Irving v. Lipstadt
Transcripts
Holocaust Denial on Trial, Trial Transcripts, Day 1: Electronic Edition
Pages 92 - 97 of 103
| << 1-6 | < 86-91 | 98-103 > | 97-103 >> |
"The incontrovertible evidence is that Hitler
1handwriting note on this)".
2 Thus the reader was led to believe, first, that
3as early as 30th November 1941 Hitler had issued an order,
4faithfully passed on by Himmler to the relevant
5authorities, that there was to be no liquidation of any
6Jews, and that all Jews were to stay wherever they happen
7to be; and second that there was incontrovertible evidence
8of this in handwritten notes by Himmler which Mr Irving
9had found in Himmler's private files. Mr Irving had
10evidently read Himmler's notes, and Mr Irving's German was
11then, as it is now, very good. So what did the notes
12actually say?
13 The relevant part of the note for 30th November
141941 reads as follows:
15 "Judentranport aus Berlin. Keine Liquidierung".
16That is the German entry by Himmler. The unambiguous
17meaning of those words in English is: "Jew transport" the
18word is singular, "Jew transport from Berlin no
19liquidation".
20 Thus so far from being a general prohibition
21against the liquidation of the Jews, it was merely an
22order from Himmler to Heydrich that the particular train
23load of Berlin Jews in question was not to be killed on
24arrival in Riga.
25 The matter gets worse. What was the evidence
26that Himmler's order to Heydrich was derived from
1instructions given to him by Hitler at a secret conference
2at which the fait of Berlin's Jews was clearly raised?
3The answer is none. This was pure invention by
4Mr Irving. Indeed, the fact is, as Mr Irving later
5discovered, that Himmler did not meet Hitler until an hour
6after he telephoned this order to Heydrich.
7 Thus the matter gets worse still. I repeat
8Mr Irving's words:
9 "And the next day Himmler telephoned SS General
10Oswald Pohl, overall chief of the concentration camp
11system, with the order 'Jews are to stay where they are'."
12 What does Himmler's note of his telephone call
13to General Pohl on 1st November 1941 actually say? It
14says this:
15 "Verwaltungsfuhrer des SS haben zu bleiben".
16 Does this mean, as Mr Irving told his English
17readers, Jews are to stay where they are? No, it does
18not. It means administratively leaders of the SS are to
19stay where they are. Nor is there in this day's entry in
20the Himmler log any reference to the Jews whatsoever.
21I repeat, Mr Irving had, as he proudly announced, read the
22Himmler log and he has very good German.
23 One asks the question: Does not this single
24example condemn Mr Irving as a liar, whose utterances
25about this awful episode in European history can never be
26taken seriously? In fairness it should be pointed out
1that in the 1991 edition of Hitler's War Mr Irving
2corrected, though by implication only, the assertion that
3Himmler's order to Heydrich of 30th November 1941 "no
4liquidation" applied to Jews generally, and accepted that
5it applied only to a single trailer of Jews from Berlin.
6But did he withdraw his imaginative assertion that
7Himmler's instruction to Heydrich was derived from an
8order given to him by Hitler, or that Himmler's log for
91st December 1941 read, "Jews are to stay where they
10are"? No he did not. He wrote on page 427:
11 "On November 30th 1941 Himmler was summoned to
12the Wolf's lair for a secret conference with Hitler at
13which the fate of a train load of Berlin Jews was clearly
14raised. At 1.30 p.m. Himmler was obliged to telephone
15from Hitler's bunker to Heydrich the explicit order that
16these Jews were not to be liquidated, and the next day
17Himmler telephoned SS General Oswald Pohl, overall chief
18of the concentration camp system, with the order, 'Jews
19are to stay where they are'."
20 Thus was repeated and preserved a monstrous
21distortion of the evidence in Mr Irving's own hands. It
22is true that he printed a facsimile of Himmler's log for
2330th November 1941 in both editions of the book, but he
24never printed the entry for 1st December 1941,
25"administrative leaders of the SS are to stay where they
26are." One wonders rhetorically why not?
1 So, my Lord, I pass on to Mr Irving and
2Holocaust denial. Between the publication of the first
3edition of Hitler's War in 1977 and its second edition in
41991, Mr Irving's views about the Holocaust underwent a
5sea change. In the 1977 edition he accepted it as an
6historical truth in all its essentials, systematic mass
7murder of Jews in purpose built extermination factories,
8but in the 1991 edition all trace of the Holocaust in this
9sense has disappeared. Auschwitz, for example, has been
10transformed from a monstrous killing machine into a mere
11slave labour camp.
12 What are the reasons for this astounding
13volte-face? The principal reason can be expressed in one
14word Leuchter. In 1988 a man of German origin, Ernst
15Zundel, was put on trial in Canada for publishing material
16which, amongst other things, denied the existence of
17homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz. In defence of this
18charge Mr Zundel's lawyers recruited a man called Fred
19Leuchter who seems to have made his living as some kind of
20consultant in the design of execution facilities in the
21USA. Mr Leuchter was duly despatched to Auschwitz to seek
22evidence of the use, or otherwise, of homicidal gas
23chambers. He took some samples from various parts of the
24remains of Auschwitz which he later had analysed in
25America and then wrote a report describing his findings
26and summarizing his conclusions. These were that there
1were never any homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz.
