Irving on Hitler

I have just finished reading David Irving’s excellent book Hitler’s War. Unlike many history books, it is not founded on what other historians have written, but on contemporaneous records from Hitler and those around him. Direct evidence in other words.

You do not come away with the feeling that Hitler was a force for good. Not at all. But a theme one sees over and over is that Hitler was very widely – pretty much universally – liked, admired and even adored by the German people, and most especially by those who knew him best. This passage is an example:

To his war staff Hitler still radiated confidence and dynamism. Johannes Göhler, a young SS captain who now joined the conferences with the Führer as Fegelein’s adjutant, jotted down his first impressions on August 27,1944:

I am filled with the most ineffable admiration of him; he is unique as a man, as a politician, as a military commander. He radiates such a comforting calmness. But more than once I have heard him speak harshly – and each occasion was when on purpose or sometimes out of ignorance less than the full and brutal truth had been spoken, or even an outright lie. He seems to sense it at once; it is enormously impressive for me. . . What astounds me again and again is the radiance emanating from the Führer: I have seen the highest ranking officers come to report laden with problems and worries. They always leave his presence full of new confidence and hope.

There is plenty more direct evidence to like effect. It is in stark contrast to Churchill, who did not enjoy anything like that effect. Indeed, Churchill seems to have been surrounded by really quite a few people who disliked him (he did better with those who had never met him).

Is there a, “So what?” Well this, perhaps: that those who come across as nice guys can do bad things and vice versa.

Another thing that comes out of the book is that Hitler, although he had huge power, did not control everything. The extermination of the Jews, for example, was more the work of Himmler and Heydrich. Hitler’s bright idea was not to kill the Jews, but to send them all to Madagascar. Another example is Kristallnacht; Hitler had no prior knowledge of it, and as soon as he learned of it, he tried – without much success – to stop it.  One gets the sense that, at least in part, Hitler was not the cause of what Germany did in those days, but rather was riding the wave of what was happening anyway.  In other words, barging his way to the front of a surging crowd and shouting “Follow me!“.

It is a shame that David Irving has taken so much flak. His account is so much more nuanced than the currently required shibboleths.

David Irving Has Deserved Better

Like many people, I used to assume that David Irving, the historian, is a bit of a nutter. I lazily assumed that, simply because that was the conventional view.

Having now paid more attention, it seems to me that he is anything but. He differs from other historians because he writes about, not what other historians have previously written, but about what is contained in the contemporaneous documents, including a large number of documents that other historians appear not to have troubled to read at all. I hesitate to try to encapsulate his main conclusions, but roughly, they appear to be as follows: