forgery. I had had the Hitler diaries submitted to
me six months, I recall, earlier along with ancillary documents. I had
had the Hitler's diaries submitted to me in 1982, November, along with
other ancillary documents. And I detected that the letterhead on a Hermann
Goering notepaper was actually misspelled. They misspelled the rank of
the Field-Marshal, of the Reichsmarschall as he was, which was completely
improbable, and when the Hitler diaries were presented to the world in
April, 1983, I attended the press conference and exploded that press conference
as you may have seen on "Good Morning America" and the other
television programmes. The diaries were a fake and I had the forensic evidence
they were fake...there had been occasions, sir, when I have used laboratories
to determine forgeries. "(33-9328 to 9330)
Irving's Hitler research failed to uncover any evidence that Hitler was
aware of the alleged "final solution" of the Jews: "At the
end of writing the Adolf Hitler biography in draft, I was aware of the
fact that having written it from primary, original Hitler sources, I, as
the author, didn't know about the Holocaust. I had found no documents showing
any involvement between Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust which was very disturbing
for me. So I re-investigated. I sent a researcher back into the archives
where, with a specific job, the researcher, who was a trained historical
scientist at the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich, I said to
her, 'Go back to the archives in Freiburg, Munich and Berlin, and see if
I have missed anything'. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, the fact
there were no documents whatsoever showing that a Holocaust had ever happened.
I'm using the word 'Holocaust' in the modern sense that the newspapers
tell us to use it. And certainly there was no evidence that Hitler had
ever known such a thing was going on, whatever it was. This was very disturbing
for me and it was even more disturbing for my literary agent who warned
me of the consequences of producing the Hitler book in this fashion."
(33-9330, 9331)
This completed defence attorney Doug Christie's examination of Irving for
the purpose of qualifying him as an expert witness. Crown Attorney John
Pearson then rose to cross-examine Irving on his qualifications as an expert
in history. (33-9332)
In response to Pearson's questions, Irving testified that his book Churchill's
War, was published in West Australia by Veritas Publishing Company. David
Thompson, the firm's East Australian sales manager, introduced Irving at
a speech Irving gave at the University of Sydney. (33-9332, 9333)
And do you remember, asked Pearson, saying that you had no qualifications
whatsoever and you were proud of the fact that you had no qualifications
whatsoever?
"I think my precise words would be to say that the only examination
I...failed at school is O-level history which is the most elementary level
of history you can fail," said Irving. (33-9333)
You were proud to say you flunked history?, asked Pearson.
"I have started off from such humble beginnings...I have no academic
qualifications whatsoever." (33-9333)
Right, said Pearson, you make your living writing and publishing controversial
books about history.
"I make my living publishing books about history, yes...Many of them
are controversial. I don't create the controversy, the media do...I'm a
controversial historian." Irving agreed that his books had been the
object of contempt and scorn and that he had been hounded and attacked.
He disagreed, however, that controversy was good for book sales: "Quite
the contrary, sir. I rather hinted when I mentioned my literary agent,
in the matter of Hitler's War, my literary agent warned me of the severe
consequences of the controversy that would develop from omitting Hitler's
role in the Holocaust. He told me we would lose the Sunday Times deal,
the Reader's Digest deal, the Book of the Month Club deal, and we would
not sell the book as a paperback in the United States. We lost about one
million dollars. Controversy is not necessarily good." (33-9334, 9335)
Well, are you familiar with the book called Spy Catcher?, asked Pearson.
Irving replied that he knew of the book and that it had been banned when
he left Britain five weeks before. And wouldn't you agree with me it was
good for sales?, asked Pearson. Irving agreed this had been true for sales
of Spy Catcher in Australia, but said: "Being banned ipso facto is
not good for sales. You have to be banned in a certain way...There are
useful controversies and there are controversies which don't promote your
purposes as a historian." (33-9335, 9336)
Well, said Pearson, if there's controversies that create media attention,
that's good for sales because thereby people learn about a book that they'd
otherwise not even know about. Isn't that right? Said Irving: "This
is true. And I emphasize as a professional historian I have to sell my
books. I can't afford to lose my credibility." (33-9336)
When you say you're a professional historian, asked Pearson, what you mean
by that is you write books on history and sell them?
"I write books on history as a profession. That's what professional
historian means." Irving agreed that he was in a fight for media attention:
"I think that is correct. In England 58,000 new books are published
every year and only 1,000 will ever get reviewed...So, it's a bit of a
struggle of life." (33-9336)
Would you agree with me that you hold academic historians in contempt?,
asked Pearson.
"I hold them in contempt for specific reasons," said Irving.
"Not all academic historians but the broad majority of them."
(33-9337)
Would you agree with me, asked Pearson, that the academic historians, for
instance, Martin Broszat, consider your thesis in your Hitler book as embarrassing?
Irving disagreed: "On the contrary. Martin Broszat went to great lengths
in a 54-page review of my Hitler book to say on one central issue he considered
that I was correct, that there was no general order for the extermination
of the Jews...I don't think he ever used the word embarrassing. I'm not
familiar with all his writings." (33-9337)
Pearson produced a copy of an article by Broszat published in Yad Vashem
Studies. Irving indicated he was familiar only with the German edition:
"...I haven't read this particular one. I don't subscribe to Yad Vashem
Studies. If he said it was embarrassing, I will accept your word for it,
but it would be embarrassing for the body of academic historians because
I have shown them up for not doing the research which did I." Irving
examined the article and confirmed that it was an English translation of
the original German paper which appeared in Vierteljahrshefte für
Zeitgeschichte with which he was familiar. (33-9338, 9339)
And it doesn't matter that it's published in Yad Vashem, does it?, asked
Pearson.
"I...think I did emphasize I have co-operation from the Israeli archives
so that does mean it's a two-way co-operation." (33-9339)
Pearson repeated the question.
"I can't see what point you're driving at," said Irving, "I
just said...I'm not familiar with the Yad Vashem version of it." (33-9339,
9340)
The title of the article by Broszat was "Hitler and the Genesis of
the 'Final Solution': An Assessment of David Irving's Theses."1 At
Pearson's request, Irving read the first paragraph:
THE ENGLISH EDITION of David Irving's Hitler book, published in the spring
of 1977, two years after the expurgated German edition, has created a furore
both in England and elsewhere. The British author, who gained a reputation
as an enfant terrible with earlier publications on contemporary history,
has propounded a thesis which is embarrassing even to some of his friends
and admirers.
Pearson indicated that Broszat went on to say that Irving was a very good
writer. Pearson then continued reading from page 76 of the article:
The discovery and utilization of contemporary primary sources has long
been a sort of adventuresome passion of Irving the historian. However,
the unprejudiced historian and researcher is obstructed by the passionately
partisan author whose insistence on primary sources lacks the control and
discipline essential in the selective interpretation and evaluation of
material.
He is too eager to accept authenticity for objectivity, is overly hasty
in interpreting superficial diagnoses and often seems insufficiently interested
in complex historical interconnections and in structural problems that
transcend the mere recording of historical facts but are essential for
their evaluation. Spurred by the ambition of matching himself against professional
historians in his precise knowledge of documents, he adopts the role of
the terrible simplificateur as he intends to wrest fresh interpretations
from historical facts and events and spring these on the public in sensational
new books.
Said Irving: "I think every historian is entitled to his opinion...What
he is saying is I haven't learned to read between the lines the way that
the academic historians have." (33-9341, 9342)
Pearson asked whether Irving's thesis in Hitler's War was that Hitler was
a bad administrator who liked ideas and not details, and that it was Heydrich,
Himmler, Frank and others who were engaged in perpetrating the Holocaust.
Said Irving: "In the introduction I make plain that I regard Germany,
by the end of the Second World War, as a Führer state without a Führer.
He had lost control of whatever was going on and I'm not going to be so
simple as to say it was quite simply what is now called the 'Holocaust.'
Whatever it was that was going on, there is no evidence that Hitler knew
it. There's not enough evidence to satisfy an English magistrate's court
and it certainly shouldn't satisfy an academic historian or a professional
one." (33 9342, 9343)
Are you repudiating what you wrote in Hitler's War about the activities
of Himmler, Heydrich and Frank?, asked Pearson.
"I didn't use the word 'Holocaust' to the best of my knowledge. This
is a relatively modern invention. I think we have to be much less simple
than using a word like that. We have to try to examine what was going on,
see if there was a pattern or was it just a haphazard series of ad hoc
tragedies generated by all sorts of different criminals who were running
amok." Irving indicated that he did not think he repudiated anything
he wrote in Hitler's War, but indicated that he "would need to know
exactly which passage I am being asked to...repudiate." (33-9343,
9344)
Pearson asked if Irving's thesis in his book Churchill's War was that Churchill
wanted a war because he knew he wouldn't get elected in peacetime and he
conducted a lot of his activities during the war in a drunken haze?
"This is not a thesis," said Irving. "That is, in fact,
a statement of fact." (33-9344)
David Irving was accepted as an expert witness qualified to give testimony
in the area of the history of the Second World War. Defence attorney Douglas
Christie commenced his examination-in-chief of Irving. (33-9346)
In your opinion as a historian of the Second World War, asked Christie,
what is the 'Holocaust' as it is currently presented?
"The Holocaust as it is currently presented," said Irving, "I
can do no better than quote the words used by the chief rabbi of England,
Lord...[Immanuel] Jakobovits, who has recently said that in his view, it
has become big business...Which he deplores." (33-9347)
Irving had read Did Six Million Really Die?: "...I have seen this
book before over several years. I have never read it until two days ago
when a copy was sent to me by courier in Florida with a request that I
should read it for the purposes of this trial. And I read it with great
interest and I must say that I was surprised by the quality of the arguments
that it represented. It has obvious flaws. It uses sources that I would
not personally use. In fact, the entire body of sources is different. This
is based entirely on secondary literature, books by other people, including
some experts, whereas I use no books. I use just the archives. But independently,
the author of this came to conclusions and asked questions of a logical
nature which I had arrived at by an entirely different route, so-to-speak.
I give one example. On one page, which I can't remember, he asks the obvious
logical question, if you are going to exterminate millions of people, why
did you go to all the trouble of shipping them thousands of miles across
Europe first? This is the kind of logical question which the academic historian[s]
have ducked until now. And if I was to ask what is the value of a brochure
like this, I think it is that it provokes people to ask questions, rather
as my book on Hitler's War provoked the historians. I think I am told that
this court has heard about the historians' dispute that has opened up in
Germany. That was entirely as a result of my controversial book on Hitler.
Until 1977, the German historians had never asked the obvious questions.
This is the kind of value which I found this brochure to have. It was asking
proper questions on the basis of an entirely different set of sources.
But I do emphasize that it contains flaws and it contains also some opinions
with which I personally wouldn't agree." (33-9347, 9348)
If the 'Holocaust' is represented as the allegation of the extermination
of 6 million Jews during the Second World War as a direct result of official
German policy of extermination, what would you say to that thesis?, asked
Christie.
"There are several elements of that sentence I would dispute,"
said Irving. "Firstly, the allegation that it was official German
policy. We are not familiar, neither the academic nor the professional
historians are familiar with the slightest documentary evidence that there
was any such German policy. And I should be familiar with it having spent
ten years wading around in the archives of the German High Command and
speaking with Hitler's private staff. It isn't there. I am not familiar
with any documentary evidence of any such figure as 6 million and I think
I know how the figure originated because I am familiar with the private
papers of the American Chief Justice at Nuremberg, the Justice Robert H.
Jackson and I saw the actual interview on which that figure was...arrived
at...Many years ago, I wrote a very detailed analysis of the Nuremberg
trial and the procedures and the sequence of events at the Nuremberg trial.
In the course of which I obtained privileged access to all the private
and official records of the American chief prosecutor, Justice Robert H.
Jackson, in the course of which I changed my opinion about him. I set off
with a bad opinion of him and in the light of what I read in his diaries,
I came to realize he was a profound and honest American lawyer." (33-9349,
9350)
Do you have any opinion as a result of your research as to the number of
Jews who died in concentration camps during the Second World War?, asked
Christie. Said Irving: "I am not sure that an opinion here would be
of use. I have opinions. I have opinions, however, in the kind of statistical
orders of magnitude, where you can see there's a minimum number and a maximum
number, and I can only set these two limits and say that to my mind, it
must have been of the order of 100,000 or more, but to my mind it was certainly
less than the figure which is quoted nowadays of 6 million. Because on
the evidence of comparison with other similar tragedies which happened
in the Second World War, it is unlikely that the Jewish community would
have suffered any worse than these communities. You can weigh the figures
in certain ways and look at air raid damage and look at other communities
like the gypsies and so on and say, this is the balance of probabilities.
But it shouldn't be necessary to talk about probabilities. All Hitler's
other crimes are documented in statistical details in the archives. This
is supposed to have been the biggest crime of all and yet the documents
just aren't there so why do we have to speculate? Why do we have to have
opinions about figures?" Irving pointed out that there was documentary
evidence to support the German policy of deporting the Jews: "Oh,
yes. Quite definitely. In the course of my Hitler research I came across
acceptable German archival evidence which met the criteria which Hugh Trevor-Roper
had taught me, being authentic documents written by people in a position
to know. I came across documents showing that Hitler had given the orders
for the deportation of the Jews to the east. This deportation was in full
swing by the middle of 1942 and you find, for example, Heinrich Himmler
writing to Gauleiters that the Führer, Adolf Hitler, has given me
the order to make Europe free of the Jews, clean of the Jews from west
to east, stage-by- stage, and it's quite clearly referred to as Hitler's
order, the deportation." (33-9351, 9352)
There were, however, no orders for the extermination of Jews: "None
whatsoever. I have not found in any archives of the world, including I
mentioned the Israeli archives which have been co-operating with me; I
also underline the fact even in the British archives, where we were reading
the signals, the code signals of the SS units operating on the eastern
front, with our code- breaking machinery, not even in the British archives
are there any deciphered Hitler orders for the killing of Jews...There
are no explicit orders and this is where the academic historians start
asking us to read between the lines and find fancy translations for certain
words and I wouldn't go along with those methods. I want in a crime as
big as this to find explicit evidence." (33-9352, 9353)
Was there a Madagascar plan?, asked Christie.
"The original 'final solution' of the Jewish problem as envisaged
by the German High Command," said Irving, "was to deport the
Jews to different territories. Various different territories were called
into account for this. On one occasion, the Jews were going to be shipped
to western Australia. On another occasion they were going to be shipped
to Palestine and Adolf Eichmann was actually sent to...Palestine in 1939
to negotiate with the Zionists in Palestine. The principal plan was the
so-called Madagascar plan. Madagascar is an island off the coast of Africa
about the size of Germany. A temperate island, the kind you have in Canada
or in Britain, and the idea was to ship all the world's Jews to Madagascar.
In 1940 after the German defeat of France, the intention was to incorporate
the Madagascar plan in the final peace treaty obliging France to make Madagascar,
which was a French colony, available for the purpose of Jewish resettlement.
And there are traces, by which I mean there are extensive files, on the
Madagascar plan in the archives of the German admiralty, because they would
be involved in the transportation, and the archives [of] the German Foreign
Ministry and in various other German government bodies. This plan was abandoned
when the war continued because it was impossible to have an overseas shipment
of Jews at a time of war. And finally, in 1942, there is a document in
the records of the German Foreign Ministry which says the Madagascar plan
is being abandoned because we now have new territories available in the
east, the occupied Russian territories, to which all the Jews will be transported
instead." (33-9353, 9354)
Is there any one document in the archives, asked Christie, of the various
ministries which say, as late as March 1942, that there was a plan to exterminate
the Jews?
"This is typical of the documents which I have found and which the
academic historians, until I had published it, would not publish it,"
replied Irving. "In the archives of the German Ministry of Justice,
I found a document which was concealed at Nuremberg...which resurfaced
in the archives in Koblenz, dated in the spring of 1942. It is a note of
a telephone conversation of the Secretary of State of the German Ministry
of Justice with the Reich Chancellor...That would be rather like a Prime
Minister, a Prime Minister in a dictatorship, second man down from Hitler...[who
was] Hans Lammers. Lammers had telephoned the ministry in the spring of
1942 and the minister writes a note on the conversation, and I can quote
the memorandum from memory. It says: 'Lammers has said that the Führer,
Adolf Hitler, has repeatedly ordained that he wants the 'final solution'
- that he wants the solution of the Jewish problem postponed until after
the war is over.' And this document, of course, takes some explaining and
this is the kind of document which embarrasses the historians, if I can
use the word that Mr. Pearson has reminded me of. They are embarrassed
because they haven't found that document themselves." (33-9354, 9355)
Irving testified that he was familiar with the Einsatzgruppen reports:
"Here we have to look at the third of the Trevor-Roper criteria. If
you remember, the question a historian should ask is, 'Why does this document
exist?'. A man is out in the field behind the Russian front doing his job
for the SS and he is being asked how well he is doing and he's going to
submit a report containing figures and he's going to show he's doing a
jolly good job and that's the kind of category I... put these Einsatzgruppen
reports into. I don't trust the statistics they contain. Soldiers who are
out in the field doing a job or murderers who are out in the field doing
a job, they don't have time to count. I don't think Lieutenant Calley stopped
to find out how many people [he] killed. Statistics like this are meaningless.
Documents like this I am very, very worried about as a historical source."
(33-9355, 9356)
Christie produced Exhibit 118, a document referring to Galicia, which he
showed to Irving. Said Irving: "May I say that I am very wary about
any Nuremberg document that has the document number L...This is L-18...Historians
are familiar with quite a number of L documents from the Nuremberg series
and a lot of them turn out to be forgeries. A lot of them turn out to be
produced or manufactured for the Nuremberg trials to the best of my knowledge.
So, this is the first thing that would worry me about that." (33-9357)
Crown Attorney Pearson objected to this testimony, alleging that this was
a serious accusation to make. Irving replied: "If I may answer that
point, sir, I investigated the Nuremberg trials in some detail and I was
familiar with the fact that at Nuremberg, they did have a collection of
the necessary rubber stamps, the security classification stamps in order
to manufacture documents and they did do it. There are several instances
where this subsequently turned out...I have published a book on that sir.
It's Nuremberg - The Last Battle...The prefixes on the Nuremberg documents
give some index of the providence of the document. There's a PS series
which was found by Colonel Storey [in] Paris, the Paris/Storey collection.
Many PS series are thoroughly authentic. The L series were a small collection
of documents used at Nuremberg and contain documents produced by journalists
and handed over by a very eclectic series of sources. The NOK documents,
the German for the [High] Command trial, the private files give us a first
sniff, if I might put it like that." (33 9358, 9359)
Irving testified that he was not familiar with this particular document:
"...I am not familiar with the document. I am not, I emphasize, a
Holocaust historian." (33-9360) With respect to the authenticity of
the document, Irving testified that he would "accept these documents
as attached are probably genuine on the basis of the photocopies but that's
just the first impression you get in looking at an archives - I recognize
the numbers at the bottom. I can tell you which microfilms they come from.
They are authentic reproductions from Nuremberg microfilm. . . Prima facie
it appears to be genuine." (33-9362, 9363)
Have you yourself ever seen any evidence in any of the archives to establish
the existence of homicidal gas chambers?, asked Christie.
"No, sir. None whatsoever. And certainly one would have expected to
have found it in the number of archives that I've been in." (33-9363)
Yesterday, said Christie, the Crown produced a letter from someone in Auschwitz
pertaining to the building of the crematories and the word used there was
Vergasungskellers. Are you familiar with that document?, he asked.
"I am very familiar with the German language and I am quite familiar
with that document also," said Irving. "No German would have
referred to a gas chamber, which of course is quite a common concept because
the Americans use[d] gas chambers at that time for legal executions. No
German would have translated the word 'gas chamber' as vergasungskeller.
They have a perfectly good German word for that... a gaskammer." (33-9363,
9364)
Christie noted that the Crown had quoted a man named Martin Broszat during
his cross- examination of Irving. What was Broszat's job?
"He is now the director of the Institute of Contemporary History in
Munich, which is a very good historical institute partly funded by German
federal funds and partly by provincial funds...My dealing with the Institute
of History began in late 1963 before he became director of the institute.
The institute has acquired my entire research collections of documents
which are now housed in that building as the David Irving Collection and
I have suspended further deliveries of documents until Broszat resigns
or retires." Irving testified that there were personal animosities
between himself and Broszat which "began in the 1970s over a certain
young lady who is now living with him...further animosity was caused by
the fact that I revealed that documents that the Broszat institute published
were forgeries. The diary of...Engel turned out to have been written on
post-war paper and yet the Institute went ahead and published this diary
knowing that it would pollute the writing of history for many decades afterwards...It
is now recognized as a forgery and yet the institute of Dr. Broszat still
publishes it." (33-9366, 9367)
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)
Do historians generally have any criterion for accepting documents as being
both authentic, genuine and true or do they simply take them at their face
value?, asked Christie.
"It depends very much on the historian," replied Irving. "The
green historian who is fresh out of university and not inquisitive, will
be happy to accept the printed volumes of documents particularly if they
have pictures in them and an index at the end. Later on, you learn not
to trust printed volumes of documents. If I can give one example from my
Churchill research, there is a report by the American Assistant Secretary
of State, Sumner Welles, on a visit to Churchill in March 1940, describing
how he found Churchill in a state of complete intoxication in the admiralty.
The printed version of this document and the American government volumes
omits those sentences describing Churchill's drunkenness, but the original
report by the Secretary of State in the Roosevelt library contains those
sentences. So, I can only say that a historian must be very careful about
using printed or even photocopied documents."(33-9369, 9370)
Irving had also studied the Goebbels diaries: "I am very familiar
with the Goebbels diaries insofar as they have been publicly available
and in the course of the next twelve months I shall begin reading the entire
microfiche of the Goebbels diaries that have now become available to western
historians," said Irving. "They appeared in a very mysterious
way from the custody of the East German government, where they have been
held since the end of the Second World War unknown to us; we didn't know
those diaries were there and then they suddenly turned up. I have to say
from what I have seen so far, I consider the diaries to be genuine, but
we have to apply once again the third criteria of Trevor-Roper which is,
'Why did they come into existence'? Why did Goebbels write them?"
The diaries were partly written and partly transcribed: "Many early
years are written in his very difficult, indecipherable handwriting. The
later years when he was Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany, he dictated
them onto a recording machine and his secretary transcribed them each day,
sometimes at very great length. Sometimes 139 pages on one day in 1943."
(33-9370, 9371)
He was also familiar with the Wannsee Conference documents: "In January
1942, there was a conference at a house in Berlin, Wannsee, an inter-agency
or inter ministerial conference between state secretaries. The state secretaries
were like the deputy minister in a ministry and they were discussing the
technicalities of the final solution of the Jewish problem, and to understand
the Wannsee protocol, it is not enough just to look at that document. You
have to look at the entire file containing that document. And you then
realize what the document is about. Even then it is written in very obscure
civil service language and several of the participants in the Wannsee Conference
subsequently testified in later criminal proceedings that they emerged
from that conversation no wiser than when they went in. Certainly none
of them had - certainly none of them had any idea that at that conference
there had been a discussion of liquidation of Jews." (33-9371, 9372)
Had he investigated the trials of these individuals?, asked Christie.
"I read the records of the Wilhelmstrasse trial," said Irving,
"which is the second trial to be held in the post-Nuremberg proceedings
series after the plain Nuremberg trial. There were twelve subsequent proceedings.
The Wilhelmstrasse trial was the second one. None of them testified that
there had been any discussion of liquidation of the Jews at the Wannsee
Conference." (33-9372, 9373)
Christie referred to the letter from Goering to Heydrich of July 1941 which
had figured prominently in both Hilberg's and Browning's testimony and
asked if Irving was familiar with it. Irving replied that he was: "On
July the 31st, 1941, as is said from Hermann Goering's private diary, which
I suppose I'm one of the very few people to have used it in the original,
on the afternoon of that day, Reinhard Heydrich, the chief of the Gestapo,
visited Goering who was passing very rapidly through Berlin and put a pile
of documents on the desk for Goering to sign, one of which was a piece
of what I would describe as legal bumph, where Heydrich is just saying
to Goering, 'In 1939, you gave me orders to carry out certain measures
connected with the Jewish solution, will you now extend the authority given
by those orders to the new territories in Russia which we've captured'.
That is what the document says. I wouldn't attempt to repeat the document
from memory. I'm sure it's in the court files. July the 31st, 1941, Goering
signs the document for Heydrich without ever even bothering to read it.
It's a piece of legal bumph which again says nothing about killing Jews.
It is talking about the overall solution of the Jewish problem which, as
I testified earlier today, was at that time regarded to be the geographical
resettlement of Jews, relocating them from where they were at that time."
(33-9373, 9374)
Did those sources - the Posen speech, the Goebbels diary, the Wannsee Conference
and the letter of July 31, 1941 - indicate any plan to exterminate European
Jews?, asked Christie.
"No," said Irving. "There is no explicit reference either
implicit in these documents or legible in these documents to liquidation
of Jews. They are all equally applicable to any other solution. Of course,
relocation of the Jews in the middle of a war was a radical solution but
it is not what is described as the 'Holocaust.'" (33-9374)
Does the existence of these documents indicate to you that there is any
other material that would corroborate an extermination programme?, asked
Christie.
"I think it highly unlikely. It is very difficult to prove a negative
to say that documents don't exist. But I will say is, if the documents
did exist, I would have found them by now and if I hadn't found them, then
certainly the Holocaust historians would have found them by now, explicit
documents, and as you may know I have offered repeatedly around the world
a thousand pounds for any wartime contemporary document showing that Adolf
Hitler even knew what was going on, whatever it was, whatever is now described
as the 'Holocaust' and they haven't been able to find that let alone explicit
orders or documentary evidence about gas chambers or the similar kind of
documentary material." (33-9374, 9375)
In your research as a historian, asked Christie, do you consider it likely
that an enterprise of the magnitude of the extermination of the Jews of
Europe could be accomplished by the people [Germans] knowing the way they
conducted their business from their documents without the existence of
explicit orders and plans?
"Not only without existence of orders," said Irving, "but
also without the existence of any written reference to it. I have to say
that the German wartime civil servant was basically a - a cowardly animal
and he would not do something that he considered to be criminal without
getting a document clearing himself. He would get his superior to write
a letter saying, 'On the Führer's orders, we are doing the following',
which is why there are letters showing Himmler saying, 'On the Führer's
orders, we are deporting the Jews.' Which was the extent of the Führer's
orders and which was the extent, to my mind, of the final solution. So
the documents don't exist where you would expect to find them. Hitler's
other crimes, the documents are there: the euthanasia order, the order
to kill British commandos, the orders to lynch American airmen, the orders
for the killing of the male population of Stalingrad if ever they occupied
it. Hitler's other crimes, simple crimes, the documents are there where
you expect to find them. And yet this biggest crime of all, there is no
document...I think there would definitely have had to be orders and these
orders would have been referred to in countless files of different ministerial
bodies. So, it would have been impossible for these documents to have been
destroyed at the end of the war. There would always be carbon copies somewhere."
(33-9375, 9376)
The term ausrotten, said Christie, has been represented to mean 'extermination'
in the literal sense. Have you examined that word in its context in the
various speeches of Adolf Hitler?
"I am very fluent in the German language, having lived in that country
for a long time and having read, of course, millions of words in the German
language in context," said Irving. "There is no doubt that in
modern Germany the word ausrotten now means murder. But we have to look
at the meaning of the word ausrotten in the 1930s and the 1940s, as used
by those who wrote or spoke these documents. In the mouth of Adolf Hitler,
the word ausrotten is never once used to mean murder, and I've made a study
of that particular semantic problem. You can find document after document
which Hitler himself spoke or wrote where the word ausrotten cannot possibly
mean murder. I can give one or two examples briefly. In August 1936, Hitler
dictated the famous memorandum on the four year plan which contains the
phrase 'if the Bolsheviks succeed in entering Germany, it will lead to
the ausrotten of the German people'. Now, clearly, he doesn't mean that
if the Bolsheviks invade Germany it will lead to the murder of 50 million
Germans. He is saying it will lead to the end of Germany as a national
state, as a power, as a factor, an end of the German people. He says the
same to the Czechoslovakian President Emil Hácha, on March the 15th,
1939. Hácha has just signed away Czechoslovakia's independence in
a midnight session with Hitler and Hitler says to him afterwards, 'It is
a good thing that you signed because otherwise it would have meant the
ausrotten of the Czechoslovakian people'. Hitler didn't mean, 'If you hadn't
signed, I would have had to kill 8 million Czechs.' What he is saying [is],
'If you hadn't signed, I would have ended Czechoslovakia's existence as
a separate country.' There are various other examples of that and I defy
anybody to find the meaning of the word differently used by Adolf Hitler
to mean the word 'murder'. This is the kind of analysis which unfortunately
the academic historians have not bothered to conduct." (33-9377, 9378)
Could you give us your opinion of the value of Did Six Million Really Die?,
asked Christie.
"It has a - a value I would suggest in technical terms of a catalyst.
It has existed rather like the grain of sand inside an oyster. It has provoked
and irritated people [in] rather the same way but on a different level
that my book Hitler's War did. It has forced people to prove what they
have been maintaining - to put their money where their mouth is in common
terms - and they haven't been able to do it and because they haven't been
able to prove what they've been maintaining for thirty or forty years,
they resort to extramural methods. In Germany, it is declared a criminal
offence now to question certain historical facts. In other countries, I
think judicial notice is taken of them." (33-9378, 9379) Irving estimated
"over 90 percent of the brochure Did Six Million Really Die? to be
factually accurate on the basis of the facts which I arrived at by an entirely
different approach, namely, the documentary basis." (33-9388)
Irving testified that he was familiar with the subject of Kurt Gerstein:
"I have examined the Kurt Gerstein report and its various adaptations
and having read the very interesting doctoral dissertation by the Frenchman
Henri Roques, which was produced a year-and-a-half ago, I came to the conclusion
on the basis of the documents that Roques found in the French police files,
on the basis of my own family experience with a handicapped member of my
family, that Gerstein himself was probably unstable when he wrote his various
reports." Irving did not examine the documents in their original form:
"I examined facsimiles. Had I been a Holocaust historian, of course,
I would have gone into much greater detail and demanded to see the originals."
Irving had also examined facsimiles of Gerstein's writings of a personal
nature, which were found among his effects after his suicide. (33-9379,
9381)
In the course of his research, Irving was required to make assessments
of the credibility of the people who had produced the documents: "Indeed
I do, and one can do so on the internal evidence of the document itself
or of associated events and documents. In this case, the suicide or apparent
suicide of the person who wrote the document is a clear sign of mental
instability...The documents themselves are unstable. The most graphic description
of that are the words, that the facts and dates contained by the documents
vary dramatically," said Irving. As a historian, he had made these
types of assessments in regard to other documents as well: "Yes, over
the years I have repeatedly had to do so. One has to weigh documents."
(33-9380)
Irving testified that Professor Hans Mommsen of the University of Bochum
now shared his thesis pertaining to the absence of a plan or order. That
had not been the case in 1970. Said Irving: "...At the end of the
Second World War, the - the professorial bodies at the institutes of higher
learning in Germany were extensively re-staffed. New textbooks were introduced;
the professors were retaught. The university system produced, in its turn,
new professors. There was a broadly held body of opinion as to what had
happened and it has not been without - not to be wondered at, as fresh
documents became available, then this opinion is changed. Fresh hypotheses
are raised by authorized or unauthorized writers and even the academics
then have to change their minds." Irving himself had changed his mind
over the years. In a book he published many years before on the Vietnam
War, he had referred "to the 6 million who were killed at Auschwitz
and if I was to be asked now why did I write that, then I would have to
quote the words of William Casey and I - 'I believe[d]', but since then,
since having spent ten years writing the Hitler biography and since having
worked in the world's archives, I've come to question that belief which
was an oversimple belief." (33-9381, 9382)
In your opinion as a historian, asked Christie, from what you have seen
of the information about the subject, has the Holocaust been sufficiently
investigated to determine accurately its extent and meaning?
"I think there has been virtually no investigation of the Holocaust,"
replied Irving. "When we realize that Mr. Zündel, the defendant
in this case, is the first person who has gone to the trouble to get the
aerial photographs of the German concentration camps, the kind of concrete
evidence that anybody is entitled to demand when you're carrying out an
investigation, this shows us how we can - all the other historians on that
field, including myself - have been. And the same kind of forensic examination
which has now been made of the site, an idea which hadn't occurred to me
one could conduct - really getting down to the basics of what happened.
This has not been done by historians of the Holocaust." (33-9382,
9383)
Are there factual errors in major history books?, asked Christie.
"Oh, yes. I think it would be a foolish historian who denies he makes
errors on Adolf Hitler. The standard works like Alan Bullock, his book
Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, is riddled with errors and yet that book goes
into reprint after reprint. William Shirer's book The Rise and Fall of
the Third Reich, is a very good book in its way, written at a very early
stage. It is based entirely on the prosecution documents at Nuremberg and,
as such, is out of balance and also contains misstatements of fact. These
are gradually reshaped and corrected as the years pass. One never really
establishes total truth. One only approximates to it." (33-9383)
Christie turned to Did Six Million Really Die? and some of the specific
allegations made in it. Did Irving know of any indication that Ohlendorf,
for example, was tortured?
"Oh, yes," said Irving. "The SS General Ohlendorf and the
SS General Pohl were both very severely maltreated at Nuremberg and in
the internment camps where they were held by the Allies after the Second
World War and prior to their testimony. They subsequently testified to
that to their fellow prisoners like Field Marshal Milch, who kept a diary
which I have and also in the subsequent trials...Field-Marshal Milch was
the second person in the German air force. He was threatened with severe
punishment unless he testified against Goering. On November the 5th, 1945,
an American, who is a Major Ernst Engländer, who is a Wall Street
financier, who presented himself to Milch as Major Evans, instructed him
that he would be subjected to a war crimes trial unless he agreed to perjure
himself against Goering. Milch refused to perjure himself and although
there was an animosity between himself and Goering, he went into the witness
stand and spoke in defence of Goering and on the next day, Milch was thrown
into the punishment bunker at Dachau concentration camp, a bunker which
had been designed by the SS to hold one recalcitrant prisoner, but which
the Americans were using rather more economically in as much as they put
six prisoners in this one-man bunker, all of them Field-Marshals as a punishment.
Milch was then subjected to a war crimes trial and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Admiral Eberhard Godt, the Chief of Staff, was threatened with hanging
unless he...testified that Dönitz had given illegal orders and so
on. There's a whole string of examples of the coercion of prisoners at
Nuremberg." (33-9384, 9385)
Irving testified that "[t]he principal trial was the trial of the
major war criminals at Nuremberg from October 1945 to October 1946. There
was then a series of twelve subsequent proceedings against Milch, who was
the first trial, and then the Wilhelmstrasse trial defendants...The legal
records, the whole of the legal system at Nuremberg was unlike any other
legal system. No appeal was permitted. The procedure for hearing witnesses
was remarkable. The affidavits were submitted [e]ven [if] their witnesses
were present in person and could have testified personally...many, many
hundreds of thousands of affidavits were submitted with no chance for the
defence to cross-examine the person who had submitted the affidavit as
to the conditions under which he had given the affidavit, sworn the affidavit."
(33-9385, 9386)
Irving was familiar with the book on the Manstein war crimes trial written
by Paget. Said Irving: "R.T. Paget was a labour member of Parliament
who was a King's Counsel, defence counsel of Field-Marshal Manstein, one
of the most illustrious German soldiers. He was put on...trial by the British
in Hamburg. I read that book when I was twenty-two with great fascination
and increasing indignation to read of the methods that had been used to
obtain testimony from prisoners, including the very severe maltreatment,
brutalization of a number of witnesses." As a result, Irving made
inquiries of certain documents from the National Archives in Washington:
"In the very early 1960s, I obtained from them a complete photocopy
of the Simpson Commission of Inquiries which the American Justice Department,
to its credit, sent to Europe to investigate the allegations that American
officers were torturing German defence witnesses." After reading the
document, said Irving, "I formed the opinion that in future, one would
have to be very, very cautious before accepting without verification the
evidence sworn by defence or prosecution witnesses in the Nuremberg trials."
