Validity of Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams

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Sheldon J. Markland
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Validity of Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams

#1

Post by Sheldon J. Markland » 22 Aug 2016, 07:23

Look at the front of their book, 'Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler', it seems to be quite interesting. However, the actual evidence is spotty at best

Is there any actual definitive, cast-iron evidence on the escape of AH and co?

It seems to me to be a bodge job with headlines of newspapers speculating on the escape and flimsy witness accounts.
Et erunt signa in sole, et luna et stellis, et pressura gentium, prae confusione sonitus maris.

FalkeEins
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Re: Validity of Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams

#2

Post by FalkeEins » 25 Aug 2016, 17:35

have a look here - some detail on final flights in/out of Berlin
http://falkeeins.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11 ... istan.html


Sid Guttridge
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Re: Validity of Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams

#3

Post by Sid Guttridge » 14 Mar 2017, 14:42

Validity? What validity?

Read this review from Amazon.com (with my underlining).:

Shoddily researched, evidentially worthless, faux academic, pseudo-historical faction......., March 30, 2015

This review is from: Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler (Paperback)

Sometimes the 5-star rating system isn’t adequate. Sometimes a book does not simply add very little to the sum of historical knowledge, but rather it has a negative impact. This is such a book meriting not a star rating, but a black hole rating.


Why? Because the first half plunders many respectable books on WWII to provide itself with cover for a central premise in the second half – that Adolf Hitler escaped - that turns out to have absolutely no substance. There is a clear divide between the standards of evidence of some of the books the authors plunder for intellectual cover and their own standards of evidence in their own “researches”, which are abysmally low, on occasion almost to the point of culpable dishonesty.

The book is well enough written. It should be – it is largely composed by a journalist - Williams. However, sadly, the standards of evidence required of journalism, the “first draft of history” are much lower than those demanded of historians, who write later, more considered drafts of history. There is a reason why newspapers are dumped in tomorrow’s recycling, but books, especially non-fiction, tend to find themselves preserved on shelves. Williams is emphatically no historian. A number of his more important sources are fellow journalists with similar limitations.

Co-author, Dunstan, previously had a solid, though hardly high-powered, publishing record in the completely unrelated subject of armoured fighting vehicles. However, he is completely out of his depth here. Indeed, the appallingly low standards of evidence apparently accepted by Dunstan in this book put his previously respectable reputation as an AFV researcher into serious question.

The book is well illustrated with professional-looking line drawings and maps. However, their capable execution tends to mask the fact that they add absolutely nothing to the central premise of the book – that Adolf Hitler escaped.

There are also photos, but they are largely stock pictures of prominent figures or the authors’ holiday snaps from Argentina. If you are looking for even so much as a blurred, distant photo of Hitler’s shadow while in purported post-1945 exile in Argentina, you will be disappointed.

Likewise, a large bibliography, numerous footnotes and a considerable index add the appearance of professionalism to the book’s construction, without adding significant substance to its dubious text. It is extremely difficult to trace the input of most of those credited with having provided interviews (see below). The authors also list their visits to named sites in Argentina. I am happy that they got to see this often beautiful country, but this just serves to add a little padding to the bibliography and a fair amount of irrelevant descriptive prose and holiday snaps without evidential significance to the text.

The authors are not deterred by lack of evidence and employ an interesting device to paper over other holes in their leaky story. A considerable amount of the text about Hitler’s flight is in Italic lettering. They “….. are used in the following section to identify conclusions based on deductive research”! Or to put it another way, in the absence of hard facts or sources, these parts of the text are largely made up on the basis of the authors’ own largely unsupported personal opinions. The authors appear to be covering themselves against critical scrutiny by ‘fessing up’ in advance. Apparent candidness and the use of italicized “faction” here is covering for absence of evidence. And this is significant, for these italic sections deal only with the selling point of this book - “The Escape of Adolf Hitler”.

