Day 23 Transcript: Holocaust Denial on Trial
Part I: Initial Proceedings (1.1 to 12.20)
1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
1996 I. No. 113
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
2 Royal Courts of Justice
3 Strand, London
4 Monday, 21st February 2000
5
6 Before:
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY
8
9 B E T W E E N: DAVID JOHN CAWDELL IRVING
10 Claimant -and-
11 (1) PENGUIN BOOKS LIMITED
12 (2) DEBORAH E. LIPSTADT
13 Defendants
14 The Claimant appeared in person
15 MR RICHARD RAMPTON Q.C. (instructed by Messrs Davenport Lyons and Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of the First and
16 Second Defendants
17 MISS HEATHER ROGERS (instructed by Davenport Lyons) appeared on behalf of the First Defendant Penguin Books Limited
18 MR ANTHONY JULIUS (of Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of
19 the Second Defendant Deborah Lipstadt
20
21 (Transcribed from the stenographic notes of Harry Counsell
& Company, Clifford's Inn, Fetter Lane, London EC4
22 Telephone: 020-7242-9346)
23 (This transcript is not to be reproduced without the written permission of Harry Counsell & Company)
24
25 PROCEEDINGS - DAY TWENTY-THREE
26
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1 < Day 23 Monday, 21st February 2000.
2 (10.30 a.m.)
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I just want to say something to
4 Mr Rampton, if I may, first off. Do you think it would be
5 possible, Mr Rampton, to get an index prepared for these
6 files that have come into existence during the course of
7 the trial? I mean J.
8 MR RAMPTON: In hand ----
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Good.
10 MR RAMPTON: --- already.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Because I am finding with the transcript so
12 often you cannot actually discover where it is from the
13 transcript and then you have to wade through.
14 MR RAMPTON: Yes, I quite agree, but that is in hand. Slowly a
15 process is happening whereby each topic will have a
16 separate distilled file.
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am glad it is in hand. Thank you very
18 much.
19 MR RAMPTON: I have nearly finished the one on history and then
20 there will be others.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Mr Irving.
22 MR IRVING: May it please the court. My Lord, three minor
23 points to deal with before I resume the cross-examination
24 of Professor Evans. First of all, the Defendants provided
25 to me, or served on me at about 6.30, in other words after
26 close of business on Friday, a 24-page glossary of
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1 meanings of German words prepared by a Dr Longerich, who
2 is going to be the next expert witness. I am not very
3 happy about this way of doing things. They have been
4 working on this case now for 18 months or more, and to
5 have quite an important document like that provided to me
6 at literally the last moment is awkward.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I sympathise with that because you have quite
8 a lot on your plate already but, having said that, I think
9 I would probably be able to guess at the contents of a
10 good deal of it because we have been through a lot in the
11 evidence, have we not, like Ausrotten and so on.
12 MR IRVING: It is perfectly proper that they should served such
13 a glossary as that because experts are allowed to give
14 evidence on the meaning of foreign words, as I understand
15 it, and that is what this largely is. It is looking at
16 various words in various documents partly pre-empting what
17 I was about to say anyway. I am unhappy about the
18 document being put to your Lordship in that form without
19 your Lordship realising that it has only just been put to
20 me. It is rather like the catalogue of extracts, a very
21 handy reference form for your Lordship, rather like a
22 printed index. I am just unhappy that it has been done at
23 this very late moment.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I will certainly bear that in mind.
25 MR RAMPTON: Your Lordship has not got one, so can I pass one
26 up. It is really a most helpful document, I find. That
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1 is in English. The original was in German. It is
2 relatively uncontroversial, I would have thought.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It may be controversial, but nothing new?
4 MR RAMPTON: There is nothing new in it. It is a review of the
5 usage of certain key words. That is all it is.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: As I understand it really, there is pretty
7 much agreement that a lot of these words are either in
8 themselves equivocal, they can mean something sinister or
9 not, or in many cases the words are innocent, ostensibly
10 innocent words are used to camouflage a sinister meaning.
11 So in the end maybe not a great deal turns on it.
12 MR IRVING: It may be helpful in some respects, it may be
13 contentious in others, my Lord. That is all I want to say
14 before I actually start the cross-examination on that. It
15 is neither fish nor fowl again. Like so much that has
16 been done in this case, it is neither the expert report
17 which should have been served last August, nor is it
18 something being put to the witness in the witness box. It
19 is kind of halfway in between.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I tell you, I will bear that in mind when
21 we get to it. Mr Rampton, shall I put this into
22 Longerich?
23 MR RAMPTON: Yes, would your Lordship put it in the front of
24 Longerich, I would recommend.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
26 MR IRVING: My Lord, the next point is of rather more
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1 substance. This concerns the matter of the expert reports
2 which have been withdrawn. I am sorry, they have not been
3 withdrawn, but on which no cross-examination will be
4 possible.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
6 MR IRVING: Your Lordship and I have both raised our eyebrows
7 over the possibility of putting in reports without the
8 witnesses to back them up as far as expert reports are
9 concerned. I am going to invite your Lordship to direct
10 that the Defendants should produce a skeleton, in effect,
11 setting out the authorities and statutes on which they
12 rely, if they intend to put in the reports without the
13 experts. I think that would be perfectly proper to enable
14 me to argue the matter at a later date.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I think I said, when Mr Rampton
16 indicated that that was what they were intending to do,
17 that it was the first time I had come across this being
18 done in relation to experts' reports. I think it is
19 reasonable that, subject to what Mr Rampton may wish to
20 say, you should have chapter and verse presented to you
21 for an entitlement to take that course with an expert, but
22 I will hear what Mr Rampton says obviously.
23 MR IRVING: Obviously, if I am not going to be required to
24 present evidence or to impugn those experts reports,
25 I should be told as early as possible because that will
26 halt a major amount of the work that is still ahead of me.
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1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think anyone is suggesting you are
2 not entitled to impugn their reports by evidence or in
3 other ways. The question you are really on is whether
4 they are entitled to adduce the experts' reports under the
5 Civil Evidence Act or not.
6 MR RAMPTON: I have to say, I do not think it is an enormous
7 point. If we think we want to rely to any extent on the
8 actual contents of the reports of the witnesses that we
9 are not calling in person, then naturally we will have to
10 persuade your Lordship that we are entitled to do that.
11 Presently, my view is that almost everything that I need
12 for cross-examination of this subject and for proof is to
13 be found in Mr Irving's own words and in documents sent to
14 him.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but if you are going to rely on the
16 uncalled experts, then it may not take very long because
17 I suspect the answer is that the language of the Act does
18 not distinguish between expert and lay witnesses.
19 MR RAMPTON: I am almost certain it does not, but I am not
20 going to commit myself.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: There may be some authority on it. It does
22 strike me as slightly unusual.
23 MR RAMPTON: I have not come across it before but that does not
24 mean it cannot be done .
25 MR IRVING: It does certainly put me at a disadvantage, not
26 knowing precisely what they are intending to do.
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1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think we know what they are intending to
2 do. There is a question whether they are entitled to do
3 it.
4 MR IRVING: Mr Rampton, as I understood, has just said that he
5 might rely on parts and he might not, which leaves us
6 precisely where we were when I into court this morning.
7 What I am really asking is that your Lordship should
8 direct them, if they intend to rely on part, they must
9 indicate what statutes and authorities they are going to
10 rely on to open that particular door.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I will be a bit more specific about
12 it. I think it would be helpful to have it in writing
13 briefly.
14 MR RAMPTON: Yes.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think there must be a brief written
16 submission lodged by -- are we going to finish Professor
17 Evans today?
18 MR RAMPTON: Professor Evans today -- can I say a little bit
19 about how I see things going? Your Lordship may or may
20 not agree with me, I do not know. Professor Evans I hope
21 will finish today. Then there will be Dr Longerich
22 tomorrow. I hope that he will finish either tomorrow or
23 Wednesday. Then comes the question what happens next.
24 There is a vast amount of material in part generated by
25 what one might call the history of Mr Irving's own
26 activities in these areas.
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1 What Miss Rogers and I and others have been
2 doing is to try and reduce all that vast amount of
3 material to two files. Those files themselves are quite
4 fat. First, I would not want to cross-examine Mr Irving
5 on those files without his having seen them, and I do
6 believe that the more time he could have to absorb -- it
7 is all material which is in the wider range of files
8 already. There is nothing new in it, but it has all been
9 pulled together. In front of each section the intention
10 is to have a little summary of what each section contains,
11 which Miss Rogers has been doing with help.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: These are the people he has associated with,
13 is that right?
14 MR RAMPTON: Yes, the people he has associated with,
15 organizations and individuals.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
17 MR RAMPTON: I began to read it over the weekend and it will be
18 an extremely valuable set of documents. In the end, it
19 will cut things down. My tentative proposal would be
20 that, when Dr Longerich has finished, I would have some
21 questions of Mr Irving in cross-examination on history,
22 but I would leave that association cross-examination until
23 the following Monday. Then, when that was finished, which
24 would take maybe half a day or a day, I would then call
25 Professor Funke.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are, effectively, suggesting that
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1 Wednesday onwards should be time for Mr Irving to digest
2 these files?
3 MR RAMPTON: Probably Thursday onwards because I will have some
4 cross-examination. A combination of Dr Longerich and my
5 further cross-examination on history should get us
6 probably through all or most of Wednesday. Then what I am
7 proposing is we should take the last two days of this week
8 off so that Mr Irving can read these files, which he
9 should get by, I hope, tomorrow night.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
11 MR RAMPTON: If he says he cannot do it in the time, then he
12 will say so and your Lordship will hear what he has to
13 say.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can we just revert to the written
15 submissions? I think close of business tomorrow for the
16 written submissions on entitlement not to call the experts
17 but to rely on their evidence.
18 MR RAMPTON: I do not think it will take very long, I may be
19 wrong. The new edition of Phippson has just come out, so
20 I can have a look in that.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Say close of business tomorrow for a short
22 note of the submissions.
23 MR RAMPTON: Yes.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: So you will get it hopefully sometime towards
25 the end of tomorrow. Mr Irving what about the suggestion
26 Mr Rampton has just made about the way in which we deal
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1 with the rest of the evidence? I am not going to do
2 anything if you have sensible objections to it.
3 MR IRVING: I have no objection to that, my Lord. The
4 timetable sounds very sound. If I was to utter a wish and
5 I know my wishes count for very little in this court room,
6 it would be that one of the spare days should be put
7 before Dr Longerich rather than after, to able me to take
8 Longerich probably advised, although I am prepared for him
9 and, of course, I have read his entire report and have
10 prepared a large bundle of material, which would in effect
11 being tomorrow being free and Longerich being called on
12 the following day.
13 MR RAMPTON: I embrace that enthusiasm, if I may say so. It
14 would make our task in completing these files a lot easier
15 if we did it that way. I do not any longer have to do any
16 preparation for Dr Longerich, except that that will also
17 give me the opportunity to finish the history file.
18 Mr Irving certainly will need that and, if he can get it
19 by close of play tonight, or even lunch time tomorrow,
20 that will help.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I am happy to do that, providing that we
22 have the bundles available so that tomorrow can be used
23 looking through your new material. I can use tomorrow.
24 MR RAMPTON: The history file he should have tomorrow, because
25 that helps his cross-examination of Dr Longerich. I will
26 tell your Lordship how it is proposed to compose it. On
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1 one side would be in chronological order the German
2 documents. So far as they are available, on the facing
3 page will be an English translation of the key part. For
4 the most part, that can be done just by removing. What I
5 have done is to remove the page from the expert report and
6 put it facing the German text.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: As long as that is going to be available by
8 tonight.
9 MR RAMPTON: I will finish that tonight, it will be copied
10 tomorrow morning and then distributed as soon as possible.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can than be accelerated? I think Mr Irving
12 will want to use the whole of tomorrow, and indeed so will
13 I.
14 MR RAMPTON: I have about another 30 pages to get through.
15 When I have done that, it will go off and be copied.
16 Whether late tonight or early tomorrow morning, Mr Irving
17 will get a copy.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Early tomorrow, yes. That is what we will do
19 then.
20 MR IRVING: I am very pleased to hear that, my Lord. There is
21 one very minor point which then remains. I might either
22 put it just as a factual point or put it to the witness in
23 cross-examination. This is the fact that, very minor
24 point, the 10 a.m. broadcast by Dr Goebbels as opposed to
25 4 p.m., I have been informed by Mrs Weckert, who heard it,
26 that she heard it at her school. It was repeatedly
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1 broadcast during the day. She heard it as a school child
2 and the German school only operated from 8.00 am until
3 midday.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you are going to say that, you can
5 certainly put it. There is a technical objection to be
6 taken that you cannot really put it unless you have Mrs
7 Weckert available. She is alive obviously because you
8 have spoken to her recently.
9 MR IRVING: A few days ago.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You could probably correct it by means of a
11 Civil Evidence Act notice but, Mr Rampton, I think it is
12 reasonable to put this.
13 MR RAMPTON: If Mr Irving says it, Mr Irving says it. Whether
14 Mrs Weckert is to be believed is quite another question.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Or indeed whether she can remember. I think
16 that is a question in cross-examination and not a
17 submission.
18 MR IRVING: Very well. Professor Evans?
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Evans, you have been waiting
20 patiently. Would you like to resume, now?
Part II: Evans Cross-Examined by Irving (12.21 to 124.8)
Section 12.21 to 19.7
21 < PROFESSOR EVANS, Continued
22 Cross-examination by Mr Irving, continued.
23 MR IRVING: Good morning, Professor Evans. Are you aware of
24 what time German schools operated during the war years?
25 Was it on an all day basis?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: To my knowledge, German schools have never operated on an
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1 all day basis. They still do not.
2 Q. [Mr Irving]: Am I right in saying they start very early and end about
3 lunch time?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right, about 1 o'clock.
5 MR IRVING: That is the only question that I can usefully ask.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have not put the thrust of it yet. You
7 should.
8 MR IRVING: I will have to then. In that case, if a Mrs Ingrid
9 Weckert was to say that, as a school child, she heard the
10 Goebbels broadcast as a school child, when it was
11 broadcast to all the school children, on the morning of
12 November 10th 1938, would you agree that in that case
13 this would mean that she had heard it during the morning?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The question is whether one believe her 62 years after the
15 event, and given the fact that she is not to be believed
16 in almost anything thing that she writes or says about
17 these events.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is she the amateur -- perhaps amateur is
19 wrong.
20 MR IRVING: An amateur historian who is a right winger.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Who is accused of being anti-semitic by the
22 Defendants?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Whose book has been placed on the black list by the German
24 government, my Lord, as anti-semitic and liable to stir up
25 racial hatred in its account of the events of 9th and 10th
26 November 1938.
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1 MR IRVING: Professor Evans, you rely quite heavily in your
2 expert report on a book by a man called Dr Kogon. Is that
3 right?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Not very heavily, no. I do cite it in a number of places.
5 It is not solely by him. It is written by him in
6 collaboration with others.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I ask you to have a look at this little bundle of
8 documents? Your Lordship also has this bundle, I believe.
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have not seen this before, have I, Mr Irving?
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: No. It is a new bundle?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Thank you. I have to say it is rather difficult being
12 handed substantial bundles of material every morning by
13 Mr Irving without any prior warning.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sure you are going to be able to
15 cope, Professor Evans.
16 MR IRVING: This is the way it works, Professor Evans.
17 I submit documents to you and invite you to comment on
18 them. Is page 1 an extract from a report in the New York
19 Times of December 26th 1987?
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It appears to be. It is not a photocopy though it is not
21 an original.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: Does it refer to the fact that a well-known renowned
23 anti-Nazi writer and Resistance figure, Eugene Kogon has
24 been listed by the United Nations as wanted for mass
25 murder on the same list as lists Kurt Valtheim and various
26 other Nazis?
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1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It does. It goes on to say, "Hermann Langbann, the
2 co-author and long time associate of Dr Kogon said from
3 Vienna this week that Dr Kogon had saved many prisoners at
4 Buchenwald at great personal risk, and that the
5 Commission's listing was a tragic error."
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The New York Times story starts with a reference to
8 inaccuracies and untested allegations in the files on
9 which such listings appear to rest.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. My Lord, just so you can know where we are going
11 today, your Lordship might wish to know that I will
12 certainly complete cross-examining the witness on the
13 whole of the report up to but not including the
14 Adjutants. Quite simply, I am still not certain whether
15 the Adjutants are being relied on by the Defence or not in
16 this matter.
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is fair because they disappeared
18 from the picture at one stage and I think they have
19 partially come back in.
20 MR RAMPTON: No, not really. Can I say I rely on the Adjutants
21 this far and I have already made the point in
22 cross-examination. Professor Evans has already made it
23 from the witness box. I rely on the Adjutants to show
24 what one might call an uncritical credulity where they are
25 concerned as contrasted with what one might call a
26 critical incredulity where witnesses say things that Mr
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1 Irving does not like.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Particularly in Kristallnacht.
3 MR RAMPTON: Exactly, and on Auschwitz.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. So, in other words, you are not really
5 going to put your case in any greater detail than already
6 has been done?
7 MR RAMPTON: No.
8 MR IRVING: In that case, I do not propose to waste much time
9 on him. It is very interesting what the Professor has
10 written, but we do want to press ahead. (To the witness):
11 Professor Evans, will you go to page 397 of your report,
12 please?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: You touch there briefly on the gassings at Belzec,
15 Treblinka and Sobibor, and you say that these events are
16 not disputed by serious historians.
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not see that.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: 397?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 399. I say that in 399, yes.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes on 399?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: I am sorry, paragraph 8.
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, that is a very brief summary of what I take to be the
24 existing state of knowledge as a background to what I say
25 in this section of my report.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. I am not going to question you in any great detail
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1 on those camps because, of course, for the purposes of
2 this trial, we are accepting that gassings did occur in
3 those camps. But again just going to the quality of your
4 knowledge, are you saying that there is a broad consensus
5 on these camps? This is another example of the broad
6 consensus that you use sometimes as your guiding star?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is really for the orientation for the court. It is not
8 just on the camps. I describe in the paragraphs as
9 rapidly and economically as I can ----
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: Did you form an opinion about what ----
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: --- Nazi policy in occupied Poland in a general sense.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Did you form an opinion about what kind of gas was used in
13 those camps in your reading on the matter?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is not -- yes, on the top I do mention this in
15 relation to Belzec on line 3 of page 398, carbon monoxide.
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you aware that there has been dispute over that
17 particular detail, whether it was carbon oxide or whether
18 it was diesel engines or petrol engines or even steam
19 being used?
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have not heard steam, I have to say, but in any case it
21 does not really make a great deal of difference as to
22 whether the gas was poisonous or not. The point is, of
23 course, that if it was not poisonous, then asphyxiation
24 was the cause of death.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: Has the position of the mass graves been fixed? There
26 must be enormous mass graves of these, what, 1 million
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1 people were killed in these three camps.
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This is really just painting in the background. If you
3 want to present me with documentation on this, Mr Irving,
4 I will be happy to comment on it.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: I am just asking the state of your knowledge. Are you
6 aware if there has been any kind of archeological
7 investigation of the sites because there are no remains on
8 any of those sites, are there?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You would have to present me with documentation to show
10 that there were no remains before I agreed with you.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I am a bit puzzled by this in a
12 way because you have accepted that I think hundreds of
13 thousands of Jews were gassed in those three camps, so, in
14 a sense, there is not much to be gained by asking about
15 archeological investigation.
16 MR IRVING: I was using that as an example really of exposing
17 to your Lordship the rather shallow nature of the
18 investigation made by this expert witness on matters of
19 some moment, that I asked three or four questions, to each
20 of which I got replies I can only describe as evasive.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but if there is no issue about it,
22 really it is beside the point.
23 MR IRVING: It is not about the fact, but about the scale, my
24 Lord, really, and that is how I would leave it.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I think hundreds of thousands you have
26 accepted?
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1 MR IRVING: Yes, of that order of magnitude.
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The problem is, Mr Irving, I am not prepared to accept
3 statements of your about archeological remains and so on
4 unless you can present me with documentation.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: The question I asked you was were you aware of any
6 archeological investigations.
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well....
Section 19.8 to 27.20
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: And I was asking purely about the state of your
9 enquiries. We will now proceed, my Lord. We will make
10 very rapid progress today. We are going to go to the
11 Goebbels diary entry of March 27th 1942 which begins on
12 that same page, 399, of your report, Professor Evans.
13 I am going to ask you to look at page 400 of your report,
14 Professor Evans, line 3. This is the part that matters.
15 I am going to read out the translation that you have
16 offered to the court of these three or four lines: "The
17 Jews are now being pushed out of the General Government".
18 What is happening here? Has Dr Goebbels received ----
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The top line, yes.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: Has Dr Goebbels received a report from the SD or from some
21 Nazi authority which he is summarising here, is this what
22 has happened?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am not saying -- he certainly has been informed about
24 these events and he is putting down a summary of them.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: A summary of them. Is there any indication known to you
26 that that particular report went to Adolph Hitler? I have
. P-19
1 to ask that because that is an element of this trial.
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Then you would have to provide me with a copy of the
3 report and we would have to look at it in detail.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: If there had been an indication that it had gone to Adolf
5 Hitler in the diary, then you would have referred to it,
6 would you not?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, indeed, yes. I mean, if, or, rather, if Goebbels
8 thought it worth mentioning that a report had been the
9 basis of what he is saying here and that it had gone to
10 Hitler and he had mentioned it, then I would have
11 mentioned that too, yes.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: You rely on this diary entry quite heavily as evidence
13 that Goebbels was what, 100 per cent aware of the killings
14 in the East, the killing of the Jews being pushed out of
15 the General Government, that Goebbels was aware that this
16 was going on?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: "The Jews are now being pushed out of the General
19 Government, beginning near Lublin, to the East", he
20 writes. "A pretty barbaric procedure is being applied
21 here, and it is not to be described in any more detail,
22 and not much is left to the Jews themselves". I have no
23 quarrel with that translation.
24 You then continue: "In general one may conclude
25 that 60 per cent of them must be liquidated, while only 40
26 per cent can be put to work". This is the sentence on
. P-20
1 which you really rely, is it not?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Among others.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I mean, I quote a very lengthy chunk of this because you
5 used this -- you suppressed a great deal of this in your
6 own, in your own work.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: Now, Dr Goebbles is not stating this as a fact, is he? He
8 is speculating. You have left a word out, have you not,
9 in your translation? You left out the word "wohl. I draw
10 your attention to line 3 of the footnote.
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I am sorry. I have not. I have translated that as
12 "In general one may conclude", not that "one must
13 conclude" ----
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: I draw attention to ----
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: And that, if I may finish, that formulation is intended to
16 convey the sense of strong probability that the word
17 "wohl" indicates.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: Does not "wohl" mean "perhaps"?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, it does not. It means "probably".
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: Even if it meant "probably" which I would participate ----
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: If he wanted to say "perhaps" he would have
22 said "vielleicht".
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: You have left the word out, have you not?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I have not left it out, Mr Irving.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: "In general one may probably conclude" or "one may perhaps
26 conclude" indicates speculation on his part and not
. P-21
1 knowledge.
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I am sorry, Mr Irving. "Im grossen kann man wohl
3 festellen", "in general, large scale", "kann" is "can",
4 right, not "may", "man", "one can", "wohl festellen", very
5 well, and it is "very well conclude".
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Wohl" can be translated just as "well" here,
7 can it not, "one can well" ----
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: "Conclude", yes.
9 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: --- "suppose"?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I tried to render that slightly better, less awkward
11 English by saying "one may conclude"; the "may" conveying
12 the element of slight uncertainty in that use of the word
13 "wohl".
14 MR IRVING: The meanings are, my Lord ----
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have not left the word out.
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: --- "well" "indeed" "possibly" and "probably" in that
17 order or "I dare say" which is a very nice one in this
18 connection. "I dare say". "I dare say one can conclude
19 that 60 per cent of them must be liquidated". Does this
20 indicate and element of certainty?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is probably. "Wohl" is stronger than "vielleicht". It
22 indicates ----
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: But you have left a word out, have you not?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I have not left a word out, Mr Irving. I have
25 conveyed this, I think, accurately by indicating the
26 element of slight uncertainty in the sentence by saying
. P-22
1 "one may conclude" instead of "one can well conclude".
2 Q. [Mr Irving]: He is not stating it as a matter fact; he is saying, "this
3 is probably or possibly or I dare say one can say that
4 this happening"?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: He is saying,"This is probably happening".
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is this not a very weak and rusty hook on which to hang
7 page after page after page of what now follows?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is not the only statement here and it does, I think,
9 reflect the policy accurately even if the percentages can
10 be argued about in the way they were put into practice.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do you read Goebbels as talking about
12 percentages in that sentence or about the fact of what is
13 happening to the Jews?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, he says, "In general one may conclude that 60 per
15 cent of them may be liquidated, while only 40 per cent can
16 be put to work. It is those percentages, I mean, that is
17 obviously again very rough and that again may well
18 indicate the element of uncertainty that he is talking
19 about. I mean, I think the "wohl feststellen" expresses
20 his slight vagueness about these percentages. It might
21 have been 70/30 or 80/20 or some other percentages, but he
22 is saying that the probability is it is about 60/40. 60
23 will die, be killed, and 40 will be put to work.
24 MR IRVING: In other words, these figures are not contained in
25 the report, are they, these percentages?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You would have to show me the report, Mr Irving, before I
. P-23
1 could comment on that.
2 Q. [Mr Irving]: But you have seen the diary that you are seeking to draw
3 major conclusions from it of the state of people's
4 knowledge, and I am drawing your attention to the fact
5 that it is not knowledge at all, it is speculation. He is
6 saying, "I dare say one can conclude" or even in the bare,
7 stripped down version you have put, "one can conclude".
8 He is making conclusions. In other words, he is
9 speculating on what is behind it. He may very well be
10 right, but I am looking at the fact that you have made no
11 attempt to appreciate the meaning of that word "wohl".
12 "Im grossen kann man wohl feststellen" does not mean any
13 degree of certainty at all on his part ----
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not put that.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: --- he is saying, "By and large I dare say one can
16 conclude", is he not?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not say that, Mr Irving. I say "in general one may
18 conclude" not "one must conclude" or "the fact is". I say
19 "one may conclude". That is to say, the word "may" is
20 permissive. It means you may conclude 60/40 or you may
21 conclude something else. The probability is 60/40. It is
22 what I would regard as a well informed estimate.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you now regret not having put in the word "perhaps" or
24 "possible" or "dare say" in that sentence?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Certainly not, I do not. I think my translation is
26 perfectly all right there.
. P-24
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, notwithstanding that you raise your voice and
2 interrupt me, do you agree ----
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, it makes a change from you raising your voice and
4 interrupting me, Mr Irving.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Don't let us have you both...
6 MR IRVING: Do you agree that it would have been better to
7 include a proper translation of the word "wohl" in that
8 sentence?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is a proper translation of that sentence. It is about
10 the 15th time I have said that, Mr Irving.
11 Q. [Mr Irving]: I have to say this because -- I am not going to move on --
12 of course, you do rely on that, you agree that you rely on
13 that sentence and the burden of that sentence quite
14 heavily, in refuting me and suggesting that I have
15 manipulated, suppressed and omitted words myself, is that
16 right?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, where is that in your description of these events
18 which I deal with on the previous page?
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: Over the next 27 pages you repeatedly hark back to this
20 one sentence.
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Can you direct me to where I repeatedly hark back to it?
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: I have just said, over the next 27 pages.
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Can you direct me to the exact pages and line numbers in
24 which I refer to it?
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: We are going to come to them bit by bit.
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Then I cannot accept that statement of yours until you
. P-25
1 actually do point me to the precise points where I rely
2 and refer to that sentence.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you agree that even in the stripped down version or
4 truncated version of that sentence as presented by
5 you ----
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not agree that it is stripped down or truncated.
7 It is an accurate translation, Mr Irving.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think you interrupted the question,
9 Professor Evans.
10 MR IRVING: Thank you very much.
11 THE WITNESS: I have to dispute the premise, my Lord.
12 MR IRVING: Do you agree that in the version of the sentence as
13 presented by you, you are, even in that version it can be
14 relied upon only as evidence against Goebbels and not as
15 evidence against Adolf Hitler? It is the state of mind of
16 Goebbels, not the state of mind of Adolf Hitler or the
17 state of his knowledge or speculation.
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This is the state, this is the state of knowledge of
19 Goebbels, yes. Who has said that it is anything else?
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is this purporting to be a conversation between Hitler and
21 Goebbels ----
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No. Nobody says that.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: This is Goebbels in Berlin reading a report that has been
24 put on to his desk in Berlin, is that not right?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: He appears to be reading a report from which he arrives at
26 this estimate that one may conclude that 60 per cent of
. P-26
1 the Jews pushed out to the East may be liquidated and 40
2 per cent put to work, yes.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Why do you say he has been reading a report?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, he says it seems to be that someone has informed
5 about him about this, and maybe somebody has informed him
6 verbally.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I see.
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am sorry, I should not have said "reading".
9 MR IRVING: My version of Goebbels diary has vanished, my Lord,
10 but I believe I am right in saying that the preceding
11 sentence, that precedes the part quoted, said something
12 like "I have received an SD report", or something like
13 that.
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: If I could see a copy, I could comment on that, if it is
15 important. Certainly somebody has informed him that he
16 has gained some information from somewhere and he is
17 writing down what he has heard.
Section 27.21 to 53.9
18 MR IRVING: There is no indication in that diary because, as we
19 said earlier, if there had been, he would have mentioned
20 it, that Adolf Hitler had also received this report?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, there is not. There is a statement here in which he
22 goes on to link it to Hitler's views, by referring, as he
23 so frequently does, and indeed as Hitler himself does, to
24 the prophecy that Hitler issued on 30th January 1933,
25 that, if the Jews, as he put it, started a new world war,
26 they would be annihilated. He goes on to use the language
. P-27
1 that indeed is Hitler's favourite language in referring to
2 the extermination of the Jews ----
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: You mean 1939, do you not?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Did I not say 39? I meant 39 -- a struggle for life
5 and death between the Aryan race and the Jewish bacillus.
6 This idea of a bacillus is a very common Hitler
7 terminology. Goebbels is taking it over here. Then he
8 goes on and says, "No other government and no other regime
9 could muster the strength for a general solution to the
10 question". "Here too", says Goebbels, "the Fuhrer is the
11 persistent pioneer and spokesman of a radical solution
12 which is demanded by the way things are and thus appears
13 to be unavoidable". I take that to be the same kind of
14 statement as is made about Lammers in what we have called
15 the Schlegelberger memorandum. That is to say ----
16 MR IRVING: Please, can we keep very much to the questions?
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not interrupt.
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is to say, it is a statement about a number of
19 occasions on which Hitler has said this thing, or revealed
20 himself to be the persistent pioneer. So it is clearly
21 talking about a number of occasions. It is not talking
22 about a specific occasion on which he is shown a report
23 to, or talked about it to, Hitler. That is what I would
24 describe as the link between this diary entry and Hitler.
25 MR IRVING: You do admit of course that there are other
26 passages in these same diaries which show Hitler in
. P-28
1 anything but a homicidal mood towards the Jews?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Point them to me, please.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: I am not going to keep on falling for this game throughout
4 the day, Professor Evans, because we have to get through a
5 great deal today.
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Mr Irving, I cannot accept what you are saying without
7 seeing the documentation, I am afraid. I think that is a
8 perfectly reasonable thing to do.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am afraid it is. It does slow things down
10 but I think, if you put a proposition to the witness, he
11 is not inclined to agree to it unless he see the document
12 you rely on, then he is entitled to ask you to look at it.
13 MR IRVING: Turn to page 404 of your report, please. You will
14 see several such passages referred to by you yourself.
15 Goebbels diary April 26th, May 29th, 1942, Hitler's table
16 talk May 15th, July 24th, 1942. Are those non-homicidal
17 passages, if I can put them like that?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: What I say is that you rely on them to show that Hitler
19 did not know about the extermination of the Jews while
20 Goebbels himself did.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. We are going to come to that in sequence, but you
22 asked me to point you to those passages. I have now
23 pointed you to them.
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am pointing to the use you make of them, which is a
25 slightly different thing.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: If we are coming to them in due course, then
. P-29
1 let us wait until we do.
