Day 25 Transcript: Holocaust Denial on Trial

Part I: Initial Proceedings (1.1 to 4.14)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE 1996 I. No. 113 QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London Thursday, 24th February 2000 Before: MR JUSTICE GRAY B E T W E E N: DAVID JOHN CAWDELL IRVING Claimant -and- (1) PENGUIN BOOKS LIMITED (2) DEBORAH E.

LIPSTADT Defendants The Claimant appeared in person MR RICHARD RAMPTON Q.C. (instructed by Messrs Davenport Lyons and Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of the First and Second Defendants MISS HEATHER ROGERS (instructed by Davenport Lyons) appeared on behalf of the First Defendant Penguin Books Limited MR ANTHONY JULIUS (of Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of the Second Defendant Deborah Lipstadt (Transcribed from the stenographic notes of Harry Counsell & Company, Clifford’s

Inn, Fetter Lane, London EC4 Telephone: 020-7242-9346) (This transcript is not to be reproduced without the written permission of Harry Counsell & Company) PROCEEDINGS – DAY TWENTY-FIVE

<Day 25. (10.00 a.m.) < DR LONGERICH, recalled. < Cross-Examined by Mr Irving, continued. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving? MR IRVING: May it please the court. My Lord, you requested yesterday that I should state my position on the Einsatzgruppen and I place before your Lordship a two-page summary of my position. I do not know whether your Lordship wishes to address it now? I gave a copy to Mr Rampton.

If Mr Rampton wishes to address it now, then I would be perfectly happy to discuss with him. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think it is sensible to have a look at it now because it just could affect some of the cross-examination later today. (Pause for reading) I am bound to say that I think that differs very, very substantially from the position that you seem to have adopted in your cross-examination by Mr Rampton. MR IRVING: Does it? In which respect?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It seems to me that this is a rather partial acknowledgment of Hitler’s knowledge and therefore responsibility for what went on in the Eastern territories. MR IRVING: Of course I did not mention the October 1943 watershed, that is true. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do not worry about that because you accepted

everything, as it were, after that. Mr Rampton? MR RAMPTON: I regard it as a fairly enormous step backwards. However, it does not trouble me in the very slightest, I have to say, because by a combination of the actual evidence of what was happening at the time and what Mr Irving said when first confronted with it, I am quite happy to leave that matter to be made by way of submission at the end of the case.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is right and it seemed to me that, when you were saying you might have to recall Browning and so on, I do not think that is right. MR RAMPTON: No, it was off the cuff and it was not meant interrorem, but it was a thought that occurred to me. I think actually, having regard to this, that this is so inconsistent, in my submission, with what was first said in cross-examination, that I am happy to leave it like that.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think it is a matter for comment later on. Mr Irving, that must be right. To the extent that there is a difference between the position you took in cross-examination and this document, then Mr Rampton obviously must be entitled to make whatever comment he thinks fit. MR IRVING: Or indeed to cross-examine me further on that document. MR JUSTICE GRAY: He may want to do that, I do not know.

Probably not I guess. Anyway, I have that now. Again I think it is sensible to try to work out where it should go. I think probably it goes in — this is really for the transcript so that everybody knows where it is — MR IRVING: L, was it not? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I was thinking more, because in a way it is statement of your case, I wonder whether it belongs in C or, indeed, in the pleadings. I think that is right. I will tuck it behind your defence in bundle A.

MR IRVING: Very well, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much for doing that anyway. When I say “defence”, I mean, of course, reply, tab 4. Yes. Is there anything else before you resume? MR IRVING: No, I can begin cross-examination.

Part II: David Irving’s Cross-Examination of Dr. Heinz Peter Longerich, continued (4.15 to 119.6)

Section 4.15 to 30.5

< Dr Peter Longerich, Recalled < Cross-examination by Mr Irving, continued. Q. [Mr Irving]: Dr Longerich, good morning. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Good morning. Q. [Mr Irving]: We touched yesterday briefly on the existence in the Institut fur Zeitgeschichte of manuscripts written by Karl Wolff. You said that it was of a confidential nature and that it was not open for general research. I stated that in my discovery there had been extracts or a transcript of part of that.

Can I ask you to look at the little bundle I just gave you? My Lord, this is on page 14 of the little bundle which is in sections.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is this a manuscript? Manuscript, Karl Wolff, I see. MR IRVING: Yes. If you go to page 16, which is the last page in that little clip, you will see a handwritten version of it. That is the original German. Page 14 is the original German transcript. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: May I ask, is this your transcript? Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, that is my handwriting. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: So I have to rely on Mr Irving’s summary? Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, extracts.