The six reviews quoted on the back of the book (presumably the best available) are fascinating for what they do not say. Not one of them supports the central premise – “The Escape of Adolf Hitler” of the book’s subtitle. Indeed, only one of them even mentions it, and I am not at all sure the South China Morning post is best positioned to offer an informed opinion!

Basically, the first half of the book is mostly a plundering of other authors’ researches. Some are designed to give Grey Wolf a shield of respectability behind which to advance the extremely vulnerable claim that Adolf Hitler escaped. Others are obscure, esoteric silliness in related areas. The latter tend to pad out the bibliography without leaving traceable sources.

This selective plundering of others’ researches covers a wide range of the more esoteric subjects in recent books on WWII incorporating many of the buzz words that give publishers an adrenalin rush – Martin Bormann, Nazi money forgery, Ian Fleming, secret weapons, art theft, the Russian deception tactic of “maskirovka”, Hitler’s French “daughter”, Eva Braun’s love child by Hitler, Che Guevara, Josef Mengele, Operation Valkyrie, Kristallnacht, Hitler doubles, Hana Reitsch, plundered Nazi gold and art works, the German atomic bomb, rare prototype aircraft, V-missiles on New York, Enigma and Bletchley Park, the Fuhrerbunker, endkampf in Berlin, KG200, German special forces, Admiral Canaris, Reinhard Gehlen, Werner von Braun, IBM and other US subsidiaries in Germany, Eva Braun, Blondi, Eva Peron, Aristotle Onassis, Siemens & Haske T43 encryption machine, etc., etc., etc.. Most are irrelevant to the premise of this book and merely there to “sex it up” or provide a thick smokescreen that obscures the fact that the basic premise of the book – The escape of Adolf Hitler – has almost no substance.

However, these buzz words do reveal the target audience - under informed conspiracy theorists attracted by the oddities of history, more than its more mundane substance, and not too worried about the quality of research and sourcing. (One only has to analyse the purchasing history of those giving the book 5 stars on Amazon to realize that the book’s success depends on the gullibility of readers whose specialization is not history!)

Let us look at just some of the evidence advanced to support key parts of the book – the supposed aerial flight from Berlin, the U-boat escape across the Atlantic and exile in Argentina:

The claimed aerial escape from Berlin.

Peter Erich Baumgart supposedly flew Hitler from Berlin to Tonder in Denmark sometime after 0300 on 28 April. He claimed that he flew via Magdeburg and reached Tonder on 29 April. However, Braumbach also claimed to have shot down 128 Allied planes, but no trace exists of this in any of several lists of German aces consulted by this reviewer. (The authors do not mention this significant question mark over Baumgart’s fundamental credibility in their text, but they do leave the victory claim buried in a photostat of a cutting from a provincial US newspaper, thereby covering themselves from an accusation of actually covering up unhelpful evidence.) Their source is Associated Press reportage of Baumgart’s trial in Poland for activities in the SS. At this trial he had to be assessed for his sanity (which again, is not in the body of the book, but “hidden in plain sight” in an unnumbered footnote.). After his release in 1951, “nothing is heard from him again”. Judge for yourself if Baumgart was a credible witness.

As head of KG200, the Luftwaffe’s special operations unit, Werner Baumbach supposedly organized Hitler’s flight from Tonder to Spain. Apparently “Baumbach never explains why he was at Travemunde on 29 April, but his diary notes speak for themselves”. Unfortunately, there is no reference to the authors’ having seen this diary, so their assertion (which conspicuously does not mention Hitler) is uncheckable. Perhaps they mean the book under Baumbach’s name in the bibliography? If so, why not just say so instead of leaving the impression they may have seen original diary notes that they have not? Shifty.

Friederich von Angelotty-Mackensen was supposedly put on one of the last medical evacuation flights from Berlin after being wounded on 27 April. He reportedly saw Hitler at Tonder airfield in Denmark on 27 April. However, Angelotty-Mackensen was apparently “running a fever and slipping in and out of delirium”. According to the authors “he repeatedly confused dates” p.309. He, too, “…..seems to have vanished from sight after the war”. Credible witness?

