Irving v. Lipstadt

     There is one, as your Lordship says, right at the
 1of page 22, Mr Irving, General Bruns reports having, as it
 2were, been subjected to the experience of one of these
 3Riga shootings. He reports that a man called Altemeyer
 4said to him upon his protest at the use of, at the misuse
 5of he waste of valuable manpower, Altemeyer said: "Well,
 6let it be shot in accordance with the Fuhrer's orders. I,
 7that is Bruns, said: Fuhrer's orders? Answer from
 8Altemeyer: Yes. Whereupon he, Altemeyer, showed me,
 9Bruns, his orders." Yes
10A. [Mr Irving]     That is correct, yes
11Q. [Mr Rampton]     That is what is in the PRO document. Therefore,
12presumably, General Bruns actually said that
13A. [Mr Irving]     Yes
14Q. [Mr Rampton]     And was recorded as having said it by Allies. If you go
15right to the end, the narrative is that they managed,
16Bruns and his colleagues managed, to get back to Berlin,
17perhaps to Canaris, an account of this shooting, perhaps
18in the form of an objection, is that right
19A. [Mr Irving]     My reading of the document was -- in fact, we know also
20from other sources -- Gerald Fleming had done some very
21good work on this particular episode, that an Army
22Lieutenant wrote a report, having been sent down the road
23to go and have a look for himself by these cowardly German
24Generals, and this Army Lieutenant's report was sent over
25the Army Lieutenant's name up to Hitler's headquarters by
26the route of Admiral Canaris who was the Head of the

.   P-281

---

 1German Intelligence Service
 2Q. [Mr Rampton]     Can I start at the bottom of the next page 24 where
 3"Canaris" begins a line, do you see that
 4A. [Mr Irving]     Yes
 5Q. [Mr Rampton]     "Canaris had the unsavoury task of waiting for the
 6favourable moment to give the Fuhrer certain gentle
 7hints. A fortnight later I visited the Oberburgermeister,
 8or whatever he was called then, concerning some other
 9business. Altenmeyer(?) triumphantly showed me: 'Here is
10an order just issued prohibiting mass shootings on that
11scale from taking place in future'. They are to be
12carried out more discreetly.' From warnings given me
13recently, I knew that I was receiving still more
14attentions from spies", etc.
15    "They are to be carried more discreetly in
16future" means the shootings are to be carried out more
17discreetly in the future
18A. [Mr Irving]     I would even go so far as to say mass shootings
19Q. [Mr Rampton]     Yes. It does not mean that the mass shootings were to
20come to an end, does it
21A. [Mr Irving]     Not in that sentence, no
22Q. [Mr Rampton]     What it means is that they must be more cleverly disguised
23from anybody who might notice what was going on
24A. [Mr Irving]     Yes
25 MR JUSTICE GRAY:     Just whilst you are on that document, you
26told us, I think, that Bruns would have been a Colonel

.   P-282

---

 1A. [Mr Irving]     He was a Colonel at that time in the Engineer Corp. and he
 2was a Major-General at the time of his capture in 1945
 3Q. [Mr Rampton]     And Altenmeyer, presumably, was his superior officer
 4A. [Mr Irving]     No, sir. Altenmeyer, his real name was "Altemeyer",
 5without an "n", he was a 21 or 22 year-old very junior SS
 6officer who just happened to have the lives of these
 7unfortunate people in his power
 8Q. [Mr Rampton]     Hitler's orders go to him before they go to the Colonel
 9A. [Mr Irving]     No, sir the orders went -- I think the route was that
10Hitler told Himmler, who sent the message to Joachim which
11is what we talked about yesterday which we, British,
12intercepted and decoded, so we had an inkling of what was
13going on. Himmler said to Joachim, "Come straight to
14headquarters, that it had to stop".
15    In Himmler's diary on December 1st 1941, the
16following day, I noticed yesterday there is the telephone
17call from Himmler to Heydrich on December 1st, SS
18Obergruppenfuhrer Heydrich "Executzionan in Riga", the
19executions, the shootings, in other words, in Riga, they
20talked about this very episode again on the day after it
21happened; and when Joachim came -- unfortunately, I cannot
22show you this, my Lord, that bundle is still at home; we
23know it from Himmler's diary in Moscow -- Joachim came to
24see Himmler on December 4th. Himmler wrote in his diary
25that evening that he dined with him at 9.30 p.m. and the
26topic of their conversation which Himmler also noted was

