MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Mr Irving?

MR IRVING: May it please your Lordship.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think this court is better. I know a lot of work has been put into moving everything and I am very grateful for those who did it.

MR IRVING: I am indebted to the solicitors in this action. An added burden falls upon them, my being a litigant in person.

May it please the court, I have addressed a letter to the court suggesting that we spend some ten minutes this morning dealing with some minor matters that have come up, and also I wanted to propose that your Lordship should appoint a date when we might have a formal argument, lasting perhaps one half hour for each party, on this important question of what is relevant and what is not.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Are you talking about Auschwitz now?

MR IRVING: About Auschwitz, my Lord, yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I did not realise there was a dispute between you as to what is or is not relevant in the Defendants' evidence for that matter.

MR IRVING: Your Lordship will remember on the very first day in my opening remarks I did draw your attention to the fact in my view what happened 50 years ago was less important than what happened within the four walls of my

P-2

study, as I put it.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That point I fully understood, but I am not sure that knocks out the much of the Defendants' evidence, but we do not, I think, want to get into that today.

MR IRVING: I do not want to get into argument today, but I wonder whether we possibly ought to steer toward having a discussion about it, so we can clarify our minds about the relevance of this. I have seen that the Defendants have made remarks to various foreign newspapers about The Auschwitz Lie or about Auschwitz and such. It is not. It is about specific libels as set out in the Statement of Claim.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: In this court we are all agreed about that, but, yes, do raise that whenever is a convenient moment; I suspect now is not.

MR IRVING: Now is not the right moment.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Because we are on another topic. You are in the middle of your evidence.

MR IRVING: I suspect we will have to prepare ourselves for it. But if you were to limit it to say half an hour each side maximum. I will try to persuade your Lordship to limit the ambit of the evidence and the argument and the hearing itself which would have a pleasing effect on the length of the trial, but, on the other hand, I am sure that the Defendants would wish to argue in the other direction.

P-3

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, perhaps the first thing between you and Mr Rampton is to try to agree a time when it might be convenient to raise this issue.

MR RAMPTON: My Lord, can I perhaps intervene at this stage?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

MR RAMPTON: As matters presently stand, I see that I have just been handed something from Mr Irving -- I expect your Lordship has it too -- containing some sort of a proposed timetable for his witnesses ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

MR RAMPTON: --- about which I have no comment to make except this, that Professor van Pelt, as Mr Irving knows and has known for some time, is arriving in this country at the end of this week with a view to his giving evidence at the beginning of next -- no, sorry not giving evidence being in court while I cross-examine Mr Irving about Auschwitz. It follows from that -- perhaps, two things follow; one that that cross-examination will be discontinuous, that is intermediate because of these other people that are coming. I am not going to stand in their way if it is inconvenient for them. I have few, if any, questions to ask them anyway, I suspect. But it does mean that before I start my cross-examination on Auschwitz, if there is a ruling to be made, it would need to be made before the beginning of next week, preferably before Professor van Pelt steps on an aeroplane to come to Europe.

P-4

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. We have proceeded on the basis that we are having two separate issues or two separate chunks of evidence; one related to Auschwitz and the other relating to everything else. You are in the middle of cross-examining on everything else. My impression is you have a little way to go.

MR RAMPTON: I have miles to go.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: How far to go? We may have to put Professor van Pelt off, may we not?

MR RAMPTON: It depends , because what I call the Evans part of the case is not a narrative I tried to keep it started at the end of 41, and so as far I am trying to keep on that track, and I will I hope this week manage to get to the beginning of the autumn of 1942. Maybe I will get a bit further than. But then there are all sorts of what one might call various things such as Dresden, such as Reichskristallnacht, which have nothing to do with the narrative, but everything to do with Mr Irving's historiography. I shall have to get to those.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think having gone down the road of treating those as separate issues, as being taken together and leaving Auschwitz on one side, we must follow that, must we not? It will be hopelessly difficult for everybody to suddenly switch back to Auschwitz and then resume your cross-examination.

MR RAMPTON: Auschwitz is more nearly a part of the narrative

P-5

that I am launched on now, chronologically speaking, than for example Reichskristallnacht, which is 1938. I had in mind to lead up to Auschwitz by the questions I shall ask about other matters arising from the Evans report and Browning and Longerich. So Auschwitz would fit neatly in at the end of my cross-examination this week as part of the historical narrative.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, I think this is quite helpful to debate this through. I had really understood the point you are on at the moment to be part of your case for saying that Hitler knew, if that is what it all goes to, and Kristallnacht goes to that, so indeed did the events of 1924.

MR RAMPTON: This is all to do to with System -- two things, how Systematic were the shootings and the gassings --

MR JUSTICE GRAY: How high up did the instruction come from.

MR RAMPTON: How high up did it go. Embedded in that all are very specific criticisms about the way in which Mr Irving deals with the material.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Of course, because that is an aspect of ----

MR RAMPTON: The libel.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: --- your case in relation to whether Hitler knew.

MR RAMPTON: Of course.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving has not taken account of all the material.

P-6

MR RAMPTON: That is right.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: But, looking at it from my point of view, I would find it helpful to go through all of that in one bite, as it were, and to treat Auschwitz separately. If that is not practical, well, then we will have to live with it.

MR RAMPTON: I will find out, obviously, in the light of what your Lordship said, whether it is practical, but I have to say I think at this stage it is going to be very difficult. I know, that Professor van Pelt has a significant or substantial academic appointment to fulfil in, I think, March, is it March -- yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is a fair way off.

MR RAMPTON: Yes, I know.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: We have to keep an eye on this not running out of control.

MR RAMPTON: I quite agree. We have allocated three months, give or take maybe a week or two. I am very anxious, from my clients' point of view, we keep to that schedule if we possibly can.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Of course.

MR RAMPTON: One of the key elements in all this is I do not know what Mr Irving's position on Auschwitz is.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That may emerge if we have the debate about how much evidence is really relevant on Auschwitz.

MR RAMPTON: Yes, I have two -- I make it perfectly clear,

P-7

I have always done -- main lines of attack so far as Mr Irving and Auschwitz are concerned, which all really amount to the same thing; either he leapt on the Leuchter bandwagon without having bothered to think about it, which is very good evidence of his poor quality as an historian, or else he did think about it and his position is every bit as bad. So for that reason the detail may or may not be relevant, but since I do not know what his position is ...

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Again, I do not want to get into it too much, but one of the points you make is that there is a lot of evidence, eyewitness evidence, and the like, which, as I understand your case, you contend Mr Irving has not given proper or, perhaps, indeed, any weight to. How does that k-- I mean, that must be part of the case still, must it not?

MR RAMPTON: Of course it is. I could cross-examine Mr Irving for a month about Auschwitz if he will not concede a single point about the convergent evidence which, as a matter of probability, would satisfy the historian that it happened.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Well, you have put a few markers down. Mr Irving, I think it is helpful just to see the way the wind is blowing. Shall we try to deal with your witnesses?

MR IRVING: I will reserve my position on Auschwitz. I have

P-8

very powerful material which supports my position. The second point, I am just asking your Lordship to utter a verbal "tut tut" to the Defence as they keep on trickling material at me.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. You refer to Professor Evans having submitted a closely typed 18 page list of amendments.

MR IRVING: To his already very detailed report.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not totally sure that has reached me, but may I wrong about that.

MR IRVING: It is about 5,000 or 8,000 words, I estimate, very detailed, probably about 200 separate points.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have, if I may say so, a lot of sympathy with that ----

MR IRVING: The accuracy with which he is working, on the other hand, it inflicts an added burden on us.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I see that. I am conscious of the heavy burden you are bearing. I am well aware of that.

MR IRVING: My Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have I actually got that, Mr Rampton?

MR RAMPTON: I do not know, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: The addendum.

MR RAMPTON: If not, I can only apologise on all our behalves; you certainly should have done.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: At some stage I am, presumably, going to have to absorb it. I have noted, Mr Irving --

MR IRVING: The third point, my Lord. I have suggested a

P-9

proposed timetable for witnesses.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Before we get to that, could I go back to your point (1)? I am a little concerned you feel part of your case has gone by the board.

MR IRVING: Indeed, my Lord. If your Lordship would indicate how and in what manner I would be able to introduce the evidence I propose to lead?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I thought about that. Your main concern is you are obviously getting it into my head.

MR IRVING: Getting it before your Lordship.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Quite. Well, if I may say so, I think you have produced enough in writing and, indeed, to some extent in your opening, in your short evidence-in-chief, in regard to your reputation. I do not think you need be concerned about that. That certainly has not gone by the board, as far as I am concerned. As far as the attempt to destroy your legitimacy as an historian, I know what your case is, but I think I have to remind you that this is actually an action on Professor Lipstadt' book, so --

MR IRVING: I anticipated your Lordship would say that, but in view of the fact that the sources on which that book draws have been part and parcel of this campaign to destroy my legitimacy, as I would have attempted to establish in the evidence that I would have proposed to lead, in that respect I consider it to be relevant to this case.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, up to a point. I think the fact is

P-10

that if Professor Lipstadt has jumped on board a sort of bandwagon of critics of yours.

MR IRVING: Use that phrase.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: She has to justify what she has adopted from that.

MR IRVING: It is very difficult to justify if one knows in advance this particular witness is not proposing to submit herself to cross-examination.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You do not have to do it by going into the box yourself, you can do it by calling experts, as appears to be the Defendants' intention. But do not worry about the point about having gone by the board. I know what your case is. I am very well aware of that.

MR IRVING: A case that is founded on documents is far better than a case based upon mere verbal allegations.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I see that. If I want to try and elicit more from your own expert witnesses when they come to give evidence about your own reputation and, indeed perhaps, about the campaign, well, to a limited extent, of course, you can do that.

MR IRVING: What about the historical documents, my Lord? For example, in December 1942, on Friday, we were looking at the December 1942 document -- I am sure your Lordship remembers -- when Himmler sent a report to Hitler saying the 300,000 Jews shot as partisans, roughly speaking, and this is used as evidence against me, or against my

P-11

position. There is a similar document from the same month showing a conference between Himmler and Hitler where Hitler is authorising Himmler to sell Jews to foreigners for foreign currency which would indicate in the other direction that he is not hell bent on destroying every Jew that comes into his possession. How will I be able to submit documents like that to your Lordship's attention?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: This is a document not in your discovery at the moment?

MR IRVING: It is in the discovery. All these kinds of documents are in the discovery, but unless I -- I think there are over 2,000 documents in my discovery, many of them of many pages, and I am sure your Lordship will not have had time to consider them all.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: No I do not pretend to.

MR RAMPTON: Might I again, I am only trying to help, I have no doubt at all that Mr Irving is correct -- I have not looked at it myself but when he says he has disclosed these documents I have no doubt he has. What has happened is, of course, that the files, "bundles" the lawyers call them, which your Lordship has, are ours. Little or no material from Mr Irving's side, except in so far as we already had and want to use it. What has not happened in this case, I know not why, is there has not, I do not I think, been any request from Mr Irving to have files made up.

P-12

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I follow.

MR RAMPTON: For submission to the court in the normal way.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving is obviously free where they are relevant to say, well, there are other documents that put a different complexion on it.

MR RAMPTON: I do not dispute this at all, what I am uncomfortable about as an advocate is, and I would I think if I were the judge in this case be uncomfortable about, is having documents coming at one with very little notice and at sort of random intervals. I would rather some hearing time or at some time when Mr Irving is not doing something else he could sit down and make a list of all the documents that he wants to refer to rebut our case against his integrity as an historian. Then we will have them made up into files, which would then become the --

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think he would say I cannot really say in advance because it depends very much on what tack you adopt in cross-examination. He will hear what you say.

MR RAMPTON: My cross-examination merely follows the scheme of my expert reports. There is nothing -- there is nothing -- there is no ambushing. It is all there.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I accept that.

MR RAMPTON: What is more there were all those written requests for information that we served in October or early November.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, you hear what Mr Rampton says, the

P-13

problem is time. I mean, you are not going to have a day to sit down --

MR IRVING: I agree, I am looking at practicalities.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: And do a list. I think the answer must to the extent you want to refer to documents you must be free to do so, but I am not inviting you to produce a sort of steady trickle of odd documents as we go along.

MR IRVING: My tactics will be, my Lord, that I will take specific issues, as I intend to this morning for a very few minutes suggest on the basis of documents already in the bundle or otherwise in the discovery that my position is correct, and that the position which they have laboured to establish is incorrect. I was proposing to do that for two or three minutes this morning on two specific issues that we will come to later.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, to the extent you want to introduce documents then I am not going to stop you. What I am very anxious to do is make sure we know where they are landing up. I am intending to put them all in the bundle called "J". It may be sensible if everybody else does the same, including those documents you produced I think on Thursday. But if you can give Mr Rampton advance notice of any documents that are not already in the bundles then that would be helpful.