2 MR IRVING: You are not claiming to be an expert on Goebbels
3 and his relationship with Hitler, are you?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: We have been through the nature of my expertise right at
5 the very beginning, Mr Irving.
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: You are not claiming to be an expert on Goebbels and his
7 relationship with Hitler, are you?
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think in these pages he necessarily is
9 claiming that.
10 MR IRVING: Very well. Are you aware of how often Dr Goebbels
11 was with Hitler each year around this time? Would it be
12 five or ten or 20 times a year?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have not counted, Mr Irving. You tell me.
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: The answer is you have not any idea, have you?
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is gratuitous. Put the number of
16 times.
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It seems from the diary entries that I have read to have
18 been fairly frequent over the years.
19 MR IRVING: Fairly frequent. What do you mean by fairly
20 frequent?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Would you like to put to me a number? I have not counted,
22 Mr Irving. What I am doing here is writing not so much
23 about Goebbels and Hitler but about your account of
24 Goebbels and Hitler. That is the purpose of my report.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, if it is your case that Goebbels
26 was hardly ever seeing Hitler at this time, then I think
. P-30
1 you ought to say so and, if necessary, give the number of
2 times they would have net, or presumably spoken on the
3 telephone, I do not know.
4 MR IRVING: Can you accept that Dr Goebbels, in the year 1942,
5 saw Adolf Hitler about ten times all told? I mean in
6 private.
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Ah, that is a different matter.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: As opposed to at mass meetings or something like that?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do find it difficult to accept anything you say,
10 Mr Irving, without looking at the documentary basis for
11 it.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: That makes life easier for you, does it not, but can you
13 just answer the question?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It does not. It makes life a lot more difficult,
15 actually.
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: You do accept that I worked for 35 years on the Adolf
17 Hitler book and I worked for nine years on the Goebbels
18 biography, so that I am something of an expert on both
19 people?
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The question is how you worked, Mr Irving.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, I am asking you a simple question. How many times
22 do you think Goebbels actually visited Hitler in 1941 and
23 in 42?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have and I am giving the answer. I have not counted.
25 My purpose here is to look at your account and your
26 manipulation of this entry of 27th March to support your
. P-31
1 argument that Goebbels was concealing information about
2 the extermination of the Jews from Hitler. That is my
3 purpose here.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is it not the fact that, from 1939 onwards until 1944,
5 after the bomb attempt on Hitler's life,
6 their relationship can at best be described as distant?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No. I do not really think that is true.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: In view of the fact that Dr Goebbels as the Minister of
9 Propaganda visited Hitler only about ten times per year
10 during those years, is not that a distant relationship?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: We do not know how many times they spoke on the phone.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you seen any references in the Goebbels diaries to
13 telephone calls from Adolf?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Or to Adolf, no. I think Goebbels had a good knowledge of
15 what Hitler knew and talked about. It occurs frequently
16 in his diaries.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: If you express that opinion, you must have a pretty
18 profound knowledge of Dr Goebbels, is that right?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Not necessarily, no. I have read plenty of diary entries
20 in which account -- these are the diaries entries I read
21 in order to check up on the use you make of them. That is
22 what I have done here.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you and your researchers read the entire entries of
24 Dr Goebbels' diaries?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Of course not. That would have been absolutely
26 impossible. It is an enormously long collection of stuff
. P-32
1 and that is not what we had to do. Our task was to look
2 at the use you make of certain specific diary entries.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you familiar from the correspondence that has been
4 shown you in discovery that I invited various Goebbels
5 experts, including Dr Frohlich and Dr Friedrich Karbermann
6 and others who have worked on the Goebbels diaries like
7 myself, whether they have come across one single entry
8 which explicitly shows that Adolf Hitler was aware of the
9 homicidal killings of the Jews in the Goebbels diaries?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
11 Q. [Mr Irving]: The answer is no, there is no such entry?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not accept that.
13 Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you not seen this correspondence?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, sorry. The correspondence yes, but I do not accept
15 the conclusion that you make of it.
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: You accept that they have read the diaries, unlike you, in
17 their totality, but you do not accept what they say?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Ah, sorry. I thought you were saying that is what you
19 said. Then in that case you have to show me a letter in
20 Dr. Frohlich says that he has never seen such a----
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us short circuit this. Are you aware of
22 any explicit acceptance, or document which shows explicit
23 knowledge on Hitler's part of the extermination programme?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, I think there is evidence in the diaries that he did
25 know. In this particular entry, when Goebbels says, "The
26 Fuhrer is the persistent pioneer and spokesman of a
. P-33
1 radical solution", what else can he mean, except some
2 degree of extermination, 60 per cent extermination, or
3 more? He cannot mean at this stage, March 1942, that a
4 radical solution is simply deporting them to the East.
5 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: You read that entry, just to summarize it, as Goebbels
6 saying that what Globocnik is up to is in accordance with
7 what the Fuhrer wants done?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Hitler indeed has been a pioneer, persistent pioneer, of
9 this radical solution.
10 MR IRVING: Do you agree ----
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: One can also look at the entry of 30th May 1942, which
12 I cite at length in the letter of revision to my report
13 that I sent on 10th January this year. Here again,
14 I think there is a clear indication that this is recording
15 a meeting of Hitler with Goebbels, a meeting between
16 Hitler and Goebbels, where at the first paragraph Goebbels
17 says that he presents the Fuhrer with his plan to evacuate
18 the Jews out of Berlin with none remaining, Hitler is
19 completely of his view, says Goebbels, and goes on to give
20 orders and so on. "I plead once again for a more radical
21 Jewish policy", this is on 30th May 1942, "whereby I am
22 just pushing at an open door with the Fuhrer".
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: You have left out quite bit, have you not?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, I will read the whole passage if you really want me
25 to. I am trying to short things a bit. He goes on in the
26 next paragraph to then say, "An extermination of criminals
. P-34
1 is also a necessity of state policy", thus implying quite
2 clearly in the previous paragraph that he has been talking
3 about the extermination of Jews. So that is another
4 indication to my mind.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: As you have raised this particular entry, will you go to
6 the bundle I gave you this morning and turn to page 2?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: It is sometimes quite helpful that you go off on these
9 excursions. Is that pages of the Goebbels diary?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
11 Q. [Mr Irving]: My Lord, do you have this particular document?
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do, yes. Thank you very much.
13 MR IRVING: Is this diary a typescript diary on the large Adolf
14 Hitler typewriter, or the large face typewriter?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is certainly large, unless it has been enlarged.
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: So this time Dr Goebbels was dictating the diary to his
17 private secretary, Richard Otty, is that right, the
18 stenographer?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I think so.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: He did so since July 1941, did he not?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right, yes.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: So this is not in any sense a private diary any more full
23 of top secrets. It is an official diary he is keeping?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not think it is an official diary. I think it is
25 a private diary. There are certain things that he might
26 feel he cannot say in it, which he could say when he was
. P-35
1 writing it down in his own hand, but it is still a private
2 diary.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: Was the Final Solution in its homicidal sense something
4 that was top state secret, and not to be written down in
5 private diaries or official diaries?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Which do you mean? Official diaries or private diaries?
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: Look at the first page, page 2 in my little bundle. You
8 will see that it starts off with, "Yesterday the military
9 situation:".
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, he always start off like that.
11 Q. [Mr Irving]: It does not look like a private diary, does it?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: He always starts off with the military situation. It is a
13 private diary. He keeps tabs on the military situation.
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: On page 3, the last three lines, "The Fuhrer has returned
15 from his headquarters to Berlin to speak to an officers'
16 course in the Sport Palace". So Hitler has come to
17 Berlin and Goebbels grabs the opportunity to have one of
18 his rare meetings with him?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, that is right.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: The next page is the part you then began reading?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page 4, line 3?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: "I briefed the Fuhrer once more on my plan, to evacuate
25 the Jews completely from Berlin"?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
. P-36
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: Why does he have to do it "once more"? Why did not Hitler
2 leap at it and say, "Yes, sure, why are we waiting, what
3 are we waiting for?" Why does Goebbels have to keep on
4 putting this to Hitler if there was any eagerness on
5 Hitler's part to deal with the Jews?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Because some were remaining, and it is a new situation
7 which seems to have emerged which has alarmed Goebbels,
8 and which he goes on at some length about later in the
9 entry.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: Then he continues. "It is entirely my opinion", gives
11 Speers the job, "to take care as quickly as possible that
12 the Jews who are working in the German arms factories,
13 arms economy, are replaced by foreign workers"?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: Then he continues with a piece you left out, "I see a
16 major danger in the fact that there are still 40,000 Jews
17 in the capital of the Reichs who would have nothing more
18 to lose, who are running around free".
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is there not a provocation, and is it not just asking for
21 assassination attempts, if that kind of thing happens,
22 then you cannot sleep safely in your own bed? That is
23 roughly what it says, is it not?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right, yes.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: If I turn the page, we have now leapt forward.
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
. P-37
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: I think this is probably the part that you then begin
2 quoting again. Halfway down, "The Germans take part in
3 subversive movements only when the Jews lead them astray
4 to it. That is why we have to liquidate the Jewish
5 danger, cost what it may. How little the Jews in reality
6 can fit in or assimilate to the Western European life you
7 can see from the fact that, when they are sent back into
8 the Ghetto, they very rapidly become ghettoised again".
9 So he is talking about a geographical movement, is he not,
10 they are in Western Europe and we are going to have to
11 kick them out?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, but this appears to be taken from Table Talk. The
13 point about this entry is that it really subsumes two
14 different conversations. The first of these appears to be
15 a private conversation between Goebbels and Hitler, where
16 he says, "I once more present the Fuhrer with my plan to
17 evacuate the Jews out of Berlin".
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: What makes you think that this is ----
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Sorry, this is quite explicit. The bit you left out
20 I will go on: "Once these outrages or assassination
21 attempts break out, then one's life is no longer safe".
22 I will carry on reading. "The fact that even 22 year old
23 Eastern Jews took part in the latest fire bomb attack
24 speaks volumes. Thus I plead once again for a more
25 radical Jewish policy whereby I am just pushing at an open
26 door with the Fuhrer. The Fuhrer has the opinion that the
. P-38
1 danger will become greater for us personally the more
2 critical the war situation becomes. We find ourselves in
3 a similar situation to that of the second half of 1932
4 where bashing and stabbing were the order of the day, and
5 one had to take all possible security measures to escape
6 from such a development in one piece".
7 Then he goes on in a new paragraph, still this
8 conversation with Hitler: "The extermination of criminals
9 is also a necessity of state policy".
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, we have had that already.
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Let me give the German. The German gives actually a very
12 strong feeling. Auch die Ausmerzung der Verbrechers:
13 Literally also the extermination of criminals.
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: What does "ausmerzung" mean.
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Here it means the extermination -- he goes on to say
16 exactly what he means.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: What does "auzmerzung" mean?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Literally "extirpation". It is quite clear what it means
19 here. He goes on to say, "Should the war situation become
20 very dangerous at any time the prisoners will have in any
21 case to be emptied through liquidations so that the danger
22 does not arise at their one day opening their doors to let
23 the revolting mob loose upon the people". That is quite
24 clear there that he means by "ausmerzung" it is linked to
25 liquidations and those two are linked to the previous
26 paragraph.
. P-39
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: I appreciate why you are putting all this material in, but
2 can we now come back to my question?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, because you do not like this material being brought
4 to anyone's attention do you, Mr Irving? You left it out
5 in your work.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Evans, you are reading from a
7 translation. Where are you reading from?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am reading from pages 8-9 of the letter I sent on 10th
9 January, my Lord.
10 MR IRVING: I would prefer if we adhere to my
11 cross-examination.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Pause a moment, Mr Irving. Your letter of
13 what date?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 10th January 2000, with amendments to my report.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yet another file which it is not very easy to find one's
16 way through. Can anyone help me? I am looking in what is
17 called Evans 2.
18 MR RAMPTON: I think your Lordship might have put this, because
19 it is amendments to the original report, in the front or
20 the back of the main report. That is where I have put
21 it.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Quite right.
23 MR IRVING: I really have to protest about these time wasting
24 tactics of the witness throughout the last week.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, it does not help. This is in fact
26 my fault if it is anybody's fault. I am trying to recall
. P-40
1 where the translation is.
2 MR IRVING: It disrupts the flow of the cross-examination, and
3 I am sure this is not the intention of the witness but it
4 is certainly the effect.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You will have to bear with me for a moment.
6 Yes?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Then may I just go on very briefly, my Lord?
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I was about to point out the passage in the third
10 paragraph of the Goebbels diaries after the again rather
11 revealing sentence, "Therefore one must liquidate the
12 Jewish danger", there is that word "liquidate" again.
13 Then it appears to be almost identical to an account in
14 the table talk for the same day. So Goebbels seems then
15 to be switching over to summarizing what Hitler is saying
16 in a much larger circle, during a meal, and about how
17 little the Jews can assimilate themselves to West European
18 life, and so on and so forth. There of course then he
19 engages, as Hitler customarily does in the table talk, in
20 a much less direct kind of language, and a more vague kind
21 of description. Hence he then starts to go on about
22 settling the Jews in central Africa and so on.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Mr Irving.
24 MR IRVING: I am being enormously patient. We will come back
25 to the line of cross-examination. Can I refer you back to
26 page 5 of the little bundle? We just looked at the
. P-41
1 passage, you will remember (44 at the top, handwritten 5
2 at the bottom). I will continue: "That is why you have
3 to liquidate the Jewish danger, whatever it may cost. How
4 little that the Jews are able to assimilate themselves to
5 western European life you see from the fact that, as soon
6 as they are sent back to the ghetto, they very rapidly
7 become ghettoised again". I do hope we are not going to
8 have any more discursions or excursions now.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Carry on with the question.
10 MR IRVING: Yes. Over the page: "Western European
11 civilisation is for them just an external veneer". Then
12 he goes on to talk about the fact that among the Jews
13 there are elements who go to work with a dangerous
14 brutality and vengeance: "This is why the Fuhrer also
15 does not want that they are sent to Siberia, that they are
16 evacuated to Siberia". The that word "evacuiert" there is
17 quite clearly geographical, is it not, not homicidal?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Not necessarily, no. The word evacuiert is quite
19 frequently used.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: You cannot say "killed to Siberia," can you?
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: In that context, it must be in its literal
22 meaning----
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Evacuated to Siberia, the word "evacuation" can sometimes
24 mean by this time it can be a camouflage, or the whole
25 phrase "evacuating to Siberia" and all the talk about----
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but Mr Irving's point is not here.
. P-42
1 MR IRVING: But under the harshest conditions of life they
2 would certainly become a virile element again, would they
3 not, as he says? He would most of all like to send them
4 to Central Africa. How do you translate "am
5 liebsten"? He would rather send them to Central Africa?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: He would prefer to send them, or he would most like to
7 send them.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: If it was "prefer", it would be "lieber", would it not?
9 "Am liebsten" is most of all he would like to send them
10 to Central Africa?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Most of all he would like to send them, he would most like
12 to.
13 Q. [Mr Irving]: Most of all, above what? Above Siberia? Above the East?
14 Above Riga and Minsk? Most of all he wants to send them
15 to Central Africa? Is this what Adolf Hitler is really
16 about, as reported by Goebbels?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. He seems to be saying that, and he says exactly the
18 same in his table talk.
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: You rather toned it down in your translation by saying he
20 would rather send them to Central Africa, did you not?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not think that is toning it down at all, Mr Irving.
22 It is clear from my translation what his preference is, or
23 what he claims his preference is rather, in this rather
24 camouflaged conversation at the dining table.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: There they would live in a climate that would certainly
26 make them strong and resistance or resistive again. At
. P-43
1 any rate it is the Fuhrer's aim, and I am translating very
2 loosely as I go along, at any rate it is the Fuhrer's aim
3 to make Western Europe completely free of the Jews?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: Here they may not have a national home any more?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: So he is talking purely geography, is he not? He is not
8 talking gas chambers, if I can put it like that. He is
9 talking geography. He is saying well, the East, Siberia,
10 Africa, anywhere but Western Europe.
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes I think this is----
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: This is real Hitler. This is not Goebbels. This is not
13 his gloss, is it?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, nor is the previous account of what Hitler is
15 saying. As I say, he is here at the dining table and he
16 is really camouflaging. This is camouflage language.
17 Quite a number of subjects, as you have said yourself,
18 Mr Irving, were taboo at the dining table. Hitler talked
19 in very vague terms and on pages 10 to 11 of my letter of
20 10th January I quote the table talk for that day at some
21 length, which is almost exactly ----
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: You quote everything at some length.
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am sorry?
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: You quote everything at some length.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is not a helpful intervention.
26 MR IRVING: We are very short of time, my Lord, and this has
. P-44
1 taken far longer----
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The problem is, Mr Irving, I have to quote things at
3 length because you leave so much out that is inconvenient
4 to your thesis.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us skip the argument and get on with the
6 questions and the answers.
7 MR IRVING: Do you agree that the Final Solution was top state
8 secret in its homicidal sense, that all the SS documents
9 and the documents generated by the SS gangsters were top
10 state secret?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Those are two rather different questions, or points.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: What I am asking about is this. Is this diary being
13 dictated to a Civil Servant, a lowly Civil Servant, and
14 every day Goebbels is taking him out at the beginning of
15 every morning and spending, sometimes it is 150 pages long
16 for one day, this diary?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is one likely, therefore, to be able to put, with any
19 safety, a homicidal interpretation on any passages in the
20 diary if it was top state secret?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: One assumes that, like all secretaries, he was pledged to
22 confidentiality.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I ask you a slightly different question
24 because I am not sure I understand this. The original
25 part, the first part, of this diary entry you say is
26 private diary entry in the ordinary sense of that term?
. P-45
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
2 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Suddenly in the middle of it you say Goebbels sort of
3 flips into reproducing the table talk of the 29th May?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is not reproducing, my Lord. He is really summarizing
5 two different conversations, one he has had with Hitler
6 alone it appears, or in a very small group of people, and
7 the second one simply goes on seamlessly.
8 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: That is what is so odd about it, why should he go on
9 seamlessly to do that when it is inconsistent with what is
10 in the earlier part, which you say is straight forward
11 diarising?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It seems strange, but I think there are similarities
13 between what he says there in the second part of that, and
14 the table talk. They are too striking to allow of any
15 other conclusion.
16 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: I accept that, but what strikes me as odd is that he
17 should reproduce in his diary camouflage language used by
18 Hitler in his table talk.
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: These are the golden words of his Fuhrer. He will put
20 them down because he has heard them to preserve them for
21 posterity.
22 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: But they do not mean what they say?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No.
24 MR IRVING: You are saying that the whole of this talk about
25 Siberia and central Africa and so on is hog wash?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
. P-46
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you have any evidence for that kind of thought? Is
2 that just your speculation again?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The evidence is what is going on at the same time. We are
4 talking now the end of May 1942 ----
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: And the killings have started, have they not?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: They had more than started, gassings and death camps are
7 in full swing.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: So either Hitler is totally in the dark as to what is
9 going on, or he is the biggest hypocrite there has been?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I would go for the second of those two alternatives, Mr
11 Irving.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you have any evidence for that apart from your own gut
13 feeling?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is quite clear.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: Even one line, even one document?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I have already quoted two. Again, comparing the two
17 halves of this diary entry, when he links the
18 extermination of criminals, the liquidations of prisoners,
19 to his earlier talk about the evacuation of the Jews.
20 Even here Goebbels is using words like evacuation, but it
21 is a give away in the second paragraph.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yet at about the same time at the end of March, early
23 April, we have had Schlegelberger document, Hitler wanting
24 everything postponed until the war was over?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: We have already been through this document at great
26 length, Mr Irving, I do not accept what you say about the
. P-47
1 so-called Schlegelberger memorandum.
2 Q. [Mr Irving]: Was it not typical of Hitler's desire to postpone tricky
3 things until the war was over, until the fighting had
4 stopped? Did he not do that with several problems?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not see this in this diary entry.
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: Will you please look at page 7, and then you will see it?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Page 7 of what? Yours?
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: Numbered page 60 at the top.
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Right.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: I will read to you the middle paragraph in English. We
11 briefly then touch upon the church question. Here the
12 Fuhrer has reached a decision which is absolutely
13 irreversible. He tells me to take care that nothing is
14 done, that there is complete silence about the church
15 question.
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Public silence.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: The hour would come when we would then be able to speak
18 more clearly than ever. Is this not another example of
19 Hitler saying, "hey, put that on the back burner, too"?
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think this derives from the problems which they had in
21 the previous autumn with Cardinal von Galen. After some
22 discussion, it was decided, Cardinal von Galen's protest
23 about the euthanasia, the Nazi leadership decided that
24 during the war it would be too upsetting to morale to make
25 a serious attack on the church and start arresting
26 cardinals and the like.
. P-48
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: I refer you to page 404, to footnote 22 ----
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This is my report?
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: Of your report.
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page 404, footnote 22, of your report where you show the
6 kind of problems the Final Solution was causing, mixed
7 marriages, you remember the Gotshalt case, the suicide of
8 the entire family and so on, and Hitler saying to Goebbels
9 try to avoid causing problems?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. We already discussed this at length in talking about
11 the so-called Schlegelberger memorandum that, while
12 I think the Nazi leadership had little problem in deciding
13 what to do with the vast majority of Jews in Europe, i.e.
14 kill them, they had a lot of difficulties in deciding what
15 to do with Jews in mixed marriages, married to non-Jews
16 and with half Jews, and mixed, so-called mixed race Jews.
17 That is quite clear. It runs through all
18 the documentation connected with the so-called
19 Schlegelberger memorandum, and here it is again.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: You rely in your reply to this Goebbels entry on page 402,
21 paragraph 5, you refer to a July 1941 statement by Hitler
22 about the Jewish family becoming a breeding ground for
23 bacilli, do you remember that?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, "Bazillenherd fur eine neue Zersetzung".
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: But you agree that at that time, of course, there was no
26 plan to liquidate Europe's Jews, it was still a
. P-49
1 geographical solution, so that is totally irrelevant in
2 this context, is it not?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not think it is irrelevant, no. It is a general
4 statement, rather like his statement in a speech of 30th
5 January 1939 ----
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: You put it in as a bit of a red herring.
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, it is a very conditional statement.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: Hoping that ----
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is an "if" statement.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: --- we would not remember that your argument is that
11 Hitler's speech to the Gauleiters in December 1941 was the
12 trigger point. So July 1941, that is totally irrelevant
13 to the argument about Hitler's homicidal intent?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not think it is irrelevant to Hitler's general hatred
15 of the Jews. I am using it there because of this popular,
16 this favourite phrase or word of "bacilli".
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: The next question is on page 403, two lines from the
18 bottom, and I ask this with great trepidation because it
19 may unleash another torrent, you say: "Why did include",
20 why did Goebbels include, "so many passages in his diaries
21 which showed that he himself favoured the mass
22 extermination of Jews?" Where are these many passages,
23 which ones are you referring to? I cannot think of the
24 "mass extermination of Jews" referred to in many passages
25 in the Goebbels' diaries.
26 MR RAMPTON: I think Mr Irving should ask questions and not
. P-50
1 make speeches, my Lord.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well ...
3 MR IRVING: Is this ----
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The question you are being asked is where do
5 you say Goebbels shows himself to favour the extermination
6 of Jews?
7 MR IRVING: "Mass extermination of Jews". The fact that he
8 said, "We cannot have Jews running around Berlin who may
9 assassinate me", that kind of thing, is readily proved,
10 but it is these throw away lines that are put into the
11 report without footnotes or source notes that concern me.
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, I will treat that as a question even though in a way
13 it was not. It is on page 400, again talking about 60 per
14 cent of the Jews being liquidated. Now, that seems to me
15 on any measure mass extermination.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Because you say he is quite clearly approving
17 what he is describing?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. It seem to be pretty clear, and he goes on to say
19 that Hitler approved of it as well.
20 MR IRVING: I guess the question ----
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Let me have, let me have another ----
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: --- I am really asking is, is there another passage apart
23 from that?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: All right, well, let us just go...
25 MR RAMPTON: My Lord, this is very unfair. This is not a
26 memory test. This gentleman has written a detailed
. P-51
1 report. He summarizes what he is talking about on pages
2 410 to 416 of his report. I am sorry that he did not
3 remember it, but, I mean, really!.
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I just got to there. I think I will just direct you to
5 the Goebbels diaries entries on page 412, 414, Jews
6 experiencing their own annihilation, I mean, I really do
7 not want to read all of these out.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do please, if you do not mind, 412, 414?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 14, then the pages 8, 9 of my letter of 10th January, so
10 these are some ...
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, what is not clear at the moment to
12 me, partly because of that question, is whether you are
13 contesting the fact that Goebbels knew perfectly well what
14 was going on.
15 MR IRVING: What I am contesting is that there are many
16 passages in his diary which showed that he applauded the
17 mass extermination of Jews which is the wording used by
18 this witness in his report, but I will now move on ----
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Now would you answer my question? Is it your
20 case that Goebbels did not know about the mass
21 exterminations that were going on at this time?
22 MR IRVING: He had visited the Baltic states. He had actually
23 heard about executions that had gone on there, just
24 briefly. That was November 1941. He had received this SD
25 report. He had received the Wannsee Conference report
26 which was ambiguous. He had received this SD report on
. P-52
1 March 27th 1942 which gives him cause to speculate on what
2 is obviously happening, if I can put it like that.
3 THE WITNESS: :[Professor Richard John Evans]: But in Hitler's War 1977, Mr Irving, you write:
4 "The ghastly secrets of Auschwitz and Treblinka were
5 well-kept. Goebbels wrote a frank summary of them in his
6 diary on March 27th 1942, but evidently held his tongue
7 when he met Hitler two days later".
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: And you talk again in that 1991 in a similar way so...
Section 53.10 to 86.20
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I draw your attention, therefore, to a passage in
11 Picker, Henry Picker, on April 4th 1942 which you are
12 probably familiar with. I will read it to you. It was
13 "characteristic that the upper classes who had never
14 shown the slightest sympathy for the suffering and plight
15 of the German emigres", and he uses the word "aus
16 wanderer", and you will understand why I am emphasising
17 that?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: "... now claim to show sympathy for the Jews, although the
20 Jews had their accomplices around the entire world and
21 were the most climate hardened species there were. The
22 Jews prospered everywhere", he said, "in even Lapland and
23 Siberia". Does this not also show that on April 4th 1942
24 Hitler is talking purely in terms of his geographical
25 solution? It may have been a pipe dream.
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, no, it does not. I mean, there are murderous
. P-53
1 statements here. He is attacking the so-called
2 bourgeoisie, and even here it says, "If for reasons of
3 State, one renders a definite racial pest harmless, for
4 example, by beating him to death", very nice, "then the
5 entire bourgeoisie cries out that the State is a violent
6 State. If, however, the Jew", and here, well, "the Jew
7 with judicial chicanery robs the German person of his
8 professional existence, takes his house and home from him,
9 destroys his family and finally drives him to emigration,
10 and the German person then loses his life on the journey
11 to his emigration destination, then the bourgeoisie ...
12 (reading to the words) ... entire tragedy has been played
13 out within the context of the possibilities offered by the
14 law." And earlier on, of course -- that, of course,
15 describes in a kind of upside-down way precisely what the
16 Nazis were doing to the Jews themselves. And on talking
17 about -- another bit that you left out, Mr Irving, he is
18 talking about Hitler (again absurdly) that "the
19 Bourgeoisie did not concern itself with the fact that
20 250,000 to 300,000 German people were emigrating from
21 Germany a year", that meant, I think, in the late 19th
22 century, "and about 75 per cent of the German emigrants to
23 Australia already died during the journey". That is more
24 even than Goebbels 60 per cent. Emigration here, in
25 Hitler's mind ----
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: So what conclusions do you draw from these lengthy
. P-54
1 passages you are reading out?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Emigration in Hitler's mind here is quite clearly
3 connected with mass death.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: That is the conclusion? Purely that emigration is
5 connected with mass death?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It seems be in this passage, yes.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: So you agree that Hitler was considering geographical
8 emigration every time he mentions these passages at this
9 time?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, connected with mass death. I mean, you take Jews
11 from France or Serbia or Greece and you take them to
12 Poland, that is mass emigration, but that is not all that
13 happened, is it? They were killed when they got there.
14 The two things are connected.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: So you are saying that when Hitler is talking about them
16 emigrating to Lapland or Siberia or Central Africa, or all
17 these other places he is talking about, or Madagascar,
18 what he is saying is he will arrange that they get killed
19 when they get there? What is the point of the emigration
20 then?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No. There is also an element of camouflage in simply
22 using the term "emigration" or "transportation", so ----
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: So your entire case depends on the fact that when he says
24 one thing he means another ----
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Wait a minute, Mr Irving. I mean, also the notion that in
26 the middle of 1942 that Hitler was actually serious
. P-55
1 about ----
2 Q. [Mr Irving]: Madagascar?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: --- transporting Jews to Madagascar is absurd because he
4 had already personally ordered the stop to the Madagascar
5 programme at the beginning of the year and, as for
6 Lapland, that is even more ridiculous or Siberia. I mean,
7 this is just camouflage in his case.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: Why would the Madagascar plan have been absurd then?
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think we have been through that many times.
10 MR IRVING: My Lord, we have one more document I wish to show
11 him, my Lord. Would you please go, therefore, to page 23
12 of the bundle? Do you know who Hassow van Evstorf was?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You tell me. I cannot see him mentioned.
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: Hassow van Evstorf was the later Ambassador to the United
15 Kingdom after the war. So he was not a neo-Nazi, was he?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not -- where is this?
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: I just say that in advance.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 23.
19 MR IRVING: Does your Lordship have it?
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
21 MR IRVING: It is the transcript of Hassow van Evstorf.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: This is van Evstorf's notes?
23 MR IRVING: My Lord, Hassow van Evstorf's notes are actually in
24 this blue volume I am holding in my hand. This is from my
25 own archive. Hassow van Evstorf took handwritten notes as
26 the liaison officer between Ribbentrop and the German High
. P-56
1 Command, so he was informed on an immediate basis of all
2 the latest developments and secret happenings. Two
3 paragraphs from the bottom, he had a paragraph -- this is
4 the transcript of his handwritten notes, April 4th 1942 --
5 "A Japanese enquiry whether they will be permitted to
6 occupy Madagascar", completing, no doubt, the triangle
7 Singapore, Columbia, Madagascar,"has been answered in a
8 positive sense. We would not take part in the operation.
9 We are looking for a joint coalition warfare in the
10 Persian Gulf" -----
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry. The significance of that totally
12 escapes me.
13 MR IRVING: Well, I shall ask some more questions. Was Japan
14 an ally of Nazi Germany?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: So if Japan had occupied Madagascar, as was envisaged by
17 this joint operation by this top level discussion between
18 the German High Command and the Japanese High Command,
19 then, of course, it would have been perfectly feasible to
20 have completed the Madagascar plan?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think that is rather a large leap, Mr Irving.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: So the talk of the fact that ----
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That depends.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: --- Madagascar in May 1942 was occupied by the British is
25 neither here more there?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The point here is on 10th February 1942 (and we have
. P-57
1 already been through this some days ago) the Foreign
2 official who proposed the plan for deporting the Jews to
3 Madagascar wrote that "Gruppenfuhrer Heydrich has been
4 charged with the Fuhrer of carrying out the solution to
5 the Jewish question in Europe. The war against the Soviet
6 Union has opened up the possibility of placing other
7 territories at our disposal for the Final Solution.
8 Accordingly, the Fuhrer has decided that the Jews should
9 be pushed off, not to Madagascar, but to the East.
10 Madagascar, therefore, does not need to be foreseen for
11 the Final Solution any more".
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: You are familiar with that document?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is absolutely clear and explicit about the ----
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I ask you some questions about who wrote that
15 document?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: -- that is from Rademacher.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: Who wrote the document?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Rademacher.
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: Did Rademacher ever once in his life have a meeting with
20 Hitler?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: He says here, "The Fuhrer has decided" ----
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: Will you answer my question?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Time and again, Mr Irving, if you do not like a document,
24 you start saying, "It is a product of his imagination".
25 This is quite clearly ----
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: Answer my question.
