Day 26 Transcript: Holocaust Denial on Trial

Part I: Initial Proceedings (1.1 to 9.13)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE 1996 I. No. 113 QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London Monday, 28th 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-SIX

(10.00 a.m.) < Dr Longerich, Recalled. < Cross-Examined by Mr Irving. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: Before we start, there is one thing I would like to do. Dr Longerich has used me as a post box. I have no idea what these things are. There are some documents I think that he sent for. I cannot speak to him so can I hand them to him now? I do not know what they are. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Mr Irving, it is sensible just to clear this up. MR IRVING: My Lord, I have a problem.

I have brought the wrong file with me so I am going to have to go back to Duke Street to get it, which will take half an hour, unfortunately, which is extremely stupid of me. MR JUSTICE GRAY: These things happen. You have done pretty well so far. Just let us sort out these documents first. MR RAMPTON: Perhaps your Lordship would deal with it. As I say, I have not spoken to Dr Longerich today, They arrived in my chambers this morning.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Dr Longerich, take us through them one by one. Have you got copies, first of all, for Mr Irving and for everyone else. MR RAMPTON: I have copies here, yes. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: It is just I asked the Institute in Munich to provide me with a number of documents, two or three, concerning the

vernichtung arbeit in relation to work we discussed on Thursday. If necessary, I can provide these documents, and I can quote from them. I used Mr Rampton’s fax machine because there was no other way to get them here in time. MR JUSTICE GRAY: How do these documents help? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I do not know. It is just in case if we expand. I do not want to use them.

I do not suggest we use them but, if we go and discuss this point further, I am here to provide evidence that the term vernichtung arbeit was used during the war. It is not a post war expression. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think what I will do is suggest that we leave this until re-examination by Mr Rampton. Does that apply to all of the documents you have, what you just said? Is that just one document you are talking about, or the whole lot? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: There are two or three.

Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: There are not any other documents? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: No, not at the moment. MR RAMPTON: Can I suggest, my Lord, that we use a little bit of re-examination as evidence-in-chief to deal with these documents and then, if Mr Irving wants to ask anything arising out of that, he should do but not now. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not mind when it happens. I do not suppose Mr Irving minds when it happens. MR RAMPTON: Dr Longerich ought to have a chance to read them

anyway. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, you handed in a clip. Should I spend some of the time looking through that or not? MR IRVING: I can tell your Lordship what they are. You asked for a translation of the Wannsee protocol, and that is one of them. I have also provided your Lordship with a complete translation of the Karl Wolff manuscript, and —- MR RAMPTON: Are we allowed to have them? MR IRVING: Yes.

I faxed a copy of it to the instructing solicitors over the weekend, but I also emailed it. My Lord, I think this is a proper time to say that at some time today I will be making submissions on the relevance of right-wing extremism.

Quite simply, this is, I think, the proper time to do it, obviously not while Dr Longerich, his metre is running, so to speak, probably this afternoon some time, and I shall be asking your Lordship to possibly have a look at the appropriate page of Gatley into which I have read more deeply than Mein Kampf, I have to admit. I think it is page 43 of Gatley that I draw your Lordship’s attention to and I think footnote 88, in particular. Your Lordship will see the relevance of that.

It is Devlin L. It is the Butalazi case. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The which? MR IRVING: Butalazi, there was a case on, I am sure your

Lordship is familiar with the kind of authorities. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is not perhaps one of the best known cases, but I think I know there was one. MR IRVING: It is purely the question of whether extremism is defamatory, what is meant by extremism. I think we ought really to look at that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You certainly make your submissions and I agree the timing is best after Dr Longerich.

MR IRVING: The other point which I wish to take up with your Lordship, very briefly, is that I am not getting the digital transcript. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Right. MR IRVING: I am only getting a paper transcript. A dispute has arisen with the court reporters over the provision to me of the digital transcript. I have not it since February 3rd. It is a serious disadvantage to me. I have offered them money. I have offered them other inducements.

This is a matter which I would like your Lordship to give a friendly word to the court reporting service that —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: You will have to tell me a little bit more about the reasons they give for not giving the digital transcript. MR IRVING: Indeed. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I mean, I have a feeling that I know what the problem is but you —-

MR IRVING: I can do that now, my Lord. Quite simply, we started posting the digital transcript on the internet as a public service, totally non-profit making at all, I derive only loss from that. The court reporters quite rightly said there is a property question at issue here. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, a copyright question, yes. MR IRVING: It is between one instructing firm of solicitors and the court reporters. It is in a kind of limbo between them.