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I have to say I am not happy with that because, as we experienced yesterday, Mr Irving tends to shorten documents and I do not agree with him on the principles in the way he shortens documents. I am not very happy to comment on his transcripts or excerpts from documents. I would like to see the original. Q. [Mr Irving]: If you look at line 6, you will see that I have put three dots, and line 7 I have three dots.

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes, but I have not seen the original, so I cannot —- Q. [Mr Irving]: You stated, of course, that you were not permitted to see the original because it was a confidential document. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Still I would like to see the original. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I know what the problem is. Where is the original, Mr Irving? MR IRVING: It is in the Institut fur Zeitgeschichte in Munich.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: To which Mr Irving does not have access.

I take your point entirely, Dr Longerich, but shall we just see what the question is and see whether you can cope. If you do not feel you can —- MR IRVING: My position would be of course, my Lord, that this was the document that was before me when I was writing my book, this handwritten extract. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: But you were allowed to make photocopies from the document. I would really prefer to see a photocopy instead of your handwritten notes on the document.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Do you have a photocopy, Mr Irving? MR IRVING: No, my Lord. I was not allowed to make photocopies on this particular one. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Proceed fairly cautiously. What is the point? MR IRVING: If you will now look at the translation, which is on page 10, this is an explanation, is it not? It is an extract, first of all, from a confidential manuscript by Karl Wolff dated May 11th 1952, and he is referring to the effect on Himmler of the assassination of Heydrich.

In the second paragraph Wolff expresses the rather extraordinary view that perhaps 70 men all told from Himmler to Hoess were involved in the extermination of the Jews. Then there is something which I put in quotation marks. The inference is that it is actually words from the document: “Bormann and Himmler probably represented the view that the Jewish problem had to be dealt with

without Hitler getting his fingers dirty on it.” Then the next paragraph says: “After the mass epidemic at Auschwitz, the idea of deliberate mass deaths probably occurred.

Himmler was in his way bizarre and religious and held to the view that for the greatest war Lord and the greatest war of all times he had take upon himself tasks which had to be solved to put Hitler’s ideas into effect without engaging him”, that is Hitler personally —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I am sorry, I am going to interrupt you now. This is, it seems to me, of fairly central potential importance. MR IRVING: In two ways, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I did not know what it was going to say. It is wholly unsatisfactory, is it not, to have your manuscript rendition, if that is the right word, of parts of this document? Is there an insuperable problem about getting hold of a photocopy of it? MR IRVING: I will ask the Institute if they will provide me with a photocopy. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Or even the Defendants might get a more helpful reaction to a request for a photocopy of this document.

MR RAMPTON: We might, but I have to say this is a note of something that Karl Wolff, a high ranking SS officer close to Himmler and Hitler, said in 1952.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is potentially self-exculpatory, I can see that. MR RAMPTON: That is a comment that I would make about it. The reason I say that now is that I do not know that I believe that it is worth, frankly, our time and trouble going to get the original from Munich. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Can I make a comment here, or a question? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, please do. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: This is your interview with Karl Wolff? MR IRVING: Good Lord, no.

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: You referred yesterday to a confidential manuscript by Karl Wolff. This is not a part of the confidential manuscript. This is part of the collection of testimonies collected by the Institute in the 1950s. You can recognize it by these reference numbers shown in German. It is an open class. I think, if you phone the Institute, you can get a photocopy within three hours or so. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is what I would have thought.

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: It is open class. There is no need to rely on handwritten excerpts, anything of this kind. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: You see, I am a bit unhappy, I will be frank, Mr Irving, that there are dots immediately before and immediately after the passage that you rely on. MR IRVING: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think that is satisfactory and I think the witness is entitled to take the position,

“I am not prepared to comment unless I have the entire document in front of me”. Whether it has any weight or not is another matter. MR IRVING: The only weight that it might possibly have is of course that I relied heavily on my extracts from the Wolff manuscript in writing my books. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: This is not the Wolff manuscript. MR IRVING: Your Lordship will recognise passages from this manuscript as they are represented and summarized in the Hitler’s War.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: My response to that is whether an objective historian could and should have placed weight on this document must depend on the whole terms of it, not just on selective extracts. MR IRVING: Of course I saw the whole document when I sat there making the extracts. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Of course you did, but I think we need to see the whole document to see whether you should have attached the weight you say you did attach to it.

MR IRVING: I will try to obtain it, but of course I cannot obtain it today. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am wondering whether, if it really is a matter of three hours, and I do not see why it should not be, as Dr Longerich says, somebody could not perhaps even go and place a telephone call now. MR RAMPTON: The best person to do that is the gentleman in the

witness box. I may be speaking out of turn but I think he is the one that carries the clout so far as the Institute in Munich is concerned. It may be that one of my German researchers would be able to do it and see if we can get it before close of play today. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is what I was hoping. I will leave it to you. I think I am going to ask you to leave this document and come back to it. We will come back to it anyway but come back to it if we get the proper document.