(33-9387)
In the course of your research, asked Christie, have you discovered new
documents as you went along or documents now being made available that
were not available in the past?
"It's a continuous process. For example, I have contacts with the
Russians who provided me copies of the German documents that the Russians
captured at the end of the war. I am constantly generating new sources
of documents which I make available to international historians all over
the world." (33-9388)
Irving testified that he was familiar with Sefton Delmer: "Sefton
Delmer was a former German citizen who emigrated to Britain fairly early
on and worked for the British propaganda agency, the psychological warfare
executive, as a clandestine broadcaster, broadcasting what is called black
propaganda; in other words, disinformation and lies to the enemy over clandestine
radio transmitters. A very good journalist but not a man that one would
turn to establish the truth." Irving did not know whether Delmer had
been involved in activities in Germany after the war or not: "He may
have been but I'm not familiar with that." (33-9388, 9389)
Christie turned to the subject of the Hans Frank diaries and whether Irving
was familiar with them. Said Irving: "Very familiar with the Hans
Frank diaries which is - the original Hans Frank diaries are in very many
volumes, seventeen or twenty volumes of typescript and handwriting containing
not just what we describe as diaries but also the verbatim transcripts
of very many records of conferences which he attended...I read them from
the angle of somebody...writing a biography of Adolf Hitler, so I was specifically
interested in any reference to Adolf Hitler's doings and wrongdoings and
the doings and wrongdoings of the Third Reich under Hitler's rule."
In Irving's opinion the diaries did not verify the existence of any plan
for or any extermination of the Jews of Europe: "There is no reference
in the Hans Frank diaries," said Irving, "and one would expect
them, because Hans Frank was the Governor General of Poland, or the Governor
General of the area of...Poland where the extermination camps are now supposed
to have existed. There is no explicit reference in the Hans Frank diaries
from start to finish to gas chambers or to a mass extermination of the
Jews as government policy whatsoever. And this is a unique source because
it is so homogenous the whole way through. The most remarkable passage
I found was in February or March, 1944, and I have quoted it in Hitler's
War, where he has a long conference with Hitler as the Russians are invading
Poland, his own territory, and Frank wants to know what to do and there's
a passage there where Hans Frank writes in his diary saying, 'the Führer
said to me how glad we are...solving the problem by deporting the Jews
to all the different territories.' Words to that effect. When you see something
like that, you have to say [to] yourself, are we all writing the same language?
Did either of them know what is supposed to have been going on?" (33-9389,
9390)
Irving referred to Adolf Hitler's reaction when Auschwitz was captured
by the Soviets in 1945: "On January the 26th or January the 27th,
1945, the Russian troops overran Auschwitz and on this day, the stenographers,
who took down in Hitler's headquarters every word he spoke, recorded a
passage which has survived. We have the fragment of what he said. General
Guderian reported to the Führer, 'Yesterday the Russians overran Auschwitz',
and Hitler just replied, 'Oh, yes.' Now, if Hitler had known what was going
on, if Hitler had known what was supposed to have been going on, he would
surely have said something like, 'Well, let's hope they manage to get rid
of it' or 'They're not going to find anything.' All he said was 'Oh, yes'
and move on to the next business. This is the kind of clue that one has.
Straws in the wind. Altogether it makes a very different picture."
(33-9390, 9391)
Are you familiar with someone by the name of Robert Kempner?, asked Christie.
"Robert M. W. Kempner, an attorney now in Frankfurt, was [with] Goering's
Ministry of the Interior in Prussia in 1933. He emigrated to America because
of the Nazi anti-semitism. There he became a successful attorney. He returned
to Nuremberg after the war and he became a leading member of the American
prosecution staff in the rebuttal division...Robert Kempner used methods
of coercion to prevent witnesses from testifying in certain ways. Friedrich
Gaus...a legal member of the German Foreign Ministry, testified to this
in a subsequent trial and affidavit that he had been threatened by Kempner
with being handed over to the Russians unless he withdrew certain incriminating
testimony. By incriminating, I mean testimony that was going to incriminate
the Russians." (33-9391, 9392)
Irving testified that at Nuremberg, the "prosecution witnesses, the
witnesses who appeared on behalf of the prosecution were cosseted. They
were flown in by special plane; they were housed in the few remaining luxury
hotels in Nuremberg. They were lavishly fed. They were well paid and they
were promised jobs in the American zone of Germany." On the other
hand, he testified: "The defence witnesses were universally badly
treated. They were housed in the criminal wings in the Nuremberg Palace
of Justice. They were housed in cells with no windows; in winter in unheated
cells. They were very poorly fed. They were subjected to coercion and physical
maltreatment." Said Irving: "I think that not only I but I think
reputable lawyers around the world are rather ashamed about the Nuremberg
proceedings. Certainly Justice Robert H. Jackson, the American chief prosecutor,
was ashamed about them as is quite evident from his private diary...I've
examined it. I've had privileged access to that diary in the Library of
Congress...I have made a copy of it which I could make available if necessary...Shortly
after Robert H. Jackson was given the job by President Truman of conducting
the American prosecution at Nuremberg, he learned of the American plans
to drop the atomic bombs and from that moment on, he became very uneasy
with what he, himself, was doing. Prosecuting for one nation, crimes it
had committed, being fully aware that the United States was about to commit
and indeed committing a crime of an even greater magnitude." (33-9392
to 9394)
The unfairness of the Nuremberg proceedings extended to the manner in which
documentary evidence was handled. "The procedure with documents [at]
Nuremberg was rather rare," said Irving. "The prosecution obtained
all the documents for its own purposes and the defence was then allowed
to build up its case entirely on the basis of the prosecution collection
of documents. No collection of documents by the defence was made possible
by the authorities in Nuremberg. They were allowed very limited access
to the documents collected exclusively for the purposes of the prosecution."
(33-9394)
In Irving's opinion, many of the witnesses at Nuremberg and other war crimes
trials were unreliable. An example was Karl Wolff: "Major General
Karl Wolff was the liaison officer between Hitler and Himmler, an SS general,
a character I would describe as being a rather suave character who ended
up, by reason of his personal favouritism with Himmler, in charge of the
police units in northern Italy at the end of the war and as the military
commander in that region, and largely in order to create an alibi, he then
began negotiating with the American secret service in order to speed the
surrender of the German troops in northern Italy...Wolff testified on many
occasions over the years up to his death, frequently varying his testimony
according to...which way he was being required to testify. He was always
acutely aware of the fact that he had done a deal with the Americans whereby
the Americans...promised him immunity and the subsequent West German government
also promised him immunity from prosecution if he behaved in a certain
way." (33 9394, 9395)
Another example was Dieter Wisliceny: "Dieter Wisliceny was a high
SS official who was held by the Communist authorities at the end of the
war, and among the private papers which Hugh Trevor-Roper, the British
historian, made available to me, was a long, handwritten account by Wisliceny
which greatly amplifies the version which is more familiar and known to
historians...I read the Wisliceny report with great interest and entertainment,
but one has to say that the internal evidence suggested that it was not
a document that could be taken seriously in the absence of collateral evidence."
Irving continued: "He explained things for which there was not a trace
in the archives. He described episodes and matters - well, for example,
he describes a conversation with Adolf Eichmann and Adolf Eichmann showing
to him a Führer document, a Führer order. Well, there is no such
order. It has not been seen and we then have to understand in human terms
why Wisliceny is writing this down...It was written in Bratislava (or Pressburg)
in Czechoslovakia... He was being held in rather inhumane conditions in
captivity at the end of the war...by the Communist authorities." (33-9396,
9397)
The Allied authorities also ensured that certain witnesses were "not
available" for the defence, such as Karl Koller: "General Karl
Koller...[w]as the Chief of Staff of the German air force at the end of
the war. I have his private diaries and papers...his presence was required
by the defence at Nuremberg but the Americans pretended that they didn't
know where to find him. They had, in fact, locked him away in a prison
camp and were interrogating him at that time. This was one typical example
of the Americans obstructing the defence at Nuremberg. Karl Wolff was locked
up in a lunatic asylum and the Americans pretended they didn't know where
he was either and he didn't surface again until 1947." (33-9395, 9396)
Christie turned to the subject of the Eichmann trial and asked Irving if
he considered the information there to be of value to historians.
"I think the Eichmann trial is already getting very late in the day
as far as recollected testimony is concerned. I personally hesitate to
question a witness thirty or forty years after an event as to what happened.
You can no longer separate in his mind, no matter how willing the witness
is, what really happened and what he has in the meantime read has happened...I
recollect from the parts of his testimony that I have read - and I can't
purport to have read all the Eichmann testimony for the reason I just said
- I recollect at one stage where Eichmann interrupts himself to say 'one
moment, I want to point out what I just said I can no longer recollect
whether I actually saw this or whether I'm recollecting what you told me
I saw.' And this, I think, is a very honest statement by Eichmann where
he is questioning his own powers of recollection. In human terms you have
to say it's not unlikely in 1963 or 1964, when that trial was held, much
had happened." (33-9397, 9398)
Irving had been involved in the publication of the book Ich, Adolf Eichmann:
"Adolf Eichmann's son, who is an engineer in Germany, approached me
and revealed he had all the tape recordings that his father had made several
years before his kidnapping. And the son wanted to know what to do with
these tape recorded memoirs of his father. I suggested he should transcribe
them and have them published by the world's publishers as a historical
source. Again of questionable value, depending on when the [tape] recordings
were made, but certainly of great historical interest to historians to
see how versions of events had changed over the years. And subsequently,
those were published, I think, in the English language, the German language
and Spanish." (33-9398, 9399)
Had Irving himself undertaken any investigation of the Anne Frank diaries?,
asked Christie.
"The Anne Frank diaries have had a long and checkered history,"
said Irving, "which is best described by the present state of play,
as a result of a court decision in a libel action. The father of Anne Frank,
with whom I corresponded over many years, finally relented and allowed
the diaries to be submitted to the kind of laboratory examination that
I always insist [upon] where a document is in question. As a result of
this laboratory examination carried out by the West German criminal police
laboratory, in Wiesbaden, it was determined that the Anne Frank diaries
were partly written in ball-point pen. It's a long story. I'm not going
to bore you with the details. My own conclusion on the Anne Frank diaries
is for the greater part they are authentic writings of a pubescent teenage
Jewish girl who was locked up and hidden, that they were then taken by
her father, Otto Frank, after the girl's tragic death of typhus in a concentration
camp, and her father or other persons unknown amended the diaries into
a saleable form as a result of which he and the Anne Frank Foundation became
rich, but as a historical document they are completely worthless by virtue
of having been tampered with." (33-9399, 9400)
Irving continued: "Anne Frank's father, Otto Frank, fought a number
of legal actions to defend the authenticity of the diaries and the first
legal action which I believe was fought in Lübeck, he introduced handwriting
evidence of a graphologist and an affidavit swearing that the diaries were
written throughout in the same handwriting. Subsequently, I stated in the
introduction of the German edition of my Hitler biography, that a number
of forged documents existed which were unquestionably accepted and I've
mentioned them in court today, the Canaris diary, the Engel diaries, and
I mentioned the Anne Frank diary, which was one of dubious authenticity.
Anne Frank's father threatened my German publishers with libel proceedings.
The German publishers paid him a cash settlement to shut up without consulting
me. I would have told them they were on very safe ground. Subsequently,
he has litigated against other people, but in the meantime this litigation
has now been - is being spun out, because the only remaining trial I believe
is in northern Germany and they are playing it for time. They're waiting
for the defendant to die." (33-9400, 9401)
Christie noted that one of the publications tendered as an exhibit in the
court was the book The Hitler We Loved and Why. Was Hitler loved in Germany?
"I think I'm right in saying in April 1938, 48 million Germans loved
Adolf Hitler and about 200,000 didn't. That was as a result of a perfectly
genuine plebiscite that was held shortly after the annexation of Austria
by the Germans. I think there's not the slightest evidence that this plebiscite
was faked in any way. I don't see how you can fake a referendum on that
scale, and yet 48 million adult Germans voted for Adolf Hitler. I would
like to add I personally found the title rather tasteless," said Irving.
(33-9401, 9402)
Did Churchill have anything good to say about Adolf Hitler?, asked Christie.
"In the 1930[s], when Churchill was not in Parliament and he lived
from journalism and writing in the Evening Standard in September 1937,
he had words of high praise for Adolf Hitler...Words to the effect that,
'If Britain...should ever come into the position that Germany was in, I
would hope that one day we would find a national leader of the stature
of Adolf Hitler'." (33- 9402)
Christie asked Irving if there was a document called Table-Talk by Heinrich
Heim and whether there was a reference in that to the position of Jews
after the war.
"Indeed," said Irving. "Heinrich Heim was the adjutant of
Martin Bormann who wrote down on a day by day basis a detailed semi-verbatim
record of Adolf Hitler's lunch-time and dinner-time conversation...Hitler
repeatedly referred to his post war plans with the Jews. He refers in the
Table-Talk in July 1942, I believe I'm right in saying, to his plans for
the deportation or relocation of the Jews elsewhere and Heinrich Heim was
a very reputable German civil servant who is alive, in fact. I have no
doubt that is an accurate rendering of Hitler's words." Irving testified
that he had met Heinrich Heim: "I have also made use of the original
paper of the Table- Talk. I'm one of the few privileged historians to have
used that material. It's in private hands in Switzerland." (33-9402,
9403)
Christie referred back to Did Six Million Really Die? and asked Irving
for his opinion on its conclusions regarding the number of Jews who survived.
Said Irving: "Let me say at this point I think this conclusion...they
are aiming at here is justified. I am delighted that so many Jews survived
what they now describe as the 'Holocaust' and I am puzzled at the apparent
lack of logic: that the Nazis are supposed to have had a government policy
for the deliberate, ruthless, systematic extermination of the Jews in Auschwitz
and other places of murder and yet tens if not hundreds of thousands of
Jews passed through these camps and are, I am glad to say, alive and well
amongst us now to testify to their survival. So either the Nazis had no
such programme or they were an exceedingly sloppy race, which isn't the
image that we have of them today. It's another of the logical questions
which is being asked in this history which the historians hitherto have
not asked." (33-9403, 9404)
Do you consider it possible to be accurate in terms of statistical analysis?,
asked Christie. Irving did not: "No, I shy away from statistics. I
am very, very nervous. I had a one year's training in statistics at university.
I know how risky it is to operate with statistics, different tables or
different fields or different sources. It's like subtracting apples from
potatoes - you can't say there were so many Jews here at the beginning
of the war and so many Jews there at the end of the war and subtract one
total from the other and say this is the difference. I say this whether
it helps or hinders the defence or prosecution. I am very nervous about
mass statistics." (33 9404)
Was the conclusion of Did Six Million Really Die?, that the number of Jews
who died in concentration camps could only be measured in thousands, legitimate
and arguable?, asked Christie.
"Well, I refer to my previous answer," said Irving, "and
say that I'm very nervous giving opinions about statistics. Do we mean
died or killed?" (33-9405)
Christie indicated roughly 6 million were allegedly killed by either gassing
or by the Einsatzgruppen. In your research, asked Christie, has there been
any indication of hard evidence for numbers at all?
"Certain numbers for certain specific tragedies. One episode outside
Dvinsk, being on the road to Dvinsk being in November 1941, certainly there
was an episode there ...a mass grave had been dug and a mass execution...of
unidentified civilians was being carried out by unidentified people. It
was witnessed by one German Major General Walter Bruns. There is another
episode which was witnessed by Hitler's photographer, Walter Frentz, who
described it to me...from his own memory what he had seen when he accompanied
Heinrich Himmler. Again one isolated episode behind the front, nothing
to do with Auschwitz or Treblinka or the so-called extermination camps.
So, we're looking there at several hundred if not several thousand people
being killed in specific, isolated episodes which are repeatedly served
up again and again as being examples of what was going on. I can only look
at them as isolated episodes of what was going on." (33-9405, 9406)
Is there any hard evidence to support the estimates of millions of Jews
gassed, for example, 4 million in Auschwitz-Birkenau?, asked Christie.
"No documentary, contemporaneous evidence of the kind that would satisfy
me," said Irving, "but I think that other historians may perhaps
be less pernickety...I think Winston Churchill once defined the job of
a historian [is] to find out what happened and why and those are the major
areas of historical fact that a historian should try to investigate. What
happened and why and the Holocaust historians haven't really established
either fact, in the case of the Holocaust, what really happened and why
it happened." (33-9406)
In Irving's opinion it was the reader who decided what constituted a historical
fact: "The reader. The reader on the balance of probabilities having
weighed up not just one source but several sources. He can buy my book
on Winston Churchill, he can buy Martin Gilbert's book on Winston Churchill
and he can decide where on the two scales...the truth about Winston Churchill
lies, but he has to have the alternate sources to look at. He can't have
one book presented to him and be told this is the truth, take it or lump
it. Take it or go to prison. That would be a very unacceptable form of
society." (33-9406, 9407)
Irving pointed out that history was "constantly being revised. I mentioned
the episode of the British code-breaking operations. Until 1974, the British
official historians, the government historians, were not allowed to be
told and not allowed to reveal that we British had been reading the German,
the Japanese, the Spanish, the American, the Italian codes by computer.
This is a so- called Ultra secret. Knowledge of that is, of course, crucial
to the knowledge of how we won the war and yet our entire multi-volume
official history of the Second World War until 1974 makes no mention of
this. They are going to have to be rewritten. All history books are going
to have to be rewritten since 1974 since that one fact became known and
so it is in many other fields. It would be a sad day if there was no work
for the historian to do. I say that with profound conviction as a professional
historian." (33-9407, 9408)
And does a historian, asked Christie, when he's confronted with a document,
have to take time to test and evaluate that source to determine its accuracies?
"Certainly with some documents," replied Irving. "Usually
a historian will very rapidly get the feeling for where he can be easy
with a document and comfortable, and where suddenly his ears prick up and
say to himself, wait a minute, I didn't know this. This is so egregious,
this fact, so unusual, can I trust it? There's one or two documents in
the Holocaust mythology which make me very suspicious for no other reason
than that they stand out too much. They are statistic oddities. It looks
nice, it looks neat, it looks as though suddenly there's proof, there's
100,000 Jews been killed as partisans and Hitler's told this. And yet we
have to say to ourselves, why suddenly this one document which looks like
none of the other documents in that series? This is where you have to act
a bit like a magistrate and say well, it's nice, I will take notice of
that but I want to see more, please. The historian should be constantly
weighing and evaluating and not necessarily accepting without question."
(33-9408)
Does the fact that documents are located in archives satisfy those tests?,
asked Christie.
"I shall disappoint you, I think, by saying on balance, usually yes,"
replied Irving. "I have rarely if ever come across an archive document
which is fake. It is very difficult to get a fake document into an archive.
Having said that, I would add it's not impossible and one would then want
to look at the file of documents and say does this document, which is controversial,
look different in any way? Is the paper newer? Is the ink of the signature
fresher? Are the holes in a different position? Questions like that. I
mean, the way the document looks; it's not impossible to put fake documents
into archives. Certainly they get stolen out of them. But all the fakes
that have been put to me - I emphasize all the fakes that have been put
to me - come from private hands and not archival sources." (33-9409)
Did you investigate the effects of the breaking of the German codes upon
the whole question of the Holocaust in relation to transportation of millions
of people without orders?, asked Christie.
"Well, it is unlikely that the Germans could have been issuing criminal
orders for the liquidation of millions of people or even hundreds of thousands
of people to their SS or police units on the eastern front without us British
knowing of it at the time from our code-breaking operations. And of course
the Germans, at the end of the war, could not have required us to destroy
those records." (33-9409, 9410)
There were, however, references during the war to allegations of mass gassings
of Jews in some Allied documents: "I am familiar with the...British
archives, the public records office, of attempts to start a black propaganda
campaign alleging that the Germans were employing gas chambers and at one
stage the head of the British secret service is being cautioned not to
go too far with this propaganda because it will make the whole - it will
undermine the credibility of the propaganda effort if we go too far with
these allegations...This would have been in 1944," said Irving. The
fact that these allegations were now made so freely was due, said Irving,
to what the chief rabbi of Britain, Lord Jakobovits, said had "unfortunately
...become big business with whose teams of script writers and screen writers
and journalists and newspaper writers, making great money out of it. I
think it's a great tragedy." (33 9410, 9411)
As a writer yourself, you've been involved in publishing, said Christie.
Do you have any knowledge of what would happen if you were writing about
the subject of the Holocaust in your own books in a more favourable way
than you have?
"After I wrote Hitler's War, my front door was smashed down by a gentleman
with a sledgehammer," replied Irving. "I was raided by people
disguised [as] telephone engineers who turned out to be from a Jewish organization
in Britain. The people who printed this in Britain...had their printing
works burned to the ground by one of these fake engineers. They all went
to prison. I am an ordinary writer with a family who is frightened for
- I don't like to be subjected to this kind of terror. If I was to write
the other kind of book, if I was to follow the general line of the present
Holocaust mythology, the easy acceptance of it all, 'Adolf Hitler ordered
the killing of 6 million Jews in Auschwitz', I would do a very good job
of it because I'm a good writer and I would be rich beyond the dreams of
avarice, but I couldn't live with my own conscience." (33-9411)
[The testimony which follows was given by Irving in the absence of the
jury in support of an application by defence attorney Douglas Christie
for leave to introduce the Leuchter Report into evidence and to allow Irving
to give his expert opinion on its value as a historical document.]
Irving testified that the previous day he had read the Leuchter Report
in its entirety. Said Irving: "If a future historian was to be writing
the history of the Holocaust controversy, then undoubtedly they can no
longer ignore a document of this validity." (33-9413) He continued:
"It is clearly an authentic document. It's clearly a document written
by somebody in the position to know what he is writing about and it's a
document written for a valid purpose. It's not a spurious document written
in order to camouflage something, in my view...It is very much the kind
of document that I, as a historian, would hope to find if I was investigating
the Holocaust controversy. I'm very impressed, in fact, by the presentation,
by the scientific manner of presentation, by the expertise that's been
shown by it and by the very novel conclusion that he's arrived at and I
must say that as a historian I'm rather ashamed it never occurred to me
to make this kind of investigation on this particular controversy."
(33-9414)
To your knowledge, asked Christie, has any physical examination of Auschwitz,
Birkenau or Majdanek previously been published to determine if these places
could have been used in the manner alleged in the Holocaust literature
as homicidal gas chambers?
"There has been...to the best of my knowledge, no forensic examination
of the sites conducted whatsoever. Either in situ by an expert in execution
technology, or in absentia by taking samples for laboratory analysis elsewhere,"
Irving testified. (33 9414, 9415)
Crown Attorney Pearson rose to cross-examine Irving and began by asking
him if the Leuchter Report was a document he would look to as a historian
researching the Holocaust controversy.
Irving replied: "If I was a future historian researching the Holocaust
controversy, this is certainly the kind of evidence that I should want
to make use of." (33-9415)
Are you saying, asked Pearson, that if you were a historian in the year
2015 and you were doing research with respect to what happened in Birkenau
on August 25, 1944, you would use this document as a foundation for a conclusion?
"This would give me a foundation for a conclusion about what did not
happen in the concentration camps which were investigated by the expert
in [the report]," replied Irving. (33- 9415)
What do you mean by saying the report is 'authentic', asked Pearson.
"By that I mean this clearly isn't a fake report. It isn't a report
which purports to be what it is but in fact isn't, in the sense of what
a fake document is. In other words, this isn't something that has not been
written by the purported author. It is quite clearly an authentic investigation
by the man who purports to be the author." (33 9416)
Irving agreed that the document was described as an "engineering report"
and testified that he "would expect to find it written by a man who
has some engineering qualifications." He defined 'engineering qualifications'
to mean "[s]aid qualifications for the job that he was purporting
to report on...In other words, if he is reporting on execution technology,
then I would expect him to be an expert on the subject of the engineering
of execution chambers." (33-9416)
If he was reporting on the residue of hydrogen cyanide, would you want
him to have a background in chemistry?, asked Pearson.
"No," said Irving, "but I would want him to produce...evidence
that - that would satisfy me that he had obtained the samples in a scientific
manner and...had sub contracted the quantitative analysis of those samples
to a qualified person to make those determinations. It would be too much
to expect an engineer to be qualified in the quantitative or qualitative
analysis."
An engineer, someone with a degree in engineering?, asked Pearson.
"Yes."
All right, said Pearson, issued by a recognized university?
"Is that a question?"
Yes, said Pearson. What I want to get at is you said authentic and you
just said an engineer, someone with a degree in engineering?
"What I actually said was I expect to find him qualified in the engineering
field on which he is purporting to report, in this case, execution technology,"
replied Irving. (33-9417)
So, would you mean somebody who's been recognized by a professional engineering
body as being a competent person?, asked Pearson.
"This undoubtedly would be ideal, but obviously we're looking here
at the - at what is practicable rather than what is ideal. In this case
this is the best engineering report available to this date on the execution
technology alleged to have been present at Auschwitz and the other camps."
Irving testified that he did not know Leuchter's qualifications personally:
"I don't know the author of this report personally at all. All I know
from having read the report with the eye of a historian is that he purports
to be an expert, a qualified expert in execution technology and...is recognized
as such by those states of the United States of America which carry out
executions by gas chamber."
If you found out that he only had a Bachelor of Arts and he didn't have
an engineering degree, wouldn't that cause you some concern about his engineering
report?, asked Pearson.
"It would cause me some concern but it obviously hasn't concerned
the states of the United States of America which carry out the very grizzly
business of forwarding people from life to death inside gas chambers. They
have accepted his expertise." (33-9418, 9419)
Did the states of the Unites States have this man go over to Poland to
produce an engineering report about what happened in Poland in 1944?, asked
Pearson.
"No, this was, as I understand it, entirely an undertaking organized
and financed at the expense of the defendant in the current proceedings,"
said Irving.
And what was the third criteria that Hugh Trevor-Roper mentioned?, asked
Pearson.
"That is...the reason why the document has come into existence. I
mentioned earlier this morning that sometimes German generals would write
a document for a specific reason, namely to cover themselves for an operation.
They would fake something to clear themselves in future. Now, the reason
why this document has come into existence is quite clearly as a defence
document in this case, and if I would elaborate on that, I would say that
therefore the author of that report would be aware of the fact that the
document would be subjected to the most expert scrutiny by the likes of
yourself and therefore he would employ an enhanced accuracy in presenting
his findings." (33-9419)
Irving testified that he would take into account the fact that the report
was commissioned by the defence. Asked Pearson, And don't you think that
might have some bearing on how much value a historian attaches to it? Irving
replied: "Um, this is true, but one wouldn't expect the author of
the report to perjure himself and one certainly wouldn't expect the highly
qualified analytical laboratories which carried out the chemical analysis
on the compounds which were procured from the gas chambers so-called and
the delousing chambers so-called in the concentration camps, to have falsified
their findings in any way. And certainly, my eye could detect no sign of
any kind of falsification in these analytical reports."
Do you purport to have any expertise to draw conclusions from those analytical
reports, sir?, asked Pearson.
"Not on the basis of any more than the quantitative chemistry analysis
one has learned in the course of a university career," said Irving.
"Certainly on the basis of a historian, I can detect fudging. I can
detect where something is being omitted. When I exposed the Hitler diaries
as being a fake, it was on the basis of the fact that the magazine purported
to carry out tests on the ink but didn't, in fact, submit those tests to
us at the press conference. They fudged around their findings." (33-9420,
9421)
Pearson indicated that the tests themselves did not say anything; it was
the conclusions drawn from them that were important.
"I think that if historians are inclined to accept the eyewitness
or hearsay testimony of people who were present on a site, forty years
later, the testimony of the bricks and stones which can be collected from
the site and subjected to objective chemical analysis should very certainly
be relevant to a historian." (33-9421)
You're a historian, said Pearson. You agree with me that you do not have
the expertise to draw a conclusion from the absence of a chemical compound
on the wall of an installation? Irving disagreed: "Well, I'm afraid
there's only one conclusion possible. If, forty years later, this chemical
compound is absent from that wall and we are instructed by the scientific
expertise it should have been present if it ever was present, then it never
was present." (33-9422)
And whose scientific expertise are you talking about?, asked Pearson.
"Going by the expertise of the analytical chemists who were commissioned
to make this report...It was either stated in the analysis reports or in
the findings of the specialist who has prepared this report on the basis
of the evidence presented by DEGESCH, the manufacturers of the cyanide,
or on the basis of Dupont, who are the American manufacturers of an equivalent
chemical compound. But this chemical compound should still have been present
after that length of time." (33 9422, 9423)
Pearson suggested that the only person who had drawn that conclusion was
Leuchter, in his report.
"Very well, sir," said Irving. "This is if you were to ask
me, and I am sure you eventually will, if I find any flaws in this report,
this is the kind of flaw which I would have found in this report and which
I think could have been obviated if more money and time had been spent
on it...I'm not saying that the report is perfect. What I am saying is,
it is important. In fact, I think it is shattering in the significance
of its discovery." (33-9423)
If someone is going to draw a conclusion about the absence of a compound
on a wall, wouldn't you agree, asked Pearson, they should really know what
they're talking about?
"Or consult people who knew what they were talking about," said
Irving. "Yes, I would agree with you. But if I were to amplify my
opinion as to the - the expertise of this particular witness, I can think
of a no more suitable expert to go and examine the sites of purported gas
chambers in Poland than one of the few American experts on the construction
of gas chambers. And I think it's a stroke of genius on the part of the
defence that they should have thought of this and gone to the expense of
sending this particular expert with his team out to Poland to collect the
samples and bring them back and I think it portrays a certain weakness
of the supporters of the Holocaust historiography that they have not undertaken
this kind of analysis in the past." (33- 9424)
Irving testified that from his understanding from reading the report, Leuchter
was under contract and constructed gas chambers and been consulted by the
various American states on their construction. He continued that he could
be open to correction on this, and that Leuchter might merely have been
consulted as an expert by the various American states concerned. Said Irving:
"My conclusion as a historian is that on the basis of what is in front
of me, Mr. Leuchter was in a position to know what he was talking about
when he was investigating Auschwitz with the eye of a man familiar with
the design of gas chambers." (33-9424 to 9427)
Judge Ron Thomas interjected: "Well, I think I can shorten this. You
needn't ask any further questions. Do you have any submissions?,"
he asked Christie. (33-9427)
Christie said: "Yes, I would submit that it would be a remarkable
double standard if the Crown can introduce documents without authors for
them, without any proof of who wrote them in this case because they happen
to be filed in the National Archives...I would submit to you that this
witness has said that this evidence is important for historians, it's a
valuable piece of historical evidence. It meets the test of historical
evidence. The author of the report has been called and cross-examined in
front of the jury, unlike any of the other pieces of evidence that have
been tendered by the Crown through Mr. Browning, who didn't have any first-hand
knowledge of any of them, and for that reason it's my submission that the
witness should be allowed to tender that evidence and give his opinion
of the value of it in a historical context. I would also like to ask the
witness whether, to his knowledge, any physical examination of Auschwitz-
Birkenau or Majdanek have previously been published to determine if these
places have been used in the manner alleged [as] homicidal gas chambers."
(33-9427, 9428)
Judge Ron Thomas ruled: "You will be permitted to ask that question.
There will be no comment on the Leuchter Report. Send for the jury, please.
You can refer to the fact, and advise this witness, that Mr. Leuchter testified
here and that he had conducted this analysation (sic) and then find out
from this historian if anything like this had been done to his knowledge
before in the history of researching the Second World War." (33-9428)
Christie asked: "Can I ask him whether he considers such evidence
valuable?" (33 9429)
Thomas replied: "No." (33-9429)
[This ended the voir dire to determine the admissibility of the Leuchter
Report through the expert historian, David Irving. Thomas gave no reasons
for disallowing the admission of the Leuchter Report, which had met all
tests of valid historical evidence. The evidence which follows was given
in the presence of the jury.]
Mr. Irving, said Christie, we have had in this trial the testimony of a
Mr. Leuchter, indicating investigations of the physical sites and he was
a person who has certain expertise in execution technology using hydrogen
cyanide gas and certain chemical analysis was done pertaining to that report
in regard to the content of hydrogen cyanide in the walls of the alleged
gas chamber. To your knowledge, asked Christie, has any physical examination
of Auschwitz, Birkenau, Majdanek, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor or any of
the alleged extermination camps been previously published to determine
if these places could have been used in the manner alleged in the Holocaust
literature as homicidal gas chambers?
Irving replied: "No, sir. To the best of my knowledge, there has been
no kind of examination prior to this trial and to the evidence introduced
or the evidence mentioned in this trial of the so-called murder camps,
the extermination camps. No kind of teams of analytical chemists were sent
there to investigate the soil or the bricks of the chambers, no kind of
a determination was made as to the suitability of the doors or the levers
or the flanges or whether the walls had any kind of special sealing compound
applied to them to protect the passersby on the street outside. There had
been no kind of special determination made as to whether these buildings
could ever have effectively been used as homicidal gas chambers and it
wasn't until this trial that an attempt was made to carry out such an investigation."
This ended the examination-in-chief of Irving by defence attorney Douglas
Christie. Crown Attorney John Pearson rose to commence his cross-examination.
(33-9430, 9431)
Pearson referred first to the July 31, 1941 document from Goering to Heydrich
and Irving's testimony that Goering could never have read the document.
Said Irving: "He couldn't have had time to read it. It's quite evident
that Heydrich was only with him for a matter of minutes. Heydrich, in fact,
had the document prepared on a letterhead which Heydrich himself had typed.
It wasn't even typed on Hermann Goering's notepaper. It was typed on Heydrich's
notepaper. It was slipped in for Goering to sign and slipped out again."
Irving knew this "From the evidence contained in Goering's diary showing
how briefly Heydrich was with Goering." Heydrich was with Goering
"ten minutes." Irving pointed out that it was not the only document
signed that day. (33-9431, 9432)
How do you know it's not the only one he didn't read?, asked Pearson.
"Because Hermann Goering himself so testified under oath," replied
Irving. "Goering testified that he was unfamiliar with this document.
I have the entire series of Hermann Goering interrogations, when he was
interrogated before the trial began, the pretrial interrogations."
Are you telling us, asked Pearson, that Goering testified that he never
read that document?
"It was a surprise to him...To the best of my memory, he was shown
the document under pretrial interrogation and this was the first time he
recalled seeing it. The document itself is very harmless. It just talks
about giving - giving Heydrich, extending his powers for the overall solution
of the Jewish problem to the newly occupied-territories." Irving testified
that Goering did not deny signing it: "No, in fact, I have the copy
as signed by Hermann Goering with his signature." He agreed with Pearson
that Goering must have seen it when he signed it but he continued: "Do
you have any idea how many documents Hermann Goering would have signed
every day normally?...It made no impression on him at all...let me say
once again the document was shown to him in the course of a ten minute
interview between the chief of the Gestapo, Heydrich, and himself on a
rainy afternoon when Hermann Goering was hurrying to the station to pick
up his wife whom he hadn't seen for three months." Irving pointed
out there were certainly three documents signed by Hermann Goering that
day for Heydrich in the ten minute period. He agreed with Pearson that
Goering therefore had about three minutes per document. (33-9433 to 9435)
Wouldn't you agree, asked Pearson, that you are speculating when you say
he never read it?
"We have to try to interpret how much a man can do in ten minutes
when it's such an unimportant document as that." Irving pointed out
that the document in question was two paragraphs long.
How long do you think it takes to read?, asked Pearson.
