How Hitler’s “Table Talks” broke history

Hitler's Table Talks have exposed how broken the entire concept of history is, and today I'm going to walk you through the controversy, and explain why history is dead. When I was in college, we were taught that there's no point reading Mein Kampf because it's a rambling mess and a terribly written book. Also, we were taught that the English version of the Hitler Table Talks was untrustworthy. That's why, in the couple of occasions where I did use the Table Talks in my videos, I've tended to rely on the German translation via Rainer Zeitelmann's Hitler, the Policies of Seduction, now republished as Hitler's National Socialism. Highly recommended. And also, it's not Zeitelmann, it's Zittelmann, proving that I do indeed get things wrong. Sorry about that. Well, it turns out that Mein Kampf is kind of essential reading if you want to understand Hitler, even if it is a terribly written book, so I was taught wrong there. It's propaganda, and wasn't just written by Hitler, plus he did lie in the book, but ultimately it's a necessary source if you want to understand what Hitler was doing, his personality, his ideology, and what his plans were for the Second World War. And the Table Talks are equally as important in terms of content because they were written between 1941 and 1944, during the Second World War, and approximately twenty years after Mein Kampf. So what are the Table Talks exactly? Or at least, what are they supposed to be? Well, this is one of the many English editions of the Table Talks, and I'm not picking on this one in particular. It doesn't matter which edition it is, they're all the same. But in this case, it says that it was compiled by Martin Bormann, who was Hitler's secretary. It then says on the back that Hitler's Table Talk consists of notes of the German leader's casual lunch and dinnertime conversations with his close friends and colleagues. Copied down by adjutants and edited for accuracy by his private secretary, Martin Bormann, these discussions reveal Hitler's wartime thoughts on his enemies, friends and a variety of topics. This is an indispensable aid for anyone wishing to gain a full, uncensored insight into one of the most traumatic episodes of European history. In the inside introduction it says, "...they were recorded upon the instruction of the head of the party chancellery and private secretary to Hitler, Martin Bormann, with Hitler's express permission. The documents survived in two versions, the combined Heim and Picker notes, and a more complete version kept by Bormann. This latter version was sent piecemeal to Bormann's wife, Goethe, in Munich. Goethe flew to Italy at the end of the war, but was arrested and died of natural causes while in detention in 1946. An Italian official acquired the manuscript and sold it to a Swiss national and NSDAP sympathizer, Francis Gennaud. Picker and Heim together published the first version, in the original German, of the notes in 1951, under the title Hitler's Table Talk. Gennaud published the French translation in 1952, and an English edition was published with an introduction by Hugh Trevor-Roper in 1953. Finally, the original German content of the Bormann manuscript was published in 1980 by Werner Jochmann." Now, this particular edition doesn't say it, but in other editions, it was claimed that these were the stenographic recordings of Hitler. Meaning, Heim, Picker etc. sat there and wrote out in shorthand what Hitler said as he said it, so that they could flesh out those notes later on into a complete transcription of Hitler's words. So the impression people got of the Table Talks was that it was Hitler's exact words being written down, and because he said those words over dinner and so on, they were his more intimate thoughts on the given topics. Thus, the Hitler Table Talks were seen as almost an essential source when trying to understand Hitler. They seemed to offer a look behind the curtain at the man himself, not the image he presented to the world in say, Mein Kampf or his speeches. Historians have therefore gone ahead and used the Table Talks. And I'm not just talking about some, but quite literally all of them. From English-speaking historians Richard Evans, Timothy Schneider, and Ian Kershaw, to German historians Rainer Zittelmann and Wolfram Pitter. They've all used the Table Talks in some way. In fact, it's from the likes of Richard Evans and Ian Kershaw that we get the idea that the English version is bad, but the German version is good. So I can't blame my college tutors too much, since major historians were the ones saying this. Now why did they say that the English version was bad? Well, a Frenchman called Guenaud, who was a Swiss banker, neo-Nazi, and financier of terrorism, yes, decided to translate the Table Talks from the German into French. Except he didn't translate it very well. And by didn't translate it very well, what I mean is that he added a bunch of stuff that wasn't in the original German, and then changed many of the translations that were in there to mean different things from the