MR RAMPTON: I am told that they do not feel they can do it. Could I have permission to speak to Dr Longerich about it at the adjournment? Maybe he can make a telephone call at lunch time. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, if it really cannot be done before then. MR RAMPTON: I am told, I do not know reasons are, that it would be difficult for anybody but him to do it. Perhaps I could be a little unorthodox and ask him now? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, why not? Do you mind, Mr Irving? It is a bit unorthodox.

MR RAMPTON: Could you make a telephone call at lunch time? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: If you give me a phone. MR RAMPTON: We will give you a phone. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes, sir. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: (After a pause) Sorry, is this a break? MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, it is not. Mr Irving, carry on.

MR IRVING: While you still have that bundle in front of you — my Lord, this is just by way of putting documents in — page 1 is a German document which is a conference dated August 6th 1942, on the face of it. Right? It is from an American microfilm T 501 which is the records of the military government, the generalgouvernenent. Is it a record of the conference of 6th August 1942, Dr Longerich?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Again, I have to say I got this document five minutes ago and I should really have the time to read it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us read it together. I am sure we will be able to manage. MR IRVING: My Lord, I am just really going to pay attention to the title of the document and in the most general terms. Is this a document relating to increasing air raid precaution measurements in the government general?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: The translation is guidelines for the building up of air raid defence in the area of the command of the military force in the generalgouvernement. That is the title. Q. [Mr Irving]: The remaining four pages just give guidelines for how to do this, to build air raid shelters because of the increased danger of British air attacks? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: It does not say British air attacks.

I think it could also refer to Soviet or American attacks but I just trust you that this is the case. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just so that I understand the relevance, this is back to Auschwitz?

MR IRVING: Back to Auschwitz, my Lord, yes, crematorium No. (ii). The next document I want you to look at briefly is on page 5. First of all, I draw your attention to the SS runes on the first line under be Abschrift. Do you have page 5? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: You see the SS runes after Reichsfuhrer SS? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: So this is probably a genuine wartime document? I have to put it like that.

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Probably. Q. [Mr Irving]: Are you familiar with this document, signed by the chief of the concentration camp system, Pohl? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I cannot recall the document. I am really curious to know from which archive the document is. I also have to say I did not have the time to read the document. So would you say where this document is from, from which archive you have that?

Q. [Mr Irving]: It has been provided to me by a lawyer in Dusseldorf who is heavily involved in wartime cases. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: So you cannot say from which archive. Q. [Mr Irving]: I will obtain it for the court. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: It is difficult for me to comment on the document if I do not know where the original is. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I see that. Was this in your discovery, Mr Irving?

MR IRVING: My Lord, no it was not. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I thought not. It is typical of last minute documents being provided to me by lawyers around the world and they know these things. If your Lordship has any objection, then I would not take it further. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I do not. I think this document is rather different from your manuscript and I think we will proceed cautiously, but for the moment let us assume it is authentic.

MR IRVING: If you just look at the first page of this document and run your eye over it, is Pohl sending a message to all the concentration camp commandants, 19 of them, saying: “It is time to stop the rough and ready measures with prisoners. We are losing them like flies. We need their manpower. Look after them better”? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Well, first of all, I have to express my reservations about this document. I do not know the context. I do not know the archive.

But on the assumption that this is an authentic document, yes, it is a letter to the 19 heads of the concentration camps, and obviously the document is saying that they have to improve their measures to keep prisoners alive, so which is a kind of reference to what happened in the camps before, I think. Q. [Mr Irving]: Indeed, and paragraph 5 of that first page says: “Not from any false sentimentality but because we need their arms and legs because those are helping the German people

to get to a great victory. That is why we have got to start paying attention to the welfare of the prisoners”? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. That is stated here in this document. Q. [Mr Irving]: Then the next page, page 2, the heading is, “Foodstuffs, food, feeding”? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I do not have the time to read now. Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, I am just asking you to look at the headings. That all we need, I think. Page 2 he is talking about the feeding.

The following page, paragraph 2, is called “Clothing”. Then down to the bottom of that page, “Natural Medications” or “Health” —- A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: — “stuff”.

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Well, I cannot, you know, I cannot read so fast but under “Clothing” it is stated here: “I decide that during the winter, as far as far as available, prisoners should wear coats, pullover, socks”, so that should give you an idea about the standards which actually existed in the concentration camps before this letter arrived, and it says, it says “as far as available”, so it does not actually say, “Give the men, you know, proper clothing”.

