Irving v. Lipstadt

 1Q. [Mr Rampton]     --- in the Heydrich telex and then please turn finally on
 2this topic to page 276 of Mr Irving's Goebbels book?
 3A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes.
 4Q. [Mr Rampton]     At the bottom of the page we see this: "What of Himmler
 5and Hitler? Both were totally unaware of what Goebbels
 6had done until the synagogue next to Munich's Four Seasons
 7Hotel set on fire around 1 a.m. Heydrich, Himmler's
 8national chief of police, was relaxing down in the hotel
 9bar; he hurried up to Himmler's room, then telexed
10instructions to all police authorities to restore law and
11order, protect Jews and Jewish property, and halt any
12ongoing incidents". I ask you this. Does that seem to
13you a fair and accurate reproduction of the substance of
14Heydrich's telex at 1.20 a.m.?
15A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     No, it does not, Mr Rampton.
16Q. [Mr Rampton]     If you look over the page, you will see that the footnote
17reference for 43 and I think it is on page 613 ----
18A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     613, I have it.
19Q. [Mr Rampton]     It must be a wrong reference.
20MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Yes, it is.
21MR RAMPTON:    It is a wrong reference.
22A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     It should be 3051.
23Q. [Mr Rampton]     Yes.
24A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     We went through this.
25Q. [Mr Rampton]     Yes, we did, did we not. We have done the Heydrich
26telex. I am just going to go back momentarily to the

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 1Hess's office telex at 2.56. That is further down page
 2277. At 2.56 a.m. you see that, the end of a line?
 3A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes. I just say that the wrong reference is obviously
 4just a slip of pen on Mr Irving's part.
 5Q. [Mr Rampton]     Mr Irving has accepted that and the right reference should
 6be ----
 7A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     The reference to Karl Wolff's evidence has nothing to do
 8with what is in the text. It is simply an additional
 9cross-reference.
10Q. [Mr Rampton]     I understand that. That was my mistake, a slight
11diversion. Can we go down about quarter of the way down
12277?
13A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes.
14Q. [Mr Rampton]     We have a sentence which begins towards the end of the
15line at 2.56 am. Do you see that?
16A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes.
17Q. [Mr Rampton]     At 2.56 a.m. Rudolf Hess's staff also began cabling,
18telephoning, and radioing instructions to gauleiters and
19police authorities around the nation to halt the
20madness". Again, does that seem to you a fair and
21accurate account of what was in that Opdenhof telegram?
22A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     No. It is total and obviously deliberate perversion of
23the contents of the telegram.
24Q. [Mr Rampton]     If you would like to turn to page 613 to note 49?
25A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes.
26Q. [Mr Rampton]     I can tell you that the reference is ND 3063-PS, which is

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 1in fact the Nazi party court report of 13th February 1939
 2we first looked at.
 3A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Exactly right.
 4Q. [Mr Rampton]     Now, Professor, you will need a file called J1, tab 3,
 5page 13.
 6A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes, I have it.
 7Q. [Mr Rampton]     Thank you very much. I just want to ask you, this is the
 8famous or infamous Hitler Himmler telephone log of 1st
 9December 1941?
10A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes.
11Q. [Mr Rampton]     You do not need your report for this at all. This is a
12question of German language. Do you remember that
13Mr Irving translated or transcribed this entry as (you
14will forgive my German) Verwaltungs Fuhrer der SS Juden
15zu bleiben, except he did not transcribe the first part?
16A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     That is right, Juden zu bleiben.
17Q. [Mr Rampton]     If it had said Verwaltungs Fuhrer der SS Juden zu bleiben
18in German, would it make any sense?
19MR JUSTICE GRAY:    No, he said it would not.
20MR RAMPTON:    He said that, did he?
21A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     No, it would not make any sense.
22Q. [Mr Rampton]     The second question is a history question rather than a
23German question. As it stands in its correct form
24Verwaltungs Fuhrer der SS haben zu bleiben, is it an entry
25of any significance, historically?
26A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     I suppose it might be, if you were writing a history of

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 1the Verwaltungs Fuhrer der SS.
 2Q. [Mr Rampton]     Yes.
 3A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     But in the overall scheme of things it does not seem to me
 4of shattering importance. Juden zu bleiben, of course,
 5taken by itself, is not grammatically possible really.
 6Q. [Mr Rampton]     I suppose he might have just written down Verwaltungs
 7Fuhrer der SS as a sort of isolated, what Mr Irving calls
 8an orphan. It is difficult to see, I suppose, what it
 9might have meant, is it?
10A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     No. It just would have meant you can see plenty further
11up there.
12Q. [Mr Rampton]     Yes.
13A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Of just notes to himself really. But clearly it is the
14indentation which is reproduced on the original, the next
15page but not on this transcript on the second line, which
16is the key.
17MR RAMPTON:    Yes, you made that point. Thank you. Finally
18this, and I am afraid it is because it is late and it is
19your last question, it is a little bit cheap. You
20remember the dispute on page 400 of your report?
21A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes.
22Q. [Mr Rampton]     About the way in which you translated in the third line
23Dr Goebbels' diary entry of 27th March 1942, "in general
24one may conclude that 60 per cent of them must be
25liquidated". Do you remember that?
26A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes. That was today.

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 1Q. [Mr Rampton]     That was today. Can I just show you, to give you some
 2satisfaction to go back to Cambridge with, what we find in
 3Hitler's War 1991, page 464?
 4A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes.
 5Q. [Mr Rampton]     Right at the bottom of page, he says six lines up, have
 6you got it, "A barbaric indescribable method is being
 7employed here and there is not much left of the Jews
 8themselves. By and large you can probably conclude that
 960 per cent of them have to be liquidated". Does that
10seem to be a fair translation of the German?
11A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     It seems perfectly reasonable to me. Yes.
12MR RAMPTON:    My Lord, those are all the questions I have in
13re-examination.
14MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Yes. Thank you very much, Professor Evans.
15That is the end of your quite lengthy spell in the witness
16box. We will resume on Wednesday at 10.30 with Longerich.
17MR RAMPTON:    Yes. If we finish this file tonight, I assume
18your Lordship will not want it until tomorrow morning
19anyway. We will send it over to your Lordship's room.
20MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Yes, as early as convenient.
21MR RAMPTON:    As early as possible.
22A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     The thing is we will not be able to do it late tonight
23because the courts are not accessible.
24MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Yes, I see. What about this recent bundle of
25Mr Irving's? It is called Claimant bundle G.
26MS ROGERS:    J2.

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 1MR JUSTICE GRAY:    J2.
 2MS ROGERS:    Tab 9 is empty, if not tab 10. I would like to
 3know which, if that is possible.
 4MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Tab 9 has something in it, so tab 10.
 5MS ROGERS:    Tab 10.
 6< (The witness withdrew).
 7MR JUSTICE GRAY:    10.30 on Wednesday.
 8(The court adjourned until Wednesday, 24th February 2000)
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