Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

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Truckman
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#61

Post by Truckman » 12 Dec 2018, 17:49

ljadw wrote:
12 Dec 2018, 17:18
This is not correct :Shirer did not live and work in Europe for decades : he arrived in Paris in 1925 and left Germany in 1940 .He was also correspondent in the ME and India !
He was a tourist,with the biased behaviour of a tourist;he had no contact with the natives, but only with a small group of intellectual snobs who despised him : for the average European before WWII, Americans were only rich people without culture .
He had also no understanding of Europe, as Europe does not exist : Europe was only a collective noun for almost 30 countries who differed enormously from each other , besides ,Shirer did visit only a few of these countries. Prewar Europe was as prewar India or prewar Middle East or prewar Latin America : a collective noun .
Shirer lived mostly in France, limiting himself to the Paris region, as all correspondents do ,and had no contact with the average Frenchman : you don't think,I hope, that a Frenchman would speak with a foreigner, an American ? People in France avoided as most as possible all contacts with foreigners , and a foreigner was someone from an other village : thus, some one from Illinois was avoided like the plague, especially a journalist .And it was so in all European countries .
The only statement in your mostly incorrect narrative with which I would agree concerns the snobbish, arrogant attitude of the otherwise cowardly French who deem themselves somehow above those born within other borders...I take that single agreement from my personal experience...However, I realize that Shirer had not only the gift of gab, but a higher tolerance for speaking to those with their own bias...Otherwise he would not have been able to gain so much information from belligerent foreigners, reducing his effectiveness as a correspondent...To indicate otherwise reveals your lack of objectivity in your obviously limited reading...

Rather that participate in the further degradation of this thread away from its original topic, I will allow you the final word as I realize it will hold no value to the discussion... :( ...Ben

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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#62

Post by ljadw » 12 Dec 2018, 17:59

What is your proof that Shirer (a journalist !!)gained so much information from belligerent foreigners ?


Hanny
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#63

Post by Hanny » 13 Dec 2018, 13:23

William L. Shirer said he did, and had 450 tons of them to use for his book.
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Sid Guttridge
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#64

Post by Sid Guttridge » 13 Dec 2018, 13:54

Hi ljadw,

I have some sympathy with the point of view that journalists only write the first draft of history and that their standards of evidence are, perhaps necessarily, rather lower than those of historians able to study events retrospectively, at more leisure, and with a wider array of sources.

However, your diatribe against Shirer, when stripped bare, contains not a single substantive criticism of his reporting.

What, exactly, did Shirer get wrong, that you are so excited by him?

Cheers,

A mystified Sid.
Last edited by Sid Guttridge on 13 Dec 2018, 15:06, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#65

Post by Truckman » 13 Dec 2018, 14:48

Thank you Hanny and Sid for saying precisely what was on my mind...I couldn't say it because I did not want to derail this thread any further from the OP's original intent, and coming from me it would have had no convincing power... :oops: ...Ben

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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#66

Post by ljadw » 13 Dec 2018, 15:40

Sid Guttridge wrote:
13 Dec 2018, 13:54
Hi ljadw,

I have some sympathy with the point of view that journalists only write the first draft of history and that their standards of evidence are, perhaps necessarily, rather lower than those of historians able to study events retrospectively, at more leisure, and with a wider array of sources.

However, your diatribe against Shirer, when stripped bare, contains not a single substantive criticism of his reporting.

What, exactly, did Shirer get wrong, that you are so excited by him?

Cheers,

A mystified Sid.
I advise you to read in ''Gedachte zur Geschichte ''
''Klaus Epstein's review of The Rise and the Fall of the Third Reich ''
It is not negative, but crushing .
It is a novel, written in 1960 ( which makes it good for under the bus ) ,ful of clichés,for youngsters of 12 years ,by someone who succeeded (and that's a tour de force ) in having even the essentials wrong, talking rubbish about Hegel and Nietzsche and about a German Sonderweg . It was too ambitious for Shirer,who thought that he witnessed a struggle between the good guys and the bad guys in the OK Corral.
The only positive thing was that he avoided economics,otherwise he would have ridiculized himself even more .

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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#67

Post by Hanny » 13 Dec 2018, 17:10

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#68

Post by ljadw » 13 Dec 2018, 17:14

About Shirer : someone who writes '' German histort proceedes logically from Luther to Hitler '' and ''Hitler's ascension to power was an expression of German national character '' is nothing more than a charlatan.
And someone who wrote '' Germany was in no position to go to war in 1938 against CZ, Britain or France '' is a military ignoramus .
National character : I thought that the time of Sir Walter Scott was over .
Shirer would have been better as scenarist in Hollywood,there they make their living from clichés, or as scenarist for Allo Allo .
Epstein listed 4 failures of Shirer :
1 A crude understanding of German history
2 A lack of balance,leaving important gaps
3 No understanding of a modern totalitarian regime
4 Ignorence of current scholarship of the Nazi period .
And, what would you think of someone who speculated that afterwards Heinrich Mueller joined the NKVD ?
Even Barbara Tuchman was better .

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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#69

Post by Hanny » 13 Dec 2018, 17:17

Truckman wrote:
13 Dec 2018, 14:48
Thank you Hanny and Sid for saying precisely what was on my mind...I couldn't say it because I did not want to derail this thread any further from the OP's original intent, and coming from me it would have had no convincing power... :oops: ...Ben
Your forgetting you involved with the uniformed, convinced they alone are right, and you are wrong, how wrong are you?, well because you disagree you must be totaly wrong about everything, not only are you wrong to disagree, why you disagree must also be wrong. Now if you re invent the worlds history and dictionaries, so words like Europe/historian/decade etc dont mean what you undertand them to mean, but what he wants them to mean, you can see where he is coming from. Of course having at on the required reading list at university must mean its no good right?
Last edited by Hanny on 13 Dec 2018, 17:20, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#70

Post by ljadw » 13 Dec 2018, 17:19

Hanny wrote:
13 Dec 2018, 17:10
https://www.jstor.org/stable/260957?seq ... b_contents

I suggest you become informed
I know this source, but : quantity (= a big sale ) does not mean quality .
The public is lazy and prefers pulp to something that demands an effort.