2 Unfortunately for Mr Zundel, Mr Leuchter's
3report was declared inadmissible by the Canadian judge on
4the grounds that Mr Leuchter had no relevant expertise.
5 Now it happens that Mr Irving also gave evidence
6for Mr Zundel at that trial. In the course of that visit
7he had read the Leuchter report. Shortly thereafter he
8declared himself convinced that Leuchter was right and
9that there never any homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz.
10So enthused was he by the Leuchter report that he
11published it himself in this country, with an appreciative
12forward written by him and introduced it to the public at
13a press conference in London, at which he declared that
14the validity of Leuchter's laboratory reports was
15unchallengable.
16 So it was that the Leuchter report became the
17main weapon in Mr Irving's campaign to "sink the
18battleship Auschwitz", as he calls it. The essence of
19this campaign is that the Holocaust symbolized by
20Auschwitz is a myth legend or lie, deployed by Jews to
21blackmail the German people into paying vast sums in
22reparations to supposed victims of the Holocaust.
23 According to Mr Irving, the Leuchter report
24is "the biggest calibre shell that has yet hit the
25battleship Auschwitz" and has "totally exploded the
26legend". Unfortunately for Mr Irving, the Leuchter report
1is bunk and he knows it. It was comprehensively debunked
2in court in Canada. It has been comprehensively
3demolished since by people who have written to Mr Irving,
4and perhaps not least by Professor van Pelt in his report
5made for the purposes of this case. This is not the
6moment to describe all the many means by which the
7Leuchter report is demolished, but one simple example can
8be given because it is derived from the internal evidence
9of the Leuchter report itself, and must have been apparent
10to anyone with an open and thoughtful mind.
11 One of the main reasons that Mr Leuchter
12advanced in his report for his conclusion that there were
13no homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz, was that it was to
14be expected that any residual traces of hydrogen cyanide,
15the killing agent in the Zyklon B pellets used by the SS,
16should be very much higher in those parts of the remains
17of Auschwitz which were identified as gas chambers for
18killing people than in those parts which are known to have
19been used for killing lice.
20 Leucther's report recorded very small traces of
21hydrogen cyanide in the gas chamber remains and relatively
22large traces in the delicing remains. Therefore, said
23Mr Leuchter, the alleged gas chamber remains could
24obviously never have been gas chambers at all. But the
25report itself contained the seeds of its own destruction,
26for it revealed that concentration of hydrogen cyanide
1handwriting note on this)".
2 Thus the reader was led to believe, first, that
3as early as 30th November 1941 Hitler had issued an order,
4faithfully passed on by Himmler to the relevant
5authorities, that there was to be no liquidation of any
6Jews, and that all Jews were to stay wherever they happen
7to be; and second that there was incontrovertible evidence
8of this in handwritten notes by Himmler which Mr Irving
9had found in Himmler's private files. Mr Irving had
10evidently read Himmler's notes, and Mr Irving's German was
11then, as it is now, very good. So what did the notes
12actually say?
13 The relevant part of the note for 30th November
141941 reads as follows:
15 "Judentranport aus Berlin. Keine Liquidierung".
16That is the German entry by Himmler. The unambiguous
17meaning of those words in English is: "Jew transport" the
18word is singular, "Jew transport from Berlin no
19liquidation".
20 Thus so far from being a general prohibition
21against the liquidation of the Jews, it was merely an
22order from Himmler to Heydrich that the particular train
23load of Berlin Jews in question was not to be killed on
24arrival in Riga.
25 The matter gets worse. What was the evidence
26that Himmler's order to Heydrich was derived from
. P-92
1instructions given to him by Hitler at a secret conference
2at which the fait of Berlin's Jews was clearly raised?
3The answer is none. This was pure invention by
4Mr Irving. Indeed, the fact is, as Mr Irving later
5discovered, that Himmler did not meet Hitler until an hour
6after he telephoned this order to Heydrich.
7 Thus the matter gets worse still. I repeat
8Mr Irving's words:
9 "And the next day Himmler telephoned SS General
10Oswald Pohl, overall chief of the concentration camp
11system, with the order 'Jews are to stay where they are'."
12 What does Himmler's note of his telephone call
13to General Pohl on 1st November 1941 actually say? It
14says this:
15 "Verwaltungsfuhrer des SS haben zu bleiben".
16 Does this mean, as Mr Irving told his English
17readers, Jews are to stay where they are? No, it does
18not. It means administratively leaders of the SS are to
19stay where they are. Nor is there in this day's entry in
20the Himmler log any reference to the Jews whatsoever.
21I repeat, Mr Irving had, as he proudly announced, read the
22Himmler log and he has very good German.
23 One asks the question: Does not this single
24example condemn Mr Irving as a liar, whose utterances
25about this awful episode in European history can never be
26taken seriously? In fairness it should be pointed out
. P-93
1that in the 1991 edition of Hitler's War Mr Irving
2corrected, though by implication only, the assertion that
3Himmler's order to Heydrich of 30th November 1941 "no
4liquidation" applied to Jews generally, and accepted that
5it applied only to a single trailer of Jews from Berlin.
