soc.history.war.world-war-ii

On Feb 29, 1:08 pm, "Andrew Clark"
wrote:
> So you can use Google Scholar and read citations. Congratulations.

I see, so instead of actually answering the question you turn this
into one extened ad hominem remark? How illuminating.

(snip ad hominem)
> I asked a question which any real archival specialist would have understood
> immediately. I'm not interested in pursuing the matter further with someone
> who clearly hasn't got the first inkling.

No, when asked for clarification you produced a bunch of names,
without any idication of how they applied to your argument. Now when
Ms. Grimsted's relevence is questioned, you resort to ad hominem,
rather than answering the question.

> I never used the word 'all'. This is mere strawman blustering, your usual
> tactic when you move out of your narrow comfort zone of knowledge

No? That makes all the difference in the world. What *archives* then?
As in which archival documents in which archives are you saying that
Grimsted, Bartov, et al found evidence of tampering?

> Your statements again prove that you haven't the faintest idea what the
> Germans got up to in their own archives.

And an ad hominem remark answers my question exactly how?

> Ditto.

That's enlightening.

> And yet the discovery of German archives in Slovakia and in other former
> communist bloc countries is so much of a commonplace in the archival
> community that it hardly makes a headline anymore, having been going on for
> nearly 20 years. Burleigh's book is a well-known classic of its field; you
> haven't heard of it.
(snip ad hominem)

Yet again, can you answer my question or not? It was quite simple,
author/title? Whether or not it is a "well-known classic" is
immaterial if *you* can't cite it.

> Ditto.

More enlightenment. Thanks.

> Incorrect. The intentional destruction of some Heer archives in the closing
> phases of WW2 is well-documented and, again, anyone happy to pontificate at
> length in this forum about German archival sources ought to know this sort
> of thing. See Yelton's article on the Volksturm in the Journal of Military
> History or Rossino's about the 1939 Polish campaign in Holocaust Genocide
> Studies or Brown's article on the Secret Field Police, for example. Or you
> might even ask the Nazi War Criminals Interagency Working Party at NARA.

Yelton did not write an article that I can find on the Volksturm in
JMH, although I find that *David Fritz* did write a book review of
Yelton's "Hitler's Volksturm" in 67.2? I see that in a similar fashion
"Rossino's" is actually a book review by Bryan Rigg of "Hitler Strikes
Poland" by Alexander Rossino? Paul Brown did at least write an
*article* about the GFP in H&GS.

Are these in fact the book reviews and article you are talking about?
And when I read them I will be astonished about how all three address
document tampering by the Nazis?

> Your question again proves that you haven't the faintest idea what the
> Germans got up to in their own archives or the complex web of motivations
> and objectives which governed their archival policies.

Ad hominem yet again. Are you going for a record? And yet again you
fail to answer a simple question.

> So your original claim was wrong. Confusing the existence of partial
> duplicate divisional archive records of some of the Waffen SS formations
> with the 'main SS archive' is a glaring error.

Yep, it's been about seven years since I first heard of it and about
three years since a friend supplied the information from the finding
aide. So sue me for my "glaring error"; can I reciprocate for yours
regarding "articles" that are book reviews? And yes, it was the "main
Waffen-SS archive" even if it is a duplicate of the records in BAMA.
But I haven't done a line-by-line comparison of the BAMA and Prague
files, so I'm not sure if it is a compete duplicate or not?

> Copying out large sections of a public finding aid is about as impressive as
> copying out large sections of the dictionary. The archive finding aids are
> very useful tools for the researcher, but they are only catalogues like any
> other.

Sorry, I thought you were curious about the contents?

> Yes. You said "the main SS archive that was thought destroyed at the end of
> the war was in fact mostly intact and on Prague."

Your comment that I was replying to was:

> > The Germans moved all their state archives from Berlin from 1942-3 onward,
> >and much of the redistribution ended up in castles and vaults in the
> >Protectorate and Silesia. The RHSA for example used 17 sites including their
> >main centres at Furstenstein and Schleichersee and the archive at
> >Wolfelsdorf and the Heeresarchiv used 82 sites including several in each of
> >Vienna, Prague and Danzig. Most of that territory ended up behind the Iron
> >Curtain

I was remarking that the "Waffen-SS" archive was at Prague, which
would be the most relevent one for a discussion regarding the Waffen-
SS at Kursk?

> This is nonsense. You said that you had asked a colleague to look at the
> BAMA finding aid for returned German records in Koblenz and I pointed out
> that many returned German records were still held at BAB (Bundesarchiv in
> Berlin). Obviously, you didn't know about BAB or its returned German archive
> collections.

Er, no, actually I said nothing of the sort? **You** brought up
Koblenz, I mentioned a colleague had looked at the Prague finding aide
for the Waffen-SS documents there? And yes, I do know of BAB, but it
is not BAMA, which is remaining at Freiburg? BAB includes the former
holdings of the Berlin Documents Center, but aside from personnel
records those are not military archives, which are held in Koblenz
(pre-1866) and Freiburg (post-1866).

And, yet again, since we were talking about military records and
tamperings thereof I fail to see how BAB is relevent?

> For a senior academic to make a statement about which he actually has very
> little knowledge *is* lying.

I see, thanks for your definition of reality.

> Again, you prove only your extraordinary ignorance of the academics
> specialising in the provenance and nature of German WW2 archival records.
> You actually haven't even read Bartov's studies, have you?

No, not for some years I'm afraid. When did you last? If recently
enough for you to make the claims that you have, then I'm sure you can
easily provide the citations that I requested that support *your*
claims for what Bartov said.

Since AFAIK ****that**** is the way these things are done? ****You****
made a claim, and no appear to be disguising your inability to back
those up with a slew of ad hominem remarks that ****fail to answer
anything****.

> "A specialist in military history in general" is an oxymoron.

Sorry, a "specialist in general military history" then. As opposed to
a "specialist in general history" or a "specialist in political
history" or....

> Anyone who has read even Bartov's two most popular works, "Hitler's Army:
> Soldiers, Nazis and War in the Third Reich" and "The Eastern Front
> 1941-1945: German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare" would realise the
> extraordinary ability of the author in the German archives. Someone who
> presents himself in this group as a German archival expert but who isn't
> aware of Bartov's expertise in military archives or his several definitive
> articles on some of them is talking through *his* hat.

That's nice, because Bartov is declared by you to be of "extraordinary
ability" at something we can now close out the argument? Something
wrong with that, can't quite put my finger on it....

> No. The foolishness was your childish little digs like "'I've noticed that
> **all** records from World War II are usually riddled with minor math
> errors, do you think those were deliberate as part of an attempt to adjust
> the figures?". Those remarks proved that you haven't grasped the actual
> point I was making because you have no knowledge of the themes long
> discussed in the German wartime archive academic community.

How do you get a "childish little dig" (ad hominem, again, BTW) out of
that simple statement of fact?

And do the following string of ad hominem remarks have anything to do
with actually answering the simple questions you were asked?

> Your question again proves that you haven't the faintest idea what the
(snip yet more ad hominem, can I get a moderator's ruling on this
please? :))

> No, I expected you to have a good general background awareness of the issues
> relating to the German archives about which you prate so often in this
> group. Clearly, you don't.

No, quite evidently you expected me to agree with you unquestioningly
or thought I wouldn't bother to answer, since it is evident that you
have no support for your claims other than the usual mish-mash of hazy
"sources" followed by a spate of unwarranted ad hominem remarks when
you were asked simple questions.