The prospect of penning my thoughts on history and how it may – or may not – have a bearing on my literary endeavors creates some discomfort. But since history is my third great passion, after classical music and old movies (especially pre-Code and film noir), why not? Thus what follows is a stream-of-consciousness, ergo somewhat rambling, grab bag of pronouncements on the endlessly fascinating, sometimes frustrating, topic of history, with no particular overarching thesis or point of view (aside from my own), or otherwise ideological ax to grind.
I’m not so presumptuous as to suggest that I write historical novels – can genre fiction ever qualify as such? But since my mysteries are set in the early Thirties and late Forties I feel the need to have at least a modicum of sensitivity to historical events and trends, just to add some spice, along with the concurrent authenticity bolstered by accuracy in things like slang, clothes, music and so on.
As for my nonfiction writings, both print and online, I’ve flirted with history, usually in the form of book reviews on subjects either historical or that touch on history in some way, such as biographies. But truth be told, I’m not qualified to offer any profound insights into matters historical or historiographical. True, I technically possess an advanced degree in music history, but this is such a specialized field and for the most part steers clear of the likes of political and diplomatic history, the philosophy of history, and the various historiographic controversies. [1] Besides, degrees, even advanced degrees, especially advanced degrees, aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Completing a graduate degree program is not so much an accomplishment of intellect as it is one of persistence and determination, as well as a willingness to subordinate one’s more creative impulses and aesthetic flights of fancy in order to conform to academic protocol and tradition (translation: do what your committee tells you to do). But as the fellow said, I begin to digress.
What I’d like to focus on here then isn’t so much how historical background creeps into my novels (which I actually cover elsewhere, both online and in print), but instead to offer my thoughts on the subject of history in and of itself. As mentioned above, studying history, strictly as an amateur mind you, is one of my favorite avocations when I get bored with writing. And I admit to a few parochialisms, among them Ancient Greece and Rome, Egypt, the Cold War, WW2, and the social and political, as opposed to the purely aesthetic, history of cinema. My basic approach and philosophy when studying history might be described as instinctively siding with underdogs, rebels, outsiders, in a word, those who challenge long-held, entrenched views (Shakespeare authorship question, anyone?). Or phrased another way, those who just plain see the world differently. I’m especially receptive to fresh or alternative, even offbeat and eccentric, approaches to orthodox history (provided said approaches can be rationally argued and supported by sound evidence and methods). Likewise I seek out topics, events or individuals that haven’t been so thoroughly covered already. If I must choose a label I’d call myself a contrarian, or better yet, skeptic. I favor these two appellations over the term ‘revisionist,’ which has taken on a bad odour [2], unfairly so in my opinion.
However (and it’s a big however), I do have my limits. To wit, I’m not a fan of what might be called the conspiracy theory school of historical inquiry, which, alas, runs rampant on far too many blogs and other online sources, and yes, books too, that purport to go into history, and worse, politics. So many of these have a decidedly paranoid vibe to them, with a dearth of actual evidence to back up their breathless pronouncements. But the occasional nugget gets through, intelligently reasoned and presented, in unlikely places, that sheds new light on old stories. So best not to be too rigid in what to include versus what to discard in the historical quest.
Aside: it’s often been said that historians have a leftist bias, but I’m not so sure. Any historian worth his salt will of course bring his own worldview, but will evaluate all evidence fairly and come to his conclusions accordingly, at least he should. In other words, he won’t cook the books or choose facts selectively. Even if we accept the notion that professional (read: academic) historians have a liberal bent, then we could also charge that most pop history sources have a decidedly right-wing slant, or at the very least a 'feel-good' approach to history [3]. Here I’m thinking of the ubiquitous usual suspects the ilk of the History Channel, Story, A&E, Wikipedia, the Hallmark Channel, the ‘liberal’ PBS, and, on balance, even the august Encyclopædia Britannica. And yes, I include the movies, especially the movies, when listing pop culture sources that have a rightist slant in their treatment of history [4]. To this group I might add the various print popular histories aimed at a mass audience. Somewhat ironically, these are frequently penned by professional academics. These tend to go over well trodden territory, rely on secondary sources, and take a narrative, storytelling approach, in the process generally reinforcing long congealed views that won't rankle the prospective audience (read: customers) too much.