. P-58
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: --- this is not a top Foreign Office official. It is
2 quite conceivable that Ribbentrop or somebody else has
3 told him that this is Hitler's decision. It does not need
4 to see Hitler to have this decision here. Hitler has
5 decided in February 1942 that the Madagascar plan is out.
6 It is quite clearly not practical.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: It is very difficult to conduct a cross-examination if you
8 do not answer my questions. Did Rademacher ever see
9 Hitler?
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think the answer is Professor Evans does
11 not know, but the point he has made (and you may not
12 accept it, Mr Irving) is that does not need to have seen
13 Hitler in order to know and to say that Hitler has time
14 and again said "Madagascar is off the menu". That is what
15 he said.
16 MR IRVING: May I by my questions now elicit the probable
17 source of Rademacher's information? In view of the fact
18 that the Rademacher document is in the same file as the
19 Wannsee Conference report, right?
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is it not likely, in fact, that Rademacher had simply read
22 the Wannsee Conference report in which precisely this
23 concept was stated by Heydrich that they are now going to
24 be shipping them out to the east, and that Rademacher is
25 doing no more than just putting into another document what
26 he has read in the Wannsee report. It is nothing to do
. P-59
1 with direct information from Hitler. This is now third or
2 fourth hand information?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I not say it was direct information from Hitler, but,
4 nevertheless, I do not think that people in Third Reich
5 spoke so or wrote so, explicitly wrote in memos so
6 explicitly about Hitler's orders and decisions unless they
7 had very good reason for doing so.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: And yet you cannot ----
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: They did not invent these things.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: You cannot wish away that July 24th 1942 table talk by
11 Hitler in which he says, "We are going to send them to
12 Madagascar". So Madagascar is wrong and this table talk
13 is right or is it the other way around?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is the other way around. The table talk is quite clear
15 camouflage. Hitler has commented on the table talk on
16 13th May 1942 that England is not going to surrender
17 Madagascar. He knows that perfectly well ----
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: There were all sorts of places that England was not going
19 to surrender ----
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is a total fiction. It is a total fiction.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are talking over the witness and I
22 personally think Madagascar is a bit of a side track, and
23 I think we have had enough on Madagascar.
24 MR IRVING: I strongly agree, but the suggestion that England
25 could say, "We are not going to surrender", do you
26 remember a place called Singapore which was surrendered to
. P-60
1 the Japanese.
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is rather a different matter.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It did not happen in Madagascar, Mr Irving.
4 Why do we not get back to what you were on before which is
5 really more, I think, central?
6 MR IRVING: I agree, but occasionally these little excursions
7 are inflicted on me. Page 405 of your report, please.
8 You are stating that, "I did not publish the passage from
9 Goebbels diary" -- this is towards the end of paragraph
10 1.
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: "'We speak in conclusion about the Jewish question. Here
13 the Fuhrer remains, now as before, unrelenting. The Jews
14 must get out of Europe, if necessary, with the application
15 of the most brutal means'"?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: What inference do you draw from that -- a homicidal
18 inference?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: At this time, in March 1942, it is very difficult to draw
20 any other inference than that.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: It was not the midnight knock of the Gestapo and
22 instructions to get packed within two hours and you are
23 only allowed to carry 28 pounds with you, and bring all
24 your money and valuables -- was that not pretty brutal and
25 unrelenting?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Pretty brutal, yes.
. P-61
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: Pages 405 to 6 ----
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The question, Mr Irving, is really about your omission of
3 the statement that the Fuhrer is unrelenting.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: But I also omitted the part where it says that the Jews
5 must get out of Europe which would have counterbalanced
6 it ----
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: "With the application of the most brutal means".
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: At the top of page 406, you quite rightly point out that I
9 have a date, March 20th, when it should have been March
10 30th, is that right?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Will you concede that that is immaterial?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I will not, most certainly not.
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: Why is it not immaterial?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, because, let me go back to what you say in 1977,
16 Hitler's War: "Ghastly secrets of Auschwitz and Treblinka
17 were well kept. Goebbels wrote a frank summary of them in
18 his diary on March 27 1942, but evidently held his tongue
19 when he met Hitler two days later for he quotes only
20 Hitler's remark, 'The Jews must get out of Europe. If
21 need be, we must resort to the most brutal methods'.".
22 So, you maintain that he made that statement
23 about, which I just quoted, two days after Goebbels wrote
24 this summary on March 27th. In fact, what you are trying
25 to do is to give the impression -- let me just find where
26 I am on my notes.
. P-62
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: Would it surprise you to hear that the error has been ----
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Please let the witness answer.
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: What you do is to quote Hitler, "The Jews must get out of
4 Europe" from the diary of 20th March as if it was from
5 30th March, in other words, he made that statement before
6 Goebbels made a frank summary. It is true that Goebbels
7 made a frank summary of the extermination in March, but it
8 is not true that he concealed it when he met Hitler two
9 days later because the quote that you use to support your
10 view that Hitler did not know about it after this frank
11 summary on 27th March is lifted from a week earlier in the
12 diary and not from two days later where it is not there.
13 So I do think this is a clear piece of manipulation. This
14 diary is written in chronological order. It is very
15 difficult to get that date wrong.
16 MR IRVING: Would it surprise you to hear that the error has
17 been corrected in the later editions completely ----
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I know that the error has been corrected in the later
19 edition.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: Will you not interrupt me -- completely painlessly and
21 without the slightest damage to the arguments that I have
22 advanced?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It has been corrected in the later -- in the 1991 edition,
24 but, of course, there you omit all mention of the "ghastly
25 secrets of Auschwitz and Treblinka" because you do not
26 believe they existed, these secrets any more, whatever
. P-63
1 they are, and it makes it easier in 1991 for you because
2 you deny the gas chambers and also it has all been done on
3 the initiative of Himmler and Goebbels, so ----
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can we try to keep to the actual question that I am asking
5 or we are not going to cover the ground today. Would you
6 look at page 408, the footnote -- 407, the footnote?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, in order to answer the question about your changing
8 the text in 1991, one has to give the context. Here again
9 what you do not omit is the idea that Goebbels was
10 concealing this information from Hitler. This time you,
11 in fact, make it more general. You uncouple it from any
12 specific meeting.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am afraid I must have a look at that? Have
14 you got the page there?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That again is in my letter of 10th of ----
16 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: But have you got the page reference in ----
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Hitler's War.
18 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: --- 1991 of Hitler's War?
19 MR RAMPTON: It is page 464. It is in the second part, my
20 Lord.
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 464.
22 MR RAMPTON: It is a paragraph which starts: "Dr Goebbels,
23 agitating from Berlin". It goes down to the end of the
24 paragraph at 465.
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Here it says, "Although he held", that is Goebbels, "his
26 tongue when meeting his Fuhrer" which suggests on every
. P-64
1 occasion that he met him he held his tongue about, well...
2 MR IRVING: What he knew?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: What he knew, yes.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you have any evidence otherwise?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, we have already been through this.
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, do you have any evidence in any of the files that
7 Goebbels told Hitler: "Mein Fuhrer, there is something
8 I have to tell you that I have found out"?
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think we have had that, and I think the
10 answer is there are two documents to which you point
11 Professor Evans to support his contention that Hitler
12 knew, had been told by Goebbels.
13 MR IRVING: No, Goebbels telling Hitler which is something
14 slightly different, my Lord.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: There are those two documents. We had this
16 point a little while ago, did we not?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, we have dealt with it.
18 MR IRVING: Which arguments are you referring to, Professor?
19 I have to know what I am answering here. Which documents
20 are you referring to? Goebbels telling Hitler about the
21 Final Solution ----
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Do I really have to go through this again?
23 MR IRVING: --- in a homicidal sense.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: If can find it, I will just -- if you know
25 the dates of the documents, we are not going to go through
26 them again, but I do not have them. One is 30th ----
. P-65
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 27th March and 30th May, I think, from memory.
2 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: 30th May is one and 27th March?
3 MR IRVING: The one that I gave you as the facsimile, your
4 Lordship?
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We can go all over it again, Mr Irving, but
6 we have ----
7 MR IRVING: I do not really want to, but I cannot allow this
8 court assumes that this final gap has been bridged by the
9 bald statement that there are ----
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The court is not assuming anything; it is
11 listening to what Professor Evans has said and he has said
12 that one document is 30th May ----
13 MR IRVING: Which is the ----
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- and the other is 27th March. You know
15 which those two documents are. You may not agree with
16 what Professor Evans says, but you know why he says what
17 he does.
18 MR IRVING: But 3rd May is the Siberian one and that is the
19 exact opposite?
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Sorry...
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: All right. We will go through it all over
22 the again.
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 29th May, yes.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: 29th May.
25 MR IRVING: 29th May?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. That is the diary entry of 30th May for the previous
. P-66
1 day.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you give me the page reference in your
3 report?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This is pages 8 to 9 of my supplementary letter, my Lord.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: What do you want to ask about that,
6 Mr Irving? 30th May 1942.
7 MR IRVING: 30th May 1942, is this?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: This is the passage that we went through about 20 minutes
10 ago.
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is exactly what I have just suggested,
13 that we have actually been through these two documents in
14 some detail. Do we need to go back and go through them
15 all over again?
16 MR IRVING: No, I do not because I would not accept that this
17 is evidence of Goebbels telling Hitler about a homicidal
18 Final Solution.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I follow you do not accept it, but Professor
20 Evans says the opposite, you see.
21 MR IRVING: But this is what I call the Siberia reference which
22 showed is exactly the opposite sense, and unless one
23 assumes that evacuating Siberia is a euphemism for
24 killing?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am very loath to go into this all over again, my Lord.
26 I think it is clear.
. P-67
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can you just state simply ----
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: What is the benefit? We have been through
3 this. I can go back and get it up on the screen, but we
4 have been through this document in some detail.
5 MR IRVING: We have indeed, but can I just ask ----
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I know what you say about it, I know what
7 Professor Evans says about it and, in the end, I have to
8 decide what a sensible, objective historian would make of
9 it.
10 MR IRVING: Professor Evans, one simple question then and I
11 hope you can answer yes or no, is your belief that the
12 phrase evacuating to Siberia and evacuating to Lapland are
13 euphemisms for killing when used by Hitler?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I cannot this yes or no because that is not the key
15 passage in this entry of 30th May 1942. The key passages
16 come earlier.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: Then we will move on. Will you now look at the footnote
18 on pages 407 and 408?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I apologise for the glitch in the word processor
20 there.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: It actually begins five lines from the bottom, does it
22 not?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, it has repeated a whole lot.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: On the second line from the bottom, you find the words
25 "auswanderten" and "auswanderer", is that right?
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where are you, Mr Irving?
. P-68
1 MR IRVING: I Professor Evans' report.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You must remember that I have to follow what
3 you are putting.
4 MR IRVING: I am moving too fast, my Lord. 407 to 408. We are
5 looking at the footnote that begins on the foot of page
6 407. My simple question is two lines from the bottom,
7 does the witness see the words "auswanderten" and
8 "auswanderer" and it follows over, two lines down on the
9 same footnote on the facing page, "Auswanderung" and
10 "Auswanderungsziel".
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: How would you translate the root "auswanderer" there,
13 "emigrate" or "kill"?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: We have already been through this.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, just a simple answer will ----
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I cannot give a simple answer because it is a loaded
17 question. That is the problem with your questions,
18 Mr Irving. I have already been through this document and
19 I have noted that when Hitler states that Germans
20 emigrated, which is the meaning of the word "auswanderer",
21 from Germany in the 19th century, in his view 75 per cent
22 of them died. It is a deadly process. We have no
23 evidence for that. It is a completely absurd idea, they
24 did not, but that is his view of emigration. There is a
25 clear connection there.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, but do you ----
. P-69
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: And then he goes on to talk about the way in which he
2 thought that Jews drove Germans to emigrate in a way that
3 describes exactly the way, in fact, that the Germans drove
4 the Jews to emigrate.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: This is purely and etymological exercise, Professor. How
6 would you translate then "Jewish emigration" in the
7 emigrating sense, not the killing sense?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I mean, you enter reservations about the point of
9 indulging in purely etymological exercises ----
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can you just answer the question? Would it be "Juden
11 Auswanderung"?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: --- given the misuse that you make of them. But, of
13 course, it means "emigration". I have said that
14 repeatedly. That is the literal meaning of the word
15 "Auswanderung".
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: What German word would you use for "Jewish emigration"?
17 "Juden Auswanderung"?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Something like that, yes, "Judische Auswanderung",
19 whatever.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is that not precisely the word used in the September 1942
21 document that we are going to be looking at later?
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, let us have a look at it.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can we tackle things in sequence, Professor ----
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, you are the one who introduced the September
25 document, Mr Irving, I did not.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: --- otherwise we are not going to complete today. We will
. P-70
1 come to that document in sequence and in the order that
2 I dictate and not the order that you dictate.
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You have just said you want to discuss it now, Mr Irving.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: I am discussing it now.
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Now you are accusing me of bringing it up out of
6 sequence. This is ridiculous.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: This is all degenerating.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: I am discussing it now ----
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Evans, do not be provoked and,
10 Mr Irving, can we try to get on?
11 MR IRVING: Yes.
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is very hard, my Lord.
13 MR IRVING: My Lord, the reason I did it here is because in
14 this one footnote the word "Auswanderer" is used five or
15 six times in the clearly emigrating sense.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We have been over this many times.
17 "Auswanderung" can be used euphemistically, but it is not
18 always used euphemistically.
19 MR IRVING: It is a rubber word.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But can I ask just about a general question
21 which I think can be answered quite briefly? The table
22 talk on page 407 of your report and the Goebbels diary
23 entry on page 408 talk in terms of getting the Jews out of
24 Europe?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Do you regard either of those documents because that is
. P-71
1 what they are, as being on their face sinister?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I do, my Lord. I mean, I think by this time ----
3 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Because it is euphemistic or for some other reason?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is euphemistic and particularly in the table talk in
5 May 1942 this linkage of mass death with emigration, not
6 to mention the statements about beating racial pests to
7 death. I mean, they are wrapped up -- he is, of course,
8 trying to be euphemistic and then spins these ridiculous
9 fantasies about the climatic, supposed climatic,
10 resilience of Jews and so on. But they are both rather
11 sinister, particularly when you take into account what was
12 happening in the extermination camps at this time.
13 MR IRVING: With respect, I suggest the word "sinister" is
14 wrong. "Homicidal" is probably what his Lordship meant.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I was using a euphemism as well, if you like,
16 but I thought everybody understood what the term meant.
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I certainly did.
18 MR IRVING: But would you not expect precisely this kind of
19 conversation to happen around the dinner table if somebody
20 said, "Adolf, we are getting word from the BBC and from
21 Voice of America, whatever it is, that killings are
22 happening and that the Jews are dying like flies in the
23 East", whereupon Hitler says, "So what! Look at the way
24 our people suffered"? Is it not exactly that kind of
25 conversation that you are looking at here? It is a "so
26 what" conversation, is it not?
. P-72
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am not sure I follow the argument there.
2 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is it not Adolf Hitler being tough, talking tough to his
3 dinner table people saying, "Show these people no mercy.
4 Look at how our people suffered when the boot was on the
5 other foot"?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: He certainly is saying that, yes.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: So, in other words, although it is tough talk, it is not
8 necessarily Adolf Hitler saying, "Yes, we are killing them
9 too like flies"?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That does not follow at all, Mr Irving.
11 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, thank you very much.
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: When I say "it does not follow at all", I mean your
13 conclusion does not follow at all. Let us get that quite
14 clear what I mean by that. I think you might have
15 misunderstood it. I do not think that because he is
16 talking tough, it is just tough talk, that there is a
17 reality behind it with which he is quite aware.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, but there is no evidence for that in these lines. I
19 do not want to start nit-picking, but it is just tough
20 talk that is recorded at this dinner table conversation?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, this is the leader of ----
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: Ugly talk?
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We can go through it, Mr Irving, if you want
24 to, but I have the witness's answer and I know you do not
25 agree with it, but I have the witness's answer.
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The question is that Goebbels, of course, was quite aware
. P-73
1 that resettlement meant that the Jews were being killed --
2 60 per cent of them were being killed, he says in his
3 diary -- and so why would he have described Hitler's views
4 as being radical and unrelenting if that had only meant
5 emigration? The fact that he knew it involved killing
6 must, surely, have meant that Hitler's views were in
7 favour of yet more killing.
8 MR IRVING: On page 410 of your report -- we are slowly chewing
9 our way forward -- line 3, you say there is a large number
10 of instances where Hitler spoke openly about
11 exterminating ----
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: In my letter of 10th January -- I am sorry to
13 interrupt ----
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: You have withdrawn that, have you?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: --- I have withdrawn the word "openly", yes. That was
16 rather careless.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: Very well.
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is open to misinterpretation.
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: Three lines from the bottom of that same page, you quote
20 the Goebbels diary: "It would end with the annihilation
21 of the Jews". Once again we have that old, familiar,
22 rubber word "vernichtung", do we not?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I think "annihilation" is an exact etymological
24 translation of that. I tried to be careful to render it
25 in that terms. "Nicht" means "nothing", so "vernichtung"
26 means "making nothing of" or "annihilation", in other
. P-74
1 words.
2 Q. [Mr Irving]: On page 412 of your expert report we have all those old
3 words again. On line two you have the destruction of the
4 Jewish element, which again is the "Vernichtung" is it
5 not? That is in the Mufti conversation.
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. That should mean annihilation then.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: You did not give us the German text of that, did you?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I did not.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: But you will find that I provided you with the German text
10 now?
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: To save time, are you prepared to accept that
12 is "vernichtung".
13 MR IRVING: At page 33.
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Let us have a look at the German text, my Lord. This is
15 very easy.
16 MR IRVING: Page 33 of my bundle. I went to the original
17 microfilm last night and transcribed the passage in
18 German, so it is "vernichtung" there again?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, that is "vernichtung". I am quite happy to render
20 that as annihilation.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: On December 12th, the indented passage two lines down,
22 they would experience their own annihilation. We have
23 "vernichtung" again.
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Indeed, yes.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: By way of variety, three lines from the bottom, "the
26 extirpation of Jewry", that is now "Ausrottung"?
. P-75
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
2 Q. [Mr Irving]: We have the whole kaleidoscope of words being used there
3 by the Nazis?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: By Hitler, not by the Nazis.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: Over the page, page 413, line 4 of the indented passage,
6 we have once again January 25th 1942. That is just five
7 days after the Wannsee conference, is it not?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: All Hitler is saying is the Jews have to get out of
10 Europe. Four lines lower down, "I am just saying, he has
11 to go". It does not really very homicidal to me.
12 MR RAMPTON: Well, read on.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Let me read out the whole passage.
15 MR IRVING: Then comes the tough talk.
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Of course. When it gets tough, it is just talk. When it
17 is not tough, then it is real. That is your view.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: He is not saying we are setting about- he said if they die
19 on the way ---?
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let the witness read it. Please do not let
21 us have this batting backwards and forwards.
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Hitler says in this table talk 25th January: "If I take
23 the Jews out today, then our bourgeoisie becomes unhappy:
24 what is happening then with them? But have the same
25 people troubled themselves about what would become of the
26 Germans who had to emigrate? One must do it quickly, it
. P-76
1 is no better if I have one tooth pulled out by a few
2 centimetres" -- he does say centimetres but I think he
3 means millimetres -- "every three months, when it is out,
4 the pain has gone. The Jew has to get out of Europe.
5 Otherwise we get no European understanding. He incites
6 the people the most, everywhere. In the end: I do not
7 know, I am colossally humane. The Jews", carries on
8 Hitler "were maltreated at the time of the Pope's rule in
9 Rome. Up to 1830 eight Jews were driven through the city
10 every year with donkeys. I am just saying, he has to
11 go". That is, the Jew has to go. "If he collapses in the
12 course of it, I can't help there. I only see one thing:
13 absolute extermination, if they don't go of their own
14 accord. Why should I look at a Jew with other eyes than
15 at a Russian prisoner of war? Many are dying in the
16 prison camps because we have been driven into this
17 situation by the Jews. But what can I do about that? Why
18 then did the Jews instigate the war?" So he is
19 threatening absolute extermination if the Jews do not go
20 of their own accord, and he is talking about the Russian
21 prisoners of war, many of them dying in the same context
22 as he is talking about Jews. The murderous character of
23 that conversation could hardly be clearer.
24 MR IRVING: What is the phrase for "absolute Ausrottung"? You
25 are quite incorrigible. What is the German he uses?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You just said.
. P-77
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: "Absolute Ausrottung"?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: You translated that as "absolute extermination"?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: Quite clearly it is absolute rooting up, is it not? Have
6 you never had to uproot?
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Again, we have had that point. I am well
8 aware of the argument.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: It is these tendentious translations on which he relies.
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not think it is a tendentious translation.
11 "Ausrottung" means extirpation, uprooting, rooting out or
12 total -- if you look up "extirpation" in the Oxford
13 English dictionary, you will to try and it will mean----
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: And you translate it every time ----
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Let me finish, Mr Irving. If you look up "extirpation" in
16 the Oxford English Dictionary, which you obviously have
17 not done, then you will to try and the translations
18 include "total destruction". If you look it up in the
19 Cassell's 1936 English German dictionary, you will to try
20 and "Ausrottungskrieg" is translated as a "war of
21 extermination". It is a perfectly legitimate
22 translation. There is nothing tendentious about it. In
23 connection here with all the things he is saying about
24 killing Russian prisoners of war, deaths in the prison
25 camp, and so on, it is quite clear what it means.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: He says they are dying, he does not say they are being
. P-78
1 killed, does he? He says they are dying in the prison
2 camps.
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, that is right.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: You are calling this extermination. You take the third or
5 fourth meaning of the word.
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think it is a reasonable conclusion to draw, that the
7 Russian prisoners of war, of whom 3 or 4 million died in
8 the prisoner of war camps in the Second World War, are
9 being exterminated by the Nazis. Why they are dying in
10 the prison camps? Hitler knows perfectly well, because
11 they are not being given food or sanitation. They are
12 dying of typhus and starvation. He is aware of that.
13 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I give you another example of your tendentious
14 translations of another word? Page 409.
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not accept they are tendentious.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Wait, Professor Evans.
17 MR IRVING: Page 409, please, halfway down. Have you got this
18 passage: "In his table talk, Hitler even hinted at the
19 violent fate of the Jews when he referred to 'racial
20 pests' being beaten to death".
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: What is the actual document there? Can we have a look at
23 the actual passage that was used?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, pages 407 to 8, footnote 30. It is "Wenn mann von
25 Staats wegen einen ausgesprochenen Volksschadling
26 unschadliche mache, zum Beispiel totschlage".
. P-79
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: So how did you manage "Volksschadling" as "racial pests"?
2 It is in the singular, is it not?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think it is quite clear that he is talking in the
4 singular, "der Jude". He says, "Wenn aber der Jude den
5 deutschen Menschen" -- you think he is talking about one
6 single Jew there? It is all collective.
7 MR IRVING: Does your Lordship have the passage?
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think it is translated in the singular at
9 page 407.
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, it is. Page 407.
11 MR IRVING: Halfway down page 409: "In his table talk, Hitler
12 even hinted at the violent fate of the Jews when he
13 referred to 'racial pests' or 'Volksschadlinge'". What
14 entitles you, first of all, to translate the word
15 "Volksschadlinge" as "racial pests"?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well "Schadlinge" is derived from agricultural biology.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: We know that. What about "Volks"?
18 MR IRVING: Let the witness to.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Will you let the witness answer, Mr Irving?
20 It is impossible for me to follow it. Every answer is
21 interrupted.
22 MR IRVING: I apologise.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Schadlinge" means what?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is a sort of agricultural biology term meaning a kind
25 of pest, of crops, or something like that, a sort of small
26 animal that devours crops, I think.
. P-80
1 MR IRVING: It is the other half of the word I am looking at,
2 "Volks". Would you call a Volkswagen a race car, racial
3 car? A Volkskuche is a racial kitchen? A Volksseele is a
4 racial soul?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: A Volkswagon is a post 1945 term, even though the car was
6 not.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not let us worry about Volkswagons. Would
8 you like to put what you think the correct translation of
9 "Volksschadlinge" would be, Mr Irving? It is marrying up
10 two concepts and I think it would be helpful.
11 MR IRVING: Public pest.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Public pest?
13 MR IRVING: It is a reference to a public pest. Is this not
14 because Adolf Hitler was constantly issuing death
15 sentences with summary procedures against rapists and
16 train robbers and people like that, and you refer to them
17 as the "Volksschadlinge"?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. It is not a public pest. Public is "offentlich" and
19 that word does not appear here. That is a totally
20 tendentious mistranslation of this term. Volksschadlinge
21 is a term which the Nazis used in indeed dealing with
22 criminals, because they considered that criminality was
23 basically racial in character. That is to say, either
24 through inherited racial characteristics of some sort,
25 whether the criminal was German or not. I think it is
26 quite clear what they mean. How would one translate the
. P-81
1 word "Volkisch", which is the adjective? You
2 would translate it as "public", I suppose? I think that
3 is completely illegitimate.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: The word "Volkisch" is an extremely difficult word to
5 translate, as you are familiar, is that not right.
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is the adjective of "Volk", and as used by the Nazis
7 I think it means in most cases "racial".
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is not the correct translation of "Eine Volksschadlinge
9 totzuschlagen" to bump off a public pest?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, it is not.
11 Q. [Mr Irving]: He says, "if we are entitled to bump off a public pest,
12 then".
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No. To start with, almost everything is wrong there, Mr
14 Irving, totzuschlagen is to beat to death, no ambiguity
15 about that at all. "Volksschadling" I translate as a
16 "racial pest". That is my view of what it means in this
17 context as used by Hitler, and one comes across this in a
18 lot of the legislation courts decisions and memoranda of
19 the Ministry of Justice which I am familiar with. That
20 word "Volksschadling" is legally defined, indeed, in the
21 Second World War. It means, to my mind ----
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: So this is another example ----
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: In my translation it is a "racial pest". To put a gloss
24 on it, it is a pest who is damaging the German race. That
25 is really what it means.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: It is another example of a euphemism, right? You have to
. P-82
1 translate it. It is a word which means one thing but you
2 say this is euphemism for the Jews?
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I do not think that is what----
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No. I do not mean that at all, no. Not necessarily at
5 all.
6 MR IRVING: How you would you translate the words "public pest"
7 into German?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Something like "offentlich ergonist", something like
9 that. Public nuisance is "offentlich Unfug". The use of
10 the word "Schadling" comes from the racial ideology
11 drawing a parallel between growing crops and farming and
12 human beings.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: A sort of agricultural bacillus?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, my Lord.
15 MR IRVING: You are aware that Adolf Hitler personally had to
16 issue the death sentences against train robbers, rapists,
17 and people like that. He would be the one who sent the
18 word down the phone lines, saying "Execute"?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not think he had to, Mr Irving. What he tended to do
20 was -- I cite this in the book that I wrote -- he quite
21 frequently, on at least 18 occasions listed by the
22 Ministry of Justice during the early part of war, was
23 reading the Nazi newspaper, and would see a report of some
24 criminal whom he considered had too lenient a sentence for
25 robbery or whatever, would exclaim, "That person ought to
26 be shot", and immediately Schaub or somebody else would
. P-83
1 leap up, get on the phone to Munich or wherever it was,
2 and have the criminal shot while trying to "escape".
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do not I say exactly the same in my book, Hitler's War,
4 now that you have mentioned that fact, that a simple phone
5 call to Schaub sufficed and the man was already sent to be
6 executed. Do you remember the passage in my book,
7 Hitler's War, where I said that in the Kaiser's time the
8 condemned man had the right to see the Kaiser's signature
9 on the death warrant, but in Hitler's time it was done
10 more informally?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I remember that.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Not a very flattering passage about Hitler, is it?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: In order to comment on that I would have to see the
14 passage.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, I thought you would say that. Will you now go to
16 page 408?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am sorry, I would have to.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: At the foot of page 408, the very last line of the
19 footnote, you criticise me for failing to translate the
20 last sentences. "In his translation of this passage,
21 Irving fails to translate the last sentences".
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: If you look at the last sentences referred to, which is
24 just above it in that footnote, it is not in the
25 subjunctive, is it? So it is Goebbels, not Hitler.
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not think that follows. You yourself said,
. P-84
1 Mr Irving, that Goebbels wrote a rather colloquial slangy
2 sort of German so one would not expect him to stick
3 absolutely consistently to the formal means of reported
4 speech.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: Does the last sentence add at all or subtract at all to
6 the story? Is there some criticism? Is there some reason
7 why you criticise me for leaving out those sentences?
8 Obviously I have left out a huge number of sentences, I
9 have left out millions of sentences in writing my books.
10 It is part of being a writer.
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is not a major point, Mr Irving.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. "Absolute Ausrottung" on page 413 is offset against
13 going of their own accord, is it not? Either they go off
14 their own accord or there is going to be "absolute
15 Ausrottung"?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: So it is clearly a going and not a killing?
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have cross-examined about that.
19 MR IRVING: Yes. I just came across my rather nice way of
20 putting it in my notes, my Lord.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It had struck me.
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. What he is saying is that he will totally
23 exterminate them if they do not go of their own accord,
24 which of course by this time, January 1942, they were not
25 going of their own accord because the Nazis had forbidden
26 emigration of Jews from Germany in the previous October.
. P-85
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think the point Mr Irving is making is that
2 going and not going, as it were, are being contrasted.
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: Which suggests Ausrottung is----
5 MR IRVING: Going voluntarily and not going voluntarily.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: How he thinks that Jews could have gone voluntarily at
8 this point, I really do not know.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: Did large numbers of Jews leave Germany more or less
10 voluntarily between 1938 and the end of 1939?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, driven out by the enormous hostility of the Nazi
12 regime, particularly in the Reichskristallnacht.
13 Q. [Mr Irving]: Were they carried to the port or the airport and dumped on
14 a plane?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, they made the decision that life was unbearable in
16 Germany and they left.
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: This is 1942, that is the point.
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This is 1942.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us move on. I think we have had enough
20 of that particular bit of table talk.
Section 86.21 to 124.8
21 MR IRVING: Page 416, in paragraph 22 and paragraph 1, I am
22 sorry, the top paragraph of that page, what you are
23 effectively saying is that the Nazis are using a code, are
24 they not? They are using special words when in fact they
25 mean something different.
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
. P-86
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: Does not the use of a code presuppose some kind of code
2 document or list that has to be both ends? People have to
3 know. It is not just a nod and a wink in something as
4 important as this. Would you not expect to try and some
5 kind of little list that, when I say evacuiert, I really
6 mean kill?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not think so.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is there not a danger then that you send a train load of
9 Jews to Minsk, you evacuate them there and the person at
10 the other end, Joe Bloggs, thinks they are just going to
11 be evacuated, and he has them evacuated without realising
12 he is supposed to kill them?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Or the reverse, as we know happened in Riga. One cannot
14 expect it to be entirely consistent, but I think it is
15 clear that people knew that there was a euphemistic
16 language. It is not consistent. There is a variety of
17 different terms used.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: But does not this whole scenario raise the obvious
19 objection that any conspiracy theory has, that as soon as
20 you are presupposing a major conspiracy with everybody
21 knowing what is going on, everybody who is in the know,
22 there must be some kind of documentation of the fact of
23 the conspiracy, the code list or the list of names, and,
24 apart from one or two scattered references like Heinrich
25 Himmler's Posen speech, we do not actually have the
26 equivalences, do we, spelled out?
. P-87
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is such a convoluted question I am not how to answer
2 it.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think it is the same question you were
4 asked before. Would you expect some sort of list or code,
5 and you have said no.
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not expect some sort of list, no.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page 417, line 4?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: The oath of secrecy which was taken by people involved in
10 Operation Reinhardt, I think we agreed that there is such
11 an oath because I have seen at least one. Do you remember
12 what it consisted of, the three or four points what they
13 swear to secrecy on?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Remind me. I quote it somewhere.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do they swear to preserve secrecy about what is going on
16 in the evacuation?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am sorry. I would have to see a copy of the oath, I am
18 afraid.
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: You asked me to remind you.
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you ----
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think I quote it somewhere, I am trying to try and it.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: Let me put it like this. Was it not to protect the
24 plundering character of Operation Reinhardt from
25 unauthorized eyes?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: In fact, I have it on page 609 of my report, the
. P-88
1 fundamental order No. 1. Is this what we are referring
2 to?
