Day 5 Transcript: Holocaust Denial on Trial

Part I: Initial Proceedings (1.1 to 17.18)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE 1996 I. No. 113 QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London Tuesday, 18th January 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) PROCEEDINGS – DAY FIVE

<DAY FIVE Tuesday, 18th January 2000 (10.30 a.m.) MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Mr Irving, I have been provided with a document that you, I understand, want to make some mention of. MR IRVING: Yes, if I may address the court on this. The only important one I want to draw your attention to is page 10. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Before you do, can I just mention two things which will take a few minutes? Do sit down.

The first is the transcription which, once they have been edited, are extremely useful and I think it is extraordinary that it can be done so well. MR RAMPTON So do I. MR JUSTICE GRAY: But it did strike me, reading yesterday’s transcript, that the first 20 minutes of yesterday was what you might call administrative discussion, and I think it is a waste of energy to have that transcribed. MR RAMPTON Yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Unless either of you disagree, I was going to suggest that in future when we have that kind of discussion we can just, as it were, stand down the lady who is doing the transcribing, and save her energy. MR IRVING: Except, my Lord, for any conclusions that are reached. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Of course, and any what you might call substantive discussion about the issues.

MR RAMPTON Can I also suggest this? If at any stage your Lordship makes rulings which you may have to — I hope not but it does happen — they be transcribed separately as a separate document. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, if and when we come to that, that is a very good idea. MR RAMPTON It worked very well last time that this lady was in charge of one of my cases.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I also, before Mr Irving deals with this document, ask you, Mr Rampton, to help me as to where we are at the moment. MR RAMPTON Where are we going? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Can I just tell you what my concern is. It is that I should know at every stage, if possible, to what issue the evidence is directed. Your cross-examination started out with the topic of the killing of the Jews from Berlin. MR RAMPTON Yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: But it has now moved on to the shootings on the Eastern Front. MR RAMPTON Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am just trying to tie it in with your summary of case. I want to make sure I have understood correctly, because the section on shootings on the Eastern Front is in the part of your summary of case which deals with Auschwitz, whereas, as I understand it, the evidence

that you are eliciting from Mr Irving at the moment is really directed mainly to the issue of Hitler’s knowledge. MR RAMPTON The trouble is, of course, that it has both sides to it, as does gassing. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Because your case is, just so that I understand, that the mass shootings, were a prelude to an alternative way of killing Jews, namely gassing. MR RAMPTON Largely speaking but by no means entirely, gassing took over from shooting.

Both are features of what is called the Holocaust and both happened on such a scale, logistically speaking and military speaking, that they must have come from headquarters, so the whole thing locks together. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That has helped me understand how the case is put. MR RAMPTON Apart from one or two fiddly things which always happen arising from yesterday, I am going to deal with the table talks such as remain, not many.

Then I am going to go on to what happened next, as it were, 42 onwards to about September 42. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It will, I think, sometimes help me if one can see the big picture, perhaps by way of a few prefatory questions, and then go to the individual documents. MR RAMPTON One of the fiddly but necessary features in all of this is that one repeatedly has to make reference to what Mr Irving himself has said about these things —-

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, of course. MR RAMPTON — which clouds the picture, but is unavoidable. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Of course. I quite understand that. Yes, thank you. Mr Irving, do you want to say anything about that exchange? It was really to clarify my own understanding of where exactly we are going to and getting to with the evidence. MR IRVING: I agree, my Lord. What we in Riding call a topic paragraph would be useful.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It would certainly help me and it might even be that it will help you. It might be that it is right that you should have the opportunity to comment on the general proposition as well as the particular proposition. MR IRVING: Very well. MR JUSTICE GRAY: You want to say something about this document? MR IRVING: My Lord, I referred yesterday to the fact that I relied on the Weidenfeld translation of Hitler’s table talk.

It is completely proper that I should produce that translation to you, which is page 2. You will see it from the rostrum at the Reichstag, and so on. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR IRVING: I do not attach anything in particular but, for reasons of procedure, I should have shown that to you, having averred that I had used that translation. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I see. Thank you very much.

MR IRVING: My Lord, on page 3 I referred to a document in the December 1942 time frame, which is so important because that is when this meldung, this report, was allegedly shown to Hitler at the end of December, but here is Hitler at the same time ordering that Jews should be released if foreign currency could be provided to barter for them. MR JUSTICE GRAY: They are not mutually exclusive, those two policies, are they?

MR IRVING: I appreciate that, my Lord, but, if the contention of the Defence is that Adolf Hitler was hell bent on exterminating every Jew that came into his possession, for some reason of weltanschauung or a deeper philosophy or a deeper streak of human nature, there are several documents of this nature which of course go through to the famous trucks for Jews deal at the end of 1944, which indicates that he was not all that pragmatic.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not understand the Defendants to put the case, as it were, at that extreme level. MR RAMPTON Not at all. MR IRVING: Well, it just is not watertight either way. My Lord, I keep trying to drive breaches into the damages of defence. We have a much more serious breach coming on page 10, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Shall I go straight to 10? MR IRVING: Except to have a quick glance at pages 8 and 9 which is another meldung in that series. It shows Hitler

was being bombarded with meldungen. This is a much more routine one which relates to Operation Hamburg, as it was called, an anti-partisan sweep resulting in 6,000 enemy dead, and a certain amount of equipment taken, and so on. I am not going to rely particularly on that, just to show that these meldungen cannot be taken in vacuo. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is not Hitler vorgelegt, is it, as it happens? MR IRVING: I believe it is, my Lord.

