Alternate WWII?

[Guest aevans]

Explain, please?

 

Mainly that sometimes people are just bad -- even impractically quirky in their badness -- and that can be understood without any deeply researched foundation.

 

Academics also don't like the fact that he scooped them on a lot of stuff because he, as a journalist, had personal ins with a lot of the people who could provide him source material.

Edited December 6, 2007 by aevans

[Ken Estes]

Mainly that sometimes people are just bad -- even impractically quirky in their badness -- and that can be understood without any deeply researched foundation.

 

Academics also don't like the fact that he scooped them on a lot of stuff because he, as a journalist, had personal ins with a lot of the people who could provide him source material.

I take you buy the tale of lunatic Hitler having a fit of rage, collapsing and chewing on the carpet?

 

The 'academics' must have really burned you in your foray into the ivory tower....

[Hittite Under The Bridge]

I take you buy the tale of lunatic Hitler having a fit of rage, collapsing and chewing on the carpet?

Wasn't "Teppichfresser" slang for someone who paced back and forth as A.H. was wont to do?

[Ken Estes]

Wasn't "Teppichfresser" slang for someone who paced back and forth as A.H. was wont to do?

That could very well explain it; but leaves open the Q of what else Shirer got wrong

from his 'personal' contacts? In any case, his prize winning book represented research

efforts in materials of the 1950s. It's funny how some consider it today an essential guide

to 'understanding' Nazis.....

[Guest aevans]

I take you buy the tale of lunatic Hitler having a fit of rage, collapsing and chewing on the carpet?

 

It wouldn't surprise me. And not because Hitler is everybody's favorite target for gratuitous abuse, but because I've seen worse at an average Urban emergency department.

 

The 'academics' must have really burned you in your foray into the ivory tower....

 

I never even tried for the ivory tower, Ken. I'm a cow college graduate, remember?

 

The academy is like every other guild -- they hide behind guild rules (tenure) and jargon, and they absolutely hate it when somebody outside of the fraternity is regarded as a reliable source on something they think is their personal property.

[BillB]

Academics also don't like the fact that he scooped them on a lot of stuff because he, as a journalist, had personal ins with a lot of the people who could provide him source material.

That's absolutely right, Tony. It has nothing to do with the fact that Shirer was writing journalistic polemic based on biased personal opinion, unverifiable second hand anecdotes and speculation with no supporting primary evidence, or that there has been six decades of in depth research since Shirer made his scoop based on hundreds on properly verified contemporary accounts and primary documenatation, or that Hitler and his mates are prolly the most exhaustively researched and studied topic in the history of history.....

 

BillB

[BillB]

The 'academics' must have really burned you in your foray into the ivory tower....

Nah, nobody burns Tony, because Tony knows The Essential Truth. About everything. We lesser mortals merely grovel in the shadow of his infinite wisdom.

 

BillB

[Guest aevans]

That's absolutely right, Tony. It has nothing to do with the fact that Shirer was writing journalistic polemic based on biased personal opinion, unverifiable second hand anecdotes and speculation with no supporting primary evidence, or that there has been six decades of in depth research since Shirer made his scoop based on hundreds on properly verified contemporary accounts and primary documenatation, or that Hitler and his mates are prolly the most exhaustively researched and studied topic in the history of history.....

 

BillB

 

How many single-sourced anecdotes have you heard in your life that were true, Bill? How many of those make it into academic histories? Not all factual knowledge is well enough documented to be "history" in academics' eyes. Not every academically reasearched conclusion correctly expalins the facts. There's just as much value in anecdotally informed journalistic polemics as there is in the most well-researched academic polemics. That's why I read both (when available) about historical subjects I am interested in, then make up my own mind.

[DesertFox]

Who would people recommend instead of him that is as in depth and does not appear to have much of a bias?

Edited December 7, 2007 by DesertFox

[BillB]

How many single-sourced anecdotes have you heard in your life that were true, Bill? How many of those make it into academic histories? Not all factual knowledge is well enough documented to be "history" in academics' eyes. Not every academically reasearched conclusion correctly expalins the facts. There's just as much value in anecdotally informed journalistic polemics as there is in the most well-researched academic polemics. That's why I read both (when available) about historical subjects I am interested in, then make up my own mind.

Sure Tony, whatever you say. I don't really have the time, energy or motivation to waste my time talking to someone who can make such an idiotically sweeping statement as your blanket condemnation of absolutely all academics in the previous post, never mind your pathetic attempt to extend and justify it here. You crack on, because no amount of reasoned discussion or argument will ever shift your unshakeable belief that you are *always* right one jot.