I have made a cash offer to them over a week ago now on a per day basis. They have not come back to me, and I am being disadvantaged. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: Because clearly —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I understand the problem, although I suspect one may have to go into it a bit more deeply, but I am anxious if you are not getting the digital transcript because, although it is not all that easy to follow, I found it perfectly possible to make use of.

Mr Rampton, do you know anything about this or do you not want to get involved? MR RAMPTON: No. Strictly speaking, it is none of our business. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Except you are paying for it so, presumably, you have some sort of right over it. MR RAMPTON: I know we are paying for Mr Irving to have a transcript for the purposes of the case, the conduct of

his claim against us. I guess what has happened is that he has been using the transcripts, in all innocence, no doubt — I say that without knowing anything — for some other purpose. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, just putting them on his website. MR RAMPTON: That is an infringement of the transcribers’ copyright. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, I would have thought it might be. MR RAMPTON: And to do that, you would need to pay for a licence to do it, I guess what has happened.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, so we do not take too long over this, my view would be that it is highly desirable that you should continue to have the digital transcript and I do not understand Mr Rampton to oppose that, but the price may be, if that is the right term, that you should not put it on your website because I think, technically, that is an infringement of their copyright. MR IRVING: Until we reach an agreement.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I mean, if you can reach an agreement, well and good, and I can see in some ways it might be desirable that it should go on the website if you want publicity for —- MR IRVING: Well, it has attracted great attention and I am now being bombarded with E mails from around the world. Some people are accusing me of keeping it off the internet because it is unfavourable to me and all sorts of dubious

motives. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, if you were to offer to — I cannot remember the name of the firm but if you were to offer —- MR IRVING: Harry Counsel. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Harry Counsel, that you will undertake not to put it on your website, unless and until some agreement is reached, but would they please in the meantime let you have the digital transcript, I would hope that they would say yes to that. MR IRVING: I am happy to give that undertaking here.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: If there is a problem, let me know, but I have expressed my wish and that may not count for much but… MR IRVING: But it means that for three weeks I have had no digital transcript which has —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, you should have mentioned it perhaps before now but you have mentioned it now and —- MR IRVING: Well, I have negotiated, or attempted to negotiate, and met with no response. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

Is there any way of avoiding you having to go all the way to Duke Street? Is there somebody there who could put it in a taxi? MR IRVING: My Lord, my partner is seriously ill. She is fighting a battle of her own. MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you say it is necessary, Mr Irving, I am

perfectly content. MR IRVING: I will try to be back within half an hour, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let a message be passed through when you are back. MR IRVING: Yes, thank you very much. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are happy to continue in principle? MR IRVING: Yes. There is no problem. (Adjourned for a short time) MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry, it seems I have added to the delay. My room is about as far as it can be from this court.

Part II: David Irving Cross-Examines Dr. Heinz Peter Longerich (9.14 to 70.17)

Section 9.14-51.10

MR IRVING: The apologies are do you from me for this one hour delay. I do apologise. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Before I start, could I make some statements. I just went through the minutes of the proceedings of Thursday and I would like to correct three mistakes I make, if it is possible. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think I have spotted one. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: There is one on page 63, line 10, when Mr Irving suggested I translate the German term “verhungern” with go hungry.

I think I did not listen carefully enough to him because the translation of “verhungern” is clearly to die of starvation or to starve to death so, if somebody is Verhungerte, he is dead. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think you did actually say that. That is my impression.

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I just wanted to make it very clear. On page 13 and the following pages we had a discussion on the statistics about the death rates in Auschwitz. I forgot to say the most obvious thing — because I was surprised by this document, I have to say — that these figures all relate to the camp population as a whole and not to the Jewish camp population, and you would come to complete different conclusions if you look at the Jewish camp population.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Which page is that? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Page 13 and the following pages. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: I do not see quite where we get to the statistics on the pages following page 13. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: We talked about the statistics and I should have said here first of all that these numbers are about the camp population, everybody in the camps, and it is not specific about the Jewish prisoners in the camp.

Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: I follow that, but I cannot find where there is any reference to numbers. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: No. We talked about the monthly death rates in the concentration camps. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: I remember that, but that is not here. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I may be mistaken. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: It is page 18. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I am sorry.