MR IRVING: I endeavour to do so, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Now these dates for Professor Watt and so

P-14

on. I have no problem with any of them.

MR IRVING: I have established each date with a view to providing sufficient time for adequate cross-examination and, of course, they are flexible to that extent.

MR RAMPTON: The first one is this Thursday.

MR IRVING: Professor Watt, yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton is still going to be cross-examining, that is what he is going to say.

MR RAMPTON: I will still, but I do not mind my cross-examination being interrupted in the slightest.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, it might in some ways be an advantage. I do not, like you, think there is going to be much cross-examination of these witnesses.

MR RAMPTON: I do not even know what Professor Watt is going to say.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is part of the point, is it not? Shall we proceed on the basis these dates are all acceptable.

MR IRVING: Professor Watt and Sir John Keegan are appearing on subpoena. This brings up one minor point; Sir John Keegan's subpoena was dated for a different date than the date we proposed now to call on because --

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is agreed, is it not?

MR IRVING: It is agreed. If your Lordship would agree to amend the summons.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am not sure I need formally to amend it. It is agreed and accepted --

P-15

MR IRVING: -- Solicitors are very anxious that they should not be held to be in contempt.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I can say now they will not be, as long as he is here on February 7th at 10.30. You want to address the court on the Anne Frank diary entry and on Goebbels diary.

MR IRVING: Yes, it is a little bundle of pages I gave you. You will be relieved to hear that I only want to draw attention to five or six passages in them.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Just pause a moment, would you, Mr Irving. What I am going to treat this as being, as your wishing as part of your evidence to amplify some of the answers you gave on Thursday. So I think it is best if you would do it from the witness box.

MR IRVING: Very well, my Lord.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That may sound a bit of a quibble, but I think that is the right way of doing it. Is there anything else before you go back.

MR IRVING: I think we have dealt with point 6 already, that is the point about Auschwitz.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. Mr Rampton, there is nothing else you want to raise?

MR RAMPTON: Not in this letter, no.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Or at all?

MR RAMPTON: Yes, there is. I have another letter from Mr Irving. It came on Saturday. I do not know if your Lordship has it.

P-16

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think I have.

MR RAMPTON: I will do it, if I may, from memory. It looks like that, it has two paragraphs. A very small point on paragraph 1. Yes, of course, he can show it to people who would help him answer the point, or deal with the point. "I do not know about my friends", I suppose that means "helpers". That is a very small point. There is a more serious point in the second paragraph. The last sentence says:

"Materials collected for the purposes of testing the witnesses' credibility and credentials will not be provided."

If they are materials which have relevance to credit only, then that is perfectly correct, they need not be provided: If, however, they have relevance to the issues in the case then they must be provided.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, Mr Irving, I think that is right as a matter of law.

MR IRVING: Yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not know what you are talking about when you refer to these materials.

MR IRVING: My Lord, I can be more specific. We have obviously a number of experts who are assisting me with advice. Some of them have submitted lengthy letters to me, others have submitted expertise to me in more a formal form, which is very clearly of a nature designed to test the credit of the witness Professor van Pelt. My

P-17

understanding of the law is that if it is designed to test his credit then I do not have disclose it.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is right.

MR IRVING: But it is very difficult to weed out from these reports what is a test as to credit and what is --

MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you have material which suggests that Professor van Pelt is wrong about --

MR IRVING: Specific issues.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Whatever it may be about maybe points he makes on the Leuchter report, something of that kind, then that plainly has to be disclosed. But if you have some sort of evidence suggesting that Professor van Pelt has an agenda of his own and has misconducted himself in some way as an expert, out of the context of this case, then I think you probably would not have to disclose that. That may not be a very clear guide to you --

MR IRVING: We will do so with the utmost reluctance, but if it is the law, then we will do so. But it is rather like playing poker with the other person having a mirror over your head.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: The short answer is, if it goes to the accuracy of his observations as an expert, as to what happened at Auschwitz, then I think you ought to disclose it. If it is just prejudicing him as an expert in the general sense, then I think not.

MR IRVING: We will do so within 24 hours in that case.

P-18

MR RAMPTON: Can I pick up one thing Mr Irving said there, it shows not that he is trying to cheat, I do not mean that at all, but he may be under a misapprehension about the way litigation is conducted nowadays in these courts. He said it is rather like playing poker when your opponent has a mirror over your head, of course, litigation is not poker any more. All the cards have to be on the table anyway. It is like playing, what is the other game, patience.

MR IRVING: My Lord, my comment on that in any case there are any aspersions being cast on me, I do not think any Defendant or any party in an action has ever made a fuller discovery than I have, including the disclosure of my entire diaries.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think that is fair, from my impression, I think that is right.

MR IRVING: If I am hiding anything, I am "hiding it in plain view."

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can I just mention only in passing something you might like to think about, it relates to the Goebbels' diaries, in Moscow, the Moscow archive. That looks as if it is going to be the subject of a certain amount of factual evidence. I have seen the way the pleadings go, and I have see what the Defendants are saying and what they are not saying I. Just wonder whether we are wise to spending very much time on that issue. I say that perhaps

P-19

for Mr Rampton perhaps to think about.

MR RAMPTON: He has already thought so.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I thought he might have. In due course he can tell me the result of his thoughts. It is just we have to focus on what matters in this case. I understand your complaint entirely, but in the end is it a matter we want to spend a lot of time in evidence on?

MR IRVING: Two minutes is not a lot of time. In view of the fact that the newspapers around the world from here to New Zealand have picked on the alleged discrepancies in the diary of December 13th as being proof once more of how David Irving cheated or suppressed. The Defendants have over the weekend retrieved from me the entire Goebbels' diaries which I obtained from Moscow. I was going to draw your Lordship's attention to two pages of the diaries which I produced. We only had the section which I used. We only read that far.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, you said that on Thursday. I think you are misunderstanding what I mean by the Goebbels' diaries; I am talking about the issue whether there was a breach of an agreement by you. I do not understand the Defendants even to be alleging that now. But Mr Rampton is going to think about it, and shall we leave with it him because I think the ball is really in his court. If you would like to come back we will resume your evidence.

MR IRVING: Do you wish me to deal with that minor point of

P-20

Goebbels' diaries?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think it is a matter of evidence because it was raised with you on Thursday and you can do it in your evidence perfectly easily.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving wants to deal with the point. Can he not deal with it first?

MR RAMPTON: I see. This is going to be evidence-in-chief, is it? I will sit down.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is amplification of his answers in cross-examination, I think.

A. My Lord, the first page of that very small bundle is just to show the form in which I had the -- this was the bundle which I gave to you this morning, page 1, as numbered at the bottom -- this was the form in which I was given the Hans Frank diaries by the Institute of History in Munich some 30 years ago. I draw your Lordship's attention purely to the little omission in the middle, the ellipses. Something has been left out -- we do not know what it is -- just before the vital paragraph which I quoted. I have provided a translation. If you now proceed, my Lord, to page 4 of that bundle.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: So ----

A. I marked it.

Q. --- what is actually ----

P-21

A. We do not know what has been left out.

Q. You do not know what the ellipsis represents?

A. That is why one has to be extremely cautious about how one then uses the ensuing lines, in my submission. If you proceed to page 4, my Lord, this is the list made by my assistant in Moscow of the Goebbels' diaries plates as they came to us out of the boxes. My Lord, you will see that they are in total chaos. There is no rhyme or reason in what boxes they are in. If you proceed to page 9, my Lord, the fourth, fifth and sixth lines refer to the specific entry which we found one day relating to Pearl Harbour and the meeting with Hitler on December 13th. There is one plate for December 13th. The next glass plate carries over from December 13th to 14th. You will see notice that it says in German four words -- "bis vierte Zeile gelesen".

MR JUSTICE GRAY: What is "Zeile"?

A. It means "read until the fourth line".

Q. Fourth line?

A. Yes, the fourth line of that particular entry. We were working, I had a very good assistant working with me and we were as minutiae as that. We kept very detailed records of what we did. On page 11, my Lord, you will see that I sent to The Sunday Times a confidential survey of the unpublished Goebbels' diaries fragments which were in my possession.

P-22

If your Lordship proceeds to page 14, this is important, right at the bottom, the last two lines, it says: "Among the things which I brought back are 21 pages of typescript from dictation" covering those dates, 9th to 13th December 1941, which is Pearl Harbour. On page 16, my Lord ----

Q. Just pause a moment. It looks as if you did not touch at all on the entry which straddles 13th?

A. We are just coming to that, my Lord.

Q. 14th?

A. That is a listing showing that there were 21 pages. That is the significance there. On page 16, my Lord, that is the folder containing the extracts which were provided to the Defendants and you will see they put a yellow post-it on it. That is the thing which I have marked. Item No. 45, copy from pages 1 to 21, my Lord.

Q. Yes.

A. And I have included, if you look at the handwritten numbers on the top, those are the last few pages of the bundle numbered pages 1 to 21 which is the entry for December 13th 1941. If I draw your Lordship's attention to page 20 -- I am sorry the page 20 numbered at the bottom -- if I just rapidly translate a couple of lines from line 3 onwards "Nachmittag", "In the afternoon the Führer speaks to the Gauleiters". This was the meeting where we find out now that he mentioned his intentions to

P-23

do something.

Q. That was the 12th, was it not?

A. He spoke the previous day. Goebbels always wrote his diary up on the following day. There is a brief summary here at this point in the diary of the conference with Hitler. Then Hitler goes straight on to talk about the U boat war. There is only half a page on this page, my Lord, but it carries on straight over on the next page on about the U boat war. I think the reason why I started a new page was that I was having trouble, as your Lordship will see, with the typewriter, and I have probably got out my screwdriver and fixed it. Your Lordship will see from my Moscow diaries that the typewriter had been pancaked by the airlines. I invited the Defendants on Friday, if they were suspicious about that gap, to contact the library in Germany to whom I donated the entire diaries in 1993 where they could satisfy themselves that that gap is also on the original, my Lord. That is all I have to say on that matter.

Q. You have a gap on page 22 as well.

A. I think that I can establish, in other words, that all that I had in front of me when I wrote the book was the passage that I had in those diaries, and that what has been published since then is moot, is of no consequence to

P-24

this particular action.

Q. The other thing is the reference "Hitler speaking to the Gauleiter" ----

A. This is typical of Dr Goebbels, my Lord.

Q. It is just one sentence and then he goes on to something completely different.

A. He goes on to something else. Then later on he will come back and dictate to his secretary, Richard Otte, a more full account.

Q. But you say you did not have the bit where he comes back to it.

A. That would have been on a subsequent plate, my Lord, or possibly later on, on that same plate, but we only read to the fourth line. So it cannot be held properly against me in this court that I had something in front of me which I should, if I had it in front of me, have used, and at the very end of the bundle, my Lord, you will find four pages which are not numbered which is the latest version of the Adolf Hitler biography, which went to press some time ago, which contains a perfectly proper treatment of this matter, including all the material now available.

Q. Just let me wait for the transcript to catch up.

A. I will try to speak more slowly.

Q. No, it is all right. Yes, thank you very much. I am going to put this also into the J file.

A. Either that or you could discard it, my Lord, because I am

P-25

sure that you have appreciated the point that I wish to make.

Q. Yes, but I will not keep it in my mind for the next two months.

MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, just so that I understand what you have just been telling us. I am not going to explore it now, but I want to understand what it is that we have got here. These typed pages, 1 to 21, we have not got all 21?

A. Yes.

Q. We have?

A. No, you have not.

Q. We just have the relevant ones.

A. The ones that are relevant, yes, for the entry.

Q. They are extracts transcribed by you, is that right, on a typewriter?

A. Let me be precise. Sitting at the table in Moscow, I indicated to my assistant, I said, "Please dictate from here down to there" from the glass plates. Now let me get this absolutely correct. I read the glass plates, I dictated them, and later on I transcribed them. Either I dictated them or she dictated them. We shared the work on that particular occasion. I think, in fact, she dictated because if you look on page 16, I have 11th December and in square brackets afterwards: "So says Susie". I was a bit doubtful about whether she had got

P-26

the date right on printed page 17.

Q. Printed page 17?

A. And it is on about the seventh line, 11th December, and in square brackets I have put in a little question mark, "So says Susie?"

Q. Susie is your assistant?

A. That is right, because you would have had to go back about 40 pages on the glass plates to find out what the actual date of the entry was.

Q. I have certainly not seen these glass plates. Even if I should, I doubt I would make much sense of them. Can you tell me about the glass plates? How big is it? There is a point to this. I am not just wasting time.

A. I am sure. The glass plates were about four inches by three inches, a regular photographic glass plate, negative.

Q. This sort of thing?

A. Slightly smaller than a postcard. Some had 25 images on and some had 48 images on, depending on the format.

Q. Each image of those, let us say, is a page, is it?

A. Each image was either one page in the typescript version because from July 16th 1941 onwards he dictated to a secretary from them until the end of the war, he dictated them, so they were typescript. Until 16th July 1941 they were handwritten and there were two pages photographed at a time in a handwritten diary.