6But did he withdraw his imaginative assertion that
7Himmler's instruction to Heydrich was derived from an
8order given to him by Hitler, or that Himmler's log for
91st December 1941 read, "Jews are to stay where they
10are"? No he did not. He wrote on page 427:
11 "On November 30th 1941 Himmler was summoned to
12the Wolf's lair for a secret conference with Hitler at
13which the fate of a train load of Berlin Jews was clearly
14raised. At 1.30 p.m. Himmler was obliged to telephone
15from Hitler's bunker to Heydrich the explicit order that
16these Jews were not to be liquidated, and the next day
17Himmler telephoned SS General Oswald Pohl, overall chief
18of the concentration camp system, with the order, 'Jews
19are to stay where they are'."
20 Thus was repeated and preserved a monstrous
21distortion of the evidence in Mr Irving's own hands. It
22is true that he printed a facsimile of Himmler's log for
2330th November 1941 in both editions of the book, but he
24never printed the entry for 1st December 1941,
25"administrative leaders of the SS are to stay where they
26are." One wonders rhetorically why not?
. P-94
1 So, my Lord, I pass on to Mr Irving and
2Holocaust denial. Between the publication of the first
3edition of Hitler's War in 1977 and its second edition in
41991, Mr Irving's views about the Holocaust underwent a
5sea change. In the 1977 edition he accepted it as an
6historical truth in all its essentials, systematic mass
7murder of Jews in purpose built extermination factories,
8but in the 1991 edition all trace of the Holocaust in this
9sense has disappeared. Auschwitz, for example, has been
10transformed from a monstrous killing machine into a mere
11slave labour camp.
12 What are the reasons for this astounding
13volte-face? The principal reason can be expressed in one
14word Leuchter. In 1988 a man of German origin, Ernst
15Zundel, was put on trial in Canada for publishing material
16which, amongst other things, denied the existence of
17homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz. In defence of this
18charge Mr Zundel's lawyers recruited a man called Fred
19Leuchter who seems to have made his living as some kind of
20consultant in the design of execution facilities in the
21USA. Mr Leuchter was duly despatched to Auschwitz to seek
22evidence of the use, or otherwise, of homicidal gas
23chambers. He took some samples from various parts of the
24remains of Auschwitz which he later had analysed in
25America and then wrote a report describing his findings
26and summarizing his conclusions. These were that there
. P-95
1were never any homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz.
2 Unfortunately for Mr Zundel, Mr Leuchter's
3report was declared inadmissible by the Canadian judge on
4the grounds that Mr Leuchter had no relevant expertise.
5 Now it happens that Mr Irving also gave evidence
6for Mr Zundel at that trial. In the course of that visit
7he had read the Leuchter report. Shortly thereafter he
8declared himself convinced that Leuchter was right and
9that there never any homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz.
10So enthused was he by the Leuchter report that he
11published it himself in this country, with an appreciative
12forward written by him and introduced it to the public at
13a press conference in London, at which he declared that
14the validity of Leuchter's laboratory reports was
15unchallengable.
16 So it was that the Leuchter report became the
17main weapon in Mr Irving's campaign to "sink the
18battleship Auschwitz", as he calls it. The essence of
19this campaign is that the Holocaust symbolized by
20Auschwitz is a myth legend or lie, deployed by Jews to
21blackmail the German people into paying vast sums in
22reparations to supposed victims of the Holocaust.
23 According to Mr Irving, the Leuchter report
24is "the biggest calibre shell that has yet hit the
25battleship Auschwitz" and has "totally exploded the
26legend". Unfortunately for Mr Irving, the Leuchter report
. P-96
1is bunk and he knows it. It was comprehensively debunked
2in court in Canada. It has been comprehensively
3demolished since by people who have written to Mr Irving,
4and perhaps not least by Professor van Pelt in his report
5made for the purposes of this case. This is not the
6moment to describe all the many means by which the
7Leuchter report is demolished, but one simple example can
8be given because it is derived from the internal evidence
9of the Leuchter report itself, and must have been apparent
10to anyone with an open and thoughtful mind.
11 One of the main reasons that Mr Leuchter
12advanced in his report for his conclusion that there were
13no homicidal gas chambers at Auschwitz, was that it was to
14be expected that any residual traces of hydrogen cyanide,
15the killing agent in the Zyklon B pellets used by the SS,
16should be very much higher in those parts of the remains
17of Auschwitz which were identified as gas chambers for
18killing people than in those parts which are known to have
19been used for killing lice.
20 Leucther's report recorded very small traces of
21hydrogen cyanide in the gas chamber remains and relatively
22large traces in the delicing remains. Therefore, said
23Mr Leuchter, the alleged gas chamber remains could
24obviously never have been gas chambers at all. But the
25report itself contained the seeds of its own destruction,
26for it revealed that concentration of hydrogen cyanide
. P-97
| << 1-6 | < 86-91 | 98-103 > | 97-103 >> |