.   P-283

---

 1[German], Jewish question, and [German] "in Riga", which
 2[German], economic businesses, small shops, something like
 3that, in Riga, which fits rather in with Bruns'
 4description, in my view, that these executions were
 5causing problems in the local economy because they were
 6running out of manpower, but that is a possible
 7interpretation of that.
 8    But, obviously, there was a certain amount of
 9toing and froing from the very highest level down through
10these channels down to this very low level SS Officer who
11claims he received a Fuhrer order, if I may go into that,
12when the army Colonel came to see him and said, "What on
13earth is going on here?" and this very junior SS Officer
14said, "Oh, it is the Fuhrer's orders" which frequently was
15said. Frequently people claimed they were Fuhrer's
16orders. We know, however, from our other sources (which
17are much superior sources) that the Fuhrer's orders were
18distinctly very different in this case [German] "No
19liquidation"
20 MR JUSTICE GRAY:     But Bruns says that Altemeyer showed him the
21orders
22A. [Mr Irving]     Yes, I do not attach too much importance to that, my Lord
23MR RAMPTON:     Well, in considering all the other trappings of
24verisimilitude that this ---
25A. [Mr Irving]     I thought you might mention that, actually
26Q. [Mr Rampton]     Of course I might mention it. It is obvious, is it not

.   P-284

---

 1A. [Mr Irving]     Yes, but the problem we have with that, Mr Rampton, is how
 2do you reconcile in with the kind of [German] in Himmler's
 3own notes what Hitler told him, Jew transport, no
 4liquidation
 5Q. [Mr Rampton]     You have never shown us any evidence, shall I say, or any
 6of your readers that Himmler [German] came from Hitler
 7A. [Mr Irving]     It is coming from Hitler's bunker, from a phone booth in
 8Hitler's bunker, just as if I made a phone call from that
 9phone booth outside
10Q. [Mr Rampton]     But as I think you have accepted on your web site an hour
11before Himmler met Hitler
12A. [Mr Irving]     But he was in and out all day. When you visited Hitler in
13his headquarters, you would have lunch with him, you would
14have tea with him, you would be in and out of Hitler's
15bunker all day
16Q. [Mr Rampton]     The entry in his log for that day -- it is not a diary,
17except in the most primitive sense -- in Himmler's log,
18the only entry referring to Hitler is, I think, 1430,
19[German] or something along those ---
20A. [Mr Irving]     Yes, I agree entirely with what you say, Mr Rampton, but
21I have to say that if he drives over to Hitler's
22headquarters and, for whatever reason, finds it necessary
23suddenly to telephone Heydrich and say, "That transport of
24Jews from Berlin is not to be liquidated", it is a very
25reasonable interpretation indeed to say this is not
26unconnected with the fact that he is speaking from

.   P-285

---

 1Hitler's bunker. And it would be perverse not to accept
 2that
 3Q. [Mr Rampton]     Mr Irving, bear with me. I do wish that one could insert
 4the word "objective" into every answer you give. It is a
 5possibly, certainly, that Himmler spoke to Hitler before
 6he made that telephone call. That is quite different, is
 7it not, from an assertion that the telephone call was made
 8on Hitler's orders
 9A. [Mr Irving]     I agree, I agree
10Q. [Mr Rampton]     And you have asserted the latter, have you not
11A. [Mr Irving]     I agree, it is a judgment call, and it is a judgment call
12which -- may I speak? It is a judgment which, in my
13submission, is entirely justified. If Himmler drives over
14to Hitler's bunker in the train, [German] makes a few
15phone calls and then [German], from the bunker, from
16Hitler's Wolf's Lair bunker, he makes a phone call to
17Heydrich saying, "That train load of Jews is not to be
18liquidated", it would take a very perverse and obtuse
19person indeed to say there is no connection between the
20two facts
21Q. [Mr Rampton]     May I suggest that what an objective, reputable historian
22who was not punting a particular line to exonerate Adolf
23Hitler might have written would be something like this:
24The evidence is that Himmler saw Hitler about an hour
25after he made that telephone call. There is no direct
26evidence that Himmler spoke to Hitler before he made the

.   P-286

---