pages 34-38: 

“This Wicked Man Hitler”

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[Cf. the pamphlet published in 1993 and peddled by the ADL entitled David Irving’s Hitler. A Faulty History Dissected.]

[. . .]^[1][2] Irving’s thesis, which denies Hitler’s responsibility for the murder of the Jews, is too preposterous to require refutation and argument but one example will suffice to show his “scholarly” method. As seemingly irrefutable proof for his case, Mr. Irving offered an entry in Himmler’s handwritten telephone log. On November 30, 1941, at 1:30 P.M., Himmler, then in Hitler’s military headquarters bunker “Wolf’s Lair”, telephoned SS Obergruppen-Führer Heydrich, then in Prague. The gist of the telephone message was entered in four short lines in the log, though Irving cited only the last two lines[*]:

Judentransport aus Berlin
keine Liquidierung

That is: ‘Transport of Jews from Berlin. No liquidation.”

From this Mr. Irving concluded that Hitler had somehow learned what Himmler was up to and had ordered him to stop. An obedient man, Himmler had called Heydrich in Prague to transmit Hitler’s order. But in view of everything we know about the destruction of the Jews, Irving’s construction of events makes no sense. If Himmler continued to kill the Jews long after November 30, 1941, why did he order the liquidation of this one transport stopped? If he deceived Hitler before and after about the murder of the Jews, why should he be honest about it this once? Besides, what became of that transport of Jews from Berlin? Were they returned home? Irving’s conclusion fails to provide a satisfactory explanation of those two lines In view of what actually happened. though it serves to support his perversely fanciful interpretation of Hitler’s character.

To understand those two lines it is necessary to read also the first two lines of the telephone conversation. Here is the full German text:

Verhaftung Dr. Jekelius (name not fully decipherable)
Angebl [ich] Sohn Molotows.
Judentransport aus Berlin.
keine Liquidierung.^[3]

That is: Arrest Dr. Jekelius. Presumably Molotov’s son. Transport of Jews from Berlin. No liquidation.

The last two lines now make sense. Himmler called Heydrich to instruct him that a certain Dr. Jekelius, presumed to be the Soviet Foreign Minister’s son, was to be taken in custody by the security police. Jekelius could be located in the transport of Jews from Berlin arriving in Prague [sic &emdash; should be ‘Riga’. FPP Website] and, unlike the rest of the transports was not to be liquidated. (Perhaps the Germans intended to exchange Jekelius for one of their officers captured by the Russians.)

lrving, wittingly or unwittingly, has in fact disproved his own theory. For if Hitler was indeed responsible for Himmler’s call (there is no evidence that he was), then Irving has shown that Hitler did in fact know all about the murder of the Jews. And indeed, how else could it have been? The murder of the Jews was Hitler’s most consistent policy, in whose execution he persisted relentlessly, and obsessiveness with the Jews may even have cost him his war for the ‘Thousand Year Reich.'”

End notes:

1. David Irving. Hitler’s War (New York: Viking, 1977). Irving’s work has been described as ‘revisionist.’ but the label is improperly applied, Irving is merely an apologist for Hitler and deserves no consideration as a historian, revisionist or otherwise. 
2. His first book, The Destruction of Dresden (London: W. Kimber, 1963), caused a sensation by its accusation that the Anglo-American raids on Dresden in February 1945 constituted a major war atrocity. Irving’s book, which exaggerated threefold the number of deaths that actually occurred and made unfounded charges about Allied actions, has since been refuted. Two of this later books, Accident: The Death of General Sikorski (London: W. Kimber, 1967), and The Destruction of Convoy PQ.17 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1969), prompted legal action. Irving lost both cases and had to pay damages and costs of about £45,000 in the libel suit on Convoy PQ 17.  [see Note 2 below]
3. Irving, Hitler’s War, p. 332; Himmler’s handwritten notes appear on p.505 and are here reproduced from the National Archives Microfilm Publication T84, roll 26. I wish to acknowledge the help of Dr. Fred Grubel, director of the Leo Baeck Institute, in deciphering the script and its meaning. [see Note 3 below] Nearly every reviewer who considered Irving’s “evidence” tried to explain this document. No one thought to look up the item in its entirely. Martin Broszat comes up with a very convoluted but unconvincing explanation. “Hitler und die Genesis der ‘ Endlösung,'” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, October 1977), 739-775.  

See my letter to Ross Vicksell, posted on this website.1. In fact I published the whole page of Himmler’s entries for November 30, 1941 as a facsimile document in every edition of this book. Those four lines read in full:

Verhaftung Dr Jekelius Angebl.
Sohn Molotow.
Judentransport aus Berlin.
Keine Liquidierung.

Literally translated as: “Arrest [=noun] Dr Jekelius. Alleg[ed] Son of Molotov. Jew Transport from Berlin. No Liquidation.” 

2. It is totally untrue that I lost a libel action over the Sikorski book. As for the PQ.17 libel action, see this website.

3. Note that Lucy Dawidowicz and the ADL’s hired hacks, who appear to have had trouble even reading Himmler’s (old-German) handwriting, have ignored a further entry in Himmler’s telephone log, recording another call to Heydrich on April 20, 1942, after visiting Hitler yet again (it was of course Hitler’s Birthday):

“Keine Vernichtung der Zigeuner.”

The Gypsies were not to be liquidated either: yet they were, in large numbers.

©Focal Point 1998    write to David Irving