It is saying, you know, “You can give them socks if they are available and nothing more”. So I think this gives you a kind of an idea of this. Q. [Mr Irving]: Over the page, paragraph 4 is called “Avoiding unnecessary exertions”. For example, these frequent parades were they

were held standing for hours while they were counted zielappelle —- A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: — are to be kept as short as possible, and so on. In other words, there seems to be a reversal of existing policy because they are losing prisoners like flies to what I would call non-violent causes. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: That is your interpretation, yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, what is yours?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Well, they started in the concentration camps a programme which they called “extermination through work”. So they used hard labour as a tool, as a means to kill prisoners. This was the practice before. Now, at October ’43, it is not really surprising they are a bit cautious here and they are trying to improve as far as they can, trying to improve in some sense the general conditions of the prisoners.

But, of course, this is a document, I mean, this document is, of course, sent to the head of the concentration camps — nothing to do with the extermination camps, for instance. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I was going to ask you about that. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. So, as far as Auschwitz is concerned, it concerns the slave labours within the camp. It does not say anything about the people who were deported to the camp and selected in front of the camp.

If one, you know, if I have to — if I were in

the position to give you a kind of expert’s opinion on the condition in the concentration camps at the end of 1943, I would not completely rely on this document. It would be completely unprofessional to rely on this one document. One has to look, of course, at all kind of circumstances. One has to look at the death rates. They had statistics on the death rates and I had to look at those, and so on.

You know, the problem with this kind of document is that if you have not seen the file, in the file in the next bit you could find a document which says, “Well, I recall my order from last week”.

If you do not have the context, it is difficult to make, you know, a general statement as an historian about the condition in this camp, and whether they really, you know, in the way gave up this idea of extermination through work in the end of 1943 and how far they still carried on with this policy. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just ask you one question? You refer to the death rates and they were being reported, for example, from Auschwitz on a regular basis? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes.

Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Death rates of those in the camps? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: The inmates in the camps? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes, exactly. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Do you recall, in general, whether the death rate reduced around October 1943?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I cannot — I think I should not speculate. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: No. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I do not have the statistics here and I cannot answer. MR IRVING: You do actually because they are just in one of the other documents in the bundle, my Lord. We are coming to the death rates in a minute. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are we? Good. MR IRVING: Yes. Can I ask, if you have finished with your replies, Dr Longerich, now to look at the loose page No. 15?

This is from the same kind of source, is it not, the administration of the concentration camp system, dated December 28th 1942, and this is a letter addressed to the camp doctors of the concentration camps. Let me tell you where this comes from. It comes from a book called “Macht Ohne Moral”. It is, obviously, not a wartime transcript. It has been transcribed, presumably, from a microfilm or something.

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes, it is, I think somebody —- Q. [Mr Irving]: Typed a copy? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: — typed a copy, yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: But it is a letter written to the camp doctors of the concentration camps, including Auschwitz. That is the fifth one. Ravensbruck, Flosenburg and Nattsweileicken and I can see there Mauthausen at the end.

It is saying to them in the second sentence, is it not, well, it begins by saying, “I am attaching”, which is not attached here,

“a list of the current editions and departures in all the concentration camps for your attention. From the latter,, you can see that of 156,000 arrivals, around 70,000 have died”. He goes on to say: “This is completely unacceptable and the camp doctors have to stop their rough and ready measures and they have to start making sure the prisoners survive”. What would you make of that kind of document? Are there any other passages you want to read from that document or translate?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Well, it says here that one can read from the statistics that from 156 prisoners who came into the camp, 70,000 died, and with this kind of high death rates, one is not able to keep the number of prisoners on the same level. I think this is the main concern, to keep, because the people died in the concentration camps, it is not possible to keep, you know, to keep this number of prisoners in the camp.

This is nothing to do, of course, with extermination and gas chambers in Auschwitz. It is what happens in the camp. MR RAMPTON: Can I, perhaps, interrupt and ask Dr Longerich, not Mr Irving, Dr Longerich, to translate the rest of that paragraph when he has read it?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. “The concentration, the camp doctors have to make sure with all means at their disposal that the death rate in the single camps has to decline, not the one is the better doctor in the concentration camp who believes that

through unresponsible, that he has to”, well —- MR IRVING: “Inappropriate callousness”? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: “Inappropriate”. Q. [Mr Irving]: “Harshness” or “hardness”? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: “Harshness to, he has to…” MR RAMPTON: Maybe the lady translator can do it.

THE INTERPRETER: Yes. “Not he is the better physician or doctor in a concentration camp who believes that through inappropriate, that he has to stand out through inappropriate hardness, but he who achieves, he who maintains the ability to work in the various workplaces through supervision and exchange on a level as high as possible”?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes, and I think “exchange” is here the key word, so what they are trying to achieve is they are trying to keep a certain number of prisoners to use them as slave labours to work them to death, but, of course, unfortunately, they have too many people died in a too short time, so they have to make sure they got supply from outside. This is, I think it is quite, the reference is here, “exchange of prisoners”, yes?