If you look at my page 8, you can see “vorgelegt 25 December PF”. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I see. MR IRVING: SS Hauptstungfuhrer Fuhrer, who was Hitler’s personal adjutant, who happened to have an SS rank. That is quite important, my Lord, because we now come to the page 10 which I think is going to blow their December 28th document, not out of water but it is going to cripple it.

To a certain degree, my Lord, I myself am crippled because, as your Lordship knows, I donated my entire archives to the German Institute of History many years ago with a rather sad result that I alone in this room am not allowed to see them. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you say that again? MR IRVING: I donated my entire archives of research which I had collected for Adolf Hitler —- MR JUSTICE GRAY: I follow, yes. Now you are banned from going into that museum?

MR IRVING: I am banned from going into Germany. I cannot set foot in that museum and I cannot see my own archives, whereas Professor Evans, as I understand it, has had teams of researchers clawing over these files, where they would undoubtedly have found these very documents to which I am now going to refer. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you take me through them if you rely on them?

MR IRVING: On the following page you will see the photocopies of index cards which is all that remains in my collection, the index cards relating to these documents. I have translated the index cards into English on page 10. The first item is 28th December 1942, a report coming from — the other way round this time — Hitler’s adjutant to Himmler. The only significance of that is that that is feed back.

That is an indication that that document to which this document, this card, this reply refers was clearly shown to Hitler, because there was feed back coming back from Hitler’s adjutant saying, “Well, Hitler wants to know how many of our own troops are being killed in these operations”. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Report No. 49 would be two reports before No. 51. MR IRVING: Yes. It is not the one that is significant in this case, my Lord.

I am just saying that it is a pity we do not have a similar kind of feed back on the crucial one.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: This rather suggests that Hitler was paying attention to what was being laid before him. MR IRVING: I disagree, my Lord. Look at the next card down. We now have December 30th 1942, which is another report by Himmler to Hitler, signed by Muller this time, the Chief of Gestapo. It is dated December 29th, exactly the same day as the incriminating one. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry, you have lost me. MR IRVING: This is the second card down on page 10, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I see, December 29th. MR IRVING: The reason it is dated December 30th is because my card index is organized according to the date that something was allegedly shown to Hitler, not the date of the document. It is a telegram from Muller, the Chief of the Gestapo, back to Himmler on combating the high level achievement in Serbia, and it has been sent by Himmler to Hitler to have a look at.

It is in the big Fuhrer typeface, and you will notice, my Lord, that on this occasion Fiefer has endorsed the document twice, laid before December 30th, laid before December 31st. In other words, twice he has put it on Hitler’s breakfast tray outside his door. He is not looking at it. Is this not, my Lord, precisely the point I made yesterday, that Hitler had other things on his plate? He was fighting the battle of Stalingrad. He had a quarter of a million men trapped in Stalingrad.

He was waiting for it to break through.

He had the battle crews out in the Arctic. He had all these things going on. Here is Himmler’s message lying outside his breakfast room door twice, and the adjutant putting a note on it, saying he has twice put it out there, twice he has laid it before him. He would not have had to do it twice if it was read the first time, my Lord,. I suggest this casts serious doubt on the proposition that we can accept that the other document was necessarily shown to Hitler.

I would not put it any stronger than that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just let us keep an eye on the reality. You did accept yesterday, as I understand it, that the shooting of Jews and others on the Eastern Front was a programme which was systematic and co-ordinated by Berlin, and Hitler was aware and approved of what was going on. MR IRVING: The shootings of Russian Jews, my Lord, yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

So, in a sense the issue whether a document was laid before Hitler and read by him becomes relatively speaking insignificant, in this context. MR IRVING: I disagree, with respect. I think that this shows how flaky the whole system was. What Mr Rampton would like to describe as being a cast iron, watertight bureaucratic system with reports going this way and messages coming back, it breaks down at the very top level when you are dealing with a man, the head of state

himself, who has other things on his plate. I would suggest that there is a very strong reason to suspect that this is precisely the reason why Himmler slid that figure in, because he apprehended quite likely that the boss was not going to read it.

That may possibly be going too far to impute that to him, but certainly this indication that on this very day documents were being put to Hitler twice and not being read can indicate that that 29th December document cannot, therefore, necessarily have been taken as having been read and submitted no doubt to Adolf Hitler or taken cognisance of it. That is the only point I want to make, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much. Is that it? MR IRVING: That is it.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Would you like to go back into the witness box? MR RAMPTON Can I say two things before that happens? We would very much like to see the German version of the Kovno train message, if it exists, if Mr Irving has it? That was page 6 of the first of these. MR IRVING: My Lord, it was actually mailed to the instructing solicitors, about three weeks ago. MR RAMPTON What, the German? MR IRVING: In a bundle. MR JUSTICE GRAY: The German version of what? Did you say page