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: No.
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 25th September 41. It is certainly what I am referring to
5 there.
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: No. The oath of secrecy that each person involved at
7 Auschwitz or somewhere like that had to sign on pain of
8 death?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I cannot comment on that without seeing it.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is very easily got hold of. It is
11 document 112, is it not?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This is not the fundamental order No. 1 in September 1941,
13 but something different.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: What are you referring to then? It is a
15 document that camp officials at Auschwitz had to sign? Mr
16 Irving, is that right?
17 MR IRVING: Yes, there was but, in view of this, let me move
18 straight on to talk about the document which he has
19 produced.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Right.
21 MR IRVING: You refer to this Hitler secrecy order on page 417,
22 line 2?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: As the famous Hitler secrecy order No. 1?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: You date it for some reason September 25th 1941.
. P-89
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Is that wrong?
2 Q. [Mr Irving]: What inference do you draw from that and have you drawn
3 from that?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is all right? The date is OK, is it?
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is the date suggested to be wrong,
6 Mr Irving?
7 MR IRVING: That is question two, my Lord. I am asking
8 question one at this stage. What inference do you draw?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not draw any inference in the report from the date.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is document 112.
11 MR RAMPTON: I am going to try to find the document.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I think it might be worth doing.
13 MR IRVING: Do you not say at line 4 that this order for
14 secrecy clearly covered the operational details of the
15 Final Solution? Is that not the inference you draw from
16 it?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It was in effect, unless you are telling me it was issued
18 in 1945 or 44, then I think that follows.
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: No. You are implying that this order, unless I have
20 totally misunderstood you, in which case I apologise, was
21 drawn up as part of the security measures to protect the
22 ugly details of the Final Solution?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Ah no, I am not. I do not think that follows there at
24 all. It certainly did cover all of that.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: Does not even the most incompetent historian know that the
26 famous Adolf Hitler secrecy order was dated January 11th
. P-90
1 1940 and it was issued as a direct result of the famous
2 Mechelin incident when a German plane landed carrying
3 secret documents?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Provide me with documentation, Mr Irving.
5 MR RAMPTON: Can we just to try and the document?
6 MR IRVING: Probably one of most famous orders Hitler ever
7 signed.
8 MR RAMPTON: I am sure Mr Irving is right about everything but
9 I wish he would give me a moment to try and the document.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you got document 112?
11 MR RAMPTON: Yes. It is file H1 (ix) and it is page 238. We
12 will provide your Lordship, and somebody will do it for
13 the witness.
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Could I have a copy, please?
15 MR RAMPTON: Yes.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Could I have a copy too?
17 MR RAMPTON: Yes. I will pass this up.
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 238?
19 MR RAMPTON: 238 is a stamped page number.
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, on the bottom.
21 MR RAMPTON: The right hand corner is said to be document 112.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you got this, Mr Irving?
23 MR IRVING: My Lord, I know all about Hitler's top secret order
24 and I do not need to see this thing. This is a subsequent
25 reissue of it.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is a reissue of the same document, is it,
. P-91
1 Mr Irving?
2 MR IRVING: That I do not know, my Lord. The original January
3 11th 1940 version says nobody under any circumstances who
4 has no need to know is to be informed of any secret
5 operation. It is a basic need to know document on which a
6 lot of other governments have modelled their own secrecy
7 laws since then.
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This is where I got it from.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: So you have never heard of the original basic order No. 1
10 which was issued on January 11th 1940? I thought every
11 historian knew of it.
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: If you can point me to a copy of it, I am quite happy to
13 accept your dating. It does not really affect what I say
14 at all.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: The question is: You do not know of the January 1940 one?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I found it here. I quoted it as the date given here.
17 I do not see what the point is you are trying to make,
18 Mr Irving.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Nor do I.
20 MR IRVING: The point I am trying to make is, firstly, once
21 again there appear to be gaps in this expert witness's
22 knowledge of the Third Reich.
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am sure there are gaps even in your knowledge of the
24 Third Reich, Mr Irving.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: Secondly, the inference which you invited the reader to
26 draw from your expert report, that paragraph at the top of
. P-92
1 417, that there was some sinister connection between the
2 issue of the order and the Final Solution evaporates?
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not read it as saying that so I think we
4 can move on.
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not draw that inference at all. That is just reading
6 far more into there than is actually there.
7 MR IRVING: Good. Line 5, you quote Henry Picker as saying,
8 "Over state secrets Hitler was totally uncommunicative.
9 He told us nothing in his table talk about the
10 extermination of the Jews in the concentration camps".
11 Does this not render nugatory every clever translation you
12 have made of "Ausrottung" and "vernichtung" in the table
13 talks up to this point and beyond?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No. I do not recall any mention of the concentration
15 camps.
16 MR IRVING: No, the "Ausrottung" and the "vernichtung"?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, we are talking about the concentration camps here.
18 I do not see any mention in the table talk of the
19 concentration camps. That is what he is talking about
20 here.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: So you believe Henry Picker is being clever when he is
22 saying, "OK, he told us about all the other extermination
23 of the Jews going on but not about what was going on in
24 the concentration camps"?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is what he is saying. He says, "he told us nothing in
26 his table talk about the extermination of the Jews in the
. P-93
1 concentration camps." It may be clever or not, I think it
2 is probably true. What he goes on to say his (Hitler's)
3 conversations nevertheless revealed his deep rooted and
4 fanatical hatred for all other races. That I think is
5 also a true observation.
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: What about Adolf Hitler's other private staff, his
7 stenographers, the people who took down every word he
8 spoke from September 1942 onwards, people like that, the
9 Adjutants, the private secretaries?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Oh goodness. You want to go all through all the whole
11 section on the Adjutants now?
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: I do not, but what I am going to draw your attention to is
13 page 36 of the little bundle I gave you and invite you to
14 look briefly at pages 39 and 40. Just run your eye over
15 that letter from a lawyer to me dated 1974, when I was
16 writing Hitler's War. He says that he carried out
17 interrogations of all Hitler's Adjutants, stenographers
18 and people like that in American captivity, and he has all
19 their statements, and what should he do with them, if my
20 memory of the letter is correct.
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: If you go back now to page 36, in the meantime he has now
23 given them to me and I am listing them. That is a little
24 index of them.
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page 37 shows that I, like a total idiot, give them to the
. P-94
1 archives in Germany, where I can no longer get them now.
2 Is that right?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: I can only draw your attention therefore to the summary in
5 this listing. If you look down the page numbers on the
6 right of that page 36, there is a statement by Ludvig
7 Krieger, who was one of Hitler's stenographers, his
8 extraordinary impression of Hitler, and Hitler never
9 mentioned the Holocaust of Jews. Right?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
11 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you see that one?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, without actually seeing the written statement, of
13 course we do not know whether that summary of it and
14 account of it is correct.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: Ah. We will come to that.
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: What exactly he means by that is unclear.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: If you look at the item listed as page 23, Hitler never
18 discuss concentration camps, the statement of another
19 stenographer, Heinz Bucholz ----
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Page 23? Down the list?
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, down the list?
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: I think it is true he did not discuss concentration
24 camps. I do not think one sees the word "Auschwitz"
25 anywhere in the Hitler table talks.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: Your experts have had total access to my records,
. P-95
1 including of course those particular interrogation
2 reports, have they not, in my papers in Munich?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: Did they look at those interrogations, do you think?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I would have to check, but I do not see what the relevance
6 of that question is. I do not think we used them, put it
7 like that.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you accept that I used them in my books?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: And that, if I had statements by members of Hitler's
11 private staff, not only questioned by me but questioned by
12 others and by people far cleverer than myself, all of whom
13 elicited precisely the same information that the Holocaust
14 was never discussed by Hitler or at Hitler's headquarters,
15 is that not a significance?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, there are a number of problems there. First of all,
17 what some of these say is that Hitler never discussed the
18 concentration camps, and that is true. What I say in my
19 report is that he used a generalized language of racism,
20 exterminatory racism, towards the Jews. You can read that
21 in his table talks and in the Goebbels diaries, but he did
22 not go into any details. That does seem to be the case on
23 reading through the table talk. He did not talk in any
24 detail about gas chambers in Auschwitz or the actual
25 processes. The second thing to say is of course that ----
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: These are all Nazis?
. P-96
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Will you let him finish?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. A lot of these people of course were concerned to
3 exculpate themselves, and therefore were being very
4 cautious in what they admitted about what Hitler did or
5 did not say to them. The third thing to say is of course
6 the fact that Hitler did not talk about these things does
7 not mean that he did not know about them, and a number of
8 his entourage who said that Hitler did not talk about the
9 extermination of Jews went on to say that they thought it
10 was very clear that he did actually know about it.
11 MR IRVING: Is there even one member of Hitler's staff who has
12 stated from absolute certainty that Hitler had discussed
13 this to your knowledge?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: All right. We shall have to go through the whole section
15 on the Adjutants in that case which I thought we were not
16 going to do. .
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I would be interested, though, if you could
18 tell me and, if you cannot do it from memory, have a quick
19 glance at your report, who are the members of the
20 entourage who you say believed that Hitler did know about
21 the extermination? You do not have to go into the detail
22 of it, unless Mr Irving wants to ask you questions.
23 MR IRVING: I will ask about specific people.
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Right.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: Did Otto Gunscher make a statement?
26 MR RAMPTON: I am sorry, I do not think this is a satisfactory
. P-97
1 way of dealing with it. Because I had said that I was not
2 any longer much interested in the Adjutants, I dare say
3 Professor Evans has not committed them all to memory over
4 the weekend. I do not know because I have not spoken to
5 him.
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have been repeatedly assured that this was going to be
7 ditched so I have not.
8 MR RAMPTON: I do think it right that, if he is going to answer
9 this perfectly proper question, he should be given time to
10 read the adjutants section of the report, or skim it
11 anyway, so that he can bring it back to mind.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. We have all got time pressure slightly
13 in mind. I therefore was inviting him just for my
14 reference, then I could read about it later, to identify
15 the names of some of those.
16 MR IRVING: It is purely the fact that Otto Gunscher, who
17 I think is the last surviving Hitler adjutant, told my
18 Dusseldorf lawyer five days ago that the first he heard of
19 it was when he was in the Luganka in Moscow. Although he
20 has made statements differing from that, he now accepts
21 that the first he heard of it was when he was in Russian
22 captivity, the first he heard specifically of the
23 Holocaust and of Auschwitz. He was with Hitler from 1936
24 until literally he was the man who burned Hitler's body.
25 I have a letter from my Dusseldorf lawyer to that effect
26 reporting this conversation.
. P-98
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is up to you, Professor Evans. Would you
2 rather come back to this, maybe at 2 o'clock?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think I would, my Lord, yes.
4 MR IRVING: If we have time.
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: If we have time. It has caught me on the hop, I am
6 afraid.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is totally understandable. Do you mind
8 moving on, Mr Irving?
9 MR IRVING: Yes. Page 421, Professor Evans.
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This, as you realize, has been superseded by my letter of
11 10th January.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Paragraph 4?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: I was just going to comment that you are effectively going
15 to leave the debate to Longerich.
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have withdrawn that page.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: You are hoping that Professor Longerich is going to cure
18 that little snag?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have withdrawn that page and the previous page, and the
20 top half of the following page and replaced them with a
21 new section, which is on pages 8 to 12 of my letter of the
22 10th January.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page 425, I am hoping this is going to take less than 15
24 seconds, Magnus Brach (?) says that the Madagascar plan
25 was a pure hypocrisy, a verbal smoke screen born out of
26 thought games. I am looking at the phrase "thought games",
. P-99
1 would you agree that this is the same as saying it is a
2 pipe dream?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: He is not -- we are not talking about the Madagascar plan,
4 but about the Hitler table talk of the 24th July
5 mentioning the Madagascar plan, when, as we know, Hitler
6 had long since abandoned it. He says "pure hypocrisy",
7 I had better give the whole quote. "The talk on the 25th
8 July by Hitler about sending the Jews to Madagascar was
9 pure hypocrisy, at best a verbal smoke screen of Hitler's
10 born out of thought games, a smoke screen with which he
11 took up a known topic which had also once been the subject
12 of concrete planning in order not to call the measures
13 which are actually going on against the Jews by their
14 name."
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page 426, paragraph 1, which is the lower paragraph 1 on
16 the page, an examination of?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: I may have a mistake here. I have a note here, you say
19 that I omit the reference when in fact --
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, if you do not, we should look at it.
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It must be a different page or something.
22 MR IRVING: Must be looking at a different page. In fact, I
23 have commented, it is, in fact, printed in full. Where am
24 I accused of omitting a reference? But let us move on. In
25 other words --
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Take your time, do not rush, Mr Irving.
. P-100
1 MR IRVING: In that case we will have a look. 388. "It is a
2 life and death struggle between the Aryan race and the
3 Jewish bacillus" is the reference I am accused of
4 omitting.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure what are you looking for. The
6 allegation against you by Professor Evans is that you did
7 not --
8 MR IRVING: I left out --
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Presumably in the Goebbels book refer to the
10 passage which Goebbels has talking about Hitler as being a
11 persistent pioneer and spokesman of radical --
12 MR IRVING: Here, too, the Fuhrer is the staunch champion and
13 promoter of a radical solution, and I am accused of having
14 omitted it and in fact it is on page 308 of the Goebbels
15 biography?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Which page of my report is this?
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 426.
18 MR IRVING: Ah.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, at least that is where I assumed you
20 were.
21 MR IRVING: Yes. Yes, it is staring me in the face, three
22 lines from the bottom of the main text.
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Right.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: It has also been shown how Irving manipulated the diary
25 entry in order to omit the Goebbels' reference to Hitler
26 as the persistent pioneer and spokesman of a radical
. P-101
1 solution to the Jewish question"?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: If you look at page 388 of Goebbels book it is there.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: 388 or 308?
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: 388, it is there.
6 MR RAMPTON: To be fair to the witness, this is a reference
7 back to -- I do not see a reference to the Goebbels book
8 here.
9 MR IRVING: Hitler's War.
10 MR RAMPTON: I think it is a reference back to Hitler's War?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I was about to say that, my Lord. I do not deal with
12 the Goebbels book in this section.
13 MR RAMPTON: No, I think that is right.
14 MR IRVING: But you agree that it is in the Goebbels biography
15 because this, page 388, and it is relevant as concerns
16 Goebbels, but not very relevant as concerns Hitler; is
17 that a fair statement?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: But you omit it from Hitler's War.
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, do you accept it is not very relevant
22 as far as Hitler is concerned?
23 MR IRVING: Do you accept that the entry incriminates Goebbels,
24 but does not incriminate Hitler?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not, no.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: In law, would it incriminate Hitler?
. P-102
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am not a lawyer, Mr Irving, I am an historian.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: What do you mean by "in law", Mr Irving? Do
3 you mean as hearsay as regards Hitler?
4 MR IRVING: In a criminal case, would that be accepted?
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think it matters whether it would or
6 it would not. We have to look at hearsay in an historical
7 context. We have spent most of the morning looking at
8 it.
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Particularly in the so-called Schlagerberger memorandum.
10 It is hearsay twice removed. You rely very, very heavily
11 on that.
12 MR IRVING: Professor Evans, when were faced with an abundance
13 of documentation and materials and you are obliged to
14 write a book that does not contain eight pages of sludge
15 every now and then would you agree that the first kind of
16 thing that you would chop out would be the hearsay and you
17 would leave the hard core stuff in like the police decodes
18 and material like that?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: But you do not do that, Mr Irving. There is masses of
20 hearsay. As I said the so-called Schlagerberger memorandum
21 is nothing but hearsay twice removed.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: I will ask the question again.
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: If it suits you, Mr Irving, you will put this hearsay in.
24 If it suits you to discredit it because it is hearsay
25 because it does not conform to your arguments you will
26 leave it out. You have double standards in dealing with
. P-103
1 this evidence.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, the question, I will ask it again is;
3 as a historian, Professor, do you agree that if you are
4 cutting down a published work for a new edition, the first
5 thing that goes is hearsay evidence?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I cannot agree with that as a general, global statement,
7 my Lord. It depends on what you are writing about, and,
8 of course, it depends on what the quality of other
9 evidence bearing on this particular problem is. There are
10 occasions when we have to rely on hearsay evidence, though
11 one would perhaps rather not.
12 MR IRVING: Page 427, please, the last sentence. You say there
13 is a number of documents and sources which strongly
14 suggest that Hitler knew all along. So at the end of all
15 this all can you do is say the document strongly suggests
16 something; is that right?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. It seems to me a reasonable statement. I think
18 history is about balances of probability, I think.
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: It is a rather damning statement for the defence in this
20 action though because what you do not say, and apparently
21 you can not say, is that there is a number of documents
22 which prove beyond reasonable doubt that Hitler knew, or
23 even prove on the balance of probabilities. It is just
24 saying you strongly suggest it, after all this huffing and
25 puffing and after 55 years of searching through the
26 archives and after millions of dollars which your defence
. P-104
1 assistants have spent the most you can say is "strongly
2 suggest"?
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that meant to be question?
4 MR IRVING: It is. Well, there was a --
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You know what I am getting at, Mr Irving.
6 MR IRVING: Well, sometimes the answers are also long, my Lord.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: True.
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Am I supposed to try and answer that?
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I think you have answered it.
10 MR RAMPTON: So do I.
11 MR IRVING: In other words, there is nothing better than just
12 strongly suggest that is how far we have reached?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think they do strongly suggest and the point is, of
14 course, that these documents, which do strongly suggest to
15 the objective historian that Hitler knew all along, are
16 not directly confronted by you and taken into account by
17 you, but they are manipulated, misrepresented or
18 suppressed. That is the conclusion.
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: My Lord, we are on page 428. We are now on the Himmler
20 minute of 22nd September 1942, on which I have
21 cross-examined this witness in connection with the chain
22 of evidence.
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I thought we dealt with this.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: So, really, there is just one or two little dotting Is and
25 crossing the Ts?
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that the "abschaffung" of the French
. P-105
1 Jews?
2 MR IRVING: No, my Lord, it is the Juden austvanderung which
3 is one reason.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry, what date did you say? December
5 1941?
6 MR IRVING: September 22nd 1942.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry.
8 MR IRVING: And it is Himmler's handwritten agenda for a
9 conversation with Hitler on which he firmly noted down
10 before going into see Hitler the topic of Juden
11 austvanderung, emigration of the Jews; how are we to
12 proceed?
13 Then there is a new topic underneath that about
14 the settlement of Lublin.
15 THE WITNESS: [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
17 MR IRVING: It will be in my bundle in the chain of documents,
18 my Lord.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. What are you going to ask? Are you
20 going to ask more about that?
21 MR IRVING: One or two minor things, because he has dealt with
22 it in some detail. I am not going to ask about where they
23 were going.
24 On page 430, these are ancillary documents to
25 his argument on this, paragraph 4, line 2. I am afraid
26 you have not provided the document for this, so we are
. P-106
1 not...
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: We are not in a position to judge the quality of this
4 source. It is not in the bundle. I looked. You have
5 quoted it from Brightman and from Labotsnik's file. Now
6 we know from various sources, including Himmler's letter
7 to his mistress?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is generally publicly available, is it?
9 MR RAMPTON: That is not the first time Mr Irving has mentioned
10 that correspondence. It is evident he has either got it,
11 or he has seen it, or knows where to find it. We would be
12 very much obliged if it were disclosed.
13 MR IRVING: I am sure you would.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is not really an answer, Mr Irving. If
15 you have it, it should have been disclosed. Do you have
16 it?
17 MR IRVING: My Lord, they are aware from the correspondence.
18 It is not in my custody, power or possession. I read
19 through the entire file in Chicago. It is in private
20 hands and I have made a three page note which I
21 have supplied to the Defendants now.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: And you have not taken copies of it? Or of
23 any of it?
24 MR IRVING: The gentleman concerned wanted a quarter million
25 dollars for them.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you taken any copies of any of it?
. P-107
1 MR IRVING: There is one page of which I have a facsimile which
2 I provided. But I provided to the Defendants the note
3 I took at the time on that, which is pretty full and
4 extensive. The reference, from memory, it is Himmler
5 writes to this female in July 1942. He is just about to
6 set out on a swing round Lublin and Auschwitz and other
7 places. He mentions Auschwitz by name and says there are
8 ugly things that he has to do for Germany's sake. But
9 that is the sense of it. I have not got the exact
10 quotation. But anyway we do know that he had set out.
11 He the question is, witness, at this time, this
12 letter is just after Himmler had visited Lublin,
13 Auschwitz --
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, just pause a moment, if you can
15 bear in mind that we have all got to get, or at least
16 I have to get my bearings, Mr Rampton, it seems to me that
17 cannot be taken any further.
18 MR RAMPTON: What cannot?
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have had a synopsis.
20 MR RAMPTON: No, I sat down. I have not seen it. I do not know
21 when we had it but that is --
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, chase it up if you want to raise it
23 again.
24 MR RAMPTON: That is my problem. That is not Mr Irving's
25 problem.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, so are we back to the Himmler minute of
. P-108
1 22nd September?
2 MR IRVING: July 22nd 1942, it is very interesting period, is
3 it not, witness?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: September?
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, or July --
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Page 430, yes.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: -- 430, yes. Labotsnik has written a message in which
8 apparently he says the Reichsfuhrer SS has given us so
9 much new work that with it now all our most secret wishes
10 are to be fulfilled; I am unhappy about this omission
11 after the word "Reichsfuhrer SS" because we have
12 established you have a bit of a track record of leaving
13 things out, have you not, Professor?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, leave aside that is gratuitous as well,
16 where is the document?
17 MR IRVING: We do not have the document, my Lord, I have not
18 been shown it.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I know you do not, I am asking the
20 witness, where is the document that you are quoting from.
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is in the Berlin document centre. It is cited in a
22 book by Richard Brightman called The Architecture of
23 Genocide. It is not -- I mean, it does not play a very
24 important part in the report, I have to say I am not quite
25 concern why Mr Irving is asking about it.
26 MR IRVING: It is in the report, I am entitled to ask you, what
. P-109
1 do you think --
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Of course you are entitled to ask, I am not --
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: -- what do you think our most secret wishes are at that
4 time? Do you have any indication from the document that
5 the secret wishes concern the homicidal disposal of the
6 Jews en masse?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: -- I think that is one possible interpretation of that --
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: One possible interpretation --
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: -- given the fact that that is what Labotsnik was doing.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: -- is it not evident from the September 22nd document, the
11 handwritten agenda, that the discussion between Hitler and
12 Himmler in which Labotsnik was mentioned was in fact the
13 resettlement of the Lublin area with the ethnic Germans
14 and this might equally well have been the most secret
15 wish?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, the two were, of course, combined, and in fact on
17 18th July 1942 Himmler had ordered that the Jews must
18 finally disappear from Lublin, which is on page 495 of the
19 Himmler calendar. So very shortly before this the
20 disappearance of the Jews from Lublin to make way for
21 these ethnic Germans moved in there, of course was to be
22 undertaken by Labotsnik and involved sending them off to
23 Treblinka where the killing started on the 23rd July. So
24 I think it is reasonable to assume that he is talking here
25 about the whole package. These two things are very
26 intimately connected.
. P-110
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: There is one possible inference, right?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think it is a reasonable inference.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: But the document obviously does not tell us anything else
4 more specific, otherwise it would have been quoted, would
5 it not?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, that is what I think he is talking about. He is
7 talking about the killing, mass killing of Jews to make
8 way for the people resettling the Lublin area from
9 Bessarabia, Lorraine and Bosnia, ethnic Germans.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Would Labotsnik have had a particular wish to
11 see Lublin being cleared of the Jews as quickly as
12 possible?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think, yes, I think that is certainly the case, yes.
14 MR IRVING: Would it have been a security wish? Was he chief of
15 police in that region?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right, yes.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: The remaining messages in that paragraph, you do accept
18 that I have adequately used them or referred to them in my
19 biographies of Hitler and Goebbels?
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Goodness, you do cite them, yes.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: Despite their very ugly language --
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You certainly cite them --
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: -- the reference to the 5,000 members of the chosen people
24 and so on?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: -- yes, you cite them.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page 433 of your report, please, in the last indented
. P-101
1 passage on this page, it is admitted that the plaintiff
2 did not draw attention to this minute, in fact, I did, did
3 I not?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: I quoted from it?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think you were doing yourself an injustice.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. So I quoted the lines of Himmler's September 1942
8 agenda in full in Hitler's War on page 392, I just merely
9 left out the reference to Globos, did I not?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, that is right, on paragraph 3, page 434, I note in
11 going through the pleadings in the case both the defence
12 and Irving are, in fact, wrong in claiming that Irving has
13 not used the note by Himmler in his work.
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page 435, paragraph 4, I am again going to have ask you
15 something from your memory, if you do not know the answer
16 then just say so.
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, OK.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can you give one example where austvanderung as opposed to
19 "evakuieren" or "umsiedein" is used explicitly by Hitler
20 or anybody else as a euphemism for killing? If you do not
21 know the answer then just say so.
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, let me draw attention to the passage we looked at a
23 little bit earlier, where he talks about that and says
24 that 75 per cent of those who emigrated from Germany in
25 the 19th century died.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, well, they were killed or they died of natural
. P-112
1 causes?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well I think it is clear he means that they were
3 transported in conditions so brutal and murderous that it
4 came to the same thing.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: That they died because of privations?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Deliberately inflicted on them, yes.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: I do not really want to follow that up, I do not it really
8 advances it.
9 Page 441.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: If we are moving to a new topic it would help
11 me, Mr Irving, if you put it in context rather than just
12 going to some rather small point on the text.
13 MR IRVING: Your Lordship has rightly noticed that we have now
14 moved to the Horthy meetings, Hitler and Horthy of April
15 1943.
16 (To the Witness) Your contention is, is it not,
17 that I deliberated transposed the two sentences referred
18 to on page 441?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry, I did not catch... which page,
21 441?
22 MR IRVING: Page 441 of the report.
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The point here is that Hitler and Ribbentrop met the
24 Hungarian leader, Admiral Horthy, on 16th and 17th April
25 1943, and the minutes of the meeting make it clear that
26 Hitler and Ribbentrop failed to get their message across
. P-113
1 that the Hungarian Jews should be delivered to the Germans
2 for killing, on the 16th. And, in fact, seemed to have
3 failed to make clear that killing was what was actually
4 involved. So on second day, the 17th April, they put much
5 more pressure on Horthy, and were much more explicit, and
6 on the 17th April, for example, Ribbentrop said the Jews
7 had be annihilated or put in concentration camps, and
8 Hitler said the Jews in Poland were shot if they were
9 unable to work and he uses the usual language of
10 tuberculous, bacilli and killing them and shooting hares
11 and deer he talks about. On the previous day, on the
12 16th, Hitler, when Horthy had "surely you do not mean kill
13 them", Hitler had said "there is no need for that". But
14 on the 17th he does not, he is much more explicit "they
15 must be killed", and what is done in the account of this
16 in Hitler's War is that phrase, "there is no need for
17 that", is placed after an account of what Hitler on the
18 17th, removing also Ribbentrop's remark about the
19 concentration camps or killing into the footnote. So, in
20 other words, it makes it look as if Hitler is opposing the
21 killing of Jews, whereas, in fact, he was advocating it.
22 That is the nub of the case.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is very clear. Thank you very much.
24 MR IRVING: A very useful summary. But now let us cut down to
25 the bottom line. Firstly, does it change the burden of
26 Hitler's remark one bit whether it is uttered on the 16th
. P-114
1 or 17th April 1943?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, it does, yes, I have already explained that Hitler
3 and Ribbentrop were much more explicit on the 17th because
4 they had failed to get their message across to Horthy who
5 was either too dim or too old or too devious to get the
6 message on the 16th, so they were more explicit on the
7 17th.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: So on April 16th when Horthy apologised that he had done
9 all he decently could against the Jews and continued "but
10 they can hardly have been murdered or otherwise
11 eliminated" Hitler reassured him, and there is dispute
12 between us on that, "there is no need for that"?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: In other words, there is no need for them to be murdered
15 or otherwise eliminated?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is he not being perfectly explicit there on April 16th as
18 to what Adolf Hitler's position is?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No. He is drawing back from the actual brutality of
20 saying "yes, that is what I do mean". He is trying to
21 throw up a bit of smoke screen there. In saying "give us
22 your Jews", as it were, and Horthy says, "well, we do not
23 really want to do that if they are going to be killed" and
24 Hitler "says all right, that is okay, just give them to
25 us".
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: Did you find any support for this homicidal intent by
. P-115
1 Adolf Hitler in the Hungarian version of this meeting?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Ah, right. This is on pages 443 to 446 of my report,
3 these are much less explicit, though they do not say what
4 you claim that they say.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: What we are looking for is some reference in the Hungarian
6 record to killing Jews. "Adolf asked us to kill our Jews
7 and we put up a strong fight against it", is there
8 anything in that sense?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, the Hungarians were very careful about being
10 explicit about this.
11 Q. [Mr Irving]: Why should they have had to be?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Horthy, Horthy put in -- drafting a letter with the
13 phrase -- and we are back to "ausrotten" here again, "Your
14 Excellency", writing back, it was a follow up to the Nazi
15 leaders, "further approached me that my government did not
16 proceed in the extermination or extirpation of Jewry with
17 the same radicalism with which this had been carried out
18 in Germany". That is also regarded -- desired for other
19 countries too, but in fact he crossed that out. He
20 thought that was really too blunt and too brutal.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: Does this indicate that Hitler and Ribbentrop told Horthy
22 about the radicalism that they were carrying out the
23 operation in German?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That seems to have been the case, yes, on the 17th April.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is there any hint of that in Schmidt's report of their
26 meeting that they had this lengthy disquisition to the
. P-116
1 Hungarians on how they were killing all the Jews?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, now on the 17th, when Horthy says again "what should
3 he do with the Jews" after he had pretty well taken all
4 means of living from them, because Horthy was anti-semitic
5 too, although in a somewhat less extreme sense than
6 Hitler. "He surely could not beat them to death", the
7 Reichs Foreign Minister replied that "the Jews must either
8 be annihilated or taken to concentration camps, there was
9 no other way". The alternative given there, that is
10 footnote 8, page 441, and the alternative given there
11 makes it quite clear what "vernichten" means, it means
12 "killed".
13 Q. [Mr Irving]: So the word that is used there is "vernichten" again
14 annihilated?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. He cannot be talking about anything else. He gives
16 the alternative, it is a sort of alternative of "work" or
17 "death" again.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: You have read the entire Nuremberg transcript of the
19 examination and cross-examination of Ribbentrop and
20 Schmidt on the Horthy meeting?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: Was there any admission at any point by either of those
23 people, either by Ribbentrop or the interpreter, that
24 there had been talk of annihilating in the murderous
25 sense, the homicidal sense?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This statement by Ribbentrop was regarded by the
. P-117
1 prosecution as an extremely damning piece of evidence,
2 that Ribbentrop had been responsible for mass murder and
3 therefore Ribbentrop, of course, in his own interests
4 disputed this.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Standing back from the documents, this is the
6 Germans really soliciting Horthy to agree to the Hungarian
7 Jews being transported to the General Government?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
9 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Looking at it, as it were, from Horthy's point of view,
10 what would he have thought that the Nazis' interest in
11 doing that was?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: He is trying to find out, my Lord, and this is why he is
13 asking repeatedly, "surely, you do not want to beat them
14 to death? You do not want kill them?" I have done
15 everything that I can, he says.
16 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: What other motive would the Nazis have in relation to
17 Hungarian Jews?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: None that I can imagine, my Lord. They certainly do not
19 say that they want to take them away for labour.
20 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Labour would be the alternative?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Would be the only other possible motivation that they
22 could have. But it is quite clear here they have got to
23 be annihilated or taken to concentration camps. And the
24 whole language which is used, "bacilli" and giving a
25 humane death to wild animals and so on makes it quite
26 clear what they are talking about.
. P-118
1 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Yes, but I was thinking, leaving aside the documents, what
2 the sort of thinking must have been on the two sides, the
3 Nazi and the Hungarian side?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: From Horthy's point of view, of course, he did, in fact,
5 deport non-Hungarian Jews who were then killed. But he
6 objected on grounds of sovereignty to Hungarian Jews, his
7 Jews, as it were, even though he put all sorts of legal
8 discriminations on them to being taken away by a foreign
9 power.
