Historian disputes Hitlers war record

[Felix C]

I just want to read how much different the view is from the one written about by John Toland.

[Terry Duncan]

Sid,

As I suspected, you completely avoid answering the question; so I will ask you once again to make sure you get it:

Well, Sid, if you think that Weber's book goes into "such detail" then you should be able to provide us with a complete and accurate list of all of the places the regimental HQ was located, the exact dates they were there, and the precise distance between them and the front lines.

I am not sure that would be possible from any book, there are books on the general staffs and leading officers of different nations that do not include such information, especially precise distances between HQ's and front lines. Would these details even be of much help in establishing how brave Hitler was or wasnt, or why he was awarded a medal etc?

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Ken S.,

I didn't post anything about the book going into "such detail" as "a complete and accurate list of all of the places the regimental HQ was located, the exact dates they were there, and the precise distance between them and the front lines.". Where did you get that idea?

However, to humour you, I will check.

If you know any of this information yourself, please share it with us, as it would be materially helpful to the thread.

In the absence of any contradictory information from you, I would suggest that German regimental HQs were not normally in the front line as they could not fulfill their proper functions of command and control from there, and that their runners were normally stationed with them. If you know of any indication that Hitler's regiment was any different, please tell us more.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Ken S.,

I would remind you that you also have outstanding points to address:

You posted in Post #100 above, "But Weber's contention is that H. the odd-ball outsider only managed to get the EK1 because he ass-kissed his superior - who happened to be Jewish. Weber insists that he did nothing "heroic" to deserve it, hence at least one review of the book by a British newspaper proclaimed H. to have been "a coward"."

However, you conspicuously failed to provide any evidence for you allegations.

I therefore asked of you in Post #103:

"Perhaps you would care to be more specific with your allegations and provide page numbers to support them, so I can check against my copy.

I have the book and can't see anything resembling your allegations in it."

Any progress in this direction yet?

Cheers,

Sid.

[Terry Duncan]

Sid,

In your opinion, does the book go any way to show Hitler's role was in any significant way different from that which is generally accepted? It seems a lot of people are happy to make claims over war records when it regards people who later became senior Nazis, both for exceptional bravery or achievements or for it all being later exaggeration because their real role had been insignificant. To have survived four years at the front in itself is no small achievement, as many volunteers from 1914 were dead by 1918.

[Ken S.]

Isn't it central to Weber's theory that the regimental HQ's location ensured that Hitler was safe and that this also meant that he was not truly aware of what it was like to be a frontline soldier? Weber only makes a few references to where the HQ was located at certain specific times and basically tells his readers that they must believe him that Hitler was almost always far behind the lines and out of harm's way. If Weber was truly sincere about exploring Hitler's wartime experiences accurately, it would seem to me that establishing every probable location of the HQ would be a priority. I've never seen the actual regimental history so I'm not sure how much detail it goes into about unit locations, but at 502 pages one would think there's a fair amount of information. There must be other sources to draw from too, which could have clarified this matter even more. It just seems to me that Weber was not as thorough as he should have been - and this leaves the impression that he had an agenda. As many reviews of this book have suggested.

I am not sure that would be possible from any book, there are books on the general staffs and leading officers of different nations that do not include such information, especially precise distances between HQ's and front lines. Would these details even be of much help in establishing how brave Hitler was or wasnt, or why he was awarded a medal etc?

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Ken S,

You ask, "Isn't it central to Weber's theory that the regimental HQ's location ensured that Hitler was safe and that this also meant that he was not truly aware of what it was like to be a frontline soldier?"

No!

Perhaps you should read the book, rather than just cut and paste selected negative reviews? It is not the hatchet job on Hitler you seem to think it is.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Ken S.,

I would again remind you that you still have outstanding points to address:

You posted in Post #100 above, "But Weber's contention is that H. the odd-ball outsider only managed to get the EK1 because he ass-kissed his superior - who happened to be Jewish. Weber insists that he did nothing "heroic" to deserve it, hence at least one review of the book by a British newspaper proclaimed H. to have been "a coward"."

However, you conspicuously failed to provide any evidence for you allegations.

I therefore asked of you in Post #103:

"Perhaps you would care to be more specific with your allegations and provide page numbers to support them, so I can check against my copy.

I have the book and can't see anything resembling your allegations in it."

Any progress in this direction yet?

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Terry,

Not a lot. He remains a fully qualified member of the PBI, which makes some of the ferocious criticism even more mystifying.

It simply uses some sources not previously tapped, including letters written in all innocence by Hitler's ex-comrades, to the Nazi Party in the early 1930s.

Hitler still served as an infantryman early in the war. He still conducted himself well enough in the eyes of his contemporaries. However, his survival becomes more explicable when it is realized that he was a regimental runner and so a little further back for much of the war than had previously been generally assumed. This helps explain not only his fortunate survival, but that of all his fellow regimental runners. Raising this statistical fact has led to accusations that the author is suggesting that Hitler had a cushy war. In fact, while being based at remiental HQ was likely to have been more comfortable than being an infantryman in a front line trench, being a regimental runner remained a risky job, though not as risky as being a battalion or company runner nearer the front, because it required one periodically to expose oneself under fire.

In this connection, my grandfather, who was a signaller in the Royal Artillery in WWI, recalled sometimes directing an 18pdr from an advanced OP as a sniping weapon on individual Germans approaching over ground, such as hot ration deliverers and, presumably, runners. So, respect to Corporal Hitler on that count! I wouldn't fancy his job.