original. And Hugh Trevor-Roper, a famous historian from a few decades back, claimed to have translated the Table Talks into English. However, he didn't use the original German. He used Guenaud's French translation. And much like a game of Chinese Whispers, the English version is even worse than the French. Guenaud of course denied all this, and Trevor-Roper was reluctant at first to admit the problems with the sources, since he was benefiting financially from their publication, but a simple comparison of the translations reveals major discrepancies. Here is a simple example from the original German by Picker, and the English translation by another historian which I have verified using Google Translate. It says, "...Christ was an Aryan, but Paul used his teachings to mobilize the underworld and organize a proto-Bolshevism. With its outbreak, the beautiful clarity of the ancient world was lost. What kind of god is it who is only pleased if humans chastise themselves before him?" Okay, well, here is the English version by Trevor-Roper, based on Guenaud's French. "...Christ was an Aryan, and St. Paul used his doctrine to mobilize the criminal underworld and thus organize a proto-Bolshevism." All good so far, but then, this intrusion upon the world marks the end of a long reign that of the clear Greco-Latin genius. What? The original German simply didn't say that. Now, in this example, Guenaud didn't insert any extra sentences or paragraphs like he did elsewhere, but you can see that there are major discrepancies in the translation. So it makes sense that historians were saying, hey, don't use the English or French versions, use the original German. However, it turns out that the German version wasn't what it was assumed to be. It was claimed that these talks were stenographic notes written down by Hitler's stenographers, Heim and Picker. Bormann also wrote some of the notes, and so did Hans Müller. And it was claimed that Hitler didn't know about the notes, and so was speaking freely. But straight away, there was a counter-claim. Picker said that Hitler did know about the notes, and even checked them over, contradicting the idea that Hitler was speaking freely. And then it turns out that none of these guys were stenographers, and that the notes they made weren't shorthand notes at all. They were reconstructed entirely from memory, possibly based on some notes taken at the time, but ultimately they weren't a word-for-word recording of what Hitler actually said. In other words, they're not quotes. They're not actually Hitler's exact words. Instead, they are a record of what Heim and Picker, and so on, remembered Hitler saying, which ultimately isn't the same thing. However, historians have mistakenly believed that they were Hitler's exact words, and have treated them as quotes, which they're not. And we now know why. The reason the Table Talks were deemed to be stenographic records, even though they weren't, was because Henry Picker's German 1st Edition in 1951 stated that they were stenographic notes by Dr. Henry Picker. This was a marketing stunt, probably by the publisher rather than Picker himself, and the newspapers then reported this misinformation as fact. Not the last time. And the idea infected the minds of the historians. To be fair, a lot of the historians realised that there were problems with the Table Talks, especially the French and English versions, and so used them with caution. English-speaking historians tended to rely on the German Table Talks, although not always, and German historians were cautious to use the German version too, although not always. But while the issue with the Table Talks was recognised, it wasn't seriously considered in formal debate until 2003. Yes, 52 years after the initial publication. Historian Richard Cervantes Carrier is a bit of a controversial figure, to say the least. You may have come across some of his talks on YouTube, as I did a few years ago, about why people invented the Jesus. Now, regardless of your views on the Jesus, and whether he was a real person or not, the point is that Richard Carrier has a strong opinion on that particular issue. I would safely describe him as not a fan of Christianity. And even though most of his works are on the ancient and medieval world, and specifically the Bible, Richard Carrier made a slight detour in his early career to challenge the reliability of the Hitler Table Talks. Now, you might ask, why? Why would someone so concerned with the Bible and Christianity dip his toe into the Hitler Table Talks issue? It's not like he ever wrote books on Hitler. The only thing he ever did was question the authenticity of the Table Talks. So why did he do this? Well, it's because Christian's bad, and Hitler bad. Therefore, Christian in Hitler. Yay! Except Hitler is very much against Christianity in the Table Talks. So Richard Carrier had to step in to absolutely confirm that Hitler was a Christian because Christian's bad. And what he argued was that Hitler was only anti-Christian in the English and French versions because, in the original German version of the Table