P-27

Q. And does each plate represent one day?

A. No.

Q. No?

A. They just filmed continuously and when one plate ran out, they would then put another glass plate in and film the next one. That is why one plate, if you will note on that list, is called December 13th and the next plate is called December 13th to 14th.

Q. Can I ask you -- I will ask you one more question and then I will ask you to look at something -- do you know from memory -- you do not seem to have a record of it -- how many pages the entry for 13th December 1941 was?

A. No.

Q. All right. Well, perhaps I can help you. I do not know. It is a possibility. Could Mr Irving please be given bundle H4(ii)?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am afraid I have not got this, Mr Rampton I am sorry. Thank you.

MR RAMPTON: Could you turn to a handwritten FN 156?

A. 156?

Q. It is about two-thirds of the way through the file. It is what I call a sideways document. You have to turn the file around in order to read it.

A. I have it, yes.

Q. It is a German document. It is headed on the right-hand column on page 487, internal page 487, 13th December in

P-28

German 1941, yes?

A. Yes.

Q. Just glance at this. It runs through -- I think it is the whole entry -- to page 501. These are double pages. So it does not involve turning over a lot of pages. 501 is where 14th December starts. Now, do you recognize this printed version?

A. I do. If you look on page FN 156, you find the passage that is on my transcript.

Q. Sorry? They are all 156.

A. I am sorry. It is on printed page, on book page 494. At line 283, 282, you see the sentence beginning "Nachmittags", "In the afternoon the Führer speaks to the Gauleiters".

Q. I see that.

A. That is the passage which I got.

Q. You have got that passage. But you also got more than that, did you not? Where is your U boat war, your boat war?

A. In that same paragraph. It continues in that same paragraph on printed page 494, book page 494. It continues about the U boat.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: And on the opposite page?

A. And on the opposite page.

MR RAMPTON: Yes, I see that, what is puzzling me about this, Mr Irving, is this. I think you translated some of this

P-29

or all of it for The Sunday Times, did you not?

A. Yes.

Q. Can you turn to page 496?

A. Yes.

Q. "Daß wir im Osten", that is the last of your typewritten German passages, is it not?

A. If you say so, yes.

Q. Well, it looks the same, does it not?

A. Page handwritten 21 of my note?

Q. Yes.

A. That is correct.

Q. That is the same one. I think that was the last of the passages on this day that you translated for The Sunday Times, was it not?

A. It was all that I had at the time.

Q. Yes. It is all that you brought back with you?

A. That is correct, yes.

Q. I understood your evidence about that. Can you turn over?

A. 498 you probably want, 498.

Q. 498 has disappeared.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: So it was not 30 or 40 pages further on, it was two pages further on.

MR RAMPTON: No, well, that is----

A. My Lord, when you see these pages, it is printed in the large, I forget the actual technical name for it, but we call it the Führer typewriter, and it is printed with four

P-30

spaces between each line. He has about 100 words on each page, my Lord, so it is very many further pages further on.

Q. Sorry, that is what I was trying to find out. In my version it is very few pages further on.

A. In your photocopy of the original facsimile?

Q. No, in this printed version it is only ----

A. It is only a few pages further on, yes.

Q. Three?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: But the point is that, apparently, in the original diaries it is all very much spread out?

A. For your Lordship's amusement, I will bring one page of it to you tomorrow and you can see what it looks like.

Q. If anything turns on it, I do not know.

A. I think Mr Rampton apprehends that this is a major point; it has been flashed around the world that I was wrong again.

Q. Well, I think you have made the point on Thursday that you did not actually know it was 30 or 40 pages further on because you did not ever read it so you could not tell?

A. Now we know, my Lord.

MR RAMPTON: This is one thing I am concerned about, Mr Irving. You said, and I will read you your words -- have you had your transcript ----

A. Yes, I have.

Q. --- for Thursday? His Lordship is right. It was

P-31

something along the lines of 30 or 40 pages further on which is just not right, is it?

A. What is not right, the exact phrase?

Q. I will find the exact words.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is page 153.

MR RAMPTON: That is right. You said: "Had I read on another 30 or 40 pages in the diary for that day, I would probably have come across the full length description of the report Gauleiters' speech on which Longerich is relying?

A. Absolutely right. This is probably 30 pages further on, but it shows my guess was absolutely right ----

Q. 30?

A. --- without even having seen it.

Q. Tell me, if you will, if you look at -- this is edited by Elke Fröhlich, is it not?

A. Yes.

Q. But it is not any sense edited by having things omitted?

A. I do not believe so, no.

Q. It is a continuous text?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Rampton, is there much mileage in this because I think the next day, I mean the next page, I asked, "How do you know it is 30 or 40 pages further on?" and he makes clear that he did not know it was, but he had a glass plate with 45 pages on it and it was [not?] on that, so it must have been on the next one?

A. It would have been 25 pages on that one, my Lord -- no, 48

P-32

single pages.

MR RAMPTON: Is this glass plate that you transcribed, or some of it, the only one for that date that you looked at?

A. Well, this is the reason why I provided you over the weekend with a list of the actual pages that we looked at, the actual glass plates.

Q. Yes, but do you understand there is a difference -- I know you do -- between what you transcribed and what you looked at?

A. We looked at all the glass plates.

Q. You did?

A. Quite simply to establish an inventory. I looked through every single glass plate in the 1,500 glass plates with this magnifier, established from the title line across the top what period was covered, put a yellow Post-it on the glass side, not the emulsion side, of each plate indicating what date it was.

Q. So you will have read the passage that Longerich relied on?

A. You did not hear what I said. On the top of every page, on the top of every plate there was a title line written in handwriting saying the dates, the actual dates covered by that plate, like "13th to 14th December 1941." You did not have to look actually at the individual pages. I could see straightaway and say this is 13th to 14th December 1941, it is already out of our period of interest

P-33

because we were looking at Pearl Harbour.

Q. How did you make your selection if you did not read the whole thing?

A. Time made the selection for us. We knew we were only there for a limited length of days. We had a flight to come back to England. You had to make judgment decisions and say, well, Pearl Harbour was December 7th 1941, we are already on December 13th, my commission from The Sunday Times was to get material relating to Pearl Harbour. I had already read as much as I considered was necessary. Had I known that later on in the same entry he would have gone on about the Führer talking to the Gauleiters at greater length, I might have gone on, but you cannot tell...

Q. You have answered my question, I think, which is that you did not read it at the time?

A. That is correct, and it was not before me at the time. Even now, to buy these diaries, you have to lay out more than £1,000. So it is quite an expensive task. I have now purchased them, but they have only just been published.

Q. While you have that out, can I ask you a little word about something you said on Thursday? I think you told us, if you look at the passage quoted in Longerich, yes?

A. The passage quoted in?

Q. Well, the passage quoted by Longerich is at the bottom of

P-34

page 498 of the Fröhlich edition?

A. Yes, "In connection with the Jewish question, the Führer has decided to make tabula rasa".

Q. Yes, and then it goes on, "He prophesied to the Jews that if they began yet another World War, they would thereby bring about their own destruction", roughly speaking?

A. It is a crude translation, yes.

Q. He is reporting there, is he not, either something Hitler said to the Gauleiters on 12th December, or he is reminding himself of what Hitler said on 30th January?

A. January.

Q. 1939 in the ----

A. You cannot tell from this particular quotation.

Q. You cannot, can you?

A. It is the old gramophone record that Hitler played again and again.

Q. Yes, indeed. Then you say, well, you know from that point on, I think, "Das ist keine Phrase gewesen", that these are no longer Hitler's words because it is in direct speech?

A. It is in direct speech, yes.

Q. So is the first sentence, is it not? "Bezüglich der Judenfrage ist der Führer entschlossen"?

A. Yes, that is correct.

Q. That is also in direct speech?

A. He uses direct speech.

P-35

Q. He is reporting that, so far as the Jewish question is concerned, the Führer is determined to make a clean sweep?

A. Yes.

Q. Yes. That is direct speech, is it not?

A. Yes.

Q. If you look over to the other side of the page, the first complete paragraph, the first sentence of the first complete paragraph, "Im Osten sieht der Führer überhaupt unser kommendes Indien" is in reported speech, is it not?

A. No.

Q. No?

A. It would be in "Osten siehe der Führer", S-I-E-H-E, would be reported speech, that would be the subjunctive.

Q. That is fine. The next sentence is also in direct speech, is it not?

A. That is direct speech.

Q. And so is the next sentence, is it not?

A. That is correct, yes.

Q. And the next one, well, this is in the past in the sense that he is reporting that the Germans have overrun and settled in the past?

A. The whole paragraph is in direct speech.

Q. It is, is it not?

A. Yes.

Q. And do you say that those are Goebbels' private thoughts and not a report of what Hitler said?

P-36

A. He is reporting in his own words what Hitler's opinions and intentions are.

Q. Precisely. So would you care to withdraw your criticism of Dr Longerich for putting what is in direct speech into Hitler's mouth?

A. Are you not referring to the same passage, Mr Rampton?

Q. No, but it is all part of the same two paragraphs.

A. No, the specific allegation that you made was that Longerich was quoting Hitler when, in fact, he was quoting Goebbels, which is my comment.

Q. How can you tell that the first paragraph on the right-hand side is not also just Goebbels quoting Goebbels?

A. We can refer back to the specific sentence that was the subject of your complaint, because we have now moved on to a different paragraph and you are trying to ----

Q. What I am suggesting to you, Mr Irving, is very simple. It is simply this. You cannot tell from looking at these two paragraphs which is Hitler and which is Goebbels?

A. I think that is a very fair comment, yes.

Q. Yes. So if (and we are dealing in probabilities, as I remind you, not certainties) as seems likely, the second of those two paragraphs is, as you have just told us, Goebbels' version of what Hitler said to the Gauleiters on 12th December, then so is it as likely that the first paragraph is in precisely the same case, is it not?

P-37

A. Mr Rampton, that is not what I said. I said it is Goebbels' version of Hitler's intentions, not what he said.

Q. Where do you think that Goebbels derived his impression of Hitler's intention?

A. Over a long period of sitting with him and talking with him over many weeks and months.

Q. So this is nothing whatever to do with what Hitler is supposed to have said to the Gauleiters, is that your case?

A. When you are writing a diary this is what happens. You put in information from what has just been told to you, but also your own external knowledge of what the person is thinking and saying. You cannot encapsulate individual phrases like that. If it was a shorthand record, it would be different. I prefer using shorthand records or even the Table Talk which is written in the first person form.

Q. Well, I do not think I will push it any further, Mr Irving. We have your answer. I certainly do not accept it. I put it to you that it is perfectly clear that this is Goebbels' version of what Hitler said on 12th December 1941.

A. I think it is possible that you and I and Dr Longerich have different criteria when we are evaluating documents.

Q. Mr Irving, does it not read very naturally as a direct speech account of the Führer's thoughts as expressed on

P-38

that occasion?

A. Which sentence are you referring to?

Q. Any one you like.

A. Well, I mean, if I give you a general statement of opinion, then you are going to apply it to one particular sentence and say, "Here you have agreed that this sentence is Hitler's statement on that day" and that is ----

Q. Well, look at the second paragraph. Let us leave out the paragraph you do not like.

A. Yes.

Q. Let us look at the second paragraph at the top of page 499.

A. Yes.

Q. "In the East, the Führer sees above all" -- you correct me where I go wrong -- "our approaching India".

A. Yes. "This is colonial territory that we are going to settle".

Q. Yes. "This is colonial territory that we shall settle. Here great ----

A. "Farmsteads".

Q. "Homesteads" -- what?

A. Yes, "he already established great farmsteads for our peasant sons and the" ----

Q. Yes, and what are the "Kapitulanten"?

A. I do not know what that word means, I must confess.

Q. No. "unserer Wehrmacht geschaffen werden"?

P-39

A. "Created".

Q. "Created", exactly. It is all part of the same thought process, is it not?

A. It may be but it may not be. Nowhere does he say, "This afternoon the Führer said". This is just Goebbels writing down, waffling about what Hitler's views on the future are, and it is not ----

Q. I am sorry. Finish your answer. I do not mean to interrupt.

A. But may I also state and remind the court once more that was material which was not in front of me at the time I wrote the book, so I cannot really see -- With respect, I would rise if I was now sitting there, and say, "What is the relevance of this material?"

Q. It may in the end turn out to be a small point, but, you see, Mr Irving, you are in the habit, are you not -- I drew something to your attention on Thursday -- of asserting certainties where all that a cautious and responsible historian would do would be to say "It looks like it"?

A. I agree, this is absolutely right and in this particular case a responsible historian would say, "On this occasion Goebbels reported and it may well be that Hitler had told him on this occasion".