The third point is on page 173 Mr Irving said he wanted to translate bei Freilassung with “upon release” and I said bei Freilassung means “if released”. I should

have added here that “upon release” is nach Freilassung in German, “after”. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That would be one way of putting it, would it not? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Pardon? Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Bei Freilassung could be perhaps regarded as a little equivocal, could it not? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Bei Freilassung is, in my view, “if released”. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: “Upon release” might be another translation?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: “Upon release,” but it is definitely not “after”. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: Thank you. That is very helpful. The slip which I thought you may have made, and I do not have the reference for it, is that I think you may have referred to Auschwitz when you meant Belzec, but I will not waste time trying to find that. It is at the foot of one of the pages. It is not terribly important, but I think the context makes it clear that you were talking about Belzec.

MR IRVING: My Lord, I have checked four of my dictionaries on “verhungern” and I am ready to concede the primary meaning is “die of hunger”. The secondary meaning is “to starve”. I am ready to concede that point. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: Dr Longerich, you have now received the complete translation of the Karl Wolff manuscript, the interview with Karl Wolff. Have you received the German text

already? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Where is your translation? Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you received the German text? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I received the German text on Thursday. Q. [Mr Irving]: So you have not received the English translation which has been prepared of it yet? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: No. This is the first time I see that. Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I ask you questions on the German text?

Would you agree that the brief extract which I made some 35 years ago accurately represents the parts that I extracted, if I can put it like that? There was no distortion by me of the extracts that I made? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Except the parts you left out in your extract. Q. [Mr Irving]: Obviously, if it is a one page exhibit extract from a ten page document, then some eight or nine pages have been left out, have they not?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I think you left out passages which are important, which have to be understood in the context of the whole document. Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: And I also was surprised or amazed to see that you, in your translation, in your transcript, translated the word “ausrottung” with “extermination”. Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Whereabouts is that? I have the English and I am not sure you have the English.

MR IRVING: That would be on page 1 of the original transcript, my Lord. It is page 00031. If you turn the page, my Lord, it is on line 5. As Dr Longerich rightly says, I have translated it there by the word “extermination”. I have put the German text in brackets afterwards on line 5. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think we can be looking at the same document. I am looking at your translation and I have page 31. You say line 5? That talks about the Waffen SS arising as a new guard.

MR IRVING: No, my Lord. Page 31 follows. If you will turn the page, my Lord, it will be five lines down on the next page. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you. I have it now. MR IRVING: Dr Longerich correctly points out that I have translated the word “Judenausrottung” by “extermination of the Jews”. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Thank you. MR IRVING: Yet it is clear from the context, is it not, Dr Longerich, that this is what Karl Wolff is referring to on this occasion?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: My Lord, I have lined on your copy the passages on which I rely. It begins on the previous page three lines from the bottom, “The assassination of Heydrich at the end of May 1942 had an exceptionally powerful effect on Himmler”,

and it carries on for the next two pages, until the page that is headed with the word “preparations”? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: I am not sure, my Lord, what is the right way to deal with that, whether I should put this to the witness? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think, if you can select the main points out of it — do not let us trawl through the whole of it unless we need to — if you can put it as bald propositions, then we can pursue it if needs be. MR IRVING: Yes.

Would you start, Dr Longerich, with the page that begins with the words “and declared”, the third or fourth of my translation? MR JUSTICE GRAY: In the English. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: This is talking about Himmler. “He had always regarded it as his task and as his duty to carry out the solution of this task”.

Wolff continues with the proposition that, from his viewpoint of 1952, perhaps 70 people were initiated in the ghastly secret, if I can put it like that. Have you any comment on that figure? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: That is definitely too low. Q. [Mr Irving]: Too low a figure? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Because the people at the killing centres must have known? Is that what you are saying? Not just the camp guards but also the people in all the killing centres?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: He is referring to the people who were involved in the Juden ausrottung. Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. If you have read the manuscript, you will see that Karl Wolff suggests that the real guilty culprits were Bormann and Himmler who kept to themselves what they were doing. Have you any comment on that proposition?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I think the statement is so far clearly self-serving because Karl Wolff was the liaison officer between the Himmler and Hitler, and of course he wanted to, well, play down, put it this way, the role of Hitler, because otherwise he would be the missing link between the two persons. He would be the man between them, the man who carried messages and would transfer information between these two people.

Karl Wolff was sentenced in 1965 by the German court to 15 years’ sentence. Simply the main document, which actually, if I may put it this way, broke his neck, was his exchange of letters with Ganzen Muller in July and August of 1942, which is on pages 262 and 263 in the blue bundle. Q. [Mr Irving]: This is 5,000 members of the chosen race being deported? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes.