Talks, Hitler was just anti-Catholic. So, Richard Carrier said that Hitler was a Christian, and said at one point, "...on the 13th of December 1942, Hitler argues against the idea of a physical resurrection and in favour of a spiritual one. And there and elsewhere he takes a very cynical view of Catholicism, voicing many of the same criticisms one might hear from a candid and bigoted Protestant." Yes, Hitler the Protestant. Anyway, I'm not going to get into that debate today. In fact, part of the reason why I'm doing this video is in preparation for the Christian-Hitler debate. So if you're not already subscribed to the channel, you might want to do so to be notified when that video comes out. And, in the meantime, see my video on the National Socialist Aryan Religion. But the overall point is that Richard Carrier was the first person to really challenge the Hitler Table Talks as a valid source. In addition to tearing apart the English and French versions, he also questioned whether we can actually believe the original German. "...it is sufficient to note that whatever Hitler's beliefs were, they are distorted in Gnaud, and these distortions, among many others, were retained in the text of Trevor Roper. Yet that is the only English translation of the Table Talk in print, and few know how worthless it is. There is need for much more work on this source before it can be used in any way by competent historians. At the very least, we need a complete investigation of the manuscripts on which they are based and the persons who have claimed to have them, their motives and capabilities, and a collation of all versions and editions with commentary on all the discrepancies, with a new English translation based on a critical edition of Picker and Jochmann." Pretty damning stuff. But then, in 2016, Mikael Nilsson, not the Swedish Football of the Historian, published an article arguing against the Table Talks, and then published a book in 2021 called Hitler Redux, in which he basically crucified every single historian who dared to use the obviously flawed Table Talks. The Table Talks are some of the most central and frequently used sources in the field. Basically all historians since 1951 onwards writing about Hitler, National Socialism or Nazi Germany have used them to a lesser or greater extent. Most historians have also used these sources entirely uncritically, citing from them as if they contained Hitler's own words. This is a serious mistake, and this practice has to stop. First, he came for Richard Evans, saying Evans pointed out that the English version was wrong, but then went ahead and used it anyway in his Third Reich trilogy. Whoops. But to be fair, Evans did check the English version against the German version, like other historians have done, such as Ian Kershaw, so it wasn't as stupid as it first sounds. That said, he still used the German version, which Nilsen says is untrustworthy. So Evans is still wrong. He then goes on to pick on Wolfram Pitter, William Carr, Timothy Schneider, and even Ian Kershaw, plus others besides. And I thought he was just being a bit harsh, but then he slammed on Rainer Zittelmann, and it was at that point that I started to realize the full implications of what he was arguing. So Nilsen starts off by saying that Zittelmann did include a critical discussion of the Table Talks, and that Zittelmann did use multiple sources to back up his claims. He also only used the Table Talks when they could be supported by other evidence, and Zittelmann qualified that all necessary reservations would be used with the Table Talks. Nilsen acknowledged all of this, but then went on to argue this. "...this method, however, even though it is commonly applied by historians, has serious flaws. First, if a source is so problematic that it always has to be supported by other, more reliable sources, then what is gained by using it? Would it not then be better to simply use only the more reliable sources? Second, what does Zittelmann mean when he says all the necessary reservations? He never explains this in any detail, rendering the assurance meaningless." He goes on, and the entire book is written in a way that hammers home these points over and over, and makes more points besides. So it's not an isolated incident, nor is it something to be taken lightly. But I don't think that this historian realized what he was saying in these four sentences, and maybe if you're not steeped in history theory like I am, you may not have caught it either. So let me spell it out for you. In these four sentences, he has just argued that if we use any source that is flawed, we are wrong, because one bad apple will spoil the bunch. One bad source will rot the entire historical narrative that we're trying to write. We should, he says, only select the sources that we believe are reliable, which basically means we should only use the sources we agree with, and dismiss the ones we don't. What he didn't say, but I'm going to point out, is that every source we use is flawed. Diary, memoir, a sword pulled out of the ground, official document, works of