10 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Sorry, Mr Irving.
11 MR IRVING: Right, now I have to ask you two very clear
12 questions following up on his Lordship's very
13 well-informed questions; it is true that the Nazis not
14 only wanted Hungarians as slave labour, but they also
15 perceived (this is not evident from the Schmidt
16 transcripts) the very large Jewish population of Budapest
17 and the environments of Hungary as being a serious
18 security problem within the boundaries of Hitler's empire,
19 if you can put it like, that they regarded the Jewish
20 population in Hungary as being a serious security threat
21 or problem; is that right?
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Let us have a look. Where can we see this? Where does he
23 say this? I am not disputing it, I just want to know what
24 passage you are referring to in the Schmidt's minutes.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: I am going to come back after lunch to that if I may, my
26 Lord, because I spent a great deal of yesterday evening
. P-119
1 reading through the entire memoranda and also the
2 interrogations that Schmidt conducted by the US State
3 Department which I still have in my files here. There is
4 no reference to this kind of homicidal conversation going
5 on in the interrogations.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, well, speaking for myself, I do not find
7 that all that surprising, but it would be interesting if
8 Schmidt does record some other reason for wanting to get
9 rid of the Hungarian Jews.
10 MR IRVING: That I will try and elicit today, my Lord, but
11 there is one final question I would like to ask before we
12 adjourn and this is following.
13 (To the Witness) Is there any reason why in
14 their own internal foreign ministry memoranda in Budapest
15 the Hungarians would have had to use euphemisms to conceal
16 what they perceived the Germans were going to do with the
17 Hungarian Jews? Is not likely that they would have been
18 brutally frank to their own officials in saying "what is
19 this madman Hitler up to now? He is going to take our
20 Jews away from us and liquidate them. We have to stop it
21 however we can". Is that not the kind of memorandum you
22 would expect to find and have you found such memorandum?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, the memoranda you are referring to I think is a
24 report by the Hungarian representative in Berlin to the
25 Prime Minister in Budapest, which you say summarized the
26 talks between Hitler, Horthy, and Ribbentrop and said that
. P-120
1 the Jews are not to be liquidated only interned, and in
2 fact the document deals with a separate conversation
3 between the minister and Ribbentrop, and all it says is
4 that "Hitler personally drew the attention of His Highness
5 the Regent [which is Horthy] to the necessity of settling
6 in a more thorough and penetrating manner the Jewish
7 question in Hungary". That is all it says. It is about
8 many other things as well. As for euphemisms, that is
9 just a diplomatic phrase.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: No, but why should they have pussy footed around in their
11 own internal Hungarian memoranda? I can understand why
12 the Germans adopted euphemisms for their murderous
13 programme, but why should the Hungarians have had to adopt
14 euphemisms?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, this is an extremely sensitive issue, as we know.
16 The Hungarian government actually refused to deliver the
17 Hungarian Jews and for that and because the Hungarian
18 forces were partly withdrawn from the war effort as
19 Germany's ally, Hungary was actually invaded and Horthy
20 was pushed aside. This is a very, very sensitive issue
21 within the Hungarian ministries.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I was under the impression they had
23 voluntarily in the end handed over the Hungarian Budapest
24 Jews.
25 MR IRVING: It was not voluntary. They sent Adolf Eichmann to
26 do it.
. P-121
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It was not, no. The Germans invaded and sent Eichmann in
2 who organized it himself.
3 MR IRVING: They question is, my Lord, and I am sure your
4 Lordship appreciates it.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I understand why you put the question.
6 It was my ignorance, I did not realise what had been...
7 MR IRVING: (To the Witness) The question is, quite simply,
8 you have not found anywhere in the Hungarian files, or in
9 my copies from the Hungarian files, any explicit
10 references that make plain that the Hungarians were aware
11 that killing was what lay ahead?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, they must have been -- the Hungarian file?
13 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, no, and I think obviously Storgzy (?) who was the
15 minister concerned, is much more favourable to the Germans
16 than Horthy was, and was, in fact, put into power by the
17 Germans when they invaded. So he may well have felt it
18 necessary internally, in the internal power games he was
19 playing to cloak what was being asked in a certain amount
20 of euphemism, but that is only speculation on my part. I
21 do not want know enough about the ins and outs of
22 bureaucratic Hungarian politics at this time.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: Thank you, my Lord, I think we have made good progress.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But it is a fair point, is it not, that if
25 this was something that they were being dragged kicking
26 and screaming into doing against their will, you would
. P-122
1 think from their own point of view that they would have
2 recorded in their own internal documents something to the
3 effect that, you know, this is all ghastly. We know what
4 is going to happen to these Jews and we are doing
5 everything we can to prevent it happening.
6 THE WITNESS: [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, I think, my Lord, one has to make a
7 distinction between this particular politician, Storgzy,
8 who was no doubt looking for the main chance, which he
9 eventually got when the Nazis invaded and was put into
10 power and Horthy who was the one who really objected.
11 I think Storgzy was much less hostile towards the idea and
12 therefore may well have felt the need for euphemism.
13 MR RAMPTON: Perhaps one should draw attention, save me coming
14 back to it, to paragraph 3, the last part, on page 444,
15 and the last sentence of page 445 i Professor Evans'
16 report.
17 THE WITNESS: [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, this is Horthy deleting the reference to
18 "extirpation" from his letter to the Germans. It is not
19 an internal memorandum.
20 MR IRVING: Reference to "ausrotten", right. Was Horthy
21 surrounded by a large staff of people with him? Did he
22 have interpreters with him and flunkeys who also attended
23 the conference?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have to say I do not know how many people came with him.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, shall we say five past 2? How are you
26 doing, Mr Irving, are you more or less on course?
. P-123
1 MR IRVING: We have made excellent progress.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, do not rush your fences, particularly
3 on the big points.
4 MR IRVING: If your Lordship thinks I am rushing then please
5 slow me down.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I have tried to slow you down on the
7 odd occasion. But five past 2.
8 (Luncheon Adjournment)
Part III: Evans Cross-Examined by Irving, cont'd. Afternoon Session (124.9 to 225.22)
Section 124.9 to 138.10
9 (2.05 p.m.)
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Evans, you were going to help us
11 about the Adjutants, I think, were you not? If you had
12 the chance to see whether there were any who, on
13 reflection, did say that they thought Hitler knew about
14 the extermination? I think that was the point, was it
15 not?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I have looked very hastily at my report. I refer you
17 to pages -- oh, yes, well, first of all, page 622 of my
18 report and pages 15 to 16 of my letter of 10th January
19 this year which makes it clear that the conversation which
20 Engel reported was on 2nd November, and Himmler was
21 reporting to Hitler about what was going on with the Jews
22 in Riga and Minsk at the very time when shootings were
23 taking place. It seems highly likely that they were
24 discussed. Pages 629 to 30.
25 MR IRVING: Can I take them one at a time, my Lord?
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I think that probably is better in the
. P-124
1 end, Professor Evans, if you would not mind?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have 10 references my Lord. It may take some time.
3 MR IRVING: We will deal with them very rapidly. Is this the
4 only reference to Engel on which you are going to rely?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, this is all we had time to look at really.
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: Major Engel or Lieutenant General Engel, as he became, was
7 Hitler's Army Adjutant, is that correct? He was the Army
8 Adjutant on Hitler's staff?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Right, with Hitler, yes.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: You never met him, did you?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I did not meet him, no.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Did you ever see the original diary or pages of diary on
13 which this is based?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, well -- oh, I see what you mean. I explain the
15 background to the diaries on page 617 to 18 of my report
16 and again on pages 15 to 16 of my letter.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: I am not going to discuss contents ----
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This is a shorthand diary you are saying or?
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: I am not going to discuss the content of the diary. Am
20 I right in saying that there is a dispute over the time
21 when the diaries were written?
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think there is some confusion which was partly his own
23 fault, but I think it is fairly clear what happened, and
24 that is laid out in my report and in the letter.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: I am going to ask you questions. Is it right that the
26 diaries were purchased by the Institute of History in
. P-125
1 Munich in the 1960s from the General for a sum of 50,000
2 deutschemarks?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I will accept if you say that, yes.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is it right that the Institute then learned to their
5 consternation that the diaries were written on postwar
6 paper?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is clear that the diaries were, in short -- that what
8 Engel did -- I am trying to find the place here -- is that
9 he seems to have sort of made up another version of the
10 diaries or used a copy of the diaries after the war to
11 answer questions which are put to him, and that he added
12 in some extra, some additional notes, and then somehow the
13 originals got lost, so that what exists is a sort of
14 hybrid which consists partly of original material and
15 partly of copied out and partly of the later editions, and
16 the problem is trying to disentangle these things.
17 What one can say is that there is some original
18 material there and then some material written down from
19 memory. So they have to be treated with a considerable
20 amount of caution, particularly where dates are concerned,
21 as I make clear in the editions to my report where he
22 reports a conversation on 2nd October 1941 which can, in
23 fact, be dated to 2nd November 1941.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: Would a genuine diary do that?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have already explained the status of the diary which was
26 copied by Engel with some additions, so it is not a
. P-126
1 question of being genuine or fake. It is a question of a
2 kind of hybrid document.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: Would why he copy dates wrongly in his own diary?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, we all make mistakes.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: A slip of the pen, I suppose.
6 MR IRVING: I beg your pardon?
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: A slip of the pen, could be?
8 MR IRVING: Are there many such slips of the pen?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: There seem be a number, yes, and it is also, of course, in
10 shorthand, shorthand notes. And Engel, in fact, went to
11 the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich twice to
12 read out his shorthand notes for copying, and so there are
13 a lot of opportunities for error there in all these
14 various processes.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is it not likely that, in fact, he tried to reconstruct
16 years later what had happened and when and that in that
17 process he got the dates wrong?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Not entirely, no. I mean, it is very difficult to second
19 guess exactly what went on.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you familiar with the passage in the Engel diary dated
21 November 24th 1942 where he describes a heated conference
22 between Hitler and Goring over the Battle of Stalingrad at
23 a time when Goring was, in fact, nowhere near Hitler's
24 headquarters but was on a shopping expedition i Paris?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: There are many instances like that, but if one looks at it
26 patiently, I think one can disentangle them and to track
. P-127
1 down the right date as we have done in once instance that
2 we had time to do.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you seen several items of correspondence from me to
4 the Institute in which I have drawn their attention to
5 genuine entries in genuine diaries, like Walter Hayhol or
6 the widow of Schmunt, which makes the entries in the Engel
7 diary completely impossible?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, and if you check them against the Himmler
9 Diensttagebuch, you can also find some misdating there as
10 well.
11 Q. [Mr Irving]: How can ----
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That does not mean, however, that the whole diary has to
13 be dismissed. Responsible historians do not dismiss whole
14 sources just because of complex problems of this sort.
15 You have to find out how the sources came into being and
16 then try to track down what went on there. The point,
17 since we seem to have got on to the Adjutants on a kind of
18 larger scale, the point that I make in my report is, of
19 course, that because you find Engel's diary/memoirs,
20 I think one should call it, in many ways embarrassing, you
21 dismiss it altogether just simply as a forgery which is
22 completely irresponsible.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: How can one have the slightest confidence in a diary ----
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Whereas the very similar diaries/memoir of Friedrich van
25 Owan you treat quite uncritically because he says he was a
26 neo-Nazi after all and says what you like.
. P-128
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: You say that I treat it uncritically. Have you seen the
2 reference in the Goebbels biography to the faults that are
3 contained in the Owan diary and the evidence has quite
4 obviously been constructed postwar? There is this very
5 lengthy footnote in my Goebbels biography.
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: If you point it me to?
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: I will point it out later on because I do not want to be
8 distracted from this.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Right, we have dealt with Engel, have we not?
10 What about your second reference?
11 MR IRVING: I want to ask one summary question. How can one
12 have the slightest confidence in a diary of a man who has
13 repeated mistaken dates, invented fictitious events ----
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You have asked that question, Mr Irving. You
15 have asked that question.
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: And the answer is through the use of painstaking objective
17 scholarship of a kind which you seem unfamiliar with,
18 Mr Irving.
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you aware that I am the person who has exposed the
20 Engel diary as being suspect?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is suspect now, is it? Not completely falsified?
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: And that until I did so, the Institute of History had not
23 the slightest idea that these pages had been faked?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is not at all -- it has no relevance at all to what
25 I am saying.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: What is the next name?
. P-129
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: What we are dealing with here is the point that while the
2 Adjutants said that the subject of extermination of the
3 Jews was not mentioned in so many words in Hitler's
4 headquarters, it is not legitimate to draw from that the
5 conclusion that they thought that Hitler did not know
6 about it which is the conclusion that you draw. On page
7 632, for example, we have Karl-Jesco vo Puttkamer who
8 says, "I can state with certainty that Dr Dietrich knew
9 nothing of such things", and we are talking here about the
10 press spokesman Otto Dietrich. "Because of Dietrich's
11 sensitive nature, Hitler would have completely oppressed
12 him with the knowledge of it", talking about the
13 extermination of the Jews, "and Hitler, who knew precisely
14 this quality in Dr Dietrich, took care, alone on these
15 grounds, not to initiate him." Thus, what Puttkamer says
16 is that Hitler knew but did not tell Dietrich.
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: So that is the second one?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is the second one. That is, of course, a sentence
19 omitted by Mr Irving. He writes about this. Thirdly,
20 633, Wilhelm von Bruckner: "Hitler never talked in my
21 presence about the so-called Final Solution of the 'Jewish
22 question' or 'extermination of the Jews'. This applied
23 equally to the whole of Hitler's entourage". Then
24 Bruchner added: "These questions were probably left to
25 the close and competent circle, to which Dietrich", again
26 talking about him, "did not belong". That is another one
. P-130
1 who says that they -- in other words, it was discussed,
2 not just by Hitler, Hitler did know about it in other
3 words.
4 MR IRVING: Can I draw your attention to page 634, please,
5 paragraph 2? You state that I did not provide the
6 statements by the stenographers Buchholz, Jonuschat,
7 Krieger, Reynitz and Thot. Is that not precisely the file
8 of which I have just drawn your attention in the bundle
9 this morning, at page 36, the written statement of
10 Hitler's stenographers, that that was, therefore, in the
11 Institute and available to you and your researchers?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. I am just saying that you did not provide it to the
13 court before this morning. That is all.
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: Did not do what?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Provide it to the court before this morning.
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you aware that that list is in my discovery as a
17 numbered item in my discovery?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Are the actual statements there?
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: The actual statements are in the Institute of History
20 where they have been ----
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: So they are not in the discovery? That is all I am
22 saying.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, I think his Lordship has the point. Next name?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 636, this is Krieger, one of the stenographers.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Krieger, yes, I see.
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
. P-131
1 MR IRVING: Ludovic Krieger.
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Who as a sort of a "don't know": "It remains a problem"
3 -- it is rather awkward English -- "It remains a problem
4 first unsolved whether Hitler himself issued the orders of
5 such cruelties or authorised men as Himmler or Bormann to
6 do so or whether generally held orders were carried out by
7 subordinate organs and sadists in such a brutal and vile
8 manner" which is somehow rewritten on a different version
9 which is used by Mr Irving where he says: "For the
10 present it must remain an unanswered question, whether
11 Hitler himself issued specific orders ... or whether
12 orders issued in generalised terms were executed by
13 subordinates and sadists".
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Whose translation is the first one?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is, I think, it looks like it is originally -- it is
16 such peculiar English, it looks like it was originally
17 written in English actually. Anyway, he keeps it open.
18 He says it is certainly possible that Hitler issued the
19 orders.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is page 636?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. And then Buchholz, page 636, again it was never
22 discussed.
23 MR IRVING: "It is possible that Hitler issued the order", what
24 does he mean by that?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: He is just saying that; it is possible that he issued the
26 orders of such cruelties.
. P-132
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: It is possible the Queen Mother issued the orders, but we
2 are dealing with likelihoods here, are we not?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, but you are saying that, you are drawing a conclusion
4 from all these people's testimony that they all thought it
5 was not possible.
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: No, the conclusion that I have drawn is that all of them
7 were questioned and all of them came out -- in every case
8 the interrogators drew a blank, if I can put it like
9 that?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, well, there are two issues here which you have already
11 mentioned. One is whether or not the extermination of the
12 Jews was actually discussed in Hitler's entourage to which
13 these people all said, leaving aside whether you believe
14 it or not, no; and the second question, whether they
15 concluded from that that Hitler did not know about them,
16 which is the conclusion that you draw from their
17 evidence. I am saying here, in this series of examples,
18 that they did not, in fact, draw that conclusion.
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you aware of the fact that in most of these cases I
20 personally interviewed all these men myself?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: That I am capable to judge whether they are telling the
23 truth or not and the nature of the evidence they are
24 giving?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: You do not accept that?
. P-133
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, no, I think you wait for the answer you want and you
2 do not probe any deeper.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: So I am not capable of detecting forgeries or lies or
4 anything like that?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Not when people are saying what you want them to say, no.
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can we have another name?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Buchholz: "The Fuhrer did not discover" -- well, "The
8 treatment of political prisoners in concentration camps
9 was never discussed in the briefings with Hitler at which
10 I was present".
11 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page, please?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 636. "The reason why lies in the fact", he says, "the
13 reason lies" and then: "The circle of those in the know
14 had been kept very small. I am convinced that such
15 questions have always been treated between the Fuhrer and
16 the Reichsfuhrer SS", that is Himmler, "Himmler in strict
17 confidence. Especially in last half year, such
18 conversations between these two often took place, usually
19 before or after a briefing at which Himmler appeared".
20 And then ----
21 MR IRVING: Can I stop you?
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is a specific claim that Hitler did
23 know, is it not?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
25 MR IRVING: Yes, but it is based on the fact that Himmler and
26 Hitler met in private and that this, therefore, invites
. P-134
1 the following immediate question, do we not have the notes
2 which Himmler drew up for the meetings of the ----
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, not obviously -- one does not know whether they are
4 complete or not.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: Professor Evans, have we not been not been looking at some
6 of the handwritten notes ----
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Mr Irving, the ----
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: --- the handwritten notes of the ----
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: These members of this staff are giving their opinion.
10 What we are talking about here is their opinion. You have
11 said that because they say that there was no discussion in
12 Hitler's entourage, therefore, Hitler did not know about
13 it. I am quoting the opinions of various of these people
14 that Hitler did know. That is what is at issue. That is
15 a separate matter from whether Hitler really did know or
16 not. It is a question of ----
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: Shall we look at exactly what Buchholz says?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: -- a question of the evidence. Yes, indeed.
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: He says: "I am convinced that such questions have always
20 been treated between the Reichsfuhrer and Hitler and
21 Himmler in strict confidence". Of course, Buchholz is,
22 effectively, saying, "I do not know what happened between
23 them", is he not?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, no. He is actually saying he knows what ----
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: He is guessing, I suppose that is fair, is it
26 not?
. P-135
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: --- he suspects. Yes, but he is giving his opinion.
2 MR IRVING: He is guessing. But we do not have to guess, my
3 Lord, because we have the agenda.
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: He is giving his opinion, "I am convinced".
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. Do you have another name? I mean, unless his
6 Lordship has further questions to ask ----
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I have plenty more.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, well, we want to move through the names with speed
9 because we are not ----
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am moving them as fast as I can.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am happy just to have the names, but if you
12 want to ask questions, Mr Irving, that is entirely
13 appropriate and please do so.
14 MR IRVING: I am asking, for example, on Engel where there is
15 an important point, I slowed the matter down, but on the
16 other names I an not really going to halt the flow.
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, it is up to you decide. I mean, if you
18 say, "Oh, well, do not be ridiculous, he is not even
19 hinting that Hitler knew", then I think you ought to put a
20 question to that effect.
21 MR IRVING: I have heard nothing that shakes me yet, my Lord,
22 because frankly I am very familiar with all these papers.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, well, I am not nearly as familiar as you
24 so it helps me to know which Adjutant Professor Evans is
25 going to point to.
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Right, the next one.
. P-136
1 MR IRVING: Then I will ask a few general questions at the end.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: All right.
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Then a statement by Heinz Linge.
4 MR IRVING: On which page?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 639 to 40.
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: 640?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, and again 642 to 3. Then 645, let us have a look at
8 this. Brottigan, 645 to 6.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can we know exactly what is in your statement ----
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is all in my report.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just go to the bit because I was looking for
12 the particular passage you rely on.
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Right. Well, there are two passages, 639 to 40 and 642 to
14 3, by Hitler's attitude towards the Jews. All right.
15 MR IRVING: It does not amount to a row of beans really, does
16 it?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Brottigan/Schumndt, pages 645 to 6.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you read the diaries of Brottigan which I found in
19 the Library of Congress? Are you aware that I found the
20 diary of Otto Brottigan in the Library of Congress, the
21 handwritten diary?
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: And Christa Schroeder ----
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can you answer my question, please?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Sorry, yes. I am aware you found it, yes.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is there anything in the handwritten diary of Otto
26 Brottigan which indicates a knowledge of Hitler of the
. P-137
1 Final Solution in the homicidal sense?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Right, page 645.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: This is Wolga German's episode, is it not?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right, yes.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is to say, in the report that Rosenberg urged a kind
7 of retaliation for the Stalin deportation of all the
8 Germans to Siberia.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not read that as suggesting that
10 Brottigan thought that Hitler knew.
Section 138.11 to 164.1
11 MR IRVING: You come to Christa Schroeder?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, page 652. I did this very hastily, I am afraid, just
13 after the lunch. Speaking to Gita Szereni, of course,
14 Hitler knew it was all his ideas, his orders who remembers
15 a particular incident.
16 MR IRVING: Christa Schroeder was pretty frank with me, was she
17 not, Hitler's private secretary? She told me about Hitler
18 after the Night of the Long Knives and things like that.
19 I remember: "I have had a shower and I feel as clean as
20 new born baby", episodes like that.
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: On that particular incident, yes. That was some years
22 before, I believe, not in 1977. In other words, it was
23 earlier, was it not?
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Schroeder is again categorical. Hitler knew
25 perfectly well he had been told by Himmler.
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
. P-138
1 MR IRVING: Where is this?
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The top of page 650.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: This is the book by Christa Schroeder, is it?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, it is an interview by Gita Szereni with Christa
5 Schroeder in an article Szereni wrote about your work.
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you aware that I am conducting a libel action against
7 Gita Szereni?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: What has that got to do with this case?
10 MR IRVING: The following question will explain, my Lord.
11 I have asked for her notes on the discussion with
12 Schroeder by way of discovery and she has said that no
13 notes were taken. Are you aware of that?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You would have to show me the correspondence before I will
15 believe you, Mr Irving.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: She must have taped it; she could not have
17 kept it all in her head, Mr Irving?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Tape recorders did exist in 1977.
19 MR IRVING: My Lord, I do not consider Gita Szereni to be
20 either a neutral or a reliable observer. I knew Christa
21 Schroeder extremely well. I persuaded her to talk me in
22 very great detail over a period of 10 years. She wrote to
23 me from her death bed. Your Lordship is aware that she
24 gave me as a gift a prized possession of a Hitler
25 self-portrait, that kind of thing, so a lot of what you
26 can read here about Christa Schroeder has to be taken very
. P-139
1 much cum grano salis, in my submission.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: When did she die?
3 MR IRVING: In 1984, June.
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think that I do not dismiss this as being Miss Szereni's
5 invention. I do not think that Miss Szereni invents
6 things.
7 MR IRVING: Until and unless Miss Szereni can produce the
8 notes, and ----
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is not necessarily notes; it could be tape recordings.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: --- I am sure that every effort was made the Defence in
11 this action to produce the notes from her of this alleged
12 interview and these alleged remarks by Christa Schroeder,
13 I am afraid you and I must agree to differ on that.
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I will believe it when you show the correspondence
15 relating to the notes.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Would you care to deal with it this way,
17 Mr Irving? Would you like to put to Professor Evans
18 exactly what your case is? Is it your case that there is
19 not any record, whether tapes, notes or anything, of Gita
20 Szereni's interview with Christa Schroeder and she is, in
21 fact, making the whole thing up?
22 MR IRVING: Yes.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Because I think that should be put clearly,
24 because she is still alive and well. Put your case, would
25 you?
26 MR IRVING: Yes. As stated in your report, your expert report,
. P-140
1 this relies entirely on one published source by Gita
2 Szereni. Is that correct?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: This passage on page 652.
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Where there are lengthy previous quotations?
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Quotations from Christa Schroeder.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: Did you or your researchers make any attempt to obtain
9 from Gita Szereni, who lives in London, any original notes
10 or tape recordings, or other memoranda drawn up
11 contemporaneously on her interview with Christa Schroeder?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not see why we should have done so. She says
13 clearly that this is in her article. This is what Christa
14 Schroeder told her and we have no reason to disbelieve
15 her.
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you aware that Christa Schroeder expressed herself to
17 me in terms of the utmost contempt for this particular
18 author and what she was trying to get her to say?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I am not. You will have to show me evidence of that
20 if I am to believe you.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you had complete access to all my private diaries,
22 papers and telephone logs?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you seen no reference to any conversations or letters
25 from Christa Schroeder in that vein?
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: If there are any, I would like to see them.
. P-141
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. It would be very interesting to see them. I mean,
2 obviously, there is far too much there for us to read all
3 the way through. As I have said many days ago, we were
4 particularly looking at the diaries and telephone logs and
5 so on, with a view, with certain particular questions in
6 mind, and we were not looking to them in order to verify
7 what seems to be a perfectly straightforward statement by
8 Miss Szereni in her article, that this is what Christa
9 Schroeder said to her in her statement and which we had no
10 reason to disbelieve, and I still have no reason to
11 disbelieve.
12 MR IRVING: Are you aware of a book called "Hitler Privat"
13 written by a Frenchman called Albert Zoller which,
14 apparently, is conversations with Hitler's private
15 secretary, Christa Schroeder?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This is discussed at length in my report.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you draw us to the page, please?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Pages 647 to 651.
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you seen Christa Schroeder's original copy of that
20 book with the crossings out and heavy lines in the margin
21 and exclamation marks where she has dismissed most
22 robustly the statements she is alleged to have made?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is much too sweeping, Mr Irving.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, the answer is no, is it?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I am trying to give you an answer, if you will let me.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, wait for it.
. P-142
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: So many of your questions do require a lengthy answer. It
2 is on page 649 that I describe the critical addition in
3 1985, where Frau Schroeder tells the Editor, Anton
4 Joachimstahler, the exact nature of the book produced by
5 Zoller, which leads to conclusions about 160-70 pages
6 originated by Frau Schroeder, although some of those are
7 distorted or amended more, in a greater or lesser vein, by
8 Zoller.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can you, in that circumstance, attach any value whatever
10 to the Zoller book?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, of course, yes.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can you show straightaway what was said by her and what
13 has been said by Schroeder?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is a complex -- well, because we know in her copy the
15 pages she has crossed out were not by her, so at least we
16 have got rid of those extra 70 odd pages which do not
17 originate from Frau Schroeder. Frau Schroeder was asked
18 with reference to or in the course of the preparation of
19 the 1985 edition about these amendments in the pages she
20 did write, and she said that she did not doubt the truth
21 of the statements in the least, only that they were
22 polemically distorted in some details and not represented
23 quite exactly. That is rather a convoluted way of saying
24 that they are basically her words, but slightly altered in
25 some cases or given a slight spin.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: Was this book published after her death?
. P-143
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, seems to have been. As you know, books are prepared
2 a long time in advance of their publication. She died in
3 1984 and the book was published in 1985. You have argued
4 with reference to some of your books that you wrote them
5 four or five or six years before they were published.
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: If Christa Schroeder had any reason whatsoever to be
7 disgruntled with what I wrote or to dispute what I wrote
8 in my various biographies, why would she have continued an
9 amicable correspondence with me until the very last weeks
10 of her life?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Let me try to find it.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Which has been in discovery throughout this action. Every
13 single letter she wrote me has been in discovery.
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right, yes. We have looked at some of them.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 647.
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. There she says, that she regretted this and once
17 rashly put a part of my, I guess, letters at David
18 Irving's disposal. "I passed on (parroted) the judgments
19 expressed therein from Hitler's conversations, for
20 instance about the Russian mentality. Today I am
21 horrified about these views thoughtlessly taken from
22 Hitler".
23 MR IRVING: It is true that she wrote these letters to a woman
24 friend. She had a woman friend living in Switzerland, and
25 that she had written some pretty harsh judgments on other
26 peoples in those letters, and that is what she regretted
. P-144
1 I had access to.
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: In the later years of her life. In other words, she seems
3 to have changed her mind somewhat about many issues.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: As people frequently do when they give their most intimate
5 papers to a writer and it is then used in a book.
6 Sometimes they have second thoughts.
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, that is I think probably the explanation of why
8 towards the end of her life she said to Gita Sereny, of
9 course Hitler knew, not only knew, it was all his ideas,
10 his orders, whereas she did not say that to you many years
11 earlier.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you any indication of the relationship that existed
13 between Gita Sereny and Christa Schroeder, whether they
14 were on an amicable basis or whether in fact there was the
15 utmost hostility between them from the start to the
16 finish?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not, no. I do not see how that affects this at all.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It affects it in this way, and I am not quite
20 clear what Mr Irving's case is on this. If the contention
21 is that Gita Sereny invented effectively everything that
22 Christa Schroeder said ----
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It appears to be that.
24 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: -- and, when asked for some note or tape recording, said,
25 oh well, there is not any record at all of my interview,
26 then I think that should be put. Is that your case,
. P-145
1 Mr Irving?
2 MR IRVING: That is, coupled with the fact that the book was
3 published posthumously, the Christa Schroeder book, and
4 the fact these statements by Gita Sereny have surfaced
5 more recently still. Can I ask this question? Is it
6 known to you that Gita Sereny had to withdraw statements
7 that she made in her famous attack on my book in a letter
8 pushed in the Sunday Times?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: We could have a look at that. I think it is in discovery
10 and we can see which ones. I do not think she withdrew
11 this.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is it a fact ----
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Of course I go back to the fact that the book was
14 published very shortly, the edition of the memoirs was
15 published very shortly after Christa Schroeder's death,
16 and that the editor clearly had the collaboration of Frau
17 Schroeder in preparing the edition, as he says in the
18 preface. I do not accept your view, because I think it is
19 your view, that Gita Sereny made all this up.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I get back to my question, which is this? Given that
21 Gita Sereny in an article in the Sunday Times also claimed
22 to have interviewed Dr. Frohlich, and quoted Dr Frohlich
23 in quotation remarks and saying various very disreputable
24 things about me, and that two weeks later Gita Sereny had
25 to publish a letter in the Sunday Times admitting that
26 this was totally untrue, is she a reliable source, in your
. P-146
1 view?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Could we have a look at the letter, please?
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: It has been in discovery throughout.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: There is a problem, Mr Irving. I am
5 reluctant to press you to chase up every document for
6 which Professor Evans asks, and frankly I think we can
7 forget about the Frohlich one. But, if you are saying
8 that there are documents emanating from Christa Schroeder
9 protesting about Gita Sereny, then I think those, at some
10 stage I would like to see them.
11 MR IRVING: My Lord, I have a note of both Christa Schroeder's
12 name and Sereny's name.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I know it is difficult for you on the hoof
14 but can you bear that in mind.
15 MR IRVING: It is important. I have one more question on this
16 particular matter. Christa Schroeder, through the Albert
17 Soller book, apparently makes a statement incriminating
18 Adolf Hitler in the Final Solution, upon which reliance
19 has been placed by people like Gita Sereny.
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Sorry, is that a question?