6? MR RAMPTON Page 5 I meant. MR IRVING: I will certainly supply it again. MR RAMPTON That would be very kind. If we have had it and it has not got to me, that is entirely our fault. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am still puzzled. Page 5 is in German. MR RAMPTON Oh, 5? MR JUSTICE GRAY: You said 6 and then I thought you said 5. MR RAMPTON I did say 5. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is in German. MR RAMPTON I say no, I am looking at a different document with “05” at the bottom.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are you not looking at the clip? MR RAMPTON No, to this previous one. MR IRVING: The little bundle probably. MR RAMPTON Does your Lordship remember the train load of Berlin Jews to Kovno? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I do. MR RAMPTON J3. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am putting this latest clip into the back of J. I know Miss Rogers is keeping track. MR RAMPTON Tab 5, my Lord. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have something in tab 5 already anyway. They are all going in there.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am sorry, Mr Rampton. You are back on what?

MR RAMPTON I raised the question whether or not the German of this report, or message No. 35 on page 5, exists and, if it does, whether I can see it. If we already have it, then enquiries are perhaps futile. MR IRVING: I will certainly produce another copy tomorrow. MR RAMPTON That is very kind. The other thing I should mention because I said I would and your Lordship asked me to is this. We spoke to Professor van Pelt yesterday.

He says at this late stage it would be extremely difficult for him to alter his arrangements and come later on in the case. So, with your Lordship’s permission, I will adhere, if I may, to my schedule, which is to start cross-examination about Auschwitz on Monday when he will be here. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I must ask Mr Irving whether that is going to cause him problems. MR IRVING: I shall just burn the candle at both ends which is nothing new.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, but I am conscious that you have a fair old burden, being effectively, as it appears, on your own. You say if things are getting on top of you. MR IRVING: It is proper that we should continue with Auschwitz. MR RAMPTON I am very grateful for that. The other thing which arises out of that is that Mr Irving said, I think yesterday, that at some stage he would like to have an

argument about the significance and relevance of Auschwitz so far as this case is concerned. Plainly, if I am going to start cross-examining on Monday, we ought to have that argument this week and the question is when. I understand Professor Watt is coming on Thursday. Have I got that right? MR IRVING: That is correct, but I think he will be relatively brief. MR RAMPTON He will, at least, as far as I am concerned.

We might perhaps do that on Thursday also, because then we will know what the framework is before Monday. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Can you just, so I can think about it, give me in a couple of sentences what you understand the argument to be about? MR RAMPTON It has been our case all along — the book is about Holocaust denial. Auschwitz in Mr Irving’s utterances and certainly in our eyes is at the centre of Holocaust belief. It is therefore at the centre of Holocaust denial.

Mr Irving has flatly denied that there were any gas chambers for killing human beings at Auschwitz. We say he has done that on the basis of really no evidence whatsoever. It illustrates two things: First of all, his casual attitude to an important matter of history and, secondly, his political attitudes and sympathies. That has been in our case from the very beginning and still is.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I understand all of that, but what might be going to disappear from the case? MR RAMPTON Only this, that Mr Irving may be going to concede — this is what I do not know because for one reason he never answered our Auschwitz questions — as we contended and as I have already said in open court, that the Liechter report is bunk. If he is, then I cut a great swathe through my cross-examination. I throw three quarters of it out of the window. I do not need it.

That why it is important to know what he says. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It does not sound to me like a terribly long argument I am not going to ask you, Mr Irving, to answer it now. MR IRVING: I would just draw attention to the fact that this court is seized only with the issues as pleaded and not with the issues as portrayed by Mr Rampton.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not going to pursue this now but the fact is that, on the proceedings as I understand them at the moment, you rely quite heavily on the Liechter report for your proposition that there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz. MR IRVING: I think that your Lordship will realize the error of that statement, if I may respectfully put it like that, when we come to the cross-examination both of myself and of the expert witnesses.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Then we obviously do need to have an argument

about this, because I have, to an extent anyway, misunderstood the position. Let us carry on. Would you like to come back? <Mr David Irving, recalled. <Cross-Examined by Mr Rampton QC. A. [Mr Irving]: My Lord, I did produce also the Himmler diary so that you could see the actual page I worked from, if you wish to see the quality of the photocopy. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Does it carry the matter much further?

A. [Mr Irving]: Only if your Lordship intends to attach much weight to Mr Rampton’s suggestion that I deliberately and wilfully misread that word. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not saying I am not so, if you want me to have a look at it, I will. I doubt whether it will be significantly different from the photocopy I have in the file. A. [Mr Irving]: Well, we will leave it. MR RAMPTON Mr Irving, you have left behind, I am sorry, your little clip that you brought with you this morning.

A. [Mr Irving]: Yes. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Somebody will give it to you. The only page I am interested in at the present is page 3. A. [Mr Irving]: Page 3, yes. Q. [Mr Rampton]: I have only two questions, three questions possibly. Did any such cases occur in practice? A. [Mr Irving]: We have a document which we can produce to the court

Part II: David Irving’s Cross-Examination by Richard Rampton, continued (17.19 to 99.10)

showing that the Germans were instructed actually to build special camps for these special category — I am sorry, this is not an answer to that particular question. Were any actually sold? Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes. A. [Mr Irving]: No, not to my knowledge. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Do you know what sort of cases were envisaged? A. [Mr Irving]: Not on the basis of this document which I produced, no. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Do you know what the scale of this proposal was meant to be?