So this was his main problem, that somebody could come and find out that he actually was involved in transferring messages from Hitler’s headquarters through the apparatus which carried out the Final Solution. Q. [Mr Irving]: Could he not equally well have said that obviously Hitler knew what was going on but he discussed that only unter

vier Augen, under four eyes, with Himmler and that he Wolff had no knowledge of it? He could equally well have exonerated himself by saying that, if he was right in a self-serving document, could he not? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: No, I do not think so. I think his strategy was to systematically try to distance himself from everything that happens in Hitler’s headquarters concerning the fate of the Jews. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Did he remain loyal to Hitler into the 50s and 60s?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: He was absolutely loyal. At this time he never actually gave up his sympathy for national socialism. MR IRVING: A lot of Germans never did. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: You see halfway down that page he describes Himmler as being in his way bizarrely religious, holding to the view that the greatest war lord in the greatest war of all times, in other words Hitler, he had to take upon himself these tasks. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Does that fit in with your picture that you have of Himmler’s nature and his character? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: There is obviously some truth in this remark, yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: The loyal Heiny, the faithful Heiny? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. On page 6 of the German document he is saying Himmler (German spoken – document not provided) Hitler.

I do not know how you translated this. Q. [Mr Irving]: Himmler was of blind subservience to Hitler. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Which actually is a kind of contradiction to this view that he would actually do it on his own. Also, I find particularly, because I did not have your translation, I studied your transcript, the transcripts you made in the Institute fur Zeitgeschichte and compared it with the German original.

Also, in the German original, you find in the central passage that Wolff inserted the word “wohl”. Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes, handwritten? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: So he actually was saying “I am not absolutely sure about this, I think so” (To the interpreter) How do you translate “wohl” in English? MR IRVING: It is on page 7, my Lord, of this same page, the page beginning “and declared”, line 7. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Which page in the German?

Q. [Mr Irving]: “General Wolff also saw Bormann who was infinitely actively involved in these things, together with Hoess, the former famed murderer, Bormann and Himmler”, and he has inserted in handwriting the word “probably”, wohl, “represented the view that the Jewish problem had to be dealt with without Hitler getting his fingers dirty in the process”. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: That is in the German document on page 4.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You do not quarrel with the translation of

wohl as “probably”? MR IRVING: Probably, or perhaps. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: It was not in your transcript. In your transcript you left it out. MR IRVING: Or “may well have”? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. He obviously wanted to say that, well, he is not absolutely sure, he inserted the word “wohl” in the end. Q. [Mr Irving]: I am sorry but in the transcript I did insert it. It is in the second paragraph. The word “probably” is in square brackets inserted.

I know, Dr Longerich, it is a difficult concept to grapple with in the witness box but how would this—- A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: It is difficult for me to deal with three documents at the same time, two in English and one in German, I have to say that. Q. [Mr Irving]: And to listen to my questions at the same time? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think the point Dr Longerich is probably making but I do not know where I find the manuscript now, is that you did not put “probably” in your original manuscript note. MR IRVING: It was, my Lord, and I am sure we will find it. Otherwise, I would not have known how to put it in in the translation. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have no idea where that is. MR IRVING: I am prepared to take strichnine on that one, as

they say in German. MR RAMPTON: My Lord, it is seven lines down in the manuscript notes, I call them. MR JUSTICE GRAY: But where do we put those? That is my problem. MISS ROGERS: It should be in Tab 11, J2, party claimants bundle H. MR IRVING: Has your Lordship found it? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, in square brackets. You are quite right. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: In square brackets, I agree. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you, Mr Irving.

MR IRVING: A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: In your transcript, if I may comment on it, this is the piece of paper you take home from the Institut fur Zeitgeschichte, you left out the passage where actually Wolff is referring to millions of dead, and also you left out the passage that is referring to the vergassungs, the idea to gassings.

So your impression, when you read this document, was that only Wolff dealt here with Hitler’s attitude or non-attitude towards the Jewish question, and you left out these important two paragraphs because you were not interested in them, obviously. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where do we find vergassung? MR IRVING: Half way down the English translation, the new translation, “Whenever Himmler uttered such thoughts, as

he did repeatedly, he never made any concrete reference to, for example, the Jewish problem. But one today well imagine that Himmler ordered the murder of millions of Jews in a kind of crazily perverted idealism permeated with the notion that the lofty objective which Hitler had defined was one that justified the adoption of any means”. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I have got that, but what about vergassung?