 

BillB

[BillB]

Who would people recommend instead of him that is as in depth and does not appear to have much of a bias?

Who, Hitler?

 

BillB

[Guest aevans]

Sure Tony, whatever you say. I don't really have the time, energy or motivation to waste my time talking to someone who can make such an idiotically sweeping statement as your blanket condemnation of absolutely all academics in the previous post, never mind your pathetic attempt to extend and justify it here. You crack on, because no amount of reasoned discussion or argument will ever shift your unshakeable belief that you are *always* right one jot.

 

BillB

 

"lanket condemnation", Bill? Isn't that just a bit hyperbolic? Of course, another feature of guilds is to demonize outsiders who dare offer criticism...

[DesertFox]

Who, Hitler?

 

BillB

 

Books as alternatives of "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"

[BillB]

"lanket condemnation", Bill? Isn't that just a bit hyperbolic? Of course, another feature of guilds is to demonize outsiders who dare offer criticism...

 

You wrote:

The academy is like every other guild -- they hide behind guild rules (tenure) and jargon, and they absolutely hate it when somebody outside of the fraternity is regarded as a reliable source on something they think is their personal property.

Leaving aside that it is almost complete bollocks (being based on extremely partial and unsupported personal opinioon) no it is not "hyperbolic" in the slightest, as your assertion meets the criteria of blanket condemnation absolutely by my reckoning. I'd also suggest that if anyone is doing any "demonizing" it is you, for reasons best known to yourself. I've worked in the academic field/environment you are talking about for over a decade, and in all that time I have come across precisely *two* individuals who exhibited any leaning toward that tendency. So instead of woolly and unverifiable generalities, assertions and subtle slurs, let's see you provide some proper, specific and verifiable evidence to back up your position.

 

While we are at it, let's just clear up these canards about academic historians v. "outsider" historians. IMO The latter is a false division, and the real one is simply between doing the job properly and doing the job to a lesser standard. Let's use Shirer being a journo as an example. I understand you work in IT - if you need to take someone on in your area, would you go for for someone with the requisite IT qualifications or a journalist? Similarly, would you employ a journalist to service your car or a qualified mechanic? Who do you turn to for dental work, a journo or a qualified dentist, or for contruction work - a journo or a qualified tradesmen? So why is it automatically assumed that a journo should be any good at writing history? It has to be the qualified specialist every time, yet when it comes to history that seems to go out the window, and the prevailing opinion seems to be that everybody and his dog seem can do it despite an infinite amount of clear evidene to the contrary. Ironically given the undercurrent of anti-intellectualism, I frequently came across exactly the same attitude in my eighteen years laying bricks - I was always being told how it wasn't a proper trade and how anyone could do it. Until you gave them a the trowel and spirit level or asked them to do sonething like setting out an arch, and lo, you got a pig's ear and some tail between legs bcktracking in no time flat. That's not to say that some DIYers/non-academically trained historians aren't every bit as good as the trained item, or that there are no incompetent specimens among the latter. But generally speaking the former are the exception rather than the rule and the properly trained item is superior as in every other field of endeavour.

 

The other untruth in there is this stuff about academics treating their knowledge as personal property, which is utter nonsense. Openess about sources is hammered into you from the get go, which is why they have all those references in academic work - they aren't there for fun, but so that *anyone* can find and check the info - and FYI I used to do that long before I ever set foot in a university. Interestingly, the only time I've heard of someone hiding their sources was on this Grate Sight, in a discussion about some German tank books or other, and IIRC the author was *not* an academic. IME a lot of folk who whinge on about academics demonising outsiders or being nitpickers etc etc are making excuses for the fact that they are either too lazy or incapable of operating at the requisite standard. They also tend to be the folk who lack the wit to grasp the old truism that more you find out, the less you know. You only have to look at David Irving or the performance of JWB in the Mark Clark thread in this very forum for clear examples.

 

BillB

[BillB]

Books as alternatives of "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich"

Gimme some time, I'll hunt up something for you.

 

BillB

[Ken Estes]

Who would people recommend instead of him that is as in depth and does not appear to have much of a bias?

I'd look forward more to BillB's list, as he is more active than I am and has the constant testing of students for verification. But, I cannot resist a five-finger exercise such as you suggest. Besides, I might make Bill work harder.

On Hitler, the classic and still useful is

A Bullock, Hitler, A Study in Tyranny [this is what we read then in universities, instead of Shirer, same vintage]

but also there are:

Robert Waite, The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler [personal favorite]

Werner Maser, Hitler: Legend, Myth & Reality [but needs balance]

I confess to never reading Hitler by Joachim C. Fest, because although heralded as perhaps the most complete did not have anything particularly new, by most accounts.