A. [Mr Irving]: This document does not show that. Q. [Mr Rampton]: No. You do not know from extraneous sources the answers to any of my questions? A. [Mr Irving]: The answer is? Q. [Mr Rampton]: Those two last two questions: Do you know not the answer from other evidence? A. [Mr Irving]: Not that I wish to repeat just from memory, which may be uncertain on oath.

Section details 17.19 to 33.9

Q. [Mr Rampton]: Thank you very much. Now I would like to return, if I may, to something that cropped up yesterday. It is in fact the only topic that cropped up yesterday that I am going to return to, save for continuing with the table talk but that is not really a repetition. Could you, please, be given Hitler’s War 1977, the first volume. My Lord that is D 1 (i). A. [Mr Irving]: I have it here.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: Would you please turn to page 341? A. [Mr Irving]: Yes. Q. [Mr Rampton]: The left hand page that is. Here again you are purporting to give a translation of the table talk of 25th October 1941, are you not, in the second paragraph? A. [Mr Irving]: On the right hand page, you mean? Q. [Mr Rampton]: No, 331? A. [Mr Irving]: Yes, 331. Q. [Mr Rampton]: In my copy it is the left hand page. A. [Mr Irving]: Odd numbers are always right hand pages in books.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: That may be so. Here you purport, do you not, to give a translation of the table talk of 25th October 1941. Is that right? A. [Mr Irving]: I have just reproduced the remarks noted by the adjutant, yes. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Take it slowly. The answer to my question I think is yes, is it not? A. [Mr Irving]: I cannot see the word “translation” in that paragraph. Q. [Mr Rampton]: You have put it in quotes in English.

The quotes start at “from the rostrum” and end at “terror is a salutary thing”, do they not? A. [Mr Irving]: Yes, but the word “translation” does not occur there. You are saying that I am purporting that this is a translation. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It obviously is. Let us move on. A. [Mr Irving]: I apprehend that he intends to attach importance to the

word “translation”. This is why. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Let us wait and see. MR RAMPTON That version, let us call it, was — for this fact on its own I make no criticism — taken straight from the Weidenfeld and Nicholson? A. [Mr Irving]: It was an accurate transcript of the original official, shall we say, translation of the Hitler’s table talk that I produced to his Lordship this morning. Q. [Mr Rampton]: At that date you did not have the Genoud original?

A. [Mr Irving]: In 1977 nobody had them except Mr Genoud. Q. [Mr Rampton]: You got it very shortly after that, did you not? A. [Mr Irving]: About 1982, if I remember correctly. Q. [Mr Rampton]: I think it was earlier, but it does not really matter. The last sentence in the quotes reads: “Terror is a salutary thing”. A. [Mr Irving]: That is correct. Q. [Mr Rampton]: When you came to write about this in the 1991 edition, as you confirmed yesterday, you did at that date have the original? A.

[Mr Irving]: Yes. Q. [Mr Rampton]: It is also right, is it not, that you omitted the single sentence “terror is a salutary thing”? A. [Mr Irving]: Yes, because I discovered that it was not in the original German, so I quite properly cut it out. Q. [Mr Rampton]: But you maintain, do you, still — I am not going over old ground, I just want to be sure that I have understood

what your case is — that, save for that sentence, it is an accurate account of what was reported to have been said by Hitler? A. [Mr Irving]: Had I made a version account from the German original, starting from scratch, I would have translated it differently. As I had an existing English translation, rather than rework it into a different form, then I preferred to leave it as it was, rather than incur the wrath of historians who were familiar only at that time with the English text.

Professor Martin Bourchard, in his very famous attack on my book, had commented extensively on the fact that my translations of documents differed from the official English versions, I wanted to avoid that kind of ill informed attack. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Could Mr Irving please be given file D3 (i)? Would you turn, please, to tab 20? Does your Lordship have that? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON At tab 20 this is a document headed On Contemporary History and Historiography.

I think it comes from the journal of the International Revisionists body, and the sub-heading is “David Irving, remarks delivered at the 1983 International Revisionists Conference”. Do you recognize it, Mr Irving? A. [Mr Irving]: Yes. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Is this one of those things that you approve before it is printed for publication?

A. [Mr Irving]: Quite possibly. I cannot say off the top of my head. Q. [Mr Rampton]: The easiest way of doing it is to look for a stamp 101 at the bottom of the page. A. [Mr Irving]: Yes. Q. [Mr Rampton]: And look at the right hand column.

I will start, if I may, for context at the bottom of the left hand page, which in fact in the document is page 280, though it has been cut off. “The will of the Fuhrer that the Jews are shipped stage by stage from west to east again and again and again even in his table talk, you have all heard of Hitler’s table talk or tichgesprache, written down by Martin Hein and Martin Bormann’s secretary.