MR RAMPTON: That is in the last line of the English before in square brackets 00032, “The gassing idea probably emerged when a genuine epidemic broke out”. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you. MR IRVING: Of course I cannot give evidence, but let me ask this question this way, and say is it not likely that Wolff, when he was being interviewed in 1952, had read what every other German had read in the newspapers about millions being gassed?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I cannot say what Wolff read in the newspapers, but he is referring here clearly, he is accepting the idea that millions of Jews were killed, and he is accepting the idea that they were killed by gas. So that is there was no way for him to know. He did not attempt to dispute this. He only tried to, of course, distance Hitler from these events.

Q. [Mr Irving]: If you look at the last paragraph on that same page of the translation beginning with the words, “around August

1942″, “General Wolff undertook a drive from the Fuhrer’s headquarters to Berlin. He found Himmler there in a state of deep depression”. Does this strike you as being something that he is really remembering? Is he describing something vividly that he has in his memory? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: That is typical for Wolff. We know a lot about Wolff. He gave a lot of interviews. He made statements.

He met people who wrote books about him, and he made this kind of very vivid statements. So I think he had a very —- Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you think this is his imagination at work, or is it his memory? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I think it was imagination to a large extent. Q. [Mr Irving]: When he is imagining something, he actually says it, does he not? In the middle of the previous paragraph he says, “One can today well imagine that Himmler ordered the murder of millions of Jews”.

So he does make a distinction between what he is imagining and what he is remembering. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: To sum this up, I am not in a position to accept this really as a true collection by Karl Wolff. Q. [Mr Irving]: What about the vague hint that Himmler dropped on this occasion: “Wolff could have no idea what one had had to take upon oneself for the messiah of the next 2,000 years in order that this man (in other words Hitler) remained personally free of sin”.

Do you think such a remark was made by Himmler to Hitler?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I have no idea. Q. [Mr Irving]: Is it a significant remark if it was made? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: This is a hypothetical question. I cannot answer this question. Q. [Mr Irving]: He continues by saying, for the sake of the German people and its Fuhrer, he had to burden things on to his own shoulders, of which nobody must ever be allowed to learn. Is this self serving again, do you think, in your opinion?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Well —- THE INTERPRETER: Vivid imagination? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I think that Karl Wolff had a vivid imagination and I cannot see here — he did not take any notes about these events. He did not read from notes. He did not write a letter about this. It is a postwar statement ten years post factum, and I cannot see how one can accept this as evidence that Hitler was not aware of the final solution.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Then I would ask you to turn two pages please. You have in the middle of the page, page 34 in square brackets, the sentence beginning just before that, “The little clique, which effectively carried out the vernichtung of the Jews under cover of Himmler and Bormann, simply declared that they were relying on a Fuhrer order without this ever having expressly been given, and they proceeded in this sense on their own authority in order, as they declared, biologically to rid German

territory of the seeds. The announcement of this fait accompli was going to be

Himmler’s big moment after the victory”. Does this not fit in with some of the documents we have seen? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: If you want to refer to documents, I can recall, of course, the expression, the quote on page 32, “burden on my shoulders” is the expression he used then later on. Q. [Mr Irving]: It does sound like Himmler speaking, does it not? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: It is the same phrase, yes.

Q. [Mr Irving]: It has to be said, we have no documents to contradict this version, do we? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: The document contradicts the fact that Himmler spoke to Karl Wolff in August 1942? Q. [Mr Irving]: No, the contradict —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: The Hitler order, in other words. MR IRVING: The general hypothesis that Wolff is putting up of Himmler acting in secret behind Hitler’s back and intending to present him with a fait accompli when the war was over.

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: We went through the documents. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is Pohl and—- MR RAMPTON: I must intervene. That is just not so and Mr Irving knows it is not so. Himmler wrote to Begher on 28th July 1942, just before this meeting that Wolff reports and Himmler said that the carrying out of this very hard order has been put on his shoulders by Hitler. MR IRVING: Yes. What is the order that he is referring to, Dr Longerich? Do you remember?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: This is the order to make the occupied territories of the East free of Jews. MR RAMPTON: That is right. MR IRVING: That is right, yes. Is that an explicit order to exterminate the Jews, or an order to deport them to the East, in your opinion? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: At this stage, if I look at the facts what actually happened in the East, it is clear for me that this refers to the mass killings of Soviet Jews, and to nothing else.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Does this fit in with the general picture of Heinrich Himmler keeping things secret from people? He is not being specific about what is actually happening. He is writing these camouflage documents. Is this not exactly what Wolff is saying?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: When you say that, Mr Irving, you are really going back, I think, to the communications between Pohl and Himmler, and between Greiser and Himmler, is that right, where it is true, I think, we went through those on Thursday, that there is not any express reference to Hitler’s authority? That is the point you are putting. We have been through it. MR IRVING: Now I will ask one final question on the Wolff manuscript, if I may, Dr Longerich.