It is not the duty of the doctors to, you know, keep the people, to keep the prisoners on life — alive, sorry, alive, so I think this is —- MR IRVING: Is this document declaring war on the callousness of the camp doctors? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I do not think they would be — just reminded them, the

document reminded them to perform their duties as concentration camp doctors, and it is quite clearly what their duties are. MR JUSTICE GRAY: What, to keep them alive? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Well, to maintain that always, you know, there is the same number of prisoners in the camp, yes? So to make sure that the effectiveness of a worker is, the effectiveness of the workforce is as high as possible by supervision and exchange of individual workers.

So his responsibility is to care for the entire camp population, but not for the single worker. He has to make sure that the individual workers are exchanges so that the number of workers in the camp is a kind of —- Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Well, that has nothing do with the doctors, has it, really? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Well, of course, the doctor has to — this is the prime responsibility of the doctor.

Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: No, I mean the exchange is not really the doctor’s responsibility? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: No, but he is part of this process. MR IRVING: Can I now, if Mr Rampton does not mind, translate the next sentence which is: “Camp doctors have more than hitherto to supervise the nourishment of the prisoners and to make suggestions for improvement in accordance, in conformity, with the administration of the camp commandants”. Then further down that paragraph, does it

not say, “The Reichsfuhrer SS”, that is Heinreich Himmler, “has ordered that the mortality rates are without question to be held down. They have got to be reduced”. So that is the overall tenor of this letter. The camp doctors are not doing their job properly. They have got to pay attention to the feeding and the health of the prisoners. Himmler is getting angry because they are losing so much of their valuable slave labour through whatever.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where do you get Himmler from? MR IRVING: The Reichsfuhrer SS. It is the last sentence but one, my Lord. The Reichsfuhrer SS es hat befuhlen? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: The bottom line for me is: “The programme to exterminate prisoners for work is going too fast. We have to make sure we did not kill too many in a short time”. I think this is the context of document.

MR IRVING: It is difficult at the last minute when documents are provided to me by lawyers around the world in doing these things. If your Lordship has any objection, then I would not take it further. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I do not. I think this document is rather different from your manuscript and I think we will proceed cautiously, but for the moment let us assume it is authentic.

MR IRVING: If you just look at the first page of this document and run your eye over it, is Pohl sending a message to all

the concentration camp commandants, 19 of them, saying: “It is time to stop the rough and ready measures with prisoners. We are losing them like flies. We need their manpower. Look after them better”? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Well, first of all, I have to express my reservations about this document. I do not know the context. I do not know the archive.

But on the assumption that this is an authentic document, yes, it is a letter to the 19 heads of the concentration camps, and obviously the document is saying that they have to improve their measures to keep prisoners alive, so which is a kind of reference to what happened in the camps before, I think. Q.

[Mr Irving]: Indeed, and paragraph 5 of that first page says: “Not from any false sentimentality but because we need their arms and legs because those are helping the German people to get to a great victory. That is why we have got to start paying attention to the welfare of the prisoners”? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. That is stated here in this document. Q. [Mr Irving]: Then the next page, page 2, the heading is, “Foodstuffs, food, feeding”?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I do not have the time to read now. Q. [Mr Irving]: Well, I am just asking you to look at the headings. That all we need, I think. Page 2 he is talking about the feeding. The following page, paragraph 2, is called “Clothing”. Then down to the bottom of that page, “Natural Medications” or “Health” —-

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: — “stuff”. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Well, I cannot, you know, I cannot read so fast but under “Clothing” it is stated here: “I decide that during the winter, as far as far as available, prisoners should wear coats, pullover, socks”, so that should give you an idea about the standards which actually existed in the concentration camps before this letter arrived, and it says, it says “as far as available”, so it does not

actually say, “Give the men, you know, proper clothing”. It is saying, you know, “You can give them socks if they are available and nothing more”. So I think this gives you a kind of an idea of this. Q. [Mr Irving]: Over the page, paragraph 4 is called “Avoiding unnecessary exertions”. For example, these frequent parades were they were held standing for hours while they were counted zielappelle —- A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes.