Long before anybody got those these things, I got the actual transcripts from the Swiss lawyer who controls these documents. Here you see the actual wording used by Hitler in German, which is completely different from the published English translation.” You said that and then you had it published, did you not? A. [Mr Irving]: If you read the next sentence, you will see what I am referring to, the interpolator’s sentence.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: In fact, in the English translation sentences (plural) have been interposed which do not exist in the original German at all. A. [Mr Irving]: Yes. Q. [Mr Rampton]: In that original you see Hitler saying things like: “It

is a good thing that this legend is being spread about that the Jews are perishing. It is a good thing that this terror story” —- A. [Mr Irving]: “Terror story”. Q. [Mr Rampton]: — “is being spread about us”. Then you go on to make a comment of your own. I am not going to argue with you about that because it speaks for itself. You say he regards it altogether as being a legend. A. [Mr Irving]: Who regards it as being a legend?

Q. [Mr Rampton]: You say that Hitler regards it altogether as being a legend, do you not? A. [Mr Irving]: He says it is a good thing that this legend is being spread about that the Jews are perishing. Q. [Mr Rampton]: That is you translation of the word “schreck”, is it? A. [Mr Irving]: Mr Rampton, I do not have the document in front of me when I am delivering an extemporary speech. Is this fact plain? Q. [Mr Rampton]: Pardon? A. [Mr Irving]: Is this fact plain?

I do not have thousands of documents stacked in front of me when I am making an extemporary speech to an audience. Q. [Mr Rampton]: You must know that part of the table talk absolutely backwards, do you not? A. [Mr Irving]: Know something backwards? I am familiar with certain documents on which I have relied. Q. [Mr Rampton]: You must have known ever since you got the Genoud version

that the key word in that particular sentence — there are two key words — the first one is the word “schreck”? A. [Mr Irving]: This is your submission that that is the key word, but it is a loose word that has been put in there by Heinrich Heime who transcribed it and we then have to try to make some sense of it. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Is there any sense in German — you are the expert — in which it can be read be read as meaning legend?

A. [Mr Irving]: Coupled with the next sentence which I put in, this terror story, I think that legend terror story is an extremely good translation of the one word “schrecken”. I am giving precisely the sense of it. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, I think I have really the point. We went through this yesterday and “schreck” means what it means. MR RAMPTON Yes, it is merely Mr Irving’s observation, my Lord, or acknowledgment, if you like.

A. [Mr Irving]: But we also have the problem, Mr Rampton, we are writing a work of literature and, undoubtedly, you could translate that document in a very wooden form, putting precise literal translations and you would end up with a ghastly book of the kind that academics and scholars write. You have to write a work of literature which is legible, giving the sense of the word while at the same time having it readable in a literary sense.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but, Mr Irving, when you are dealing

with source material, which you are here, is it not important to convey the proper translation? A. [Mr Irving]: I appreciate that, my Lord, but you have to take into account the fact that we also have what Mr Rampton calls extraneous knowledge, knowledge from other sources than just this one document, which we use when putting the proper construction on those words. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: That will, with respect, Mr Irving, will no do, will it?

You cannot translate a document differently because you are aware of other material which may point in a particular direction. A. [Mr Irving]: My Lord, once again I would have to draw your attention to the fact, and I think it is cruel and unnecessary to try to suggest that I have done wrong by taking the original, official translation published by people who are far better qualified than I, professional translators. Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: No, I have that point. I understand it.

I was questioning you about what you then went on to say which is that you were anxious to avoid what you have described, I think, as a “wooden” translation. I was putting to you that an historian really has to take what he finds when he is dealing with source material? A. [Mr Irving]: This is right, which is why scholars’ books are published in such small, limited editions, my Lord, because they are so illegible, that they are wooden translations of documents.

You have to try to make the text flow when you

are writing a book. Perhaps this is why my books are more successful than theirs or more readable than theirs because I put a lot of extra effort in to making my works literary. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, I tried to cut it short and I have lengthened it. I am sorry. MR RAMPTON With my gratitude is all I will say about that. Thank you. It saves me from asking any more questions about that which I now will not do.

But I am going to go on to what I contend must be another piece of deliberate mistranslation. My Lord, this appears on page 338 of Professor Evans’ report. A. [Mr Irving]: My Lord, if I could just add to that point? Of course, the motive there for changing the words or giving a different meaning is nothing to do with the motives of Holocaust deniers; it is purely an intention of producing a more readable book which is possibly an important distinction to make.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, that is what you are saying? A. [Mr Irving]: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. A. [Mr Irving]: It has nothing to do with trying to minimise anything or trying to … MR RAMPTON Yes, now, Mr Irving, have you got your Goebbels’ book there? A. [Mr Irving]: Yes, indeed.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: Could you please turn to page 379? A. [Mr Irving]: A vivid description of the Holocaust, if I may say so. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Pardon? A. [Mr Irving]: A vivid description of the Holocaust, if I may say so. Q. [Mr Rampton]: What is that? A. [Mr Irving]: On page 379. Q. [Mr Rampton]: That is as may be. A. [Mr Irving]: You say “that is as may be”, but that is what this trial is about, Mr Rampton.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: Mr Irving, you will have plenty of opportunity when this case is at an end or before if you want to re-examine yourself — do you understand what that means? Do you understand that means? At the end of the cross-examination you have a chance to go back to questions that I have asked you by reference to the transcript and give further evidence?

A. [Mr Irving]: Notwithstanding what you say, Mr Rampton, I think it is helpful that I remind the court that this case is about Holocaust denials, and there is on this page you intend to quote from a vivid description of the Holocaust in action. MR JUSTICE GRAY: This last three or four minutes has been a complete waste of time. I know what the case is about, so let us get on.

