When Millar stepped down, Irving returned to the witness box so that Rampton could cross-examine him on this topic. Irving readily acknowledged that his behavior was “illicit and . . . rather shabby.” However, given the chaotic situation in the archives, he insisted he had performed a “valuable service” by ensuring that historians would have immediate access to the diaries.2
Given Irving’s contrasting descriptions of the two borrowings—“illicit” and “legally”—I assumed this would be a slam dunk. We had considered bringing the head of the archive to testify. Because of the cost involved and Irving’s descriptions in his diary, we decided that an affidavit by him, attesting to the fact that Irving lacked permission to take the plates, would suffice.
JOHN KEEGAN: AMBIGUOUS TESTIMONY
Irving’s next witness was Sir John Keegan, the distinguished military historian, who after a long teaching career at Sandhurst, the Royal Military Academy, became the defense editor of the Daily Telegraph. Keegan, who specialized in the study of twentieth-century wars, is considered to be among the most prominent and widely read military historians of the late twentieth century. His books address both the challenges faced by military leaders and the experience of the individual soldier.
Like Watt, Keegan had declined Irving’s invitation to testify and had to be subpoenaed. I had never met Keegan, but I read his work and knew his reputation as one of the leading military historians. I scanned the room to see if he had arrived but did not spot him. When Keegan’s name was called, a small man stood up. It was difficult to see how tall he was because he had difficulty standing erect. Walking with a cane, he laboriously made his way to the witness box. I then realized I had seen him earlier entering the courtroom, but had not identified him as Keegan. This military historian would, I had assumed, look like a military man—an utterly daft supposition.3 Most scholars don’t “look like” their subjects, nor should they. I asked Rampton if Keegan had been in an accident. Rampton explained that he had tuberculosis as an adolescent. Keegan, who had spent a long time in the hospital, attended Oxford in the 1950s. He was handicapped and walked with a stick. Many of his fellow students were young men, who had recently completed their army service. I wondered if this had influenced his choice of fields.
Keegan, who has an oblong face, dark slicked-down hair, and thick eyebrows, wore a finely tailored double-breasted suit and exceptionally crisp white shirt. A silk handkerchief protruded from his breast pocket. It gave the impression of having been nonchalantly put in place; however the perfect soft folds indicated that careful attention had been paid to its placement. He took his seat in the witness box. Irving deferentially thanked him for coming in spite of his disability. Irving then read excerpts from a 1980 Times Literary Supplement article in which Keegan singled out Chester Wilmott’s Struggle for Europe and Irving’s Hitler’s War as two books in English that “stand out from the vast literature of the Second World War.” Irving asked if Keegan still believed that to be true. Keegan said that he did and that if he had to recommend to a beginner two books that would explain the Second World War from Hitler’s side and from the Allies’ side, he would choose these two books. They were “head and shoulders above all the rest.” Keegan described Hitler’s War as the autobiography that Hitler did not write. I feared that this praise for Irving’s book from a British cultural icon would impress Judge Gray. Of course, Keegan’s endorsement of Hitler’s War was not unqualified. He reminded Irving that the same review that praised Hitler’s War also contained the following sentence: “Some controversies are entirely bogus, like David Irving’s contention that Hitler subordinates kept from him the fact of the Final Solution.” Keegan also reminded Irving that when he posted this review on his website he neglected to include this sentence.
Irving asked if it was “still your opinion . . . that I am wrong on the Holocaust?” Keegan answered without hesitation: “I continue to think it perverse of you to propose that Hitler could not have known until as late as October 1943 what was going on to the Jewish population of Europe.” Upon hearing the term “perverse,” I emitted a not quite sotto voce “Yes.” Judge Gray asked Keegan, “Is [it] perverse to say that Hitler did not know about the Final Solution?” Keegan’s answer was unambiguous: “It defies common sense.”4
Irving concluded by asking why, given Keegan’s favorable opinion of his writings, “I had to coerce you into the witness box?” Keegan told Irving, “Just because I admire Hitler’s War. . . . That does not mean to say that I can go further in following you.” Then he added, “It seemed to me this was to be a very contentious case. I did not wish to put myself in a position where I might be misunderstood.” I wondered where Irving was headed with this line of questioning. His next question resolved the mystery. “Would be it [sic] fair to say that you were apprehensive about the repercussions of giving evidence on my behalf?” Irving apparently wanted to use Keegan’s testimony to address the putative conspiracy against him. Keegan stressed that he was not giving evidence on his behalf. He was in the court “under subpoena.” When Irving kept pushing Keegan, Judge Gray intervened to stop him. “This is a slightly meaningless debate. Sir John is right. He is here compulsorily, not voluntarily. He has no choice but to answer your questions.” Irving, possibly reluctant to appear to badger Keegan, apologetically explained that he wished to demonstrate “that there are professional repercussions” for those who advocate these historical positions. Judge Gray assured Irving, “I am not blind to the realities of the position and I understand the point you are putting.”5 I listened to Judge Gray’s comments with concern. Was he suggesting that Irving’s contention that he was being unfairly persecuted was valid? Did he believe that there were a cadre of historians who would have supported Irving but had been frightened into silence? I thought back to something Guttenplan had told me after the publication of his admittedly skewed article in the New York Times. Some historians who wanted to speak out on my behalf were leery of doing so because they feared Irving’s litigious reputation.
Rampton, in sharp contrast to his behavior when MacDonald testified, rose, nodded respectfully to Keegan, and said he had no questions. As Keegan carefully descended from the box and took a seat near Irving, I leaned over and told James I was worried about the judge’s praise of Irving. Smiling, James reassured me that Keegan could not have been better had he been our witness. In the space of a few minutes, Keegan had declared Irving’s theories about the Holocaust “bogus,” “perverse,” and “defying common sense.” James was probably right. But I couldn’t help juxtaposing Keegan’s praise for Hitler’s War with Evans’s devastating critique of it. Keegan’s willingness to ignore what Evans had uncovered starkly illustrated how Irving was still enjoying a reservoir of almost reflexive respect despite his historical manipulations. It was also a testament to how many historians considered his denial an eccentricity, as if, among historians, Irving’s denial was the crazy aunt the family sequesters in the attic. Everyone knows she is there, but if you don’t shine a light on her, she can be ignored.
After Keegan stepped down, Irving complained that two Canadian newspapers had printed “sinister” articles that inaccurately portrayed events in the courtroom. Furthermore, Irving continued, those articles contained quotations from Evans’s report, which, having not yet been introduced in court, was privileged. Someone had apparently leaked it. From the corner of my eye I saw Nik scribble something on a yellow Post-it and hurriedly hand it to Rampton. I wondered if he was the guilty party. Rampton read it, quickly rose, and interjected, “The reason why people have access to Professor Evans’s report is that Mr Irving put it on his website.”
With little, if any, visible embarrassment, Irving acknowledged that he had posted the report but said he had done so with a password and “a severe health warning, warning people that the entire contents of the report are considered to be libelous.” Judge Gray said nothing about this but did reassure Irving that, since he did not read the newspaper, the articles had no impact on him.
Irving was not satisfied. Judge Gray might not be affected by them but the “entire public gallery of this court will be.” A visibly annoyed Rampton interjected, “If the public’s mind is affected adversely to Mr Irving by a fair and accurate report of the proceedings in court, then Mr Irving has only himself to blame.”6
COUNTING DEAD JEWS
Our next expert witness, Professor Christopher Browning, had arrived from the University of North Carolina to testify. He is one of the leading experts on the German annihilation policy. When my academic chair was inaugurated at Emory, I selected him as the academic speaker. So too, when we were compiling the list of expert witnesses, I had wanted him to be among them.
