Is this the worst book about Hitler ever written?
Richard J Evans on A N Wilson's biography of the Führer.
By NS staff writer Published 08 March 2012 13:26
In this week's New Statesman, Richard J Evans, one of the world's leading authorities on the history of the Third Reich, reviews A N Wilson's latest book, Hitler: a Short Biography. This morning, on his Twitter feed, Evans wondered if this was "possibly the worst biography of the Nazi leader ever written".
Evans begins his review by noting, with some foreboding, that Wilson appears not to read German:
As writers of historical fiction do, he read a handful of English-language biographies and histories for his novel (he doesn't appear to
understand German) but he has added little or no further reading for this biography. What might do as background research for a novel won't do as preparation for a serious work of history.
He then enumerates, in some detail, the numerous factual errors that, in his view, disfigure Wilson's book. For example: "The 'Aryan race' in Nazi ideology was not 'the Eurasian race'"; "Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen, author of the compelling Diary of a Man in Despair, was not 'aristocratic' but the son of an innkeeper"; "In the beer hall putsch of 1923, Hitler was not met by a hail of police bullets at the Bürgerbräukeller, where he launched the putsch, but at the Feldherrnhalle in the centre of town". Und so weiter.
Evans's conclusion is brutal:
It's hard to think why a publishing house that once had a respected history list agreed to produce this travesty of a biography . . . Novelists (notably Thomas Mann) and literary scholars (such as J P Stern) have sometimes managed to use a novel angle of approach to say something new and provocative about Hitler, the Nazis and the German people. However, there's no evidence of that here, neither in the stale, unoriginal material, nor in the banal and cliché-ridden historical judgements, nor in the lame, tired narrative style; just evidence of the repellent arrogance of a man who thinks that because he's a celebrated novelist, he can write a book about Hitler that people should read, even though he's put very little work into writing it and even less thought.
Ouch. Read the whole review in the 12 March issue of the New Statesman, available in newsagents now.
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18 comments
"........The head of the government (Mussolini) said to Pietro Tacchi Venturi in a private talk (Thursday 7th April 1938) that, in front of Hitler, it would be convenient to be more forcible, without ambiguity; not now, immediately, but waiting the most opportune moment, in order to adopt these more strong measures, for example the excommunication, and that is convenient to avoid to think that the Hitler’s phenomena could be transient, as this man obtained for Germany great successes............."
URL (original in Italian): .liceoparini.org/storia/pioxi.htm
and quoted in my: avlesbeluskesexposed.blogspot.it/2008/11/burn-burn-old-prussian-heritagepart-two.html
"........The head of the government (Mussolini) said to Pietro Tacchi Venturi in a private talk (Thursday 7th April 1938) that, in front of Hitler, it would be convenient to be more forcible, without ambiguity; not now, immediately, but waiting the most opportune moment, in order to adopt these more strong measures, for example the excommunication, and that is convenient to avoid to think that the Hitler’s phenomena could be transient, as this man obtained for Germany great successes............."
"....I think that if the Vatican gives up definitively the temporal dreams – and I think he is just on this path – Italy, profane or lay one, should supply the Vatican with the material aids, with the material facilitation for schools, hospitals or other, which a profane power has at disposition. Because the development of the Catholics in the world, the increase of the 400 millions of men, who in all the corners of the Earth are looking at Rome, is of interest and a proud even for us who are Italians....” [Benito Mussolini's first speech at the chamber, 21st June 1921].
From: “La chiesa di Mussolini”/”The church of Mussolini”, page 72. Author: SJ Giovanni Sale; publishing house: Rizzoli.
U Nimpressed
Irving pursued a libel case against Lipstadt and found himself comprehensively outgunned. He performed his own defence, while she had at her disposal millions of pounds worth of counsel, and witnesses, including "Skunky" Evans.
Looking forward to reading his forthcoming Himmler biography. Bet that causes a few waves!