MR RAMPTON You write in the middle paragraph of that page, a short little paragraph, “The article”, that is Goebbels’ article in Das Reich on 16th November 1941, “displayed a

far more uncompromising face than Hitler’s towards the Jews”. Then can I understand, you are going to back that up in the next sentence. You explained how you work yesterday, did you not? A. [Mr Irving]: I explained how I work? Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes. You put in —- A. [Mr Irving]: Yes, that is the topic sentence. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Topic sentence, so the topic is —- A. [Mr Irving]: That is a good example of a topic sentence.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: The topic is now a comparison between the anti-Semitic faces of Hitler and Goebbels, is it not? A. [Mr Irving]: Between the evil genius, Dr Goebbels, and Adolf Hitler who has been caused immense difficulties by this kind of genius. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Now you are going to explain why it is that Hitler’s face was far less uncompromising than Goebbels’, are you not? A. [Mr Irving]: That is what that sentence says.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: Then we get this evidence, as it were, for your first sentence in the next sentence: “When the Fuhrer came to Berlin for Luftwaffe General Ernst Udet’s funeral, he again instructed Goebbels to pursue a policy against the Jews that does not cause us endless difficulties and told him to go easy on mixed marriages in the future.” So, as you have written it, the reader would be inclined to agree with you, would he not, Mr Irving, that Hitler’s face was less uncompromising

than Goebbels’,

would he not? A. [Mr Irving]: Yes. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Now can you turn, please, to page 645 —- A. [Mr Irving]: I am just doing it at this moment. Q. [Mr Rampton]: — where we find footnote 39? A. [Mr Irving]: Yes. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Obviously, a reference to the Gottschalt tragedy. That must be something to do with Ernst Udet, I dare say? A. [Mr Irving]: I will explain it, if you wish. Q. [Mr Rampton]: No, I do not. A. [Mr Irving]: Well, it is important in this context.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: It is important in this context? A. [Mr Irving]: Yes. But if you do not wish me to explain it, I will not. Q. [Mr Rampton]: If you wish to explain it, better get it over now. A. [Mr Irving]: Mr Gottschalt was a German actor who was married to a Jewish wife. Goebbels being in charge of the German film industry had demanded that Mr Gottschalt divorce his wife, because otherwise he would get no more roles in Berlin.

The actor had refused to divorce his wife because he loved her and, instead, the whole family committed suicide. That is the Gottschalt tragedy that I have described in this book, Mr Rampton, and you know it. Q. [Mr Rampton]: I do not know it actually. It is very interesting, but I do not understand what it has to do with an answer to my question. A. [Mr Irving]: Because it was typical of the tragedies that were being

caused by the evil genius, Dr Goebbels, in his ^^ doktrene insistence on the execution of these anti-Jewish measures. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think we are sliding away, are we not, from is what is going to be put. MR RAMPTON I am completely baffled why it is obvious that that diary entry is a reference to the Gottschalt tragedy. A. [Mr Irving]: Because the previous diary has been full of the Gottschalt tragedy and we happen to know what happened to Mr Gottschalt and his family.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: Shall we have a look see what the “evil genius Dr Goebbels” actually wrote in his diary. Keep what you said he wrote open, if you please, and turn to page 338 of Professor Evans’ report.

I remind you you wrote only this: “The Fuhrer again instructed Goebbels to pursue a policy against the Jews ‘that does not cause us endless difficulties’ and told him to go easy on mixed marriages in the future.” Now, please, look at paragraph 1 under (D) in brackets on page 338 of Professor Evans’ report.

I read the English first: “The Fuhrer also completely agrees with my views with reference to the Jewish question.” According to Dr Goebbels, there was no water between them in relation to how the Jews should be treated. A. [Mr Irving]: I put my comment on that in my foot note saying, well,

clearly there was because here is Hitler saying, “Do not keep causing me problems”. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Let us see what he reports Hitler as actually having said: “He”, the Fuhrer, that is, “wants an energetic policy against the Jews which, however, does not cause us unnecessary difficulties”. Three things about that, Mr Irving. The word “energetic” has been omitted by you.

You have omitted the word “however”, “alladings” in German, and you have mistranslated “unnecessary”, “unnotige”, as “endless”? A. [Mr Irving]: The latter one I accept. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Where is the —- A. [Mr Irving]: But that is not — that does not really seriously change the burden of what I have said. Q. [Mr Rampton]: You have altered the whole sense of that sentence, have you not? A. [Mr Irving]: May I just comment?

The word “alladings” is a much stronger form of “however”. The normal word for “however” is “aber”. “Alladings” is a much stronger word than “however”. It implies a much stronger contrast. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Where is the word “enagische” in your translation? A. [Mr Irving]: I have not omitted that from the quoted passage. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Oh, you have just ignored it. A. [Mr Irving]: No.