Q. But you told on Thursday that it was quite certain that this could not be Hitler, it must be Goebbels in the

P-40

contentious paragraph because the tense changes from the past in the first sentence to direct speech in the second, well, from the ----

A. To be more specific, the part that Longerich alleged was Hitler being quoted was not in the subjunctive tense. It was not in the subjunctive.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: We went through that in considerable detail on Thursday.

A. Yes, and also we are not referring to this paragraph, we are referring to one specific sentence.

MR RAMPTON: Now I want to go back, please, and you will see how it is going to develop as we go along. I give you notice of what I am now going to do.

A. If I may just say, what alarms me is the fact that you had from my discovery the documents showing precisely how much of this diary was at my disposal when I wrote the book.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: We are moving on now, Mr Irving. I take your point.

A. I appreciate that, but I think it is dishonest for them to have advanced this kind of argument.

Q. That is a comment you can make at the end of the case but let us get on now with the questions and answers.

MR RAMPTON: You will have that opportunity. What I am going to do is I am going to start with your Kovno train which we dealt with on Thursday of 17th November 1941, and then I am going to use that as a way of opening the door to

P-41

what I call System. Do you understand?

A. Right.

Q. Can we, first of all, start with your Kovno train. Have you that little bundle?

A. I do not, but I am quite familiar with the documents.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Can you take me to it, Kovno train? I am sorry, the significance of that is completely missing to me.

A. The train from Bremen to Kovno.

MR RAMPTON: Could your Lordship first turn up page 13 of the transcript for Thursday and the other documents, the little Irving documents I call them, are at tab 3 of file J, my Lord, or should be.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

MR RAMPTON: I would quite like Mr Irving to have both what he said in court and the Kovno signal.

A. It is the intercept - correct?

Q. Has anybody got a spare transcript? Page 5 is the translation, or the transcription, I know not which and it does not matter. Just have that open. Is it possible for him to have a transcript for Thursday?

A. I think I have the wrong bundle. Are we talking about Kovno?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is what is going to happen when you have all these little files knocking around. We must put them all in the same place. I have them in J and I hoped

P-42

everybody else was going to put it in J, tab 3.

A. I have J 1.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: To save time, could somebody pass up the bundle which has the index on the front of it? It is called bundle C, Himmler.

A. This is bundle J 1 again.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do not think that is the right bundle. You are talking about the clip that Mr Irving handed in?

MR RAMPTON: Yes, I am.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Probably on Wednesday.

MR RAMPTON: Yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: He has called it Claimant bundle C Himmler. I had hoped everyone was putting it in J but, wherever it is, can somebody hand it up because every minute that goes by is a waste of time.

A. I am very familiar with the document, if you wish to proceed.

MR RAMPTON: I think we can get most of it anyway, Mr Irving, from what you said in the witness box. We will not spend any more time.

A. I read most of the document out, I believe.

Q. Yes. Can I read from line 4 on page 13 of the transcript? "In this particular case what is significant is that the man in Berlin is telling his recipient in Riga on November 17th", in other words that same day at 6.25 p.m., "transport train number blah has left Berlin for

P-43

Kovno or Kaunas" -- in fact it is K A U N A S, is it not, and sometimes Mr Irving, pausing there, sometimes in German K A U E N?

A. That is the problem. A lot of these towns have three or four different names.

Q. But it is all the same place, is it not?

A. Yes, Kovno and Kauen.

Q. Kovno is an old fortified, or fortress in the Latvian country side, or is it Lithuania? It matters not perhaps very much. "With 940 or more Jews on board, or 940 more". In fact it was 944, was it not?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It obviously was. I think that is probably just a mistranscription. Understandable.

MR RAMPTON: I think so too. "That was usually the rough size of each train load of Jews, about 1,000 Jews. Transport escorted by two Gestapo and 15 police officers. Transport commander is Kriminaloberassessor Exner, the man's name, who has two copies of the transport list with him. Transport provided with ...". We have not got the German of this. What is the German that you translate as "provided with"?

A. I would not like to hazard a guess.

Q. All right. "With following provisions"?

A. Vorgesehen?

Q. Provided?

A. Yes, literally.

P-44

Q. Forseeing, as it were?

A. We must not mention the word "Latin."

Q. "Provided with following provisions", and this is the interesting part, my Lord: "3,000 kilograms of bread, 3 tons of bread for a two or three day journey, 2700 (it should read) kilograms of flour," nearly 3 tons of flour, "200 kilograms of peas, etc. 300 kilograms of cornflakes, 18 bottles of soup spices", -- then continuing in the next message, 52 kilograms of soup powders, ten packets of something or other, we do not know, 50 kilograms of salt, 47,200 Reichmarks in credits. What do you suppose those were for?

A. It was credits, credits.

Q. Yes, for whom?

A. I am sorry.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: What is the point of having them on the train? That is really the question.

A. I imagine it was the same as with bomber crews. When they flew to Germany, they carried money with them. One always needed money. You cannot send a trainload of people around Europe without money to pay for things.

Q. This money was for the 944 Jews, was it?

A. I do not think I implied that it was.

Q. I am asking you.

A. No, presumably not. Presumably it was to cover transport costs.

P-45

Q. All right. Signed Gestapo Headquarters, Berlin, and then this is Mr Irving speaking: "It is quite an interesting document, my Lord. It is the first kind of thing we come across in my view to show that these trains were actually well provisioned. It is a bit of a dent, a tiny dent, in the image we have, the perception as Mr Rampton calls it, of the Holocaust today." Why do you say that?

A. The image that we have from the literature is of coal trucks and cattle trucks being filled. I am not saying that this did not happen, but I am saying that the image we have is that all that happened was that these wretched victims were stuffed into trains, with no food and water for three or four days, and shipped across Europe to their deaths, when this and the subsequent telegram which we British intercepted, which I quote, indicates that very substantial quantities of food were put on board these trains for the short journey, and that, in the next telegram, you will remember, it also added the fact that they were carrying their "appliances" with them, food and appliances. So obviously people were sending them, at least the System that was sending them apprehended that they were going to be doing something at the other end when they got there.

Q. What was German word for the appliances?

A. Gerät.

Q. And plural Geräte?

P-46

A. No. You would use it in the singular form.

Q. That can just as easily mean kitchen utensils, can it not?

A. Could be kitchen sink. If a photographer comes "mit Gerät", then he would be carrying his camera and not his kitchen sink. It is the appropriate appliances.

Q. We used to have tinkers in the old days in Scotland, Mr Irving. They would carry utensils with them. Pots and pans.

A. The Germans would have a different word for that. It would be Klamotten. It would be their "things".

Q. Anyway, your immediate interpretation of this document, it is clear now, is that this food was to keep the Jews well fed during the journey?

A. Well, it certainly was not for just 15 policemen.

Q. Mr Irving, how far is it from Berlin to Kovno, do you know?

A. Off the top of my head, I would say of the order of a thousand miles.

Q. It is about 600, in fact.

A. Correct. In other words, a two or three day train shipment in wartime conditions.

Q. Those trains went very slowly because they had to keep stopping to give priority to other trains.

A. Yes. The journeys took three days. We know the train load of Jews on November 27th, it left Berlin, on November 30th

P-47

it arrived at Riga and they were shot. It is a three day journey.

Q. That is Riga. That is about 200 miles further East from Kovno?

A. I am trying to give a sense of space and time.

Q. I am going to ask you some questions. Again, you have leapt to a conclusion. Have you actually stopped to think what the evidence is that this food was to feed these Jews during that journey?

A. None whatsoever.

Q. No.

A. But it would be perverse to assume that it was not. Excuse me. If a train is provided with provisions, then the provisions are quite clearly for the people on the train. It cannot clearly be for just 15 escort personnel.

Q. Mr Irving, would you not be so hasty. Wait for my next question, please. Do you know how many loaves of bread you can make with 3,000 kilograms and 2,700 kilograms of flour? 500 gram loaves of bread, an average size loaf?

A. I did exactly the same calculation as you were reading out to me just now, and I thought, if there are a thousand people on a train, they are getting 3,000 kilograms of bread, then this seems to be very substantial provision.

Q. In fact, it is about 6,000 loaves from the loaf figure alone, and about another just less than, it is about 5,400 loaves from the flour.

P-48

A. Actually, he is talking about 3,000 kilograms of bread, so that is 3 kilograms of bread per person.

Q. What about the flour? Are they going to make loaves on the train?

A. Why do we not just stick with the bread for the time being?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, there was flour there too. That is the point.

MR RAMPTON: 2,700 kilograms of flour.

A. I have no idea what they were going to do with the flour.

Q. The point is this, Mr Irving. There is no evidence that this food was going to be eaten by those Jews. I can tell you, if you do the calculation, at half a loaf a person per day, they have enough bread and flour to last them for 24 days, 944 people.

A. Yes, but the reason for that is that the people at the receiving end are protesting bitterly. They say, we have food shortages here already and you are dumping these people on us, so the Reich was sending the people not only with the food for the journey, but presumably enough food to get them started when they arrived at the camps they were going to.

Q. That is right.

A. I am speculating here, I do emphasise. I am just trying to give an explanation that may have escaped your attention.

P-49

Q. No, it had not, you see. I am concerned not with what actually happened, Mr Irving, but your readiness to leap to conclusions in favour of the SS and the Nazis on every single occasion.

A. I strongly object to that kind of aspersion.

Q. This is exactly what you have done here.

A. I strongly object to that. Here is a British telegram, a British intercept of an SS telegram, which has not been quoted by any of your experts, because of course it does not fit into the perception they are trying to create, which presents a subtly different image of how this deportation programme, brutal and cruel though it was, initially was started by the System. The train loads of Jews were sent off with food for two or three days and, as you quite rightly pointed out, enough food to carry on once they arrived at the other end, enough flour to make their own bread.

Q. They had enough cornflakes for about eleven days, as it happens, at 30 grams per serving according to Messrs Kellogg's.

A. They were going to arrive in the camp, where presumably the provisions would be inadequate.

Q. That is right. They must have eaten their cornflakes dry because there is no milk?

A. No doubt there were cows in Riga when they got there, or Kovno.

P-50

A. Of course, how long would milk last on board a train for three or four days?

Q. I should have thought in November, in that part of Europe, quite a long time. Would your Lordship excuse me for just one moment?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, I am going to ask you this. I do not normally ask a question to which I do not know the answer, but on this occasion I will. Who paid for this food to go on this train?

A. I do not know.

Q. You do not know?

A. No.

Q. You have assumed, though, from the way in which you characterised it last Thursday, that it was the Nazis, the SS who paid for it?

A. I can go into some detail on this in fact. Before the Jews were kicked out of Berlin, they were robbed. They were robbed blind.

Q. So one way ----

A. The German Finance Office asked them to fill in a form listing all their assets. These assets were formally seized by the German state. Page by page of these documents are still in the Berlin Finance Ministry files. They were robbed blind. I am not sure what the relevance is to your particular question, because I cannot prove

P-51

that happened on this occasion.

Q. The relevance is this, Mr Irving.

A. I stated that in my books, too.

Q. Mr Irving, the relevance is this. So far from this being a dent in Holocaust, whatever you call it----

A. Perception.

Q. -- Perception, it is quite possible, is it not, that, one way or another, directly or indirectly, this food was paid for by the Jews?

A. Quite possible, yes.

Q. The kindly SS provision the train so far as they have and the camp when they get there at the Jews' own expense?

A. But it is still not the perception we now have of cattle trucks of Jews being shipped across Europe with no food and water for three or four days and arriving half dead at the other end. It may very well have happened in the later phases of the war.

Q. Yes. That is the trouble. You are muddling up two pictures are you not, Mr Irving? There is the early stage of the German Jews. They do not even get started on killing the German Jews in a big way until much later on.

A. If you wish to talk ----

Q. And then there is the much later, from the summer of 1942 onwards, when we get into cattle truck country, are we not?

A. I remember reading in the private papers of Adolf

P-52

Eichmann, which I found in Argentina, that he describes the steps he took to ensure that the trains were properly provisioned when they left Hungary and his indignation when he found that the Hungarian police officials had embezzled a lot of the money and food and so on so that the trains were not being properly provided. This just goes marginally to what you are saying. Undoubtedly, there was a lot of hardship and cruelty and barbarism. But the point I would wish to make is why is it that your experts have not quoted the documents I have put before the court.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Have you come across any other intercepts or any other messages referring to the provisioning ----

A. There are, my Lord.

Q. For the transcript, just wait until I have asked the question -- any other documents evidencing the provisioning of these transports of Jews?

A. I have, my Lord, and I have put one or two more into that particular bundle.

Q. I have found one more. I am not sure I have seen more than one.

A. It is not strictly relevant, my Lord, to the pleadings, otherwise I would have stuffed the bundle with even more paper.