"Two paragraphs, a piece of bureaucratic bumph, I'm afraid you're
not familiar with Hermann Goering's lifestyle," said Irving. "...he
had a very opulent kind of lifestyle. He wasn't really interested in the
minutiae of the bureaucratic life. He wasn't really interested in Reinhard
Heydrich, he wasn't really interested in the Jewish question. In July 1942,
he still is saying in a verbatim conference that the Führer has made
exceptions all the way down the bureaucratic level. He can't understand
why all this persecution of the Jews is going on...[t]he same with the
Nuremberg race laws. He couldn't understand how they had come into being."
(33-9436)
If the academic historians are right, suggested Pearson, that was indeed
a significant memo, wasn't it?
"Indeed. They clutch at straws."
What was Heydrich's position?, asked Pearson.
"Heydrich was the chief of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, which put
him in overall charge of the Gestapo and various other important SS police
executive agencies." Irving agreed that he held a senior position
in the Nazi hierarchy and that "Hitler at one time was considering
him as a successor." (33-9436, 9437)
Wasn't it right, asked Pearson, that Heydrich, being a senior person in
the hierarchy, was looking to Goering for approval to do something?
"For the reason that Hermann Goering was chief of the four year plan.
The head of the four year plan had very, very substantial economic influence
in Germany, responsibilities also which had been assigned to him under
the overall umbrella of the four year plan office. One of those responsibilities
which Hitler had given to Goering at the time of the Reichskristallnacht,
the night of broken glass in November 1938, was to oversee the final solution
of the Jewish problem. Hermann Goering in January 1939 put Reinhard Heydrich
in charge of the geographical resettlement of all Germany's Jews and Austria's
Jews and Reinhard Heydrich set up at that time a central office for the
relocation of the Jews and so it became Heydrich's penchant, drawing on
Hermann Goering's authorities which is why he then had to go back to Hermann
Goering in July 1941 to say, 'Look Hermann, we've now taken over all these
territories in the east and I need you to expand that authority to me so
I can carry on the job in the eastern territories', and that's what Hermann
understood was the meat of the document he was signing. In other words,
a piece of bureaucratic bumph, drawing the line a little bit further to
the east." (33-9438, 9439)
Said Pearson, I don't know, sounds pretty important to me. Bureaucratic
bumph?
"You're clutching at straws, the same as historians, if I may be so
rude," replied Irving.
You are the one, said Pearson, who told us that this was a significant
four year plan and the mandate of the senior official is being extended
by the second most powerful man in Nazi Germany?
Said Irving: "The four year plan was very important until March 1942
and it virtually vanished...Heydrich took it as a useful convenience that
he could put on his headed notepaper the fact that he was acting on behalf
of the head of the four year plan [in] carrying out these jobs. It was
a...short-circuiting [of] any kind of opposition that would come along
that Heydrich could [use] and indeed did. For example, when Heydrich called
the Wannsee Conference, he referred specifically to Hermann Goering's July
1941 document which says that the Reichsmarschall and head of the four
year plan has instructed me to carry out an investigation of how we're
going to carry out the final solution. I am therefore calling a meeting,
which was the famous Wannsee Conference. Heydrich would point to the Goering
document and [say] 'This is my authority, so don't start smart-talking
me.'" (33-9439, 9440)
Irving agreed that the document was very important to Heydrich and that
he used it. Pearson pointed out that Irving had nevertheless described
it as 'bureaucratic bumph'. Said Irving: "Yes. When...you ask me why
Hermann Goering himself would have paid little attention to what he was
signing, he would have viewed it as a piece of bureaucratic bumph...he
himself never again referred to it throughout the war years...We have seventy
volumes of verbatim records of Hermann Goering's wartime conferences so
we're pretty well informed about the way his mind was working. If people
take the trouble to read them. But they are in that strange language and
people don't take the time." (33-9440, 9441)
Pearson asked Irving whether he disputed the authenticity of the Wannsee
Conference protocols. Irving testified that he did not: "I have read
the entire file...incorporating the Wannsee Conference protocol and the
other versions of the protocol. There are two or three records of the same
meeting in various files." (33 9441)
You would agree, suggested Pearson, that at his trial in Jerusalem, Eichmann
indicated that that was an important stage in the final steps of the creation
of the 'final solution.' Irving interjected to point out that the trial
was "twenty years later" and then continued: "I think we
can agree that Adolf Eichmann at Jerusalem, when he was on trial, wasn't
exactly attending a historical seminar. He was under considerable physical
and mental coercion. Some of the things he said would have been true; others
of the things that he said would have been false; and I am not in a position
to determine which was which."
Are you now saying that the important thing is he was being coerced?, asked
Pearson.
"Yes...I am saying that given the wealth of other documentation that
we have, we should be able to dispense with looking at twenty year old
trials to try and find still further clues as to what happened."
Pearson pointed out that Irving looked at the testimony of other participants
at the conference as being significant.
"At the Nuremberg trials. This is true," said Irving. "The
trials held in 1945, 1946 and 1947, they were particularly...in '46 and
'47, the pretrial of Kritzinger and Lammers and the other...people who
had attended, ...Wilhelm Stuckart, who attended the Wannsee Conference,
were interrogated in great detail as to what they recollected." Irving
agreed he viewed their testimony as significant: "One year or less
after the end of the war, yes. I would consider that to be more acceptable
than what Eichmann would be saying twenty years after the war." (33-9442.
9443)
So, asked Pearson, the significance now isn't the coercion, it's the passage
of time, is it?
"There's an element," replied Irving. "There's an element
of passage of time; an element of coercion. If a man, despite coercion,
is saying things in a certain way, then it's more likely to be true than
if a man because of coercion twenty years later is saying things in a certain
way." (33- 9443)
Pearson asked if Irving agreed that if Eichmann attended and prepared the
minutes of a meeting which was integral to the plan to exterminate the
Jews of Europe, that the passage of twenty years was not going to make
him forget that? Irving pointed out that this was Pearson's interpretation
of the meeting. He continued: "I think that you have to realize the
Wannsee Conference is one of very many interministerial conferences that
were held during the war years on all sorts of different topics, stocks,
shipping, barges, economy, the fat supply, nitrogen, this kind of conference.
And to single out one conference and expect a man years later to recollect
what went on there when it's a matter which was as boring to most of them
as the solution of the Jewish problem - who is a Jew, who is a half-Jew,
what is a quarter-Jew, what do we do with people who have one Jewish grandparent
- this kind of thing, a lot of them will have had their minds elsewhere.
A lot of them did have their minds elsewhere."
Is it your position, asked Pearson, as a professional historian, that the
Wannsee Conference was not a conference to discuss the extermination of
the Jews of Europe?
"There is no explicit reference to extermination of the Jews of Europe
in the Wannsee Conference and more important, not in any of the other documents
in that file. We cannot take documents out of context...In my opinion,
it has been inflated to that importance by irresponsible historians who
probably haven't read the document," said Irving.
Pearson pointed out there was also the testimony of Eichmann.
"Twenty years later...I think we talked this morning a bit about Eichmann's
powers of recollection and the fact he himself got confused about what
he really recalled and what he had in the meantime been told. And this
is a human failing which unfortunately afflicts all of us, that our memories
get bad as we get older."
Forget about the minutes of the meeting and forget about the testimony,
said Pearson. Is it your opinion that the Wannsee Conference itself was
not a conference to discuss the extermination of Jews?
"That is my opinion." (33-9444 to 9446)
So, suggested Pearson, Eichmann made it up?
"I'm saying that Eichmann was wrong in giving contrary testimony,"
replied Irving, "but you would have to tell me precisely what Eichmann
said. I'm not prepared to take your word for what Eichmann said. I think
I have to know his precise words. I don't mean that offensively at all.
Even in paraphrasing we may oversimplify what somebody...had said."
Have you read the transcript of Eichmann's testimony?, asked Pearson.
"No, I haven't. I've read a few snatches of it like I mentioned this
morning."
Pearson suggested that this hindered Irving's ability to reach the conclusion
he had reached. Irving disagreed: "No. I think that when one has a
given life span, one can decide how one spends that life. You can spend
your life in a library reading all the books [on] Adolf Eichmann...and
write the X plus one book or spend your life in the archives and try to
write a truer book. If you do that, you don't have to read and why should
you bother with the trial records because where you are sitting is right
where the truth is, in the archives, and you haven't got the Israeli Ministry
of Justice putting itself between you and Adolf Eichmann." (33-9447)
Said Irving: "I don't consider that the testimony of Adolf Eichmann
at Jerusalem would have advanced...my knowledge of what happened at the
Wannsee Conference. It is twenty years after the war, which is five years
after the Wannsee Conference, four years after the Wannsee Conference,
and it would have polluted my knowledge rather than improved it."
Irving agreed that Eichmann was present at the Wannsee Conference but would
not swear that it was he who drafted the protocol: "To the best of
my knowledge there is no signature on it." (33-9448)
It's your opinion, suggested Pearson, it's of no value to read the words
of a participant in a conference to determine what the conference was about?
"Having read the fragments of Adolf Eichmann's testimony where he
says his memory is so shaken that he can no longer distinguish between
fiction and fact, he can no longer distinguish between what he really recollects
and what he is told he recollects, from that point on all the Adolf Eichmann
testimony becomes polluted, dangerous to read for a historian. It would
be really like watching a made-for-TV movie about Auschwitz. That would
not advance my knowledge," said Irving.
Pearson suggested again that Irving relied on the testimony of the other
participants at the conference when they were on trial and had a clear
interest in denying that it had anything to do with extermination.
"I accept that, yes...I accept your inference too, that they had a
reason to simulate, they had a reason to deceive...I read it with interest.
That doesn't mean to say I rely on it. You take note of it."
But you don't take note of Eichmann?, asked Pearson.
"No," said Irving. "Not in that account because of the particular
circumstances where Adolf Eichmann was being [heard]. Had Adolf Eichmann
been questioned in 1945 at very great length by American or British interrogators,
that would have been of substantially greater evidentiary value for a historian
than given the circumstances where he is being interrogated under the certain
knowledge that he's about to be executed." (33-9449, 9450)
April 25, 1988
Irving agreed that he had written about thirty books and researched for
more than ten years before writing Hitler's War and ten years before writing
Churchill's War. Hitler's War was first published in Germany in 1975. Said
Irving: "The German publishers, without so informing me, willfully
excluded and changed parts of the text. I then obliged them to withdraw
the book from publication overnight on publication day." Among other
things, the publishers had changed parts relating to Hitler's knowledge
of the extermination of the Jews. (34-9455, 9456)
Is it your evidence, asked Pearson, that they published that first run
without letting you see the final version they were going to publish?
"Most unusual," said Irving. "They did not let me see the
typescript of the German translation which I normally like to check myself.
They did not honour their promise to let me see the proofs. They did not
supply me with an advance copy of the book. I had to buy a copy of the
book myself in a book shop in Munich and I immediately sent a telegram
forbidding them to print any further editions or to sell any more copies."
The English language version of the book appeared in 1977. (34 9456)
Irving agreed that he commenced Hitler's War by saying that the ten years
that he had chosen to research Hitler were the best ten years to do so
because the archives opened up to researchers and the people who had been
involved with Hitler, especially his closest personnel, were still available.
(34-9457)
Irving wrote in his introduction to Hitler's War that "the most important
documents were provided by Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper..." Irving
testified that "Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper is a very well-known and
eminent professor of history, modern history. He was the regius professor
of Oxford in history...he is now the master of an important college at
Cambridge University...He is an academic historian who started initially
as a non-academic historian in British intelligence." Irving agreed
that he had "[not] the slightest" contempt for Trevor-Roper and
in fact had written that the historian's work The Last Days of Hitler was
a brilliant exception to most weak biographies of Hitler. Said Irving:
"This is why I singled him out for special commendation." He
owed Trevor-Roper a "very considerable debt." (34-9457 to 9459)
Irving also agreed that in his introduction to Hitler's War he had acknowledged
the debt he owed to Professor Raul Hilberg. Said Irving: "Indeed,
oh, yes. I corresponded with Professor Hilberg who I understand has given
evidence in a previous hearing." Irving testified he had "[not]
the slightest" contempt for Hilberg: "Again, he's one of the
few academic historians who has done his homework, if I can put it in that
shorthand form." (34-9459)
Would you agree, asked Pearson, that Hugh Trevor-Roper is probably the
foremost expert on the Nazi regime in Germany of any English historian?
"Except in one respect," said Irving. "He has very little
knowledge of the German language which is a substantial impediment. But
otherwise I agree with your statement." (34- 9459)
After Hitler's War, Irving moved on to Churchill, but kept his Hitler dossiers
open "as a matter of professional interest." His research into
Churchill relied more on archival documents than testimonials as many of
Churchill's associates had already died. (34-9460)
Pearson turned to the subject of the assassination of General Sikorski,
the Polish Prime Minister-in-exile during the war who died in a plane crash
in Gibraltar. Irving gave qualified agreement that his book on Sikorski
claimed that Churchill was responsible for his assassination. "I will
go along with that description. In fact, it was left more open than that
but the reader was invited to draw that conclusion," said Irving.
Did the law courts consider the proposition that Sikorski was assassinated
by Churchill?, asked Pearson.
"They did indeed...The lower courts, on the basis of a play written
by a completely different person, considered a libel action brought by
the sole survivor of the plane, a Czechoslovakian national. The libel action
was rather uniquely fought in as much as the defendant was a German living
in Switzerland who made no attempt to appear and on the basis of that kind
of court case, the court found, of course, for the plaintiff...to be perfectly
specific, of course, my book was not on trial. The pilot, the Czech, Prchal,
issued a libel writ against me as the author of the book, Accident: The
Death of General Sikorski, and he chose not to, which implies in my view,
he accepted that what I had written was not open to challenge in the English
lower courts. We would certainly have defended it had he issued a writ."
(34-9461, 9462)
Pearson produced a review of Hitler's War written by Hugh Trevor-Roper
which appeared on June 12, 1977 in the Sunday Times Weekly Review, with
which Irving was familiar:
It is well known that Mr. Irving, some years ago, convinced himself that
General Sikorski, who died in an air-crash at Gibraltar, had been "assassinated"
by Winston Churchill, to whom in fact his death was a political calamity.
Not a shred of evidence or probability has ever been produced for this
theory, and when it was tested in the courts, Mr. Irving's only "evidence"
(which was very indirect at best) was shown to be a clumsy misreading of
a manuscript diary. (I have myself seen the diary and feel justified in
using the word "clumsy"). And yet here is this stale and exploded
libel trotted out again, as if it were an accepted truth, in order to support
a questionable generalisation.
Did Hugh Trevor-Roper say that in his article, sir?, asked Pearson.
"He did indeed," agreed Irving, "but he is wrong in suggesting
that my theory was ever tested in the lower courts and you can have a look
at my book if you wish, Accident: The Death of General Sikorski, and you
will find no reference whatsoever in it to the diary which he mentions...The
newspaper then refused to publish a letter from me in reply. I pointed
out he was entitled to his opinions and he could put them to music and
have them played by the Mainstream Guards, but I deal in facts."
Didn't Sir Frank Roberts say that Churchill wept when he heard the news?,
asked Pearson.
"I have read that statement recently. It's a very recent statement
by the head of the Central Department of the Foreign Office in 1943. He
made that statement in the 1980s, forty years later to Winston Churchill's
authorized biographer and we can each of us attach whatever weight we choose
to that statement."
You choose not to accept it?, asked Pearson.
"Churchill wept freely and readily," said Irving. (34-9464, 9465)
Pearson turned to Hitler's War and read from the introduction:
The negative is traditionally always difficult to prove; but it seemed
well worth attempting to discredit accepted dogmas if only to expose the
"unseaworthiness" of many current legends about Hitler. The most
durable of these concerns the Führer's involvement in the extermination
of the Jews. My analysis of this controversial issue serves to highlight
two broad conclusions: that in wartime, dictatorships are fundamentally
weak - the dictator himself, however alert, is unable to oversee all the
functions of his executives acting within the confines of his far-flung
empire; and that in this particular case, the burden of guilt for the bloody
and mindless massacre of the Jews rests on a large number of Germans, many
of them alive today, and not just on one "mad dictator," whose
order had to be obeyed without question.
"I think that today, eleven years later, I still stand by what I published
on that date," said Irving. "...There were very large numbers
of massacres which can only be described as bloody and mindless of Jews
and other ethnic minorities in occupied Europe during the Second World
War."
I suggest, said Pearson, that the way you have written it - 'the Jews',
not 'some Jews' - that you're talking about race genocide.
"I think that readers who are picking up my book and looking at it
are very familiar with the fact there has long been an allegation about
a massacre or extermination of the Jews in the Second World War. The same
as we talk about the extermination or massacre of the Armenians. I think
it would - I really hope you have better material than this with which
to challenge me frankly. I've come a very long way. I don't really want
to spend a great deal of time debat[ing] one word, 'the'." (34-9466,
9467)
Pearson continued reading:
I had approached the massacre of the Jews from the traditional viewpoint
prevailing in the mid- 1960s. "Supposing Hitler was a capable statesman
and a gifted commander," the argument ran, "how does one explain
his murder of six million Jews?" If this book were simply a history
of the rise and fall of Hitler's Reich, it would be legitimate to conclude:
"Hitler killed the Jews." He after all created the atmosphere
of hatred with his anti-Semitic speeches in the 1930s; he and Himmler created
the SS; he built the concentration camps; his speeches, though never explicit,
left the clear impression that "liquidate" was what he meant.
For a full length war biography of Hitler, I felt that a more analytical
approach to the key questions of initiative, complicity, and execution
would be necessary.
Pearson suggested that in that passage Irving was saying that if one was
looking at Hitler's Reich and not just at Hitler, it would be legitimate
to conclude that Hitler killed the Jews. Irving replied that Hitler "had
a constitutional responsibility as head of state." (34-9467, 9468)
What was the significance of the statement that Hitler and Himmler created
the SS?, asked Pearson.
"Back in the 1930s, back in the 1920s in fact," said Irving,
"the SS was created as an elite bodyguard for Hitler and out of which
emerged the various branches of the SS, including the Waffen SS, which
was the biggest branch of all, and the sentence means what it says. They
both jointly created the SS." (34-9468)
Pearson suggested that in effect, Irving was saying Hitler was responsible
for creating the organ that massacred the Jews. Irving disagreed: "I
don't think I say that the SS is the organ that massacred the Jews. I'm
just saying what, in fact, I printed there. I chose those words very carefully
in writing the introduction." (34-9468)
Pearson continued reading:
For a full-length war biography of Hitler, I felt that a more analytical
approach to the key questions of initiative, complicity, and execution
would be necessary. Remarkably, I found that Hitler's own role in the "Final
Solution of the Jewish Problem" has never been examined.
What did you mean by the "final solution of the Jewish problem"?,
asked Pearson.
"Well, earlier in that paragraph, I have talked about the argument,
the public perception of what had happened and I have clearly put that
sentence in quotation marks; what the public calls the 'final solution
of the Jewish problem'...We are going to examine in the book what the 'final
solution' was, but I am already advancing here, I am alerting the reader
to the fact that in this book he's going to find data on this controversy."
Wasn't the "final solution" the term generally accepted as being
the term used for the racial genocide of the Jews?, asked Pearson.
"On Friday I quoted you from memory a spring 1942 document in which
Hitler is quoted by the chief of his Reich Chancellery as saying 'the Führer
wants the solution of the Jewish problem postponed until after the war
is over'. Now, you can't have it both ways. That document is a genuine
document." (34-9469)
Pearson suggested that in his introduction, Irving was telling the reader
that he was going to prove that Hitler did not have personal knowledge
of the extermination of the Jews. Irving agreed: "I am." He continued:
"What I am more specifically saying in there is what I actually write,
that Hitler, his role and whatever the 'final solution of the Jewish problem'
was, whatever that was, is going to be analysed in this book."
Where are the words 'whatever that was', asked Pearson.
"It's not necessary," replied Irving. "What I am saying
is that if I was writing a history of the Third Reich I would analyse it,
but I'm not. I'm writing a biography of Hitler. It's already a thousand
pages long. If I'm going to write an analysis of the Holocaust, the book
would be 2,000 pages long."
Are you saying, asked Pearson, that you wrote a book to prove that Hitler
wasn't responsible for something that never happened? Irving replied that
he did not set out to write a book to prove anything: "I set out to
write a biography of Hitler based on the documents as accurately as I could
find them...having written the book, I wrote the introduction and not the
other way around." (34-9470)
And the conclusion, suggested Pearson, was that Hitler was not responsible
for something that never happened?
Said Irving: "I don't say that Hitler wasn't responsible. I am very
clear there that he had a constitutional responsibility. But certainly
it is questionable whether he ever knew that the 'final solution' was going
on, whatever the 'final solution' was." (34 9471)
Pearson continued reading:
For thirty years, our knowledge of Hitler's part in the atrocity has rested
on inter historian incest.
What atrocity are you talking about?, asked Pearson.
"There is no other way to describe what happened," said Irving.
"Thousands of civilians being lined up on the side of pits and being
machine-gunned to the pits after being robbed of their personal possessions.
This kind of thing can only be described as an atrocity whether it happens
in Germany, Yugoslavia or Vietnam." (34-9472)
Pearson continued reading:
Many people, particularly in Germany and Austria, had an interest in propagating
the accepted version that the order of one madman originated the entire
massacre. Precisely when the order was given and in what form has, admittedly,
never been established. In 1939? - but the secret extermination camps did
not begin operating until December 1941.
Order for the what?, asked Pearson.
"The order for the atrocities. We are talking about the order that
these people imagine exist so there was one central order." (34-9472)
Aren't you suggesting there, asked Pearson, that secret extermination camps
did not begin operating until December 1941?
"I think I have to say here that this sentence falls into the category
of sentences that I would not repeat in 1988," said Irving. "At
the time I wrote that in the 1960s, 1974 thereabouts when I wrote...that
introduction, I believed. I believed everything I had heard about the extermination
camps. I wasn't investigating the extermination camps. I was investigating
Hitler." (34-9472, 9473)
But you told us you did ten years of extensive research on the National
Socialist regime, said Pearson, and you had no problem making that statement,
did you?
"Because I believed," said Irving. He continued: "I believed
what I had read up [to] that point. I hadn't gone to the sites of Auschwitz
and Treblinka and Majdanek and brought back samples and carried out an
analysis. I hadn't done any research into what is called the 'Holocaust'.
I researched Hitler and his staff." Irving testified that he had not
done such research in the meantime: "I have carried out no investigation...in
equivalent depth of the Holocaust." (34- 9473)
But your mind changed?, asked Pearson, You no longer believe it?
"My mind has now changed," said Irving. "I have now begun
to challenge that. I understand it is now a subject open to debate...My
belief has now changed because I understand that the whole of the Holocaust
mythology is, after all, open to doubt and certainly in the course of what
I have read in the last few days, in fact, in this trial, I am now becoming
more and more hardened in this view." (34-9474)
Said Irving: "One sees the sentence, the line of that page, 'the secret
extermination camps did not begin operating until...'. Then I wrote that
on the basis of what all the other eminent academic historians had been
saying, that there were such extermination camps. I believed." (34-
9474)
Pearson returned to Hitler's War and continued reading:
...but the incontrovertible evidence is that Hitler ordered on November
30, 1941, that there was to be "no liquidation" of the Jews (without
much difficulty, I found in Himmler's private files his own handwritten
note on this).
Would you agree, asked Pearson, that this November 30, 1941 order is the
lynch-pin of your whole argument in Hitler's War?
"No, sir. I am aware of the newspapers hav[ing] tried to make out
that was the lynch pin. In fact, that is one minor item in a series of
about ten documents beginning in 1923, 1924 and going right through until
1944. The only documents specifically linking Hitler with what was happening
to the Jews, and in each Hitler is putting out his hand to stop it happening.
This is just one of those items and I have to say there preemptively that
the word 'the' in front of Jews is wrong. It is one specific transport
of Jews from Berlin going to the eastern front going to Riga, who were,
in fact, at that time, November the 30th, 1941, already dead by some hours.
This was one of the specific atrocities." (34-9475, 9476)
Pearson suggested that the academic historians had indicated that Irving
had tried to extrapolate from a single order, relating to one shipment
of Jews, a profound conclusion with respect to Hitler's role.
"They couldn't - they can't establish that. What they have overlooked
is that is just one document that is referred to in a book of a thousand
pages containing very many similar documents. Obviously, I particularly
enjoyed drawing their attention to that document because it gave me the
chance of pointing out that all these world famous academic historians
had not even bothered to transcribe Himmler's own handwritten notes of
his telephone conversations. This is [why] I referred to it in the introduction."
Don't they suggest that they didn't consider it that significant?, asked
Pearson.
"I wouldn't think any of them have had the cheek or the gall or effrontery
to suggest that Himmler's own handwritten notes on a matter like this would
not be significant," replied Irving. He continued: "It is very
significant. It is one of a series of documents showing Hitler intervening
to try and stop mindless subordinates carrying out atrocities. There was
another identical handwritten note by Himmler on April the 20th, 1942,
reading in English: 'no annihilation of the gypsies'. Himmler has just
been to see Hitler on that day, it was Hitler's birthday, and Himmler came
out and had to telephone Heydrich, the chief of the Reich Security Office,
with the instruction that there was to be no annihilation of the gypsies.
But you don't see this kind of thing referred to...in the history books
because they can't make it fit. They pretend that these documents don't
exist." (34-9476, 9477)
Why would Hitler have to give those orders, asked Pearson, if there was
no annihilation of the gypsies and, as you now claim, no liquidation of
the Jews?
"I haven't said there was no annihilation of the Jews," said
Irving. "I specifically said this morning and on Friday that there
were a number of massacres and atrocities. I refer to them here as being
'mindless' in the introduction. I am not denying that there were these
ghastly episodes and I think that what happened on this occasion, if I
am allowed to have an opinion, Himmler went to see Hitler on November the
30th, 1941, in fact his handwritten notes begin with the words 'from the
train'. He makes a number of telephone calls from his train. Then the next
telephone call is from the bunker at the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's headquarters,
1:30 p.m., November the 30th, 1941. Himmler comes out of the bunker and
telephones Heydrich and he says, 'Transport of Jews from Berlin. No liquidation.'
I think Himmler has gone to see Hitler and said 'Mein Führer, why
don't we just get rid of them?' and Hitler says, Kommt nicht in Frage -
out of the question." (34-9477, 9478)
He continued: "There were approximately, to the best of my knowledge,
between five and 10,000 Jews from the Berlin area who had been loaded onto
a train and shipped out to Riga and at the time of that telephone conversation,
they had already been killed three or four hours earlier...I can repeat
from memory most of what is in the note. The first item is the arrest of
Dr. Jekelius; the next item after appeared is apparently son of Molotov;
then there's another period and then it says transport of Jews from Berlin;
and then there's another period and then it says no liquidation and then
there's another period." Irving testified that to the best of his
knowledge both Himmler, who was chief of the SS, and Heydrich had knowledge
of this massacre. (34-9478, 9479)
Would you agree, asked Pearson, that Himmler had the authority to engage
the machinery of the state vis-a-vis the SS?
"I discussed this with Himmler's brother...Gebhard Himmler, many years
ago, and he said to me 'I cannot believe that Heini would have done this
without Hitler's authority'. Himmler certainly had the authority to set
the wheels in motion himself and in the famous speeches at Posen in October
1943, he actually uses the words, 'I therefore took the decision that the
women and children were to be killed as well'. So this strongly implies
that he had the authority."
Pearson suggested that, with respect to the bloody and mindless massacre
of the Jews, Himmler was implementing policy. Irving disagreed: "I
think that it is such an important matter that it's very difficult to try
and bridge that gap without some evidentiary basis...When you're trying
to suggest there was a policy which is what I would contest, I don't think
there was any overall Reich policy to kill the Jews. If there was, they
would have been killed and there would not be now so many millions of survivors.
And believe me, I am glad for every survivor that there was."
Do you know how many survivors there are?, asked Pearson.
"I don't dabble in statistics," replied Irving. (34-9479, 9480)
Pearson continued reading from Hitler's War:
My own hypothesis, to which I point in the various chapters in which I
deal in chronological sequence with the unfolding persecution and liquidation
of the European Jews, is this: the killing was partly of an ad hoc nature,
what the Germans called a Verlegenheitslösung - the way out of an
awkward dilemma, chosen by the middle-level authorities in the eastern
territories overrun by the Nazis - and partly a cynical extrapolation by
the central SS authorities of Hitler's anti-Semitic decrees. Hitler had
unquestionably decreed that Europe's Jews were to be "swept back"
to the east; I describe the various phase-lines established by this doctrine.
But the SS authorities, Gauleiters, and regional commissars and governors
in "the east" proved wholly unequal to the problems caused by
this mass uprooting in midwar. The Jews were brought by the trainload to
ghettos already overcrowded and underprovisioned. Partly in collusion with
each other, partly independently, the Nazi agencies there simply liquidated
the deportees as their trains arrived, on a scale increasingly more methodical
and more regimented as the months passed.
Do you repudiate those statements, sir?, asked Pearson.
"I think [in] the first part of the paragraph there is not a line
I would change," said Irving. "The last lines of the paragraph
I think I would rubber stamp over the top of that 'at that time I believed'.
At that time I believed there had been an increasingly more methodical
liquidation. This is something which I am now increasingly inclined to
challenge because over the intervening ten years, I still haven't seen
any evidence that there was."
Have you engaged in any research on that question?, asked Pearson.
"I have engaged in a lot of research in the German archives not on
that question. When you go through the German archives trolling for subjects
about what you are writing about, you are going to notice if you come across
blueprints or things referring to gas chambers or the methodical and systematic
liquidation. Believe me, I wouldn't have concealed it if I had...I have
continued writing books since then. I've worked consistently in the German
archives. My relations with the world's historians are still of the very
best. I have offered substantial cash rewards for documents that would
prove me wrong because I have no vested interest. I have no axe to grind.
If somebody came forward with a document proving that I am wrong on this,
then I would accept that I am wrong and I would regard it as a battle lost
and it's not the way - it's not the result, it's the way you play the game,
even in writing history, and I would have said to myself I've had a good
run for my money but they've found the document." (34-9481, 9482)
Have you offered a reward for anybody who can produce to you a document
signed, for instance, by Himmler?, asked Pearson.
"No. What I have offered is far simpler. I have said I will pay a
thousand pounds in cash to any historian or private person, anybody, who
can find one single wartime document showing that Adolf Hitler knew what
was going on - the 'Holocaust', whatever it was. They can't even do that."
Pearson accused Irving of being an apologist for Hitler by saying Hitler
was not the one that was responsible.
"You want to call me an apologist for Hitler so the newspapers will
use this tomorrow, no doubt."
What is meant by an apologist, sir?, asked Pearson.
"An apologist? I think the word is quite frank. It's a person that
goes around making apologies for himself like the German people at present...If
you have read the rest of the introduction - I am quite prepared to do
so; I have the time - I will draw your attention to every single one of
Hitler's crimes which I have set out in the introduction and drawn the
reader's attention to the pages of this book where they will find Hitler's
other crimes set out in more detail than in any other Hitler biography."
(34-9483, 9484)
Irving agreed with Pearson that he said in his introduction that the greatest
crime alleged against Hitler was the extermination of the Jews. He did
not agree that he concluded Hitler wasn't responsible for it: "I deny
that I say he wasn't responsible. I think I said earlier today that he
had a constitutional responsibility as head of state but as his biographer,
it is not without interest to me if he knew about it or not, whatever it
was that was happening. It then draws the conclusion he must have been
a very weak Führer of Germany if he didn't know everything that was
going on on this scale." (34-9484, 9485)
Pearson continued reading from page xiv of the introduction to Hitler's
War:
A subsidiary motive in the atrocity was the animal desire of the murderers
to loot and plunder the Jewish victims and conceal their traces. (This
hypothesis does not include the methodical liquidation of Russian Jews
during the "Barbarossa" invasion of 1941, which came under a
different Nazi heading - preemptive guerrilla warfare; and there is no
indication that Hitler expressed any compunctions about it.)
Irving agreed that this passage was a reference to the activities of the
Einsatzgruppen in Russia: "This is true...it makes me a strange apologist
for Hitler when I put in a sentence like that. I think he would like for
a better apologist for himself in future. I have drawn attention to the
fact that in the post-invasion operations of Russia, he had specifically
provided for police executive [SS] units to sweep in behind, mopping up
anybody - I think one document says anybody who looked crookedly over his
shoulder at us. He rounded up everybody who was likely to be partisan material
and in this category the Jews figured very strongly...these Jews were not
sent to Auschwitz or Majdanek or Treblinka; they were liquidated in the
battlefield so-to-speak, by these SS and police units. It's an entirely
different kettle of fish from what we now commonly regard as the 'Holocaust'."
(34-9485, 9486)
You don't really mean in the battlefield, do you?, asked Pearson.
"In the rear battlefield areas," said Irving. "They weren't
taken by train across Europe fifteen hundred miles to camps like Auschwitz
and Majdanek and Treblinka and subjected to what we now have been told
the Holocaust was. This is why I put that in a different paragraph. This
is police units going along behind the lines, rounding up people, deporting
them and liquidating them if they fell within the suspect persons categories
and I - this is why I used the word 'atrocities.' It was an atrocity."
(34-9486)
You don't deny that women and children were liquidated by the Einsatzgruppen,
do you?, asked Pearson.
"On Friday I gave two specific instances where people whom I interviewed
myself had seen this with their own eyes...This is referred to by Heinrich
Himmler in the Posen speech. He said we weren't able to leave the women
and children to survive. It was an atrocity. No other way of describing
it."
And it had nothing to do with suspect categories, did it, asked Pearson,
it was racial genocide once again?
"I can't say what was going on in the mind of those who pulled the
triggers. They may very well have been motivated by racial motives."
Weren't they responding to orders they received?, asked Pearson.
"Undoubtedly, the people who were taking part in the execution squads
had received orders to take part in them...I think that indirectly they
[the orders] led up to Himmler," said Irving. (34-9487)
Didn't they actually go to Hitler?, asked Pearson.
"Once again if you can find that piece of paper, then you're going
to be a rich man," said Irving. "You would then collect the reward,
but everyone's been trying for twenty or thirty years. They haven't succeeded
to find that kind of evidence."
In your book, asked Pearson, you cite a memo from Himmler to Hitler in
which 300,000 Jews are referred to as being exterminated?
"I'm familiar with this," said Irving. "It's the report
number 53 or 54 in October 1942. It is a very remarkable report."
He continued: "It's a document that raises my eyebrows. It's a document
I am unhappy about because it - it is so - it's a rare document. It pokes
out above the clouds of the other archives like Mount Kilimanjaro. You
wonder what it's doing there. If you work in the archives, you're familiar
with documents and you're familiar with statistics and tables and suddenly
you come across this document which is the only one of its kind containing
this kind of statistics. It's a monthly report or a weekly report. The
other weekly reports don't have that category or that kind of figure in
it. I am not challenging its authenticity; I'm just saying [it's] the kind
of document I am unhappy about. I am unhappy about it because it is such
an unusual, isolated document." (34-9488, 9489)
Irving testified that he referred to the document in his book: "I
would be dishonest if I didn't refer to it." He agreed that he did
not question its authenticity in the book, but added: "If you look
in the footnote to which I refer to this document, I do a very kind of
mild glance at the document in which I draw the reader's attention to the
colossal number of Jews who apparently have been killed on that week, 300,000,
and the very small number of hand guns and other items that have been picked
up in the same operations. This [is the] kind of thing which makes me suspect
that perhaps - perhaps - we shouldn't believe this one document is all
that it purports to be. I would be dishonest if I had ignored the document;
it would be equally dishonest to try and build an entire federal case on
it. I'm sure you're not trying to do that." (34-9489)
The overall heading in the document was 'people killed as partisans': "They
are not killed as Jews. There is a category of partisans who have been
liquidated in that period allegedly and one of the sub-headings is suddenly
this colossal figure of Jews."
And you don't accept that document as evidence of Hitler being informed
that the Jews are being centred out for extermination?
"I think that you're looking at the wrong paragraph of this book,"
said Irving. "We're talking in this paragraph about the Russian Jews
being rounded up and liquidated as partisans and counter-partisan warfare.