Here it’s only fair to offer an admission: I watch a goodly amount of television pop history (but don't tell anyone). And in defense of pop history, one of its virtues is that it tells a narrative with a minimum of fat: that is, it keeps the story moving, a virtue we can't always claim for academic history, or real life, for that matter. Also in its favor is that a viewer may be inspired to seek out further, meatier treatments of a historical subject. And to be sure some pop history venues at least make an attempt at academic sheen with various, well-credentialed talking heads flitting in and out in the basic narrative [5]. To all these musings I would add my own two cents that real history is not so much the search for the details of what happened (though, as in law [and politics], it's not always easy to agree on basic facts), but rather the how and the why of what happened, and as a consequence the influence of historical events on what came after.
Another interesting take is Alex Rosenberg’s (relatively) recent book How History Gets Things Wrong: the Neuroscience of Our Addiction to Stories, (MIT Press 2018). Rosenberg’s thesis is that the practice of interpreting history through narrative stories often results in bogus readings of the past due to our brain's preference for simple narratives over complex realities. Rosenberg bases his theory on evidence from three scientific disciplines: evolutionary anthropology, neuroscience, and cognitive psychology.
In Rosenberg’s calculus, it’s when history considers data and analysis from other disciplines that we get a more definitive historical picture. Books like Kyle Harper’s The Fate of Rome, Walter Scheidel’s The Science of Roman History, and Lizzie Collingham's The Taste of War might be cited as examples of what other, somewhat related, fields can contribute to the historical gestalt. Rosenberg seems to be calling out for a more evidence-based, i.e. purely objective, purely scientific, and less narrative, approach to the study of history.
As for my own reaction, some purely anecdotal evidence suggests that Rosenberg may actually be onto something. As opined elsewhere in these pages, my impatience with the, if you will, real life approach to storytelling – examples being those ‘you are there’ true crime police stories and live broadcasts of actual trials – is that their desultory, arbitrary unfolding of events is the actual antithesis of the comforting, predictable flow of stories. Ergo it’s stories that we like. Since stories come after the fact, they provide a reassurance and explanation, a making sense of things that don’t make sense when they happen, because they are just experienced.
Getting back to pop vs. academic history, sometimes historians get it just right and strike a fine balance between the esoteric and the popular. Such a source that deftly combines the academic with the popular, leaning academic, is the Great Courses DVDs and CDs, which at last count numbered some 280-odd lectures on history.
Aside: perhaps this is a good place to address the phenomenon known as spin, which online sources tend to innocuously define as the attempt to control communication and opinion through selectively emphasizing facts and evidence. Such a definition, while abstractly correct, doesn't go into the deceptive – and destructive – aspects of spin as practiced in our world today by politicos and really anyone involved in the business of public relations. And with no disrespect to historians, it’s not so much of a stretch to opine that all history is spin, since historians, both professional and otherwise, present a certain interpretation of events, however couched in academic, arcane language, that by implication implores the reader to accept said point of view [6].
In one of my online posts elsewhere I wrote on the seeming all-pervasiveness of spin these days. I asked: why so much spin in our current world? Was it always this way? I'm not sure I answered the questions satisfactorily, if at all. I also suggested that spin's evil sibling is advertising, but with regard to my views on advertising, as the man said don't get me started. Ditto for propaganda, probably the most egregious variant of spin. Spin is of course a form of disinformation, sometimes outright misinformation, and upon further reflection I now suggest the reason we see, and hear, so much spin these days is stunningly obvious: in a digital and media saturated 24/7 world there are simply more messages bombarding us, and a good portion, probably a majority of said messages, are spin or something like spin. Case in point: a good percentage of the messages I receive each day, in print, online, on tv, or otherwise, are without fail appeals to send money for such-and-such good cause, purchase life insurance, sign up for a credit card, or buy a product that will make me forever happy. In all cases the motivation is to separate me from my money.
Regarding today's endless news cycle, they say journalism, be it print or television, is history in the raw. Ergo spin is really manufactured history, sometimes expressed as massaged and manufactured journalism in the raw. To be sure, journalism itself, even with the best of intentions, can be disinformation. Said disinformation may well be unintentional, arising due to relatively benign factors such as mistakes or on-the-spot speculation without all the facts in an attempt to be the first to scoop a story. Still, in our murky world of mass messaging and the mind-numbing volume of images and messages, including those, especially those, manufactured by the ever looming, seemingly all-pervasive AI, it’s becoming increasing difficult to tell exactly where ‘news’ (read: reality) ends and spin/propaganda begins.
In the case of, say, a self-penned biography, we must also admit the uncomfortable reality that a memoir is, to a large extent, spin, of the best, or worst, kind, depending upon one's point of view: memoir is by necessity selective and as such usually, though not always, self-flattering. Anyhow I propose now that spin has been around forever, just as malicious and mendacious in the past as today, maybe more so. It's just a matter of volume – both literally and figuratively – in our all-too-modern world.