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am not quite sure what I am meant to ----
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you agree this is so?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I would have to see the documentation for that.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, in that case, let us move on to another name?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Obviously, you are suggesting that it derived from the
. P-147
1 bits of the book which were not written by Sereny but were
2 based on the interrogations of Heinrich Hofmann, the
3 photographer and Schaub, the side kick of Hitler.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: Then I will ask this further question. Have you seen, as
5 you say you have seen, all my memoranda on my interviews
6 with Christa Schroeder, which are in the Institute's
7 files?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you agree that I keep very clean records of all my
10 interviews with these people, the times, the dates,
11 exactly what they said, by numbered paragraphs and so on?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
13 Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you not seen in one of these memoranda that Christa
14 Schroeder specifically disavows that remark by Albert
15 Soller and says that she never said it?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I would want to see that but I can quite accept that she
17 might have said that, had it been derived from the other
18 material used in the Soller book, certainly, yes. I make
19 that quite clear, that the Soller book is a kind of hybrid
20 of interrogations of Hofmann, Schaub and the Schroeder
21 stuff, which is the majority of it.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you have another name?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, the famous incident recounted on pages 653 to 4, by
24 Sonnleithner and also by Lorenz.
25 MR IRVING: Sonnleithner replaced Walter Habel, did he not, for
26 a time as the liaison officer of the foreign minister to
. P-148
1 Adolf Hitler's staff?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, Foreign Ministry official, that is right. This is
3 quite a celebrated incident, so that is the last one, my
4 Lord.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much for doing that.
6 MR IRVING: Since we are on that Maidonek episode that
7 Sonnleithner relates here, is it not true that Ribbentrop,
8 when he also heard the reports about Maidonek, expressed
9 disbelief in September 1944?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. He is quoted in fact on the next page, 655, as
11 saying I did not know anything about the exterminations
12 until the Maidonek affair came out in 44.
13 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, and that he discussed it one morning with his son
14 Roland, did he not?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right, yes.
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: As Roland told me, he said his father had asked him and
17 shown him a copy of the Daily Mail reporting the Maidonek
18 episode.
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. I am trying to find where I deal with this. I think
20 it is earlier on.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: Does this not rather indicate that Ribbentrop was somewhat
22 in the dark until then?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This is dealt with.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: Either he did not know or he did not want to know what was
25 going on?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: On pages 478 to 496 of my report.
. P-149
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: This is Ribbentrop on Hitler's knowledge, is
2 that right, Professor?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right, my Lord.
4 MR IRVING: It is not really about this episode, is it?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am not quite sure what are you trying to ask.
6 MR IRVING: I am asking whether you have not heard that
7 Ribbentrop always maintained that the first he learned
8 about the atrocities was when the reports came through the
9 foreign press of Maidonek, the capture by the Russians of
10 the Maidonek camp.
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: In 1944 he says -- on page 491 -- that is what he
12 claimed, yes. Whether he is to be believed or not is
13 quite a different matter.
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you seen any evidence?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, the conversation with Horthy that we were discussing
16 this morning.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: We were discussing this morning, where Ribbentrop says,
18 "if you are not prepared to lock them up in concentration
19 camps the way we are demanding, then your only alternative
20 is going to be to shoot them". Right?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, he did not quite say that.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: That is what it boils down to, is it not?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, it is not.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: Ribbentrop is saying, either you do what we say or the
25 only other thing you could do is liquidate them, meaning
26 there is no choice.
. P-150
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: We had better look up exactly what he said.
2 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is that not the sense of what he is saying?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not accept your version of it. I think we need to be
4 exact here.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is the whole burden of what Hitler and Ribbentrop have
6 been saying to Horthy, you have a security problem, we are
7 worried that you are going to break out of the alliance?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Back to Horthy, no.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: The Jews are the biggest problem?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not think they said anything about a security
11 problem unless you can point me to it.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: I am going to produce those documents to the court when we
13 go back to the transcript. But is it not true?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The Reichs Foreign Minister replied that the Jews must
15 either be annihilated or taken to concentration camps.
16 There was no other way.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: That is right.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you give the reference for that?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Page 441, my Lord, of my report.
20 MR IRVING: Is Ribbentrop in effect saying you have to lock
21 them up as we demand because the only other thing you
22 could do is with them is to kill them?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, he is not.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: What is the difference?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: He is not saying, lock them up or we will kill them. He
26 is saying they must either be annihilated or taken to
. P-151
1 concentration camps.
2 Q. [Mr Irving]: Tell me the difference between those two statements.
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The first one, lock them up or we will kill them, says it
4 is putting primacy, the emphasis on locking them up. The
5 second one gives them two equal statuses and does not say
6 anything about what is happen to them in the concentration
7 camps. The words "lock them up" does not occur there.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is it not possible, lock them away, put them in
9 concentration camps?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, it does not occur, not in what he says.
11 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is this not a perfectly feasible and reasonable
12 explanation of the force that was applied to Horthy on
13 that day, saying in blunt terms: You are going to have
14 lock them away because, look, the only other thing you
15 could do is kill them?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Not at all. We are back on Horthy, all right. It is not
17 at all what he says. Let us go through this all over
18 again. Pages 441 to 442 of my report.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just a second.
20 MR IRVING: I do not think we need to go through it all again.
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Horthy says, "what should he with the Jews after he had
22 pretty well taken all means of living from them - he
23 surely couldn't beat them to death - The Reich Foreign
24 Minister replied that the Jews must either be annihilated
25 or taken to concentration camps. There was no other way."
26 Hitler then says yes, "Where the Jews are left
. P-152
1 to themselves, as for example i Poland, gruesome poverty
2 and degeneracy had ruled. They were just pure parasites.
3 One had fundamentally cleared up this state of affairs in
4 Poland. If the Jews there did not want to work, they were
5 shot. If they could not work, they had to perish. They
6 had to be treated like tuberculosis bacilli, from which a
7 healthy body could be infected. That was not cruel",
8 Hitler goes on, "if one remembered that even innocent
9 natural creatures like hares and deer had to be killed so
10 that no harm was caused. Why should one spare the beasts
11 who wanted to bring us Bolshevism any more? Nations who
12 did not rid themselves of Jews perished".
13 That seems to be extremely open about what is to
14 happen to the Jews whom Hitler and Ribbentrop want Horthy
15 to deliver from Hungary over to their tender mercies.
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: I must protest against this wasting of the time of the
17 court reading out time after time after time paragraphs
18 that we have already heard.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, that is simply not fair, is it?
20 We were on Ribbentrop's knowledge and you suggested that
21 the first he knew was ----
22 MR IRVING: A perfectly reasonable explanation.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: -- in 1944 when Maidonek surfaced, to which
24 the witness, as I recall, replied no, it was obvious to
25 Ribbentrop what was going on back in 1942 and he cited
26 Horthy. That was why it all arose.
. P-153
1 MR IRVING: I agree, and I put to him, not realising we were
2 letting ourselves in for another torrent of quotations
3 from his own report, page after page after page.
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is a quotation from Hitler, Mr Irving. I know you do
5 not want to hear Hitler saying the Jews have to be
6 killed. That is why you want to shut me up, is it not?
7 MR IRVING: A perfectly reasonable interpretation on the words
8 that were used by Hitler and Ribbentrop to Horthy, which
9 is to say, we are demanding you lock up all your Jews
10 because of the security threat, which I shall establish to
11 the court with the documents, and the only other thing you
12 could do is kill them. In other words, you have no choice
13 but to lock them up.
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think that is a perverted and distorted interpretation
15 which you are putting on this document in a completely
16 illegitimate way in order to try and bolster up your
17 totally untenable view that Hitler did not want the Jews
18 killed and did not know about it.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us move on.
20 MR IRVING: Professor Evans, we are thoroughly familiar with
21 the fact that you do not like me but there is no need to
22 keep on expressing it again and again and again.
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I have no personal feelings towards you one way or the
24 other, Mr Irving.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can we all perhaps calm it a little bit and
26 move on to the next topic. We have dealt with the
. P-154
1 Adjutants. What are you wanting to ask about now?
2 MR IRVING: We are dealing just with two tail end questions on
3 the Horthy business. At page 441, footnote 7, you say
4 that Paul Schmidt self serving memoirs are unreliable.
5 Are memoirs sometimes unreliable when you so choose?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I am not using them. It is just a little note.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The answer to that question must be yes.
8 What is the next question?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
10 MR IRVING: Thank you very much, my Lord.
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is not an important note.
12 MR IRVING: Is a historian who researches, unlike yourself,
13 both in the German but also in the Hungarian state files,
14 and who finds in Hungarian state files no explicit
15 reference to any discussion of killing at this Hitler
16 Horthy meeting entitled therefore to assume that this did
17 not bulk very large on that horizon?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No.
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: At page 451 you talk in paragraph 14 about the effect of
20 the bombing raids, in view of the fact that he had
21 dismissed them as unimportant, it is highly unlikely that
22 these bombing raids roused Hitler to an unprecedented
23 anti-Semitic fury. Are you an expert on the bombing war
24 as well then?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Mr Irving, I have already said that I have a general level
26 of expertise on the Third Reich and the Second World War,
. P-155
1 Nazism, and historiography. I am not a specific expert on
2 Auschwitz. I am not a specific expert on the bombing
3 war. You could have many different levels of expertise.
4 You could have someone who spends his whole life studying
5 the history of a single village in 20th century Germany.
6 If you want to know about the method of operation of gas
7 chambers in Auschwitz, you ask an expert on that. My
8 level of expertise is at a fairly general level. I have
9 made that quite clear.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: So the answer is no?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am not the world's greatest expert on every issue which
12 is discussed in these documents. I do not pretend to be.
13 Q. [Mr Irving]: The short answer is no. I do not mean that in any
14 derogatory sense.
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am sure you do mean it in a derogatory sense, Mr Irving.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Come on.
17 MR IRVING: When did the battle of the Ruhr start as it is
18 referred to----
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Let me just try and get across the point of what I am
20 saying.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: If you do not know, just say so.
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Mr Irving, this is not "Who wants to be a millionaire".
23 I am not going to stand here and be quizzed by you on
24 names, facts and dates.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Evans, come on.
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I want to try and explain what I put in my report.
. P-156
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: If I may say so, just confine yourself to a
2 brief answer to the specific point.
3 MR IRVING: Would you agree that the battle of the Ruhr started
4 around March 5th 1943, with a series of very heavy violent
5 air raids on the Ruhr, coupled with air raids on
6 Nuremberg, which is a city that the Nazis felt very fond
7 of, and that this battering of the German cities continued
8 throughout March and April 1943?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: This may very well have formed the back drop to the
11 conversation between Hitler and Horthy? You should not
12 therefore dismiss it in the way you do in paragraph 14.
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not dismiss it. It is Hitler who dismisses it.
14 He says the attacks themselves have been irritating but
15 wholly trivial: "Die Angriffe selbst seien zwar storend,
16 abere ganzlich belanglos".
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: If he refers in paragraph 17 to the effect of this bombing
18 war, we know what the effects are because we have seen the
19 photograph on women and children, then no doubt, although
20 he is trying to act to his foreign visitors there to say
21 this too we can take on the chin, in fact it is deeply
22 upsetting and grieving him?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I cannot see that it is, when he describes them as
24 irritating but wholly trivial.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, if I am meant to be following
26 this, I am afraid you have lost me completely.
. P-157
1 MR IRVING: Paragraph 17, my Lord, page 452.
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not see any mention there.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: What is the suggestion? That because of the
4 allied bombing raids Hitler was adopting a particular
5 policy towards the Hungarian Jews? That is an enquiry,
6 Mr Irving. I do not know what you are suggesting.
7 MR IRVING: For some reason the witness has put in his
8 paragraph 14 on page 451, he has dismissed the importance
9 of the bombing raids and Hitler's particular feelings
10 during the discussion with Horthy.
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, my Lord, this is a comment on the 1991 edition of
12 Hitler's War. In the 1977 edition Mr Irving tries to make
13 the Warsaw uprising as the trigger for Hitler's outburst
14 to Admiral Horthy, even though the uprising started after
15 they met. So he has withdrawn that in 1991. In 1991 he
16 says, "in Hitler's warning to Horthy that the "Jewish
17 Bolsheviks" would liquidate all Europe's intelligentsia,
18 we can identify the Katyn episode. That is a massacre of
19 Polish officers by Russians. A propaganda windfall about
20 which Goebbels had just telephoned him. Hitler warmly
21 approved Goebbels' suggestion that Katyn should be linked
22 in the public's mind with the Jewish question. But the
23 most persuasive argument used to reconcile Hitler with the
24 harsher treatment of the Jews was the bombing war from
25 documents and target maps found in crashed bombers he knew
26 that the British air crews were instructed to aim only at
. P-158
1 the residential areas, only one race murdered, he lectured
2 to quailing Horthy, and that was the Jews. It was they
3 who had provoked this war and given it its present
4 character against civilians, women and children." These
5 are wholly bogus claims by Mr Irving. The word Katyn is
6 not mentioned at all in the Horthy Ribbentrop Hitler
7 conversations.
8 MR IRVING: Would Hitler ----
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: "The source says that it is not that the British air crews
10 are instructed to aim only at the residential areas, but
11 to aim at them as well. Hitler describes these in the
12 conversations with Horthy, when he is describing these air
13 raids on Frankfurt, where the British bombers are
14 instructed to destroy residential areas as well as
15 industrial targets, Hitler says the attacks themselves
16 have been irritating but wholly trivial". Now, if Hitler
17 says that they are irritating but wholly trivial, it is
18 very unlikely that he is so worked up into a passion about
19 this that he indulges in an unusual outburst of
20 anti-Semitism. That is all.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you think Hitler was not worked up by the air raids
22 on the Ruhr, on Nuremberg and elsewhere? Have you ever
23 read Heiber's War Conferences, the verbatim stenographic
24 records?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The attacks themselves had been irritating but wholly
26 trivial.
. P-159
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I get a word in edgeways? You have just
2 had quoted to you, Mr Irving, what Hitler himself appears
3 to have said at the time so do you want really to pursue
4 this any further?
5 MR IRVING: They are trivial, yes.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do you want to pursue this any further?
7 MR IRVING: At the risk of being lectured for repetition the
8 fact that Adolf Hitler tells of visiting foreign
9 dignitaries, effectively these British air raids are
10 trivial, does not mean to say that he regarded them as
11 trivial. Any more than if Winston Churchill had said in
12 1940 to Roosevelt, these air raids on London are trivial
13 and Britain can take it.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Your suggestion is that Hitler was wanting to
15 take reprisals on the Hungarian Jews because he was
16 alarmed at the effect the allied bombing raids on Germany
17 were having?
18 MR IRVING: My Lord, it is not as simple as that.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: What is wrong with that?
20 MR IRVING: It was all in the background of his mind. He is
21 dealing with these Hungarians who are being obstreperous.
22 They are not towing the line in the way that he expects
23 all these visiting dignitaries to do to the Nazi dictator
24 so all these things were welling up within him. He knows
25 about Katyn. There is no question he knows about Katyn at
26 this time. Any suggestion to the contrary is rubbish. He
. P-160
1 know about the air raids. He has just taken a train right
2 across Germany and seen the devastation of the cities.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is why he talks about killing the
4 Hungarian Jews?
5 MR IRVING: I think that comes under the category of increasing
6 the climate of barbarism. It increases the atmosphere.
7 Things that would have been unthinkable in 1939 become
8 more thinkable and that is when you start talking
9 tougher. They are talking tough. They are saying, if you
10 do not want to lock them up, what alternative do you
11 have? You are either going to have to lock them up or you
12 are going to have to kill them, which means effectively
13 you can only lock them up.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is there any more on Horthy because I thought
15 we had dealt with Horthy this morning.
16 MR IRVING: No, we moved on from Horthy a long time ago.
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I did not take that as a question, my Lord, that I dispute
18 virtually everything Mr Irving has said.
19 MR IRVING: 453, Professor. You take it ill that I have left
20 out entirely the Hitler Antonescu conference?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, you do not leave it out entirely, Mr Irving.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: The second half of it?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, exactly.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. Should I have mentioned every single diplomatic
25 conference in which Hitler engaged during World War II?
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Obviously not.
. P-161
1 MR IRVING: Obviously not. That is exactly my answer.
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: But you do mention it.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: You accuse me of having left out the half that matters,
4 the second half.
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: Because it was in two halves, this conference, was it not?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right. Another two day meeting, 12th April, 13th
8 April 1943, just before Hitler met Horthy.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: Does this particular conference that you set out on page
10 453 add one iota to our knowledge of the whole problem?
11 Is not our aim always to try and simplify the issues
12 rather than just keep on repeating and repeating?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You discuss the 12th April meeting but you omit the 13th
14 April because here again is Hitler giving voice to extreme
15 anti-semitic sentiments.
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, big deal.
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I know you think it is not a big deal, Mr Irving. The
18 Fuhrer took the view that one must proceed against the
19 Jews, the more radically the better. The Fuhrer said he
20 would rather burn all his bridges behind him because the
21 Jewish hatred is so enormously great anyway.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: Does it add anything to our knowledge?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I think it does.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: Which word adds something to our knowledge?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think Hitler's anti-semitic statements here are another
26 example of his extreme anti-Semitism at this time, which
. P-162
1 was not a chance or temporary product, exceptional
2 product, of anger against bombing raids which he dismissed
3 as being trivial or against the Kateen massacre which you
4 do not mention in these contexts. These are just another
5 example of Hitler's extreme anti-semitism.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: If Mr Irving is right about the
7 Schlegelberger memorandum, he is talking about a problem
8 that he had already decided should be postponed until the
9 end of the war.
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. It does not look very much like that here, does it,
11 my Lord, since he is exerting enormous pressure on these
12 foreign governments to deliver up their Jews for
13 extermination.
14 MR IRVING: Or to lock them away? This is what the Horthy
15 conference is about, is it not?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is not about locking them away, Mr Irving. We have
17 been through this many times.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We have had that argument. Let us press on,
19 Mr Irving.
20 MR IRVING: Yes. But you said to deliver them up for
21 extermination, you have no evidence for the second half of
22 that phrase, do you?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is what happened, Mr Irving.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: So in other words, you are extrapolating backwards from
25 what allegedly happen to the intention of this conference?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: From what happened, and it seems a reasonable connection
. P-163
1 to make.
Section 164.2 to 179.6
2 Q. [Mr Irving]: My Lord, the next point is the deportation of the Jews
3 from Rome, and here again I am not sure whether I have to
4 attend to this or not. I am prepared to attend to this or
5 not. I am prepared to attend to it but I am not sure if
6 Mr Rampton ----
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: On Thursday I think you said that you were
8 wanting to because it was a completely false criticism.
9 MR IRVING: Obviously there are bits that I want to take out of
10 it but if I can just look at page 457, line 4, the
11 allegation or the comment is made that I omitted a
12 sentence from the 1991 edition of Hitler's War.
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: The SS liquidated them anyway, regardless of Hitler's
15 order.
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: Now, is the quality of information on the liquidation as
18 good as it is for the deportation as far as Hitler is
19 concerned?
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are going to have to just slightly set
21 the scene for me, Mr Irving. If we dart from one topic to
22 another, I have not spent 30 or 40 years on this, so can
23 you help me a little bit?
24 MR IRVING: I will do it in two lines rather than allow the
25 witness to do it in 25.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That was what I was inviting you to do.
. P-164
1 MR RAMPTON: I do believe that Mr Irving should stop being so
2 offensive. It does not improve the climate in court and
3 this is a distinguished scholar. He may not be an expert
4 on the Holocaust, and I really do think Mr Irving ought to
5 mind his tongue, if I may respectfully say so.
6 MR IRVING: I will do it in two lines then.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is a point to be heeded. I know
8 tempers run high and they inevitably do, but I think, if
9 one can try and keep it civil on all sides, that does
10 help.
11 MR IRVING: My Lord, with respect, for seven days and in 750
12 pages of this report, I have had to listen to the most
13 defamatory utterances poured over my head by witnesses who
14 speak in the knowledge that their remarks are privileged.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is why I said I understand that tempers
16 run high, but lack of civility is not the way to deal with
17 an attack of the kind that is mounted on you i Professor
18 Evans' report. That is all I was saying.
19 MR IRVING: I would hate to think that I had been uncivil on
20 any occasion in the previous seven days, my Lord.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us move on.
22 MR IRVING: Undeservedly uncivil, anyway.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You were going to tell me in two lines.
24 MR IRVING: In two lines as opposed to -- well, in two lines.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: A few lines. Do your best. I know you are
26 darting from one topic to another as well.
. P-165
1 MR IRVING: On October 6th 1943 the SS chief in Rome said we
2 have received orders to transfer 12,000 Jews from Rome to
3 northern Italy and liquidate them. This message went to
4 Ribbentrop, who dashed across to Hitler's headquarters and
5 back went the message from the Foreign Ministry down to
6 Rome, saying they are not to be liquidated they are to be
7 taken to Mauthausen and kept as hostages.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I know. I have read about it but now
9 you have reminded me, thank you very much.
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: My Lord that is Mr Irving's version.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Wait for the question?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I make it clear I do not accept it.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: What is the question?
14 MR IRVING: Professor Evans, which part of that statement do
15 you not accept?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, if I can just say that the actual context is that
17 the German military diplomatic representatives in Rome,
18 which had been occupied by the Germans, the local
19 representative there wanted to stop the Jews of Rome being
20 killed by proposing that they should be employed locally
21 as forced labour in military installations. Hitler
22 intervened via Ribbentrop to override them and ordered the
23 Jews to be taken off and murdered, which eventually they
24 were in Auschwitz. So that what Mr Irving is portraying
25 as an intervention by Hitler in order to save the Jews
26 was, when one looks at the documents and restores the bits
. P-166
1 which he suppressed, actually the opposite.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Does it depend a bit what is meant by taking
3 them to northern Italy and keeping them as hostages?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That does to some extent, my Lord, yes, but also
5 Mauthausen of course is notoriously a concentration camp
6 in a class of its own, where the purpose was essentially
7 to kill the inmates off by working them to death.
8 MR IRVING: How would you keep 12,000 just as hostages, if you
9 kill them off by working them to death?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Let us have a look at the document, shall we? We are
11 getting down to business here.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: You have none of these documents in your head, Professor?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I need ----
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you noticed that throughout this cross-examination I
15 have ----
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, that is unhelpful. If he does not
17 have it in his head, I, for one, would not criticise him
18 for a second.
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I want to be absolutely clear about what the documents
20 said, say, and we must look at them in order to do that
21 because your interpretations are so often wildly
22 implausible. The problem with that is that there seems to
23 be nowhere at this time where they could have been kept.
24 There is a not a concentration camp there.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mauthausen does not sound as if it is
26 northern Italy.
. P-167
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Mauthausen, no, it is...
2 Q. [Mr Irving]: It is in southern Germany?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes -- as it was at that time. So, talk of "Upper Italy"
4 seems to be camouflage language.
5 MR IRVING: Who was talking of "Upper Italy"? Hitler or the
6 SS?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Let us have a look.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: It was the SS, was it not? The SS said: "They are to be
9 taken to northern Italy and liquidated" which is quite
10 plain. They do not even use euphemisms, do they?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, that not quite true.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, "liquidated" does not appear to be a euphemism?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not think it is the SS who say that.
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: "Liquidiert"?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I do not think that is the SS. I think it is the
16 local consul in ----
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: Consul Eitl Moellhausen?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, it is the local Foreign Office official in Rome. It
19 is not the SS who say that.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. He says: "The SS have told us they are going to
21 take 12,000 Jews from Rome to northern Italy and liquidate
22 them"?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right, yes.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: And the message goes straight to Hitler's headquarters?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: An extremely tactless use of language by this man.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: No euphemisms, no "auswanderung", no "umsiedlung",
. P-168
1 nothing?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, but, of course, he was trying to stop this.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: What you cannot get around is the fact that the order
4 comes back after Ribbentrop goes to see Hitler saying,
5 "They are not to be liquidated. They are to be kept
6 alive as hostages in Mauthausen". It could not be more
7 specific?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: And all the other messages are irrelevant in that
10 connection?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I am sorry, that is not true at all. What you
12 suppress is the fact that the local officials wanted to
13 use them for, as it says, the telegram 201, "prefer to use
14 the able-bodied Jews of Rome for fortification work
15 here". So the local Foreign Office and military officials
16 are proposing two telegrams, in fact, that it would be
17 better business, says the other one, to use the Jews for
18 fortification work rather than bringing them to Upper
19 Italy where they are to be liquidated".
20 So, let us get this quite clear. We are not
21 talking about hostages in Upper Italy. I will read this
22 telegramme in full. "Obersturmbannfuhrer Kappler has
23 received orders to arrest the 8,000 Jews resident in Rome
24 and bring them to upper Italy where they are to be
25 liquidated ... (reading to the words)... Please advise
26 Moellhausen".
. P-169
1 Then another telegram, Field Marshal Kesselring
2 has asked Oberstrunbannfuhrer Kappler to postpone the plan
3 Juden Aktion for the time being, but if something has to
4 be done, he would "prefer to use the able-bodied Jews of
5 Rome for fortification work here".
6 So that is their proposal that they are making
7 to the authorities in Berlin, particularly to Ribbentrop,
8 and they, in other words, the idea, the notion of Upper
9 Italy, since there is nowhere they could be taken there,
10 is, I think, a euphemism for taking them off to somewhere
11 like Auschwitz ----
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I help to cut through this verbiage and ask you ----
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, that is unnecessarily offensive,
14 Mr Irving.
15 MR IRVING: Well, to cut through this particular line of
16 argument and say were the ----
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I know you want to cut through this particular line
18 of argument, Mr Irving, because you do not like it.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Please continue, Professor Evans?
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Thank you, my Lord. There is an additional document where
21 on, it says, the local officials in Rome get back the
22 message in answer to these telegrams on the basis of the
23 Fuhrer's instructions. The Fuhrer's instructions, "the
24 8,000 Jews resident in Rome are to be taken to Mauthausen
25 as hostages. The Heireich Foreign Minister asks you not
26 to interfere in any way with this affair but leave it to
. P-170
1 the SS. Please inform Ambassador Rahn".
2 Another, still a telegram, again the same thing,
3 taken to Rome -- taken to Mauthausen as hostages. The
4 Reich Foreign Minister requests that Moran and Moellhausen
5 be told under no circumstances to interfere in this affair
6 but rather to leave it to the SS from Sohn Leitner".
7 And a further or even tougher line, Foreign
8 Minister insists to his local officials that "you keep out
9 of all questions concerning Jews". The SS, they should be
10 the exclusive competence of the SS.
11 So what they are being told on Hitler's orders
12 is, "Stay out of it. Go away with your proposal that they
13 be used locally in Rome on building works." They are all
14 going to be taken off on Hitler's orders to Mauthausen.
15 Now, hostages, well, one has to look at what
16 went on in Mauthausen. This was, as I said, a
17 concentration camp in a class of its own in which murder,
18 mass murder by brutality and overwork and malnourishment
19 was the order of the day. It had an extremely high
20 mortality rate.
21 MR IRVING: What use is a dead hostage?
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: "Hostages" I think is a camouflage word again.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: Another euphemism, another camouflage word?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Indeed, yes.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: Goodness! They are more useful than aspirin, are they
26 not, these words?
. P-171
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Of course, taking them to Mauthausen was a euphemism and
2 in the end they were, in fact, taken to Auschwitz.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: I have been very reluctant ----
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: If you want to know what happened to hostages taken to
5 Mauthausen ----
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I take it piece by piece what you have been
7 saying ----
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Outline it on page ----
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let him complete this because once they have
10 got to Auschwitz, that is the end and then you can ask
11 questions.
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: If you want to know what happened to so-called "hostages"
13 taken to Mauthausen, I outline it ----
14 MR IRVING: In great detail?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: --- on page 476:
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: Why not read it all out and waste another 10 minutes?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 400 young men rounded up in the Jewish quarter in
18 Holland ----
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We have the reference. We have the
20 reference.
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: --- taken as "hostages" to Buchenwald and then 348 to
22 Mauthausen. Most, nearly all of them, apart from one,
23 were killed. That is that happens to hostages at
24 Mauthausen. As I said, these ones went to Auschwitz where
25 the vast majority were also killed. It is quite clear
26 this Hitler knew that would happen to them.
. P-172
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Now, that was a long answer and now,
2 Mr Irving, you have had the case spelled out, as it were
3 and ----
4 MR IRVING: And I have also read it and your Lordship has read
5 it and I do not think it really needed to be read out.
6 Still, here we go with some short questions and let us
7 have some short answers, please. Kesselring wanted to use
8 them for fortification work, is that right?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: Were they used for fortification work?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: So that was a rather needless detour in this particular
13 argument, was it not?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, absolutely not.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, Mr Irving, that will not do. We have to
16 tackle this point properly if it is going to be tackled at
17 all. As I understand what the witness is saying, he is
18 saying that, basically, those on the ground in Rome,
19 including Kesselring, wherever he may have been -- in
20 Italy?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: General.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, all basically wanted the Jews to stay in Rome?
23 MR IRVING: For whatever reason they wanted them kept alive.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: For whatever reason.
25 MR IRVING: They wanted them kept alive and not liquidated.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: One of the points he makes is that when it is
. P-173
1 sent up to Hitler, they do not remain in Rome as a result
2 of Hitler being consulted, they go north for whatever
3 fate. So Kesselring's attitude towards the Jews is
4 relevant, is it not? Can you not see why the Professor
5 says that?
6 MR IRVING: I see those telegrams in Rome as being purely
7 evidence that different people in Rome advance different,
8 all very plausible, reasons why these Jews should not be
9 rounded up and liquidated, which is what the SS wanted,
10 but they should be kept alive, and Kesselring, who was a
11 decent chap, said, "Well, I can use them for
12 fortifications, let us use them for that, let us put that
13 in the telegram" or whatever, and all of this, to all of
14 this, and I say this quite boldly knowing that it will
15 provoke the wrong reaction, I attach no significant
16 whatsoever and far less significance than the fact that
17 Ribbentrop took the message to Hitler, as we know from
18 Hitler's register, the register kept by Heinz Linge, of
19 the visits by Ribbentrop that day, and back came the
20 telegram from Hitler's headquarters, effectively, back to
21 Rome saying, "They are not to be liquidated. They are to
22 be taken to Mauthausen", and I rely on this, "as
23 hostages", and I emphasise hostages have, by their very
24 nature, to be kept alive, so whether or not Mauthausen was
25 a highly infectious place to be sent, or a place where
26 people died like flies, which is unfortunately true, is
. P-174
1 neither here nor there; what is significant is that the
2 message from Hitler to Ribbentrop clearly was, "See that
3 they are taken to Mauthausen and kept alive, we can use
4 them as hostages". I then also rely on the fact that,
5 notwithstanding that this very clear order is in the files
6 (which I understand the Defence have great problems with
7 because it is much better than this kind of memoir quality
8 of document that they rely upon) notwithstanding that,
9 these orders from Hitler are flagrantly violated and they
10 are taken off to Mauthausen, but 1,000 of them are rounded
11 up, 1035, or thereabouts, that is all they can get their
12 hands on, because in the meantime the local officials have
13 managed to let the Jews escape, and the 1,000 are taken
14 elsewhere and they are never seen again. They are taken
15 to Auschwitz or somewhere. This is another, to my mind,
16 highly significant fact that Hitler's orders have been
17 violated.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: If may say so, Mr Irving, that was not a
19 question, and I do not criticize you at all for that
20 because you have set out your case as clearly a Professor
21 Evans set out his case ----
22 MR IRVING: Now I will ask the Professor ----
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- and I do not personally see that there is
24 a great deal of need to amplify it by lot of
25 cross-examination because it all turns on the question
26 whether one takes at face value and literally the order
. P-175
1 that they are to be taken no Mauthausen as "hostages".
2 That is what it comes to.
3 MR IRVING: I will ask one supplementary question.
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: May I just comment on what Mr Irving said which included
5 several gross misrepresentations of the document ----
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Briefly.
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: --- so I am afraid I really do have to point this out.
8 The telegram giving Hitler's view did not say they are not
9 to be liquidated. That is a complete fabrication that has
10 emerged from Mr Irving here. The point is that the
11 original protest, as it were, from the local officials in
12 Rome are saying that the SS wants to liquidate them, and
13 what is Hitler's response? "Leave it up to the SS".
14 Finally, also, of course this is in mid October
15 1943 and Mr Irving has made it quite clear that from
16 October 1943 Hitler knew perfectly well that the
17 extermination of the Jews was taking place.
18 MR IRVING: He had no reason not to know is what I say, of
19 course.
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You actually have said that he did know.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But, Professor Evans, can I just ask you
22 this, I mean, if you look at the instructions that came
23 back from Hitler's headquarters, they do say in terms that
24 the Jews are to be taken to Mauthausen as hostages?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: And it is true it goes on to say, "Leave it to the SS".