We're not looking at - at what we generally understand as the 'Holocaust';
that is, Jews being rounded up, put in trains in Amsterdam and Paris and
put in trains and shipped to Auschwitz where they're gassed. This is two
completely different operations we're looking at." (34 9490, 9491)
Do you deny that Hilberg sees the Einsatzgruppen as a prelude of what he
calls the 'Holocaust'?, asked Pearson.
"On Friday, I said I consider every historian is entitled to his opinion.
It would be a sad day if they weren't," said Irving. In his opinion,
the activities of the Einsatzgruppen were not "part of an overall
German state policy of exterminating Jews...because there is no documentary
evidence to support the...contention." He pointed out to Pearson that
the title of the document indicated it was a report on partisan warfare.
(34-9492)
Pearson continued reading from Irving's introduction to Hitler's War at
page xiv:
We shall see how in October 1943, even as Himmler was disclosing to audiences
of SS generals and Gauleiters that Europe's Jews had virtually been exterminated,
Hitler was still forbidding liquidations...
Irving agreed that the statement "Europe's Jews had virtually been
exterminated" was based on something he had read: "That's correct.
That comes under the category of 'at that time I believed'."
But isn't that your interpretation of what Himmler said?, asked Pearson.
"It's my interpretation based on what the perception of the world's
historians up to 1977 was of the 'Holocaust'."
Irving had read Himmler's speeches in great detail. "Now, when we
read them again we see that Himmler is admitting quite frankly that the
German SS troops had been liquidating Jewish men and also Jewish women
and children, which he then tries to justify in the eyes of his generals
and in the eyes of the party Gauleiters. But this of course falls far short
of what I say in that sentence that 'Europe's Jews had been virtually exterminated'."
Since writing that sentence, he had studied Himmler's speeches again. "I
have repeatedly because I have repeatedly been involved in historians asking
to see my file of material on the High Command level decisions and the
Holocaust."
So, after reading them in detail, said Pearson, preparing to write your
book, you reach this conclusion but now you've changed your mind. Is that
what you're saying?
"That is correct," said Irving. "I certainly wouldn't write
that again." (34-9493, 9494)
Judge Ron Thomas interjected and asked when Irving had changed his mind.
"As I became aware that the whole of the Holocaust was coming under
scrutiny and that the historians of the world were not able to put up a
defence," replied Irving. This occurred between 1977 and the present
day.
Was it at the 1983 convention of the Institute for Historical Review?,
asked Pearson.
"I have made many speeches since then. I have attended many conventions.
I can't be specific about where I formed any particular opinions. Obviously,
this particular change of mind, and historians do change their minds over
the years as they acquire better and further particulars, occurred gradually
over the intervening ten years." (34-9495)
Pearson continued reading:
Wholly in keeping with his character, when Hitler was confronted with the
facts - either then or, as Kaltenbrunner later claimed, in October 1944
- he took no action to rebuke the guilty. His failure or inability to act
in effect kept the extermination machinery going until the end of the war.
What facts was Hitler confronted with?, asked Pearson.
"There was an investigation of specific atrocities in SS and other
concentration camps in 1944," replied Irving. "The investigation
was carried out by Konrad Morgen with whom I corresponded. My attention
was drawn to this investigation by what Kaltenbrunner, the chief of the
Gestapo, said under interrogation. Kaltenbrunner claimed that when Morgen
made these reports to him about atrocities that he had found in concentration
camps, he, Kaltenbrunner, had gone to see Hitler who ordered that these
atrocities had to stop." Morgen was referring to Auschwitz and Treblinka.
(34-9496, 9497)
Did Irving now repudiate the last sentence?, asked Pearson.
"Of course, again it makes me look a very odd apologist for Hitler
that I write things like that. His 'failure or inability to act' on several
occasions - he failed to act after the Reichskristallnacht in November,
1938. He took no steps to punish those who were guilty of those atrocities
against the Jews. The 'extermination machinery' - I don't now believe there
was anything that you could describe as 'extermination machinery' other
than the very disorganized ad hoc efforts of the criminals and murderers
among the SS who were carrying out the liquidations that we described earlier...I
would say now 'his failure or inability...in effect, kept the atrocities
possible until the end of the war'."
Pearson suggested that Irving would not even blame Hitler for failing his
constitutional duty with respect to official policy. Irving disagreed:
"I didn't say that. I think it was very culpable on his part. He was
so busy fighting the war, defending Europe against the Soviet invasion,
that he paid very little attention to what the gangsters, Himmler, Bormann,
were carrying on inside occupied Europe at that time." (34-9497, 9498)
Irving agreed that Himmler and Bormann, in the hierarchy of the Nazi regime,
were "right outside Hitler's door." He agreed that in his book
he stated that Hitler often gave his orders to them in non-written form.
He also agreed that both men were very interested in seeing to it that
Hitler's wishes were realized. Irving continued: "That is where they
[the orders] became paper. Himmler and Bormann wrote 'On the basis of the
Führer's order, this is what we have done', and that is what is lacking
in this case." (34-9499)
Pearson continued reading from Hitler's War, page 12 in the first chapter,
dealing with a speech by Hitler:
...[Hitler] reminded his Party faithfuls of that unique 1939 "prophesy",
adding with ominous ambiguity: "As a prophet they always laughed at
me. But of those who laughed loudest then, countless laugh no longer today.
Nor are those who are still laughing even now likely to laugh when the
time comes...".
While Hitler's overall anti-Jewish policy was clearly and repeatedly enunciated,
it is harder to establish a documentary link between him and the murderous
activities of the SS "task forces" (Einsatzgruppen) and their
extermination camps in the east.
You repudiate that statement, sir?, asked Pearson.
"I would not use the words 'their extermination camps'," said
Irving. "I think probably there was one camp that could be described
as an extermination camp at that time, 1939, 1940, and that was at Chelmno...This
was operating on a very small scale and the people responsible, I believe,
were subsequently penalized for it." (34 9500)
Pearson continued reading from page 12 and 53:
For the pogroms that now began, Himmler and Heydrich provided the initiative
and drive themselves, using arguments of Reich security. Hitler's only
order to the Reichsführer SS Himmler in this context was one for the
general consolidation of the German racial position; there is no evidence
that Hitler gave him any more specific instructions than this, nor did
Himmler ever claim so. When army generals became restless about deeds being
enacted by the SS in Poland, Himmler reassured them in a secret speech
at Koblenz in March 1940, of which his handwritten notes survive - though
they are infuriatingly cryptic in parts...
In the east, meanwhile, the "devil's work" was well in hand.
Gruesome reports of massacre and persecution began to filter up through
army channels. Not all of them reached Hitler, since Brauchitsch had in
September tacitly agreed that Heydrich should have free rein for his special
tasks...
What do you mean by "devil's work"?, asked Pearson.
Irving replied: "Um, the SS units under the command of General von
Woyrsch...had begun rounding up opposition elements including Jews, the
clergy and Polish intellectuals and they were being ruthlessly massacred."
This was also the meaning of "special tasks."(34-9501, 9502)
Pearson continued reading:
...for Brauchitsch to have protested now would have been hypocritical,
and besides, his row with Hitler on November 5 had made him reluctant to
set foot in the Chancellery again. But consciences had to be salved and
the reports were dutifully shuttled about between the adjutants. Thus,
soon after the Munich plot, Captain Engel received from Brauchitsch's adjutant
a grisly set of eye-witness accounts of executions by the SS at Schwetz.
An outspoken medical officer addressed to Hitler in person a report summarizing
the eye-witness evidence of three of his men:
Together with about 150 fellow soldiers they witnessed the summary execution
of about 20 or 30 Poles at the Jewish cemetery at Schwetz at about 9:30
A.M. on Sunday, October 8. The execution was carried out by a detachment
consisting of an SS man, two men in old blue police uniforms, and a man
in plain clothes. An SS major was in command. Among those executed were
also 5 or 6 children aged from two to eight years old.
Whether Engel showed this document and its attached eye-witness accounts
to Hitler is uncertain.
Would you agree, asked Pearson, that an SS Major here is reported to have
conducted a massacre that was against non-combatants?
"Oh, indeed," said Irving, "and I would like to draw attention
to the quality of the documentary evidence which does exist relating to
smaller crimes. Dealing here with twenty or thirty Poles who are being
massacred, a small atrocity. Why do we not have documents on the huge crimes
of equivalent evidentiary value?" (34-9503)
Pearson continued reading:
If Hitler still regretted having kindled this holocaust, it was not because
of the horrors that were beginning to spread like a medieval plague across
eastern Europe: they were inevitable byproducts of his program, and he
was more concerned to justify them inwardly than to prevent them. What
unsettled him was the unscheduled delay the war would inflict on his grand
plans for the reconstruction of Germany.
What "holocaust" are you talking about?, asked Pearson.
"It's quite remarkable that long before the word 'Holocaust' became
trademarked in the way it now has - with a capital H - I use that word
there. This is because I was using it in the medieval sense of the word
holocaust, the original Greek origins of the word. It's nothing to do with
what is now referred to as the capital H trademark." (34-9503)
Pearson suggested that Irving was not referring to isolated incidences
in the passage, but to something that was spreading like a medieval plague.
Said Irving: "I think war produces barbarism and as the barbarisation
of the war progresses, then the violence and atrocities conducted by both
sides increase in scale."
Pearson turned to the subject of the Madagascar project and asked Irving
whether the plan did not go ahead because of French refusal to go along
with it.
"From my reading of the documents at Hitler's level, the reason that
the plan could not go ahead was because the conditions of war made it impossible
to ship large numbers of any kind of population across the dangerous high
seas...I think it was a question of unnecessary movements of civilian populations
across seas that were infested by U-boats of either side." (34-9504)
It had nothing to do with the position of the French?, asked Pearson.
"This is a novelty, I have to admit," said Irving. "I had
never heard before that Hitler had paid very much respect to the wishes
of the French government in 1940."
Pearson continued reading from page 270 of Hitler's War:
But for the duration of the war the Madagascar plan was out. Hans Frank's
Generalgouvernement of Poland would have to accommodate Europe's displaced
Jews for the time being. On October 2, 1940, Hitler had discussed this
with Frank and Baldur von Schirach, Gauleiter of Vienna. Schirach pointed
out that his fifty thousand Viennese Jews were the first due for deportation.
Frank reported that Warsaw and other Polish cities had concentrated their
Jews in restricted areas - "ghettos" - and complained that he
had no accommodation available for a fresh influx of Jews. But Hitler had
dreamed of ridding Europe of the "Jewish plague" since 1921,
if not earlier, and he had strong popular support for his program in the
Reich.
You don't contest that huge numbers of Jews were displaced?, asked Pearson.
"At this time," said Irving, "we're talking about relatively
small numbers because at this time all that Hitler had physically occupied
was Poland, part of Czechoslovakia, France, the low countries and Norway.
We're not looking at the very large populations of Jews in eastern Europe.
But he has certainly by this time begun to issue the orders for the deportation,
the relocation, the resettlement of Europe's Jews in the east instead of
in Madagascar." (34-9505)
Would you agree, asked Pearson, that Hitler's blueprint for the Jews is
evident as early as Mein Kampf? Irving disagreed: "I think you have
to be very careful before using Mein Kampf as a source of Hitler's thinking.
It was written in 1924 in prison in Landsberg partly by him, partly by
Rudolf Hess. It's very difficult to disentangle which man wrote what. [Of]
far more value is what is known to historians as Hitler's [Secret] Book
which was never published until after his death, and that really was Hitler's
original thinking." (34-9506)
You wouldn't deny that Hitler was virulently anti-Semitic?, asked Pearson.
"A strange character," Irving replied. "He was virulently
anti-Semitic; he was seen from the documents I referred to earlier the
only person in real authority who repeatedly put out his hand to protect
ugly things happening to them in specific instances."
Pearson continued reading from Hitler's War:
Thus Hitler overrode Hans Frank's practical objections to using the Generalgouvernement
as a dumping ground. The problem with the Madagascar plan in wartime was,
he told Martin Bormann, how to transport the Jews that far. "I would
dearly like to devote my entire fleet of...ocean liners to it, but in wartime
that's not so easy. I don't want my German crews being sunk by enemy torpedoes."
In private - to Keitel, Bormann and Speer - Hitler described it as his
eventual ambition to eliminate all Jewish influence throughout the Axis
domains.
Irving testified that he agreed with this passage: "I'm not sure it
does your case any good because this is clear proof that Hitler had no
intention, if he did have, of liquidating the Jews. He wants to ship them
overseas which is a very poor way of liquidating them." (34-9507)
Irving agreed that Hitler wasn't able to ship them overseas: "The
war was continuing unexpectedly...Mr. Churchill's war was continuing from
June 1940 onwards and so another solution had to be found. They were shipped
to the east instead." (34-9508)
Pearson continued reading:
As "Operation Barbarossa" approached, it occurred to Hitler that
the new eastern empire would enable him to humour Hans Frank's loud objections
to the dumping of Jews on his Generalgouvernement territory and Himmler's
growing influence there. Three days after the Wehrmacht attacked Russia,
Hitler announced this explicitly to Frank; and the latter accordingly briefed
his staff that no fresh ghettoes were to be established, "since the
Führer expressly stated to me on June 19 that in due course the Jews
will be removed from the Generalgouvernement - and that the Generalgouvernement
is to be, so to speak, only a transit camp". Seven months later, the
Madagascar plan died a natural death. A foreign ministry official would
then write: "The war against the Soviet Union has meanwhile made it
possible to provide other territories for the final solution. Accordingly,
the Führer has decided that the Jews are not to be deported to Madagascar,
but to the east".
What exactly did Hitler mean by "east" of the Generalgouvernement?
On the twentieth, Rosenberg had revealed to Canaris, Heydrich, and a host
of other Party and Wehrmacht leaders that White Ruthenia - the area around
Minsk - was to be set aside for "undesirables" and antisocial
elements from Germany's dominions. Was this to be the new Israel, or did
Hitler now use "east" just as a vague generic term, whose more
precise definition would be: perdition, oblivion, extermination? The documents
at our disposal do not help us.
Irving interjected, stating: "A small tingle of pride overcomes me
when I read those words because I got it so right, I think, on the basis
of the documents then available." (34-9509)
Pearson continued reading from page 330:
Hitherto, Adolf Eichmann, one of Himmler's leading experts on Jewish affairs,
had continued holding regular conferences with his regional officials on
the various problems associated with the "Madagascar plan"...But
on October 18, Himmler scribbled on his telephone pad the message he had
just dictated to Heydrich: "No emigration by Jews to overseas."
Instead, on October 15, 1941, the big exodus from Europe to the east began
- the Jews being herded initially into camps in Poland and the Lodz ghetto.
"In daily transports of a thousand people, 20,000 Jews and 5,000 gypsies
are being sent to the Lodz ghetto between October 15 and November 8,"
Heydrich informed Himmler on October 19. For the time being Himmler reluctantly
kept the able-bodied Jews alive for the work they could perform; but farther
east the Gauleiters had no intention of preserving the unemployable Jews:
a letter dated October 25 in SS files states that Adolf Eichmann had now
approved Gauleiter Lohse's proposal that those arriving at Riga should
be killed by mobile gas-trucks.
Irving testified that he stood by what he wrote concerning Eichmann: "That
is what that letter stated...Without having another look at the letter
now ten years later in the light of our present information, I would stand
by what I wrote there." (34-9510 to 9511)
Pearson continued reading:
This initially ad hoc operation gathered momentum. Soon the Jews from the
Lodz ghetto and Greiser's territories were being deported farther east
- to the extermination camp at Chelmno. There were 152,000 Jews involved
in all, and Chelmno began liquidating them on December 8.
At this stage of the Jewish massacre it is possible to be more specific
about the instigators, because on May 1, 1942, Greiser himself mentioned
in a letter to Himmler that the current "special treatment" program
of the hundred thousand Jews in his own Gau had been authorized by Himmler
"with the agreement of" Heydrich.
With respect to the first two sentences of this passage, Irving testified:
"I think I mentioned Chelmno earlier about fifteen minutes ago as
one of the camps which I am prepared to accept was probably involved in
this kind of operation. I think it has to be pointed out we're not talking
about 152,000 Jews being exterminated. I'm just saying this is one figure
which is contained in the document and that Chelmno was certainly involved
in killing Jews. I don't think it's proper to read anymore into that sentence
than that." (34-9511)
With respect to the last part of the passage Irving testified: "I
think that in that document as used by those writers and recipients, the
phrase 'special treatment' was probably a code word for liquidation."
(34-9512)
Himmler had the authority to engage in a special treatment programme of
hundreds of thousands of Jews, right?, asked Pearson.
"I think he arrogated to himself that authority," said Irving.
"But we have to be very cautious with the word 'special treatment'
because it belongs in a category of words which means different things
in different mouths and in different documents." Irving agreed that
particular document "left very little room for doubt" concerning
its meaning. He added, however, that: "The only room for doubt would
come under the heading, is this document genuine or has it been fabricated
by the Polish government after the war...That would be the only kind of
room for doubt. The document appeared to be authentic. One would have to
carry out far more detailed forensic tests on a document like that if I
was to answer it specifically." Irving testified that he published
the document in his 1977 book "[o]n the basis of the beliefs current
in 1977." (34-9513)
Have you asked your publisher to stop publishing Hitler's War?, asked Pearson.
"Hitler's War is out of print in this country," said Irving.
Have you asked your publisher in any other country to stop publishing it?
"Remember I said earlier I told the German publisher to stop on the
very first day at a very substantial loss to myself because he tampered
with the text."
What I want to know, asked Pearson, is since you changed heart and decided
that many of the statements that you put in Hitler's War are no longer
accurate, have you asked your publisher to withdraw it from publication?
"I think that question portrays an ignorance about the way that publishers
operate. They would not reprint a book if they had to change lines in the
middle of the text. The reprinting is done on a strictly photographic basis.
But in the subsequent volume of this which was called The War Path, which
is in fact the pre-war years of Hitler's life, I included a very detailed
introduction to The War Path in which I dealt specifically with the Holocaust
controversy which had blown-up as a result of this book being published...That
was published in about 1978 or 1979." (34-9514, 9515)
And did you deny that the Holocaust had happened in that?, asked Pearson.
"I took exactly the same stand as I adopted in this book here,"
said Irving. "Very similar to the stand which I am adopting now, which
was to say that the historians have not proven me wrong."
Well, sir, said Pearson, I want to know if you at any point published a
disclaimer with respect to those parts of Hitler's War in which you clearly
indicated that there was an extermination programme going on which you
now deny?
"There's a limit of how many disclaimers an author can publish. I
have disassociated myself from three or four books that have been published
by me. Accident was published - the Sikorski book - was published and I
put in the Times on the publication date I disassociated it from myself
because changes were made...The way one disassociates oneself from something
mistakenly written in an earlier volume is to lecture, is...to write articles,
it is to correct the record in subsequent volumes of the book. I have occasionally
done this. My very first book on the air raid at Dresden, I discovered
documents existed which cast light - which cast doubt, rather, on my own
figures, and I wrote a letter to the Times drawing the attention of the
public to the fact that I might be wrong on the air raid casualties in
Dresden." (34-9515, 9516)
In Churchill's War, do you say that the Holocaust never happened?, asked
Pearson.
"In volume two of Churchill's War, we come to some very interesting
documents in the British archives which show the British intelligence service
suggesting a propaganda campaign against Germany on the basis of invented
allegations of gas chambers and the subsequent belief that it would be
wrong to press this kind of absurd story too far in order not to make the
whole of British propaganda implausible," said Irving.
And would you agree with me that Did Six Million Really Die? is wrong when
it suggests that the Holocaust was invented post-war? Irving replied that
he needed to see the exact passage in the booklet referred to, but added:
"I think the simple answer is that the author of this brochure did
not have access at that time to the government records, the wartime records
that I have now seen."
Was the Joint Allied Declaration something that was kept secret during
the war?, asked Pearson.
"It was published in the newspapers in December 1942 along with a
large number of other such propaganda declarations and probably attracted
very little attention," said Irving. (34- 9516, 9517)
Pearson continued reading from Hitler's War, page 330:
At Kovno and Riga the Jews were invariably shot soon after. At Minsk the
Jews did not survive much longer: Richard Kube, Rosenberg's general commissioner
of White Ruthenia, recorded on July 31, 1942, that 10,000 had been liquidated
since the twenty-eighth, "of which 6,500 were Russian Jews, old folk,
women and children, with the rest unemployable Jews largely sent to Minsk
from Vienna, Brünn, Bremen, and Berlin in November last year on the
Führer's orders". It is not without evidentiary value that Himmler's
handwritten telephone notes include one on a call to Heydrich on November
17, 1941, on the "situation in the Generalgouvernement" and "getting
rid of the Jews"; two days later Heydrich circulated invitations to
an interministerial conference on the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem
- delayed until January 1942, it became notorious as the Wannsee Conference.
Pearson suggested it was clear from the context that "the Final Solution"
dealt with by the Wannsee Conference was about the extermination of the
Jews.
"I stand by what I wrote on this page and on the previous page,"
said Irving, "but I don't think you are entitled to extrapolate from
what I wrote there the conclusion that the reference to the Wannsee Conference
in that paragraph means that I accept that it was a conference about the
extermination of Jews...perhaps I can tell you by reminding you on Friday
I stated that Heydrich had been given the job in January 1939 by Goering
of arranging the resettlement and deportation of Jews out of what was then
Germany and Austria, and that in 1941, in July, July 1941, Goering had
signed an order to Heydrich expanding that authority to include the new
occupied territories in the east, again as Goering understood, for the
geographical resettlement of the Jews to other territories and that here,
this paragraph states quite simply that Himmler and Heydrich are talking
on November the 17th about the situation in the Generalgouvernement of
Poland and getting rid of the Jews which was the best translation I could
find that would give the flavour of the original words in German, Beseitigung,
which literally means putting the Jews aside, getting rid of them."
(34-9519 to 9521)
So when you wrote those words, asked Pearson, you were of the view that
the Wannsee Conference was a conference about emigration and not about
extermination?
"No more and no less than what that paragraph states," said Irving,
"which is on November the 17th, there was that telephone conversation
and that two days later, Heydrich issues invitations for an interministerial
conference on the final solution of the Jewish problem. And I don't think
it's proper to try and read any more into that paragraph than what I, myself,
wrote." He continued: "When I wrote that, my intention as a historian
was to be of assistance to other historians who hadn't bothered to read
the handwriting and who hadn't bothered to look at the Wannsee Conference
record, setting things out in chronological sequence so that they could
form their own opinions." (34-9521)
Pearson pointed out Irving had called the Wannsee Conference "notorious".
Wouldn't it have been more helpful to historians, he asked, to have said
wait a minute, it shouldn't have been notorious because all they were talking
about was emigration?
"I have tried not to be too polemical in this book," said Irving.
"I was in trouble with the book as it was. As I said on Friday, my
literary agent warned me we were going to lose a million dollars in subsidiary
contracts because of the very new stand I was taking even in this kind
of dry, dry as dust treatment of a very emotional subject. If I had tried
to be more polemical and said it was notorious because historians have
got it all wrong, if I had kept on saying that, then I think an editor
would very rightly have said 'Mr. Irving, let's leave it as dry and as
sober as possible'."
Are you saying, asked Pearson, that back in 1977 you knew that the historians
had got it wrong? Irving agreed: "Yes, they hadn't bothered to read
Himmler's handwritten notes. For example, I was the first person to produce
this. This is why I was, with a rather smug grin on my face - 'it is not
without evidentiary value' - this is my gentle way of poking historians
in the ribs and say[ing], 'Ha, ha, 1977, twenty years after the end of
the war - thirty years after the end of the war, none of you has bothered
to read Himmler's own handwriting'...They had not done their homework,
that they had been making claims without having exhaustively raked over
all the old ashes...I think I was striking a deliberately sober tone in
this and in this I was greatly aided by the fact that my editor in New
York, a Jew, Stan Hochman, a very fine editor and he repeatedly caught
me, held my arm and said, 'David, what do you mean by writing this? Can
you be more specific?'." (34-9523)
Pearson returned to Hitler's War and continued reading at page 332:
In most circumstances Hitler was a pragmatist. It would have been unlike
him to sanction the use of scarce transport space to move millions of Jews
east for no other purpose than liquidating them there; nor would he willingly
destroy manpower, for which his industry was crying out.
That sentence, said Pearson, was very similar to a sentence that Colin
Cross had in his book about Adolf Hitler. Did Irving remember reading that
sentence in Cross's book?
"I haven't read Colin Cross's work. I believe from my reading of the
brochure Did Six Million Really Die? that Colin Cross's book was published
in 1972...By that time I had long ago written these pages, of course. This
book was being written from 1964 onwards, but it is not without interest
that the brochure raises precisely the same logical questions as I have
in this book, about why do you transport people if you were going to liquidate
them," said Irving. He continued: "I am not prepared to have
the opinions of Colin Cross quoted against my own. Colin Cross can't read
German to the best of my knowledge. He hasn't read the documents that I
used in this paragraph, Himmler's telephone notes. He hasn't interviewed
Heinrich Heim, Martin Bormann's adjutant. He didn't do the work I did in
formulating my opinion." (34-9524, 9525)
Pearson continued reading from Hitler's War at page 332:
It was Heydrich and the fanatical Gauleiters in the east who were interpreting
with brutal thoroughness Hitler's decree that the Jews must "finally
disappear" from Europe; Himmler's personal role is ambivalent. On
November 30, 1941, he was summoned to the Wolf's Lair for a secret conference
with Hitler, at which the fate of Berlin's Jews was clearly raised. At
1:30 P.M. Himmler was obliged to telephone from Hitler's bunker to Heydrich
the explicit order that Jews were not to be liquidated; and the next day
Himmler telephoned SS General Oswald Pohl, overall chief of the concentration
camp system, with the order: "Jews are to stay where they are."
Once again, asked Pearson, why was Hitler giving orders that Jews were
not to be liquidated if they weren't being liquidated?
"We discussed this in the earlier session today. This was, in fact,
a reference to one trainload of Jews as becomes evident in the facsimile
of that page of Himmler's handwritten notes which I published in the book
so that readers could see it for themselves. It's a reference where a transport
of Jews from Berlin and the next sentence is in Himmler's handwriting,
Keine Vernichtung - not to be liquidated."
Pearson suggested that the only reason why someone would issue this order
is they assumed that in the normal course if they didn't issue the order,
the Jews were going to be liquidated. Said Irving: "It is correct
to say, and I will go along with you to this extent, that the territories
behind the advancing German armies in Russia were not a very healthy place
for the Jews to be sent to because Hitler's commissar order existed at
that time and Hitler's other orders for the ruthless combatting of partisans,
which had, as we have seen, resulted in the tragic execution of very large
numbers of Jews and women and children." (34-9527, 9528)
So you will agree, asked Pearson, that the person who issued the order
knew that if the order didn't issue, those Jews were going to be liquidated?
"Not quite the same," said Irving. "I think what I said
just now was that it wasn't a healthy place to be sent to because Jews
were free game, so-to-speak, in the area behind the advancing Russian -
behind the German armies in Russia." (34-9528)
Pearson continued reading at page 332:
Yet the blood purge continued. The extermination program had gained a momentum
of its own. Hans Frank, announcing to his Lublin cabinet on December 16,
1941, that Heydrich was calling a big conference in January on the expulsion
of Europe's Jews to the east, irritably exclaimed: "Do you imagine
they're going to be housed in neat estates in the Baltic provinces! In
Berlin" - and with Hitler in East Prussia this can only be taken as
a reference to Heydrich's agencies - "they tell us: why the caviling?
We've got no use for them either...Liquidate them yourselves!"
Said Irving: "Magnificent piece of evidence. A first-rate piece of
evidence. A shorthand record taken by a stenographer in Hans Frank's government
in December 1941 in Poland, a cardinal piece of evidence showing how the
tragedy happened. Somebody on-the-spot taking a decision for himself. Saying
Berlin has got [no] idea of the problems we've got here, we say why put
them - why dump them on us? We can't use them either. Liquidate them yourselves.
This bears out what I said in my introduction that the whole of the ghastly
tragedy was an ad hoc measure taken, a decision taken by local people on-the-spot
who just found that the Jews were a bother. They were being dumped on them
and they didn't want them. Just like we in Britain didn't want them, like
the Americans didn't want them either."
Irving testified that Hans Frank was the governor of Nazi-occupied Poland
and its highest authority. He continued: "Remarkable thing is that
this is, I think, the only explicit reference in Hans Frank's entire diaries
which occupy many feet of shelf space to the tragedy that was occurring."
(34-9529, 9530)
So what did Hans Frank mean at Nuremberg when he said his own diary convicted
him?, asked Pearson.
"I think he is referring to probably all the Nazi atrocities that
occurred," said Irving, "not just this kind of specific episode.
He's referring to the whole of the Nazi occupation regime. Hans Frank at
Nuremberg was a changed man. He wasn't a very morally upstanding man. He
was a lawyer. He was - I don't mean that offensively. He wasn't a soldier;
he wasn't an SS general. He was just a man who did what he was told or
what he was paid to do. Perhaps I better say no more." (34-9530)
Who was the only person who could tell Hans Frank what to do?, asked Pearson.
"I think it depends which hat he was wearing. Certainly he came under
Adolf Hitler's overall regime and in other respects he would come under
Himmler's regime as the Reich Commissioner for the consolidation of Germandom."
So, when you say the extermination programme gained a momentum of its own,
asked Pearson, you now repudiate the terms "the extermination programme"?
"I think I would go along with the terms there. I think it's sufficiently
vague and we've described in the earlier paragraphs what I am referring
to so I would let them stand there. I wouldn't want to change them."
Irving testified he was referring in the sentence "to Hans Frank and
the local governors, the police chiefs, meeting him and in Lublin at that
conference...I think probably he was addressing the dictates of his own
conscience there rather than any dictates from Hitler's headquarters."
(34-9531)
Irving continued: "When he went to see Hitler in 1944, and there was
a seventeen page record of their conversation, it's quite obvious that
Hitler is still under the misapprehension that the Jews have been transferred
further east out of Poland."
And what in fact, asked Pearson, had happened to them?
"Well, we are now taught to believe, and I stress the word believe,
that they have all been exterminated," said Irving.
What did Hitler misapprehend then?, asked Pearson.
"Well, Hitler had been led to believe by his commanders they were
being sent further east," said Irving. "We are now looking at
it from a 1988 knowledge. I am looking at it from your side of the bench.
From your point of view it could be a misapprehension...Because the present
Holocaust belief is that all the Jews who were sent to Auschwitz and Treblinka
and Majdanek and the other camps in Hans Frank's government generally were
sent there for the purpose of liquidation. And this, of course, is now
what is now open to dispute." (34-9532)
Pearson returned to Hitler's War and read from a chapter note on page 851:
In view of Himmler's note of November 30, 1941, I cannot accept the view
of Dr. Kubovy, of the Jewish Document Centre, Tel Aviv, expressed in La
Terre Retrouvé on December 15, 1960, that "there exists no
document signed by Hitler, Himmler or Heydrich speaking of the extermination
of the Jews". Of equal evidentiary interest is Himmler's telephone
call to Heydrich on April 20, 1942 - after a day with Hitler - on which
the Reichsführer noted: "No annihilation of gypsies". Yet
the gypsies were also deported en masse to the death camps by the SS.
Pearson turned to Did Six Million Really Die? and quoted from page 29:
Finally, Professor Rassinier draws attention to an important admission
by Dr. Kubovy, director of the World Centre of Contemporary Jewish Documentation
at Tel-Aviv, made in La Terre Retrouvée, December 15th, 1960. Dr.
Kubovy recognised that not a single order for extermination exists from
Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich or Goering.
Would you agree, asked Pearson, that the pamphlet inaccurately describes
Dr. Kubovy's organization? Irving did not: "It would undoubtedly be
translated from the Hebrew and [the] two translations are equally valid."
(34-9534)
You do agree with Dr. Kubovy?, asked Pearson.
"Well, I take exception to the - to his statement there that he says
there is no document signed by Himmler speaking of the extermination of
the Jews, because I have given a facsimile in the book of this telephone
conversation in Himmler's handwriting speaking of 'no liquidation of the
Jews'...The statement is really 'no document'. That is the operative thing
there. It's quite clearly evidentiary material written in Himmler's own
handwriting relating [to] liquidation of the Jews using those precise words
vernichtung juden....All that I am really doing - this is another poke
from me in the ribs of the historians when I am saying you haven't found
this document because you didn't bother to read Himmler's own handwriting."
(34 9534, 9535)
Pearson suggested Did Six Million Really Die? was wrong.
"I think the difference is that my quotation is a direct quotation
in quotation marks and the author of this brochure has paraphrased it into
a different form...What he really said is what I have in quotation marks
and it has apparently been paraphrased by the author of this pamphlet...'That
not a single order for extermination exists from Hitler...' - well, clearly,
if no document exists signed by Hitler, Himmler, [Heydrich] or Goering,
equally it follows logically there could not have been an order signed
by them speaking of the extermination of the Jews...He has drawn a conclusion
in his paraphrase. He is saying if there's no document then there's also
no order...it follows if there's no single document then there's no order
either. The one embraces the other." (34-9536, 9537)
You don't agree with the conclusion?, asked Pearson.
"With his conclusion? I do agree with that and I equally agree with
this except that they haven't seen that Himmler did sign documents speaking
of the extermination of the Jews because Himmler's telephone note uses
the words 'no liquidation of the Jews'...it speaks of it in a negative
sense," said Irving. (34-9537)
What were the 'death camps of the SS'?, asked Pearson, referring back to
Hitler's War.
Said Irving: "I thought you weren't going to ask. 'Yet the gypsies
were also deported en masse to the death camps by the SS'. The present
belief is that gypsies were liquidated to some degree by the SS in Germany
and I therefore assumed that they had gone to the death camps for that
purpose. That was my state of belief in 1977 when this book was published.
This was clearly against the orders of Hitler who had told Himmler on the
20th of April, 1942, there was to be no annihilation of gypsies."
(34-9539)
Pearson suggested that a major thesis of Hitler's War was that Hitler didn't
know about the mass extermination of Jews. Irving disagreed: "Not
quite right. The other way around. There is no evidence that he did know
what was going on, whatever it was." (34-9539)
Now your position, asked Pearson, is it's all irrelevant because there
wasn't anything going on?
"Well, I would semantically say it is now all irrelevant because the
mythologists have failed to produce any evidence that it was going on."
Have you read Professor Hilberg's three volume work?, asked Pearson.
"No," replied Irving. "But Professor Hilberg was kind enough
to correspond with me to say that he was inclined to share my conclusions
on Hitler's responsibility."
Pearson requested that Irving not shift ground. Would he agree, asked Pearson,
that Hilberg had chronicled the mass extermination of the Jews in his three
volume work?
"I think that Professor Hilberg will eventually also come to change
his beliefs," said Irving. He had not read Hilberg's three volumes:
"I don't read people's books if I can avoid it...It's easier...to
go into the archives and read the original documents." (34 9540)
Pearson turned to page 390 of Hitler's War:
"It would have been a scandal if these cities' priceless treasures
had suffered from air bombardment," he [Hitler] told a neutral diplomat.
But now the boot was on the other foot: quite without their wanting it,
the peoples of Europe were breathing a new climate of brutality.
Said Irving: "...I'm talking about the fact...that we have started
sending one thousand heavy bombers to bomb the interior of German cities...It's
quite plain from that paragraph I am talking about the brutality of sending
bombers to drop bombs, not like the bombing of Tripoli a day or two ago,
but sometimes ten thousand tons of bombs on a civilian city in one night."
(34- 9541, 9542)
Pearson continued reading from page 390:
Germany's contribution to this new climate, the elimination of the Jews
from central Europe, was now gathering momentum. Hitler's radical followers
saw the eleven million Jews as "Europe's misfortune" - as an
eastern plague threatening friend and foe alike. Hitler felt that in time
all Europe would understand his hatred. "Somehow we must get rid of
them, if they are not to get rid of us", reasoned Josef Goebbels.