THE VAST MAJORITY of publications on Hitler and Nazism is sensationalist drivel. The Hitler-Nazi industry is centrally directed by a small group of media owners and pseudo-historicans, such as Evans himself.The point of this industrial-strength machinery of deception is to delude the people as to what actually happenned during WWII, who actually conceived and organized the war, and to use this false simulacrum of a history to delude people as to what is going on today. The leftist agenda, in short, is the cultural destruction of the European peoples, folllowed up by their biological replacement by migrants of totally alien character imported from all over the world.
The most damning review I've read in a long time - as satisfyingly complete a demolition of a charlatan's work as I have read in a long, long time. Good on you, Richard Evans, for exposing the cynical marriage between the publishing world's greed and the disturbingly powerful allure of Nazism.
And 'Publishers Weekly' says: 'Adding to the enormous literature on Hitler, prolific British biographer and novelist Wilson (Dante in Love) focuses as much on the man and his relationships as on his actions and times, for instance, devoting as much attention to the Führer’s friendship with British aristocrat Diana Mitford as to the 1935 Nuremberg Laws. Similarly, Wilson devotes more space to the years 1924–1929, when the Nazi Party was in eclipse, than to the WWII years. Wilson engages in some facile comparative history that lends a measure of ordinariness to Hitler. In one case, he makes the untenable statement that Hitler “in his racial discrimination was simply being normal”—this because the U.S. and Britain were “racist through and through”—and that Hitler “was an embodiment, albeit an exaggerated embodiment, of the beliefs of the average modern person.” Wilson uses Hitler as an excuse for a backhanded slap at the Enlightenment—the godless age that gave birth to the “modern scientific” outlook that, Wilson believes, led in turn to Hitler. Given the monumental impact of Hitler on modern history, this far too short, superficial biography fails to measure up to its subject.'
Thank you for that er Blacksunne77 (a pseudonym I presume?) Have you forgotten to take your pill today? With the term pseudo-historicans you have managed to create a whole new guild of scribblers. Well done again. Now, Koldobika unnless you did remedial reading in school you would know that Irving was shown to have been an anti-semitic apologist for Nazism and lost the case hands down that he bought against Deborah Lipstadt. Try reading 'lying about Hitler' and then decide who did what.
"Lying About Hitler".
Presumably a totally unbiased account of the Lipstadt trial, authored by one of Lipstadts chief, and, I believe, well paid, advisors.
They are all hanging onto the coat tails of legendary David Irving.
As far as I am concerned, every so called work on AH, post Irvings triumphant 'Hitlers War' are but feeble attempts to emulate the Official Biographer of Adolf Hitler.
Quite why A N Wilson has written this crap is a puzzle. Surely he's not so short of money that he's prepared to sacrifice an already compromised reputation with such appalling scholarship. This will be, I assume, his last attempt to examine any historical problem.
Is this Richards J. Evans the same person that David Irving calls "skunk", because he was paid by Lipstad in the libel trial against David Irving?
He doesn't even know German to make a proper research!.
More like "Lying About Irving". You can read both trials on the internet. If you ask me Irving won both of them. That is the judges lied.
That was my introduction to Holocaust denial in 2005. Before stumbling on Irving's website and reading the trial and appeal I had never even heard of it. Walked away a believer, and the scales have been falling from my eyes ever since: Used to be I was critical of Bishop Williamson for saying 9-11 was an inside job, that he was an embarassment to Holocaust Denial, then in 2009 it dawned on me...
Just goes to show: if you don't understand the Holocaust Lie you can't understand current events.
Perhaps A N Wilson's claim to "expertise" rests on his warm friendship with the fascist Diana Mosley.
Koldobika - the libel trial was brought BY David Irving AGAINST Lipstadt and her publishers. Irving doesn't tend to stress that very much - as you'd expect. Squalid nazi sympathising falsifier that he is .
I didn't know A N Wilson was a celebrated novelist