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**Panzer Rob** · 12-12-2007, 12:59 AM

Excellent review, John. Thanks for taking the time to post it here. As Raymond said, definitely one to avoid.

Rob

Originally posted by Larry deZeng View Post

With the drift to the left that began on American college campuses in 1965 and has continued to this day, a book like this hardly comes as a surprise. These two professors are representatives of the secular-progressive social demographic that is rapidly seizing the upper hand across the land by defaming all things that smack of nationalism, patriotism, religious conviction and other conservative beliefs. They and their ilk are well on their way to reshaping the United States in their own image whereby all of America's heroes, past and present, are cast as fascists and our nation's enemies as revolutionaries and saviors of the people. I am glad I only have a few years left so I will not have to witness what is coming.

--Larry

Larry, don't leave us yet. Matter of fact, please let me know when you decide to run for office. I would like to make a hefty donation to your campaign

Rob

**John Pic** · 12-12-2007, 02:51 AM

John there are books also the reinvent the Battle of the Bulge from a National Socialist standpoint. I cant remember the author but he states he was a youth and fought in the SS during the Ardennes offensive. I bought it started reading it and it was steeped in Nazi retoric and revisonist accounts with most of the mud slinging towards the US.

**Simon O.** · 12-12-2007, 07:19 AM

I was about to say that these gentlemen can't be professors of history, much less specialists within the third reich period, so i was rather shocked to find out otherwise.
http://www.fubis.org/en/01allgemeine...n/smelser.html

Mistakes and typos happen, no book is free from them but what i find disturbing from the extracts quoted is the language used, more so coming from senior academics. I personally believe that a good historian is one that tries to imprint as little as possible of themselves in what they write. Writing history is about presenting facts to an audience who should then form their own opinions.

I'd be interested to read the full four pages refering to Sven Hassel's works to see what deep insights they've come up with as to why the authors books have been so popular. I'm one of those whose interest in the Wehrmacht stemmed from reading his books in my teens. That interest was down to the profoundly anti-war message the books gave out and a glimpse of the 'other side of the hill' when to British teenagers with any interest in the war at that time the mass of popular literature available revolved around tales of deering do against an enemy portrayed in the same stereotypical caricature way that had been done by the propaganda machine of both wars. If anything it's the popular alllied portrayal of the war that has been romanticized, not the german. That is amply reflected in post-war cinema which echoes each side's view of itself.

**behblc** · 12-12-2007, 06:13 PM

Sven Hassel

The four pages on Sven Hassel books - a fun read when growing up but , who remembers them in detail , did they make me NS in my outlook , I don't really think so.
I make no bones about it most of what I buy is 3rd Reich related - but I have no illusions as to the nature of the regime.
Those who have rose tinted glasses or who attempt to paint it to be something other than what it was will do so without regard to the facts.

I am happy to say any serious attempt to do rehab. on the 3rd Reich is doomed to failure.

**John P. Moore** · 12-12-2007, 11:22 PM

Simon - Thanks for posting that link concerning the background of the professor Smelser. I didn't notice it at first, but there is an embedded pdf file on that web page with his e-mail address and office phone number can be found for those who may wish to communicate with him personally. Note also his connections to the Holocaust Education Foundation.

I also freely admit to having read with pleasure all of the Sven Hassel novels back in my younger days when I was a US Army officer. I discovered them in a bookstore in southern Spain back in 1974.

John

**Michael Fay** · 12-13-2007, 03:32 AM

Conservative historian Richard Pipes

I can not explain nor condone outright misrepresentations or lack of investigation that these Proffs. may have been guilty of.
That being said , I will copy part of an intro by the CONSERVATIVE prof. Richard Pipes ,who worked for the National Security Council, and in 1982 contributed ideas on a speech given by Ronald Reagan.
Anyway, he has a good explanation on why some Historians seem to be sympathetic to communism. As one of the authors of the book that this thread is about has great interaction with German historians and published books in German, I think this is applicable.
Dr. Pipes wrote..... " I find that German historians are particularly averse to criticising the communist past and grow positively livid at any suggestion of parallels between National Socialism and communism. Their impassioned refusal even to consider such links, their harassment of anyone who calls attention to them, suggests that they have a psychic need to dissasociate themselves from Nazism: for since the Nazis were anti-communist, anti-communism is, for them, tainted with Nazism. (1)"....
-- (1) Pipes, Richard. "THREE 'WHYS' OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION." New York.Vintage Books, 1997. page #7.
I suspect this one historian of the book "Myth of the Eastern Front" as a scholar used to working with German historians has picked up this need to dissasociate .