Q. But there are more?

A. I intend asking Dr John Fox. He is an expert on these

P-53

police decodes and we can ask him about them.

MR RAMPTON: Mr Irving, tell me why you think my experts paid no attention to these documents?

A. I certainly have not seen any reference in expert reports to those intercepts relating to the provisioning of the trains.

Q. Why would that have any relevance if these documents do not suggest what you say they assert? What if these documents are no more than they appear to be, records of train loads of Berlin Jews going to the East with provisions on board for whom one knows not, but quite possibly to feed the Jews to some extent when they get to the camp before they are shot? What is so significant about that?

A. The relevance is, Mr Rampton, that, if your experts are doing their job conscientiously, then it is incumbent on them, according to their own averments at the end of their reports, to do so impartially without fear or favour to either side. They should also have included any materials like those which go against the notion that this was a Systematic programme to exterminate the Jews. If you are going to exterminate Jews, you do not send them to the East on trains properly provisioned with tons and tons of food and appliances with which they can set up a new future in the East when they get there, which is the inference which is clearly to be drawn from those decoded

P-54

messages. I would be interested to see if you can draw any other inference from those messages.

Q. That is what we are now going to do, as I promised you I was going to do, Mr Irving. Could Mr Irving please be given file H 3 (i)?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. This one I have got.

MR RAMPTON: My Lord, that is the first volume of Professor Browning's documents. Could we please turn to footnote 8? Again, the document is identified for these purposes not by any stamped or printed or typed number, but by a handwritten F N 8 at the bottom right hand corner of the document.

A. Very well, yes.

Q. I expect you recognize this document, do you not?

A. The Jäger report.

Q. This is the Jäger report. If you turn to its 5th page, Blatt 5 at the top of the page, this is a copy of, I suppose, either an original typed or an original carbon copy, I do not know. You do not have any qualms about the authenticity of this document, do you?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: For my benefit, can you say what it is? Is it a report from an Einsatzgruppen.

MR RAMPTON: It is a report of one Einsatzkommandos, Einsatzkommando 3, which is part of Einsatzgruppe A, and they are in charge. Geographically it runs, A is in Ostland, the Baltic states, and then B is in White Russia, C in the

P-55

Ukraine and D in South Russia, roughly speaking I think. Your Lordship will see at the top of the first page, Mr Irving as well, it has place and date, Kauen am 1. Dezember 1941. That is perfectly good German, is it not?

A. No.

Q. So this makes you wonder about this report, does it?

A. You are asking me if it is good German. I would say no, a German would say Kauen, den ersten December einundvierzig.

Q. But you have seen it elsewhere, have you not?

A. No, I have not.

Q. You have. You have seen it on some of the Auschwitz documents, have you not?

A. Are we going to get into a discussion now on authenticity of documents?

Q. No. I just want to know what you say about that little word?

A. I am saying that it is not regular German.

Q. No, but it is a mistake, if it be a mistake, that a German could easily make, is it not?

A. It could be a mistake that an ill educated German would make, as would be, for example, on Blatt 7, if I may turn to that.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Before you do that, whereabouts on this page are you, 1st December, Mr Rampton?

A. Very first line top right.

MR RAMPTON: Top right hand corner underneath handwritten 119.

P-56

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Page 5.

MR RAMPTON: I asked your Lordship to go back to page 1, just to identify it, because your Lordship wanted it identified.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Sorry I missed you. Right.

MR RAMPTON: Kauen is one German form of Kovno?

A. For Kovno.

Q. 1st December 1941. I am going to look at much more of this in a moment, but it is a report. I cannot read the first one Gesamtaufstellung is it?

A. Gesamtaufstellung.

Q. A full ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Collective presentation.

MR RAMPTON: Presentation.

Q. -- der im Bereich -- What does that mean?

A. In the area of.

Q. -- E K 3, up to the 1st December 1941, of executions carried out. Is that right?

A. Yes. Do you wish to address briefly the authenticity of this document.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: If you are denying it, you ought to say so.

A. He has asked me would I accept that am ersten December is authentic German and I would say no, it is not. It would be incorrect, irregular German.

Q. Do you say this is not an authentic document?

A. My Lord, I am not saying that. I am answering his

P-57

question. I also wish to draw attention on page 7, about 15 lines down in the third complete paragraph, das •• zeil (?), halfway down there, my Lord, you will see that the rank of SS Obersturmführer and SS is typed as two capital S's.

Q. So?

A. All the high ranking SS officers had typewriter with the SS runes, my Lord. They would not type SS. It would be very rare to find an SS document in which SS is typed as two capital Ss. It is not entirely impossible, but it is very rare.

Q. I am baffled by this. Are you challenging the authenticity of this?

A. My Lord, it is not a document I have relied upon. It is not a document laid before me when I wrote my book and I am quite happy to answer questions on the content of it. But Mr Rampton asked me my opinion about the document and I spotted straight away those two discrepancies just by leafing through it.

MR RAMPTON: You may have done, Mr Irving, but that really does not answer his Lordship's question. I have no doubt that you recognized this document immediately as soon as we opened the file, did you not?

A. I know what it is about. I have heard about it, yes.

Q. No, you recognized it. You said this is the Jäger report.

P-58

A. Yes, by the date, 1st December 1941.

Q. You have never read it?

A. No. I have never analysed it in detail, let's put it like that, and I certainly did not read it when I wrote my books.

Q. Either you have X-ray eyes or you read very quickly because you seemed to have spotted a mistake, as you call it, on Blatt 7 immediately.

A. That is what I was looking for. That is the real give-away.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: You knew it was there?

A. No, my Lord, you would have seen it. When he asked me to look for it, I began leafing through it and looking for "SS," which is the first thing you would look for in a document you are suspicious about. But, for the purpose of this morning, I will accept that it is authentic, with reservations.

MR RAMPTON: Then we have had an interesting but wholly academic discussion.

A. Mr Rampton, you asked me if I considered it to be authentic.

Q. I asked you whether you accept that this is an authentic document.

A. That is right.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Anyway, now we all accept it is.

MR RAMPTON: Now we know that it is so far as this discussion

P-59

is concerned.

A. With reservations.

Q. Yes. Page 5?

A. Yes.

Q. Under the middle of the page, months of November.

A. Yes.

Q. Third line, 25th November of 41, Kauen F 9 is Fort 9. It was divided up into different sort of fortresses, was it not?

A. Yes.

Q. They kill, execute, 2,934 Jews, Jewesses and Jewish children?

A. That is correct, yes.

Q. In brackets underneath it says, again roughly speaking: Evacuees from Berlin, Munich and Frankfurt?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you agree that it is likely that that is where your train load of 944 well provisioned Jews wound up?

A. I would say it is not impossible. It is eight days later. There were several train loads, of course. I cannot speak specifically that that particular train load would have ended up in that particular atrocity.

Q. I can tell you that there are no other references to Jews from Berlin in this document.

A. In this document?

Q. Yes, and this document is a complete report of the doings

P-60

of that unit or formation.

A. Yes.

Q. In that place and all over Kovno up to the beginning of December.

A. May I say that this particular page was supplied to me by Dr Gerald Fleming in fact, two or three years ago. I relied on that when I wrote my Goebbels biography.

Q. Sorry?

A. This particular page was supplied to me by Dr Gerald Fleming, and I relied on the statistics in it when I wrote my biography of Dr Joseph Goebbels. You will find that I have quoted his statistics.

Q. We are looking at it now, Mr Irving, as you no doubt noticed.

A. I recognized the figures. You will find that page in my discovery.

Q. What you say in the Goebbels book is a little more generous in point of truth or accuracy than what you said just now. You said it was a possibility that it was the same one. In the book you said on page 377: "So much for Minsk". I do not know what you are saying about Minsk, but it may not matter.

A. Very much the same.

Q. "The train load of Berlin's Jews sent to Kaunas, Kovno, in Lithuania on November 17th probably fared no better". You cite the Jäger report and that entry in it.

P-61

A. Yes. How can I be called "the Holocaust denier," when again and again I put these statistics in my books, if I may ask the question?

Q. Let's get the position clear. You keep asking that question rhetorically as though it answered itself, Mr Irving. It does not. So far as the shooting of Jews is concerned, what do you reckon is the total number that were disposed of by shooting? We maybe had this discussion on the first day of the trial, I cannot remember, but tell me again if we have.

A. Disposed of by shooting? Where? In the East?

Q. Yes.

A. Order of magnitude I would say at least half million, and probably as many as one and a half million.

Q. Where we part company, Mr Irving, I think, is that you have repeatedly said, have you not, that these were, and you rely for example on the message to Jeckeln of 1st December from Himmler? You have repeatedly said that these words, quasi or not even quasi, were criminal shootings by high maverick commanders of the SS, out in the East?

A. The phrase used by Himmler is "arbitrary actions." [Eigenmächtigkeiten]

Q. We are coming back to Himmler very shortly.

A. And "actions against the guidelines." [Zuwiederhandlungen]

Q. Your position is that these mass shootings and other shootings in the East were not in any sense part of a

P-62

System, but were local acts of criminality?

A. The System ended when the train arrived. The System put the Jews and the other victims on the trains and sent them to the East with the food and equipment to start a new life. Once they arrived on the spot, the System broke down, and the murderers stepped in.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: But these reports coming back from the Einsatzgruppen are going to Berlin, are they not?

A. We do not know, my Lord, because there is no kind of indication on it or initialling on whom it went to.

Q. Where do you say they were going then?

A. They certainly went -- unfortunately we do not know, my Lord, because my copy of the report ends on page 9, I think, so it has not even got a signature on it. It has a signature Jäger, but no address list, so we do not know where it went to. But it would be reasonable to assume that the report went to the Reichssicherheitshauptamt of Heydrich.

Q. Which is in Berlin?

A. In Berlin.

MR RAMPTON: Because Mr Irving, in Berlin, in Heydrich's headquarters, from time to time -- I do not know whether they were regular or how frequent they are -- but there were these things called Ereignismeldungen.

A. Yes.

Q. Which were actually composed in that office in Berlin, and

P-63

many of them carry summaries of this kind of material?

A. Yes.

Q. Do they not?

A. Yes.

Q. So the probability is that that went back to Berlin?

A. The probability is that this went back to Berlin, yes, as I said.

Q. Is that not evidence of some kind of System operating at the behest of and under the control of the authorities in Berlin?

A. I draw your attention to the fact this is the very day when the very sharp reprimand went from Hitler's headquarters, signed by Himmler, to the people carrying out the murders saying these "arbitrary actions" are to stop forthwith, and the murder of the Jews stopped for many months, the German Jews.

Q. These Jews?

A. The murder of the German Jews stopped for many months, so that is indication that the System had broken down.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but you agreed on Wednesday or whenever it was that that message related only to German Jews and these reports cover all other manner of Jews?

A. The message did not relate only to German Jews but certainly the effect was German Jews. The killing of German Jews stopped and these are the numbers to which Mr Rampton has drawn attention to, Jews being evacuated

P-64

from Berlin and Munich and other cities, I believe.

MR RAMPTON: The shooting of these Jews, Mr Irving, I quite accept, if you are right that there was to be no mass shootings under any circumstances of German Jews, these few, and in the context of this report alas there are few, these few German Jews, probably also the ones from Vienna and Breslau in the next entry, probably would have infringed the Himmler order if the Himmler order had got to Jäger in time to save them, which evidently it did not.

A. That is the reason why I submit that the System broke down upon the arrival of these train loads of Jews in the East.

Q. Right.

A. And the people on the spot said: Let us just get rid of them, liquidate them ourselves.

Q. And they had food for a maximum of about three weeks anyway?

A. A start-up food supply, yes.

Q. I see. So Berlin was expecting the SS in Kovno to feed them indefinitely?

A. No. The instructions were to build camps for them. They had to build their own concentration camps to live in. They were expected to build the camps and set up their own work shops there and start a new life in the East, anywhere but Germany. That sounds very nice for the planners in Berlin, but it is less practical on the spot

P-65

when you have got a military disaster looming.

Q. I am afraid, Mr Irving, I cannot possibly accept that the planners in Berlin had any such idea in their head by late 1941 whatsoever.

A. Mr Rampton, you and I operate from different criteria.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Before you go on, Mr Rampton, can I just ask this? My impression is -- I may be completely wrong about this -- that these reports from the Einsatzgruppen continued to come in after the 1st December 1941.

A. Oh, yes. There is the famous one of December 1942 that we read.

Q. The invasion of Russia.

A. That is Russian Jews being liquidated.

Q. Going back to Berlin?

A. They are going back to Berlin -- and Hitler is in East Prussia. I have to keep on reminding the court of this.

Q. We are not so much concerned so much with Hitler at the moment, but Berlin. Berlin must have known that the shootings were continuing on, as you would accept, a massive scale?