It seemed no coincidence that the Jews were at the bottom of the spreading
partisan movement everywhere.
The precise mode of "elimination" met with varying interpretations.
Hitler's was unquestionably the authority behind the expulsion operations;
on whose initiative the grim procedures at the terminal stations of this
miserable exodus were adopted, is arguable.
What were these "grim procedures" at the "terminal stations"?
asked Pearson.
"I think in 1977 we had all seen the movie films of Auschwitz and
the other so-called death camps. This was the image I had in my eyes when
I was writing that paragraph." (34-9543)
Pearson continued reading at page 391:
In January 1942, Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the Gestapo, had briefed the
leading government officials in Berlin thus: the Führer had sanctioned
the evacuation of all Jews to the eastern territories, substituting this
for the overseas deportation originally planned. In the east they would
build roads, until they dropped. At a further Heydrich conference early
in March the awkward problem posed by half- and quarter-Jews was examined.
One solution would be to sterilize them, but it would take ten days' hospital
treatment to sterilize each of the seventy thousand people involved, so
this procedure would have to wait until the war was over; a "top level"
opinion - i.e., Hitler's - was quoted to the effect that a sharp distinction
must be made between Jews and non-Jews, as it would not be acceptable for
a mini race of semi-Jews to be perpetrated in law.
Irving testified that in this paragraph he was referring to the Wannsee
Conference. He said: "I think that this document shows quite clearly
that one thing...the Wannsee Conference didn't discuss was the extermination
of every Jew in Europe which is now what we are led to believe. We're talking
here about subsequent conferences, looking at what to do with the residual
problems caused by the deportation and all the other problems of it."
(34-9544)
Pearson continued reading:
In a paper circulated early in March 1942, Heydrich's office advised the
ministries that Europe's eleven million Jews were to be concentrated "in
the east" for the time being; after the war they might be allocated
a remote territory like Madagascar as a national home. Thus the official
version.
Irving testified that the figure of 11 million Jews was given in the paper
itself, which Irving felt was the approximately correct figure. The "official
version" he referred to was that "given by the archives. I am
accepting there that it's possible, if we remember Trevor-Roper's three
criteria - we ask why does a document exist, for what purpose was it written?
I am accepting that it's possible these documents might have been written
by Nazi criminals to cover their tracks. I think it would have been irresponsible,
I believe, for me not to accept that possibility." (34-9545, 9546)
Pearson continued reading:
The actual operation proceeded differently. Starting in March and April
the European Jews were rounded up in occupied France, Holland and Belgium,
and in the eager Nazi satellite Slovakia; for political reasons Hungary
- which had nearly a million Jews - and Romania were not approached yet
but were told that their Jewish "problems" would be left unresolved
until the war was over. From Hans Frank's Generalgouvernement of Poland
too - beginning with the ghettos of Lublin - the Jews set out eastward
under the direction of one of the cruelest SS leaders, Brigadier Odilo
Globocnik, the Trieste-born former Gauleiter of Vienna. Upon arrival at
Auschwitz and Treblinka, four in every ten were pronounced fit for work;
the rest were exterminated with a maximum of concealment.
Where did you get the figure four in every ten?, asked Pearson.
"I believe that at that time I had been shown a document in the Berlin
Document Centre of the U.S. Mission in Berlin which was one unsigned purported
eyewitness account. And at that time I had no reason to challenge its reliability."
Irving testified that in talking about the "official version"
he was not talking about public propaganda: "I'm not talking about
public propaganda. I'm talking about the official version contained in
the official documents in the archives." He agreed that he went on
to say in the passage that that was not what was really happening: "On
the basis of my 1977 knowledge, yes." (34-9547, 9548)
Pearson put to Irving that he had written this passage after ten years
of research that he had not duplicated since. Irving disagreed: "I
have repeatedly been through the archives of the Nazi agency since I have
written the memoirs of Field-Marshal Milch, Field-Marshal Rommel, Reichsmarschall
Goering, and I have written all of these biographies which required me
to go over the same ground again and expand the basis of the archival research."
(34-9548)
So do you now repudiate what you've written in your book?, asked Pearson.
"I am now uncertain," said Irving, "because I now understand
that the whole of the story of what happened in Auschwitz and the other
camps is controversial and with that knowledge of the controversy at the
back of my mind, I have kept my eyes that much more open and going through
the archives again in the hope of finding a document that would resolve
the controversy."
But you haven't read Professor Hilberg's three volume work?, asked Pearson.
"Professor Hilberg's three volume work isn't a document. It's the
product of another historian's mind. Certainly he would make no claim that
he has found evidence definitely that there was such an extermination programme
directed by Hitler, because in a private letter to me he conceded that
I was probably correct," replied Irving.
You made it clear in 1977, suggested Pearson, that there was an extermination
programme going on, didn't you? Irving disagreed: "I made it clear
that I have believed what was at that time the accepted version of events...Even
in this book, I was challenging about how that tragedy...happened."
(34-9549)
And yet you haven't read Professor Hilberg's three volume work where he
sets out his findings for how it happened?, reiterated Pearson.
"I am sure when the time comes you will put his documentation to me
and ask me my opinion on it," replied Irving.
What did you mean when you wrote "the rest were exterminated with
a maximum of concealment"?, asked Pearson.
"By virtue of the fact that apart from this one document that I saw
in the archives of the American government in Berlin, there was no similar
kind of evidentiary proof of the existence of such an extermination programme,"
said Irving. (34-9550)
Pearson continued reading from Hitler's War at page 391:
Two documents shed some oblique rays of light on the level of responsibility
for this. At a cabinet meeting in Cracow on April 9, Hans Frank disclaimed
responsibility for the disruption in the work process caused by the order
to turn over all Jews for liquidation. "The directive for the liquidation
of the Jews comes from higher up."
Irving testified that he had no reason to doubt the authenticity of the
report but pointed out that in a footnote he indicated that the German
phrase for "higher up" referred to an intermediary level, not
the highest level: "It doesn't come from Hitler." (34-9550)
Irving indicated that "at that time there was quite definitely a liquidation
of Jews going on. I haven't challenged that. I've made it quite plain.
I accept that there were a large number of atrocities being conducted during
the war." In Irving's opinion, however, Frank was "trying to
shift responsibility away from himself. He doesn't care where." (34-9551)
Pearson returned to Hitler's War and continued reading:
In a letter of June 26 it became clear that Himmler was anxious to conceal
the massacre, for Globocnik was quoted as being eager to get it over with
as quickly as possible in case one day force majeure should prevent them
completing it: "You yourself, Reichsführer, once mentioned that
you felt the job should be done as quickly as possible if only for reasons
of concealment". The concealment was almost perfect, and Himmler's
own papers reveal how he pulled the wool over Hitler's eyes. On September
17, while the murder machinery was operating at peak capacity, the Reichsführer
still calmly jotted down in his notes for that day's Führer conference:
"Jewish emigration - how should we proceed?" And in March 1943
he was to order a too-explicit statistical report rewritten to remove a
stray reference to the massacre of Europe's Jews before it was submitted
to the Führer!
The 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."
Would you agree, asked Pearson, that what you wrote in 1977 was that the
Goebbels diary entry for March 17, 1942 was a "frank summary of the
ghastly secrets of Auschwitz and Treblinka"? Irving did not: "No,
sir, he doesn't refer specifically to Auschwitz and Treblinka, he just
refers to the grizzly fate that is befalling the Jews on their arrival
in the east from what he has read in a report submitted to him by the SD,
the German Gestapo." (34-9552, 9553)
Irving agreed that, grammatically, the "ghastly secrets of Auschwitz
and Treblinka" were joined with "Goebbels wrote a frank summary
of them in his diary." He continued: "But I repeat that Auschwitz
and Treblinka are not referred to in that Goebbels diary entry. He is referring
to a report he claims to have read and I must add that nowhere in the German
archives is this report itself contained...It's very difficult what reason
Goebbels would have had to write this entry in his diary...It is Goebbels
diary which was held in American custody after the war. It's...one of the
volumes published by Louis Lochner." Irving testified that he was
not in a position to say whether the diary was authentic or not: "I
haven't examined its authenticity to this date." (34- 9554)
Irving agreed that if the diary was authentic, it indicated that Goebbels
knew what was going on: "I agree. Goebbels was one of the most vicious
anti-semitists in the Nazi regime...We have a large number of Nazi potentates
knowing about atrocities against the Jews." (34-9554)
Pearson continued reading at page 392:
In reality, Himmler was simultaneously throwing the murder machinery into
top gear, while he was careful not to place responsibility for the massacre
itself on Hitler in writing. (Thus on July 28 he wrote to SS General Gottlob
Berger: "The occupied eastern territories" - meaning Poland -
"are to be liberated of Jews. The Führer has entrusted me with
the execution of this arduous order. Nobody can deprive me of this responsibility.")
On July 19, three days after seeing Hitler, Himmler ordered the "resettlement"
of the entire Jewish population of the Generalgouvernement to be completed
by the last day of 1942. Each day after July 22, a trainload of five thousand
Jews left Warsaw for the extermination centre at Treblinka; each week two
trains left Przemysl for the centre at Belsec. Moreover, in August the
first informal approach was made to the Hungarians to begin deporting their
one million Jews to the east immediately.
Would you agree, asked Pearson, that this is talking about the systematic
emptying of countries for the purpose of sending the Jews to extermination
centres?
Irving replied: "Well, I do note, and I think I am entitled to refer
to it - you put it on the screen -2 you specifically avoided reading this
paragraph here. The middle paragraph which makes quite plain that Hitler
was of the belief as late as July the 24th, he was still referring to his
plan to transport the Jews to Madagascar...by now already in British hands
- or to some other Jewish national home after the war was over. This is
a verbatim record written by Heinrich Heim which was in my possession and
I am sure your omission was inadvertent, but it does tend to throw doubt
on what is happening in the next paragraph for which I have religiously
reported on the basis of the documents and belief that was current in the
mid 1970s." (34-9556)
Judge Ron Thomas interjected: "Well, let's just be accurate here.
Unless I'm mistaken, isn't the thrust of this passage in the book at this
time clearly that Hitler was being duped by more than one person?"
(34-9556)
"This is the thrust of the book which I wrote at that time, sir,"
said Irving. He continued: "But obviously, ten years later now, I
would be inclined to question what I wrote in the last line there. We know
that each day after July the 22nd, a trainload of five thousand Jews left
Warsaw because there is a document specifically saying that and it continues
with the words 'for Treblinka' because the document adds those words, but
it doesn't use the word 'for the extermination centre' which I put in intending
to help my readers but now unfortunately I would have to say on the basis
of my 1988 beliefs, I wouldn't use those words." (34-9556, 9557)
Irving testified that he did not deny that murders took place on a colossal
scale, but he had seen no credible evidence that Treblinka was an extermination
centre as alleged.
Have you talked to anybody who was at Treblinka?, asked Pearson.
"I'm afraid I have to say I wouldn't consider what a survivor of Treblinka
could tell me in 1988 to be credible evidence," said Irving. He continued:
"I would prefer the evidence of photographic aerial reconnaissance.
I would prefer the evidence of somebody who goes to the site with expert
knowledge now, and carries out concrete examinations, to the very human
and fallible human memories after a tragic wartime experience forty years
after the event." (34-9558)
What would Irving have a person go and see at Treblinka today?, asked Pearson.
Said Irving: "I would want them to, if they had been there at the
time, I would then want them to identify where they had been on an aerial
photograph and see if I could see what they have purported to have seen.
I would want experts to go and examine the site and inform me with their
own expert knowledge whether the site could have been used as some kind
of extermination camp."
If they went to Treblinka today, what would they find?, asked Pearson.
"I think they would have to go to the real Treblinka," said Irving.
"They would have to locate Treblinka first, the actual site. They
would have to locate it on the basis of existing SS or German Reich government
maps. They would have to look at aerial photographs to see what buildings
were there [at] that time in 1944 on that site. It's very [easy] to be
misled." (34-9559)
Have you seen documentation that orders Treblinka to be razed and a farm
placed over it?, asked Pearson.
"Mr. Pearson, I said on Friday I am not a Holocaust historian and
I have not dealt in- depth as an investigator on the Holocaust. My expertise
is largely on the command level decisions which included the final solution."
Just so I get this straight, said Pearson, back in 1977 after ten years
of work on National Socialist records to produce the biography of Adolf
Hitler, you state conclusions about Treblinka, you now no longer accept
your own conclusions, you haven't read Professor Hilberg's work, you wouldn't
know what was at Treblinka if you went there and yet you no longer are
prepared to accept - .
Irving interjected: "Mr. Pearson, I was in trouble as it was by suggesting
in a Hitler biography what I did suggest. I was in deep trouble. If I had
gone on to suggest Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek, perhaps even they weren't
what they were supposed to be, I think I could have packed up my writing
gear forever and gone back to being a steel worker. We have to look at
realities, I'm afraid." (34-9559, 9560)
So, you're saying, said Pearson, that you misled your readers so your book
would sell?
"I saw no reason in 1977 not to believe the then existing version
that Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz had been death camps," replied
Irving. (34-9560)
Pearson returned to page 393 of Hitler's War:
By August 1942 the massacre machinery was gathering momentum - of such
refinement and devilish ingenuity that from Himmler down to the ex-lawyers
who ran the extermination camps perhaps only seventy men were aware of
the truth.
Where did you get the August 1942, the massacre machinery was gathering
momentum?, asked Pearson.
Said Irving: "...this is from a date that I picked out of the post-war
confidential writings of General Karl Wolff, who was Himmler's personal
adjutant and liaison officer to Hitler. And he describes very shortly in
this paragraph a conference with Himmler and this is why I dated this paragraph
August 1942...At that time, Wolff himself had no knowledge of the massacre
machinery being in operation...All you see Himmler telling Wolff is for
the sake of Germany, he's having to do something which nobody can find
out about and Wolff himself then speculated years later that this must
be what Himmler must have been talking about." (34-9560)
Irving testified that he considered Wolff "to be a rather unstable
witness inasmuch as he tended to flop and flip." He did not rely on
Wolff in his book for "important matters, for substance. For this
rather neat conference with Himmler, I put it in because I thought it would
be irresponsible, I believe, not to mention this because we don't have
very many verbatim descriptions of Himmler's own references to what he
was doing." (34-9561)
Irving did not believe that Wolff was lying when he said Himmler said these
things: "No, it's possible that Wolff may have misinterpreted it.
Wolff may have assumed after the war that Himmler was talking about this,
what is now called the 'Holocaust'. It may be that Himmler was talking
about something completely different, the problems of growing artificial
rubber perhaps or something like that." (34-9562)
But in 1977, asked Pearson, you had no such doubts in your mind, did you?
Irving agreed: "No, you're quite right. It's very difficult to cast
our minds back to 1977 before the first serious doubts about the Holocaust
mythology began to arise." (34 9562)
Who are the people who brought those doubts forward?, asked Pearson.
"Partly myself," said Irving, "because I first began to
question, from looking out from behind Hitler's desk, Hitler himself has
no knowledge of what is going on but I assumed that something had been
going on because the whole world was saying it. Now we find that other
people are independently asking whether these systematic extermination
programmes had been progressing." Irving testified that "[a]
whole host of people have begun questioning it," including Robert
Faurisson. (34-9563)
Who else denies the Holocaust happened like you seem to be doing now?,
asked Pearson.
"Wait a minute," said Irving. "What I am saying is that
I am not denying that the Holocaust happened in some degree. I am saying
that there were a large series of unrelated atrocities. But the idea of
the Holocaust mythology, 'Adolf Hitler ordered the killing of 6 million
Jews in Auschwitz,' in simple terms, that, I think, is now very suspect."
(34-9563)
Asked Pearson, if we define the Holocaust as, in essence, the mass murder
and extermination of Jews in Europe by the Nazi regime during the Second
World War, would you deny that the Holocaust happened?
"If you limit it to that definition, I wouldn't deny that that happened,
that there was a mass murder of Jews by the Nazis during the Second World
War," said Irving. His thesis in 1977 was that "Himmler and other
senior associates of Adolf Hitler were aware that mass murders of Jews
and others were taking place." (34-9580)
Pearson suggested that if Himmler and other senior officers were aware
that it was taking place, it had to be considered official policy because
they were the policy makers of the Nazi regime. Irving disagreed: "I
think that statement derives from a lack of knowledge of the Führer
principle which exists in a Führer state like Nazi Germany. Policy
is only that which is laid down by the Führer himself if it is going
to be considered to be state policy. And if it is surmised that something
was happening, of which the Führer was unaware, then it could not
be considered to be state policy for that reason." He continued: "State
policy in a Führer state would be a policy which the Führer himself
had ordered." (34-9581)
Pearson pointed out that Did Six Million Really Die? did not talk about
state policy; it spoke of official German policy of extermination. Was
it Irving's position, asked Pearson, that unless Hitler knew about it,
it could not be called an official German policy of extermination?
"I think it would be quibbling over words to try to draw a distinction
between official German policy and the policy of German officials,"
replied Irving. "Certainly, certain German officials were aware that
Jews were being massacred, but to try to derive from this a broad statement
that this makes an official German policy, is, I think, quibbling with
words and would not be justified." (34-9582)
Irving agreed with a statement by Pearson that Hitler was consumed and
preoccupied with military objectives "at the operative time...";
that beneath Hitler was an hierarchy competing for his favour and that
the name of the game was basically to anticipate the Führer's will.
Pearson put to Irving that Hitler had delegated to Himmler policy-making
with respect to security matters. Said Irving: "In addition to security
matters, the consolidation of Germandom, which was the racial kind of policy
which was entrusted to Himmler." (34-9583)
Isn't it your conclusion in 1977, asked Pearson, that Himmler decided to
use that delegated power which he derived from the Führer to exterminate
Jews?
"I would alter the word 'used' to 'abused', and then I would accept
your statement. Himmler abused the authority to exterminate large numbers
of Jews and other enemies of the state at a time when it was clear from
Hitler's statements that Hitler was intent on a geographical solution instead...Himmler
repeatedly said that Hitler had given him the job of making Europe free
of Jews. Hitler was envisaging this as a geographical resettlement, a relocation.
Himmler, it is quite plain from the documents, was carrying out the task
in a different way." (34-9581)
Pearson suggested that if one were looking for the official policy of the
Nazi regime in security matters, one would look to what Himmler did. Irving
disagreed: "Himmler was not the highest authority in the Reich. Himmler
was only [an] intermediary authority. The highest authority in the Führer
state was Hitler himself." He continued: "Hitler had given authorities
and powers to Himmler, but he had not, so far as I'm aware from the documents
that I have seen, at any time, either orally or in writing, given to Himmler
the job of carrying out a mass extermination of Jews on any scale whatever."
(34-9584)
Pearson put to Irving that in his book he claimed that later in the war,
Hitler did find out what Himmler was doing.
"There [are] one or two documents of a post-war nature - I emphasize
post-war - which indicate that this possibly happened," agreed Irving.
He continued: "I repeat what these documents said; the version of
events as given by these documents. I felt it was too important not to
mention." Irving pointed out that in Hitler's last will and testament
of April 29, 1945 "...Himmler was thrown out and demoted from all
his positions of power and responsibility." (34- 9585, 9586)
When did you place Hitler with knowledge of what Himmler was up to?, asked
Pearson.
"In my book, I'm very specific in the way I put it. I say after October
1943, Hitler had no real excuse for not knowing. This is as far as I was
prepared to go."
Irving testified that from October 9, 1943 to April 29, 1945, Hitler left
Himmler in command, an action which was "[v]ery much in character
with Hitler..." (34-9587)
After he found out what Himmler was up to?, asked Pearson.
"After it would - after, we must assume, Hitler had had every chance
to find out," said Irving. "I based that statement on the fact
that in October 1943, as we have seen, Himmler made a speech to the German
Gauleiters and on the following day the German Gauleiters all trooped into
Hitler's headquarters and, as I say, it would be human to assume that they
had discussed this matter with Hitler, but there is no evidence one way
or the other." (34-9587)
Pearson returned to Hitler's War and continued reading at page 393:
Early in August, Himmler made to Wolff the melancholy confession that for
the sake of the German nation and its Führer he had shouldered a burden
of which nobody could ever learn, in order that the "Messiah of the
coming two millennia" might remain personally uncontaminated. At the
time, Wolff was unable to elicit from Himmler precisely what that burden
was.
Irving testified: "It is - Wolff related this in 1952 in a confidential
memorandum for the Institute of History in Munich that he had had this
conversation with Himmler and after the war he only assumed that this must
have been a reference to what we now call the 'Holocaust'." (34- 9589)
Didn't Wolff go on and say how many people he thought were aware of what
Himmler was up to?, asked Pearson.
"He reconstructed his own knowledge of the SS hierarchy, what was
the number of people who would therefore have had to be in the know if
this had in fact happened...'Probably only some 70 men' were the [words]
that Wolff used. In other words, it would have been a very, very small
chain of command, a very small number of people in the know." Irving
agreed that Wolff was an SS General; he did not agree that this put Wolff
in a position to know who knew: "It's a very difficult thing to speculate
on, somebody being in a position to know about something that one doesn't
know about oneself...He never admitted that he had ever known about this
during the war. I note that there are some documents which implied strongly
that he did know about it during the war from roundabout this period. I'm
referring to Karl Wolff, but certainly in his testimony, he never admitted
that he had known about the mass extermination of Jews, nor ever proven
to the contrary, because he was not ever punished for it." Irving
nevertheless believed that Wolff was "in a very good position to have
known." (34-9590, 9591)
By the post-war period, Wolff had been told there was a liquidation programme
of the Jews and he believed in it. This post-war testimony was the basis
for Irving's note with respect to page 392 of Hitler's War, where he had
written:
Hitler still referred to the "Madagascar plan" in Table Talk,
July 24, 1942. SS General Karl Wolff estimated - in a confidential postwar
manuscript - that altogether probably only some seventy men, from Himmler
down to Hoess, were involved in the liquidation program. The only evidence
of a "Führer Order" behind the program came from postwar
testimony of SS Major Dieter Wisliceny, Eichmann's thirty-one- year-old
adviser on Jewish problems attached to the Slovak government (e.g., in
pretrial interrogations at Nuremberg on November 11 and 24, 1945, and a
written narrative dated Bratislava, November 18, 1946). He claimed the
Slovaks had sent him to Berlin in July or August 1942 to check up on the
fate of 33,000 next-of- kin of the 17,000 able-bodied Jews supplied for
the German arms industry. Eichmann admitted to him that the 33,000 had
been liquidated, and - said Wisliceny - pulled from his safe a red-bordered
Immediate Letter, stamped "Top State Secret," with Himmler's
signature and addressed to Heydrich and Pohl. It read (from memory): "The
Führer has decided that the Final Solution of the Jewish Question
is to begin at once. I herewith designate [Heydrich and Pohl] responsible
for the execution of this order." However, there is a marked difference
between Wisliceny's 1945 and 1946 recollections of this text; and when
years later Eichmann was cross examined about this in his trial on April
10, 1961, he testified that he had neither received any such written order
nor shown one to Wisliceny (who had long since been executed himself).
He had only told Wisliceny verbally, "Heydrich sent for me and informed
me that the Führer has ordered the physical annihilation of the Jews."
Irving agreed that in this passage he cited Eichmann's cross-examination
at his trial: "I have compared the testimony of one man mentioned
in Wisliceny's evidence, with Wisliceny's evidence in order to assess the
validity of quite an important historical document and, as I say in the
paragraph of that footnote that you didn't quote: 'This kind of evidence,
of course, would not suffice in an English magistrate's court to convict
a vagabond of bicycle stealing, let alone assign the responsibility for
the mass murder of 6 million Jews, given the powerful written evidence
that Hitler again and again ordered the 'Jewish Problem' set aside until
the war was won.'" (34-9593)
While you were reading what Eichmann said about this, asked Pearson, didn't
you think that you must as well read what he said about Wannsee?
"No," said Irving. "Probably a researcher who I had employed
for this specific task of investigating if I had missed any evidence, came
to me with the appropriate pages of the Eichmann trial testimony and said,
'Mr. Irving, Eichmann has addressed the problem of Wisliceny's statement
as follows...in his trial in 1961', and I then merely compared those pages
with Wisliceny's statement." (34-9594)
Is that the researcher who disassociated herself from your conclusions?,
asked Pearson.
"She subsequently disassociated herself from the printed disassociation;
[there] has been quite a lot of monkey business in this controversy. The
newspaper announced she [had] disassociated herself from my research and
that she [had] never worked for me, and she then wrote a letter to the
Sunday Times saying she had very definitely worked for me and that this
disassociation previously mentioned was nothing to do with her...she certainly
couldn't disassociate herself from the research because I had all the receipts
and invoices for the work she had done for me." (34 9595)
Did she disassociate herself from the conclusions?, asked Pearson.
"She is presently the wife or common-law wife of Professor Martin
Broszat, previously mentioned in this case," said Irving.
Irving did not agree with a suggestion that there was a personal reason
for Broszat being critical of his book. "I think probably it is unfair
to impute that. I can't read his mind. I don't know why he does certain
things. It will be wrong for me to speculate." (34-9596)
Irving agreed with Pearson that there was evidence from two separate sources,
Wisliceny and Eichmann, that the Führer had ordered the physical annihilation
of the Jews, but, he continued, it was: "Mutually contradictory evidence.
It is hearsay evidence and referring to a document alleged to exist which
has, however, never been found. And which, of course, both men had every
reason to indicate had once existed because they were both facing the gallows."
(34-9596)
Did Irving say that from the outset Eichmann knew he was condemned to be
hanged?, asked Pearson.
"If my name was Adolf Eichmann," said Irving, "and I've
been kidnapped at great expense from Argentina, and taken to Israel and
put on trial, then I think that no insurance company would have offered
me life insurance." (34-9597)
Pearson put to Irving that if Eichmann knew he was going to be hanged no
matter what he said, why would he admit to killing millions of Jews if
he had not done it.
Said Irving: "He apparently made this kind of statement on several
occasions. I'm not going to put myself in the position of a psychiatrist
and suggest why he did things because you would protest that I don't have
these qualifications, and I think it would be wrong for me to speculate
on why Eichmann made certain statements."
Irving testified that it was not correct to say that he had access to the
tapes that were used to make the book Ich, Adolf Eichmann: "Eichmann's
son approached me with the information that he had the tapes and he asked
advice on what should be done with them, with the transcript, and I said
they are a historical document which should, of course, be published."
Irving never listened to the tapes and made no assessment whatever of them.
(34-9597, 9598)
Pearson continued reading from Hitler's War, on page 858:
On the "resettlement" of the Jews from Poland, see Himmler's
letter of July 19, 1942, to SS General Friedrich Krüger, the SS and
police chief at Cracow:... and the report by the Reich transport ministry's
state secretary, Theodor Ganzenmüller, nine days later to Himmler's
adjutant Karl Wolff that since July 22 one train per day with five thousand
Jews was leaving Warsaw for Treblinka, and that twice a week a train was
leaving Przemysl with five thousand Jews for Belzek. Wolff replied on August
13 that it gave him "special pleasure" to learn this - that "daily
trainloads of five thousand members of the Chosen People are going to Treblinka
and that we are thus being enabled to accelerate this migration".
He assured Ganzenmüller he would do all he could to smooth their way.
Wolff - as ignorant as Ganzenmüller of the true functions of Treblinka
extermination camp - was tried in 1964 by a Munich court and sentenced
to fifteen years in prison. In the Wolff trial, the notorious SS General
von dem Bach-Zelewski testified on July 24, 1964, that in his view "Hitler
knew nothing of the mass destruction of the Jews" and that "the
entire thing began with Himmler."
In Irving's opinion, Himmler was aware of the fact that large numbers of
Jews were being killed. Karl Wolff was Himmler's adjutant. In 1977 Irving
believed Treblinka's true function was extermination; thus he had described
it that way in this passage. (34-9599, 9600)
Pearson asked Irving if he could agree that this passage dealt with the
mass destruction of the Jews.
"Well, that is again hearsay evidence or quoting the evidence of an
SS General, Bach- Zelewski, who was tried by a German court...in '64. He
is repeating perceived opinions, received opinions, that in 1964, the overwhelming
opinion was that there had been a mass destruction of Jews, what you call
the Holocaust." Irving agreed it was possible that the document was
written for the purposes of camouflage, but believed it would be unusual.
(34-9602)
Pearson continued reading from Hitler's War at page 436:
In private Hitler regretted the Italians' kid-glove treatment of the Serbs.
Only brute force bereft of inhibitions would work - just as only brute
force would work in the war against the partisans in Russia. "On principle,
when combatting illegals, anything that works is right - and I want that
hammered into everybody", he laid down. "This gives everybody
the freedom of action they need...If the illegals use women and children
as shields, then our officer or NCO must be able to open fire on them without
hesitation. What matters is that he gets through and wipes out the illegals".
Hitler wanted no "pedantic" disciplinary action against the officer
afterward. Himmler took the hint. In August, September, October and November
his security forces counted 1,337 dead Russian partisans and executed a
further 8,564 taken prisoner. His report to Hitler for the same period
listed 16,553 "partisan accomplices and suspects" captured, of
which 14,257 were executed; an additional 363,211 Russian Jews were claimed
to have been executed under the same heading.
Pearson produced and showed to Irving Exhibit 62B (Einsatzgruppen report
no. 51). Irving testified that this was the document he was referring to
in the passage from the book, and that he had no reason whatever to doubt
its authenticity. It set out the results of the combatting of partisans
from 1 September 1942 to 1 December 1942 and listed the Jews executed under
the heading "accomplices of bands and persons suspected of helping
the bands." A note written on the top of the copy used by Irving indicated
that the note was shown to the Führer. (34-9604, 9605)
Pearson put to Irving that the number for Jews executed was far in excess
of the numbers for the other groups executed. Irving agreed: "This
is precisely what I referred to this morning as being - or what makes it
such an extraordinary document." He continued: "But I can only
repeat what I said previously, that this was such an extraordinary document,
that the figure was so unusual that it is the kind of thing which makes
one raise one's eyebrows and question further. If I may just expand in
two sentences, one would then look for a reference to this document in
perhaps the war diary of the German High Command or in some other collateral
source where you would find the same figures turning up quoted. It would
be sufficient to make me mistrustful of the document because it is such
an extraordinary figure, and to have that item, 'c) Jews executed', inserted
there almost as an afterthought, a figure that is twenty or thirty times
as large as any other figure on the page, it would make me want to find
collateral evidence in another archive or in another document... I'm suggesting
it is possible that at the time some overzealous SS officer decided to
put in a fictitious figure in order to do Heinrich Himmler a favour. Who
knows what the - once you begin speculating, you're in the wrong field
for a historian." (34-9606)
Pearson accused Irving of already speculating about the Einsatzgruppen
reports when he testified that the figures were inflated by people in the
field.
Irving replied: "I haven't said that. Again you asked me to suggest
the reason why a figure might have been tampered with. I offered the same
reason that the people on the spot have a duty to show productivity. Just
like in the Vietnam War, the American officers had to have a body count...This
would be the same possible motivation why that figure is suddenly so startlingly
high." (34-9607)
So you're prepared to reject the Einsatzgruppen reports on the basis of
this speculation?, asked Pearson.
"I'm not prepared to accept them without being an expert on them,
but as a historian, what I would want then is to find collateral documentation
in another Ministry perhaps where you see the same kind of figures bearing
out these figures as being authentic. You would find the German High Command
and...their war diary. Occasionally it would summarize or report that it
has been received about partisan warfare on the Russian front and it would
give figures, and then you would hope to find a figure like that repeated
in this completely different archival source, and then I would, without
the slightest hesitation, say this document is genuine because it is in
another document of the Nazi archives. This document...unfortunately is
unique." (34-9608)
Who else is going to be around to report on those things?, asked Pearson.
"Well, let me give you three examples," said Irving. "The
report like this would have gone quite possibly by code from the German
SS police unit at the Russian front back to Berlin headquarters, and we
British would have intercepted it because we were reading the German SS
code at that time, and then we would find in British files those figures,
terms. That is one example...Just one example of the kind of collateral
evidence we historians would expect, now, forty years after the event."
That could be a false message sent out to fool the Brits, couldn't it?,
asked Pearson.
"Yes, but this document is very much an orphan," said Irving.
"It is all by itself, without parents, and I'm very sorry for it.
It's rather pathetic and it arouses my mistrust. I emphasize that I'm very
sorry to see a single figure under the heading 'Jews executed'. I'm very
sorry to see that. But as a historian, I have to say why suddenly this
colossal figure was inserted there in this report when all the other reports
of that series contained no such figure. I want to know. It raises questions
in my head and I'm uncomfortable with it." (34-9609) He continued:
"This report was going to Heinrich Himmler, and he took it along with
him, apparently typed on the special Führer-type typewriter to show
to Hitler...[p]ossibly because he wanted subsequently to push it under
Hitler's desk, so to speak, and get cover for what he was doing. Again,
we're in the field of speculation. Himmler's diary is unfortunately in
the hands of the Israelis. It is a point worth mentioning that the Israeli
government would not allow any historians to make use of Heinrich Himmler's
private diary. If Heinrich Himmler's private diary contained evidence that
there had been a Holocaust, such as defined by you, or your interpretation
of these documents is correct, then I'm sure the Israelis would have been
the first to release the diary and make it available, but they don't."
(34-9611)
Isn't that a bit of speculation, sir?, asked Pearson. Irving disagreed:
"No, I think it is a very reasonable assumption, when archives or
universities offer documents of a quality like that, they are very keen
to make it available unless it contained something they don't want to make
available."
Irving agreed with Pearson that he did not suggest in Hitler's War that
the figure might have been inflated or that it might have been added. Said
Irving: "This is true. You will have seen that I was leafing through
the book just now. I was trying to find a footnote which I had originally
included and which I thought was included, doing a few internal statistical
checks on the document, the number of handguns that had been captured and
so on, and comparing that with apparent number of partisans that have been
captured, but I couldn't find it. But again this book is written in 1977,
at a time when a lot of people believed that there had been a Holocaust
as you defined it." (34-9612)
Irving agreed that on page 462 of his book, he made reference to Hitler
authorizing Himmler to remove six or seven hundred thousand Jews from France.
Said Irving: "Yes, that is based on, again, a handwritten note by
Heinrich Himmler which...I was the first historian to find and transcribe...Himmler's
notes contained the heading about the removal of the six or seven hundred
thousand Jews from France, and written next to that, in Himmler's handwriting,
was Hitler's decision - abtransportiert - transport them away. Again, Hitler
took the decision to transport them." (34-9613)
Pearson asked Irving to look at the chapter note on page 867:
Himmler's own handwritten agenda for discussion with Hitler on December
10 survives...against Item 3, "Jews in France", Himmler put a
tick and the word abschaffen...
Irving testified that abschaffen meant "dispose of." He continued:
"The word abtransportiert occurred in a subsequent memo from Himmler
to the Gestapo chief Müller. He used the milder words verhaftet und
abtransportiert - arrested and transported away." (34-9614)
Pearson returned to page 867 of Hitler's War:
There are other illuminating references to the "Jewish problem"
in Himmler's files at this time. On October 2, 1942, he wrote to Pohl,
Krüger, Globocnik and Wolff about his determination to extract the
Jews from their protected status within important arms factories in Poland
too. "It will then be our aim to replace these Jewish workers by Poles
and to merge most of these Jewish concentration-camp workshops into a very
few big Jewish concentration-camp factories, as far as practicable in the
east of the Generalgouvernement. But there too the Jews must one day, in
accordance with the Führer's wish, disappear [verschwinden]."
Irving testified that Pohl was an SS general who was the chief of the Economic
Office of the SS and had overall responsibility for concentration camps.