Q. [Mr Irving]: — are to be kept as short as possible, and so on. In other words, there seems to be a reversal of existing policy because they are losing prisoners like flies to what I would call non-violent causes. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: That is your interpretation, yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, what is yours? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Well, they started in the concentration camps a programme which they called “extermination through work”. So they

used hard labour as a tool, as a means to kill prisoners. This was the practice before. Now, at October ’43, it is not really surprising they are a bit cautious here and they are trying to improve as far as they can, trying to improve in some sense the general conditions of the prisoners. But, of course, this is a document, I mean, this document is, of course, sent to the head of the concentration camps — nothing to do with the extermination camps, for instance.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I was going to ask you about that. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. So, as far as Auschwitz is concerned, it concerns the slave labours within the camp. It does not say anything about the people who were deported to the camp and selected in front of the camp. If one, you know, if I have to — if I were in the position to give you a kind of expert’s opinion on the condition in the concentration camps at the end of 1943, I would not completely rely on this document.

It would be completely unprofessional to rely on this one document. One has to look, of course, at all kind of circumstances. One has to look at the death rates. They had statistics on the death rates and I had to look at those, and so on. You know, the problem with this kind of document is that if you have not seen the file, in the file in the next bit you could find a document which says, “Well, I recall my order from last week”. If you do not have the context, it

is difficult to make, you know, a general statement as an historian about the condition in this camp, and whether they really, you know, in the way gave up this idea of extermination through work in the end of 1943 and how far they still carried on with this policy. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just ask you one question? You refer to the death rates and they were being reported, for example, from Auschwitz on a regular basis? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes.

Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Death rates of those in the camps? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: The inmates in the camps? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes, exactly. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Do you recall, in general, whether the death rate reduced around October 1943? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I cannot — I think I should not speculate. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: No. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I do not have the statistics here and I cannot answer.

MR IRVING: You do actually because they are just in one of the other documents in the bundle, my Lord. We are coming to the death rates in a minute. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are we? Good. MR IRVING: Yes. Can I ask, if you have finished with your replies, Dr Longerich, now to look at the loose page No. 15? This is from the same kind of source, is it not, the administration of the concentration camp system, dated

December 28th 1942, and this is a letter addressed to the camp doctors of the concentration camps. Let me tell you where this comes from. It comes from a book called “Macht Ohne Moral”. It is, obviously, not a wartime transcript. It has been transcribed, presumably, from a microfilm or something. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes, it is, I think somebody —- Q. [Mr Irving]: Typed a copy? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: — typed a copy, yes.

Q. [Mr Irving]: But it is a letter written to the camp doctors of the concentration camps, including Auschwitz. That is the fifth one. Ravensbruck, Flosenburg and Nattsweileicken and I can see there Mauthausen at the end. It is saying to them in the second sentence, is it not, well, it begins by saying, “I am attaching”, which is not attached here, “a list of the current editions and departures in all the concentration camps for your attention.

From the latter,, you can see that of 156,000 arrivals, around 70,000 have died”. He goes on to say: “This is completely unacceptable and the camp doctors have to stop their rough and ready measures and they have to start making sure the prisoners survive”. What would you make of that kind of document? Are there any other passages you want to read from that document or translate?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Well, it says here that one can read from the statistics that from 156 prisoners who came into the camp, 70,000

died, and with this kind of high death rates, one is not able to keep the number of prisoners on the same level. I think this is the main concern, to keep, because the people died in the concentration camps, it is not possible to keep, you know, to keep this number of prisoners in the camp. This is nothing to do, of course, with extermination and gas chambers in Auschwitz. It is what happens in the camp.

MR RAMPTON: Can I, perhaps, interrupt and ask Dr Longerich, not Mr Irving, Dr Longerich, to translate the rest of that paragraph when he has read it?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. “The concentration, the camp doctors have to make sure with all means at their disposal that the death rate in the single camps has to decline, not the one is the better doctor in the concentration camp who believes that through unresponsible, that he has to”, well —- MR IRVING: “Inappropriate callousness”? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: “Inappropriate”. Q. [Mr Irving]: “Harshness” or “hardness”?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: “Harshness to, he has to…” MR RAMPTON: Maybe the lady translator can do it. THE INTERPRETER: Yes. “Not he is the better physician or doctor in a concentration camp who believes that through inappropriate, that he has to stand out through inappropriate hardness, but he who achieves, he who maintains the ability to work in the various workplaces

through supervision and exchange on a level as high as possible”? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes, and I think “exchange” is here the key word, so what they are trying to achieve is they are trying to keep a certain number of prisoners to use them as slave labours to work them to death, but, of course, unfortunately, they have too many people died in a too short time, so they have to make sure they got supply from outside.

This is, I think it is quite, the reference is here, “exchange of prisoners”, yes? It is not the duty of the doctors to, you know, keep the people, to keep the prisoners on life — alive, sorry, alive, so I think this is —- MR IRVING: Is this document declaring war on the callousness of the camp doctors?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I do not think they would be — just reminded them, the document reminded them to perform their duties as concentration camp doctors, and it is quite clearly what their duties are. MR JUSTICE GRAY: What, to keep them alive? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Well, to maintain that always, you know, there is the same number of prisoners in the camp, yes?