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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#71

Post by Hanny » 13 Dec 2018, 18:27

ljadw wrote:
13 Dec 2018, 17:19
And someone who wrote '' Germany was in no position to go to war in 1938 against CZ, Britain or France '' is a military ignoramus .
Which was why AH when calling the following for a conference to do that on Nov 37, fired/resigned the following for telling him that Germany was not in position to start war in 38, Schacht, Blomberg, Fritsch, Neurath, Beck, Head of the German Army and other generals was a military ignoramus. Who could have guessed.

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and- ... -1919-1939
R Evans lecture and text on RH side, using William L. Shirer, you know that Shmuck with his 1250 page book for the not really interseted to flick through.
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#72

Post by ljadw » 13 Dec 2018, 20:32

This is not true : they were not fired/resigned because they told Hitler that Germany was not in position to start war in 1938 : only Blomberg and Fritsch were military, the others were civilians, and Beck was not present . Räder, OTOH, was present but not fired .
\BTW : Hitler was not planning to start war in 1938 .
Someone who is talking about German national character is a Shmuck.

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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#73

Post by Sid Guttridge » 14 Dec 2018, 12:37

Hi ljadw,

Certainly Epstein made a forceful critique of Shirer in his review.

But then Epstein's review itself comes in for heavy criticism here:

https://jgkeegan.com/shirer.htm

I ask you again, "What, exactly, did Shirer get wrong, that you are so excited by him?"

Cheers,

Sid.

P.S. You post "And someone who wrote '' Germany was in no position to go to war in 1938 against CZ, Britain or France '' is a military ignoramus." That would appear to have been the consensus among much of the German military leadership at the time. They even had a coup prepared if war seemed imminent. Only the Anglo-French climb-down at Munich undermined it.

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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#74

Post by Hanny » 14 Dec 2018, 15:27

ljadw wrote:
13 Dec 2018, 20:32

This is not true : they were not fired/resigned because they told Hitler that Germany was not in position to start war in 1938 : only Blomberg and Fritsch were military, the others were civilians, and Beck was not present . Räder, OTOH, was present but not fired .
\BTW : Hitler was not planning to start war in 1938 .
Someone who is talking about German national character is a Shmuck.
Factually correct and has been taught that way for decades to.

Two consecutive heads of the Armed Forces advised against war in 38, next up was Beck and resigned over that issue. The others, Schacht Minister of Economics advised the economy could not support a war at that time and was against agressive war ( note AH used the term aggressive war/s when expalining what he wanted at the meeting) in 38, Neurath objected on political grounds as well as military, stating Germany needed more time to rearm as war in 38 would certainly bring in UK and Empire France.
The meeting was called by Raeder, KM was receiving insufficient allocations of steel and other raw materials and that its entire building programme was thus in danger of collapse, LW and Heer refused to lower the steel allocation and AH was to resolve the dispute.

Neurath and Raeder were convicted at Nurmburg on planning and preparing wars of agression and crimes against peace which included the transcripts of the Nov 37 meeting in respect of invasion in 38 wherin AH stated his intention to start a war, or series of small wars.

Gerhard Weinberg, Andreas Hillgruber and Richard Overy and Evans, are amongst authers works that explain this intpretation. The minority view ( not intentional but ad hoc repsonse) is perhaps best articulated by kershaw.

M Howard, AJP Taylor etc are all shmucks acording to you.

Your current post like most you inflict on readers, is at best uniformed, at worst revisionist, which is why D Irving holds the view your promoting.
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Re: Are there any estimates for how popular the Anschluss was in Austria

#75

Post by ljadw » 15 Dec 2018, 21:53

Sid Guttridge wrote:
14 Dec 2018, 12:37
Hi ljadw,

Certainly Epstein made a forceful critique of Shirer in his review.

But then Epstein's review itself comes in for heavy criticism here:

https://jgkeegan.com/shirer.htm

I ask you again, "What, exactly, did Shirer get wrong, that you are so excited by him?"

Cheers,

Sid.

P.S. You post "And someone who wrote '' Germany was in no position to go to war in 1938 against CZ, Britain or France '' is a military ignoramus." That would appear to have been the consensus among much of the German military leadership at the time. They even had a coup prepared if war seemed imminent. Only the Anglo-French climb-down at Munich undermined it.
1 I know what Keegan said and I disagree with hgim
2 Someone,= Shirer, who wrote : Hitler's ascension to power was an expression of German national character, is a charlatan .
There is NO such thing as a German national character, or a French, Italian, Russian ,etc ..
3 The planning of a coup in 1938 was only a myth, created after the war,by the defeated German generals,to blame France and Britain for WWII and thus the holocaust .After the war, the German generals lied again about September 1939,saying that the French could have easily defeated the Germans at the Western border and could have been in Berlin before Hitler was in Warsaw,lie parotted even today on a lot of forums . Also to saddle the Allies up with the responsibility for Auschwitz .If there was a coup prepared in 1938 if there was a war about the Sudeten,why was there no coup in 1939 when there was a war against Poland ?
4 Shirer wrote : Germany was not in a position to go to war against CZ, Britain OR France . NOT : AND France . Shirer was wrong : if Germany was not in a position to go to war against CZ, why did Benesj accept Hitler's demands ?

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