You worked in the Institut fur Zeitgeschichte for what, eight years? Seven years? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Five years.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Five years, and you have since then written a number of eminent books on the Final Solution of the Jewish problem? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: And of Hitler’s role in this? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Have you ever paid any attention at all to Karl Wolff’s manuscript, the document that you are looking at? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Of course.

I looked also at Karl Wolff’s role and I have to say that I completely dismissed the statement, because this interview is, first of all, if you look at the technique of the interviewer, for instance, he has a long conversation with Karl Wolff, then goes home and writes a summary of this conversation. It is not a verbatim minute of the conversation. The person who did this interview addressed Karl Wolff in 1952 as General Wolff.

So this is for me a quite bizarre atmosphere in which this interview took place. I think, if you look at the history of Karl Wolff and the fact that he in 65 was sentenced to 15 years, this statement in this part is self serving. But, on the other hand, for me it is interesting, and I did not recollect that, that he is quite openly referring to millions of people who were actually put to death during the World War II. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You are now talking about Dr Ziegler?

He was the interviewer, is that right? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Ziegler was the interviewer, yes.

Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: I do not quite understand why this interview came to take place in 1952. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Because the Institute at this stage more or less systematically tried to interview everybody who was interesting for them. MR IRVING: What was the name of the Institute at that time? Do you remember? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Still the same name, Institute fur Zeitgeschichte.

Q. [Mr Irving]: It was called the Institute for the Research into Nazi Crimes or something, was it not? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: No. In the first year, 48 and 49, it was called Institute for the Research of the History of the National Socialist Period, or something like that. Q. [Mr Irving]: I am right in saying that they had a number of trained professional historians who went around Germany interviewing characters like General Wolff and Ziegler was one of them?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. But at this stage researchers were not able to actually confront most of their interviewees with documents that actually challenged their views. So, if Wolff said something like that, this interviewer was not able to refer to documents, the documents which we have now, to say, for instance, that the Hitler speech of 12th December 41 is ordered to Himmler, and so on and so on. So in a way this interview was done in quite a naive way, I would put it like this.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Are such interviews totally valueless? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Absolutely not. Q. [Mr Irving]: Did you make any use whatsoever of this Karl Wolff manuscript when you wrote your books? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I remember that I read it but I decided not to use it for my books. Q. [Mr Irving]: The same as you decided not to use the Schlegelberger document and various other items? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: That is your comparison. I cannot comment on that.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Would you agree that the Schlegelberger document, this particular manuscript and various other items that have been ignored until I dredged them out of the archives, all tend to suggest a totally different picture to that presented by what you call the consensus of German historians? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: If I look at this document here, the interview of Karl Wolff in 1955, I think it does not prove anything.

I commented briefly on the so-called Schlegelberger before, because it is a third hand evidence. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am going to interrupt you. I do not think we need to go through the Schlegelberger document. MR IRVING: Can I ask one more question on this document? There is a reference here to Martin Bormann and Rudolf Hoess, the Kommandant of Auschwitz being old buddies because they had both been in prison for the Famer murders. Is that right?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Can you tell the court what the Famer murders were? I could not remember the translation myself. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: In the early 1920s the right-wing circus in Germany tried to build up a secret Army, if you put it this way. Q. [Mr Irving]: The Freicor?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: The Freicor and other paramilitary organisations, which was illegal under the Versailles Treaty, and they also engaged in preparing Putsches and other things like that, and they on various occasions actually killed or murdered people in these groups who they thought actually betrayed them or passed information on the state authority and so on. Q. [Mr Irving]: Like vengeance killing, was it not? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Vengeance killing, yes.

Q. [Mr Irving]: So they were old buddies, they were not just anybody, Martin Bormann and Rudolf Hoess were thick as thieves would you say? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. They spent several months together in a state prison. Q. [Mr Irving]: That is the only questions I have to ask on Karl Wolff unless your Lordship has any to ask? MR JUSTICE GRAY: No. Thank you very much. MR IRVING: Dr Longerich, you wrote a book called “Politik der Vernichtung”, is that right?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes, that is right. Q. [Mr Irving]: Do you remember writing in that book on page 464 — I just

give it to you. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I have it here. Q. [Mr Irving]: You have it there. Your take on the famous Himmler telephone call of November 30th, 1941, this is the way you interpreted it. You have written, if I may say so, a very good account of the deportation of the European Jews, the German Jews, to Minsk and to Riga, and you have reported the fact that large numbers of them were liquidated as soon as they arrived, which is common ground between us.