But getting back to history, all historians, be they purveyors of spin or no, are to some extent subjective and biased. In a perfect world they would be scrupulously objective and even-handed, but that would be like saying humans should be without likes and dislikes, and – horrors! – opinions [7]. So maybe it all comes out in the wash with the pop and academic sides cancelling each other out. But it still leaves us with the discomforting reality that, as has been pointed out, what we call ‘history’ is ultimately what the historian, whatever his motivations or ideological bent, chooses to point out.
1 An exception here might be Wagner, not necessarily because he’s the most written about composer of all time. Then again, maybe it’s because he’s the most written about composer of all time. But more to the point, his life and work, along with writings about him, ergo his influence, intersect so many things historical. Thus he needs to be noted as an anomaly. This is true to form: Richard Wagner was the exception rather than the rule in many things.
While talking about Wagner we might mention the contentious War of the Romantics of the mid and later Nineteenth Century, waged largely in print sources, by musicians, critics and enthusiasts. The conflict pitted the progressive forces represented by composers of the New German School – Liszt and Wagner in particular – against the Viennese based, conservative faction who chose Brahms as their champion. A vicious battle it was, conducted publicly. As they usually do, in artistic matters anyway, the progressives eventually won. Whatever the outcome, it remains that the imbroglio was not historiographic but rather philosophic and aesthetic.
2 In a purely abstract sense, all history can be considered revisionist, and rightly so: the historian’s job is to examine conventional interpretations of history, consider new evidence, or interpret facts and events in a new light, applying more recent methodologies and fresh perspectives.
In his excellent book The Ever-Changing Past: Why All History is Revisionist History (Yale Univ. Press, 2021), author James Banner makes that very point. He demonstrates why historical knowledge is unlikely ever to be absolute, unchallenged and unchanging, and why history as a branch of knowledge is both a science and an art.
Then there's the most extreme form of revisionism, actually not revisionism at all, but negation, namely the wholesale erasure of the past. This is usually done by extreme authoritarian states or groups that desire to promulgate a certain nationalist, militarist, corporate or racialist point of view, and thus have to rid themselves of inconvenient examinations of the past. National governments are the most egregious practitioners but it occurs elsewhere, more recently in corporations, news media, school boards, universities, public debate, and print publications. An antidote for the moment it would seem – both blessing and curse, some might say – is the online digital culture that gives expression to more diverse, admittedly sometimes extreme, unpleasantly so, views. Author Jason Stanley gives an excellent overview of erasing the past in his recent book Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future.
3 Here I define ‘right-wing’ to broadly include sources which reinforce orthodox interpretations of history, making them, more or less by definition, cautious and uncontroversial by nature, thus the inclusion of the likes of Britannica and Wikipedia. As for the much-maligned, supposedly left-leaning PBS and NPR, I don't see it myself. Whatever their content, which purports to be middle of the road and neutral, the tone of their broadcasts – civil, polite, intellectualized – is by and large conservative. Yes, programs like Democracy Now, Firing Line, America Reframed, Fresh Air, and Open Mind must be noted as exceptions, but these are islands of nourishment and spice in a sea of bland diet.
Aside: when I talk about historians in above comments I use the masculine 'he' or 'his' simply for clarification’s sake, not out of sexism or any attempt to suggest that women can't be good historians. Reactionary or no, for me it just makes a sentence or idea flow better to use 'he' rather than the clumsy yet more politically correct 'he/she'.
4 When I refer to ‘the movies,’ I’m thinking primarily of films that fall under the rubric Hollywood, i.e. American produced, (mostly) for American audiences. In contrast, any number of other national cinematic traditions might well claim a leftist, or more equivocal, vibe. Be that as it may, the movies, especially those of the American brand, along with its evil sibling television, arguably have been the world’s dominant cultural and aesthetic force for at least a century, and as such have exerted an incalculable influence on the popular perception of what constitutes ‘history.’
5 As Sarah Maza points out more eloquently and succinctly than present writer: "History is not only the ultimate hybrid field, borrowing its languages and methods from both the social sciences and the humanities; it is also the discipline that most frequently crosses over from the academic world into the public sphere . . . unlike sociology, history has its own television channel, unlike economics, its own book club." (Thinking About History, Univ. of Chicago Press, 2017, p4).
6 Even the most hard-headed of chroniclers can make a stumble. Witness the very public case of the redoubtable British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper and the infamous 'Hitler Diaries.' A renowned Hitler expert and usually thought of as a conservative sort, Trevor-Roper examined the diaries and famously pronounced them genuine, based on preliminary, and dubious, evidence and opinion. That Trevor-Roper later recanted his initial assessment was largely lost in the media frenzy. Translation: the damage was done. The diaries were eventually revealed to be an obvious forgery, and Trevor-Roper's reputation was, to a large extent, irretrievably tarnished. The conventional wisdom is that the great man was victim of conflict of interest, being as he was a director of the prestigious Times of London, which had bought the rights to the diaries (for a hefty price). My own take is that, for his own private reasons, Trevor-Roper so wanted the diaries to be genuine that he hastily gave his imprimatur, a classic case of a historian getting emotionally too close to an issue. Thus his mistake was due more to psychological and emotional factors than ideological bias.
Trevor-Roper's case is a cautionary tale on the need to, as much as possible, steer clear of emotional involvement with a subject. Easier said than done, you might say. One could opine that all historical topics are emotional, depending on whom you're talking to, what your audience is, and what nationalistic, ideological, or financial (especially financial) interests might be involved. When the topic is an emotional, or controversial one, there's the tendency to have a disproportionate emphasis on convenient material - to choose facts and 'evidence' selectively - that support a particular spin or thesis. From a purely American perspective, some obvious choices for treat-with-caution might be the genocide of Native Americans, the Civil Rights Movement, women's suffrage, gay and lesbian rights, the Vietnam War, the JFK assassination, and more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic.
7 If we accept this thesis – that all history is opinion, ergo spin – can there ever be anything as true history, or objective history? A big question, both philosophical and otherwise, which greater minds than mine have written on at length, and which your humble servant really isn’t qualified to weigh in on, thus I’ll leave it there.
Saturday, February 1, 2025
the rest is history ...
Monday, June 20, 2022
the good war that never ends
Collingham, E. M. (Elizabeth M.) The Taste of War: World War II and the Battle for Food. New York, Penguin, 2012.
Kempowski, Walter. Swansong 1945: A Collective Diary of the Last Days of the Third Reich. Translated from the German by Shaun Whiteside. Foreword by Alan Bance. New York, Norton, 2015. [Originally published in Great Britain by Granta Books, 2014 as Swansong 1945: A Collective Diary from Hitler's Last Birthday to VE Day.] "Original German edition first published in 2005. Walter Kempowski: Das Echolot. Abgesang '45 Ein kollekitives Tagebuch. Copyright © 2005 by Albrecht Knaus Verlag, Munich."
McConahay , Mary Jo. The Tango War: The Struggle for the Hearts, Minds and Riches of Latin America during World War II. New York, St. Martin’s 2018.
McMeekin, Sean. Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II. New York, Basic Books, 2021.
Schmid, Walter. A German POW in New Mexico. Translated by Richard Rundell; edited by Wolfgang T. Schlauch. Albuquerque, NM, University of New Mexico Press, 2005. [Published in cooperation with the Historical Society of New Mexico]. [First
published in Germany in 2000 under the title Einer unter Vielen: ein
Bericht über Kriegseinsatz in Tunesien und Gefangenschaft in Amerika und
England 1942-1947 (W. Schmid [Libri Books on Demand], Hamburg,
[Norderstedt], 2000)].
Selby, Scott Andrew. A Serial Killer in Nazi Berlin: The Chilling True Story of the S-Bahn Murderer. New York, Berkley Books, 2014.
For professional historians as well as amateur enthusiasts (like myself), World War II is a source of never ending fascination and discovery, as is witnessed by the continuing deluge from the major publishing houses, small presses, and do-it yourselfers: every year new information is discovered or a new take on the events surges forth.
As for myself, I enjoy the offbeat and even eccentric approaches to the conflict: studies that consider a specialized aspect or offer a different perspective, in contrast to the Allied-centric narrative we’re presented by pop culture venues like the History Channel, Story, A&E, Hollywood, as well as the many print popular histories. Thus the six, relatively recent, entries considered here, presenting as they do aspects of the war that haven’t been covered so thoroughly, are especially welcome.
Selby’s account of a serial murderer in Nazi Berlin at the height of the war, and Schmid’s POW memoir, while the slightest entries, are in their different ways the most remarkable, certainly the most novel, of the six volumes considered herein. McMeekin’s hefty Stalin tome, even with its revisionist vibe, is the most conventional in content and treatment, and moreover has considerable academic sheen. Collingham's analysis of food and the war similarly takes the familiar historical approach. The two remaining titles, Tango War and Swansong 1945, fall somewhere in-between.