He interpolated between Himmler and the concentration camps. General Krüger
was one of the police commanders in the eastern territories. Globocnik,
whom Irving described as "one of the mass murderers, one of the real
Nazi criminals," was one of the SS police commanders in the occupied
Polish area. (34-9614, 9615) Irving believed the document "is perfectly
authentic...But it highlights, of course, one particular problem. You had
to be very careful, how you translate. He is being very precious about
the word he's used...he says 'to disappear', and he is not being specific
what he means by the word 'disappear'. That's why I used the German word
in brackets next to it." (34-9616)
Isn't it clear, asked Pearson, that when he says "there too the Jews
must one day disappear" he was talking about a solution that was taking
place on the site? Irving disagreed: "Mr. Pearson, in an earlier document
in 1942, Himmler talks about, and I quoted it in the book, about Hitler
having given that order that Europe is to become free of the Jews, that
Hitler has ordered that Europe is to be ridden of the Jews...stage by stage,
from west to east, and what he's talking about here is one part of Poland
further to the east, but there too they must disappear and go even further
to the east." (34-9616, 9617)
Irving testified that he put the document in the book "because I wanted
to help the historians who weren't doing their jobs, and I was provid[ing]
documents for them which they hadn't seen before. I was translating the
words that were the precious delicate words, that they had a chance to
make up their own mind how they are going to interpret these words, and
I very much tried to avoid drawing conclusions myself." (34-9617)
Irving himself continued to read from the next passage in Hitler's War:
On November 30, Himmler sent to Gestapo Chief Müller a very "interesting
[press] announcement about a memorandum written by Dr. [Stephen F.] Wise
[President of the American Jewish Congress] in September 1942," and
commented: "Given the scale of the Jewish migration, I'm not surprised
that such rumors crop up somewhere in the world. We both know there's a
high death rate among the Jews who are put to work. But you are to guarantee
to me that at each location the cadavers of these deceased Jews are either
burned or buried, and that nothing else can happen with the cadavers wherever
they are. You are to investigate at once in all quarters to find out whether
there have been any such abuses as the - no doubt mendacious - rumors disseminated
around the world claim. All such abuses are to be reported to me on the
SS oath of honour"...This letter was the purest humbug, and Himmler's
suave reaction to two specific Allied press reports on the extermination
of the European Jews proves it. On November 24, 1942, The Times (London)
published a dispatch from the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem on the holocaust,
partly fanciful but with an unmistakable hard core of truth. Himmler's
office obtained it from Sweden and forwarded it with a noncommittal letter
to the SS Reich Main Security Office in Berlin "for your attention".
On February 14, 1943, the same newspaper published a report received by
the British Section of the World Jewish Congress from Central Europe, claiming
that the extermination of Jews was being accelerated: Bohemia-Moravia was
to be "judenrein" by March 31, deportations from Germany were
continuing, and the mass exterminations in Poland were proceeding, in one
place at the rate of six thousand daily. "Before being massacred,
the Jews are ordered to strip and their clothes are sent to Germany."
Rudolf Brandt, Himmler's adjutant, sent the news report to Kaltenbrunner's
office. "On the instructions of the Reichsführer SS I am transmitting
herewith to you a press dispatch on the accelerated extermination [Ausrottung]
of the Jews in Occupied Europe."
Irving testified: "When I write here there is an 'unmistakable hard
core of truth', I'm comparing the Times report of November 1942 with what
our state of knowledge was in 1977 when that was published, and I'm saying,
'Look, it appears to be the same. They're talking about gas chambers, about
people being forced to strip and having their property robbed and all the
rest of it. The reason I printed this very long footnote at the back of
the book, because I [found] these documents in Himmler's files in the private
papers of the chief of the SS, and I thought they were such unusual documents
that they deserved to be mentioned. It would be irresponsible not to quote
them at length but they do sometimes have the feel of the kind of document
that Trevor- Roper was warning about when he said why has this document
come into existence? What is the purpose of this document? The real purport?
Is somebody trying to pull the wool over somebody's eyes? And you very
much get the feeling of that when you read some of these documents, and
that's why I put that in. I get the feeling there that Himmler is writing
a letter and passing it on to Müller and winking and nodding at the
same time, and now saying 'Put this [in] your file, Müller. You may
need it.' Who knows? We're speculating again, but it is important to speculate
on the basis of responsible information from the archives, which is what
I considered my job to be." (34-9620, 9621)
Irving pointed out that the words "I am transmitting herewith to you
a press dispatch on the accelerated extermination of the Jews in Occupied
Europe," was Brandt's translation of what the Times was writing in
the news report "and the Times in 1943 was very much into the business
of publishing British propaganda." Irving agreed that Brandt did not
point out that it was propaganda and that logically, he should have put
"the alleged accelerated extermination." (34- 9622)
Pearson returned to Hitler's War at page 503, where Irving had dealt with
a two-hour meeting between Himmler and Hitler on March 30, 1943:
Nor did Himmler evidently raise with Hitler the progress made on the "Jewish
problem" during their two hour mountain stroll on March 30 - Hitler
wearing a soft peaked cap to shade his eyes against the Alpine glare. Earlier
in 1943 Himmler had submitted to him a statistical report on a similar
topic - the population migrations he had sponsored since Hitler's written
order of October 1939; the report was typed on the special large-face typewriter
and clearly went to the Führer. But did Hitler ever see the statistical
report the Reichsführer had commissioned at the same time on the "Final
Solution of the Jewish Problem in Europe"? In dry tones, Himmler's
chief statistician, Dr. Richard Korherr, had analyzed the fate of the world's
estimated 17,000,000 Jews: Europe's 10,000,000 had dwindled by 45 percent
since 1937, owing to emigration, the high natural mortality rate, and the
enforced "evacuation" that had begun with the prohibition of
emigration late in 1941. To Himmler's annoyance, on reading the sixteen-page
document on March 23 he found that it stated expressis verbis on page 9
that of the 1,449,692 Jews deported from the eastern provinces 1,274,166
had been subjected to "special treatment" at camps in the Generalgouvernement
and a further 145,301 similarly dealt with in the Warthegau.
Irving agreed that Dr. Richard Korherr had been instructed to make his
report to show Himmler how things were going with the extermination of
the Jews. "It's a very, very questionable document, but I accept the
figures it contains. It's a report that does a somersault after it comes
from existence, because Himmler demanded that the report should be rewritten
in a form suitable for showing to Hitler." Irving termed the document
"questionable" because "of the extraordinary manner in which
Himmler protested about the document and asked it be rewritten in a more
suitable form. It was only introduced in part in Nuremberg at the Nuremberg
trial. The evidence, these covering letters, showing that it had been tampered
with by Himmler or by other people, subsequently was omitted from the Nuremberg
exhibits." Irving did not believe the document was tampered with after
the war, but tampered with during the war by Himmler. The suggestion he
made in his book was that Himmler tampered with it to "pull the wool"
over Hitler's eyes. (34-9625, 9626)
Pearson put to Irving that in the Korherr report, the words "special
treatment" meant liquidation.
"This is one possible interpretation on this document, but Korherr
himself is still alive and has challenged it," said Irving. "He
said he did not mean that when he wrote it...He wrote a very long letter,
as I understand it, to the German news magazine, Der Spiegel, a very irritated
letter saying he's fed up with his report always being adduced as evidence
that there was a mass murder of the Jews. The report that he wrote was
quite a straightforward statistical report and at no stage in his report
had he referred to the mass killing of large numbers of Jews...I have to
be honest and say that I haven't seen Korherr's letter to Der Spiegel.
I'm just repeating what I understand the letter to have said, that he protested
against the imputation that his document was an explicit proof of the liquidation
of Jews, large numbers of Jews." (34-9627)
Irving agreed that in 1977 when he wrote his book, he believed that the
words "special treatment" in the Korherr report meant liquidation:
"...I agree it is difficult to conceive what else 'special treatment'
can have been at one point, 3 million Jews being subjected to it at camps
in the Warthegau...it can't have been a haircut. But I just have to add
the rider that the author of the report himself says this is an improper
imputation to place on his own report." (34-9628)
Irving agreed that the document was strong proof that 1.2 million Jews
died in the camps in the General Government: "Indeed, and this is
why when you asked what my estimate would be, I said the upper limit at
that kind of figure, making the mental reservation in my mind if this document
is accurate and 'special treatment' was meaning that, and if Korherr was
lying after the war when he said it didn't mean that, then it would be
proper to put that figure as the upper level." (34-9629)
Pearson questioned whether this would have been the upper limit since there
were two more years to go in the war. Irving explained: "It was prepared
and submitted to Himmler on March the 23rd, 1943...At that time, there
were no more territories under German control from which they could have
extracted more Jews. It wasn't until they marched into Hungary that they
then had a further reservation for their problems. Statistics then changed.
This was basically a ten-year report." (34-9629)
Irving pointed out that Himmler himself objected to the use of the words
"special treatment" in the report; Himmler indicated that the
Jews hadn't been submitted to "special treatment" but had been
channeled through the camps to the east. (34-9630)
But I thought you said that the reason for that was because Himmler wanted
to "pull the wool" over Hitler's eyes?, asked Pearson.
Said Irving: "This is one possible interpretation. I don't know. He
doesn't say, 'The reason I'm asking for this different report is in order
to pull the wool over the Führer's eyes.'" (34-9630)
Pearson returned to Hitler's War and continued reading at page 504:
Himmler knew too well that the Führer had in November 1941 ordered
that the Jews were not to be liquidated. On April 1 he had the report edited
"for submission to the Führer"; and a few days later - lest
he had not made himself plain - instructed that in the version for the
Führer he "did not want there to be any mention of 'special treatment
of Jews' whatever". According to the new text, the Jews would have
been "channeled through" the camps...As he wrote on April 9,
the report would serve magnificently for "camouflage purposes"
in later years.
"I don't know what he's camouflaging," said Irving. "I have
not the faintest idea what he's camouflaging, but it does show that documents
get created for different reasons than they apparently seem to portray.
If on...Friday, you may have thought I was being a bit precious saying
there was three criteria: is the document authentic; written by somebody
in a position of authority who knows; for what purpose was the document
written? This is a typical example of a very suspicious document which
has been written for a reason quite clearly other than what it appears
to portray." (34-9631)
Pearson put to Irving that Himmler was concerned with camouflaging what
was going on, not keeping anything from Hitler who would have known what
was going on. Irving disagreed: "You are entitled to your opinion.
I have felt I have done my duty in representing that report. It is noteworthy
that this particular page about the camouflage was removed by the Nuremberg
authorities. It wasn't included in their exhibit because it was embarrassing,
but my job as a historian is to try and present the total truth as I see
it, and the total truth is never, never completely clear. It is always
confusing at the edges."
Pearson read the note on page 871 in Hitler's War with respect to the Korherr
report:
Himmler had ordered Korherr to make a statistical analysis of the Final
Solution, by letter of January 18, 1943...explaining that Kaltenbrunner's
office "lacked the necessary expert precision." The draft and
shortened final reports, and Himmler's related correspondence, are on microfilm...As
the ribbon copy of the shorter version is still in Himmler's files, it
may not even have gone to Hitler. Nor did several letters which at about
this time reached Dr. Hans Lammers alleging that Jews were being methodically
exterminated in Poland...At the Nuremberg war crimes trials, Lammers stated
that he followed up these reports by asking Himmler. "Himmler denied
that there was any authorized killing going on and told me" - making
reference to the Führer's orders - "I have to evacuate the Jews
and in such evacuations there are...obviously fatalities. Apart from those,
the people are being housed in camps in the East." And he fetched
a mass of pictures and albums and showed me how the Jews were being put
to work in the camps on war production, in shoe factories, tailors' shops,
and the like. Then he told me: "This job comes from the Führer.
If you think you must put a stop to it, then go and tell the Führer."
Irving testified that Kaltenbrunner was the successor of Heydrich as chief
of the Reich Main Security Office. He did not agree with Pearson's suggestion
that Himmler was lying to Lammers: "Himmler denied that there was
any authorized killing going on. It's a bit vague. What does he mean about
that? Does he mean there is no official policy to kill? I think that does
mean just what it says." (34-9633)
Pearson returned to Hitler's War at page 575:
Early in October [1943] the remaining Jews were deported from Denmark.
Himmler also considered the eight thousand Jews in Rome a potential threat
to public order; Ribbentrop brought to Hitler an urgent telegram from his
consul in Rome reporting that the SS had ordered from Berlin that "the
eight thousand Jews resident in Rome are to be rounded up and brought to
Upper Italy, where they are to be liquidated." Again Hitler took a
marginally more "moderate" line. On the ninth Ribbentrop informed
Rome that the Führer had directed that the eight thousand Jews were
to be transported to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria instead,
where they were to be held "as hostages." It was, Ribbentrop
defined, purely a matter for the SS. (The SS liquidated them anyway, regardless
of Hitler's order.)
Irving testified that he did not repudiate that paragraph: "No, sir,
I stand by that paragraph. The German document referred to the eight thousand
Jews resident in Rome are to be rounded up and brought to Upper Italy where
they are to be liquidated...You can't dispute that at all, and this belongs
to that category of document I mentioned earlier showing whenever Hitler
is personally involved in this process he always puts out his hand to stop
something ugly happening to the Jews. In this case, he intervened to stop
them being liquidated and ordered them transported to Mauthausen instead,
and I understand that nevertheless they were still killed, and I understand
that the Jews of Rome suffered that fate." Irving did not know where
the Jews were liquidated: "I've only heard that the Jews of Rome did
suffer that fate." (34-9635, 9636)
Ribbentrop was the Reich Foreign Minister. Said Irving: "I think on
this occasion, he very clearly acted to prevent it happening. As soon as
he received information from his diplomats in Rome that the SS had a plan
to liquidate the Jews in Rome, Ribbentrop immediately took that telegram
around to Hitler in Hitler's headquarters and showed it to Hitler and obtained
an order that that was not to happen."
Wasn't there another occasion when Ribbentrop counseled the leader of Hungary,
Horthy, to liquidate the Jews of Hungary?, asked Pearson.
"I'm sure you will remind us of the episode in precise wording rather
than your summary," said Irving. (34-9637)
You tell us how you summarize it then, said Pearson. Wasn't there a conversation
involving Hitler, Horthy and Ribbentrop in April, 1943?
"Hitler, Admiral Horthy and Ribbentrop had a discussion of the future
fate of the Jewish population of Hungary," replied Irving, "which
is very large, to the order of one or two million Jews in Hungary, and
the Nazi leaders [urged] the Hungarians to be more radical, to agree to
them being rounded up and put away, locked away, in security because they
were a security threat. And I am speaking from memory here. I've dealt
with this previously in the book and we can probably look it up, if you
had it on one of your photocopies. The German record of their conversation
makes no specific reference from which you could deduce that the Jews were
to be killed. In fact, on the second day of their discussion, Hitler actually
said to Admiral Horthy, 'You can't really expect of us that they should
be killed', or words to that effect. And of greater interest is the Hungarian
record of the conversation which I looked at in the Hungary archives, which
makes it quite plain that there was never any discussion about recommending
that the Hungarians should kill the Jewish population." (34-9637)
Irving located where he had discussed this in Hitler's War on page 509
and read the passage to the court:
Poland should have been an object lesson to Horthy, Hitler argued. He related
how Jews who refused to work there were shot; those who could not work
just wasted away. Jews must be treated like tuberculosis bacilli, he said,
using his favorite analogy. Was that so cruel when one considered that
even innocent creatures like hares and deer had to be put down to prevent
their doing damage? Why preserve a bestial species whose ambition was to
inflict bolshevism on us all? Horthy apologetically noted that he had done
all he decently could against the Jews: "But they can hardly be murdered
or otherwise eliminated", he protested. Hitler reassured him: "There
is no need for that."
In a footnote, Irving had written:
According to Schmidt's notes, Ribbentrop went even further than Hitler
in one outburst to Horthy, exclaiming "that the Jews must either be
destroyed or put in concentration camps - there is no other way."
Irving testified that he believed this was said in a separate discussion
between Ribbentrop and Horthy. He continued: "And then, in a letter
in the Hungarian archives, there is a letter from Horthy to Adolf Hitler,
on May the 7th. Horthy says in his draft letter, there is a sentence which
he later deleted: 'Your Excellency' - meaning Hitler - 'further reproached
me that my government does not proceed with stamping out Jewry with the
same radicalism as is practised in Germany.'" (34-9640)
Pearson suggested to Irving that it was clear to Horthy that what was happening
in areas where the Nazis were in control was racial genocide. Irving disagreed:
"No, I think it is quite plain, from page 509, which you haven't photocopied
for the jury, that Hitler told Admiral Horthy that nobody is talking of
murdering the Jews. There is no need for that. I'm sorry, here we are:
'Hitler reassured him there is no need for that.'" (34-9640)
I suggest, said Pearson, that what Hitler was telling him is that Admiral
Horthy didn't have to do that to the Hungarian Jews, that he didn't have
to go as far as Hitler's own regime was going.
"I don't think that interpretation is borne out either by the German
document when read in full or by the Hungarian version of the same conversation."
(34-9641)
Pearson returned to Hitler's War, page 575:
Coincidentally, it was at this time that Himmler first revealed to two
audiences - of SS Gruppenführer (generals) on October 4, and Gauleiters
on October 6 - an awful secret which he forbade them to discuss in public;
by the end of 1943 the last Jews in occupied Europe would have been physically
exterminated. That Himmler's intention was to make all his SS generals
and the Gauleiters, regardless of their guilt, accessories after the fact
to the massacre is strongly suggested by one curious document in his files:
a name-by-name list of those who had not attended his speech!
Irving testified that "Himmler is saying that he's talking about the
liquidation of Jews to his men . . . He is explaining it to them. We discussed
this on Friday. He is also justifying why they are killing the Jewish women
and children in these operations because he said it would be wrong to leave
them, to come back when they grow up . . ." (34-9642)
Did he say, asked Pearson, that "by the end of 1943 the last Jews
in occupied Europe would have been physically exterminated"?
"I think that this was the burden of those two speeches, as I understood
it when I read them at the time." (34-9642)
Pearson asked Irving to go to page 11 of Did Six Million Really Die?:
€ ...the files of Himmler's headquarters and Hitler's own war directives
there is not a single order for the extermination of Jews or anyone else.
It will be seen later that this has, in fact, been admitted by the World
Centre of Contemporary Jewish Documentation at Tel-Aviv. Attempts to find
"veiled allusions" to genocide in speeches like that of Himmler's
to his SS Obergruppenführers at Posen in 1943 are likewise quite hopeless.
Irving agreed that he didn't have any trouble finding an allusion to racial
genocide in the Posen speech, the precise words of which he had put in
a footnote, where he had quoted Himmler saying: "The hard decision
had to be taken to make this race disappear from earth." (34- 9643,
9644) Irving continued: "... but I think I discussed on Friday, the
reasons why I'm unhappy about the integrity of those two documents because
of the remarkable fact that precisely at this point the typescript changes,
a page appears to have been inserted by a different typist, the numeration
of the pages changes from a typewritten page number at the top to a pencilled
page number at the top, and there are various other indications about that
speech that make me queasy. I don't accept that the text ..."
Pearson interjected: Are you now telling us that this is not a speech that
Himmler delivered?
"I'm saying," replied Irving, "that the text of the speech,
using the words that I just quoted as the text of the speech, is contained
in the original archives...But examination of this text - examination of
this script reveals the odd fact that precisely at that point the text
has been tampered with." Irving could not speculate on when or by
whom the text was tampered with. He had not listened to the sound recording
of the speech which he understood was in the National Archives in Washington.
Said Irving: "...I made the discovery at the time when I was writing
my book on Field-Marshal Milch that some sound recording[s] of the Nuremberg
trials, for example, were also not of integrity. They had been tampered
with." Irving believed, however, that it would be improper for him
to suggest that the sound recording of the Posen speech of Himmler had
been tampered with without first listening to the speech. (34-9645)
Why did you raise the topic of some other speech at Nuremberg if you thought
it was improper for you?, asked Pearson.
"You raised the topic of the sound recording at the National Archives
and I said that I haven't heard it, but that I'm familiar with the fact
that certain other recordings in the same archives are not of 100 percent
integrity." Irving agreed it would be a good idea to listen to the
sound recording, "but it would also be a good idea for the Holocaust
historian to look at the original script and not just the printed text..."
He continued: "I think that in connection with this brochure, this
brochure was wrong to suggest that that speech, as it is known to us historians,
contains no allusion to genocide...I'm also saying that the speech as known
to historians has quite clearly been tampered with at that point, and I
know of no reasonable explanation for why." (34- 9646, 9647) Irving
pointed out that what was contained in these pages "changes very much
the essence of the speech, depending on whether it is an authentic transcript
of the speech or whether that has been tampered with for some reason...I
don't think we need to know the motives of people tampering with speeches.
It is sufficient for historians to look at a document and say 'This document
has been tampered with'; for him then to say, 'In that case, I must set
it aside.'" (34- 9647)
Doesn't he have to have some evidence before he does that?, asked Pearson.
"I think the evidence is what I mentioned," said Irving, "the
fact that at that point in the script, the page relating that very damaging
and incriminating sentence has quite clearly been retyped by a different
typist on a different typewriter using different carbon paper, and that
page has been numbered by pencil and inserted at that point." (34-9648)
Irving pointed out that the speech was about 70 or 80 pages of typed script:
"You know this is a different page that has been inserted in an otherwise
homogeneous script. One only notes it if one looks at the actual script
in the archives or on microfilm, not from the printed text of course."
What are you suggesting by all this, sir?, asked Pearson.
"I'm suggesting that this is sufficient to make a reasonable mind
hesitate to use this document rather in the same way as that partisan combatting
report. You hesitate over that because, once again, there is a reason to
suspect - "
Pearson interjected: It didn't stop you from using it in 1977, did it?
"I wasn't trying to prove a case," replied Irving. "I was
writing a book about Adolf Hitler." The speech was quoted at length
in his book because "It would be very, very irresponsible not to."
(34-9649) Irving continued: "I'm suggesting I would hesitate before
hanging a federal case on this particular page...I didn't 'hang it on a
big bell' as the Germans said. To me, it was just one more [part] in the
story." (34 9650)
Would you agree, asked Pearson, that if somebody like Professor Hilberg
went and listened to the sound recording, they'd be in a better position
than you to reach a conclusion with respect to the validity of the speech
and the document?
"I would say that if he had taken the trouble to look at the original
typed script, he would also be in a better position, but I'm the only person
to have taken that trouble. As I said on Friday, I not only looked at the
typed script, I looked at Heinrich Himmler's original handwritten note
on the basis of which he delivered the speeches. I looked at the original
typed script, the transcript, the final version of the typed script."
(34-9651)
Do you have any reason to suggest that Professor Hilberg has not looked
at the original typed speech?, asked Pearson.
"What if he has? He hasn't spotted this very obvious and glaring fact,"
said Irving. (34- 9652)
Perhaps he doesn't think it's significant because perhaps he has checked
with the sound recording and seen there is no difference. Those are possibilities,
aren't they, sir?, asked Pearson.
Said Irving: "Everything is possible, but do you want to base your
-"
Judge Ron Thomas interjected, stating that this was speculation since Irving
hadn't read the book. Defence attorney Christie asked if the Crown was
suggesting that this was in the book somewhere. Thomas replied: "Not
that I heard." Christie again objected on the grounds that it was
improper for the Crown to make submissions in their questions that they
were not prepared to prove. Thomas said. "Thank you." Christie
asked for a ruling on his objection. Thomas replied: "I have ruled
on it." (34-9652)
Pearson returned to Hitler's War at page 575:
Against the fifty-one names were checks marking whether or not they had
since read his speech or otherwise "taken cognizance of it".
The shorthand record and magnetic recordings show that he did not yet claim
to be acting on Hitler's orders. Himmler clearly considered his standing
with the Führer impregnable, to admit so openly that he had disregarded
Hitler's veto on liquidating the Jews all along. The same Gauleiters were
Hitler's guests at the Wolf's Lair on October 7; from this point on, he
could no longer logically plead ignorance of what his "faithful Heinrich"
had done.
Irving testified that he had examined the shorthand record of transcripts
of the magnetic recordings, but repeated that he had not listened to the
recording itself. Irving pointed out that the suspect sentence, "The
hard decision had to be taken to make this race disappear from earth,"
appeared on the suspect page, the one where the typing suddenly changed.
(34-9653 to 9655)
"There must be a logical explanation why a page has been taken out
of a script and retyped by somebody else at this point of all points,"
said Irving. "Nowhere else in the script, and...nowhere else in all
of Himmler's other speeches - and he made a whole series of speeches week
after week, month after month, always repeating the same old gramophone
record of what he is doing and why, does this passage appear. It is unique."
Irving testified that "from the way that the transcript at this point
appears to have obtained an enhanced quality by virtue of the fact that
it's been retyped and renumbered and inserted at this point, one begins
to suspect that all this may have been said for a special reason. In other
words, it may be another of these famous German 'camouflage' documents
or statements that we were looking at an hour ago." (34-9657)
He continued: "I don't challenge that he may well have used these
horrendous words, 'The hard decision had to be taken to make this race
disappear from earth'...But for some reason, they were being spoken for
a special reason because that page has, for some reason, been taken out
and put in and retyped, that page of all pages, and he doesn't make this
statement anywhere else when he's delivering almost identical speeches
to...similar audiences." (34-9658)
Doesn't he start out his remarks on the Jews, asked Pearson, by saying
that he was going to deal with a subject that must not be spoken of in
public?
"He says this...kind of cautionary statement in very many speeches.
I think there is something like ten or fifteen speeches that he delivered
between 1942 and June 1944 to the same kind of high-level audience where
very frequently he raises the same kind of matter, of what he is up to,
with his famous task of consolidating Germandom in the east. But this is
the only occasion where he makes this kind of statement, and it's the only
occasion where this transcript has been tampered with." (34-9658,
9659)
Why would he be admitting to the extermination of Jews for camouflage purposes?,
asked Pearson.
"We're now speculating," said Irving. "It may be that because
he is talking to a party, political audience, that he is lighting a bonfire
[under] them and saying: 'At least we're doing it. We're really carrying
it out.' Who knows what his reasons for appearing to say something were?"
Another possible interpretation was that he had done it: "He has carried
out the job. He thinks the mission is complete and now is the time to broaden
the responsibility among other generals. This is another possibility."
(34-9659, 9660)
So he has carried out racial genocide, asked Pearson, and you admit that
that's what he is talking about?
"This is a possibility that I contemplated in 1977 at the time that
I believed and at the time that I wrote that book," said Irving.
Has that belief changed now?, asked Pearson.
"My belief has not changed that this particular page is a very suspect
page. This particular remark by Himmler is a very suspect remark...can
his statement be taken at face value? Because that is the only time he
says it. This is the only time that this particular page in his speech
has been tampered with. This is the kind of very detailed forensic examination
that has to be applied to important speeches like this." (34-9660)
Pearson returned to Hitler's War on page 576:
To the SS generals on October 4, 1943, Himmler praised the toughness of
those who had had to carry out the massacre: "This is a page of glory
in our history which has never been written and is never to be written."
To the Gauleiters two days later he referred to "the Jewish problem"
as the most difficult he had handled. "The Jews must be exterminated,"
was easier said than done. Even where women and children were concerned
he, Himmler, had opted for a clear solution. "I did not consider myself
justified in exterminating the menfolk - that is to kill them or have them
killed - while leaving their children to grow up and take vengeance on
our sons and grandsons. The hard decision had to be taken to make this
race disappear from earth." He could not have been more explicit as
to his own responsibility.
Irving testified: "'The hard decision had to be taken to make this
race disappear from earth', and yet he hasn't taken the decision, because
at this very time millions upon millions of Jews are within the Nazi clutches
and yet they are surviving; they are not being sent to extermination, firing
squads or whatever. They are working in the factories or working in the
fields. They are working in the labour camps. Millions and millions of
them have survived the Second World War, and I'm glad for every single
one. So here, he's apparently saying, 'I took the hard decision to make
this race disappear from earth', and yet he didn't do it." (34-9662)
Irving repeated that he was unhappy because of the tampering which had
occurred with this page of the transcript of the speech. He continued:
"...this isn't just any page...I suppose it is probably the most important
page of the most important speech in the whole of the Holocaust history,
and this page, of all pages, when we look at it, turned out to have been
tampered with." (34-9663)
Pearson read a note to page 575 found on page 879:
At one stage in his speech of October 6, 1943 - according to the wire-recording
archived in Washington (NA, 242-299) - Himmler directly addressed himself
to "You, Herr Reichsminister," which indicates that Speer was
a listener. Few generals later admitted that they had known; perhaps they
did not realize the enormity of what they were being told in such dry sentences.
Field-Marshal Weichs frankly told interrogators of the U.S. Seventh Army
on May 30, 1945, that Himmler had once visited him in the Balkans and confirmed
that the rumors were true - that the (unspecified) victims were loaded
into railroad trucks without knowing that a sudden, painless death awaited
them. "They are just criminals of whom we must get rid ourselves,"
was Himmler's explanation.
Irving testified that he never heard the wire-recording, but had had a
correspondence with Albert Speer regarding it: "...he told me that
he had a transcript of the wire-recording which used those words. He sent
me a number of affidavits relating to it." (34-9664)
With respect to the interrogation of Field-Marshal Weichs, Irving testified:
"I think we have to look very carefully at that source and say this
is a record written by an American NCO or sergeant of what an interpreter
has told him that a Field-Marshal has told him that Himmler has told him.
It is at sixth or seventh removed, so we can't really attach...too much
weight to precise words here in a statement made after the war is over."
(34-9665) He continued: "Mr. Pearson, I can help you by saying I can
accept that that is an accurate report of what Himmler said. I don't think
it is very important one way or the other." (34-9666)
Irving pointed out that the American government was also gassing criminals
at this same time. Looking at the precise wording used, said Irving, "Weichs
is saying that unspecified people, according to Himmler, were being sent
to camps where they were being executed. This isn't what we're talking
about in your specification of the Holocaust." Irving indicated that
what Pearson had read was a footnote to a footnote, adding: "...I
think that's about as much weight as can be assigned to it. Certainly,
I gave it no more importance than that." (34-9667)
Pearson continued reading from Hitler's War at page 630:
The motives of Hitler and Himmler still diverged, though the Führer's
attitude had noticeably hardened. Hitler was primarily concerned that this
potential Fifth Column be removed from the Balkans...but Himmler - however
much he protested that he was not just "bloodthirsty" - was eager
to see what he called an "uncompromising," an irrevocable, and
above all a Final Solution. When Hitler instructed him in April to provide
two 100,000-strong contingents of Hungarian Jews to work on Saur's bombproof
tank and fighter factories in the Protectorate and elsewhere, the Reichsführer
SS expressed unconcealed displeasure at this "singular" arrangement.
Irving testified that Hungary had been invaded in March [1944], so that
the Jews of Hungary were now within the German as opposed to the Hungarian
government's clutches. Horthy did not proceed with the radicalism that
the Germans expected from him, said Irving, in that he was not rounding
the Jews up and locking them away. (34-9668)
Pearson suggested that Irving was saying that Himmler was interested in
killing all the Jews of Hungary. Said Irving: "That is correct at
the time I wrote that book." (34 9668)
Do you not now think that Himmler was interested in an "uncompromising,
an irrevocable, and above all, a Final Solution"?, asked Pearson.
"Himmler, by 1944, had become a very different person. He was already
negotiating with the Allied governments to ship Jews out of Hungary in...exchange
for thousands of trucks, in exchange for cash, all sorts of scams that
Himmler was operating...if he was purely concerned with the racial solution
of liquidating every Jew from the face of the earth, he was allowing the
bucket to leak in several places." (34-9669)
Pearson suggested that in the last sentence Irving was saying that Himmler
was upset that he lost an opportunity to exterminate two 100,000-strong
contingents of Jews.
"I think that here I put in a sentence speculating on what Himmler's
feelings were. It's probably irresponsible speculation on the basis of
evidence or beliefs in 1977." Irving continued: "I have to be
frank and say that since I wrote this, which was in 1965 or 1966, I'm...no
longer familiar now, twenty years later, with the documents that it's based
on and I'm not in the position really to offer any constructive comment
on that. I would have to look at the original documents again that I used."
(34-9670)
Pearson continued reading at page 630:
In theory he might therefore have found the passage in Himmler's seventy-page
speech of October 6, 1943, where he bluntly disclosed to Albert Speer and
the Gauleiters that he, Himmler, had decided to murder Jewish women and
children as well as adult males...On May 5, 1944, however, Himmler tried
a new version - or adapted it to his audience of generals. After revealing
in now stereotyped sentences that he had "uncompromisingly" solved
the "Jewish problem" in Germany and the German-occupied countries,
he added: "I am telling this to you as my comrades. We are all soldiers
regardless of which uniform we wear. You can imagine how I felt executing
this soldierly order issued to me, but I obediently complied and carried
it out to the best of my convictions." Never before, and never after,
did Himmler hint at a Führer Order; but there is reason to doubt he
dared show this passage to his Führer.
Irving pointed out that there was a footnote to this passage which ought
to be read, and he read it to the court:
Page 28 of the large-face typescript, containing this pregnant sentence
- for only Hitler was empowered to issue a "soldierly order"
to Himmler - was manifestly retyped and inserted in the transcript at a
later date, as the different indenting shows.
"Another example of a document being tampered with," said Irving.
"A reason which I speculate at here, that Himmler didn't want Hitler
to see that he was actually putting the - passing the buck to Hitler. We
keep on having to ask: How does a document come into existence, and why?
That's a really good example." (34 9672)
Pearson continued reading from Hitler's War:
Consider too Himmler's speech of May 24, in which again speaking before
generals he explained his stance somewhat differently. He recalled how
in 1933 and 1934 he had thrown habitual criminals into concentration camps
without trial, and boasted, "I must admit I have committed many such
illegal acts in my time. But rest assured of this: I have resorted to these
only when I felt that sound common-sense and the inner justice of a Germanic
- and right-thinking - people were on my side." With this in mind
Himmler had confronted the "Jewish problem" too: "It was
solved uncompromisingly - on orders and at the dictate of sound common-sense."
Irving again pointed out that a further sentence and its footnote ought
to be read:
One page later, Himmler's speech again hinted that Jewish women and children
were also being liquidated.
The footnote read:
This page alone was also retyped and possibly inserted at a later date
in the typescript.
Said Irving: "This is what I mean when I say that these transcripts
of Himmler's speeches are very odd. Every time there is a real killing
reference, in both senses of the word, that page has been retyped...my
conclusion is that there is reason to suspect that this speech may have
been, or the transcript may have been, put together for camouflage purposes."
(34-9673, 9674))
Pearson continued reading from Hitler's War , page 631 - a speech by Hitler
to his generals:
Of course, people can say, "Yes, but couldn't you have got out of
it...more humanely?" My dear generals, we are fighting a battle of
life and death. If our enemies are victorious in this struggle, the German
people will be extirpated. The Bolsheviks will butcher millions upon millions
of our intellectuals. Those who escape the bullet in the nape of the neck
will be deported. The children of the upper classes will be taken away
and got rid of. This entire bestiality has been organized by Jews. Today
incendiary and other bombs are dropped on our cities although the enemy
knows he is hitting just women and children. They are machine-gunning ordinary
railroad trains, or farmers working in their fields. In one night in a
city like Hamburg we lost over forty thousand women and children, burned
to death. Expect nothing else from me, but that I do just what I think
best suits the national interest and in the manner best serving the German
nation.
(Prolonged loud applause).
Kindness here as indeed anywhere else would be just about the greatest
cruelty to our own people. If the Jews are going to hate me, then at least
I want to take advantage of that hatred.
(Murmurs of approval)
The advantage is this: now we have a cleanly organized nation, in which
no outsider can interfere.