A. I accept this my Lord, yes.

Q. To that extent, would you accept it is systematic, or would you say not?

A. I think to the extent that My-lai was systematic, the Vietnamese war was systematic, and these things happen. They are subsequently covered up by the people in charge.

P-66

But it is very difficult to make definitive statements in the absence of any evidence one way or the other. I prefer just to leave the facts to speak for themselves, rather than try and fill in the gaps and join the dots.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you.

MR RAMPTON: Look at the bottom of this document, Mr Irving.

A. Yes.

Q. Just above the handwritten "FN8", you will see Jäger's total?

A. Yes.

Q. Of executions carried out, 137,346?

A. Yes.

Q. From all over the Einsatzkommando 3 area, whichever that was?

A. Yes.

Q. But it included Kovno and Vilna amongst its places.

A. Yes.

Q. Have you done the figures on this report?

A. No, but I will walk through them with you if you wish.

Q. Well, it is going to be easier, of course you will have time to check whether I am right or not, of 137,000 roughly speaking, people executed, about 98.5 per cent are identified as having been Jews; men, women and children?

A. Yes.

Q. And this report goes back to Berlin?

P-67

A. Yes.

Q. What happens to Herr Jäger, whatever his rank might have been? Was he sacked?

A. That I do not know.

Q. Imprisoned?

A. That I do not know.

Q. Court-martialled?

A. Nothing happened to Jeckeln either, who was told by the chief of the SS he had overstepped guidelines. I would have thought that was about as serious a reprimand as you can get.

Q. This is completely at random, really, because one can take any number of examples; the massacre of 33,000 Jews in one go, Jews from Kiev in two days 29th and 30th September 19942?

A. Do you wish to lead evidence on that?

Q. No, I want to know if you know about it.

A. You wanted to?

Q. I want to know if you know about it.

A. About Babi Yar.

Q. 1941, yes.

A. I do not know in detail about it. I do not know any forensic detail about it. I know what the perception is.

Q. That is contained in one of these Heydrich --

A. If you say so.

Q. Do not these things jump out at you, Mr Irving? This vast

P-68

number of recorded deaths is being shipped back laboriously, and carefully typewritten reports by the murderers to the head of the security service, call it what you like?

A. I accept that, but this is of great interest to a Holocaust historian, but not to an Hitler historian, if you appreciate the difference.

Q. I do not think there is a difference, Mr Irving. There is two reasons, at least, why I -- or more than two but the two will do for the present without going the documents out. The first is that letter from Müller to the Einsatzgruppen at the beginning of August 1941, which I am sure you are familiar with?

A. I think "the Führer takes an interest in ----"

Q. No, I am saying the Führer will be getting continuous reports on the work of the Einsatzgruppen?

A. The "Führer has asked to be given."

Q. Or whatever, the Führer has asked to be given continuous reports on the work of the Einsatzgruppen?

A. Can you remind us when this letter came into the public domain?

Q. No, Mr Irving, please do not keep changing the subject.

A. Well, this is important, because I am accused of manipulating documents before me when I wrote my books, this letter has only recently come to the attention of historians.

P-69

Q. You say, you do accept it as evidence of System, I think this is the effect of your answer, going as far up the tree as Heydrich, but not as far as Hitler?

A. There is no [now?] evidence from that document that Hitler asked to be kept informed of the activities of the Einsatzgruppen.

Q. I cannot tell you myself when that document first came into the public domain. I will find out. --

A. Well, I can tell you from my knowledge, it came when the Moscow archives debouched what they had and historians started going through them.

Q. -- you are, however, fully familiar with what we shall certainly propose is one of the progeny of that order, that Hitler should see what the Einsatzgruppen were doing, at least, which is Report No. 51 signed by Heinrich Himmler on [29th] December 1942?

A. I do not accept there is a direct connection between that stray document of August 1941 and the December 1942 stray document, which is one of a long series of reports by Himmler to Hitler on interesting things.

Q. It is not a stray document in any sense at all. It is a sheet that actually went straight into the pen. It was destined for Hitler, and as you accepted -- I cannot remember which day -- Hitler probably saw it.

A. December 29th.

Q. Yes.

P-70

A. Yes.

Q. It is not a stray document?

A. I think I referred to it in my books. I have given the figures. I have stated the facts and I said it was shown to Hitler. I have not concealed these documents. I am the first person to have found them, and immediately brought them to the attention of the world.

Q. Why then do you turn your face so firmly against any possibility that Hitler was at the heart or the root or the origin of this exercise?

A. Mr Rampton, the distinction may be a bit too subtle, but I am not saying that; what I am saying is there is no evidence that he was. Possibly we are on the same side, but I am saying that there is a total shortage of evidence that Hitler was being informed of what was going on in these mass shootings and that when he did know he took steps to stop it, and that there is this one instance of a document going from Himmler to Hitler which obviously has to be brought to the attention of my readers, which I do. But otherwise there is very little evidence to support any contention such as are you trying to make out.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, the Müller document, which I understand you did not know about because it had not emerged, does now provide some support for the ----

A. Indeed, I put it in the latest edition of the book, my Lord, because it is clearly a relevant document for people

P-71

to know about. I think so far before the December 1942 document it would be adventurous to try and draw a causal link between them.

MR RAMPTON: There is no evidence at all that these mass shootings of Jews generally did stop, is there, on account of any order from anybody?

A. Mass shootings of German Jews stopped for several months.

Q. That, as I said the other day, is common ground between us.

A. Then they gradually picked up again because of the general criminality of the officers on the Eastern Front who had these victims in their charge.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: But you are now talking about non-German Jews or Jews who are not German?

A. I do not think there was any pause in the killing of non-German Jews. I think they were quite happy to get rid of them.

MR RAMPTON: As a matter of fact there was. Again this was something which I do not know whether you have seen it before or not, I can tell you in a moment where it came from. Have you got H3(i) there still?

A. Yes. Page?

Q. Could you turn to footnote 50. It is about halfway through the file.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: To what, Mr Rampton.

MR RAMPTON: Footnote 50, FN 50. It merely reflects the

P-72

footnote in Professor Browning's report. This is one of these -- I think it is one of these (German spoken) that he tells us that it is No. 10 for February 1942. No I have given it the wrong name. If you look at its first page, this is a reprint.

A. Yes.

Q. Which he translates, and no doubt correctly, as activity and situation of the Einsatzgruppen of the security police and the SD in the USSR; do you see that at the bottom of left hand column, Mr Irving?

A. Yes.

Q. Yes. If you turn over the page, the right hand column, halfway down the page, at letter C, you see a separate entry; "Juden"?

A. Yes.

Q. Will you please, it says: "Nachdem im Ostland die Judenfrage als erledigt und gelöst betrachtet werden kann"; tell me what that means.

A. After in the Baltic provinces the Jewish question can be regarded as virtually solved and dealt with.

Q. Carry on.

A. The clarification of this problem, the solution of this problem in the remaining occupied territories of the east is continuing, making further steps; do you wish me to continue.

Q. No, there is no need for that. That is Heydrich reporting that in the Ostland, that is --

P-73

A. Well, we do not know that because I have only two pages of this report but. You are saying it is a report by Heydrich.

Q. -- I do not know, it may not be. That is what Professor Browning tells us. It may be something else, in fact. He says on page 16 of this report in early 1942 Heydrich reported -- you can take it up with him if you do not accept it is Heydrich.

A. I just do not have the complete document, so I cannot tell.

Q. That means, does it not, in effect this, no need to shoot any more of the Jews in Ostland because they would all have gone, nearly all gone?

A. It does not say that. It just --

Q. That is what it means.

A. -- the problem has gone away --

Q. Yes, I know, look at it as an historian as opposed to a literary critic; that is what it means.

A. -- I read out what it meant. I gave you the literal translation of it.

Q. I am not asking for a translation, the input, significance of what you read out is that there is no need to do any more mass shootings in the Ostland because they have all been killed?

A. This conclusion can be drawn from it, yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: "Ostland" there is referring to what?

P-74

A. The Baltic provinces, three Baltic states.

MR RAMPTON: Your Lordship will see the problem in other Einsatzgruppen areas in a moment.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Because the East is sometimes a reference to the front with Russia, is it not?

A. Well --

MR RAMPTON: Yes, the Ostland is specifically though I think, am I right?

A. It is a reference to Baltic provinces.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: The Baltic States.

A. Sometimes "the East" is also a euphemism for something uglier, too as I point out in my books.

MR RAMPTON: The very next document, Mr Irving, says Professor Browning, is a protocol, it is a German word, my Lord, it is FN 51, just the next document after the divider, I hope.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

MR RAMPTON: The protocol, it is very difficult to read. Of a meeting held, I think, in Minsk on 29th January. You see somebody has also written "am" 29th January, do you see that Mr Irving?

A. Yes, but it is not a date, the formality for writing a date like "London" and December 1st 1941, in German you would always have "den".

Q. What does it mean here?

A. Here it is a sentence, effectively, saying the protocol on

P-75

the sequence of events in the meeting of the main department and department heads on January 29th 1942. It is not the same thing at all. It is not a letter head.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: It is actually short for "an dem", is it not?

A. Yes, thank you very much, my Lord, yes, indeed. But in a letter, the formalities -- I would be very surprised if anyone would disagree with me with that. Although I have to say one or two Auschwitz documents also say "am" for letter heads.

MR RAMPTON: I have not been able to find in the brief scan I have just given it the actual German quoted by Professor Browning; that is not to say it is not there; simply I have just not picked it up at once. Maybe the best way of dealing with it is to look at the German Professor Browning cites. Could Mr Irving have Professor Browning's report, please.

A. What page of report?

Q. It is page 16. Mr Julius -- yes, that is interesting while we are trying to find the actual text, Mr Irving, on the first page, at the bottom of the page, the last paragraph?

A. Yes, I see that.

Q. You see that. You have seen what you might call the "anomalous SS"?

A. Yes.

P-76

Q. How odd, one in Minsk and the other one in Kovno?

A. Yes.

Q. The same illiterate chap with the same rotten typewriter going round from one place to another?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: The passage you are looking for is at page 1382 at the bottom.

MR RAMPTON: I am grateful to your Lordship. It is the third sentence of the last paragraph on page 1382. That is using the stamp on page 3 of the document.

A. Yes.

Q. It says, something like this, does it not, a complete liquidation of the Jews is not possible due to frost; and the word which is used for "liquidation" is "liquidieren" is it not?

A. Absolutely specifically. They do not use "Vernichtung" or ----

Q. Because the ground is too frozen to dig pits, which would then be available as mass graves for the Jews. Not much doubt what they are talking about there, is there?

A. None at all.

Q. We are in January in Minsk, which is in the Ukraine, yes?

A. Yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Who are the people who are coming to that conclusion? I do not quite know what the document represents.

A. It appears to be a session of local department heads and

P-77

their subordinates on the spot out there rather than in Berlin.

Q. Yes.

MR RAMPTON: Yes, my Lord, Professor Browning tells us that it is written by somebody called SS Sturmbannführer Hoffmann of the Security Service in Minsk and that he explained this to a meeting to officials --

A. I do not see how signature on page 6 can be made to be Hoffmann.

Q. -- it may be like you, Mr Irving, Professor Browning has a considerable knowledge of this period and this aspect of this period.

A. We shall see.

Q. Because he knows from extraneous evidence that it is Hoffmann who says this.

A. Is there any reference to Adolf Hitler in this document? To the originator of this System, as you call it?

Q. Mr Irving, can I say at once I hope I do not have to invoke help from his Lordship, you will get a chance to make your clever speech at the end of this case, I do not answer questions.

A. It was not a clever speech it, was just an observation. This is a sample of the quality of documents which are now available to historians which go into the most intimate detail about the killing operations going on.

Q. That is not why I am looking at it at all.

P-78

A. I look at it as a Hitler historian. I try to find anybody saying, "It is OK, fellows, the Führer has ordered this. We are covered."

Q. Well, that is a very literal minded way of looking at things if I may say so.

A. A very safe way of looking at things, being literal.

Q. Very literal. If you do not have a Hitler order "shoot all the Jews in the East" signed Adolf Hitler, then you have to look at the circumstantial evidence.

A. This is evidence of shooting was going on, which I have never denied.

Q. As a lawyer would, to see what evidence there is which might suggest that this was a centrally organised and approved operation. That is stage one. If you get that far, and then you see a report telling Hitler that 363,000 Jews have been caught, have been shot by these people, and put two and two together, and you make four, not five, or three.

A. It is a poor substitute for the real thing, and it is the real thing that I have been would have been looking for.

Q. We do not have the real thing, but what is your task as an historian, Mr Irving? It is, is it not to give an objective, fair, interpretation to the cumulative effect of all the evidence, is it not?

A. It is surely not suggested that I have concealed any of that evidence in my book? The evidence is there for

P-79

people to read.