Kempowskli’s volume, however, is practically sui generis and thus deserves primacy as it is indeed a unique historical document. Swansong delivers the goods primo as it portrays the multi-dimensional, collage-like nature of the war as experienced by a wide swath of individuals. Swansong is the final entry of Kempowski’s ten-volume, 7,000-page opus maximus, Sonar: A Collective Journal (1993-2005). For two decades Kempowski collected newspaper articles, diaries, letters, memoirs and documents written by people on all sides of the fighting and from every level of experience and life during World War II. Swansong 1945 covers the final conflagration and ultimate end of Nazi Germany and the war in Europe. It covers four fateful days in Spring 1945: Hitler's birthday on April 20, American and Soviet troops meeting at the Elbe on April 25, Hitler's suicide on April 30, and finally the German surrender on May 8. In the Sources section the vast majority of the cites are of German texts, giving a primary source verisimilitude to the mix.
The various persons quoted run the gamut from heads of state to civilians, prisoners-of-war, ordinary soldiers, refugees, and artists and writers caught up in the conflict. Indeed for some of us, such first-person historical accounts of the type we get in Swansong are the best barometers for what really happened, even if in some cases the memories must be treated with care. Still, one is tempted to invoke the cliché compulsively readable, because this book is exactly that. It’s tough to put down because there’s something compelling on every page.
Especially fascinating to read is Joseph Goebbels’s unintentionally ironic entry from 20 April (perhaps not so coincidentally Hitler’s birthday), in which he poetically – and presciently – waxes on about a newer, brighter Europe that will emerge after the war. Just such a Europe did emerge, but perhaps not in the way Dr. Goebbels envisioned. Then there’s an SS officer recalling a dinner at the fashionable Hotel Adlon in Berlin on April 20, where “waiters in tuxedos and maîtres d’ in tailcoats went on solemnly and unflappably serving purple pieces of kohlrabi on the silver trays meant for better days.” And there are the chilling first-hand accounts of the activities at the Führerbunker during the last days of the war.
One quibble: I would have preferred some photographs of the individuals. If that wasn’t possible then a few photos of the various diaries, newspaper clippings, letters, notebooks, etc.. to give a flavor of the originals. But a quibble is only a quibble. Swansong 1945 is a work of signal import and is highly recommended to all serious students of WW2.
Sean McMeekin’s ponderous Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II is not so much a new history – most of the chronologies and events discussed have been covered at length elsewhere – as it is a new emphasis and interpretation, actually more of individuals than events themselves. Most historical accounts of WW2 describe it as Hitler’s war and make Hitler the central protagonist and ultimate villain in the conflict. McMeekin, however, argues that the war that emerged in Europe in August 1939 was the one Stalin wanted, not Hitler, also that the Pacific War was due at least in part to Stalin’s maneuverings and schemings. McMeekin covers in some detail the massive aid in materiel offered to the Soviets by the United States. Apparently egged on by “Soviet assets” in his orbit, President Roosevelt went out of his way to appease the Soviet dictator, perhaps too much so. If Roosevelt didn’t exactly give away the store, he gave way a lot. The ultimate result was that Stalin emerged as the major beneficiary of the war, and that the Soviet Union was in a much stronger position, albeit at horrific cost, at the war’s conclusion than when the war started.
McMeekin doesn’t go so far as to overtly endorse the controversial Suvorov theory that Stalin was planning a massive attack against the West in 1941 or 1942, and that Hitler simply beat him to the punch by attacking the Soviet Union first, a classic case of a preventive, rather than preemptive, assault [1]. But if one reads carefully between the lines we can see at least a certain sympathy for and receptivity to this revisionist view. That McMeekin had access to documents in Russian archives and reads Russian adds strength to his arguments, be they controversial or conventional. Stalin’s War includes index, photos, and 120 pages of notes and bibliography.
Similarly Mary Jo McConahay’s The Tango War, if not quite revisionist history, refreshingly takes on an aspect of WW2 that’s largely ignored in conventional histories, that is, the struggle between the U.S. and Germany for allegiances – and resources – in Latin America during World War II. Indeed McConahay’s opus may well be the first popular survey of what was going on South-of-Border during WW2, and for the most part the book succeeds admirably.