Browning’s report addressed the Nazi policy of mass shootings of Jews in Soviet territory and the documentary evidence for it. Irving claimed that these killings were the result of rogue actions, which were uncoordinated or approved by the Nazi authorities—Hitler in particular—in Berlin. Irving faced a major problem, however. The Einsatzgruppen, the mobile killing units that conducted the massacres, prepared detailed reports on the killings, which they sent to Berlin. The reports, which contained precise death tolls, broken down into men, women, and children, were distributed to high-ranking army, police, and SS officers, as well as diplomats, Foreign Office officials, and even prominent industrialists. Never had a genocidal action been so methodically documented by the perpetrators.7 Browning relied on these reports to demonstrate that the killings were part of a program that had been carefully coordinated and monitored by Berlin.
Professor Christopher Browning came forward. A tall man with broad shoulders and a full head of straight brown hair, he has an easy manner and a friendly smile. After bantering with Browning about various archives they both had visited, Irving leaned over his podium toward the witness box. Lowering his voice slightly and adopting an almost intimate, “just between us” demeanor, he asked whether Browning had encountered “any particular problems as a non-Jewish historian writing about the Holocaust?” Browning, looking perplexed, asked Irving to explain his question. Irving continued, “Would I be right in suggesting that the Jewish historians regard the Holocaust as their patch?” Irving’s tone seemed to suggest that Browning might be more forthcoming with him, another non-Jew. Browning was forthcoming, but not as Irving might have anticipated. Jewish historians had been very accepting of his entry into the field. It “indicated that this was not their patch, if I can use your phrase, but something that was not just important to Jewish history but important to world history.”8 Irving, looking skeptical, reminded Browning of Harvard University’s widely publicized search for a professor of Holocaust studies. Browning had been one of the finalists but did not get the job. Hadn’t Browning lost out because he was a non-Jew? Browning explained that Harvard’s search committee insisted the finalist be someone grounded not only in the scholarship of the Holocaust, but in Jewish history and culture as well. No one on the final list fit this bill. Consequently none of the candidates—Jew or non-Jew—got the job.
Despite having made little, if any, headway thus far, Irving appeared happy to be engaging a prominent scholar. Smiling, he explained to Judge Gray, “This kind of discussion is helpful because I do not know Professor Browning, we have never met, and we have never had the pleasure and I am, frankly, interested in finding out what he knows.” He planned, he said, to have a general discussion with Browning about the Final Solution and then spend the rest of the day on the Einsatzgruppen operations. When Irving announced this agenda, Rampton quietly grumbled, “This is too much.” He noisily scraped his chair back and rose to his feet. In sharp contrast to Irving’s rather jaunty demeanor, he brusquely declared, “I am not interested . . . in having this court used as . . . an historical forum.” Furthermore, he continued, “I heard with some alarm Mr Irving threatening to spend the rest of the day cross-examining about the Einsatzgruppen shootings in the East. . . . Mr Irving has made a very clear concession that those shootings happened on a massive scale, that they were systematic and that Hitler authorized them.” While Irving had the perfect right to challenge Browning’s report, Rampton continued, he could not now “go back behind the concession he has made” and contradict what he had conceded in the witness box. The judge agreed. “Obviously Mr Irving cannot resile from what he has already conceded.”9
Irving’s tone now became decidedly less friendly. “Have not the Jewish people throughout this century . . . constantly proclaimed that they were in danger of being exterminated, or indeed that they were already being exterminated?” He then added with a bit of a sneer, “It has been a kind of ongoing story, has it not?” Browning attacked the question’s substance and tone. “When you say ‘the Jews have said,’ I am afraid that is the kind of formulation that it is impossible to answer. You may find one Jew or another, but that does not mean ‘the Jews’ have constantly said that.”10
Finally, Irving turned to the substance of Browning’s expert report. In September 1941, one of the Einsatzgruppen informed Berlin that hundreds of thousands of Jews had fled into Soviet-controlled territory and described this as an “indirect success” of its work. Describing the Jews’ escape as a success, Irving argued, proved there was no plan to “catch all the Jews you could and kill them.” Browning pointed out that the officer who wrote the report used the term “indirect success.” If the objective of the Germans had been expulsion, he would have described it as a “direct success.” Browning surmised that the officer was afraid of being considered as “not zealous enough” in killing Jews. Calling attention to the Jews’ flight was his way of explaining why his Jewish body count had fallen.