Q. I know. You see you will not draw the obvious conclusions from the evidence before you, simply because you have not got a piece of paper signed by Adolf Hitler saying, "Do it". Where on the other hand you have a piece of paper which says simply "from Himmler"; it has not got Hitler's name on it either, which simply says to Heydrich "do not shoot these Berlin Jews, this train load of Berlin Jews", immediately that becomes incontrovertible evidence that Hitler gave the order. Do you say anything about double standards in that?

A. At least there is good quality evidence you advance in the opposite direction, and I give both kinds of evidence in my books and I allow my readers to draw their own conclusions. My readers are not stupid, they are capable of drawing their own conclusions from what I write.

Q. Not only did that Himmler phone log become evidence of an order from Hitler that those Jews should not be killed, but it became incontrovertible evidence that Hitler had made an order that no Jews anywhere were to be killed, did it not?

A. I think we are testing the patience of the court if you go over this old ground all over again, Mr Rampton.

Q. No, not at all.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, we did go over it.

MR RAMPTON: I know that, but Mr Irving, my Lord, supposes that

P-80

this evidence is useless, or at any rate not much use without a Hitler order on a piece of paper.

A. That is not what I said.

Q. Double standards, Mr Irving.

A. I said I would expect to find in a document of this kind, where you have people discussing crimes of this magnitude, that one person would have said, would have made reference to ... Führer Liquidierung or something like that, just so that everyone at the meeting is covered. What the cowardly call a Deckungsschreiben, a piece of paper that covers them if things go nasty. And they do not bother to do it.

Q. This puzzles me, you have used this argument in relation to some of the entries in the Goebbels' diaries, you have used it in relation to entries occurring, for example, 27th March 1942, that in some sense Goebbels, by referring to Hitler for the more excessive anti-Semitic sentiments appearing in those diaries, as some kind of alibi; why in March 1942 or here we are in January 1942, should anybody think that they needed an alibi for what they were doing?

A. Because the war is going very badly at this moment for Germany. All sort nasty things can happen. People here on the Eastern Front can see the writing on the wall. They lost half the German army to frostbite.

Q. Stalingrad is not until the next year, is it?

A. The winter of 1941/42 42 was touch and go for Germany

P-81

already. Thinking people, if they had any brains, would start covering their tracks.

Q. These are just run of the mill janitorial level, to use your attractive phrase, janitorial level routine military reports back to headquarters in Berlin, we are doing as we are told, here is the number of Jews that we have killed, this is why we do not do it any more in the East land, the reason is we have done it already, does not need doing, we cannot do much in Minsk at the moment because the ground is too hard, but it goes on, does it not --

A. Can I correct one point you said, you said this was a report back to Berlin.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, that is not right, Mr Rampton?

A. -- minute of a meeting somewhere in East.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is why this document to me does not seem to carry the issue very much further in terms of whether it was authorised at the highest level.

MR RAMPTON: Except for this, Mr Irving, if this was unauthorised, unsystematic, contrary to orders, it would not be reported at all, would it?

A. If the calling was unauthorised -- I am afraid you escaped my attention there for a moment, my mind wandered.

Q. I am sorry. I will repeat it. I will put it in different way. When, what was his name Lieutenant Calley?

A. C-A-L-L-E-Y.

Q. He did what at My-lai, this is a parable you used yourself,

P-82

so you know what I am talking about.

A. In a climate of barbarism he took revenge on a village and wiped out every man, women and child.

Q. Did he or his adjutant or his NCO sit down and write a laborious, typewritten report about it?

A. I think there were documents, there was a paper trail established at the court martial.

Q. Was there a written report signed by Calley, "this is what I have done", and no reports of such atrocities sent back from Vietnam to Washington on a regular basis?

A. Mr Rampton, neither you nor I am or are an expert on the Vietnam war and it would be wrong for me to speculate. Can I just point out, my Lord, even if this document had established the kind of evidence Mr Rampton is looking for, I would submit it could not be held against me because it is only recently emerged from the Moscow archives. It could not have been on my desk at the time I wrote my books. I could not have manipulated, mistranslated or distorted it.

Q. You would have known, this document serves three purposes; one it shows it was happening, but we all know that anyway, we do not need this document for that, the other is that somebody thought worth writing about it in a formal written note of a protocol for a meeting. And the other is it gives two very good reasons why there might have been a lull in the Eastern shootings --

P-83

A. Because the ground was frozen.

Q. -- yes, and in the Ostland the job had already been done?

A. I appreciate that.

Q. You said you did not know about that document, it has only recently come out in Moscow. I am in no position to dispute that. Have you been aware of the EMs, I say that to avoid my awful German; have I got it more or less right?

A. Yes, commendably so.

Q. Thank you very much. They do go back to Berlin, or rather they are composed in Berlin from information sent from the East by the Einsatzgruppen; have you been aware of those reports?

A. I am aware of their existence, yes, I have not studied them in detail.

Q. No. Have you been aware of those reports, was my question?

A. Yes.

Q. Since when?

A. Certainly since the beginning of this case. Over the last three to five years I would say I have become familiar with them.

Q. Have they all come out of Moscow as well?

A. They have come out in dribs and drabs. Some turned up in the Nuremberg trial, some of them turned up subsequently.

Q. If they were in the Nuremberg files they were sitting

P-84

there where they could be looked I assume, I do not know where the Nuremberg files are?

A. How big they are? A lifetime task.

Q. But you see, Mr Irving, if you are looking for evidence both ways, what was known in Berlin about what was going on in the East, and before launching yourself into an assertion that these were the unauthorised crimes of some wicked people in the East, you ought to be looking at things like that if they exist, ought you not?

A. I did indirectly, if you remember I offered a major reward for anybody who could find the kind of evidence. If it is provided, the kind of evidence, I am sure people would stepped forward with outstretched hand --

Q. I think, Mr Irving, you are shortly going to try his Lordship's patience if you are not careful.

A. -- that was a short and perhaps cheap answer.

Q. That was not an answer to my question. If you assert that these killings were the unauthorised criminal acts of certain wild SS cowboys in the East, then you ought to be looking for evidence both ways before you make that assertion?

A. Which killings are we taking about, the killings of German Jews, or killings of the rest, if I may put it that way?

Q. We will have to do the paper chase after lunch. --

A. There is a very significant distinction, I think, in the statement I made that the killings stopped.

P-85

Q. -- no, Mr Irving, sometimes -- I know it is tiring to concentrate hard all the time, I know that, sometimes I think you just do not hear what I say. I am talking about the killings in the East. Leave the German Jews out of it for a moment, because at the beginning they were in tiny minority anyway.

A. But my reference to the wild minority carrying on was a reference to German Jews.

Q. No. You, I think, have asserted -- if I am wrong then I say after the adjournment we will do a paper chase to see whether I am wrong, if you say I am wrong -- you have asserted on a number of occasions, have you not, that this sort of thing, like what happened in Kovno, like the sort of thing we have seen in that Minsk document, were not part of policy, they were just things that happened. You said just now about those Berlin Jews, they got to the end of line, that was that and after that they were in hand of the wicked witch?

A. The System operated from Berlin out to the East. I think we have conceded this, so far as there was a System. But I think that what you failed to establish, if I may say so, is to establish that the System operated from Berlin outwards to Hitler headquarters as well, and that I should have known about and I ignored it.

Q. No. Do I have now a clear concession that what the SS were doing in the East, whether they were Polish, Russian

P-86

or Berlin Jews, no, leave the Berlin Jews out of it for the moment; what the SS were doing in the East to the Russian Jews, and the Baltic Jews, to a total of perhaps 1.5 million, I do not believe the numbers matter, we have a concession now, do we, that that was done on the authority of and with the knowledge of at least Heydrich in Berlin?

A. Yes, quite clearly.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: The buck stopped there, did it, did it go to Himmler as well?

A. I think quite clearly this August 1941 message to which Mr Rampton probably wants to proceed next is a reference to the overall security activity of Einsatzgruppen in the East, on which Hitler wished to be kept informed; and to try and say this obviously refers to specifically to the killing of Jews, and only to the killing of Jews, is a very adventurous leap to make. Obviously you have to mention this desire of Hitler to be kept informed, but it is dangerous then therefore to say therefore he must also have been told in great detail about everything else that is going on.

MR RAMPTON: I am trying to take it slowly, Mr Irving, because I want to be sure of the bricks which I am building. I have built brick No. One, at long last I have a concession that Heydrich authorised and knew about shootings of these hundreds of thousand of Jews in the

P-87

East.

A. Which Jews are we talking about? Can we be quite specific. We are talking about the eastern non-German Jews?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

MR RAMPTON: We are talking about the ones the Einsatzgruppen --

A. Yes, it is not a "concession," because I said it all along. I think the word "concession" is loaded. It implies I said something differently previously.

Q. -- that is what I will look for over the adjournment because I believe that you have on numbers of occasions, not in this court, said almost exactly that.

A. I shall await this revelation with interest.

Q. I may be wrong, if I am wrong I will tell you so. Now I am going to go a stage up from Heydrich. I am going to go to Himmler next. This is a document which I perfectly well accept you did not have at the time when you wrote your books. My Lord, it is Himmler's note of the 18th December 1941. It is referred to on page 63 of the first part of Dr Longerich's report, and the document itself in one of several versions is at footnote 160 of H4(ii).

A. While we are looking for that, can I just say this is precisely the kind of document, of course, that falls under my strictures about, Is it strictly relevant to the

P-88

issues as pleaded? If it was not available to me at the time I wrote the books ...

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have been wondering about that and I think ----

A. It is of historical interest and I am quite happy to...

Q. Yes, but just wait a minute, Mr Irving. I think there is a lot of force in what you say, but I do not think I can stop Mr Rampton cross-examining about it because if he were, for example, able to show by producing a document you did not know about when you were writing, that it points unequivocally in whatever direction, and you were to deny it, he might be entitled to say to me at the end of the case, well, that shows that you are not objective when you are shown a new document.

A. He is a "hardcore denier," yes.

Q. But I do accept the force of what you say and Mr Rampton may takes these documents perhaps rather than shorter than the ones that were available.

MR RAMPTON: I think it is very easy to do that because there is really only one question comes out of it. The trouble is I cannot find it.

A. I have, of course, used the document in the new version of the book that has now gone to press.

MR RAMPTON: It is about three quarters of the way through file 4(ii). Has Mr Irving got file 4(ii)?

A. I am very familiar with what the document says and its

P-89

shape. "Judenfrage"...

MR JUSTICE GRAY: But I am not, Mr Rampton, so can you show me where I go for it?

MR RAMPTON: Yes, my Lord, footnote 160. This reproduction of the note is the best I have. It comes from that little book, Witte. It is a Himmler's manuscript, my Lord. Your Lordship may recognize the handwriting.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

MR RAMPTON: Before we look at the substance of this, Mr Irving, perhaps it is best to say what it says. We had better just tell everybody what it means. I hope I read it correctly. It is headed: "Führerhauptquartier", is it not?

A. Yes.

Q. Which is the "Führer's headquarters". Underneath that we know which headquarters because Himmler tells us, the Wolfsschanze, the Wolf's Lair.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Did you say FN 160?

MR RAMPTON: Yes, 160.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mine is 17th December 1941.

MR RAMPTON: Yes, but on the right-hand side it should be the facsimile.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: I had assumed that was what was being transcribed on the left-hand side.

MR RAMPTON: No, it is not, I am afraid. In fact, in the book the transcription is on the next following page behind the

P-90

Himmler note. "Führer Hauptquartier, Wolfsschanze 18.12.41 at 1600 hours", 16H that is?

A. Yes, that is correct.

Q. Underneath the XII for December, the Roman 12, Himmler has drawn a line or somebody has, have they not? A vertical line?

A. Yes.

Q. So the page divides into two columns?

A. Yes.

Q. Above the right-hand column underlined is the word "Führer"?

A. Yes.

Q. And in the left-hand column Himmler has written -- are these written in pen or pencil or what?

A. Himmler used a green crayon. He or his adjutant, Grothmann, would write a list of topics to discuss with Hitler on the left-hand side of the line, and then on the right-hand side sometimes there would be a one or two word comment, usually reflecting what Hitler had decided.

Q. On the left-hand side, this is what you might call the agenda then, correct?

A. Yes.

Q. Himmler has written "Judenfrage"?

A. The Jewish question.

Q. And under "Führer" in the right-hand column he has written "als Partisanen auszurotten," has he not?

P-91

A. "To be wiped out as partisans".

Q. Yes. This ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Does it say "auszurotten", sorry?

A. "Auszurotten".

MR RAMPTON: This, Mr Irving, is an important document?

A. It is a document, but, as Trevor Roper said once, because it is new that does not mean it is necessarily true; and also you have to look at every document like that and say because it is new, you have to fit it into the general fabric. It is one mosaic stone that you have to fit into the rest of the mosaic. But I appreciate it is a crucial document -- a cardinal document.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: When did you first see it?