But then you look at the interesting business of the famous telephone call of November 30th 1941. On page 464 of your book, the third complete paragraph begins: “The shooting of Jews from the Reichs territory, on the other hand, after some 6,000 in six transports from Kovno had been murdered in Kovno and Riga, was initially stopped.

In this connection there is an entry in Himmler’s telephone calendar, which has the Reichsfuhrer SS who was at this time in the Fuhrer’s headquarters making a note on a telephone call to Heydrich, or a telephone conversation with Heydrich,

on November 30th. Then there are the famous words, Jew transport from Berlin, no liquidation.” You attribute to this the fact that the killings of German Jews abruptly stopped, to use your phrase in the next paragraph, “der abrupte stop”, this telephone call from Himmler, or this telephone conversation between Himmler and Heydrich, led to the

abrupt stop. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. No. I am in a difficult position here because I wrote actually an expert report and I do not know how much we shall go back to my book, because in the book it says —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is a legitimate question about it, I think that is the answer, Dr Longerich. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: There are two sentences. In the first sentence I say that these shootings were abruptly stopped.

In the second sentence I said (German) well, we have an entry —- THE INTERPRETER: Relating to this matter. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: So I am trying not to make any conclusions. I am very careful to say the shootings were stopped because Himmler ordered this. I say we have this entry here and it is open. It is actually more or less, it is open for interpretation.

MR IRVING: The conclusion you draw on in those two pages, if I am right, is that the killers in Riga had exceeded their authority? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: That is my interpretation, yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: And therefore the killings stopped because of this word effectively from Hitler’s headquarters, as you say? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: From Himmler, who at this time was — I was very careful when I wrote this passage because I know that it is a disputed area.

It is a minefield, if you want to say so. It came from Himmler and he was in Hitler’s headquarters.

I did not say he was in Hitler bunker because I do not know whether he was in Hitler’s bunker or not. So I think it is very careful and I think it is —- Q. [Mr Irving]: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not that I know quite what the point is. Is the point, Mr Irving, that you are suggesting that the way it has been written by Dr Longerich in his book is to suggest that “keine liquidierung” actually meant “stop this altogether” rather than just “do not liquidate this transport”?

MR IRVING: My Lord, the point that I am making, the point which he makes slightly more strongly in the book than in his expert report, if I am right, that, in consequence of this telephone call from Himmler at Hitler’s headquarters, the killings of Germans stopped because the killers had exceeded their authority. MR JUSTICE GRAY: And that “keine liquidierung” therefore had, according to Dr Longerich’s book, a general application rather than a specific one to that train load?

MR IRVING: I am not going to go so far as to say that, my Lord. I just wanted to underline the point once more that this is a document. You do not have to join very many dots to find out what happened here, because of course we had the police decodes the following day, which Dr Longerich obviously did not have at the time he wrote the book. I am now going to move on to another document,

Dr Longerich. We looked at this very briefly on Thursday, and this is the Furl letter. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: You actually have referred to this letter, have you not? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I do not think so. Q. [Mr Irving]: No? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can we have a reference for it, so that I can follow. MR IRVING: I have given you a translation of it on one page. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you? MR IRVING: Headed page 175, on the top left hand corner somewhere.

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: But not from my book. Q. [Mr Irving]: No. You are quite right. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It may be that this is somewhere in the Defendant’s bundles and, if it is, perhaps we can follow it there. MR RAMPTON: No. I do not think it is. This is a different version from the one that I was given last week. Your Lordship was given it too. It was another of Mr Irving’s clips.

This is not a complaint against him, but I do confess to the impossible difficulty of keeping track of these things as they come flooding in. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am having the same difficulty, as it were, on both sides. MR RAMPTON: On I think it was probably Thursday or Wednesday

last week one got a rather larger extract from Gotz Aly’s book, the same page but a longer extract. It is in the back of J2, says the boss, so that is where it will be. Now we have a different version, I do not know why. I am not suggesting there is anything sinister about having two versions. MR IRVING: You are familiar with the book by Gotz Aly? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. I know the book.

MR RAMPTON: The new clip has a printed version of the English edition of Gotz Aly’s book at the back of it. I have not had a place for this new clip allocated yet. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have only one page. MR RAMPTON: Is that the page your Lordship had last week? MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have got the first page of last week’s clip. MR RAMPTON: Now comes a new version. MR IRVING: That is more like it. Now we have it. This clip is entirely connected with the Furl letter.