. P-176
1 That does not mean leave it to the SS to decide what to do
2 with them, or would not appear so on the face of this
3 telegram. It means, "Leave the handling of the hostages
4 and the arrangements", I suppose, "for taking them north
5 to the SS". Is that not a fair reading of the reference
6 to the SS?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, my Lord, well, it is saying, the two telegrams
8 I quote are saying to the local officials: "Keep out of
9 it. Leave it to the SS", and the SS, of course, are the
10 instrument through which the Jews are being exterminated.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Who would have arranged for their transport
12 north -- the SS, presumably?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The SS, my Lord, yes. The message is quite clear: "No
14 local works, no use of labour. Just take them off and
15 kill them".
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I follow that point, yes.
17 MR IRVING: Are you familiar very briefly with the Otto
18 Brottigan diary of September 1941 where Hitler agrees to
19 the notion that the Jews should be held as hostages ----
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is September '41. This is October '43.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: Does Hitler frequently order Jews kept alive as hostages
22 in bulk, en masse?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: There are instances up until the American declaration of
24 war -- the declaration of war by Germany on America on the
25 11th December 1941 where Hitler does talk, in general
26 terms, about using Jews as hostages for the event of a
. P-177
1 World War. It seems to disappear after that. There are
2 some -- we have already discussed the rather odd idea of
3 keeping a small number of Jews with connections in America
4 in a special camp and keeping them alive. But this,
5 I think, I cannot conceive why these should be used as
6 hostages. It is simply one word. There is not
7 explanation of any larger policy, as you usually have when
8 hostages are discussed.
9 I think this is simply a little piece of
10 camouflage thrown in to try to appease the obviously
11 disquieted local officials in Rome where the situation is
12 extremely difficult, the Pope is threatening to
13 intervene. It is quite clear that the local Italian
14 population are extremely unhappy about the Jews being
15 taken away and doing their best, such as it was, to
16 protect them.
17 The members of the Foreign -- of the Embassy in
18 Rome were connected with the German opposition, which
19 eventually came out in 1944, the bomb plot. So it is a
20 very convoluted and difficult situation. It is not
21 surprising that they should want to sugar the pill a
22 little bit by describing them as "hostages".
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: We do have several SS documents from this episode, do we
24 not, a couple of documents?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is there any indication in any of the Himmler files or the
. P-178
1 SS files that this document from Hitler was regarded or
2 recognized as being camouflage, and that "Although Hitler
3 says, 'Send them to Mauthausen as hostages', we all know
4 what the old boy really wants" is not in any of the SS
5 files, is it?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No.
Section 179.7 to 225.22
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: I am going to move on now, my Lord, because otherwise we
8 are not going to cover the ground. Page 491, the last few
9 lines, please, of the main text. You say: "This last
10 mentioned claim is an obvious untruth. It is undermined
11 by Ribbentrop's knowledge of the activity and situation
12 reports of the Einsatzgruppen". Do you remember writing
13 that?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: What evidence do you have that Ribbentrop read or received
16 the SD Einsatzgruppen reports, the Einsatzgruppen reports?
17 The mere fact that they are in the Foreign Office files?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I am relying here on the two standards works on the
19 Foreign Office and the Jewish question of the Third Reich
20 by Professor Browning.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you aware that we heard Professor Donald Watt state
22 here in the witness box that there were hundreds of tonnes
23 of Foreign Office records?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: As I remember, Professor Cameron Watt said that he was not
25 really competent to judge on the nature of records during
26 the Second World War. His expertise covered the period
. P-179
1 1933 to '39.
2 Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you aware of any copies of these SD reports which have
3 Ribbentrop's big letter "R", his initial on them, to
4 indicate that he has read them?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I would have to check that up in the sources that I used
6 which make it clear that Ribbentrop knew of these things.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: In your opinion?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: In the opinion of Professor Browning whom you had ample
9 opportunity to question about the matter.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, but I am questioning you on your report. You say
11 there is ample evidence that Ribbentrop knew, and I am
12 asking you what the evidence is and your information is
13 second-hand, is that correct?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Indeed, yes. I rely o Professor Browning for that.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page 484 ----
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is not the only evidence, of course. There is also
17 the Horthy conversation with Ribbentrop which I have also
18 mentioned. Page 484?
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page 484, you write two-thirds of the way down: "Irving
20 is, of course, aware of this exchange which suppresses it
21 altogether". What proof do you have in writing that I am
22 aware of this exchange?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Because you used the Goebbels Nuremberg diary as a source.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: No, I did not.
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Right, then "Nuremberg, the last battle" ----
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: I have used one extract from the Gilbert book.
. P-180
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. That is note 27 on page 143 of "Nuremberg, the last
2 battle".
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: Which is one extract from the Gilbert book which is the
4 Julius Schreiber papers. Does that mean to say that
5 I have read the entire book?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: One would presume so, yes.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you aware that I had in fact Gilbert's original papers
8 when I wrote the Nuremberg book?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. So, in other words, you assume something there which
11 turns out not necessarily to be true?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, since you cite the book in your work, I assume you
13 have read it.
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, two lines from the bottom of that page you say,
15 "Ribbentrop writing under duress in allied
16 captivity" ----
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, you say that.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: --- do you accept that he was writing under duress?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Sorry, you say that. You say: "Special
20 circumstances ... (reading to the words) ... Ribbentrop
21 writing under duress in allied captivity" ----
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: But if you turn the page ----
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: --- "and facing an inevitable death sentence has to be
24 borne in mind". Well, he was in captivity, of course, and
25 he was facing a death sentence.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you familiar with the physical conditions that the
. P-181
1 prisoners lived in at Nuremberg?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: No table, no medication, no hygiene, no light, no
4 spectacles and all the rest of it?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, I am not sure I accept all of that.
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page 486: Hitler's last will and testament, or his
7 political testament. This is the one he dictated on the
8 last day of his life, is that right?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 486 -- 5 to 6.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: 5 to 6?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: We may have slightly different pagination here.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: I am looking just at the first two lines. My Lord, do you
13 have that?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The last five lines of page 485 and first two of ----
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Last five lines on page 485?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, the indented quotation, my Lord.
17 MR IRVING: I said page 486, the last...
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, the first two of page 486.
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: What do you think Hitler meant by the Jews "having to
20 atone for his guilt", "the Jew having to atone for his
21 guilt even if by more humane means than being burned alive
22 in air raids", and so on. What do you think he meant
23 by ----
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, let us read the quotation. "I also made it quite
25 plain that if the nations of Europe are going to be
26 regarded as mere shares to be bought and sold by those
. P-182
1 international conspirators in money and finance, then
2 Jewry, the race which is" -- sorry, "then, Jewry, the race
3 which is the real criminal in this murderous struggle will
4 be saddled with the responsibility. I further", says
5 Hitler, "left no one in doubt that this time millions of
6 Europe's Aryan peoples would not die of hunger, millions
7 of grown men would not suffer death, nor would hundreds
8 and thousands of women and children be allowed to be
9 burned and bombed to death in the towns without the real
10 criminal having to atone for his guilt", that is the Jew,
11 of course, "even if by more humane means". I assume there
12 he is saying it is not, I mean, it is not bombing and
13 burning to death in the towns or dying of hunger. It is
14 shooting and gassing.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: So you think that he is referring there to the Holocaust,
16 the Auschwitz, the gas chambers, the cyanide, the choking
17 to death, all the horrible things that have been
18 described?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Now, I am not saying I agree that it was humane; I am just
20 saying he thought it was humane, or appears to say so
21 here.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: Could it not equally ----
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: He was always, after all, and we have had several
24 quotations today, congratulating himself on how humane he
25 was towards the Jews.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: Does it not make for greater sense than this rather
. P-183
1 plausible suggestion that the Holocaust was humane which
2 is what you are proposing?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am not proposing it. It is Hitler who is proposing it.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: Which is what you are proposing is the meaning on this
5 word, to be assigned to this word, that what Hitler is
6 saying that, "We have had hundreds thousands, if not
7 millions, of people burned alive, women and children, in
8 our cities and we have just deported the Jews, booted them
9 out to Siberia", or wherever he thought they had gone, and
10 that is what he is referring to when he talks about them
11 having had to atone for their guilt by more humane means,
12 because the only other alternative is that you are
13 accepting that the Holocaust was more humane?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, that is not at all. That is another classic example
15 of the way you twist everything to your own polemical
16 purposes. I am not saying the Holocaust was more humane.
17 I am not making a judgment at all.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: Or being machine gunned into pits?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am simply quoting Hitler, and Hitler is saying that the
20 Jews will have to atone for what he regards as their crime
21 of having killed millions of Aryans through hunger,
22 burning alive and so on, they will have to atone for it by
23 more humane means which, I assume, he means, not explicit
24 about it at all, he means gassing, possibly shooting.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, the reason for that is, of course, you say there is
26 a connection between that and the memorandum submitted in
. P-184
1 July 1941 by Ralf Heinz Hupner who says, "Would it not be
2 more humane to find some rapidly working means of
3 disposing of the Jews rather than have them exposed to the
4 privations of the winter?"
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Where do I say that?
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: This is on page 486 -- I am sorry, 489.
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 9?
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you suggesting that the Hupner message was ever shown
11 to or read by Hitler? Was it not addressed to Adolf
12 Eichmann? Are you suggesting there is a direct causal
13 link between the Hupner message and the Hitler ----
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I am not.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: So just a bit of a smoke screen by you then?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, it is not a smoke screen. I am drawing attention to
17 the parallel there as ----
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: Or do you think ----
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: --- as evidence of a wider mind set.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: Or do you think that the reference to humanity or humane
21 is, in fact, an allusion to the blockade that we, Allies,
22 imposed on Germany in World War I and after World War I
23 which resulted in the deaths of large numbers of Germans?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I see no evidence of that in this statement by Hitler.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: 490, in paragraph 11, you cast doubt on the secretly
26 recorded conversation between Ribbentrop and a British
. P-185
1 officer?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: Paragraph 11 on page 490?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No. Where do I cast doubt on that?
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: 490?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Right, I have it, paragraph 11.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: "Irving claims he had a fund of collateral documentary
8 evidence"?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: And you then lament the fact that there is this secretly
11 recorded transcript which does not seem to have been
12 included in my list of documents, and so on?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. I am very cautious there -- conscious I might have
14 overlooked it, but it does not seem to be there.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: You are not familiar with the XP series of transcripts
16 which are in my files -- you accept that it is possible it
17 was in the documents?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, that is why I have phrased it cautiously there.
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page 491, paragraph 14, does that paragraph, far from
20 being contradictory, not actually confirm that Ribbentrop
21 asked Hitler and Hitler denied all knowledge and that was
22 the end of it? This is the Maidonek episode.
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, no, he is just saying he did not know anything about
24 it until the Maidonek affair. That is all it says.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: 493, paragraph 5.1.1. I just draw his Lordship's
26 attention to the fact the witness appears to be pleading
. P-186
1 innuendos of words there which is not part of his remit.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I will not pay any attention to that.
3 MR IRVING: Page 495, paragraph 5.1.5, if I can find it?
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, that simply says that he is going to
5 deal with the statistics and the numbers killed in the
6 raids on Dresden.
7 MR IRVING: Yes. You say that my number of deaths in Hamburg
8 of what I put at 48 -- did I say 48,000, 50,000?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 48, 50,000, yes.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: And you consider this number to be totally exaggerated and
11 perverse and another example of my manipulation and
12 distortion?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is not a very strong argument, but you do go for the
14 highest number available.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is the reason ----
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Which does not seem to have any basis and certainly is not
17 ----
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you not ----
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It certainly is not borne out by the local investigations.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you not repeatedly referred to the fact that I have
21 gone for these 50,000 figure in Hamburg and the high
22 figure in Dresden and Fortzheime and elsewhere as an
23 example of the distortions and false statistics that
24 I introduced?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think this is the only other mention of Hamburg, apart
26 from the brief discussion of your use of the exaggerated
. P-187
1 figure in the caption to an illustration in one of your
2 books.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you now back peddling on that because ----
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is not repeated.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you now back peddling on that because you have seen
6 the page from the strategic air offensive against Germany,
7 the official history which I have introduced in that
8 little bundle? My Lord, it is page 9 of the little
9 bundle, pages 8 and 9. Does footnote 1 say in regard to
10 the Hamburg air raid: "In addition, there were 2,000
11 missing. The total number of deaths was probably nearer
12 50,000 than 40,000"?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Sorry.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry, page?
15 MR IRVING: It is page 9 of the little bundle this morning, my
16 Lord.
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It does not say which raid this was.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: That is going to be your answer, is it?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I mean, I take it that is 43, yes. Well, what I
20 would say is that a responsible historian should in
21 reaching an estimation of the number of people killed in
22 bombing raid should look at all the available
23 investigations there have been.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you consider ----
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: And this is from 1961 which is relatively early after the
26 event and does not actually give any source, any German
. P-188
1 source, at all.
2 Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you consider ----
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The German investigations in Hamburg of the bombing deaths
4 came to a much lower figure.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you consider that Sir Charles Webster and Nobel
6 Franklin, the official historians who had the complete
7 captured German and British records at their disposal in
8 writing this multi-volume work, are reasonable historians
9 for another historian to use as a source?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, let me -- two points -- yes, but this is 1961. I
11 mean, there have been plenty of German investigations of
12 the Hamburg bombing raids since then which a responsible
13 historian would use. This is relatively early after the
14 event and it does not cite any German material here at
15 all.
16 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We are talking about Hamburg here, are we?
17 MR IRVING: Yes, we are talking about the 1943 raid on hamburg.
18 Are you aware that volume 4 of this work contains the
19 entire police president's report on the Hamburg air raid
20 as an appendix?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is not cited here in arriving at the numbers killed.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can you answer my question?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: So, in other words, it does have German documents as
25 source?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Not cited as a basis for the their estimation of 50,000.
. P-189
1 In fact, the figure they give is 42,600, whoever has
2 reported that. Again, there is no footnoted source for
3 that.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. Are you aware that ----
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: And their estimate of nearer 50,000 than 40,000 is very
6 much a guess, as the footnote makes quite clear.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: In 1961, of course, there were still the 50 year rule in
8 operation which prevented the official historians from
9 giving sources, is that correct?
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, knowing what the sources said?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, they certainly cite sources here.
12 MR IRVING: My Lord, you can take it from me that the official
13 historians in their volumes, the early volumes, unlike the
14 later volumes, never gave sources.
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: But the 50-year rule did not apply to German documents,
16 Mr Irving ----
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you ----
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: --- at all. It applied ----
19 Q. [Mr Irving]: Answer the question then. As an historian ----
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It applied to British documents.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: --- and as an expert witness before this court, no doubt
22 you have read ----
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: What I am saying is that they did not use German
24 documents.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: As an expert witness before this court, you have, no
26 doubt, read large numbers of the official histories. Do
. P-190
1 any of the official histories every provide any sourced
2 references up until the most recent official histories of
3 the intelligence service, and so on, which has changed the
4 pattern?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, well, I mean, that is as may be. The point I am
6 trying to make is that since 1961, whatever they had
7 available to them, and there have been numerous
8 investigations which a responsible historian would make
9 use of in arriving at an estimation of the numbers of dead
10 in the Hamburg bombing raid in 1943, investigations
11 carried out in Hamburg itself on the local Hamburg
12 records.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do we need to spend very long on Hamburg
14 because we are really in this case, I think, concerned
15 with Dresden.
16 MR IRVING: It is difficult; each time when I think I have
17 established a point to the court's satisfaction, we are
18 dragged back down into the morass again, into the swamps.
19 Strafing, page 500, I am at a loss here because there is
20 no TV set, television, in the courtroom today and I was
21 going to provide the court with ----
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You can do it at a later stage.
23 MR IRVING: At a later stage. It is a five minute segment ----
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Am I wrong in thinking -- I am trying to
25 remember -- have you cross-examined about Dresden
26 before ----
. P-191
1 MR IRVING: I have been cross-examined about Dresden.
2 MR RAMPTON: I cross-examined Mr Irving about the bombing
3 figures.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I had an idea he cross-examined one of
5 your witnesses about Dresden, but no?
6 MR RAMPTON: I do not think so, no.
7 MR IRVING: No. I have been cross-examined, but I have done no
8 cross-examination.
9 MR RAMPTON: On the bombing ----
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry, Mr Irving, I am wrong.
11 MR RAMPTON: It seemed the strafing to me was relatively
12 insignificant.
13 MR IRVING: On the question of strafing, and you have quoted a
14 book by Mr Gurtz Bergander quite frequently, have you not?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you aware that Gurtz Bergander is (or was at all
17 material times) a reporter for the German Government radio
18 station? Did Bergander interview any of the aircrew
19 members? If you do not know just say so. On page 500
20 roughly. If you do not know just say you do not know.
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I cannot remember, to be honest.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you read any of my notes on the interviews with the
23 British and American aircrew members?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: There is an awful lot of them, Mr Irving. I have
25 concentrated on what you published.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: But if you are trying to impugn the question whether the
. P-192
1 British or the Americans opened fire with their machine
2 guns during the raids, then this would be the kind of
3 place to look for the source, would it not?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, yes.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The British opened fire with machine guns,
6 did they?
7 MR IRVING: At night, yes, my Lord. It was just typical of the
8 useless exuberance. They would just poop off.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The relevance of that is what?
10 MR IRVING: Strafing, the allegation of ground strafing. It is
11 levelled more directly against the Americans during the
12 day-time raids.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is what I thought.
14 MR IRVING: Yes. Page 503.
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Sorry, I thought you said they did this during the day.
16 MR IRVING: Yes. Page 500?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Not at night.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page 503.
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: Paragraph 2: The witness here was a judge called Dr Wolf
21 Rektenwault, that is correct?
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: There is nothing about strafing by British
23 aeroplanes.
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is Americans.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is the Americans.
26 MR IRVING: It is left open as to whether it is the British or
. P-193
1 the Americans.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is not left open. It is just not
3 mentioned. It is the Americans.
4 MR IRVING: I would not have included that if I had thought it
5 was just limited to the Americans, my Lord. But what
6 I intend to do ----
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It says American fighters.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am mystified why we were strafing at all.
9 MR IRVING: Because I am accused of inventing it or having
10 adduced it without adequate evidence or the usual kind of
11 story, and what I have here is an American television film
12 on the Dresden raid in which that interviewed some of the
13 people involved.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: The point is that you have interviewed
15 American airmen who have said they did not strafe?
16 MR IRVING: I interviewed or corresponded with large numbers of
17 the American airmen and I read their Unit histories. It
18 is not a major point.
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Ah, yes, these are the members of the 20th Fighter Group.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: And other units.
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Who, in fact, were strafing i Prague, not in Dresden,
22 though you say it is Dresden.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, as there is no television here, unfortunately
24 I cannot show the film. So I am going to move on. Page
25 503.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: How would that help to say whether it was
. P-194
1 Dresden or Prague?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Because it is a misrepresentation by Mr Irving.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. How would a television film, Mr Irving,
4 help show whether wa Prague or Dresden?
5 MR IRVING: Survivors from the Dresden air raid describing to
6 American television cameras how these American planes came
7 up and down the meadows of the river, machine gunning the
8 people on the banks.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I see. That has nothing to do with your
10 interviews of airmen.
11 MR IRVING: I also have interviews with airmen, but it is not a
12 point to which I attach much weight as, for example, the
13 death roll in Dresden which I think the court is probably
14 more interested in.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I thought that was the real issue.
16 MR IRVING: Yes. In that case we will go straight to page 508
17 which takes us to the death roll in Dresden. Now the
18 allegation, if I may summarize it to the witness, is as
19 follows. I have given death figures ranging between
20 35,000 as the low limit and 250,000 as the high limit and
21 a probable figure of 135,000. Is that correct?
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Roughly speaking, yes.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes,. And you think that this was a perverse thing to
24 do, on the basis of the evidence before me at the time the
25 I wrote on each occasion?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, that is right. That is to say ti depends as much on
. P-195
1 how you do it as on the fact that you do it.
2 Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you first of all to document number 10 in the little
3 bundle?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Page 10.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page 10, yes. Is this a book issued or pages from a book
6 issued by the Press and Information Office of the German
7 Federal Republic, evidently in the 1950s?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: And does it have an ----
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The late to mid-50s.
11 Q. [Mr Irving]: --- introduction by the Federal Chancellor Dr Conrad
12 Ardenhau?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It does.
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: And page 11 shows his signature on the introduction?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: If you now go to page 13, does footnote No. 2 say: The
17 attack on the city on Dresden which was filled with
18 refugees on 13th February 1945 alone cost about 250,000
19 dead?
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I cannot find this.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have not got that.
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is page 12?
23 MR IRVING: It is page 12 or the paginated number is 154 and it
24 is footnote No. 2.
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: So, prima facie, or on the face of it we have a German
. P-196
1 government book with authority of the Chancellor himself
2 alleging that the city of Dresden was filled with refugees
3 and that there were 250,000 dead?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. This is Dr. Goebbels' figure of course which he put
5 out in propaganda, knowing full well it was not true and
6 was taken over.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: There is a distinction between Dr Ardenhau and
8 Dr Goebbels, is there not?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, clearly whoever did this has taken that on trust.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that what you relied on, Mr Irving? Is
11 that your case? That is where the figure of 250,000 came
12 from?
13 MR IRVING: My Lord, your Lordship surely does not accept that
14 that is the only source I would have used.
15 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No.
16 MR IRVING: I am talking about the upper end of the scale.
17 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am asking what your source for the figure
18 you at one time were ----
19 MR IRVING: There were very many figures for 250,000.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- favouring as 250,000. Are you saying
21 that this was at least one of the sources or not?
22 MR IRVING: One of the sources. I will now draw your
23 Lordship's attention to a document that the Defendants
24 have not been able to find, and it is in the
25 interrogations of two doctors Fersage and Heard, page 41.
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I think what I am saying about the Ardenhau figure, my
. P-197
1 Lord, is that this is I think simply taken over from the
2 Nazi propaganda ministry. There does not seem to have
3 been -- it is only in a footnote.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: How would ----
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It does not seem to rest on any very elaborate
6 investigation.
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. How would Mr Irving have known that it
8 was just taken from Goebbels?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I did not know that he relied on this.
10 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: No, well, he says he did.
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is fairly obvious that 250,000 is the figure that
12 Dr Goebbels gave.
13 Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Simply because he gave it?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. That is where it appears. This is relatively
15 shortly afterwards.
16 MR IRVING: Was not the figure that Dr Goebbels gave 102,040?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not think it was. Well, he used the figure --
18 2040 was the figure in Tages Befehl, daily order 47.
19 I think Goebbels blew this to up 250,000.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you now look at the document 41 in my little bundle,
21 please. This is the integration of the two doctors,
22 Versage and Heard. Dr Versage was formerlly a medical
23 officer and Dr Heard was a woman physician.
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
25 Q. [Mr Irving]: Information on bombing casualties: According to the
26 informants the total number of casualties in Germany due
. P-198
1 to bombing has been estimated between 3 and 4 million.
2 That is an exaggeration, is it not?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It looks like it, yes.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do they continue: The most badly damaged town, in their
5 opinion, is Dresden with an estimated casualty list of
6 250,000? Is that the same figure now?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is another exaggeration, as you would expect from
8 their previous estimate of 3 to 4 million.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: But it does not actually say in this report that is an
10 exaggeration, does it?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, it does not say that 3 to 4 million is an
12 exaggeration.
13 Q. [Mr Irving]: But it does state it as a fact that the estimated casualty
14 list in Dresden was 250,000?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, it does not state as a fact. It says it is in their
16 opinion. So it is a matter of opinion.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: The opinion is that was the most badly damaged town, that
18 was the opinion; not that the opinion was the death roll?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Again that is mere hearsay. There is no documentary
20 evidence they provide there.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: As a minor matter they also say that the city was filled
22 with refugees?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right, yes.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: So that is two documents that give this upper limit
25 figure?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, they are not, well, they are not. I mean they are not
. P-199
1 contemporary documents. Neither of them is a contemporary
2 document. This one is a mere matter of opinion by two
3 physicians. It does not even say where they are from. It
4 does not look to me as if they are actually Dresden
5 doctors at all. There is no evidence here that they were
6 even in Dresden. There is no documentary evidence as to
7 the basis of the rather kind of casual footnote in the
8 Ardenhau documents. So neither of these is really worth
9 very much at all.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: While we are still looking at the 250,000 figure, you do
11 accept of course that I have never, ever said that it was
12 250,000? I have said this was the upper limit that was
13 given, is that correct?
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Has anyone got the Corgi edition of
15 destruction of Dresden.
16 MR RAMPTON: No. I think we only have the most modern version
17 which is I forget ----
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Professor Evans obviously had it at one time.
19 MR RAMPTON: Yes, obviously, and so did his researchers, but
20 I cannot say where it is at the moment.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: We have probably got the relevant bit. What
22 we want is page 225.
23 MR IRVING: Of the Corgi edition.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.
25 MR RAMPTON: It is in L1, tab 3.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Plus perhaps the footnote.
. P-200
1 MR RAMPTON: Page.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: 225.
3 MR RAMPTON: That is the 1966 edition.
4 MR IRVING: You agree that all of these figures show I am just
5 saying that the upper him limit or the maximum was
6 250,000?
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: He is just having a look to remind himself.
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you read out the bit which refers to the
10 250,000?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: "Immediately after the war for sound political reasons,
12 the Russia occupation authorities broached an announcement
13 that the raids on Dresden had cost the lives of only
14 35,000 people, and the first postwar Lord Mayor of Dresden
15 supported them. In fact the documentation suggests very
16 strongly that the figure was certainly between a minimum
17 of 100,000 and a maximum 250,000. Hans Voight himself
18 estimated the final number would have been 135,000, but it
19 now appears that there were other officers working
20 parallel to his. On the registration of the victims, for
21 example, a police unit with an office just behind ... all
22 the evidence is that the figure was actually very much
23 higher." Then there are further estimates of 120, 150,
24 180, 220, 140, 202,040 and Goebbels' figure of 250,000.
25 MR IRVING: Do you accept that some of those figures are taken
26 dust jacket or blurb material which the author does not
. P-201
1 write?
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: This is from the text.
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This is in the text. I have just read the text of this.
4 MR IRVING: I am just looking at the quotations page 510 of the
5 expert report.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But we are looking at the Corgi edition.
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
8 MR IRVING: I have another five or ten more minutes of
9 cross-examination, but I want to make sure that Mr Rampton
10 has enough time for his re-examination.
11 MR RAMPTON: Yes, I will have plenty of time.
12 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not worry about that, because the
13 important thing is that you have put everything you want
14 to put, Mr Irving. That is the priority.
15 MR IRVING: I do not think I will be able to put everything
16 I want to put, but I am keeping it within bounds. Page
17 508, please. Now you say: "Irving has intimated", this
18 is paragraph
1 halfway down, "that he will contest in
19 court that estimates of", well, that I will maintain in
20 court that estimates of the casualties vary between 35,000
21 and 250,000?
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do agree that General Kurt Maynart, the City Commandant of
24 Dresden, and that Professor Fetcher, the head of Civil Air
25 Defence in Dresden, would have been in a position to
26 estimate the final death roll accurately from their
. P-202
1 positions respectively?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Not necessarily. We will have to look at it in a bit more
3 detail.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, just off the top of your head, if somebody is the
5 City Commandant or if somebody is the head of Civil Air
6 Defence, do you agree that on the face of it they are
7 likely to be in a good position to know what the final
8 death figure is likely to be?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: One has to know where they were and what they were doing
10 at this time.
11 Q. [Mr Irving]: Where they were, one was City Commandant and one was Head
12 of Air Defence, Civil Air Defence?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Let us accept that for the moment and let you get on to
14 the next question.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, the next question ----
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Accept that they might have been in a good position to
17 know.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: My Lord, at page 19 of the little bundle I have inserted
19 fresh copies of the Funfack letters. They have not
20 changed at all from the translations I provided before,
21 but just for the ease of this particular operation.
22 Professor Evans, you are familiar with the correspondence
23 that I had with a medical officer or a doctor called Max
24 Funfack in Dresden?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: You began quoting one letter he wrote me and then you
. P-203
1 stopped at a certain point, did you not?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Where is this?
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: On page 520.
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: You quoted the letter he wrote to me dated January 19th,
6 which ends: "Therefore, I can give no firm information
7 about the figure of the dead but only repeat what was
8 reported to me"?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: Then rather oddly you tell us what it was?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That comes several pages later. One has to ----
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: It is an odd place to break though, was it not?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It comes on page 533 where I quote that last sentence and
14 then go on, because that was necessary.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: The City Commandant, General Maynart, spoke on about 22nd
16 February 1945 of 140,000 dead.
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: That is the City Commandant?
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: How does 140,000 tally with the 135,000 figure that
21 I wrote in my book? Is it more or less or about the same?
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You know that. You do not have to ask me.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: You are an expert and I thought I would ask you for an
24 expert opinion?
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: You do not need to be an expert to see
26 whether one figure is the same as another.
. P-204
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: Professor Fetcher of the Civil Air Defence spoke of
2 180,000?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: But of course he then continues to say: "I have never
5 seen written evidence for this"?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right. He advises you to get in touch with him.
7 You could not with Fetcher of course but with Maynart.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: As you know, of course, I had met a man called Hans Voight
9 who had represented to me, and no doubt accurately, that
10 he was the head of the missing persons bureau in Dresden,
11 and that he had undertaken identification work on the
12 bodies for weeks afterwards?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right.
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: And that he thought the good figure, in his estimate,
15 would finally reach, the death figure would finally reach
16 135,000?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, that is somewhat disingenuous, the way you put it.
18 He says that he had been able to clear up the identity of
19 40,000 of the deed.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: But did he estimate the final figure what it was likely to
21 be?
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, he told you that he estimated it as 135,000, but
23 I do not think he is a particularly reliable witness here.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: But you like Walter Weidauer, do you not, who is the Mayor
25 of Dresden, this Communist Mayor who tore the heart out of
26 Dresden and tore the palaces down and all the churches
. P-205
1 and turned it into a socialist jewel?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I thought it was the British who destroyed the palaces.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: No. The main parts were left and the central opera and
4 all the rest were there waiting to be rebuilt?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Which they have been of course, starting with the
6 Communists who began rebuilding them. I do not think the
7 fact that someone is a communist totally disqualifies what
8 he has to say.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: Does the fact that Walter Weidauer on page 515of your
10 report described Hans Voight as being a virulent fascist,
11 does that qualify what he has to say?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It does seem that Voight was actually thrown out of the
13 GDR as a neo-faschist or a fascist. I would put more
14 credence in Voight's statement that the indices they had
15 drawn up of the dead reached the number of 40,000. That
16 seems to me to be more reliable than his then further
17 rather wild estimates of 135. He has no source at all for
18 the 135, whereas for his 40,000 he does. Of course when
19 Voight says that the Russians closed down his office and
20 struck off the first digit to arrive at their number of
21 35, I think that is just expressing Voight's resentment at
22 his treatment by the Russians and the East Germans.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you any evidence at all for this so-called treatment
24 and so-called throwing out of East Germany? Did the East
25 Germans normally throw people out of their country or did
26 they in fact build a wall and barbed wire minefields to
. P-206
1 stop people leaving?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That was in 1961.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: But you have no evidence at all for this alleged throwing
4 out of Voight?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am trying to find it. Well, it is Weidauer's
6 description of him.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: The one who calls him a virulent fascist?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you call people fascist in your time?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No actually, not unless I really thought they were. I do
11 not use it as a general term of abuse.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: At page 518 you use other words like ecstatic and mounting
13 excitement and breathlessly to describe the way that
14 I went about my research, is that right, frantic
15 marketing?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It appears to be, yes, particularly to the Provost of
17 Coventry Cathedral.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: On page 520 now, from the first sentence of the letter
19 dated January 19th, which you omit, is it not plain that
20 I did contact the Funfacks?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Point me to this, please.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: You said that I made no attempt to contact the Funfacks.
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Where is this?
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page 520. You have quoted part of that letter, but in
25 fact you have missed out the first sentence.
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 28th February, let us have a look.
. P-207
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: He writes to me and the first sentence is: "You were so
2 exceedingly kind as to send my wife a copy of your book
3 about the destruction of Dresden. The book has arrived
4 safely and we thank you very much."
