Irving v. Lipstadt

 1MR IRVING:    I was going to ask, my Lord, I might, having given
 2the Defendants time to consider it, if I might address the
 3court briefly on the matter after the lunch adjournment?
 4MR JUSTICE GRAY:    If you would like to do that, that is fine.
 5Mr Rampton?
 6MR RAMPTON:    I have no comment until I have seen it.
 7MR JUSTICE GRAY:    I do not suppose you will, even when you
 8have.
 9MR RAMPTON:    I see. My Lord, the only thing I would mention
10about the transcript, I do not know what the cure is. Is
11that, normally speaking, of course, one can deduce what it
12was, but here and there -- this is not a criticism of the
13transcriber, far from it -- one sees in square brackets
14the word "German" which represents something that has been
15said in German. That is going to repeat itself
16indefinitely in that case. I do not know what cure is.
17Whether the word should be spelt out each time. It is a
18terribly laborious way of dealing it, or whether we supply
19at some stage when it is important a list of what we
20suppose was the word used. As I say, most of the time one
21can deduce it.
22MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Is it actually going to be all that much of a
23burden to spell it out or, at any rate, spell out the key
24words in the document? I am thinking yesterday
25"liquidierung". One can spell that out.
26MR RAMPTON:    There is going to be more of that today.

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 1MR JUSTICE GRAY:    I follow.
 2MR RAMPTON:    Perhaps spell it out?
 3MR JUSTICE GRAY:    I am inclined to think so. I think that is
 4the best way. It is going to slow things down. Would you
 5prefer it, both of you?
 6MR RAMPTON:    Yes.
 7MR JUSTICE GRAY:    It is going to slow things down, but it needs
 8to be done that way. So, Mr Irving, would you like to
 9take me through the...
10MR IRVING:    Page 1, my Lord, this is a letter -- the sole
11purpose of this letter is that it indicates the date when
12I really made use of the Himmler telephone notes, being
131974; some 25 years ago, 26 years ago.
14MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Can I just ask you this? You there
15transcribe judentransport, J-U-D-E-N-T-R-A-N-S-P-O-R-T, in
16the singular, and that is in 1974.
17MR IRVING:    We have check the original in the German. You are
18absolutely right, my Lord. You are absolutely right.
19MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Right.
20MR IRVING:    In a very vague, and, of course, I am still
21considering myself to be under oath as I make these
22remarks, in a very vague way my recollection is that time
23I regarded the word "transport" as not just meaning like a
24transport train or one consignment, or a transport ship in
25the way that you would talk about a convoy of 26
26transports but also in the sense that transportation.

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 1I consider that the words judenstransport meant
 2"transportation of Jews".
 3MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Yes, I note that you make that point.
 4MR IRVING:    This is an alternative inference but now I am quite
 5happy to accept that this particular discussion from
 6external evidence only referred to one particular
 7transport of Jews, and I am indebted to your Lordship for
 8having reminded, or took me back into the mind set of 26
 9years ago.
10MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Yes.
11MR IRVING:    As you know, my presumption is, I will just read
12the middle paragraph that Hitler had become an active
13knowledge bearer or accomplice in the destruction of the
14Jews only in 1943. This is of course a translation of the
15following page, my Lord. From the attached page, which is
16a facsimile, which we will see in a minute, it is evident
17that Himmler, arriving at midday on November 30th, 1941,
18in the Wolf's Lair, which I explain was Hitler's
19headquarters in East Prussia, after a brief conversation
20with Hitler immediately had to telephone Heydrich in
21Prague, and then comes the phrase, "judentransportest aust
22Berlin keine liquidierung", which I believe the shorthand
23writer already had from us.
24    If you take this in conjunction with various
25other entries, e.g. that of 17th November 1941, in which
26Heydrich informs the Reich Fuhrer, that is Himmler, on

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 1conditions in the general Uberman, Poland.
 2MR JUSTICE GRAY:    That is SS Reich Fuhrer.
 3MR IRVING:    Well, Reich Fuhrer SS would be the full title.
 4There was only one Reich Fuhrer in German -- conditions in
 5the general government Poland-geting rid of the Jews,
 6Beseitigung, this can only indicate that Himmler has been
 7rapped across the knuckles by Hitler. This conversation
 8note has until now evidently slipped through the fingers
 9of the historical research community, as you might call
10it.
11    Then the other two lines at the bottom are not
12without interest in the chain of documents I refer to, my
13Lord. Himmler had to issue a similar "holt" order in
14April 1942 on account of the liquidation of the gypsies,
15again after a brief visit to Hitler. "I thought this
16might be of interest to you." You will see that document
17too, my Lord, in this bundle. Because it is false to try
18and draw inferences from one document without looking at
19other documents in the series. I appreciate in court it
20is difficult to do this.
21    My Lord, the next document I am going to draw
22your Lordship's attention to is 03 at the foot of the
23page. This is another document that was in discovery.
24MR JUSTICE GRAY:    I have read that. That is you asking
25Professor Hinsley whether he has any more information.
26MR IRVING:    Yes, my Lord, except that at that time it does

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 1indicate at that time he did not have the German
 2originals.
 3MR RAMPTON:    I am sorry, Mr Irving. I beg your pardon. May
 4I intervene to ask your Lordship to insert it in that
 5bundle? It comes from Mr Irving's discovery. There is no
 6mystery about it. Professor Hinsley's reply.
 7MR JUSTICE GRAY:    It was not there.
 8MR RAMPTON:    Yes, we have it now.
 9MR IRVING:    I could not find it last night, my Lord. In is
10Professor Hinsley indicates that he has obviously not yet
11seen himself the German originals of the British
12intercepts.
13MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Yes.
14MR IRVING:    It is quite interesting.
15MR JUSTICE GRAY:    The postscript is perhaps of some
16significance.
17MR IRVING:    It is interesting the British Official Historian
18and British Secret Service had either not been allowed to
19see or had not found in general chaos the documentation,
20these are the originals, which are now in the Public
21Record Office. But the German originals are very, very
22informative in their scope, breadth and depth.
23    That, my Lord, is 04. This is the first of the
24notes of the telephone conversations from Himmler's
25telephone log to the Chief of the SS, and the one on which
26I rely is the one timed 12.15. It is the fourth

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