On the contrary, Mr Rampton, you are not obliged to put in every single word from a sentence unless you put it

in quotation marks, and I will have a word or two to say about that with Mr Evans when the time comes. In one quotation he left out 86 words, three sentences, five full stops and two semi-colons. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Well, well, Mr Irving, I have sufficient confidence in Mr Evans to think that he may be able to deal with that. A. [Mr Irving]: I may be able to shake your confidence when the time comes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Don’t let us — it not fair — this is the point that is being put to you — the way you represent this in your book on Goebbels suggests that a wholly passive policy towards the Jews is what Hitler is telling Goebbels should be followed? A. [Mr Irving]: My Lord —- Q. [Mr Justice Gray]: And, in fact, the word “energetic” is the opposite of “passive”, is that a fair way of putting the point?

MR RAMPTON It is another complete perversion of the —- A. [Mr Irving]: I have not used the word “passive”. I have not used the word “energetic”, my Lord. I have left it neutral. We have to bear in mind that we are not dealing with a transcript of what Hitler said by court reporters.

We are dealing with a passage that had been filtered through the evil brain of Dr Goebbels who I have shown in the rest of the book has a track record of doing things first and then claiming in his diary afterwards that he had the Fuhrer’s sanction for it. For example, when he made Hitler stand

as Vice President which was a disaster for him in 1932, events like that. The Goebbels’ diary again and again and again and the Kristallnacht, the Reich, the Night of Broken Glass, is another example of Goebbels doing something first and subsequently claiming in his diary that he had Hitler’s sanctions. So you have to be very careful before you use the Goebbels’ diary as pure gold source material. You have to refilter it out of that evil brain.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: Mr Irving, can we please take this in two stages? Do you agree that the version which you have given in the book is completely contrary in sense to that which Dr Goebbels put in his diary? A. [Mr Irving]: On the contrary, it is quite plain from the Goebbels’ diaries that the suicide of the Gottschalt family had caused uproar in Berlin life.

This is, undoubtedly, what they are referring to, the fact that the onset of the Holocaust in Berlin, if I can put it that way, the deportation of train loads of Jews beginning at this time is leading to these human tragedies. It is precisely what Hitler does not want.

He is now fighting a desperate war on the Eastern Front, things are turning nasty, the rains have begun, the frost is setting in, and here is this evil little man in Berlin who is causing him totally needless problems, and Hitler saying, “By all means go ahead with

your doktriner programmes but stop causing me difficulties”. And this is the meaning of that sentence. Goebbels has written it down in the diary and you have to refilter it back into the correct sense because, you remember, it has been given negative spin by Goebbels and you have to give it the right spin again. Goebbels, remember, is an arch liar. He is a minister of propaganda. The diaries show this again and again — an extremely dangerous weapon to use.

Section details 33.10 to 47.8

Q. [Mr Rampton]: He is always telling the truth when he says something which in your mind is favourable to him, but whenever he says anything which is unfavourable to Hitler, he in your mind is a liar and, therefore, you feel justified in obliterating that from the text of your books, do you not?

A. [Mr Irving]: Mr Rampton, I do not want to labour the point, but I am sure you are familiar with witnesses and you know how to sort out the evidence they provide which is evidence in their own self-interest and evidence against their self-interest.

If you apply that kind of criterion to the statements and diaries — for example, what he writes about himself, you have to be mistrustful about, even when he writes about Hitler you have to be mistrustful because there is the element of the hero worship; but, on the other hand, what he writes about two or three, C or D, shall we say, in the alphabet, persons is more likely to be accurate because he would have no axe to grind one way

or the other. You have to apply these kinds of filters. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes, Mr Irving. I will put it once more in order to get the reader to think that Hitler’s policy towards the Jews or the policy that he wanted was really quite kind, gentle, much less ferocious and severe than Dr Goebbels, you have actually doctored the words which Dr Goebbels reports Hitler having said to him? A. [Mr Irving]: What is the essence of this quotation, Mr Rampton?

The essence of this quotation is not all the rest of those eight lines quoted by your Mr Evans. Yesterday the quotation to the words does not cause us unnecessary difficulties. That is Adolf Hitler saying to Goebbels, “Don’t cause us unnecessary difficulties” and there is no way you can talk yourself out of that particular quotation, Mr Rampton.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: We can echo that with what General Bruns reported and what Wisliceny reported. “Do not let us make a stink about it, but let us be very energetic in this persecution, discreet cautious, careful, concealed”?

A. [Mr Irving]: Well, no doubt you will advance documents and lead evidence in that direction, but those very words, Adolf Hitler, quoted even by the victim himself, Goebbels himself, at whom the criticism is being directed, saying, “Do not cause us unnecessary difficulties”. There is no way that your Mr Evans or you yourself, Mr Rampton, can talk yourself out of those five words. Whatever else you

want to say about the rest of that quotation and what use is made of it mind. Do you want me to have two or three times as much quoted from the diary? If I did that, the book would have been 2,000 pages long. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Do you not see a difference between “unnecessary” and “endless”? A. [Mr Irving]: No, not in burden, not in weight, not in thrust, not in push, not in emphasis.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: “An energetic policy will cause some difficulties, but let us do it in a way that does not cause difficulties which are not necessary to the carrying out of the energetic policy”? A. [Mr Irving]: Well, the energetic policy, of course, we have accepted; people were being roused in the middle of the night by the Gestapo and given half an hour to pack their goods and packed on trains to Riga and Minsk. That is an energetic policy and there is no denial of that in this book.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: Now, I want to, if I may, go back to these table talks? A. [Mr Irving]: Hitler is saying, “For God’s sake, do not take it too far. You are causing us a problem. Q. [Mr Rampton]: For which you will still need Professor Evans in a moment.