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, so this is a letter from -- you had sent him the
6 book, yes.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: But then you had not actually ----
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: Why would I send Funfack a book if not to contact him?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is not really what I mean.
11 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is not it true that with 20-20 hindsight that we all now
12 have, thank God, although in some of us our eyesight is
13 failing, we can perceive where figures are accurate and
14 figures are not accurate?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Let me just deal with the previous point. You sent him a
16 book which is fine, but the point is that you do not, you
17 describe him in the book and he is replying to you here
18 really in relation to the book which you sent to him, you
19 are describing him as Dresden's Chief Medical Officer or
20 Deputy Chief Medical Officer, whereas he says he was not;
21 he was just a specialist in neurology. He says: "I have
22 only ever heard the numbers third hand", and you describe
23 him as being a kind of first-hand source. So he has a
24 number of objections in the letter to what you say in the
25 book.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: That is not the point.
. P-208
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: What I say here is on your rely to Funfack you had not in
2 fact tried to contact Funfack to establish whether these
3 things were true or not before you wrote the book.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: That is not what you write though, is it? In paragraph 5,
5 page 520, you say: "From his reply on 28th February to
6 Funfack's letter, it is clear that Irving had in fact made
7 no effort whatsoever to contact Funfack"?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, it is quite clear what that means from the context of
9 the previous quotation and description.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It depends what you mean by "had".
11 MR IRVING: Yes. Do you agree that Dr Funfack living, as he
12 did, behind Iron Curtain in one of the most Stalinist of
13 the Eastern European states, Eastern Germany, had every
14 good reason to be apprehensive when he was contacted by
15 somebody living in the West and sending him presents and
16 gifts and visiting him, and this is very evident indeed
17 from the reference he makes in the letters to me about how
18 he is doing everything now through the authorities, and
19 that he had exceedingly unpleasant visits from members of
20 the Ideological Committee of the City Commission and
21 things like that? Is it not quite plain that the
22 situation of terror they were living in?
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: He is actually suggesting that you contact the
24 authorities; not that you contact him through the
25 authorities but that you contact the authorities with
26 reference to getting further work. I do believe you
. P-209
1 yourself visited East Germany and visited Dresden under
2 the Communist regime.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: Did you, Professor, every have any contact yourself with
4 Soviet citizens or citizens living in the Soviet zone of
5 Germany at that time or thereabouts?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Not in 1965 when I was schoolboy, but certainly under the
7 GDR, yes, I was visitor on a number of occasions.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: It was a police state, was it not?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You may describe it as such, yes, it is true.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, did they have an organization known as the Stazi?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Indeed, yes.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Did they have large numbers of political prisoners in
13 their jails?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Substantial numbers, yes, that is true.
15 Q. [Mr Irving]: So that somebody receiving letters from Western Germany or
16 from England was, in fact he mentions in one of his
17 letters that it had a stamp on the outside and this kind
18 of thing; in other words, he is living in a state of ----
19 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: May I just ---
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: --- genteel terror, if I can put it like that?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: There is no doubt that correspondence was monitored by the
22 Stazi.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: So this is one very good reason that he would have for
24 denying that he had been anything at all in the Third
25 Reich, is it not?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Not really, no. I do not think there is any shame in
. P-210
1 being a medical officer in Dresden in the Third Reich. It
2 is not as if he was us a Obersturmbannfuhrer in the SS or
3 the concentration camp.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: Did you not read that inference into his second letter
5 where he explains the reason why he is wearing his uniform
6 in the photograph? You remember the famous photographs of
7 the mass relations and there he is in his uniform and he
8 takes great pains in his letter to me to explain that that
9 is the one occasion he wore the uniform because otherwise
10 he could not have got through the police cordons? Does
11 not that kind of thing in a letter written from East
12 Germany tell you anything?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It does not cast doubt on what he says, that he was never
14 the chief medical officer and that his knowledge was only
15 third hand.
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: His knowledge is direct from Klaus Maynart, is it not, the
17 City Commandant, and from the Chief of the Civil Air
18 Defence who stated their estimates to him and repeatedly
19 said afterwards: "We cannot believe these low figures we
20 are hearing about now." They expressed their astonishment
21 to him, did they not?
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, many people did, but there is no documentary evidence
23 there. The document we are dealing with is a forgery
24 which you knew to be a forgery and yet you present it to
25 the Provost of Coventry as genuine.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: When a writer is carrying out research on a subject like
. P-211
1 this and he establishes contact under difficult conditions
2 with sources as close to the facts as these sources
3 purport it or appear to be, is not perfectly proper and
4 the opposite of perverse for that writer to use the facts
5 and figures that he gives to them?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am sorry, I did not quite follow that question. It was
7 a bit convoluted.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: It is getting a bit late. We will move on.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are you talking about Funfack's own figures
10 or the figures he gives from ----
11 MR IRVING: Yes, precisely, the statements, the figure given to
12 him, the quality of the source.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Given to him by Maynart?
14 MR IRVING: Yes. It tallies closely with the figures given by
15 Voight at that time?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is just gossip and rumour.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page 544, paragraph 2 line 2, you refer to a letter to me
18 from a man called Sperling. Was Sperling an official of
19 the Federal German Statistical office?
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is that the German Government Ministry which is
22 responsible for keeping all census and statistical figures
23 relating to Germany?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is the West German office, yes, at that time.
25 Indeed.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: Did he write a letter in which he stated that immediately
. P-212
1 after the attack on Dresden the number of dead was
2 estimated by local authorities at 180,000 to 200,000?
3 Never mind about whether the figure is right or not, but
4 did he write that to me?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Is this in discovery?
6 Q. [Mr Irving]: It is on page -- you quote it on paragraph 544, your
7 paragraph 2.
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. I am not sure I have seen this letter.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, where else did you get it from?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This is quoting your version of it.
11 Q. [Mr Irving]: On microfilm which was in the discovery. It is over the
12 page, the footnote 151.
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
14 Q. [Mr Irving]: He wrote that letter to me before the book was published,
15 April 25th 1962?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: Information of that quality from that German Government
18 source, would you describe it as perverse for a historian
19 a writer to use that figure?
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Let us have a look at exactly what this says.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Who was Sperling?
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: He is an official of the Federal Ministry of Statistics.
23 MR IRVING: Statistics in Germany which keeps figures like
24 this.
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: In West Germany in the mid-1960s. The figures that
26 Mr Irving quotes in his very various works as having been
. P-213
1 given by Sperling seem to vary from one edition of the
2 book to another one: 180 to 20,000 in one, 120 to 150 in
3 another and then 120 to 150 again and then up to half a
4 million.
5 Q. [Mr Irving]: He quotes both those sets of figures, does he not, in his
6 letter, is that right?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Can we have a look at the letter?
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where is the letter? Can we dig it out?
9 MR IRVING: He quotes the letter actually in the book, in his
10 report.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: 147, note 147.
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, my Lord, I do not think it is.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that wrong?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 544.
15 MR IRVING: Page 544, paragraph 2. Unless they misquoted the
16 passage from the letter, that is the actual quotation in
17 quotation marks which gives both sets of figures.
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, to the microfilm.
19 MR IRVING: My Lord, I only have two more questions now and
20 then I am through.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I would quite like to find Dr Sperling's
22 letter.
23 MR RAMPTON: If your Lordship would like to see the document.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you have it available.
25 MR RAMPTON: It is page 15 of whatever this thing is that
26 I have here, tab 3 of L1. It is first of all in German.
. P-214
1 It is on pages 15 and 16 it is in German, and on pages 17
2 and 18 it is in English. I am afraid I cannot read either
3 of them.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: L1 tab 1?
5 MR RAMPTON: Tab 3 of page 15. The Professor has not got it.
6 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is this from Goring?
7 MR RAMPTON: No.
8 MR JUSTICE GRAY: L1 tab 3.
9 MR RAMPTON: Yes.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Pages 17 and 18.
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It is the blue numbers.
12 MR RAMPTON: The blue numbers on the bottom right-hand corner.
13 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Goring at the top of the page.
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I still do not have this.
15 MR RAMPTON: It is tab 2.
16 MR IRVING: My Lord, the translation appears to be on the
17 second and fourth pages.
18 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, page 18. It almost completely is
19 illegible.
20 MR IRVING: I have put a bracket in the margin next to the
21 paragraph I quoted and relied upon.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is more literal in the German.
23 MR IRVING: It is exactly the same as is quoted in the expert
24 report.
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, what does the last sentence in
26 that paragraph say?
. P-215
1 MR IRVING: On the expert report?
2 MR RAMPTON: No, in the letter.
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Dr Sperling's letter.
4 MR IRVING: My Lord, as a result of the shock, the offices ----
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think Dr Sperling comes up with a figure of
6 60,000.
7 MR IRVING: Yes.
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, but you say that it is 120 to 150, Mr Irving.
9 MR IRVING: "After weighing all democratic factors and
10 technical numeral inferences, most probability is attached
11 to a figure of 60,000 losses", yes. In West Germany at
12 that time the tendency was throughout to quote low figures
13 for air raids by the Allies, by the British on German
14 cities. This was a very, very clear tendency which
15 existed from the end of the war onwards. If I can draw
16 one very simple parallel here. When I visited Dresden in
17 1990 on February 13th to my astonishment the whole of the
18 city centre was turned into a huge funeral procession with
19 millions of candles descending on the city centre in
20 commemoration of the air raid. Something like that never,
21 ever happened in Western German. In Western German the
22 effect of Allied air raids on the cities was played down
23 for reasons of greater politics.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: So the government statistician is giving a
25 politically correct figure?
26 MR IRVING: My impression on the reason why he said, "We are
. P-216
1 inclined to play it down to 60,000", I weighted that in a
2 manner which arose from the fact that I was familiar with
3 the West German tendency to minimalize air raid
4 casualties?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I am sorry, he did not say "we are inclined to play it
6 down" or weighting it. He said: "After weighing up all
7 demographic factors and technical numeral inferences most
8 probability is attached to a figure of 60,000 losses",
9 which we know to be a very considerable exaggeration,
10 since the generally accepted agreed documented figure is
11 around 25,000 to 35,000.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Is 60,000 still within my bracket, if I can put it like
13 that, of 35,000 to 250,000?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That bracket, but of course in many places you say it is
15 between 100,000 and 250,000, in many editions of the book.
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: The final matter I want to deal with before turning you
17 over to Mr Rampton again with many thanks, is the
18 allegation that I sat on the information of the real
19 figures for six or seven weeks before turning them over in
20 the famous letter to The Times?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Where is this?
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: This is page 546 or thereabouts.
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure that is the right reference.
24 MR IRVING: Unless your Lordship has a better one?
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think there must be a better one.
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This is Schlussmeldung.
. P-217
1 MR IRVING: I if I can summarize in two lines again what
2 happened. Simultaneously the West German authorities and
3 the East German authorities provided me with high quality
4 documents, giving very specific figures, and the question
5 is: When did I receive these documents and when did
6 I make use of them?
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I remember the point, but I do not think
8 that is where it is dealt with i Professor Evans'
9 report.
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 547.
11 MR IRVING: Paragraph 3: "Simultaneously on 13th May the West
12 German archivist, Dr Brobart, drew my attention to the
13 discovery of a document that confirmed the authenticity of
14 the final report."
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: Right?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This gives a figure of predicted current death roll of
18 18,375, predicted figure, death roll of 25,000 and a
19 figure of 35,000 missing.
20 Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes.
21 MR JUSTICE GRAY: And the criticism is he top of 549.
22 MR IRVING: It gets very critical indeed on paragraph 7 on
23 548: "Irving was forced to make a humiliating climb
24 down".
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. That is not a criticism.
26 MR IRVING: The word "humiliating" seems slightly critical, my
. P-218
1 Lord. The allegation also that I disclosed none of my
2 correspondence with Corgi. But I am probably not going to
3 deal with that. I am just going to deal with the
4 allegation that I sat on things for weeks.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Put your question about that.
6 MR IRVING: Professor Evans, when were the two documents on the
7 basis of your expert report, the East German version and
8 the West German version, mailed to he me?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 13th May and you replied on 16th May.
10 Q. [Mr Irving]: Which document are you referring to?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The Dresden city archivist informed you of the existence
12 of the authentic final report of the Dresden authorities,
13 the police authorities, on the death roll on 5th April
14 1966, and you replied that you continued to believe in the
15 authority of the daily command signed by Grosse which gave
16 a figure of 200,000.
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I halt you there for a moment and ask, did they
18 actually send the document to me or did they just say:
19 "We have found a document"?
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Then they sent a document to you on 27th May asking for
21 your opinion.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: 27th May.
23 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: And the West Germans sent you a copy on 13th May. So you
24 had a copy in your hands by the time you replied to the
25 West German authorities on 16th May.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: So what did the West German send to me on May 13th, a
. P-219
1 letter saying: "We have found a document" or did they send
2 the document?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It confirms discovery, yes, they had ----
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: You appreciate the difference?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. I appreciate the difference. Yes. Giving a full
6 account of what was in the document.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: What do you mean by a "full account"?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, I summarize it on paragraph 3 in page 547. It seems
9 pretty full to me with the figures.
10 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Everybody knew what the Tagesbefehl was and
11 there are they saying that actually it says 35,000?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The final situation report, it says 25.
13 MR IRVING: So what do you say was in the letter from the West
14 German archivists, the first one 13th May? He drew my
15 attention to the discovery of a document, is that correct?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right. Then it goes on to summarise a letter in
17 the rest of that paragraph.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: I wrote back saying: "Please send me a copy of the
19 report", is that right?
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, and saying that you would give the facts on 16th May,
21 saying you realized the implications of the document and
22 you were going to give the facts fullest prominence in
23 England and Germany to counter what you now said was the
24 false impression given by the Tagesbefehl 47 which you
25 had said only a few weeks previously to the East Germans
26 you continued to believe in. "We have to delay
. P-220
1 announcement by about a month", you said, "on diplomatic
2 grounds" as the new edition of your book had appeared only
3 14 days earlier.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: Now, when did I receive the two reports, the one from East
5 Germany and the one from West Germany?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Well, you were aware of their contents by the time you
7 wrote back ----
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: Can you answer the question?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: --- on 16th May to the West German archives saying that
10 you were going to give the new figures their fullest
11 prominence.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Should I have just done that on the basis of that letter
13 or should I have asked to see the report first?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You clearly thought you were going to and you say you are
15 going to just delay the announcement by a month -- six
16 weeks is what you ----
17 Q. [Mr Irving]: Did I do the right thing which any normal historian would
18 do which is to say, "Please", as you have been doing for
19 the last eight days, "show me the document"?
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, you did not. You said you fully accepted it and you
21 were going to give the facts the fullest prominence in
22 England and Germany to counter the false impression given
23 by the earlier report.
24 Q. [Mr Irving]: And did I not say, "Please send me a copy of the
25 document"?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Or "Show me a copy of the letter". It does not make any
. P-221
1 difference to the fact you said you were going to give it
2 prominence without actually having seen the document.
3 Q. [Mr Irving]: If the Germans then sent me a copy of the document, can
4 you take it that I asked them to supply me with a copy of
5 the document?
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That does not alter the fact, Mr Irving, that you said you
7 were going to publicise the new, much smaller figures
8 without having seeing the document.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I wonder about this, Professor Evans. It
10 seems it me, in the overall scale of things, six weeks
11 does not seem a desperately long time, and then the
12 announcement was made, as Mr Irving says, in a rather
13 unusual way by means of a letter to The Times?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, it is not a major criticism, my Lord, at all.
15 MR IRVING: My Lord, it gets better, it gets better. (To the
16 witness): Can I ask you to turn to pages 44 and 45 of the
17 bundle, please? First of all, will you accept that I left
18 the United Kingdom on May 31st for a research trip on my
19 new book in the United States on May 31st 1966?
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. That is after you had written to the West German
21 archives saying that you fully realized the implications
22 of the document and were intending to give the facts the
23 fullest prominence in England and Germany to counter the
24 false impression given by the inflated and forged figures
25 that you had previously relied on.
26 Q. [Mr Irving]: As soon as I saw the document, that is obvious, is it not?
. P-222
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No.
2 Q. [Mr Irving]: How could I do this without ----
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You said you were going to do it.
4 Q. [Mr Irving]: How could I do this without seeing the document?
5 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is what you said. You said you were going to give
6 it. I am quoting your letter.
7 Q. [Mr Irving]: Page 44 of the bundle which is from my diaries. I always
8 knew these diaries would help me. June 16th 1966. An
9 appendix glued in on that page says: "Letters waiting for
10 me on my return from the United States", right?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
12 Q. [Mr Irving]: Apparently, I only had 23 letters. I get 170 a day now.
13 Does it say No. 22 and No. 23, the first one, a letter
14 from the Dresden City archives enclosing a photostat of a
15 document, and is the document described there the final
16 report?
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
18 Q. [Mr Irving]: No. 23, does it say: Letter from the German Federal
19 Archives, Koblenz, enclosing a photostat of the document,
20 the chief of the Ordnungs, Berlin?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
22 Q. [Mr Irving]: Does that therefore satisfy you that I did not receive
23 either of the two reports until June 16th 1966 when, by
24 coincidence they both came to me in the same post?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
26 MR JUSTICE GRAY: But you had already written to The Times.
. P-223
1 MR IRVING: No, sir.
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: He had already written to the West Germans, saying that he
3 was going to give the new figures prominence.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry, I thought both these pages were
5 for the same date. I see the next one is the 30th June.
6 MR IRVING: The next page is 30th June 1966. Is this a page
7 from my telephone log?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
9 Q. [Mr Irving]: Does it show me telephoning the correspondence editor of
10 The Times telephoning me at 5.45 p.m. to discuss the
11 letter that they have now received from me?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. This is all fine.
13 Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you consider that is a very serious delay between
14 June 16th, after arriving from the United States?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I do not think I say it is a serious delay, anyway, do I?
16 Q. [Mr Irving]: You said it was a six week ----
17 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. I say that in your letter on 16th May to the West
18 German Archives you say you are going to have to delay
19 your announcement that you accepted the new figure of
20 35,000 dead by about a month, and you wait six weeks. It
21 is not a major criticism at all. It is simply just
22 recounting the facts.
23 Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you not make a major criticism of the fact that for six
24 weeks apparently I did nothing and pondered what to do, on
25 your chronology?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No.
. P-224
1 Q. [Mr Irving]: And that your chronology was wrong?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No. It really it is not desperately important. The
3 important thing is, Mr Irving, having accepted these new
4 figures of 35,000, you then went back on them subsequently
5 and reprinted the phoney targets of Filzeem and Fierzig
6 and put your figures back up 100,000 to quarter of a
7 million.
8 Q. [Mr Irving]: You accept your chronology was wrong, is that correct?
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, I do not. I do not really see why we are discussing
10 this.
11 Q. [Mr Irving]: You accept that I did not get the reports until June 16th
12 and that I had my letter published by The Times already on
13 July 6th?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: You said that from the 16th May, when you were told the
15 West Germans that you were going to announce your
16 acceptance of the lower figures, you waited six weeks to
17 give them, but I do not regard that, to repeat myself, as
18 a major criticism. I am simply trying to say what
19 happened. I am trying to give an account of how you deal
20 with these matters. That is all.
21 Q. [Mr Irving]: Thank you very much, Professor Evans. I have no further
22 questions.
Part IV: Evans Reexamined by Rampton (225.23 to 237.8)
23 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well done, Mr Irving. You have completed
24 your cross-examination as you said you would. That does
25 raise a question of what we do about re-examination.
26 MR RAMPTON: It is really not going to be all that long.
. P-225
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not really want you to, if I may say so,
2 rush it.
3 MR RAMPTON: I have only got four things I want to ask.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that really all you are intending to ask?
5 MR RAMPTON: Yes. One of the things, I will tell your Lordship
6 now, I need not do in re-examination, because it is only,
7 as it often is in re-examination, a way of getting your
8 Lordship to look at some stuff which Mr Irving skipped
9 over in cross-examination. I will tell your Lordship what
10 it is. I am going to hand in a clip of documents taken
11 from the files. There was an argument about whether or
12 not Mr Irving was right to have accused the Allies of
13 inventing the gas chambers by way of propaganda. There is
14 very good evidence in the files that even by 1942 they had
15 information that it was going to happen or was happening.
16 I will just hand in the clip of documents, so it means
17 that I do not have to ask about it. The first part of the
18 clip relates to 1942 and the second part to 1943.
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where am I going to put this?
20 MR RAMPTON: Ah!
21 MS ROGERS: In accordance with the rationalisation of your
22 Lordship's files that your clerk very kindly helped with
23 ----
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Rationalization" is not a word I would use.
25 MS ROGERS: An attempt then, my Lord, on Friday with your
26 clerk, you should have a file L1, I hope, and tab 6 may be
. P-226
1 empty.
2 MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is.
3 MS ROGERS: If it is, I suggest it goes there and it will be
4 entered in the index accordingly.
5 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, I will be taken through this at
6 some stage, will I?
7 MR RAMPTON: Yes. We will show your Lordship exactly what it
8 says. They are in effect reports. One comes through
9 Geneva in 1942 from a man called Riegner through the
10 Jewish Congress, whatever it is, in Geneva.
11 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I remember that.
12 MR RAMPTON: There is another one that comes direct from Poland
13 in 1943. It is merely to deal with the question whether
14 the Brits invented the allegation. Plainly they did not.
15 The question whether they used it or not is really beside
16 the point.
17 I would like go to Reichskristallnacht, if
18 I may, Professor Evans, very briefly. It is a file called
19 L2, and I am in tab 1, I think. I need to start at page
20 9, which I think should be what Mr Irving calls the Hess
21 message of 2.56 on the morning of 10th November 1938.
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton]: The bottom right hand corner. If you want the passage in
24 your report, it is page 270 of the report.
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Thank you. That is what I was trying to find.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton]: You should not need that, I do not think. I hope not.
. P-227
1 You remember there was an argument between you and
2 Mr Irving about the meaning of this document?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton]: He contending not only that "gescheften" meant something
5 more than "shops", but the words "oder degleichen" should
6 be attached to the word "ranleg gungen". You remember
7 that?
8 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, that is right.
9 Q. [Mr Rampton]: You contend on the other hand that it means no more
10 burning of shops, or the like?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Exactly.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Arson against shops. Can you then turn to tab 2 in this
13 file?
14 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
15 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Which is the Nazi court report of 13th February 1939.
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Reproduced I think as a Nuremberg document, is it not?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is, yes.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Would you please turn to the third page where there seems
20 to be a record of messages sent during the night, the
21 Reichskristallnacht?
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Would you look at the third entry on that page?
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Indeed, yes.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Which is page 3, and tell us what it means? First of all,
26 give the time.
. P-228
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: This is a list -- well, the top says: "On 10th of 11th
2 1938 there went out".
3 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes.
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: And it comes down to this here a list, "2.56 a.m., the
5 circular of the staff of the deputy of the Fuhrer".
6 Q. [Mr Rampton]: That is Hess?
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is Hess, "that, which forbids arson on Jewish shops".
8 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Thank you. The words "Oder degleichen" seem to have been
9 omitted. Do you have a possible explanation and a
10 speculative explanation, as an historian, why the Nazi
11 Party court should not have bothered about those words?
12 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. Obviously, this is an abbreviated list with
13 abbreviated titles, and they did not think it was
14 important to put that on. It is quite clear what its
15 central thrust of this telegram.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton]: The reason why you said that it was confined in that way
17 to shops and the like and to arson was that there was a
18 fear that the German property would be injured by a fire
19 started ----
20 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Indeed.
21 Q. [Mr Rampton]: --- damage by a fire started in a Jewish shop?
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton]: And you said that reflected what Heydrich had said at 1.20
24 the same morning?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Can I take you back to that then which is pages 4 and 5?
. P-229
1 Here we better look at your report?
2 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Of tab?
3 Q. [Mr Rampton]: 4 and 5 of tab 1.
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Tab 1.
5 Q. [Mr Rampton]: That is for the German. We will look at the English
6 because it will be much quicker which is in your report at
7 page 263. What I suggest you do is put the two together.
8 That is what I am going to do.
9 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton]: It is the second page -- no, it is not, it is the first
11 page of the German, I think -- second page, page 5. This
12 is Heydrich's telegram or telex of 1.20 a.m.
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton]: On the same morning of 10th November 1938.
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Can you just on the left-hand column of the German there
17 are four (a), (b), (c), (d), yes?
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Is that what you have translated at the top of page 263 of
20 your report?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is indeed so. Yes.
22 Q. [Mr Rampton]: If we just read it (a), it says: "Only such measures may
23 be taken as do not involve any endangering of German life
24 or property (e.g. Synagogue fires only if there is no
25 danger of the fire spreading to the surrounding
26 buildings)", and so on and so forth?
. P-230
1 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Can we then just look because Mr Irving, I think ----
3 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure I have the point on that. How
4 does that help us to Heydrich's view about German
5 owned ----
6 MR RAMPTON: What Professor Evans said in ----
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- shops not to be set on fire?
8 MR RAMPTON: I am sorry.
9 MR JUSTICE GRAY: I just wondered how that cast any light on
10 the 2.56 message.
11 MR RAMPTON: Because that also is a prohibition against the
12 setting fire. It does not say any other kind of damage.
13 The setting fire to Jewish shops.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I see.
15 MR RAMPTON: This is synagogues: "synagogue fires only if
16 there is no danger of the fire spreading to the
17 surrounding buildings". Perhaps, my Lord, what one can --
18 I should not really give evidence, but it is an argument
19 rather than evidence -- assume is that since Heydrich had
20 spoken of synagogue fires at 1.20, Opdenhoff, Hess's man,
21 need only speak of shops at 2.56.
22 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I see.
23 MR RAMPTON: I do not know. The key word is obviously the
24 "arson" word. (To the witness): If you would just
25 glance at those four headings, Professor Evans ----
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
. P-231
1 Q. [Mr Rampton]: --- in the Heydrich telex and then please turn finally on
2 this topic to page 276 of Mr Irving's Goebbels book?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton]: At the bottom of the page we see this: "What of Himmler
5 and Hitler? Both were totally unaware of what Goebbels
6 had done until the synagogue next to Munich's Four Seasons
7 Hotel set on fire around 1 a.m. Heydrich, Himmler's
8 national chief of police, was relaxing down in the hotel
9 bar; he hurried up to Himmler's room, then telexed
10 instructions to all police authorities to restore law and
11 order, protect Jews and Jewish property, and halt any
12 ongoing incidents". I ask you this. Does that seem to
13 you a fair and accurate reproduction of the substance of
14 Heydrich's telex at 1.20 a.m.?
15 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, it does not, Mr Rampton.
16 Q. [Mr Rampton]: If you look over the page, you will see that the footnote
17 reference for 43 and I think it is on page 613 ----
18 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: 613, I have it.
19 Q. [Mr Rampton]: It must be a wrong reference.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, it is.
21 MR RAMPTON: It is a wrong reference.
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It should be 3051.
23 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes.
24 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: We went through this.
25 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes, we did, did we not. We have done the Heydrich
26 telex. I am just going to go back momentarily to the
. P-232
1 Hess's office telex at 2.56. That is further down page
2 277. At 2.56 a.m. you see that, the end of a line?
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. I just say that the wrong reference is obviously
4 just a slip of pen on Mr Irving's part.
5 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Mr Irving has accepted that and the right reference should
6 be ----
7 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The reference to Karl Wolff's evidence has nothing to do
8 with what is in the text. It is simply an additional
9 cross-reference.
10 Q. [Mr Rampton]: I understand that. That was my mistake, a slight
11 diversion. Can we go down about quarter of the way down
12 277?
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
14 Q. [Mr Rampton]: We have a sentence which begins towards the end of the
15 line at 2.56 am. Do you see that?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton]: At 2.56 a.m. Rudolf Hess's staff also began cabling,
18 telephoning, and radioing instructions to gauleiters and
19 police authorities around the nation to halt the
20 madness". Again, does that seem to you a fair and
21 accurate account of what was in that Opdenhof telegram?
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No. It is total and obviously deliberate perversion of
23 the contents of the telegram.
24 Q. [Mr Rampton]: If you would like to turn to page 613 to note 49?
25 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
26 Q. [Mr Rampton]: I can tell you that the reference is ND 3063-PS, which is
. P-233
1 in fact the Nazi party court report of 13th February 1939
2 we first looked at.
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Exactly right.
4 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Now, Professor, you will need a file called J1, tab 3,
5 page 13.
6 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes, I have it.
7 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Thank you very much. I just want to ask you, this is the
8 famous or infamous Hitler Himmler telephone log of 1st
9 December 1941?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
11 Q. [Mr Rampton]: You do not need your report for this at all. This is a
12 question of German language. Do you remember that
13 Mr Irving translated or transcribed this entry as (you
14 will forgive my German) Verwaltungs Fuhrer der SS Juden
15 zu bleiben, except he did not transcribe the first part?
16 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: That is right, Juden zu bleiben.
17 Q. [Mr Rampton]: If it had said Verwaltungs Fuhrer der SS Juden zu bleiben
18 in German, would it make any sense?
19 MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, he said it would not.
20 MR RAMPTON: He said that, did he?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No, it would not make any sense.
22 Q. [Mr Rampton]: The second question is a history question rather than a
23 German question. As it stands in its correct form
24 Verwaltungs Fuhrer der SS haben zu bleiben, is it an entry
25 of any significance, historically?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: I suppose it might be, if you were writing a history of
. P-234
1 the Verwaltungs Fuhrer der SS.
2 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes.
3 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: But in the overall scheme of things it does not seem to me
4 of shattering importance. Juden zu bleiben, of course,
5 taken by itself, is not grammatically possible really.
6 Q. [Mr Rampton]: I suppose he might have just written down Verwaltungs
7 Fuhrer der SS as a sort of isolated, what Mr Irving calls
8 an orphan. It is difficult to see, I suppose, what it
9 might have meant, is it?
10 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: No. It just would have meant you can see plenty further
11 up there.
12 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes.
13 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Of just notes to himself really. But clearly it is the
14 indentation which is reproduced on the original, the next
15 page but not on this transcript on the second line, which
16 is the key.
17 MR RAMPTON: Yes, you made that point. Thank you. Finally
18 this, and I am afraid it is because it is late and it is
19 your last question, it is a little bit cheap. You
20 remember the dispute on page 400 of your report?
21 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
22 Q. [Mr Rampton]: About the way in which you translated in the third line
23 Dr Goebbels' diary entry of 27th March 1942, "in general
24 one may conclude that 60 per cent of them must be
25 liquidated". Do you remember that?
26 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes. That was today.
. P-235
1 Q. [Mr Rampton]: That was today. Can I just show you, to give you some
2 satisfaction to go back to Cambridge with, what we find in
3 Hitler's War 1991, page 464?
4 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: Yes.
5 Q. [Mr Rampton]: Right at the bottom of page, he says six lines up, have
6 you got it, "A barbaric indescribable method is being
7 employed here and there is not much left of the Jews
8 themselves. By and large you can probably conclude that
9 60 per cent of them have to be liquidated". Does that
10 seem to be a fair translation of the German?
11 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: It seems perfectly reasonable to me. Yes.
12 MR RAMPTON: My Lord, those are all the questions I have in
13 re-examination.
14 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Thank you very much, Professor Evans.
15 That is the end of your quite lengthy spell in the witness
16 box. We will resume on Wednesday at 10.30 with Longerich.
17 MR RAMPTON: Yes. If we finish this file tonight, I assume
18 your Lordship will not want it until tomorrow morning
19 anyway. We will send it over to your Lordship's room.
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, as early as convenient.
21 MR RAMPTON: As early as possible.
22 A. [Professor Richard John Evans]: The thing is we will not be able to do it late tonight
23 because the courts are not accessible.
24 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I see. What about this recent bundle of
25 Mr Irving's? It is called Claimant bundle G.
26 MS ROGERS: J2.
. P-236
1 MR JUSTICE GRAY: J2.
2 MS ROGERS: Tab 9 is empty, if not tab 10. I would like to
3 know which, if that is possible.
4 MR JUSTICE GRAY: Tab 9 has something in it, so tab 10.
5 MS ROGERS: Tab 10.
6 < (The witness withdrew).
7 MR JUSTICE GRAY: 10.30 on Wednesday.
8 (The court adjourned until Wednesday, 24th February 2000)
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. P-237