McConahay’s approach is journalistic rather than purely historical, and she concentrates on the human element in the form of the wide array of colorful, often shady characters on both sides of the conflict. Perhaps most entertaining are the descriptions of the Good Neighbor efforts by the Office of Inter-American Affairs, which sent not-so-secret weapons – Hollywood celebrities like Errol Flynn, Orson Welles and the Walt Disney troupe – south to garner good will for the American cause. In the case of Welles and Disney, some legitimate cinematic products resulted, specifically Welles’s ill-fated documentary It’s All True and the Disney films Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros. On the other hand, the shameful, forced internment in the U.S. of "dangerous" individuals being extended to Central and South America was one of the more cringeworthy episodes recounted in the book, especially so since some of the internees were exchanged for American prisoners-of-war. Likewise compelling is the chapter on espionage activities. There’s also a section on the infamous ‘ratlines,’ the escape routes that helped Nazi fugitives escape to South America.
In the final chapter McConahay discusses the sinister parallels between European fascists of World War II and Latin American dictators of the 1970s and ’80s, many of whom were unrepentant fans of Mussolini and Hitler. These regimes had the sometimes public, sometimes covert, backing of Washington, so long as they were anti-Communist and friendly toward American economic interests. A mild weakness of Tango War is that McConahay eschews the chronologic for the topical, and as a result there’s some jumping around in the narrative. On balance, however, a good read, also replete with lots of photos. Tango War is a long overdue examination of a little-known aspect of the war.
Scott Andrew Selby’s A Serial Killer in Nazi Berlin is more noteworthy for the book’s subject matter than its treatment or style. For all that there’s plenty of works in English on Germany’s war effort, both military and civilian alike, little has been written on crime and criminals in the Third Reich amongst ordinary civilians, much less about serial murderers. And as has been pointed out, it’s a concept awash in contradiction: that such a regime specializing in state sponsored mass murder would spend so many resources tracking down a lone killer of a few women is difficult to understand. Indeed the dynamic is not unlike that depicted so provocatively in Hans Helmutt Kirst’s novel Night of the Generals, later adapted into a popular film, which told the story of a Polish prostitute murdered in 1942 by a high ranking German general, and of a certain Major Grau’s subsequent quest to track down the culprit. One can’t help recalling Grau’s maxim, ‘let us say what is admirable on the large scale is monstrous on the small. Since we must give medals to mass murderers, why not give justice to the small entrepreneur.’
Serial Killer covers the case of Paul Ogorzow, the S-Bahn Killer. He had a family, a job with the railroad, and was a member of the Nazi Party. Since Ogorzow worked on the railway he found that the air raid blackouts at night provided good cover for him to do his deeds. Ogorzow murdered eight women total, attempted to murder six others, and assaulted many others. Wilhelm Lüdtke, head of the Berlin police’s serious crimes division, emerges as the story’s hero as he was tasked to hunt down the monster in the midst, and eventually he did. Lüdtke had the, albeit discreet, support of the likes of Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels, who “wanted to project an image of Nazi Germany as a place free from such problems as the predations of a serial killer.” Lüdtke’s rather florid afterlife following the war is covered in some detail in the epilogue. In addition to his other activities, Lüdtke worked as an asset for the CIA in the 1950s.
Ogorzow was convicted and sentenced to death. He was executed – by guillotine – two days later. The book offers plenty of detail about the S-Bahn and investigative techniques of the German police, but little on the psychology of the protagonist. Thus the story that emerges is rather dry. For those of us accustomed to the backgrounds and especially psychology of serial killers, we sense something is lacking.
The case was such a sensation that a series of crime novels emerged, most prominently Death Rode the Train (Der Tod fuhr im Zug). Its author was Wilhelm Ihde, writing under the name Axel Alt, and the killer’s name was changed to ‘Omanzow,’ but the fiction didn’t fool anybody, and the book was a big seller in Germany during the war. An even more bizarre detail is that Ogorzow’s widow was charged a fee for the use of the guillotine during the execution. Serial Killer includes a detailed S-Bahn map as well as photos of S-Bahn carriages, stations and towers.
Walter Schmid’s A German POW in New Mexico offers a different take on the war experience. There are any number of WW2 personal narratives out there, written by those on all sides of the conflict, among them quite a few prisoner-of-war memoirs. Most of these are from the Allied point of view, but there aren’t many accounts of the German POW experience, written by a German, published in English, no less. In fact, A German POW is the only one I know of, though indeed there could be others.