If one removes any one of Baumgart, Baumbach and Angelotty-Mackensen from the story it blows a significant hole in the tale of Hitler’s supposed escape from Berlin. However, as the stories of all three are highly suspect, this leaves absolutely no credible air link out of Berlin for Hitler at all!

The purported U-boat escape across the Atlantic.

The escape to Argentina supposedly took place in three U-boats – U-1235, U-880 and U-518, the latter carrying Hitler himself. The US Navy claimed to have sunk all three in the deep Atlantic, but, according to the authors (p.181), they left no surface wreckage as evidence. However, this is apparently not true of U-1235, which, after a massive underwater explosion, left “…..a slick of oil, wood and personal effects on the surface” and U-880, which reportedly left “…..scraps of paper, shattered wood, and two shattered wooden boxes…” The third, U-518, apparently did leave no recorded surface wreckage, but its explosion-hammered hull’s descent far below the depths at which it would have been crushed by water pressure was followed on US SONAR. Why, one wonders, did the authors omit such information? (A rhetorical question – I think we can guess the answer!)

Supposed exile in Argentina.

The authors claim (p.55) that Martin Bormann “acquired his own airline…”. No he didn’t. LATI was, as the authors later mention, an Italian company. The celebrity interest in it came from Mussolini’s son Bruno. Furthermore, the authors fail to mention the significant fact that LATI stopped trans-Atlantic operations in December 1941, at a time when the Axis powers were still approaching their high water mark. LATI had ceased to operate well before the Nazi leadership needed to consider hoarding wealth for an escape plan.

The authors make much of the three-fold increase in Argentine gold reserves during the war. However, they fail even to mention the fact that Argentina profited enormously from supplying beef, leather and other materials to the Allies, especially the British, and were able to secure very favourable terms. Nor do they mention that Argentina repatriated gold reserves from the USA during the war. The authors contend that much of the gold was from plundered Nazi sources, but fail to detail what U-boats passed it through the British blockade and when. Nor do they mention that from 1942 the German Navy had a ban on U-boats operating south of Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil for fear of accidental sinkings of Uruguayan, Chilean and Argentine ships that might undermine their useful neutrality.

Juan and Eva Peron, whose regime supposedly sheltered Hitler, receive a reputational assassination that apparently relies entirely on the evidence of one Silvano Santander, a political opponent of the Perons backed in exile by a hostile USA.. The authors try to use the USA connection to give credibility to Santander’s accusations that Juan and Eva Peron were companions from 1941 and paid employees of the Nazis. (In fact, according to “accepted history” the Perons first met in early 1944 and there is absolutely no evidence that either was ever in German pay, though Juan was undoubtedly an admirer of Mussolini’s politics and the German armed force).

Moreover, the authors do not mention that the CIA was almost throughout Peron’s tenure of office running a disinformation campaign against him, because his Argentina was the only country south of the Rio Grande pursuing a significantly independent foreign policy to the USA. Nor do they mention that Santander was, at the least, suspected of working for the CIA. Santander’s close US connections, far from reinforcing his credibility, tend to undermine it.

Besides, where are the German documents Santander reportedly consulted in Europe with US imprimature? They are untraceable through his books and they do not seem to have surfaced elsewhere. They were apparently not consulted by Dunstan and Williams. So why do they place such store by them? Hmmm…….

So, what are we left with to support the proposition that Adolf Hitler escaped? A few unrepeatable interviews, mostly with some very old or now dead Argentines. Most of these are self evidently of dubious reliability:

Original interviews.