So to make sure that the effectiveness of a worker is, the effectiveness of the workforce is as high as possible by supervision and exchange of individual workers. So his responsibility is to care for the entire camp population, but not for the single worker. He has to make sure that the individual

workers are exchanges so that the number of workers in the camp is a kind of —- Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Well, that has nothing do with the doctors, has it, really? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Well, of course, the doctor has to — this is the prime responsibility of the doctor. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: No, I mean the exchange is not really the doctor’s responsibility? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: No, but he is part of this process.

MR IRVING: Can I now, if Mr Rampton does not mind, translate the next sentence which is: “Camp doctors have more than hitherto to supervise the nourishment of the prisoners and to make suggestions for improvement in accordance, in conformity, with the administration of the camp commandants”. Then further down that paragraph, does it not say, “The Reichsfuhrer SS”, that is Heinreich Himmler, “has ordered that the mortality rates are without question to be held down.

They have got to be reduced”. So that is the overall tenor of this letter. The camp doctors are not doing their job properly. They have got to pay attention to the feeding and the health of the prisoners. Himmler is getting angry because they are losing so much of their valuable slave labour through whatever. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where do you get Himmler from? MR IRVING: The Reichsfuhrer SS. It is the last sentence but

one, my Lord. The Reichsfuhrer SS es hat befuhlen. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: The bottom line for me is “The programme to exterminate prisoners for work is going too fast. We have to make sure that we do not kill too many in a short timeframe. I think this is the context of the document”.

Section 30.6 to 56.18

Q. [Mr Irving]: Dr Longerich, it does not actually say that in the document, does it? That is the spin you have put on it.

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: No, but again, you know, if you ask me as an expert and you just put one document in front of me, I have to say that you have to see it in the context of the history of the concentration camps, and it is not the prime responsibility — this was not the prime responsibility of concentration camps doctors to look for the health and welfare of the prisoners.

One has to say that, and you cannot —- Q. [Mr Irving]: To your knowledge, was there a large camp hospital in Auschwitz? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I would not call it a hospital. It was a kamp baracken. So this is a place where sick prisoners, sick prisoners, were forced to go to the kamp baracken and, of course, there the main purpose of this so-called hospital was, of course, to select the prisoners not fit for work and to send them into the gas chambers.

So the whole notion of a hospital, I think, is rather bizarre, as far as prisoners are concerned. I have to say I am not really an expert for

Auschwitz. We had an expert here and I think I cannot do it —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think his answer was more or less the same as yours. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes, I cannot actually — I do not have more expertise, definitely not more expertise than he. MR IRVING: I am not going to ask you questions about Auschwitz. This is about the entire concentration camp system or the extermination system, as you would describe it.

Obviously, I do not want to flood the court with documents of this nature, but had you seen documents —- MR RAMPTON: No, I am sorry. I do not believe that is what the witness has said. What the witness has said is that this concerns, to use Mr Irving’s phrase, slave labour in the concentration camps which includes a whole lot of camps in Germany which have nothing to do with extermination.

The witness has specifically said that these documents have nothing whatever to do with the extermination programme which took place at Birkenhau which is not mentioned in any of these documents or in the Reinhardt —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is, undoubtedly, what the witness has been saying, none of this touches on the ones who were not selected for —- MR IRVING: My Lord, it is remarkable the way the Defence sometimes says that Auschwitz covers both camps and sometimes they say it does not.

That is all I would say

there. Can we now look at the third document, please, which is the only other one I am going to trouble the court with on this particular matter, document No. 16, which is a four page document with tables dated September 30th 1943 from the same kind of man, is it not? It is signed actually by Pohl himself, chief of the camp system, and here he actually attaches statistics, does he not, for deaths just in one month, August, 1943? The third page is a table of death in August 1943.

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Do I have chance to read the document? Give me, please, five minutes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Take your time. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. MR IRVING: First of all, the covering letter is a bit triumphant, is it not? It says: “In consequence of the hygienic measures we have introduced, and the better feeding, the better clothing, the death rate has gone down in the camps”.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us just see, would you mind, would the translator very kindly translate the first paragraph just so we get the order of the mortality? THE INTERPRETER:: The first paragraph? Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you mind? THE INTERPRETER: “Since during the month of December 1942 mortality was still at — whereas, in the month of December 1942 the mortality was still at around 10 per

cent, it already was reduced in the month of January 1943 to 8 per cent, and proceeded to go down further. This is mainly — this reduction of the mortality is mainly attributed to the fact that the hygienic measures which had been asked for for sometime have now at least been implemented to a large extent.