There is a lot more to the book than this and I suspect much of that also hasn't seen the light of day before.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Terry Duncan]

Sid,

Thanks for the reply, I certainly wouldn't begrudge Hitler his medal or from having fought in WWI with at least some distinction. I too knew a WWI veteran who talked of shelling runners if they became visible, even of noting their routes so they could be shelled if silly enough to follow the same route too closely in future. It reminded me of a chat with a German WWI naval veteran, who mentioned once touching the ejected brass casing from a main gun turret - it was a mistake you would only ever make once.

[Ken S.]

Looks like there is a digitalized copy of Vier Jahre Westfront afterall... Can be downloaded by chapters/sections or as one 377MB file (link at bottom of page)...

http://www.fschuppisser.ch/kuk/solleder1932.html

[Terry Duncan]

Isn't it central to Weber's theory that the regimental HQ's location ensured that Hitler was safe and that this also meant that he was not truly aware of what it was like to be a frontline soldier? Weber only makes a few references to where the HQ was located at certain specific times and basically tells his readers that they must believe him that Hitler was almost always far behind the lines and out of harm's way. If Weber was truly sincere about exploring Hitler's wartime experiences accurately, it would seem to me that establishing every probable location of the HQ would be a priority. I've never seen the actual regimental history so I'm not sure how much detail it goes into about unit locations, but at 502 pages one would think there's a fair amount of information. There must be other sources to draw from too, which could have clarified this matter even more. It just seems to me that Weber was not as thorough as he should have been - and this leaves the impression that he had an agenda. As many reviews of this book have suggested.

I am not sure that would be possible from any book, there are books on the general staffs and leading officers of different nations that do not include such information, especially precise distances between HQ's and front lines. Would these details even be of much help in establishing how brave Hitler was or wasnt, or why he was awarded a medal etc?

Ken,

I cannot comment on the book itself as I have not read it myself and it is not one I have lined up at the moment, still having about 6 to read before considering adding a new book to the list of library books to read or books to add to the piles in my house, but the reviews of the book seem to be as much motivated by slighting Hitler by way of diminishing what he did in WWI due to what he did later, as to any reflection on the accuracy of the book itself. Was the role of runner risky? Not always, but it certainly was when artillery bombarded rear areas or during major offensives when all areas were being hit. Hitler may have had a better chance of survival than a frontline trench soldier, though he did fight in this role early on, and all the runners in his regiment may have survived, but regimental runners in other units probably did suffer losses, so singling out this one regiment to suggest the role was relatively safe needs to be seen against regimental runners as a whole, as neither Hitler or his Regt HQ would have had any idea special treatment with regards to positioning. They could just as easily been sent to a quiet sector or told to man the front somewhere like Verdun etc.

It just seems to me that Weber was not as thorough as he should have been - and this leaves the impression that he had an agenda. As many reviews of this book have suggested.

With this comment I think you have hit on the problem. It is probably impossible for most people to write about Hitler without working to some sort of agenda, anything too favourable will be called pro-Nazi etc even if it is not deserved, and anything going out of its way to demonise or belittle Hitler will be hailed as a great revelation that exposes 1930's Nazi lies etc. The same applies to reviewers too sadly, they are all too likely to seize on any part of a book to say it says what they want it to say, even if they stretch a point beyond reason.

Was Hitler brave? In all probability the answer has to be Yes. He volunteered to fight, and did so for four years under conditions most people would find horrendous, and which saw a high percentage of people not surviving that long. He got a very high award considering his rank, something not likely achieved purely through ingratiating himself with his superiors as the German armed forces were very professional and thorough over such things as kill claims for pilots and making sure recipients deserved high decorations. To put it bluntly, kissing ass with his immediate superiors would not have been enough to receive an EK 1 if he had not also performed his duty well enough to stand out to people two or three rungs up the command chain from his own commander. I dont think there is much from Hitler's later documented character to suggest he was a cowardly ass kisser for all his other faults.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Terry,

I think it is perfectly possible for people to write about Hitler "without working to some sort of agenda". Indeed, I would suggest that that is the essence of being a historian.

More of a problem on the net is people with the reverse agenda sniping at anything about Hitler or the W-SS that serves to demystify them, without actually addressing the evidence. There are several threads on AHF where books (good and bad) attempting to do just this that have attracted page after page of selective cut-and-paste critiques by posters who have never read the publication in question. This thread is typical of this in that every single assault on Weber's book seems to have been posted by someone who has never read it. They don't even have the humility to ask questions of those posters who actually have read the book!

I wouldn't normally have bought the book, as it lies outside my normal range of interests, but the attacks on it were so determined, and yet so shamelessly under-informed on it, that I thought I should gen up on it first hand. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was a wide gap between some of the attacks on the book and its actual contents.

Second hand copies of the book are now relatively cheap so, rather than read what I and others write about it on this thread with more or less authority, I would suggest that posters would be better advised to read the book and make up their own minds. Besides, there isn't a lot of competition for its place on the bookshelf.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Felix C]

Thought add to this thread a query. Is Hitler's account of his service in WW1 in Mein Kampf accurate?

[michael mills]

Felix C, I suggest you read my posts on page 5 of this thread.

They demonstrate that Weber's claim that Hitler falsified the circumstances of his wounding in 1916 is itself mistaken, and based on a falsified translation of Hitler's words in "Mein Kampf".