Look at the other countries...Hungary! The entire country subverted and
rotten, Jews everywhere, Jews and still more Jews right up to the highest
level, and the whole country covered by a continuous network of agents
and spies waiting for the moment to strike, but fearing to do so in case
a premature move on their part drew us in. Here too I intervened, and this
problem is now going to be solved too. If I may say this: the Jews had
as their program the extirpation [Ausrottung] of the German people. On
September 1, 1939, I announced in the Reichstag, if any man believes he
can extirpate the German nation in a world war, he is wrong; if Jewry really
tries that, then the one that will be extirpated is Jewry itself.
(Spirited applause)
In Auschwitz, the defunct paraphernalia of death - idle since late 1943
- began to clank again as the first trainloads from Hungary arrived.
What "defunct paraphernalia of death" were you talking about?,
asked Pearson.
"Well, my belief then was that Auschwitz had been a major extermination
camp which ceased operation in late 1943 and resumed operation after the
occupation of Hungary in the summer of 1944." (34-9676)
April 26, 1988
Pearson turned to page 883 of Hitler's War, where Irving had dealt with
Himmler's views on Admiral Horthy's initial actions to stop the transports
of the Jews out of Hungary:
Himmler's views are evident from his handwritten speech notes, e.g., for
his speech to field commanders at Posen on January 26, 1944..."Jewish
question. In the Generalgouvernement [Poland] huge calmdown since Jewish
problem solved. - Racial struggle. - Total solution. - Don't let avengers
arise to take revenge on our children."
Irving testified that he had looked at the actual handwritten notes made
by Himmler and had transcribed them himself. The notes were the basis on
which he delivered his speech. (34- 9682, 9683)
Pearson suggested that the notes showed Himmler was talking about racial
genocide.
"I am unhappy about your introduction recently of this word genocide...I
think you really ought to be specific...if you use the word, I think you
ought to define it. The word genocide doesn't occur in these notes. That's
why I say that." Irving pointed out that the last sentence of the
Himmler notes "is an echo of what he said in the earlier speech in
Posen in October 1943, where he was explaining why they had had to kill
women and children too." (34-9684)
Would you agree, asked Pearson, that he is going beyond talking about individual
massacres, that he is talking about the solution to a racial struggle with
respect to the Jews? Irving disagreed: "I am anxious not to try to
read more into the notes than they actually portray. Trying to read between
the lines and add things on has, I think, bedeviled the whole of the history
of the Holocaust." (34-9684)
So, asked Pearson, unless Himmler had written 'we have subjected the Jews
to racial genocide', you would not be prepared to admit that that is what
he's talking about?
"Not in a matter as important as this," said Irving. "I
believe I am right in saying that we don't actually have the text of the
speech he made on that occasion and so I introduced just the handwritten
notes for it. But I think, if I may repeat, that the whole of the history
of the Holocaust, the writing of the history of the Holocaust has been
bedeviled by eager historians trying to write things between the lines
which aren't justified. I don't accuse Hilberg of that. I think Hilberg
is very good. I've had a chance since yesterday to look at some of Hilberg's
writing. If I may just say this, particularly on the case you introduced
yesterday about the Roman Jews, and I've checked up on Hilberg's description
of the expulsion of the Jews from Rome, the eight thousand that we were
talking about yesterday, and Hilberg makes plain that in fact 1,007 Jews
were finally expelled to Auschwitz. He doesn't say that they were killed
there. He writes they were sent to the killing centre of Auschwitz and
so in as much as Hilberg modifies what I said, I'm happy to accept his
version of history...I am very impressed by the clinical precision of his
language. He didn't say they were sent to Auschwitz and killed. He said
they were sent to the killing centre at Auschwitz because Hilberg has also
found no evidence that they were killed. He then writes two or three pages
later of the total of seven thousand Jews deported from the whole of Italy,
fewer than eight hundred returned to Italy. But he doesn't then look at
the possibility that they may have been trans-shipped straight from the
displaced persons camps to Palestine, for example. I think Hilberg is a
very accurate and precise writer. He phrases his words very closely...I'm
very impressed by the quality of his writing." (34-9684, 9685)
So when he says 5.1 million Jews were exterminated, that is the conclusion
of a man who is conservative in his approach and precise?, asked Pearson.
Irving replied that he "would like to know exactly what he said and
how he phrased it." (34-9686)
Pearson turned next to the subject of the Wannsee Conference protocol and
read an excerpt of Hilberg's translation from page 94 of his book Documents
of Destruction :
In the course of the final solution, the Jews should be brought under appropriate
direction in a suitable manner to the east for labor utilization. Separated
by sex, the Jews capable of work will be led into these areas in large
labor columns to build roads, whereby doubtless a large part will fall
away through natural reduction.
The inevitable final remainder which doubtless constitutes the toughest
element will have to be dealt with appropriately, since it represents a
natural selection which upon liberation is to be regarded as a germ cell
of a new Jewish development. (See the lesson of history.)
After Irving confirmed that this was an "acceptable translation,"
Pearson put to him that what this really said was what Himmler had said,
that women and children would have to be killed to stop future avengers
from taking revenge.
"It says nothing of the sort," said Irving. "There's no
reference to women or children in that paragraph whatsoever. What they
are saying there is that after those who have built roads until they drop,
which is the phrase I use in the book and it's a very adequate description
of the first paragraph, that they will build roads until they drop, the
others, the ones who don't drop, the ones who are tough enough to survive
- they're going to be a tough element and we're going to have to deal with
them appropriately. There's not a hint as to what that appropriate dealing
is...it could be locking away in a very secure prison camp somewhere. There's
not a hint. You are beginning to read between the lines. I admire the skill
with which you do it...What it does say is if we liberate them, they will
be a germ cell so from that you can conclude that the alternative was going
to be the choice chosen; they weren't going to be liberated...I am suggesting
to you there are very many different ways of reading between the lines
of that paragraph and I said I admire the ingenuity with which you try
to read women and children into that paragraph and you try to read a massacre
into that paragraph. It just isn't there. There are other alternatives."
(34 9688, 9689)
Would you agree, asked Pearson, that it was ridiculous to suggest that
the object of the Nazis would have been to create a new Jewish development
of the toughest elements of the Jews?
"There is a strong Zionist element in the pre-war Nazi history,"
said Irving. "They sent Adolf Eichmann to Palestine to negotiate with
the Zionist leaders about the Jewish immigration to Palestine. So there
was certainly as at that time, there was an idea of sending the Jews out."
So are you suggesting, asked Pearson, that here they are talking about
putting together through natural selection the germ cell of a new Jewish
development?
"They are concerned a new germ cell will derive which, if liberated,
will cause them, the Germans, problems." (34-9690)
If it's liberated by the Allies, for instance?, asked Pearson.
"If it's liberated by anybody...I can't see the words 'Allies' in
there. I am reading clearly what the document said...The words here are
'which, upon liberation, is to be regarded as ... a germ cell of a new
Jewish development'. But there is no explicit reference to solving that
problem by liquidating this final remainder." (34-9690)
Would you agree that was Himmler's solution?, asked Pearson.
"I'm not certain who wrote this paragraph," said Irving. "I
think we would have to know who is the author of this paragraph. I'm just
putting it to you in my reply that there are other alternatives. I accept
you can read the lines the way you do. Equally other people could read
between the lines with alternative interpretations." Irving continued:
"If I might just...mention that that effectively deals with the Wannsee
protocol, this famous, notorious document upon [which] so much of the Holocaust
history depends. There is nothing in it...it is a balloon which collapses."
(34-9691, 9692)
Pearson returned to Hitler's War, page 645, regarding a speech by Himmler
made in 1944 that may have been shown to Hitler. The speech:
...covered the familiar ground, though he no longer claimed to be murdering
the Jews on Hitler's orders. He conceded that ("at most") fifty
thousand Germans were now in concentration camps, including some fifteen
thousand political prisoners. He asked for the generals' sympathy in having
had to eliminate the Jews: Germany could not have withstood the bombing
terror if the Jewish germ had remained, he argued, nor could the front
line have been held east of Lemberg...if the big Jewish settlements had
still existed in that city - or in Cracow, Lublin, and Warsaw. And using
the familiar arguments he answered their unspoken question as to why the
Jewish children had to be murdered too.
Irving testified that he did not dispute that Himmler said those things:
"Very similar to his previous speeches. He's just going over the old
familiar ground, answering their questions because of the questions that
were on the minds of a lot of army generals at this time; they had seen
the atrocities behind the lines; they wanted to know what the hell was
going on." (34-9693)
And it's clear, suggested Pearson, that he was talking about eliminating
the Jews as opposed to talking about ad hoc massacres.
"I would have to look again at the entire text of the speech if I
was going to answer that question honestly. He certainly is talking about
the elimination of the Jews which the German generals in his audience had
been concerned about. There were a number of German generals at that time,
like Field-Marshal von Weichs...who were concerned about what they had
seen. So they had to have this kind of pep talk from the chief of the SS
to explain the politics of it." (34- 9693, 9694)
Pearson turned to page 660 of Hitler's War and asked Irving if at this
page he was dealing with the Hungarian Jews and the fact that Hitler and
Himmler were very interested in getting the Jews out of Hungary. Irving
testified that it "was a security problem. They regarded Hungary as
a major strategic security threat so long as it had a large Jewish element
in the population." (34- 9694)
Pearson read from page 660, where Irving explained why Horthy did not go
along with it:
But now Himmler's ghastly secret was coming out, for two Slovak Jews had
escaped from Auschwitz extermination camp, and their horrifying revelations
were published in two reputable Swiss newspapers early in July. Horthy
refused to deport the Jews from Budapest; instead, he announced that a
general would bring Hitler a letter on July 21.
Do you repudiate what you wrote there?, asked Pearson.
"This is a very well-known report by two Slovak Jews who claimed to
have been in Auschwitz camp...I have to use that wording...without being
able to be too specific, because I haven't come prepared to answer questions
on that Slovak report. I now understand that that report is open to some
question...It is a very, very detailed report. A copy is in the Roosevelt
Library. It came out to the United States and it has every appearance of
being authentic." Irving testified that he had not talked to the two
Slovak Jews in question. He stood by what he wrote about the report being
published by two reputable Swiss newspapers. (34-9695)
And you'd agree, asked Pearson, that the Swiss were neutrals during the
war?
"The Swiss were neutrals," replied Irving. "They had to
accept whatever propaganda was fed to them by either side." (34-9696)
The report was one among other causes which had stopped Horthy from deporting
the Jews. Said Irving: "Horthy certainly believed something was going
on which he disapproved of...But having since written this book in 1977,
I understand that that Slovak report is open to some question...over the
last ten years I suppose I have heard on two or three occasions people
say, oh, that report you must be careful of. We're not certain how it came
into existence and what the motives were of the two Slovaks concerned."
(34-9696)
Irving testified that during the war Hungary was a "very reluctant
ally. They came and went. They came when there was something to pick up,
like a piece of Czechoslovakia, and they went when there was any fighting
to do. They came again then reluctantly in March 1944 when Hitler invaded
them and his troops overran Hungary to reinforce and bolster...the sagging
eastern front...It had its own government until October the 15th, 1944,
when the Germans actually overthrew the Hungarian government and imposed
their own regime." (34-9697)
Pearson suggested to Irving that the leader of Hungary was in a good position
to know what was going on in Europe. Irving disagreed: "...as you
know having read Hitler's War, my contention is even Adolf Hitler didn't
know what was going on in Europe in every respect." (34- 9697)
Pearson turned to Did Six Million Really Die?, page 24:
€ In the Federal Archives of Koblenz there is a directive of January 1943
from Himmler regarding such executions, stressing that "no brutality
is to be allowed" (Manvell & Frankl, ibid, p. 312). Occasionally
there was brutality, but such cases were immediately scrutinised by SS
Judge Dr. Konrad Morgen of the Reich Criminal Police Office, whose job
was to investigate irregularities at the various camps. Morgen himself
prosecuted commander Koch of Buchenwald in 1943 for excesses at his camp,
a trial to which the German public were invited. It is significant that
Oswald Pohl, the administrator of the concentration camp system who was
dealt with so harshly at Nuremberg, was in favour of the death penalty
for Koch. In fact, the SS court did sentence Koch to death, but he was
given the option of serving on the Russian front. Before he could do this,
however, Prince Waldeck, the leader of the SS in the district, carried
out his execution. This case is ample proof of the seriousness with which
the SS regarded unnecessary brutality. Several SS court actions of this
kind were conducted in the camps during the war to prevent excesses, and
more than 800 cases were investigated before 1945. Morgen testified at
Nuremberg that he discussed confidentially with hundreds of inmates the
prevailing conditions in the camps. He found few that were undernourished
except in the hospitals, and noted that the pace and achievement in compulsory
labour by inmates was far lower than among German civilian workers.
Irving testified that he had not quoted the Himmler directive mentioned
in the booklet; however, he was familiar with it: "It's a reference
to ordinary, disciplinary executions inside institutions and concentration
camps for whatever reason and Himmler had ordered there be no photographs
and no brutality." (34-9699) Irving agreed that the directive had
"nothing at all" to do with extermination, but later said: "I
would modify my previous answer and say it was indirectly to do with the
extermination controversy because it showed a certain squeamishness on
Himmler's part. I think several historians have suggested that Himmler
was personally squeamish." Irving added that he thought all brutality
was unnecessary and that Harwood "obviously" didn't. (34-9700,
9702)
Would you agree, asked Pearson, that the passage in Did Six Million Really
Die? was not an honest summary of Konrad Morgen's testimony?
"It is some fifteen years since I read Konrad Morgen's testimony and
corresponded with him...But to the best of my recollection, it is a fair
reflection of Morgen's testimony except in the detail. I am not sure that
Koch was convicted of brutality. I have a feeling that the original indictment
was in connection with fraud and embezzlement at the Buchenwald camp ...
Certainly the impression I had from the Morgen testimony was that he found
himself being drawn into a sink of iniquity, of SS inequity at camp level.
He found that most extraordinary things were happening and that there was
a lot of reluctance by higher-ups to allow him to investigate further and
he ran into the usual kind of [obstruction]. He was obviously a very unusual
and dedicated judicial inquirer. Having said that, I would once again say
that this paragraph fairly reflects the essence of what the Konrad Morgen
report was." (34-9702, 9703)
Pearson turned to page 718 of Hitler's War where Irving had dealt with
Morgen's report:
In October 1944, Himmler ordered the extermination of the Jews to stop.
What led to this order is uncertain. SS General Ernst Kaltenbrunner, chief
of the Reich Main Security Office, stated in his closing speech to the
Allied tribunal at Nuremberg two years later that he had received a stunning
report from an investigating judge he had appointed in 1943 to prosecute
corruption at top level in the concentration camp system: this lawyer,
Dr. Konrad Morgen, had been drafted into the SS for the purpose, and his
early inquires at Buchenwald convinced him that illegal murders of witnesses
of the commandant's corrupt practices had occurred. Morgen had secured
the execution of the commandant, Karl Koch, and eventually procured indictments
in two hundred other cases. Late in 1943 he had realized that a systematic
mass murder was proceeding at two camps - Auschwitz and Lublin. The commandant
at Lublin, a former Stuttgart lawyer named Wirth, told him "they were
destroying the Jews on the Führer's orders," and he was running
altogether four extermination camps in the eastern Generalgouvernement
of Poland, including Majdanek near Treblinka, in which five thousand Jews
were themselves operating the machinery (before being systematically liquidated
themselves). Shortly after telling him this, Morgen later reported, Wirth
vanished from Lublin, having been instructed to raze his extermination
camps to the ground. Late in 1943, he continued, while following up a major
gold smuggling racket, he stumbled on the truth about Auschwitz, where
one Rudolf Hoess was commandant. Believing at that time that Hitler himself
had ordered all this, Morgen felt powerless to intervene. He began a merciless
prosecution of the camp officials over the "lesser" murders,
however - outside the general massacre program, hoping in this way to ventilate
the whole issue. But an investigating judge sent to scrutinize the files
of the Reich Main Security Office itself - under whose Departments IV and
IVb the massacre had begun - found that no general order for the massacre
had ever been received or issued. Morgen himself was the target of harassment;
his staff's barracks were burned down one night, with all their files,
but he fought on and eventually laid the dossier before Kaltenbrunner.
Kaltenbrunner stated (in August 1946) that he was "stunned by the
report." He himself had been interested only in the Intelligence side
of his office. He sent the document by special courier that October 1944
day to Hitler. Hitler sent for him in person the next day, and after a
long discussion agreed to call Himmler and Oswald Pohl, chief of the concentration
camps, to account for their actions. In Kaltenbrunner's presence - as he
described at Nuremberg - the Führer ordered SS General Fegelein to
ensure that Himmler reported to him immediately. (According to the manservant's
register, Himmler came on October 17, and then again on November 7.) Hitler
gave Kaltenbrunner his word, as they shook hands and parted, that he would
put an immediate end to the massacre. (We have only Kaltenbrunner's account
of all this; he himself was hanged at Nuremberg, and his widow possesses
none of his personal papers which might have thrown light on the truth.
Morgen, now a respected lawyer in Frankfurt, supports only part of the
SS general's account, while motivated by an obvious and understandable
antipathy toward him.)
The following scene, is, however, independently testified to. On October
27, 1944, news reports reached Hitler that the Russians claimed to have
found a former concentration camp, Majdanek, near Lublin, at which 1,500,000
people had been liquidated; according to Heinz Lorenz, his press officer,
Hitler angrily dismissed the reports as propaganda - just as German troops
had been accused of "hacking off children's hands in Belgium"
in 1914. When Ribbentrop pressed him for an answer, the Führer replied
more revealingly, "That is Himmler's affair and his alone". He
betrayed no flicker of emotion.
Is that what you wrote in 1977?, asked Pearson.
"Indeed. I don't think I would change a line of it. I think I built
in all the necessary safeguards to point to the obvious inadequacies of
the testimony." (34-9707)
Pearson asked Irving what he was referring to in the first sentence regarding
the order by Himmler to stop the extermination of the Jews. Irving testified
that he was referring "to the testimony of Kaltenbrunner at Nuremberg,
where he in turn refers to the steps that he took after getting the reports
from Konrad Morgen that these excesses were occurring in certain camps."
(34-9704)
Was Kaltenbrunner lying?, asked Pearson.
"Since we took care of making sure he couldn't speak afterwards, it's
difficult now to tell," said Irving. (34-9704) He continued: "I
corresponded with Morgen, I visited the widow of Kaltenbrunner. I did everything
I could to establish precisely what had happened...I was unhappy that the
Allies had not made greater use of the man. Here's a man, Konrad Morgen,
who investigated what you called the Holocaust. He investigated it. He
was obviously a first- hand witness and yet the Allies made hardly any
use of him whatsoever as a source." (34-9708)
Pearson put to Irving that Morgen's investigation led him to conclude that
there were a number of extermination camps operating in Poland. Irving
disagreed: "He didn't get to them. He got to some of the people who
reported atrocities to him and from that he concluded that something extraordinary
was going on. But when I corresponded with him, as I say in the book, he
denied Kaltenbrunner's account of the story, but I thought again it was
so important that the whole matter had to be ventilated in this book on
Adolf Hitler...And Hitler himself dismissed it angrily and said this is
just Allied propaganda." (34-9708)
Pearson pointed out that Irving had gone on to say in the book that the
Führer had replied "more revealingly" to Ribbentrop.
"It is 'more revealingly' in connection with Adolf Hitler if we want
to know what his own knowledge was of affairs, if he on repeated occasions
brushed it away from himself and said all of this kind of thing is Himmler's
pigeon. The buck stops with him. As we know, Himmler had been given the
job for the consolidation of Germandom and he had been given the job of
police security in rear areas and under that category fell the liquidation
of Jews as partisan material. This was probably what was going through
Hitler's mind when he said that." (34-9709)
Irving testified that he had a "very good" source for the exchange
between Ribbentrop and Hitler and that his statement that "Hitler
betrayed no flicker of emotion" probably came from the testimony given
by Ribbentrop in the source that he had used.
What you are saying, suggested Pearson, is that Hitler was not surprised
that 1.5 million people had been liquidated?
"If you read the paragraph closely, you'll see this is the Allied
propaganda saying that 1.5 million people have been liquidated. This was
among a number of very large similar claims put out by the British psychological
warfare executive on the instructions of the British secret service. The
gas chamber story originated in the British secret service. The psychological
warfare executive and the files on that are now available in the British
Public Records Office." (34-9710)
Irving agreed that Harwood should have mentioned that Morgen's investigations
led him to conclude that there were extermination camps in Poland and that
Harwood should then have examined the allegation. Irving believed Harwood
should also have mentioned that the initial investigation was touched off
by charges of corruption. (34-9711)
Pearson pointed out that Irving had described Morgen as a "respected"
lawyer and asked whether Irving had any reason to doubt the honesty of
what Morgen had told him.
Said Irving: "He is a lawyer. He is a very respected lawyer. He is
obviously not eager to get caught up in this controversy. He is not anxious
to have people recall that he was Heinrich Himmler's chief investigating
judge. So, he would certainly temper his statements in the modern Federal
Republic of Germany with an element of caution." (34-9711)
But his investigations, asked Pearson, had proceeded to the stage where
he actually talked to the commandants?
"Yes," said Irving, "but here we must introduce an element
of caution. What we are reading is a fourth or fifth-hand account. It is
Kaltenbrunner relating what Morgen was told by Wirth about what he had
heard...And Morgen in his correspondence with me was very cautious indeed.
He was anxious not to confirm what Kaltenbrunner was saying...I very much
regret that the Allies didn't interrogate Konrad Morgen in very much greater
detail in 1945." (34-9712)
Pearson returned to Hitler's War, page 791:
As American troops advanced across Thuringia, Hitler was confronted with
the problem of the concentration camps. Goering advised him to turn them
over intact and under guard to the Western Allies, who would sort out the
criminals from the foreign laborers and Russian prisoners, thus preventing
hordes of embittered ex convicts from roaming the countryside and inflicting
additional horrors on the law abiding. Hitler did not share Goering's trust
in the enemy. Sitting casually on the edge of the map table after one war
conference, he instructed Himmler's representative to ensure that all inmates
were liquidated or evacuated before the camps were overrun.
"This was the testimony given to me by the SS Colonel Otto Günsche,"
said Irving, "...who was the colonel who subsequently had the task
of burning the bodies of Hitler and Eva Braun. In my ten years working
on Hitler, I went to very great lengths to persuade them to talk the truth
to me and not just to tell me the attractive facets of his character, few
though they were, but also all the ugly details. And when I asked each
of Hitler's private staff in turn, and Günsche was his personal adjutant
and bodyguard, what had been discussed at Hitler's headquarters about the
killing of the Jews or concentration camp prisoners, instead of just saying,
'Mr. Irving, there was no such discussion', he said, 'Mr. Irving, I remember
one episode only. Right at the end of the war, when Heinrich Himmler in
Hitler's war conference said, 'Mein Führer, the American troops are
advancing on Weimar. They are about to overrun a concentration camp' -
I believe it must have been Buchenwald - 'What are your instructions about
that camp? Should I evacuate the prisoners?' And Hitler said to Himmler,
'Herr Reichsführer, stay behind until the conference is over.' After
the conference was over, according to Otto Günsche, who was the only
eyewitness, Hitler said to Himmler, 'Make sure that all the prisoners are
liquidated before the Americans overrun the camp, if they cannot be evacuated.'
The second time I [had] Günsche tell the story to me, which was two
or three years later as a check to see if his memory had changed, he added
the sentence in Hitler's mouth, he said, 'Hitler said, Make sure that all
the prisoners are liquidated if they cannot be evacuated. I don't want
to think of these criminals being turned loose on the local German population.'"
(34-9714)
Pearson turned to Did Six Million Really Die? at page 24:
€ The orderly situation prevailing in the German concentration camps slowly
broke down in the last fearful months of 1945. The Red Cross Report of
1948 explains that the saturation bombing by the Allies paralysed the transport
and communications system of the Reich, no food reached the camps and starvation
claimed an increasing number of victims, both in prison camps and among
the civilian population of Germany. This terrible situation was compounded
in the camps both by great overcrowding and the consequent outbreak of
typhus epidemics. Overcrowding occurred as a result of prisoners from the
eastern camps such as Auschwitz being evacuated westward before the Russian
advance; columns of such exhausted people arrived at several German camps
such as Belsen and Buchenwald which had themselves reached a state of great
hardship.
Wouldn't you agree, asked Pearson, that in talking about what was compounding
a terrible situation, one would have to add Hitler's order that the prisoners
be liquidated before the camps were overrun?
"I think it likely that Mr. Harwood was not aware of that particular
order. But I think his description is a fair description except perhaps
in detail. I am not aware of prisoners being evacuated westward from Auschwitz,
but this may be my ignorance. Certainly concentration camps were evacuated
where possible and the people who were brought back were often under conditions
of great hardship because these columns of prisoners were ruthlessly attacked
by Russian and British and American fighter planes, causing great casualties
among the prisoners. And when they arrived in the camps like Bergen-Belsen
and Buchenwald, which had been relatively well-organized until the closing
weeks and months of the war, great chaos then did set in and the chaos
was unfortunately compounded by our Operation Clarion which was the ruthless
bombing of all the communications networks in January and February 1945,
and by our saturation bombing of the German cities, including the pharmaceutical
factories, so that by March, 1945, there had been a complete collapse of
the provision of medications and the necessary medicines to prevent the
outbreak of epidemics." (34-9716)
But, said Pearson, you testified that if they couldn't be evacuated, Hitler
ordered that they be liquidated?
"As a security measure in this one camp, Buchenwald, which was not
a Jewish concentration camp as such, it was a regular - I know we English
call it an internment camp - containing all sorts of political prisoners,
religious prisoners and enemies of the regime," said Irving. (34-9717)
Pearson asked if people who had things to sell with respect to memoirs,
diaries of the Second World War often went to him.
"As an expert," said Irving, "the publishers come to me
and ask me for value judgments on the material or the people possessing
the material come to me and ask me for information on a good profitable
market to sell it in." Irving testified that he himself "very
seldom" purchased records: "I think I can recall only two episodes.
I once bought a diary for twenty-five pounds of a naval officer and I paid
five thousand pounds to rent Churchill's stolen desk diaries from the man
who stole them, his bodyguard." (34-9721, 9722)
Pearson asked Irving to explain the manner in which he was approached with
respect to the Eichmann tapes. Irving testified that he received a letter
from the son of Adolf Eichmann, by the name of Klaus. This was the name
printed on the letterhead and he introduced himself in the letter as being
the son of Adolf Eichmann. Said Irving: "And he announced that he
had the tapes which his father had already recorded in the years prior
to his kidnapping by the Israelis and that these had never been published
and that he was anxious to see they should be published and that there
was a problem - I have to say quite fairly - inasmuch as the tapes might
be held to damage the right-wing cause, if I can put it as simply as that...I
would just say that if one was to hope that...the tapes by Adolf Eichmann
would be a total denial, then these hopes would be disappointed."
(34-9723)
Irving agreed that there were neo-Nazi groups who hoped for such material
to surface. He continued: "So I then contacted one or two reputable
publishers and I put this material to them as a project without being able
to enclose the actual material, which I emphasize I have never handled.
I just said that I had learned that Eichmann's unpublished memoirs did
exist. Clearly they had an enormous evidentiary value depending on how
honest Eichmann was. Having not looked at it, I couldn't judge, of course.
And I left it at that. A number of publishers then came forward and took
up direct contact with the son and I was interested to see that the American
publishers made no effort to publish the book at all, so clearly it wasn't
considered to be as helpful as they had hoped...The German publishers did
publish it. I believe it is a right-wing publishing house. Yes, a right-wing
publishing house published it in Germany and it was published in the Spanish
language as well." (34 9724)
Pearson referred to Did Six Million Really Die? at page 20:
€ Strangely enough, the alleged "memoirs" of Adolf Eichmann suddenly
appeared at the time of his abduction to Israel. They were uncritically
published by the American Life magazine (November 28th, December 5th, 1960),
and were supposed to have been given by Eichmann to a journalist in the
Argentine shortly before his capture...
Said Irving: "I remember reading that and thinking to myself, I wonder
if this was the same as the book but then I formed the impression that
it probably wasn't because I am familiar with American newspaper methods
of inventing interviews with people whom they've never seen." Irving
testified that he had never heard of a live interview with Adolf Eichmann.
(34-9725)
Pearson produced a copy of Adolf Hitler's last testament. Irving testified
that he was familiar with the document: "There were seven versions
of the political testament. Three were originally typed by his secretary,
Traudl Junge, and four more copies were made by Martin Bormann on the following
day." (34-9730) At Pearson's request, Irving translated two paragraphs
of the testament:
Three days before the outbreak of the German-Polish war, I suggested to
the British ambassador in Berlin a solution of the German-Polish problem,
similar to the solution adopted in the case of the Saarland, putting it
under international control. This offer cannot be denied either. It was
only rejected because the authoritative circles of the British high policies
wanted war partly because of the business deals they hoped to make out
of it, and partly driven on by a propaganda campaign organized by international
Jewry.
But nor did I leave anybody in any doubt that if the nations of Europe
were once more...regarded just as a kind of bundle of stocks and shares
in the hands of these international gold dealers and financial conspirators,
then this race, this folk would also be called to account. The race which
are the real culprits in this murderous struggle: the Jews or Jewry! Nor,
moreover, did I leave any doubt that this time it would not be millions
of children of Europeans of the Aryan races who would be starving, not
only millions of adult men would be suffering death and not only hundreds
of thousands of women and children would be...burned to death in the towns
and cities without the real culprits having to pay the penalty, even if
by far more humane means.
Irving testified that the culprits, the international Jews, were going
to have to pay the penalty for having started this murderous struggle:
"He says this was going to happen." (34-9732) Pearson began to
move on to other subjects. Irving interjected: "I'm sorry, are you
going to ask me to comment on the testament or just use me as a translator
on those, because I would have wanted to comment on the fact that all he
is saying is that the Jews are going to suffer but in a far more humane
way than the millions of people who died in the air raids." Irving
continued: "He actually says it. He says 'in a far more humane way.'
Humane - you can't challenge the translation of that word. He is not explicit.
He is not saying I have arranged that they would be killed. He is...just
saying I'm going to make them pay." (34-9733)
There's no way he could have been saying that it's less painful to be gassed
to death than to burn to death in bombing?, asked Pearson.
"I'm sorry you asked me that question because when I interviewed a
marshal of the Royal Air Force, Sir Arthur Harris, many years ago in 1962,
and he was the commander-in-chief of RAF Commander bombers, and I asked
him why he hadn't bombed Auschwitz. His reply was, 'Mr. Irving, if I was
a concentration camp prisoner, I would prefer to die from gas than to be
burned alive by an incendiary bomb,' which was the fate of two million
people in Europe in the 1940s." (34-9734)
So Air Marshal Harris may have been saying the same thing as Adolf Hitler?,
asked Pearson.
"No," said Irving. "Hitler's actual words were he had predicted
that he would make the Jews pay the penalty but in a far more humane way
than the millions who had died in the air raids...Harris is talking about
gassing and Hitler is not talking about gassing, he is talking about a
humane way which can equally be deporting or a geographical location, throwing
them out of [Germany] lock, stock and barrel. What happened to the Jews
isn't humane...on any score." (34- 9734)
Have you read the memoirs of the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoess?,
asked Pearson.
"I haven't because I understand that these memoirs are very suspect
and I considered it unnecessary to the work I was...doing on Adolf Hitler,"
said Irving.
Before he radically changed his view of what went on in Auschwitz, didn't
he think it would be of assistance to read the memoirs?, asked Pearson.
"If I had had a document I was satisfied was the genuine memoirs signed
at the end in affidavit form by a man saying 'I have made this statement
under no kind of coercion whatever,' then I think perhaps I would attach
some importance to it but as I understand it, the memoirs of Rudolf Hoess
were extracted in a rather more painful surgery." (34-9735) Irving
testified that he had read "quite a bit how various prisoners were
interrogated in the post-war years...It is quite easy to be psychologically
coerced; you can have promises made to you, threats made to you."
(34-9736)
What kind of psychological coercion was used against Rudolf Hoess?, asked
Pearson.
"I'm not going to be specific about that because I would be taking
from a memory that is twenty years old," replied Irving. "All
I can say is I was unwilling to use the Hoess memoirs because I was satisfied
that in doing so I was introducing a probable element of uncertainty."
Irving had not read the Nuremberg trial testimony of Hoess: "My view
was that when you only have one given life span and one doesn't have a
vast team of researchers working, you have to use your reading and researching
time at the most profitable and efficient level which in my case was looking
at the original wartime documents in the archives and my feeling was that
if you did enough work on those, then you would do without using the post-war
testimony of people like Hoess which was bound to be suspect." (34-9737)
Pearson produced a document from the National Archives of the United States,
Nuremberg Document NO-4473, being a letter from the chief of the Central
Construction Management, Auschwitz to SS Major-General Kammler, WVHA, in
Berlin, dated January 29, 1943. (34-9738; filed as Exh. 155 at 34-9747)
Irving testified that he was familiar with the document and had no reason
to question its authenticity, although the providence of the document was
not clear from the Nuremberg Staff Evidence Analysis Sheet attached to
it. Irving explained that staff evidence analysis sheets were attached
to exhibits at the Nuremberg trial. The purpose of the sheet was to inform
where the document had been found. (34 9739)
Pearson read the document to the court:
The crematorium II has been completed (save for some minor constructional
work) by the use of all the forces available, in spite of unspeakable difficulties
and the severe cold, in 24 hours-shifts. The fires were started in the
ovens in the presence of Oberingenieur Prüfer, the representative
of the contractors, the firm of Topf & Söhne, Erfurt and they
are working most satisfactorily. The planks from the concrete ceiling of
the cellar used as a mortuary (Leichenkeller) could not yet be removed
on account of the frost. It is, however, not very important, as the gazchamber
(gassing cellar) can be used for that purpose.
The firm of Topf & Söhne was not able to start in time deliveries
of the installation for aeration and ventilation as had been requested
by the Central Building Management because of restrictions in the use of
railroad-cars. As soon as the installation for aeration and ventilation
arrives the installing will start so that the complete installation may
be expected to be ready for use by 20 February, 1943.
We enclose a report of the testing engineers of the firm of Topf &
Söhne, Erfurt.
Irving testified that the word vergasungskeller, which had been translated
as "gas chamber" should have been translated to mean a carbonization
process in some kind of oil fire heater. By translating the word as gas
chamber, said Irving, "it is giving possibly a deliberately wrong
translation of the word. It is a possible translation but it is an unlikely
translation because if a German was going to write the word 'gas chamber',
he would not write vergasungskeller. He would write [gaskammer]."3
(34-9741) Irving agreed that the translator had added the alternative translation
of 'gassing-cellar' but pointed out that no Englishman would use the term
'gassing- cellar'. (34-9741) Said Irving: "We need to know more from
the context of that document. We would need more from the documents of
this file. I would like to see the blueprint of the Crematorium II to see
what the vergasungskeller was and see what pipe work went between the vergasungskeller
and the crematory because that would answer all my questions." (34-9741)
Irving pointed out that the translation had also incorrectly used the word
'fires.' The German word used was the plural of oven or furnaces. The correct
translation was therefore 'the furnaces were fired up', not 'the fires
were started in the ovens.' (34 9742)
Irving also pointed out that Pearson had failed to read the first line
of the letter which Irving translated as:
Re: Krematorium No. II, construction status
Said Irving: "In other words, this entire document refers to Krematorium
No. II, not to any other building or any other installation. Purely to
the crematorium. I think that needs possibly to be underlined. I think
this justifies me in suggesting that if we're looking for which of the
alternative translations to look for...this key word underlined here, vergasungskeller,
it is some piece of equipment to do with a crematorium process and not
to do with any other process." (34-9744)
Pearson returned to a review of Hitler's War written by Hugh Trevor-Roper
which appeared in the Sunday Times Weekly on June 12, 1977, and read excerpts
to the court:
Mr. Irving's essential point is that it is "hard to establish a documentary
link" between Hitler and the extermination programme. This is certainly
true. That whole programme was veiled in secrecy and carried out at a safe
distance. Himmler himself explicitly forbade all discussion of it, and,
if it had to be mentioned, it was always disguised as "resettlement"
or "transport to the east." Therefore we should not expect it
to appear openly in formal documents. Indeed, it is because of this official
silence that our new anti- semites brazenly declare that the Jews were
not exterminated at all. For the same reason, Hitler's notorious "commissar
order" (whose authenticity Mr. Irving does not dispute) does not survive
in documentary form.