As soon as Browning made his point about the officer’s concern that his death tolls were not “high enough,” Irving asked if it wasn’t likely that these officers had “a tendency to bloat reports or to exaggerate figures.” Browning agreed that this was possible. Irving, apparently assuming that he had forced Browning to make a concession, rocked back on his heels, smiled slightly, and suggested that therefore the death tolls in the Einsatzgruppen reports were not trustworthy. Browning quickly turned Irving’s question on itself. If the officers were bloating death tolls, “they know that Berlin wants big numbers, which would indicate that they perfectly realize they are part of that programme, the purpose of which is to get big numbers.”11
Irving, in an attempt to challenge Browning’s contention that Berlin was behind the killings, cited Himmler’s November 30, 1941, diary entry that a trainload of Jews from Berlin was not to be liquidated. Browning pointed out that Himmler was stopping something. You can only do that if it is already under way.12
Irving, shifting his argument, now contended that the Germans were killing Jews for legitimate military reasons. In his diary, Himmler had recorded notes from his conversation with Hitler on December 18, 1941, regarding the Jewish question. Jews, he had written, were “als Partisanen auszurotten,” to be “annihilated as partisans.” Irving insisted that this meant Jews were to be killed because they were partisans. Browning, dismissing Irving’s explanation as illogical, observed that when the Germans killed partisans, they killed only the partisans. When they killed Jews they killed men, women, and children. What Himmler meant in his diary entry, Browning continued, was “we will kill the one as if they were the other.” Irving insisted that the word “als” meant Jews “are to be liquidated as the partisans they are.” Browning thought Irving’s interpretation constituted “the sheerest fantasy.”13 Irving reminded Browning that in many of these mass shootings, the Germans first killed Jewish leaders and Jewish males of a military age. There must have been, Irving told Browning, some “military reason” for shooting them. Browning disagreed: “I do not think the 50-year-old Rabbi represents a military threat to the Germans.” Irving challenged Browning: “I am older than fifty and I would certainly be capable of pointing a gun at someone.” Chris Browning is an affable, easygoing guy. I’ve known him for over twenty years and rarely have I seen him get angry. Suddenly, for a spli
t second, I saw a very different man in the witness box. There was a piercing look in his eyes as he glowered at Irving and said, in a voice laced with withering contempt, “If you had a gun. . . . They did not have guns.”14 Turning to Judge Gray, he explained that prior to the invasion of the USSR the Einsatzgruppen had received orders to murder Jews who held state and party positions. In no way could this be considered a defensive action.
On Browning’s second day, Irving handed him a document, which he solemnly described as “a rather sad list . . . a tragic list.” Dated April 30, 1943, it was an inventory of possessions taken from Jews: 100,000 wristwatches, 39,000 pocket watches, 7,500 alarm clocks, and 37,000 pens. Browning explained that this was probably a list of items that were taken from Jews about to be deported or from Jews in the death camps. Irving asked Browning to make a “global estimate” of the death toll based on the list. Before Browning could respond, Irving offered his own estimate: “Not everybody had valuable wristwatches or valuable fountain pens, but on the other hand not many people wear two wristwatches, shall we say, so it was probably not less than 100,000 people?” Browning dismissed Irving’s attempt to use this fragmentary record to reach a “global” conclusion as illogical. Jews were stripped of most of their property long before they were deported. Right before deportation rings and jewelry were taken. Browning speculated that the items on the list may have been some of the small personal items that they were allowed to keep. “Most Jews would have traded their wristwatches for food and whatever else long before this if they were in desperate straits, which they were. So it does not give us anything approaching a maximum figure.”15
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