An effective use of language should be one of the foundations of any published scholarly work. So my reasoning is not "simplistic." The fact that many of you are willing to forego those considerations points to a frightening lack of academic standards when evaluating historical works. No, consideratons of spelling and grammar go far beyond issues like photo quality and binding, and even if they are the publisher's fault, this should not make for ease of mind, as the lack of decent proofreading does not show the publisher's credentials in a good light either.1. I agree with the comments concerning spelling and grammar. However, I believe that this only applies to the first smaller volume. This is a fault which lies with alterations made by the publisher without my agreement or knowledge. The mistakes are nearly all where the publisher altered large chunks of the text. The second, much larger volume, addresses the shortcomings of the first. Misty Dawn Bright reveals her lack of knowledge of the publication business in that alterations can be made without the author's agreement or knowledge. The author also has no control whatsoever over the final production, such as hard or soft covers! I do take exception to the remarks regarding the quality of the research based on spelling, etc.. Her simplistic reasoning indicates a rather thin argument and deserves no further comment.
I did not "insinuate" that Max History was lying when he made his assumption that the reason he wasn't granted an interview by the Heydrich family was that they wished to maintain a lower profile. If I had believed that, I would have said so. And the author still has not addressed the fact that what I actually said was that the other Heydrich family members (after Lina Heydrich's death) had granted interviews to various writers (such as the German author Dederichs and the writers of Stern). I don't understand how anyone could have thought, from reading my comments, that I was criticizing Max History for not having sought an interview with Lina Heydrich after her death. I apologize, however, for not making myself clear as to why I thought that the point was worth bringing up. I simply thought that Max History maybe should have asked himself more searching questions as to why the Heydrich family wasn't willing to give him any information or grant him an interview when they had obviously been willing to speak to other writers and interviewers.2. The fact remains that the Heydrich family did not wish to communicate with me at the time. It is a reasonable supposition that the reasons were to maintain their privacy. Whether or not their stance has now changed on this matter remains to be seen, but to insinuate that the reasons given are a fabrication I find insulting and without substance. Lina Heydrich was the only member of the Heydrich family willing to speak out in defence of her late husband. She gave interviews freely to the media and researchers. It may have escaped Misty Dawn Bright's attention, but Lina Heydrich died in 1985 and therefore it would have been somewhat of a coup to have landed an interview with her when the research for my book began in 1992.
Why? Just because someone is close to someone else, that person is a more honest, reliable witness? Max History pointed out that Lina Heydrich's account had been written in defense of her husband. That should have been all the more reason to scrutinize it more thoroughly. Instead, whenever Max History comes across some (usually negative) piece of evidence, he compares it with what Lina Heydrich says in her book and sides with Lina's account, even when there are no other sources to back it up.3. Lina's book is biased towards her late husband. That point is made quite clear in my book. However, her primary evidence is stronger than most other sources on Heydrich's private life, for obvious reasons.
Max, please, go back and read my comments again, because you obviously didn't read them carefully the first time. But maybe I should make myself clearer yet again, as Max has proved himself willing to jump on any straw that might be a flaw in my argument and exploit it accordingly. So maybe I should make sure that he's attacking the right straws. There is a list at the back of the book of all of the sources that Max History uses. Hardly any of those are listed in the endnotes.4. There are no sources listed at the beginning of the book, only acknowledgements. Because someone helps an author does not mean that their input is used in the final version. Another indication of the lack of understanding of research and writing by Misty Dawn Bright.
I apologize for the misquote, but this point still goes back to my assertion that it's dangerous to use as primary source material a book that was merely written as a personal account, and did not have to take into consideration any issues of historical accuracy.5. Nowhere did I refer to Lina Heydrich's book as "an excellent historical work." Her use of inverted commas as a quote is incorrect. This is not a quote from the book and is therefore misleading. My actual phrase is (and I quote) "...Deschner's book offers much information gained from personal interviews with Heydrich's widow and various Heydrich associates; while Lina Heydrich's book offers personal detail about her late husband and her view of the National Socialist leadership. Both of these excellent works have been utilised for source material for this study."
What I meant by "reading between the lines" was that anyone who reads historical source material should keep in mind the biases of the historical witnesses and the author. I stand by my comments, having clarified them. And I also didn't mean to sound as strident and insulting as other people (including Max History) seem to think I did. I was merely attempting to convey the depth of my concern with these issues. Also, when I made the point that the book was in hardcover and not softcover, I merely meant that hardcover books tend to be more expensive than softcover books, so when one is published, the responsibility lies on the author and the publisher to make it worth reading.I will finish by stating that Misty Dawn Bright admits that she "reads between the lines" when studying any historical biography. Surely this is dangerous and will lead the reader to come to conclusions about the subject material that are not necessarily the truth. Strange for a comment made by someone who is so stringent about sources listed!
I leave my books to the readers to make up their own minds and I apologise for replying to a negative personal review.
Max.
By far, one of my biggest issues with the books is that the author heavily criticizes claims made by certain authors (such as Edouard Calic) without even bothering to examine the author's arguments and just making sweeping statements about the source. For example, when Max History criticizes the allegation that Heydrich was behind the attempted coupe that killed the Austrian Chancellor, he in effect accuses Edouard Calic of having concocted a conspirac theory and merely says, "There is no direct evidence that he [Heydrich] was involved." If Max is going to make that claim to his readers, not spelling out the evidence is, I'm sorry, lazy scholarship.