My Lord, just so you can see what is the clip, on the first page is the translation of the passages which interest, which is all that we have of that letter. The second and third pages are the two pages from the Gotz Aly book, which is a very reliable authority, which quotes the letter in German. I will just take Dr Longerich, if I may, through the text of the letter. In June 1942 Walter Furl, who is a administrative officer based in Krakow, wrote to his

comrades in the SS, “Every day trains are arriving with over a thousand Jews each from throughout Europe.

We provide first aid here” — I think the word he uses verartsten — “give them more or less provisional accommodation and usually deport them further towards the White Sea to the white Ruthenien marshlands, where they all, if they survive, and the Jews from Vienna or Pressberg certainly will not, will be gathered by the end of the war but not without having first built a few roads. But we are not supposed to talk about it”. That is what I want to ask you about, Dr Longerich.

On the following page we have the translation in German, the original German. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I do not have the German here. Q. [Mr Irving]: Pages 2 and 3. My Lord, obviously the significance of this passage is that the Jews were not being sent from Krakow to Auschwitz, which are just next door, but they were being shipped on to strange locations in the East. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Where is the White Sea?

MR RAMPTON: That is up in the north of Russia, beneath the Kola Peninsula, near Mamansk. It is quite a long way away. The white Ruthenien mashes I think are probably the same as the Pripyat marshes as far as I know. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are they? MR RAMPTON: Yes, I think so. MR IRVING: Dr Longerich, your contention is, is it not, that

this letter is camouflage? Like the Gotz Aly contention also? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: I have to ask you then, first of all, what do we know about Walter Furl? He was an official of the —- A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. He was in fact the Deputy Director of the Department for Population and Welfare in the government of the Generalegouvernement.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Knowing the answer already in advance, can you tell me if any members whatsoever of that department were ever prosecuted after World War II? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I have no idea at the moment. I cannot tell you. Q. [Mr Irving]: None were prosecuted. Is that correct? You say you have no idea. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: It is possible, yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: So they were not engaged in criminal activities?

A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: This is a conclusion you draw from this. We know that the German courts, to say the minimum, in the 50s were quite lenient to prosecute systematically German war crimes done by Germans. So this conclusion, I think, does not lead to anything. He was not prosecuted. It does not mean that he was not involved in war crimes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Especially he would not know in 1942 whether he was going to be prosecuted or whether he was not. MR IRVING: No.

The point is, my Lord, if the Germans or the Poles or the Russians had determined that this was a

criminal office, they would have arrested everybody involved, particularly as director, and they would have locked them up for a long time. MR JUSTICE GRAY: As things turned out, they did not. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: If they were able to find them. Q. [Mr Irving]: Get their hands on them? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. Q. [Mr Irving]: Let us have a look at the authenticity of the document.

If you turn to page 216 and look at footnote 29, am I right in saying that this letter comes from the personnel file of Walter Furl in the Berlin Document Centre, which was run by the Americans after the war, was it not? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: No. You see, the Berlin Documents Centre, this is personnel. Yes, it is personnel, that is true. But we do not know actually who put these things into his personnel file.

It may be that the Americans just put letters referring to Furl into this file, so we do not know who actually —- Q. [Mr Irving]: Sometimes they did that, did they not? They put negative photocopies in these files. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: And other things. Q. [Mr Irving]: Is there any reason to believe that the document had been faked after the war by anyone? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: I do not think there is any indication for that.

Q. [Mr Irving]: Can you suggest any reason why Walter Furl, writing to his

Berlin SS comrades, which is the first line of the footnote, should have wanted to pull the wool over the eyes of his own comrades in the SS? A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: It was a private letter, not an official letter, and in his letter he is saying in the last sentence: “But we are not supposed to talk about it”. So he is talking about a secret. Also in your translation, you translated the German term “verartzen” with “first aid”.

Well “verartzen” could also mean we deal with them in a very general way. It does not mean that they provide first aid and help them in a humanitarian manner. But coming back to your question —- Q. [Mr Irving]: Can I just interrupt you there before there are any more aspersions cast on my translation, and draw your attention to the second page from the back of that clip which is the English translation in the English edition of the Gotz Aly book?

The second line says, “we provide first aid here”. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: Yes. It is probably not the best translation. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is the literal translation, is it not? MR IRVING: It comes from the route “Arzt” meaning doctor, as your Lordship is aware. A. [Dr Heinz Peter Longerich]: “Verarzten” could also mean to deal with. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I follow what you are saying.

MR IRVING: Is there any reason why writing private letters to their SS comrades in a letter where they use very robust language, does he not — he says, who cares what happens