Irving testified that he had reflected on this criticism after reading
the review: "It is an opinion. Different historians have different
opinions. I would have pointed out to him that all Hitler's other very
many crimes are dealt with in some detail in the archives and can be proved
on the basis of archival documents and yet this is supposed to have been
the biggest crime of all and there is a sudden lack of any...comparable
documents." (34-9748)
Irving agreed that he did not dispute the commissar order but pointed out
that Trevor- Roper was wrong in saying that the order did not survive.
Said Irving: "The commissar order exists in the files of the German
High Command as dictated by Hitler to Colonel General Alfred Jodl."
This was the order which specified that all "the Soviet commissars
who were principally, in my understanding, Jews, were to be liquidated
on the field of battle." This was the order under which the Einsatzgruppen
operated and was issued one month before the Soviet invasion, in May of
1941. (34-9748, 9749)
Pearson continued reading from the review:
However, a historian must not only read the official documents: he must
also look behind them. I believe that, if we do this, Hitler's responsibility
for the policy is clear.
Of course the extermination was carried out by Himmler's SS. But could
Himmler have mounted so vast a programme without Hitler's authority?
Had Irving reflected on that point?, asked Pearson. Irving replied that
Trevor-Roper was "asking a question and...is virtually doing in that
article what you have spent three days in doing which is reading between
the lines because there is no evidence. After forty years, we're entitled
to expect evidence." (34-9750)
Pearson continued reading:
Did he not always insist that the SS was built on the basis of unquestioning
obedience to the Führer? He explicitly claimed Hitler's authority
for the action, and although, in documents written for Hitler, the references
may have been muted or expunged, that is explicable by the public pretence.
Said Irving: "I would challenge his statement earlier in that sentence
where he says he explicitly made reference to Hitler, to his authority
from Hitler in carrying out the operation." Irving testified that
the speeches of Himmler where he said 'This is why I have had to take this
severe decision' was more evidence that Himmler was "very much acting
on his own when he carries out these isolated atrocities." He continued:
"...from...October 1943, when Himmler broke the secret to his generals
of what he had been doing, from that moment on Hitler has no excuse not
to have known because those same people trooped in to see him the next
day. This again is a long way short of proving that he did know."
Irving pointed out that Himmler used circumlocutions but was never specific:
"...and this is the tragedy. The whole way through with the tens of
thousands of tons of documents, there's no one specific line which would
help us." (34- 9751, 9752)
Pearson continued reading:
It is quite unnecessary to suppose that the whole policy was a "violation
of Hitler's orders" and that Himmler used the conventional euphemisms
of "re-settlement" and "transport to the East" in order
"to pull the wool over Hitler's eyes." Hitler (as Mr. Irving
often reminds us) had an extraordinary grasp of the details of his war,
and since his anti-semitism was essential to his ideology, it is unlikely
that he totally ignored that sector of it.
Would you agree, asked Pearson, that Hitler made public statements which
reflected his anti-semitism?
"Indeed," said Irving, "and I have drawn attention to the
strange paradox that he makes these public statements and yet every one
of the dozen or so documents directly linking Hitler with again, what you
call elements of the genocide, show him putting out his hand to stop something
ugly happening to the Jews. The Roman case we were looking at yesterday.
That specific other case of the transport of Jews from Berlin to Riga.
He evidently tells Himmler they are not to be liquidated. Every specific
document linking Hitler with the Jewish question is him intervening to
say postpone it until the war is over, don't liquidate them, I don't want
them liquidated in northern Italy, I want them kept alive as hostages."
(34-9752)
Sir, is it your position Hitler was a friend of the Jews in the war?, asked
Pearson.
"Mr. Pearson, you are again trying to give the newspapers quotes for
tomorrow morning," said Irving. "I don't think this is what this
court action is about. I would, to answer your question...say without the
tragedy of the Third Reich, the state of Israel would probably not exist
and in that respect he was doing the Jewish nation a favour." (34-9753)
Pearson continued reading:
Moreover, the extermination was not a private secret of the SS. It was
well known, though not discussed, at Hitler's court. Goering, Goebbels,
Keitel showed that they knew it.
Irving testified that he did not agree with this statement: "Goering
showed no knowledge whatsoever of the genocide as you describe it. Goebbels
showed limited knowledge of it in his diaries but now that his entire diaries
have become available to us that weren't available in 1977...[w]e see his
ignorance was as profound as that of the rest of us. Keitel appears to
be largely in the dark. I know of no document showing that Keitel was aware
of anything approaching what you describe as the genocide or the Holocaust."
(34-9754)
So Hugh Trevor-Roper is misleading us here?, asked Pearson.
"He's misleading us on that," replied Irving. "I think he
is writing off the top of his head and at that time, 1977, he was among
the believers."
Pearson continued reading:
The euthanasia programme, which trained the personnel for it, had originated
in the Führer's Chancellery.
Do you deny there was a euthanasia programme in Nazi Germany?, asked Pearson.
"I don't," replied Irving. "I don't deny that at all. The
euthanasia programme went under the code name T-4...from which it operated...under
the control of Philipp Bouhler...who was the head of the Führer's
Chancellery, but that was a building, an office, an agency in Berlin and
Hitler was operating from his field headquarters in East Prussia...I think
it's specious to suggest the title is the Führer's Chancellery, therefore
it was Hitler's programme." (34-9754, 9755)
How many people were killed by the euthanasia programme?, asked Pearson.
"About 50,000 people, as many as in one small British air raid,"
said Irving.
Pearson continued reading:
The breath of the courtiers may have been bated, but the whisper can still
be heard. In his diary, on March 27, 1942 - that is soon after the famous
Wannsee Conference which had launched the full programme of extermination
- Goebbels gave what Mr. Irving calls a "frank summary" of "the
ghastly secrets of Auschwitz and Treblinka." Mr. Irving explicitly
refers to this entry in the course of his argument, but he forbears to
cite Goebbels' words. I therefore supply his omission. "It is a pretty
barbarous business," Goebbels wrote, "and it is best not to mention
details," but the Jews had asked for it. Now the Führer's threat
of "annihilation" was to be realised "in the most dreadful
manner. We must not be sentimental in these matters...it is war to the
death between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus...Here too the Führer
is the inflexible champion of a radical solution."
Are you suggesting there is no reference to death in there?, asked Pearson.
"I am suggesting this is typical of Goebbels shooting off his mouth.
It's a radical solution if I am a Jewish family living in Berlin [and]
in the middle of the night somebody comes along and says, 'Out, there's
a truck waiting downstairs,' you're going to be shipped off to the east,
God knows what happens to you, you're going to work until you drop; that's
a radical solution." (34- 9756)
Isn't that reading between the lines, sir?, asked Pearson. Said Irving:
"No, sir. I am entitled to draw that inference from that entry as
you are to draw the inference that Goebbels is talking about the 'Holocaust',
'genocide', racial mass murder, the killing of 6 million people. We need
something far more explicit than that and surely we are entitled to it
after forty years, and tens of thousands of tons of documents. They're
all available to us and you can't help us." (34- 9757)
Pearson continued reading:
Against this explicit evidence what does Mr. Irving offer? At least four
times he refers to a brief note of a telephone-call which Himmler made
from Hitler's headquarters on November 30, 1941 - i.e. before the Wannsee
Conference. Himmler then told his henchmen, Reinhard Heydrich, the "Protector"
of Bohemia, that there was to be "no liquidation" of a transport
of Jews from Berlin. Mr. Irving prints a photograph of this note, which
he represents as a general veto on the liquidation of Jews. To me, it bears
no such implications. Specifically, it refers only to a particular convoy,
which is not to be liquidated - at least not yet. Generally speaking, one
does not veto an action unless one thinks that it is otherwise likely to
occur.
Would you agree, asked Pearson, that in your book you do suggest that that
order from Hitler was a general order?
"Taken in conjunction with all the other documents that I referred
to, yes. It's part of a chain of evidence and if I may just amplify on
that, you've just quoted the Goebbels entry to us of March the 27th, 1942,
which I described as Mr. Goebbels himself shooting off his mouth. At precisely
the same time as that document, of much greater evidentiary value, there
is a telephone call from the chief of the Reich Chancellery to the Minister
of Justice saying, and I quote: 'The Führer has repeatedly said he
wants the solution of the Jewish problem postponed until after the war
is over.' How do you climb out of that one, Mr. Pearson." (34-9758)
Pearson continued reading:
Mr. Irving's argument about the Jews typifies his greatest weakness as
a historian. Here, as in the Sikorski affair, he seizes on a small and
dubious particle of "evidence"; builds upon it, by private interpretation,
a large general conclusion; and then overlooks or re-interprets the more
substantial evidence and probability against it. Since this defective method
is invariably used to excuse Hitler or the Nazis and to damage their opponents,
we may reasonably speak of a consistent bias, unconsciously distorting
the evidence.
"I wouldn't accept the word distorting," said Irving. "I
am quite prepared to be accused of bias. I think every historian has the
arrogance to believe that his opinion is better than that of his rivals.
And I believe that my opinion was better having done the research among
Hitler's staff and among Hitler's documents that Hugh Trevor-Roper and
Alan Bullock and the other Hitler historians had not done. Therefore I
felt I was entitled to change opinions at that point." (34-9759)
Pearson pointed out that Irving had acknowledged Trevor-Roper in his book
as exceptional. Irving agreed: "He's very good but we are referring
there to his book called The Last Days of Adolf Hitler and I don't challenge
his account of the last days of Adolf Hitler except in unimportant detail."
(34-9760)
Do you agree, asked Pearson, that in your latest book, Churchill's War,
you suggest that during his period out of power, Churchill fell under the
influence of Jewish moneylenders?
"This is approximately one page in about 300 pages describing that
period," said Irving. "We are looking at the very interesting
question how a Member of Parliament, Winston Churchill, with no government
office whatever and a 500 pound per annum salary is able to maintain himself
in considerable luxury, support a very large household, private and secretarial
staff, and do this with no visible means of support. And I then built up
from various sources, including the Czechoslovakian government archives,
the archives of Chaim Weizmann in Israel, the captured records of the French
and other governments, I then built up a picture of where Mr. Churchill's
money had come from, which I considered to be germane to a Winston Churchill
biography." (34- 9760, 9761)
And then you say that war starts and Hitler makes overtures for peace to
Churchill which Churchill refuses, suggested Pearson.
"Not quite as simple as that. Hitler had made very many offers of
peace, usually just after he secured a major military victory, and Winston
Churchill secured increasingly from June 1940 onwards the refusal of these
peace offers by one means or another. It was extremely urgent for him to
do so because by that time, half the British people wanted peace - particularly
the working classes - and if peace had broken out in the summer of 1940,
Winston Churchill would have been finished as Prime Minister. So he used
various techniques to prolong the war."
So, asked Pearson, it's your thesis that to avoid peace breaking out and
him losing office he prolonged the war and part of the reason why he didn't
agree to the overtures of peace was the influence that Jews exerted on
him?
"No, sir," said Irving. "I haven't expressed that view in
the book at all but in volume two which is...in the process of production,
we do come to the extraordinary meeting between Chaim Weizmann, the leader
of [the] world Zionist movement, and the first president of the state of
Israel, and I remind you I have had private access, privileged access to
Weizmann's papers, and there was a meeting between Weizmann and Mr. Churchill
in September 1941, when Churchill was very keen to drag the United States
into his war and Weizmann used to him the words which he records in his
own handwriting: 'We managed to bring the United States into the First
World War and if you tow our line over Palestine and the Jewish fighting
force, then we can persuade the Jews of the United States to drag the United
States into it again this time', which I find an extraordinary document,
frankly, and I am very, very anxious about how to present this in a balanced
historical review and it's typical of the problems which confront me as
an honest biographer." (34-9762)
What do you say about Churchill's American roots?, asked Pearson.
"He was half-American...I refer to the fact that he was not a man
of the British Empire at all. He put the British Empire second," said
Irving. He pointed out that when Churchill first met President Roosevelt
in August 1941, almost in Canadian waters off the coast of Newfoundland,
he didn't tell Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King that he was coming.
"The Canadian government found out by code-breaking that Churchill
and Roosevelt were meeting in Canadian waters. This was the respect that
Churchill had for the Great Dominion leaders who were helping him in his
war." (34-9763)
And you state that Churchill conducted most of his war in a drunken state?,
asked Pearson.
"I wouldn't go so far as to agree with you on that, Mr. Pearson,"
said Irving. "The diaries of some of Churchill's cabinet ministers,
the diaries of some of his officers when he was First Lord of the Admiralty
reveal that Churchill repeatedly attended Admiralty meetings or cabinet
meetings in a state of intoxication. For example, on July the 6th, 1944,
the diary of the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Cunningham, reveals that
Churchill arrived at the cabinet meeting in a state of drunkenness. We
know from the cabinet records that on this occasion, Churchill issued the
criminal order for the launching of poison gas warfare on German cities."
(34-9763)
And it's your position, asked Pearson, that if Churchill had acceded to
the peace overtures of Adolf Hitler, the British Empire may have survived
and that would have been the best thing for the British Empire?
Irving replied: "If the peace offers had been accepted in June 1940,
we can speculate on how the world would have been different today. Two
million people killed in bombing would have survived. The millions of people
who were suffering in the various massacres of the Second World War would
also not have died. However many people were killed because they were Jews...whether
it was 100,000 or a million, whatever the figure we choose, they would
also in all probability not have been killed. The great cities of Europe
would not have been destroyed. Britain and her Empire would not have been
bankrupted." (34-9764)
Pearson suggested to Irving that his thesis was the same as one Hitler
had presented in one of his last conversations where he said, 'If fate
had granted to an aging and enfeebled Britain a new Pitt instead of this
Jew-ridden, half-American drunkard, the new Pitt would have at once recognized
that Britain allied to a united Europe would still have retained the chance
of being able to play the arbiter in world affairs, but I underestimated
the power of Jewish domination over Churchill's England.' (34-9764) In
response to Irving's query, Pearson revealed that he had obtained this
quotation from an article in the Sydney Morning Herald of October 9, 1987
by John Foster, a historian at the University of Melbourne. (34-9765)
Said Irving: "He doesn't give the source? I can give you the source.
It's from the so called bunker conversations of Adolf Hitler. I mentioned
that because these bunker conversations of Adolf Hitler conducted in allegedly
February 1945 and in April 1945 were, in fact, the product of the brain
of a Swiss lawyer - I'm sorry to keep on dragging lawyers into this - but
I won't mention his name, quite simply because he is still a very active
Swiss lawyer. He himself concocted these documents in the 1950s. They have
no historical value whatsoever." (34-9765)
So, you deny that that was Hitler's view of Churchill, that he was a drunkard?,
asked Pearson.
"He regarded Churchill and repeatedly described him as a 'drunken
poltroon'," said Irving. "Roosevelt also described Churchill
as 'that drunken bum', so Hitler wasn't alone in describing Churchill in
those words."
Irving agreed with Pearson that Hitler often said that Churchill or Britain
were being dominated by the Jews. (34-9766) I suggest, said Pearson, that
you have written a biography of Winston Churchill that Hitler would have
written.
"Not from every respect. We find out from the Weizmann papers, although
Churchill describes himself as a Zionist admirer, he gave the Jews a run-around.
He didn't concede to all their claims and Weizmann was a very disappointed
man at the end of the Second World War." He continued: "I am
not surprised that both Hitler and I came across the same basic truths.
Hitler himself said even a blind hen occasionally picks up a grain of corn."
(34-9767)
Pearson produced a review of Hitler's War written by Professor Walter Laqueur
of the Georgetown University Centre for Strategic and International Studies
which appeared in the New York Times Book Review on April 3, 1977 and read
excerpts to the court:
The reasons for this book's shortcomings lie deep. Mr. Irving may have
out-grown the eccentric political views of his earlier years...when he
criticised his native country for lining up with the Bolsheviks in a fight
against the first great unifying force (meaning Nazi Germany) Europe had
known in 600 years..."Hitler's War"... reads like the plea of
an advocate who knows from the very beginning what he intends to prove
and who marshals his evidence to this end relentlessly and with an enthusiasm
worthy of a better cause. The result is a book of value to a few dozen
military historians capable of separating new facts from old fiction, of
differentiating between fresh, documentary material and unsupported claims,
distortions and sheer fantasies.
Irving pointed out that Laqueur was better-known as the director of the
Wiener Library, which was a wartime and post-war Jewish propaganda library:
"...a very, very good library but I think we have to know what his
colours are..." Irving testified that he had read the review and commented
that Laqueur "will be sorry to hear that my book is required reading
in universities around the world including West Point in the United States
and the United States Military Academy at Carlyle." (34-9768)
Pearson next quoted from a 1959 edition of a satirical publication called
Carnival Times from Imperial College. Irving, then a student at the collage
and editor of the magazine, had written in an editorial:
The organs of the National Press owned by Jews are acting in the same way.
The formation of a European Union is interpreted as an attempt at building
a group of superior peoples and the Jews have always viewed with suspicion
the emergence of any 'master race' (other than their own, of course)...Why,
little Germany by herself under the direction of Herr Hitler nearly succeeded
in subjugating the combined might of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Perhaps if, at the same time, he was not being attacked by the whole of
the rest of the world, he might have succeeded.4
Irving testified that the publication was "satirical...If I had known
[you were] going to refer to it I would have brought it. You would have
seen immediately what kind of satirical magazine it was. I don't think
you would seriously quote sentences out of it to a learned court of law."
(34-9769) He continued: "...the essence of satire is that in every
sentence there is a lot of wicked truth and a lot of blatant, obvious untruth...I
have just said to you the magazine was a satirical magazine. The next article
after that was called 'Christopher Robin and the Facts'. I hope you're
not going to read out of that one to us." (34-9770)
I'm going to stay on the one with respect to the European union, said Pearson.
He asked Irving to explain the satire.
"Student satire written thirty years ago," said Irving. "If
you have nothing more recent than thirty years ago with which to smear
me, I think this in itself is a statement of the case...I think that what
I am saying there and what I say now...if we had left the Soviet Union
and Germany to fight it out between themselves, if Hitler and Stalin had
been fighting it out between themselves, to this day it couldn't have happened
to two nicer people...They were both gangsters." Irving agreed that
Hitler and Stalin were on the same side at the beginning, "[t]hen
we put one of the gangsters on our side which is what the satire in my
article is about." (34-9773)
Pearson asked Irving to explain what his publication Focal Point was about.
Irving testified that Focal Point was published around 1981 or 1982 and
was a publication "produced by a small group around me called the
Focus, and we were aiming to attract the support of particularly university
students, people with an intelligent background." (34-9773)
Irving agreed that he was a "dissident historian...I don't like the
term revisionist historian as put in the mouths of my enemies. They sullied
the word revisionism as if history doesn't need to be revised. History
needs to be revised; every historian needs to revise his own histories
from time-to-time." (34-9774)
And in 1980, asked Pearson, when you formed this group called the Focus
had you had a change of heart with respect to the Holocaust?
"I think it's difficult to be precise where between 1977, when my
Hitler book was published, and the present date, the change of heart occurred.
I think it is something like a...[gradual] change of colour as you realize
that the expected overwhelming attack on the Hitler book still didn't produce
any evidence that there had been this Holocaust, this genocide of which
you are speaking, that you then begin to question your own beliefs and
say - " (34-9774)
Pearson interjected: Your book didn't deny there was a Holocaust. Irving
replied that he accepted that. Why then, asked Pearson, did you think someone
was going to comment on your Hitler book proving that the Holocaust happened
when you admitted and conceded in your book that it did happen?
"Because it acted like a spade whacked down in the whole of the historical
body," replied Irving. "All the historians who had written about
the Holocaust before began crawling around unearthing new documents, some
of them very good historians - Professor Gerald Fleming went to work for
the first time in the Polish and Russian archives to start work on the
Holocaust and I expected every day that I was going to be proven wrong.
They have brought back very, very good and useful research but in this
particular and important aspect, their research was barren, not only with
them failing to prove that Hitler had known about it, but they were failing
to prove it, whatever it had been." (34-9775)
Irving agreed that Gerald Fleming's book Hitler and the Final Solution
was directed to one aspect only of the thesis contained in Hitler's War,
namely, that Hitler didn't know what was going on. He pointed out, however,
that "you can't just carry out research on that one thesis. Inevitably
you bring back barrow loads of documents relating to the whole broad area
of attack." (34-9775)
Pearson suggested that Irving was bitter about the way the historical community
reacted to Hitler's War.
"I think humanly disappointed is a better way to describe it,"
said Irving. "Because most of the historians...are men of substance
and integrity, and I had hoped and expected that they would have valued
the work that I had done and some of them privately could do, like Raul
Hilberg, some of them do it publically and eventually I had to wait until
the great split occurred in the body of historians for which I claim the
entire credit. It wasn't until my book came out that they started re examining
their own tenets." (34-9776)
Irving agreed with Pearson that he spoke to a convention of the Institute
for Historical Review in the United States in 1983, where he gave a speech
indicating that he thought that Hitler was probably the greatest friend
the Jews had in the Third Reich. Said Irving: "For the reason that
I just specified, that without Hitler's active campaign on the Jewish front,
the state of Israel would probably not now exist and have attracted its
overwhelming worldwide sympathy and I was specific about that in my speech."
(34-9776)
Irving could not remember meeting Ernst Zündel at the convention.
He had no precise recollection of when he first met Zündel: "I
would say that over the last two or three years, when he became involved
in the current litigation, he approached me as an expert who had written
on this field and asked for assistance." (34-9777)
As a result of Irving's attendance in California, asked Pearson, did Gerald
Fleming quote you?
"Yes," said Irving, "he published...an article in the Jewish
Chronicle in London purporting to reproduce what I had said at Los Angeles
and I wrote a letter to the Jewish Chronicle in London correcting on the
basis of my memory what I had said in Los Angeles and then Gerald Fleming
probably wrote another letter to the Jewish Chronicle." (34-9778)
Would you agree, asked Pearson, that at the IHR convention in 1983, you
did not deny the Holocaust happened and it killed millions of Jews?
"Mr. Pearson, having flown from London to Los Angeles I was eight
hours jet lagged. I made the speech to them with my mind in a fog and to
try and recall from that fog precisely what I said in the course of one
and a half hours talking - not just about the Jewish tragedy in the Second
World War - but the whole field of historical research I had done including
Hungary, German atomic research and the rest...", said Irving. He
agreed that he wrote a letter in response to Fleming's article: "He
had accused me of having said certain things at Los Angeles which I believed
I hadn't said." (34-9779)
Pearson read from Irving's letter of December 23, 1983:
Dr. Fleming's malicious quotation from the proceedings in California is
taken wildly out of context. I have a full recording of my talk which was
about the Hungarian uprising of 1956. In the subsequent discussion about
the Holocaust, I made it clear that the Nazis undoubtedly did murder many
millions of Jews, a view which was unpopular to that audience, and continued
by setting out my well known views of this tragedy.5
So in December of 1983, asked Pearson, you made it clear that the Nazis
undoubtedly did murder many millions of Jews which was unpopular at the
IHR convention?
"I remember the unpopularity," said Irving. "This is quite
plain. This is half-way through the period between 1977, when I had the
then view which I then believed, and the present date when I have changed
my mind on whether there was the act of genocide you refer to. But I don't
really want to dabble in statistics, whether I still believe it was millions
killed by the Nazis or hundreds of thousands...You're very usefully trying
to establish exactly when I changed my mind during the last ten years.
And that advances it some way." Irving continued: "I obviously
half- changed my mind there because I am not talking about the Holocaust,
I am not talking about genocide, I am not talking about 6 million or any
other precise figure. I am already talking in much vaguer terms there."
(34-9780)
Pearson suggested that Irving was very specific when he said that the Nazis
undoubtedly did murder many millions of Jews.
"I think I would delete the word 'millions.' I'm not in a position
to say it was millions or hundreds of thousands and the more that I see
the lack of evidence now, the more I am inclined to question the word 'millions'."
(34-9781)
Pearson asked Irving whether he came to Canada on a speaking tour in 1986.
Irving testified that he had; he was promoting a book on the Hungarian
uprising of 1956. Pearson produced an eight-page brochure and asked if
it was a brochure that advertised the speaking tour he was on. Irving testified
that he was familiar with the original of it, a brochure called Torpedo
Running. The sponsorship for the speaking tour was from an Australian publishing
house, Veritas, which had various local groups sponsor the tour in different
parts of the world - Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and Britain.
Veritas, a publishing house in the Australian outback fifty miles outside
Perth, had published his book Churchill's War. He was not aware of what
else they had published other than a book on aboriginal land rights. (34-9781
to 9783)
On his speaking tour in Canada, Irving had been introduced by the Australian
Eric Butler. Ron Gostick of the Canadian League of Rights had also spoken
at the meetings. He was the organizer of the meetings in Toronto, Montreal
and Ottawa. (34-9783, 9784)
Irving was introduced to Zündel in Vancouver on the 1986 speaking
tour; he saw him at the back of the lecture hall on a speaking tour in
1987 in Toronto but did not speak to him then. (34-9784)
Pearson asked whether another book advertised in the eight-page brochure
advertised a book called The Zionist Factor: A Study of the Jewish Presence
in 20th Century History. Irving replied that he had never seen this page
before: "For my worldwide tour, I produced this glossy brochure. Had
two or three thousand copies printed worldwide and a number of copies were
sent to Canada. And I can see from this that the Canadian organizer took
that brochure and made a miniaturized photocopy of it in eight pages...in
fact, I haven't seen this before except, of course, the pages like this
one which come...from that brochure. So, some of these pages I am seeing
now for the first time, including that advertisement for my Hungarian book
and the page that you just wanted to show me." (34-9785)
Pearson returned to Did Six Million Really Die? at page 30:
€ Of great concern to Professor Rassinier is the way in which the extermination
legend is deliberately exploited for political and financial advantage,
and in this he finds Israel and the Soviet Union to be in concert.
Do you agree that the extermination legend is being deliberately exploited
for political and financial advantage?, asked Pearson.
Said Irving: "I agree with the chief rabbi of Britain, as I said on
the first day...It has become big business. Those are the words used by
the chief rabbi, and I echo them." Irving agreed with what Harwood
had written in this passage, with the exception that he would not have
added the Soviet Union. (34-9802)
Pearson returned to Did Six Million Really Die? and read from page 30:
€ Who has the right to compound it with vast imaginary slaughter, marking
with eternal shame a great European nation, as well as wringing fraudulent
monetary compensation from them?
Did Irving agree, asked Pearson, that "fraudulent monetary compensation"
was being wrung from Germany?
"If the compensation had been wrought from West Germany - I take it
that's the nation referred to - on the basis that there was a state massacre
of 6 million Jews for whom financial compensation has to be paid, and we
then find out that that statement is a willful misrepresentation of the
facts, if that is so, then that can only be represented as fraud."
Irving continued: "I'm prepared to accept that the Jewish community
as a whole believes in the Holocaust. If that is so, then it is not a willful
fraud. It would be a - I don't know what legal term I would apply to describe
it, but it wouldn't be a willful fraud in the terms of this paragraph."
(34- 9803)
Pearson read from the same page of the booklet:
€ ...on the one hand Germany pays to Israel sums which are calculated on
six million dead...
Irving testified that he was "not aware of what actuarial basis the
payments are made on. I'm aware only of the original conference between
Dr. Adenauer, the German Chancellor, and Dr. Goldmann who was the Zionist
representative...and Adenauer on his own initiative decided to pay, I believe,
one billion dollars to the state of Israel as a compensation payment."
Irving indicated that "not to my knowledge" was the money calculated
on 6 million dead. (34-9804)
Pearson read from Did Six Million Really Die?, at page 9:
€ Gerstein's fantastic exaggerations have done little but discredit the
whole notion of mass extermination. Indeed, Evangelical Bishop Wilhelm
Dibelius of Berlin denounced his memoranda as "Untrustworthy."
Irving agreed that he was not suggesting that an author could be dishonest
with his sources as long as the right conclusion was reached. Irving also
agreed that if it was in fact Gerstein's sister-in-law that died of euthanasia,
this would have "no bearing on his personal mental instability whatsoever."
(34-9806)
Would you agree, asked Pearson, that this would be a dishonest technique
of the author, to suggest that it was his sister instead of a sister-in-law?
"It may very well be that the author of this brochure is aware of
a sister in addition to a sister-in-law, but this is a possibility which
I can neither confirm nor deny." Irving agreed that it was also a
possibility that Harwood was being deliberately dishonest. (34-9806)
Pearson read the description of Harwood which appeared at the end of the
essay on page 30:
€ Richard Harwood is a writer and specialist in political and diplomatic
aspects of the Second World War. At present he is with the University of
London.
Do you know of any Richard Harwood at the University of London?, asked
Pearson.
"No, sir," said Irving. "and I have to admit that when I
read that description, I thought that the words 'At present he is with
the University of London' were rather precious and arousing suspicion."
Irving agreed that it appeared to be designed to suggest that the author
was a professor at the University of London or held some kind of post.
Irving did not know any Richard Harwood who was a writer and specialist
in political and diplomatic aspects of the Second World War, other than
the author of the booklet. He indicated that it was important to some readers
to know who was writing something and that if the author was someone named
Richard Verrall and that he was a member of a neo-Nazi group, that would
be taken into consideration by the reader and weighed with other factors
in determining the approach taken by the reader to the booklet. (34-9806
to 9808)
Pearson produced Six Million Did Die and read what Hugh Trevor-Roper had
said about Did Six Million Really Die? at page 56:
My judgment of it is that, behind a simulated objectivity of expression,
it is in fact an irresponsible and tendentious publication which avoids
material evidence and presents selected half-truths and distortions for
the sole purpose of serving anti Semitic propaganda.
Did reading that opinion, asked Pearson, change Irving's own assessment
of Did Six Million Really Die?
"I would say to this that I value Trevor-Roper's judgment, and like
any other historian he is entitled to his own opinion. It doesn't change
my assessment of this brochure because my assessment was, as I stated on
Friday - that it serves a useful catalytic purpose in making people think
and rethink and possibly even revise their accepted opinions," said
Irving. He continued: "It doesn't change my opinion because it doesn't
surprise me that the...establishment historians like Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper,
who hold very important semi-political positions in the English university
structure, find it more congenial to express that view on this brochure
than to express the view which I have expressed, that it serves a useful
catalytic purpose in making people think afresh, and when I say that, I
am not saying that I endorse everything that the brochure contends, merely
that it serves a useful purpose in promoting and stimulating discussion."
(34-9811)
This ended the cross-examination of Irving by Crown Attorney Pearson. Defence
attorney Douglas Christie rose to commence re-examination.
In regard to the Posen speech, asked Christie, would you think it useful
as a historian to conduct a voice analysis using scientific methods of
the tape itself to determine if it was actually spoken by the person who
it was purported to be spoken by?
"Given a speech of this importance, of this historical importance,"
said Irving, "I would certainly hope that this kind of forensic test
could be made on the speech...On this particular speech, I'm not aware
of any such test having been made, but I'm certain that similar voice spectrograms
had been made on tapes in criminal cases..."
Christie asked whether Irving was specifically investigating the alleged
extermination while he was writing Hitler's War. This question was disallowed
by Judge Ron Thomas. (34-9812, 9813)
Christie asked Irving to provide details of his correspondence with Raul
Hilberg. Irving replied: "I wrote a letter to a number of Jewish authorities,
authorities on the so-called Holocaust, when I was in a stage of some embarrassment
with my Hitler biography, not having been able to find any evidence linking
Hitler with what I at that time believed to have gone on, and I asked each
of these Jewish authorities, which included the YIVO Institute in New York,
the Wiener Library in London, and respected Jewish historians like Raul
Hilberg, if they could provide me with evidence which I want[ed] to know
about. And Hilberg, in the course of the correspondence, which perhaps
encompassed two or three letters and replies, said that he had come to
the same conclusion independently, as I had, that quite probably Adolf
Hitler himself was not concerned in what had gone on...This correspondence
would have been in the early 1970s, probably about 1970. Of course, I didn't
continue to ask him what had gone on because at that time I still believed
that there had been an organized massacre. The realization only dawned
on me bit by bit that this was something that had to be tested on every
front." (34 9813, 9814)
Since that time, asked Christie, what was the most significant piece of
evidence that had affected your opinion on the matter?
"I think, probably, that document from the files, the German Ministry
of Justice, in the spring of 1942, showing Adolf Hitler as demanding that
the 'final solution' be postponed until after the war is over," said
Irving. "That was the most significant piece of evidence on the Hitler
level, but on the other front, as to whether a mass extermination occurred
in Auschwitz itself, I must say that the most significant piece of evidence
is what I've been shown since I arrived here in Toronto on Thursday, which
is a document which I am not at liberty to talk about, I think." (34-
9814, 9815) [Judge Ron Thomas excused the jury, then told Christie to explain
the purpose of the re- examination. Christie said: "It is in the course
of the cross examination the Crown has implied that he had no reasons for
the change of his opinion, and I want to explore the area of what the reasons
were. I had not yet heard Your Honour to determine that he could not mention
the name of the Leuchter Report. I had heard Your Honour to determine that
he cannot introduce it but I'd like him to be able to at least mention
it." (34-9816) After sarcastically belittling Christie for not knowing
the purpose of re-examination, Thomas stated: "I made a ruling that
he could mention the fact that he had seen the report, that he knew that
it was done and that it had not been done before, but he isn't here in
the position to give evidence on whether this report is valuable in the
history of mankind." (34 9817)]
Upon resumption of the court in the presence of the jury, Christie asked
Irving about who penalized the persons who committed atrocities at Chelmno.
Irving indicated they were penalized by authorities or agencies of the
German state. (34 9821)
Christie directed Irving to page 867 of Hitler's War, where it dealt with
a note sent by Himmler to Gestapo Chief Müller on November 30, 1942
and which said: 'You are to investigate at once in all quarters to find
out whether there have been any such abuses as the - no doubt mendacious
- rumors disseminated around the world claim. All such abuses are to be
reported to me on the SS oath of honor.' Irving had written in the book
that this letter was the 'purest humbug'. Asked Christie, I'm wondering
if in light of your current knowledge you would think it appropriate to
reassess some of those statements?
Said Irving: "It is a letter from Himmler to the Gestapo Chief Müller,
November 30, 1942, which gives the impression that Himmler knew nothing
about what was going on. He had read press accounts in foreign newspapers
and I, at that point, at that time, believed that the letter must be, as
I say here, purest humbug because my belief at that time was that something
had been going on of which Himmler must have been aware. In other words,
he must have been aware that what was alleged in these foreign press accounts
was true. So his denial was purest humbug. That was based on my belief
in 1977 when I published the book. I wouldn't have used that phrase with
such confidence if I was writing it now. I would have toned it down and
I would have qualified it by saying if there was atrocities on the scale
now alleged, then for Himmler to have written a letter in these terms would
have been purest humbug. I would have qualified the statement." (34-9822)
This ended the testimony of David Irving.
* * * *
1 Martin Broszat. "Hitler and the Genesis of the 'Final Solution':
An Assessment of David Irving's Theses." Yad Vashem Studies, 13 (1979):
73-125. Also published as "Hitler und die Genesis der 'Endlösung.'
Aus Anlass der Thesen von David Irving." Vierteljahrshefte für
Zeitgeschichte 25 (1977): 739-75.
2 Pages which Pearson read to the court were projected on a screen in the
courtroom with the use of an overhead projector.
3 In the original transcript, this word was "gasungskeller."
In correspondence with the editor, however, Irving stated that he never
said this word and in fact said "gaskammer".
4 Not compared with original.
5 Not compared with original.