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Two Dubious Third Reich Diaries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Henry Ashby Turner Jr
Henry Ashby Turner Jr
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

Diaries justly rank among the most valuable sources for historians. Committed to paper soon after the events and thoughts they record, diaries are free of the knowledge about what occurs afterward or only later takes on significance that adulterate memoirs and render them far more problematic for historians. It is therefore worthy of a cautionary note when historians confuse examples of the two genres. That has frequently occurred in the case of Bella Fromm's Blood and Banquets: A Berlin Social Diary. Published nearly sixty years ago in the form of a diary; it has been used as such in numerous historical studies of the Third Reich. A more recent book that poses problems similar to Fromm's and that has also been used by historians as a source for the Nazi period, is The Berlin Diaries, 1940–1945, attributed posthumously to Marie “Missie” Vassiltchikov.

Type
Scholarly Note
Information
Central European History , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , September 2000 , pp. 415 - 422
Copyright
Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 2000

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References

1. Cf. Fritz, Thyssen, I Paid Hitler (New York, 1941), 100Google Scholar. On the origins of this book, see my article, “Fritz Thyssen und das Buch ‘I Paid Hitler’,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 19 (1971): 225–44.Google Scholar

2. In the absence of a German-language manuscript of Fromm's book, the editor of the German version published a translation of the English text of the book: “Nachwort” by Thomas Karlauf to Fromm, Bella, Als Hitler mir die Hand küsste (Berlin, 1993), 312.Google Scholar

3. Cf. Goebbels, , Vom Kaiserhof zur Reichskanzlei (Munich, 1934), 153fGoogle Scholar., and Blood and Banquets, 55.

4. Elke, Fröhlich, ed., Die Tagebücher von Joseph Goebbels: Sämtliche Fragmente (Munich, 1987ff.)Google Scholar, Teil 1, Band 2, 621f.

5. See my German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler (New York, 1985), 144f.Google Scholar

6. A number of the Blood and Banquets entries in which Dodd figures echo entries for the same periods in Dodd, William E. Jr., and Martha, Dodd, eds., Ambassador Dodd's Diary (New York, 1941)Google Scholar; see, for examples, pp. 120, 128, 131, 156, 260.

7. The only trace of a possible connection with Schleicher in Fromm's papers aside from the draft “diary” entries is a glossy photocopy of a one-sentence handwritten form letter signed by him, dated 10 February 1933, acknowledging receipt of expressions of sympathy following his resignation as Chancellor and Defense Minister. It specifies no addressee and was very likely sent to anyone who had written to him. It is not a message to a first-name friend, and there is no indication that it was sent directly to Fromm.

8. This was confirmed in a letter to me from Dr. Maria Keipert, of the Auswärtiges Amt in Bonn, 13 November 1997.

9. Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten, (2 vols.), Berlin, 1995).