We all love WWII, so have any one you ever spoken with noted WWII authors/scholars?

[Torretta13]

...just curious if I was the only guy on here who has e-mailed internationally-renown WWII authors? I have communicated with both Ian Kershaw and Max Hastings. I exchanged several e-mails with Kershaw while he was still a faculty member at the University of Sheffield. It started out alright, but he turned out to be another "Hitler was NOT human, he was a one-dimensional DEMON, we must NEVER humanize him" weenie, so we got into a heated argument, I told him off and he promptly blocked me. I have exchanged only one email with Max Hastings, but so far he seems cooler and more knowledgeable than Kershaw. JUST FYI.

[paspartoo]

You can email authors provided you can find their email address. Most do not have a public email and you'll have to contact their publishing house first. Even then there is no guarantee that they will answer. I emailed a tank 'expert' asking him for the reference to one of the files mentioned in his book. I never got a response even though Osprey sent him my message. In that case i was able to find it on my own but after almost a year of searching.
Academics are the worst. Most wont respond. Those who do will just give you a very general answer and make it clear that you shouldn't waste more of their time (because they're working so hard publishing shit year after year....).
I've contacted a few well known authors of military and intelligence history and you'd be surprised at how many are disrespectful or just plain weird.

[pintere]

I contacted Wolfgang Schneider a while back. He seemed like a pretty respectful guy to me, with a nice sense of humour to boot.

[Michael Kenny]

I know quite a few published authors but met them years before they got published. They are mainly just normal myopic anoraks like the rest of us. I can say there seems to be a fair number of crazies among them. I am still being stalked by one some 5 years after I pointed out a reversed photo in one of his works!

[OpanaPointer]

Lunch with Gerhard Weinberg back in the '90s, after his WWII omnibus came out. Holocaust conference at Purdue. He wound up grilling me when my lead prof told him I was very familiar with the Pearl Harbor raid. He didn't ask if he'd got anything wrong in his book and I didn't say one way or the other.

[RichTO90]

Lunch with Gerhard Weinberg back in the '90s, after his WWII omnibus came out. Holocaust conference at Purdue. He wound up grilling me when my lead prof told him I was very familiar with the Pearl Harbor raid. He didn't ask if he'd got anything wrong in his book and I didn't say one way or the other.

Had he gotten anything wrong?

Myself (not all "WWII" historians):

Charles "Mac" MacDonald
Hugh "Doc" Cole
Trevor Dupuy
Simon Trew
Steve Zaloga
David Fletcher
Kenneth Estes
William Buckingham
Joe Harsh
Curt Johnson

[OpanaPointer]

Nothing I noted on a quick perusal of that section. (I had purchased the book the day before not knowing I'd meet the author in the cafeteria.)

[Knouterer]

Frankly, if you start by telling people that you LOVE WWII - as in the title of this thread - it's really no wonder if their reactions are a little bit reticent. Or if they don't react at all.

[ChristopherPerrien]

Given the anonymity of this forum it is a fair bet many of these "authors/scholars" are already here: Besides the numerous acknowledged ones. I can easily say we have many of the best WWII scholars on the planet here now, or in the past.

[black96lt4c4]

I have met members from both the Enola Gay and Bockscar, including Tibbets. He was VERY polite to me and answered all of my questions. My grandfather was briefly in Nagasaki right after the bombing. His grandson (Paul Tibbets IV) took command of the 509th on June 5th.

[colt45]

I worked with Willie Brech in the 90s, he was on a U-Boat, had to work 16 hrs a day , even sing songs, got depth charged, starved after rotton food was thrown... he said what fools we were

[Cult Icon]

RN Armstrong

Chris Lawrence- Had no idea who he was until he started exchanging with me.

[seaburn]

Given the anonymity of this forum it is a fair bet many of these "authors/scholars" are already here: Besides the numerous acknowledged ones. I can easily say we have many of the best WWII scholars on the planet here now, or in the past.

Totally agree ! I have contacted some of the main authors in my area of interest - many are on the forum already or lurk on in the background - the good ones get info from here just like the rest of us...my experience has been wholly positive in this respect, the authors whom I have touched base with are humble guys who don't see themselves as superior to the average poster, they are as interested in new finds and are happy to discuss their area of expertise with those of us who share their passion.

[SpicyJuan]

Given the anonymity of this forum it is a fair bet many of these "authors/scholars" are already here: Besides the numerous acknowledged ones. I can easily say we have many of the best WWII scholars on the planet here now, or in the past.

Totally agree ! I have contacted some of the main authors in my area of interest - many are on the forum already or lurk on in the background - the good ones get info from here just like the rest of us...my experience has been wholly positive in this respect, the authors whom I have touched base with are humble guys who don't see themselves as superior to the average poster, they are as interested in new finds and are happy to discuss their area of expertise with those of us who share their passion.

How often do they respond? What are their names (on and off forums)? What probably scared me the most with historians on forums is the thought that they have been proven wrong on a number of subjects by us "commoners".

[ChristopherPerrien]

I take it you don't understand "anonymity" . Many Scholars and Historians are not gonna be public here and have mud slung at them or engage in biggus dickus discussions in a public forum or talk to anyone who immediately goes posting "private" e-mails between them, to the public. The topic poster is an example of this , happening in another topic with Max Hastings. http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=216243 .

Got to realize , big name people, rely on the publishing industry which is a part of the MSM, if they say something that "can/will be misconstrued/taken out of context" about history, particularly anything related to Nazi Germany, they can lose their jobs and be blackballed by academia and all major publishing houses, possibly even being jailed in various countries. Example -look no further than -David Irving.

Even just regular people don't use their real names here , for this very reason too.

I have my suspicions about certain posters here on this forum, by judging what they say, how they say it , how much they know, and comparing that to known names, their public/published books/writings, and who they are in the "real" world. I certainly wont discuss such things here or name names, because if somebody wants to be anonymous here , I respect that.