Jorge Luis Bernelli – Not in index. Relevance unclear.
Jorge Colotto – Peron’s bodyguard whose records supposedly consist of 6,200 small pieces of paper stored in a can and who hopes to write an English-language book himself. (The original material, however, was not apparently seen by the authors). Makes no reference to Hitler.
Ida Eichorn’s great nephew – Not in index. Relevance unclear.
Jorge Elbaum – Not in index.. Relevance unclear.
Ernesto Bernardo Feicher – Not in index. Relevance unclear.
Anibal Domingo Fernandez – Not in index. Relevance unclear.
David Fletcher – Distinguished armour historian in UK. His relevance is unclear, beyond adding a little gravitas and respectability to the bibliography.
Innes McCartney – Not in index. U-boat specialist. Relevance unclear.
Capt. Manuel G. Monasterio - Supposedly had the “Lehmann” papers but they “were unfortunately lost during many house moves over a long life”! On p.XXIII the authors say he admitted making part of the story up!
Cuini Amelio Ortiz – Not in index. Relevance unclear.
Juan Angel Serra – Not in index. Relevance unclear.
Dr. Floreal Vajlis – Not in index. Relevance unclear.
Isabel Winter – Not in index. Relevance unclear.

Original Commissioned Research: (These were not done by the authors, but by third parties.)

Omar Contreras – pp.253-4 . No mention of Hitler at all.
Claudio Correa – Not in index. Relevance unclear.
Araceli Mendez – p.280 – No mention of Hitler at all.
Mrs. M. - Who?
Alicia Olivera – Not in index. Relevance unclear.

Video interviews not done or commissioned by the authors:

Hernan Ancin – A carpenter who supposedly recognized Hitler, even though “Hitler’s appearance had changed”, during five or six visits to a building site owned by the former Croat leader Pavelic in 1953-54..
Jorge Batinic – A bank manager whose mother had reportedly worked in France in the summer of 1940 as a nurse and had “on several occasions seen Hitler at close quarters visiting wounded Wehrmacht soldiers.” Claimed to have recognized Hitler at an Argentine hospital in 1951. Hitler made several visits to France in mid 1940, all to different places, but this reviewer can find no evidence he visited wounded during them. Even if he did visit hospitals, there is little likelihood that a single nurse would encounter him more than once.
Catalina Gomero – Maid who supposedly left food at Hitler’s door for three days in 1949 and “recognized him” even though he had shaved off his moustache andshe had never seen him before. This source was interviewed 59 years later.
Rochus Misch – Telephone operator at the Fuhrerbunker. Interviewed by “Barking Mad Productions”!
Ingeborg Schaeffer – Widow of the commander of a U-boat (U-977) that really did surrender in Argentina in 1945. Interviewed in 2008. Stops short of claiming U-boats carried Hitler to Argentina.

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The authors often seem to be intellectually dishonest or incompetent. Having found a piece of information that falls in with their case, they often appear to make little effort to check its credibility further, perhaps for fear it won’t stand up to closer scrutiny.

It is difficult for this reviewer to express quite how much he despises the faux academic methodology used by Dunstan and Williams in order to get this worthless piece of money-making pap into print and to fleece the gullible public of their earnings with a mish-mash of pseudo-history and faction.

The sound bits of this book are almost all plundered from the researches of others. The bad bits, which particularly relate to selling point of the book - the escape of Hitler - seem to be largely down to their own questionable “research” efforts. Indeed, this book is so devious in its composition that it calls into question the integrity of previous work by these authors.

So, who should buy this book? Certainly nobody with a genuine interest in actual history with solid sourcing. However, if you want to write your own conspiracy theory book, this work provides a very useful template for its construction and for plausible deniability of intellectual dishonesty by an author!

Sheldon J. Markland
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Joined: 05 Aug 2016, 16:51
Location: UK

Re: Validity of Simon Dunstan and Gerrard Williams

#4

Post by Sheldon J. Markland » 16 Mar 2017, 09:08

....That's the answer I wanted
Et erunt signa in sole, et luna et stellis, et pressura gentium, prae confusione sonitus maris.

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