Am I right that you gave us — I am not going to go to the transcript; it is too time consuming — the impression — you will tell me if I am wrong — yesterday that these table talks were little private gatherings between often, not always of course, Hitler and, say,

Himmler or Goebbels, the Nazi high ups, perhaps Heydrich might be there as a particular honour, and, therefore, there was absolutely no bar, inhibition or restraint on the use of direct language about what was happening, for example, in the East? A. [Mr Irving]: Not completely right, Mr Rampton, because certain subjects were taboo. That I do grant. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes.

A. [Mr Irving]: The Schierak ^^ family at the end of June 1943, when Henrietta von Schierak ^^ said to Hitler that she had seen Jews being loaded on tucks in Amsterdam and was this kind of inhumanity necessary? There was a lot of glaring went on and the family was banished from Hitler’s house for the rest of the war. MR JUSTICE GRAY: All right, but the fact is I think you were suggesting there was a degree of candour because Hitler was amongst friends?

A. [Mr Irving]: Well, he is talking to people whom we know were actually the mass murderers, but I was asked a question, Mr Rampton asked, I tried to answer honestly that, in fact, they were taboo subjects. MR RAMPTON There will have been at many of these lunches, or I do not know whether they were really lunches or dinners or whatever, a whole lot of people who were not Himmler or Goebbels, but much lower down the scale, were there not?

A. [Mr Irving]: People like Heinreich Heim who was Martin Bormann’s

private adjutant and took the initial record. He was present. Q. [Mr Rampton]: And secretaries and, what are they called, orderlies? A. [Mr Irving]: Yes. Q. [Mr Rampton]: People like Schmunet, Schau? A. [Mr Irving]: Yes. Q. [Mr Rampton]: The secretary, Krista Schroeder — people like that? A. [Mr Irving]: Yes.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: So it is hardly surprising that in that company, as opposed to direct face, one-to-one discussion with Himmler or Goebbels, Hitler’s language should be somewhat cloaked? A. [Mr Irving]: That is possible, yes. Q. [Mr Rampton]: I am going to deal with it now because I do not want to have to come back to it.

Do you remember, you have published this information (and as information certainly not disputed by us) there was a report, I think, in March 1943, by Himmler’s statistician, a man called ^^ Korheir? A. [Mr Irving]: Dr Richard Korheir. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Yes.

Dr Korheir in which at I think about page, what was it, 20 — I cannot remember the page number — a long report, he gave a total for the number of Jews that had been killed up to that date, and he separated the Wartige from the General Government, and I think the total comes to about 1.4 million, does it not? A. [Mr Irving]: I am going to have to take issue with the way you describe the report.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: Well —- A. [Mr Irving]: Because this is going into the record, you said “had been killed”. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Well the word actually used was “zondebehandlung”? A. [Mr Irving]: Yes, but Dr Korheir, not many years ago, wrote a letter to Das Spiegel which is published in which he said that at the time he wrote the report he had no notion that is what that word means. He was a straightforward statistician, just doing a job on the basis of documents shown to him.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: That is exactly my point. A. [Mr Irving]: But you said “killed”. Can we be precise about the use of words. MR JUSTICE GRAY: “Disposed of”? A. [Mr Irving]: Disposed of. MR RAMPTON You see, you must be patient because my questions build on each other — at least they usually do? A. [Mr Irving]: But that goes into the transcript of me agreeing to you that you are saying that it said that.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: No, but perhaps you will agree in just a moment the word actually used was “zondebehandlung”? A. [Mr Irving]: “Zondebehandlung zugefuhrt”. Q. [Mr Rampton]: I do not have the document. A. [Mr Irving]: That is the actual phrase that he uses. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Himmler had the report typed up in the large Fuhrer type so that Hitler could read it; whether he did or not is another matter, but he did, did he not?

A. [Mr Irving]: It was not typed in the large Fuhrer type. It was typed in the small regular German office typewriter. I have never seen a version in the large Fuhrer type of that report. Q. [Mr Rampton]: I forget which of your books it is that I read it in, but the assertion by you is that there was a copy prepared for Hitler to read by Himmler? A. [Mr Irving]: An abridged version for Hitler. Q. [Mr Rampton]: Just be patient, but is what you tell us in your book, is it not?

A. [Mr Irving]: You were speaking about the 20 page version. Q. [Mr Rampton]: The which? A. [Mr Irving]: You were speaking originally about the 20 page version. Q. [Mr Rampton]: You had better give me a moment to find it. The trouble is that your books, like many books, are not as well indexed as they might be. A. [Mr Irving]: Blame the index now. Q. [Mr Rampton]: I think it is in Hitler’s War 1977. You do not remember the page reference, do you? A. [Mr Irving]: 503 to 504.

Q. [Mr Rampton]: Well done, Mr Irving. A. [Mr Irving]: From the index. MR RAMPTON My Lord, it is part 2. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Is this point raised anywhere in the pleadings, as a matter of interest? MR RAMPTON No, it is not. Actually, I noticed it sometime