Walter Schmid was a member of Rommel's Afrika Korps and had fought only five months before he was captured in Tunisia. Schmid was one of 380,000 German POWs sent to prison camps in the United States. He was first sent to Oklahoma and soon transferred to New Mexico in July 1944. Schmid worked in southern New Mexico near Las Cruces as a farm laborer. His primary duties were picking cotton and harvesting melons. A German POW in New Mexico is based on his diary and the letters he sent home to his German girlfriend, whom he later married. Schmid's memoir was published in Germany in 2000, and the abbreviated English version that’s A German POW in New Mexico benefits from the translation of Richard Rundell. Special mention must also be made of editor Wolfgang Schlauch’s introduction, as well as his commentary interspersed throughout. Includes vintage photos, bibliography and appendixes.
Collingham's hefty opus, Taste of War, was an eye opener for me in many ways. Even as a (admittedly amateur) WW2 buff, truth be told I never thought much about the importance of food production and delivery in the context of the conflict. There have been many books on the personalities, battles and strategy of the war, but the present tome may well be the first (more or less) scholarly treatment of how something so basic as the supply of food and the feeding of soldiers (and civilians) was central to the prosecution of the total war that was World War II. Includes photos, maps, extensive notes and bibliography. Much recommended.
[1] Suvorov, Viktor.The Chief Culprit: Stalin's Grand Design to Start World War II. Annapolios, Md., Naval Institute Press 2008.
Friday, May 1, 2020
Revisionism and its discontents
Zinn, Howard, A People’s History of the United States. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005.
Jeff Riggenbach, Why American History is Not What They Say: An Introduction to Revisionism, Auburn, Mises Institute, 2009.
Revisionism. The policy or practice of revision or modification; departure from the original interpretation of a theory, etc.; esp. the revision of Marxism on evolutionary socialist or pluralist principles. 2. The theory or practice of revising one's attitude to a previously accepted situation or point of view; spec. (orig. U.S.) a movement or process involving the revision of an established or accepted version of historical events.
Revisionist.orig?. U.S. A person who questions or revises a previously accepted version of historical phenomena or events.
“Inevitably history becomes what the historian chooses to point out.” - Simon Winder, The Man Who Saved Britain
“It is always difficult for the non-historian to remember that there is nothing absolute about historical truth” - Gordon Craig, “The Devil in the Details,” NY Review of Books, Sept. 19, 1996.
A crusty old professor of mine once told me that all history is opinion. The more I experience of history, and of life itself, the more I’m convinced he was spot on in his assessment. Indeed, like the doctor and lawyer, the (professional) historian is paid for expressing opinions, but he has other privileges, chief among them an especial perk not available even to the two aforementioned honorable professions, that is, to alter the way we see history itself. In other words, and put simpler, historians have the power to, well, rewrite the past [1].
But not so fast. To wit, over time clichés and 'truisms' gradually creep into the conversation and are accepted uncritically as part of the historical record, and there emerges a historical consensus. Nowhere is this more egregious than in what we might call pop history. In any case, and getting back to revisionism, there are, happily, a few dissenting voices, which we usually refer to as revisionist, or less controversially, contrarian. In a perfect world all history could be characterized as revisionist [2], and rightly so: the historian’s job is to examine conventional interpretations of history and consider new evidence or interpret facts and events in a new light, applying new methodologies and fresh perspectives. In this sense it’s not such a step to also view creative writing as revisionist. We writers of fiction revisit the old formulas and provide new takes in, we hope, fresh and interesting ways.
Characteristically dry and uncontroversial, the Oxford English Dictionary’s entry above is hard to fault. But revisionism is more complicated than a mere definition, and, like some phrases – ‘feminist,’ ‘liberal,’ or ‘activist’ come to mind – the word itself has taken on a bad odor [3], to the point where it’s more or less synonymous with deliberate falsification and distortion. Recriminations and counter-recriminations abound with charges of conspiracy theory thinking at one extreme and political correctness at the other. Thus anything labelled revisionist carries with it an emotional charge, and as a result it has been both praised and (mostly) damned by both the Left and the Right. Depending on the source, or audience, a revisionist historian may delight or infuriate: one person’s revisionist is another’s responsible, skeptical historian [4]. Like many things in the study of history - and politics - what's a revisionist and what is not is in the eye of the beholder.
A People’s History has garnered the most mainstream acceptance of any revisionist work – it's even used at a text at some high schools and colleges & universities. [6] It’s also been much reviewed and commented on: at last count well over a thousand (mostly favorable) reviews on Amazon alone.
Why American History is Not What They Say presents its case in well organized and engaging, if wordy, style: the detail-rich content includes many sources listed in the text supplemented by a blizzard of footnotes. In fact Riggenbach’s book is so source-rich it wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to describe it as a gigantic bibliographic essay with some history and editorial comment sprinkled in.