Moreover, in regarding the feeding, the nourishment, it was ordered that a third of the food should be added to, should be added just before the distribution of the meal in its raw state, to supplement the cooked food. It was avoided to kill the food by cooking it. In addition, sauerkrauts and similar food was distributed. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I think that will do. So they were 10 per cent mortality. MR IRVING: Horrendous mortality rates when you look at the figures, my Lord.

That is 10 per cent per month. MR JUSTICE GRAY: They are now very pleased with themselves because they have got the death rate in Auschwitz down to 48,000 men in one month? MR IRVING: No, it is not. That is the actual number. The first column is the number on hand, my Lord. The second column is the deaths that month, 1442.

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I mean, you said this has a kind of triumphant, this letter has a kind of triumphant attitude, and the triumph here is that the death rate, the monthly date rate, is reduced from 10 per cent in December to 8 per cent in

January. So this is the success of these measures. So 8 per cent, eight people of 100 would die each month in the slave labour camps, nothing to do, of course, with the extermination, extermination. Q. [Mr Irving]: This is what you say, is it not, but we are just looking at figures in Auschwitz —- A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: It is absolutely —- Q. [Mr Irving]: — of men and women? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: — Auschwitz had two functions.

It was a slave labour camp and it was an extermination camp, and this clearly relates to the — clearly relates to the slave labour camp. Q. [Mr Irving]: What are they dying of?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Well, as I am trying to say, in the slave labour camp they had a programme of extermination through work, and the life expectancy of a prisoner in the death, in the slave labour camp was a couple of weeks or probably a couple of months, and they died — you can see actually see it from the document itself because the documents state, you know, what has to be improved.

The food has to be improved because the conditions, the food conditions, are completely unsufficient. It says in the document, for instance, that prisoners are allowed to wear a coat outside during the winter. So this gives, I think, a very clear answer that prisoners in the camp would die because they do not have the efficient, they do not have

sufficient clothing, and there are, of course, epidemics in the camp and, of course, there is a regular process of selection. The people unfit for work, the sick and the weak prisoners would be selected and sent to the gas chambers. I think, if you read the document with a reference to actually the conditions in the camp, the conditions in, let us say, August 1943, you have a very good idea of what the conditions were. August ’43, 1442 people died, for instance, in the camp.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you explain what “durch mittel Belegstaff” is? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: This is the average number of prisoners. MR IRVING: Average camp strength. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Average prison population? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. MR IRVING: So the five columns, my Lord, average prison population of each of those camps.

The next column is the numbers of deaths which, in the case of Auschwitz and one or two of the other camps is being divided up as to men and women, separate figures. The next column is the percentage —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think the rest is clear. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. It is quite clear because the numbers here were separated because Auschwitz, the slave labour camps, was

divided into a women’s camp and into a men’s camp, so this gives you an indication that this relates clearly to the slave labour camp and nothing to do with the extermination installations. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Which camp would be meant by “Lublin”? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: This is the — this is Maidonek, complex of camps really.

MR IRVING: If you go now to the next page after that statistical table, you have three pages showing a graph showing how over the three or four years, 1940 to 1943, the mortality has soared from various causes. There are quite visible peak. There is a big peak around about March 1943 which is on the second page. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you explain for our benefit what this covers? Is it all concentration camps? MR IRVING: It is all the camps.

I draw the witness’s attention first to the third of three pages. It has a rubber stamp. The senior doctor on Pohl’s staff. In other words, he is the head doctor or, I suppose, the surgeon general of the concentration camp system. It has Himmler’s initials on this document on the third page. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Where is that? Which page? Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you have the graphs? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes.

Q. [Mr Irving]: It will be the last page but one before the big yellow sheet. Do you see, it has a rubber stamp saying that, effectively, it is the surgeon general of the

concentration camp system? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: On the right it has Heinrich Himmler’s own initials, so it has been submitted to Himmler? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes, yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: And it is a graph showing, the bottom two curves are the percentage figures, the middle curve is a percentage figure, the bottom curve appears to be numbers of death per month and the upper curve appears to be a cumulative figure.

But it is difficult to interpret, and I am not a statistician, all I am going to say is there are quite clear peaks. They have gone through crises. Would you accept that that is a fair statement? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: There were differences in the monthly death rate, yes, I can see that.

Q. [Mr Irving]: And the final page is the yellow page right at the end which is a contrast of the mortality rates in the concentration camps in the second half year of 1942 compared with the second half year of 1943. Again you can see in August and September 1942 and in August and September 1943 they have gone through a serious crisis of some kind. There have been 11,000 deaths, 12,000 deaths, in the concentration camp system in corresponding August and September of both years.

So I am only going to ask one or two general questions now from what you have seen. In other words, there was a very high mortality rate in