Shofar FTP Archive File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day004.04
Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day004.04
Last-Modified: 2000/08/01
. 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 Fuhrer 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. "Dab 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 Fuhrer 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 Frohlich, 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 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 1500 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 Fuhrer 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 œ1,000. 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 Frohlich edition?
A. Yes, "In connection with the Jewish question, the
Fuhrer
has decided to make tabula rasa".
Q. Yes, and then it goes on, "He prophesized 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 gramaphone 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? "Bezuglich der
Judenfrage ist der Fuhrer 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 Fuhrer 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 Fuhrer
uberhaupt
unser kommendes Indien" is in reported speech, is it
not?
A. No.
Q. No?
A. It would be in "osten siehe der Fuhrer", 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 ----
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