 

The rest of the field are the 'Hitler and his times' stuff, or the Hitler's ________ [fill in dogs, generals, paintings, etc]

 

So, I'll say the following have interest:

Robert Herzstein, Adolph Hitler and the German Trauma

JP Stern, Hitler: the Fuehrer and the People

Eberhardt Jaeckel, Hitler's Weltanschuung [ideology]

John Lukacs, June 1941: Hitler and Stalin [i read anything by Lukacs]

 

But, one really needs more background. A smattering would be:

 

Harold Gordon, Hitler and the Beer Hall Putsch [another classic, expertly done]

David Schoenbaum, Hitler's Social Revolution

Dietrich Orlow, The History of the Nazi Party, 2 vols [essential]

KD Bracher, The German Dictatorship

William S. Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Poer: The Experience of a Single German Town, 1930-1935 [another classic, expert]

Saul Friedlaender, Prelude to Downfall: Hitler and the United States 1939-1941 [if you really want to know]

Norman Rich, Hitler's War Aims, 2 vols [another personal favorite]

Gerhard Weinberg. The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany, 2 vols [unbeatable, and also read his A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II, the best of the 60th anniv stuff, although I must read HP Willmott's - Weinberg's other works remain required for advanced studies; he's the US dean of German studies, surprisingly taken in by the Hitler diary scam of two decades back]

------------------------

 

Exhausting, right? That must explain the constant reprinting and hawking of Shirer to the general audience, which prefers a simple, single volume...readable in two plane trips, etc. But you can see from the above micro-sample why the professional historians have little regard for Bill Shirer's 'prize winning book' - it simply remains obsolete, barely scratched the surface.

[JWB]

BillB Sat 8 Dec 2007 0203

You only have to look at David Irving or the performance of JWB in the Mark Clark thread in this very forum for clear examples.

 

I see, now you are accusing me of Holocaust denial and fabrications of events that never happened?

[Marek Tucan]

To the book list I'd add Ian Kershaw's biography of Hitler:

# Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris, (London, 1998) ISBN 0-393-32035-9

# Hitler, 1936-1945: Nemesis, (London, 2000) ISBN 0-393-32252-1

 

but beware, many (and I mean MANY) pages, prited in fine letters

[Ken Estes]

To the book list I'd add Ian Kershaw's biography of Hitler:

# Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris, (London, 1998) ISBN 0-393-32035-9

# Hitler, 1936-1945: Nemesis, (London, 2000) ISBN 0-393-32252-1

 

but beware, many (and I mean MANY) pages, prited in fine letters

...and what did you find that was new?

[BillB]

I see, now you are accusing me of Holocaust denial and fabrications of events that never happened?

If you are stupid enough or simply lack the comprehension skills to do better than draw that totally erroneous conclusion then carry on. I've already learned that you are incapable of following or framing arguments based on anything more than amoeba like "I-think-it-is-a-good-idea-and-therfore-it-must-be" neural processes (I wouldn't label it as thought).

 

Anyway, instead of being in here adding two and two and coming up with nine or fourteen or something equally outlandish, shouldn't you be answering the perfectly reasonable questions you've been asked repeatedly in the Mark Clark thread? It's best folk like you stick to one thing at a time, I should hate to see you have an embolism or anything.

 

BillB

[Marek Tucan]

...and what did you find that was new?

 

lots of details esp. from his early political career.

[Guest aevans]

Leaving aside that it is almost complete bollocks...

 

Who has the burr under his saddle now, Bill? You're just about the most childish "mature" person I know.

Edited December 8, 2007 by aevans

[SCFalken]

Ehem....

 

Perhaps a better question would be: Once France falls in 1940, and the UK is stuck behind the Channel, can Nazi Germany avoid having to fight a two-front War (specifically against the USA)? Or is American intervention inevitable at that point, once the Brits get attacked?

 

 

Falken

[BillB]

Who has the burr under his saddle now, Bill? You're just about the most childish "mature" person I know.

What, no attempt to point out how I'm totally wrong from your vast experience and Limitless Knowledge of All Things? The only person with a burr up his butt here is you, because the fact you have fallen back on pathetic schoolyard insults provides pretty conclusive proof that you've lost the adult end of the argument and you know it.

 

BillB

[Ken Estes]

lots of details esp. from his early political career.

That's what I meant when I stopped short of Fest and others. We are now adding details, but have made no new significant discoveries on H himself.

What we are doing mostly in new stuff is revising older notions of H as a madman, German efficiency at war, the nature of the Nazi regime and so forth.