**Jonathan M** · 12-13-2007, 06:49 AM

Originally posted by Gary T View Post

The intellectual class, if there is such a thing, is vitally important to the progress and well being of a country and it's people. Why do you think every dictator worth his salt goes out of his way to execute intellectuals on their accession to power?

Gary

i suppose im a memeber of the intellectual class being a teacher and what not but i very strongly believe that being true to history and to ones self is more important that subscribing to the latest PC fad be it in a social or intellectual circle. The trend today is to be all lefty, liberal and too afraid to uphold laws and statutes for fear of a law suit or similar reprisal. How can the barbarity of the EF be a myth, suppose casualty figures were made up then?

Jonathan

**Larry deZeng** · 12-13-2007, 07:44 AM

Originally posted by John P. Moore View Post

Simon - Thanks for posting that link concerning the background of the professor Smelser. I didn't notice it at first, but there is an embedded pdf file on that web page with his e-mail address and office phone number can be found for those who may wish to communicate with him personally. Note also his connections to the Holocaust Education Foundation. John

The early Cold War and the Vietnam period may have been before your time there, John, but Smelser's beloved Freie Universität Berlin was the nuclear core of the European left, and in fact is usually credited with giving birth to it. The KGB funded student unrest there and many of the members of Germany's violent student guerrilla gangs (the Bader Gang, the Red this and the Red that, etc.) either attended the university or had ties to it. I was a battalion S-2 back then and had to work closely with the CIC, so I am quite familiar with the political and counter-intelligence history of the university during that time. It was Berkeley, only much, much worse. So Smelser's connection to FUB and Germany's radical student left is not surprising.

--Larry

**Simon O.** · 12-13-2007, 07:51 AM

Interesting info there Larry, that explains a lot.

**Larry deZeng** · 12-13-2007, 08:15 AM

Thank you, Simon, for making the connection and providing the link!

--Larry

**Andy Harris** · 12-27-2008, 01:17 PM

Originally posted by Andy Harris View Post

Thanks for the info, John! Initially, this looked like an interesting book, as the Eastern Front, with images of Stalingrad, Kursk, the Demyansk Pocket, etc., giving us an almost mystical view of the campaigns.
It's too bad this work seems to fall short of expectations, but I'm glad I didn't buy it.

DAMN!!!!!!!!

I saw this book at Borders last week, and on impulse, BOUGHT IT, forgetting all about this thread and the review.
Well, I read a couple of chapters, and it really pissed me off. Basically, the book is a big insult to all of us who have an interest in the German military in WWII, and those of us who collect Third Reich militaria. The authors basically accuse us, in so many words, of pretending the Waffen SS and Wehrmacht didn't do anything bad in WWII, and making heroes out of Nazis. I wish I hadn't bought the book...DAMN!!!!!

**behblc** · 12-27-2008, 01:48 PM

I have a copy on order via Amazon - I will have to read it and make my own mind up.
Since this thread has started I have to be honest and say I have come across a few people who might have come from the more negative aspects of this book - men who have lost their objectivity and who may well have never had it.
Unfortunately there are folks out there who do not look on the history of WW2 with any reasonable balance.

**Robin Lumsden** · 12-27-2008, 02:24 PM

Originally posted by John Pic View Post

John there are books also the reinvent the Battle of the Bulge from a National Socialist standpoint. I cant remember the author but he states he was a youth and fought in the SS during the Ardennes offensive. I bought it started reading it and it was steeped in Nazi retoric and revisonist accounts with most of the mud slinging towards the US.

This one?

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**Andy Harris** · 12-28-2008, 11:59 AM

Originally posted by behblc View Post

I have a copy on order via Amazon - I will have to read it and make my own mind up.
Since this thread has started I have to be honest and say I have come across a few people who might have come from the more negative aspects of this book - men who have lost their objectivity and who may well have never had it.
Unfortunately there are folks out there who do not look on the history of WW2 with any reasonable balance.

Hobbies like ours will always attract that fringe element. It's bad, but inevitable. The same thing existed in the World War II reenactment group I used to belong to, and it took a long time to banish the Nazi sympathizers-and they still continued to embarrass us, through their new organization. It's even the same thing in the law enforcement community, with the small percentage who have an "us vs. them" attitude, live and breathe cop culture, and think of everything as a potential tactical situation.

Just a sad fact of life, that most of us normal people have to put up with the idiots.

**behblc** · 12-28-2008, 04:24 PM

I have seen some folks in reenacting circles who are involved in re enacting who go straight into "well the Allies did much worse" line of answer , same folks would say that they would not read any history of the Allied war effort as "it does not interest them" - great exception was taken to my pointing out that no balanced view of history can be made without taking all into acount.

Looking forward to seeing what the content of this bok is and if it applies to my own experience.

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