A. I could not actually put a date on it. It became common knowledge in, I think, the summer of last year when a young German historian published it in a learned essay and sometime later I obtained the actual facsimile from ----

Q. That was the first time you had seen it when you saw it last summer?

A. That is correct.

MR RAMPTON: And the natural meaning or import, implication, significance, call it what you will, for an historian, of course, he has to take everything into account, but at first blush this would suggest that Hitler had told Himmler to wipe out the Jews as partisans? Do you agree?

A. This is an interpretation which is put on that document,

P-92

yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: But the question was, do you agree?

A. Not in that form, my Lord.

MR RAMPTON: Tell me how you read this. I would be very interested.

A. "Jewish question", first of all, the literal translation is: "Jewish question, to be liquidated as partisans". Once again we are faced with the problem of trying to define which Jews we are talking about, which Jews is Himmler likely to have been talking with Hitler about on that afternoon, on December 16th 1941. Presumably, it is the Jews in the Baltic and on the Eastern front.

Q. Suppose you are right about that ----

A. Yes.

Q. What else?

A. --- to be liquidated as partisans. I am quite happy to use the word "liquidated" as that translation for "ausrotten" on that occasion. I think it is quite clear that they were going to be, I forget the phrase the Americans use, terminated with extreme prejudice; partisans on the Eastern front were shot, they were executed, and the only question, of course, which hangs over this document is which Jews specifically are being talked about.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: We have agreed, have we not?

A. Yes.

MR RAMPTON: I do not know, I am not an historian ----

P-93

A. Well, is it German Jews being deported to the East who are falling under that ambit or just all the rest?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, you would say no because of the document that we were looking at the other day, "Keine Liquidierung"?

A. Precisely, my Lord.

MR RAMPTON: It may or may not be, Mr Irving, that is not at the moment what we are talking. This is evidence that Hitler gave authority for the massacre at least ----

A. Of Jews.

Q. --- of Jews in the East?

A. Yes.

Q. Yes. That, I think, as I recall, is the view that Dr Longerich takes?

A. I do not think there is any dispute between the parties on this.

Q. Then, lo and behold, almost a year later, or just over a year later, comes along a report from the East saying that just that has happened?

A. Yes.

Q. A report to Hitler?

A. December 29th, 1942, yes.

Q. So, as a matter of historical fact, Mr Irving, you have always known about report No. 51 on 29th December 1942, have you not?

A. Yes.

P-94

Q. The probability that Hitler saw that report and was, therefore, what shall we say, implicated in the murder of all those 363,000 Eastern Jews is confirmed, is it not, by our subsequent knowledge of this document?

A. Yes. There is no contention between us on that point.

Q. So, historically speaking, the fact is that the systematic killing of the eastern Jews, whether in Minsk or Kovno or Kiev or anywhere else, was part of a Führer plan?

A. As a part of the partisan combating. I am trying to specify exactly what interpretation one can safely put on two rather skimpy documents with 12 months between them. It has to be said that this telephone notice, this agenda, is about as skimpy as one can imagine. One would only wish that Himmler had been more literary in his endeavours and told us precisely what was going on.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Would it be wrong to read it that they were to be treated in the same way as partisans were being treated, namely they were going to be shot just as partisans ----

A. Precisely, my Lord.

Q. --- because they were supporting the ----

A. And I know that some people would say, well, the Jews provided the partisan reservoir, but, of course, the obvious argument against that is "and the women and children too" and the answer to that is, of course, they were not. So this was, undoubtedly, part of the majority

P-95

atrocity on the Eastern Front which I have never denied.

MR RAMPTON: Well, then please will you look at Report No. 51 itself? I know we have looked at it before, but these documents are, in our submission, so intimately connected that it is necessary to look at it again. You will find that in (which I hope you have) H3(i) which is the first tranche of Professor Browning's documents at footnote 28(ii). H3(i), do you have?

A. Yes.

Q. Then if you turn to FN 28(ii) at the bottom right-hand corner of the page, you should have it?

A. I have it.

Q. This is a report -- I will not go through it all again -- only for a part of the East. It does not say anything, for example, about Ostland. It talks about South Russia, Ukraine and the Bialystok area which is to the west of White Russia, is it not?

A. Yes.

Q. As we noticed before, under paragraph 2, listed as gang helpers, and what was the other word?

A. "Partisan accomplices" is the way I would translate that.

Q. Sorry, what?

A. "Accused of being partisan accomplices or fellow travellers".

Q. Yes, fellow travellers?

A. And suspects.

P-96

Q. Or whatever. Some were arrested, some were executed, which is perhaps not very surprising, not in huge numbers, a total under B of 14,000 -- well, comparatively not in huge numbers, I should have said. Under C, as a separate entry for heaven knows why, a separate entry, 363,211 Jews?

A. Yes.

Q. So, is it your thesis that Hitler would have been likely to think, "Oh, well, I am sure all those Jews were getting up to no good in the underground or the Resistance or whatever, the subversives, and there were all that many of them so the poor old SS had to shoot them", is that a realistic scenario, Mr Irving?

A. That being sarcastic, presumably?

Q. I am being entirely sarcastic.

A. Yes, of course not.

Q. Not to you, but I mean that is not a credible suggestion, is it?

A. Of course it is not, no, and this document I have printed in several of my books. I think I was probably the very first person to have drawn attention to it. I may be wrong on that.

Q. This is important, Mr Irving. So you agree with me that this is just some kind of fiction, really, to put them under band helpers and band whatever the other things, accomplices. This is put, coldly and bluntly, a record of

P-97

the number of Jews deliberately executed for the reason that they are Jews and for another, is it not?

A. I have no evidence of that, but that is a reasonable supposition. But I would also continue from that point and say what worries me about this document is that we have no evidence that Hitler took it on board, as we would now say. He never referred in later conferences saying, "I remember back in December we got that document saying we had killed 300,000 Jews, jolly good show!"

Q. But you have had this document for a long time?

A. Oh, yes.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: But the evidence suggests that it was "laid before" Hitler, does it not?

A. I agree, my Lord, but there is a difference between documents being laid before a Prime Minister or a Head of State at a time when disaster, the world is crashing around his ears, it is the height of the Stalingrad Crisis, and the fact that he actually imbibed the facts and figures contained in it, this may be precisely why Himmler put it to him at that time. This has been known to happen, that people -- documents are shovelled in front of them.

Q. We now know that he did ask to be kept informed about the shootings on the Eastern front.

A. 18 months earlier, my Lord, yes -- that is not strictly accurate, my Lord. He asked to be kept informed of the

P-98

activities of the Einsatzgruppen. Broadly speaking, their major activity was policing the rear areas and to them fell the task of killing the Jews.

MR RAMPTON: Have you any idea of the cost of ammunition at that time in the history of the Reich?

A. Cost of ammunition?

Q. Yes.

A. I would imagine the price per round was relatively low.

Q. So it would not be a huge economic expenditure to kill, let us say, 700,000 Jews by shooting?

A. It is much cheaper to kill them with bullets than with cyanide gas.

Q. Much noisier too?

A. I take your word for it.

Q. Well, bullets, they were not using silencers, were they?

A. I am afraid you have lost me there.

Q. It is more likely to come to public attention, is it not, and it is also, I mean, I do not know how many soldiers they used by per shooting?

A. I think there were six machine gunners, according to Bruns, was it not?

Q. I do not know.

A. Who took it in turns. They were relieved.

Q. Evidently, at some stage it became too much for many of the people that had to do it?

A. Yes, I am sure.

P-99

Q. Whereas -- we will come to the other matters later on. Now, I would like Mr Irving -- my Lord, this is the last thing, if I may, that I will do before the adjournment ----

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes.

MR RAMPTON: --- to have a copy of Professor Evans' report.

A. While it is being fetched, my Lord, can I ask you, do you read the newspaper accounts that are published at all of this action?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Not much, no.

A. Not much?

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Well, if you have been there, there is not much point in reading about it.

A. I agree, but the newspapers sometimes report things that have not been dealt with in the courtroom.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, I know. Why do you mention that at this stage?

A. Well, over the weekend I have been studying some of the accounts, and it would disturb me if I thought you were accepting what the press reported about things.

MR JUSTICE GRAY: No, I rely on what I hear here.

A. This is the Evans report.

MR RAMPTON: Yes.

A. Page?

Q. That will probably take us up to, at any rate, 5 to 1. Page 134. There may be more to come of this after the adjournment when I have done a bit more research, but

P-100

these two little snippets will do for the moment. For the moment, I have not fished out original transcripts, Mr Irving, so I hope you will forgive me. If Professor Evans has mistranscribed what you are alleged to have said, then no doubt, you will tell us. Page 134(c) "Systematic nature of the extermination". This is Professor Evans: "A refusal to accept that the extermination of the Jews was systematically organised or centrally directed is a major element in the phenomenon of Holocaust denial"?

A. As defined by him.

Q. I am reading his words. You can cross-examine him about his words, not me. "Where does Irving stand on this issue? Even before he changed his mind on the numbers killed and the use of gassing as a murder technique, Irving was denying that the Nazi extermination of the Jews had been carried out in a systematic manner. Thus, for example, in 1986, two years before his change of mind on these issues, Irving told reporters in Brisbane, Australia: 'I am not attacking the figure of 6 million. I am not attacking the fact that the Jews were killed, but I am attacking or questioning whether, in fact, it was a tragedy ordered and organised on the very highest German state level, namely by Hitler himself, and I think this is what they find very repugnant'." Who was "they" in that sentence?

P-101

A. I do not know.

Q. "'because if my hypothesis is correct, then it means that all these Jews, and it maybe any figure, I don't look at the figure concerned, if my hypothesis is'" -- sorry, it is difficult to read, "'if my hypothesis is correct, it indicates that the Jews were the victims of a large number of rather run-of-the-mill criminal elements which exist in central Europe, not just Germans, but Austrians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, feeding on the endemic anti-Semitism of the era and encouraged by the brutalisation which war brought about anyway'." Then if we go over the page, please, and then there is the bit about these chaps who did it being motivated by revenge for bombing. 135, Professor Evans makes the comments: "Irving did not explain how allied bombing raids on Germany could have turned Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians against the Jews". Maybe you just made a slip, did you, Mr Irving?

A. It is quite clearly being misread by whoever -- Professor Evans has misread that. He is reading into the words I used a much tighter link there. Quite clearly, the people living in the Baltic provinces had their own reasons for hating the Jews. I do not propose to go into them here.

Q. I do not know whether it is a speech; it is a press conference.

P-102

A. It is a verbatim press conference probably.

Q. Yes. Paragraph 3?

A. But, as far as the German killers and the Austrian killers went, certainly there are very clearly links between some of the killers concerned and what they experienced in the air raids.

Q. Yes. I will read the next sentence, paragraph 2, if I may?

"He did make it clear, however, that he thought the mass killings of Jews in the Second World War resulted from local initiatives in East Central Europe, not from any overall co-ordination by the Nazi leadership or, indeed, by any part of it. His view was that these local initiatives were excusable. It comes through clearly as well as he told at an interview in the same month in 1986, the millions of Jews or the hundreds or thousands of Jews, I am not going to name any figure, who were liquidated during the Second World War by the Germans and the Latvians or the Ukrainians or all the rest who carried out liquidations, they were the victims of a large number of nameless criminals into whose hands they fell on the Eastern Front. Mostly around Eastern Europe the liquidations occurred and these men acted on their own impulse, their own initiative, within the general atmosphere of brutality created by the Second World War in which, of course, the allied bombings had played a part".

Mr Irving, that first part, leave the allied

P-103

bombings out of it for a moment because we will get on to Dresden later in the case.

A. I think I am absolutely right. I think the documents that have come to light have established that a hundred times over.

Q. What?

A. The fact that the mindless criminals on the Eastern Front who carried out these killing operations had a motive of their own to do the killing even when they were ordered by Berlin or by Hitler's headquarters to stop and they carried on with the killing. People like Altemeyer, that young man we talked about earlier, the 22 year old, who sniggered and said, "We have got this order to stop the mass shootings but we are going to carry on anyway so no one sees it".

MR JUSTICE GRAY: That may be true, Mr Irving, but it is not really the point, is it?

A. Oh, I am sorry. I must have missed the point that Mr Rampton is asking about.

MR RAMPTON: Yes, you have missed the point. What you are denying here is System?

A. Yes, of course.

Q. Yes, and you have readily ----

A. The overall System, that link that you are looking for between Berlin and Hitler's headquarters.

Q. We have found it. We have found it easily going to

P-104

Heydrich.

A. Yes.

Q. And, no doubt, therefore, to Himmler and now we have found it going to Hitler, have we not?

A. There must be something between the lines that I have not been able to read.

Q. Between which lines?

A. That you have read out -- because where is the "link to Hitler" here?

Q. No, sorry, we are at cross-purposes. Thi