For all its virtues – and flaws – Riggenbach’s tome is hardly the last word on revisionism, the nature of which precludes any conclusive or definitive statements. But Why American History is Not What They Say does an admirable job of synthesizing and summarizing the current state of revisionist art in a relatively even-handed, if ultimately sympathetic, fashion.
[1] However, the old adage you can have your own views but not your own facts hasn’t always been adhered to, and the practice of embroidering, censoring or softening historical facts to make a more palatable narrative for interested individuals, groups, or nations, certainly didn’t begin with our current climate in which the phenomenon seems to be taking on epic proportions. But that, as the man said, is another story, and another post. In a post elsewhere on this blog, I more or less take on this question directly and opine that all history is spin in that the historian wants to project a certain interpretation of events and persuade the reader to accept said interpretation.
[2] In his excellent book The Ever-Changing Past: Why All History is Revisionist History (Yale Univ. Press, 2021), author James Banner makes that very point. He demonstrates why historical knowledge is unlikely ever to be absolute, unchallenged and unchanging, and why history as a branch of knowledge is both a science and an art. Using several broad historical examples, he goes on to explain why all historians are revisionists as they seek to more fully understand the past, and how they always bring their distinct dispositions, perspectives, expertise, and yes, biases to the historical subjects they cover.
[3] Interesting that revisionism as a term doesn’t appear in the august Library of Congress Subject Headings. Rather, the term ‘Historiography’ is used, both as main heading and subheading.
[4 In recent years World War II has been especially fertile territory for revisionist and quasi-revisionist interpretations that, at least to some extent, take issue with the idea of WW2 as the ultimate Good War. British historian A.J.P. Taylor was one of the first to give an academic patina to World War II revisionist history with his The Origins of the Second World War, published in 1961. Other examples of WW2 revisionism might include: Patrick Buchanan, Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, Crown, 2008; Nicholson Baker, Human Smoke: the Beginning of the Second World War and the End of Civilization, Simon & Schuster, 2008; Jörg Friedrich, The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945, Columbia Univ. Press, 2006; David Irving, Hitler's War and the War Path, Focal Point Publications, 1991; George H. Nash, ed., Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover's Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath, Hoover Institution Pr., 2011; Jacques R. Pauwels, The Myth of the Good War: America in the Second World War, Lorimer, 2002; Ashley Smith, “World War II: The Good War?” International Socialist Review, Issue 10, Winter 2000; Viktor Suvorov, The Chief Culprit: Stalin’s Grand Design to Start World War II, Naval Institute Press, 2013; M.S. King, The Bad War: The Truth Never Taught About World War II; Sean McMeekin, Stalin's War: A New History of World War II, Basic Books, 2021; Michael C.C. Adams, The Best War Ever: America and World War II, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2015. See also: “A ‘Good War’ No More: The New World War II Revisionism,” in: Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, Hi Hitler!: How the Nazi Past is Being Normalized in Contemporary Culture, Cambridge Univ. Pr., 2015, pp. 29-77.
[5] “In one of his most iconoclastic essays, “The Anatomy of the State,” Murray Rothbard observed that it is crucial to ruling groups to manipulate the thinking of the ruled. They must get the populace to accept that the rulers are truly good people working tirelessly to advance the common good. Toward that end, the rulers employ a bag of tricks, among them the writing of history to cast the State in a positive light.” - George C. Leef, review of Riggenbach’s Why American History is Not What They Say.
[6] A People’s History “... has gone through five editions and multiple printings, been assigned in thousands of college courses, sold more than a million copies, and made the author something of a celebrity.” [Michael Kazin, “Howard Zinn’s History Lessons,” Dissent, Spring 2004].
Further reading:
Anders, Charlie Jane, “When Does Historical Revisionism Become Alternate History?”
Bacevich, Andrew J., “The Revisionist Imperative: Rethinking Twentieth Century Wars,”
Journal of Military History 76 (April 2012), pp. 333–42.
Conger, Cristen, How Revisionist History Works
Duberman, Martin, Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left, New Press, 2012
Fantina, Robert, Empire, Racism & Genocide: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy, Red Pill
Press, 2013
Hughes-Warrington, Marnie, Revisionist History, Routledge, 2013.
Judt, Tony, “What Have We Learned, if Anything?” NY Review of Books, 1 May 2008
Kirsch, Adam, "Is World War II still 'the Good War'?" NY Times, May 27, 2011
edition. London, Bookmarks, 2013.
Novick, Peter. That Noble Dream: The 'Objectivity Question' and the American
Historical Profession, Cambridge, 1988