historians, video, you name it, it's flawed. It's biased, it's unobjective, it's made or written by flawed and biased humans who have agendas. Therefore, every source is flawed. And flawed sources spoil the rest, right? So historians are all building their houses of history with bad materials. In other words, the entirety of the field of history, and the historians and the histories that have already been written about in the past, are therefore rotten from top to bottom. Worse, if we use multiple sources to compile what's known as a convergence of evidence to try and overcome the flaws within the individual sources, we are still wrong, because ultimately, we're still all using flawed sources. Thus, our narratives are flawed, all the history books that have ever been written are flawed, and always will be flawed, since they're all built on sand. Then, as if to rub salt in the wound, he says that if we try and explain to our audience that we are using flawed sources, and therefore will use them with reservations, we are even more wrong, and our assurances are meaningless. We're therefore left with the realization that every source is flawed. That every source has to be thrown out. That every history book is worthless, and should not be believed. And, if you think about it, he's right. If we're trying to get to the truth, and every source we use is wrong, then we'll never get to the truth. We cannot trust any of the narratives being presented. They're all lies. And this doesn't just apply to history, but to all knowledge. When we read the newspapers, see videos of events, listen to speeches or lectures, we're all subjected to propaganda and lies. It's no wonder that nobody knows what to believe, and that many don't know who to listen to or what to think. As this historian has exposed, the evidence is meaningless, and therefore all we can do is build our narratives on belief. It's now all down to what you feel is right. And since evidence is irrelevant to belief, there's no point in the historian anymore. So the Hitler Table Talks have broken history. Every historian has used the Table Talks, or other equally flawed sources. So the narrative that every historian has pumped out there is wrong. All of them. Every historian of the Second World War is wrong. And how can we trust a single historian of any subject if all they're using is flawed sources, and every source is flawed? That means that all their narratives are wrong. History is wrong. It's rendered useless. In other words, history is dead. And you might be thinking that this is a little overdramatic. But it's actually not. When I read this initially, I actually had a mini-crisis of confidence myself. On the internet, you will find plenty of people saying that the sources we all use are wrong, and our narratives are wrong since it all comes down to belief. Apparently, we can dismiss any source we like. We can selectively quote whatever we want. And if you use a source that I don't agree with, then you're wrong. You're shilling for so-and-so, and you only pretend to know the truth since you can't know the objective truth. In fact, there is no objective truth. History is a lie. Historians are all scammers. History is written by them, whoever they might be. Oh, and the truth just so happens to be on the extreme political fringes for some magical reason. And, as a friend in real life asked me recently, but how do you know that you are right? The problem with the Hitler Table Talks is that it exposes the lie that history is built upon. And it's not the only source that does this, but it's a famous one, and one that's relevant right now because it's currently under the microscope. But you pick any source, any at all, and I'll tell you why it's flawed. It was created by a human, and all humans are flawed. They put their opinions into the pieces they write. They make mistakes. They're not perfect. Therefore, history itself is also not perfect. It's not the objective truth. It's a lie. So is history dead then? I mean, it's certainly broken, right? But is this really the case? As a famous boxer said one time, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. And when I read this, it was like a punch in the mouth. It shocked me because it was unexpected. I wasn't expecting a historian to be so eager to throw out the Table Talks that he would get rid of history as well in the process. He's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. So I had a minor crisis of confidence. And then I remembered that I've already read In Defense of History by Richard Evans, and several other books on post-modernism, so I'm more than ready to punch back. Therefore, I think it's time to resurrect history from the dead. We're going to start with the blatantly obvious fact. The critics who originally recommended me this source as a way to undermine what I was saying elsewhere, didn't read it themselves, or if they did, they didn't read to the end, or weren't paying sufficient attention. And in this case, I blame the author because of the way he wrote the book. He paints the picture throughout the first part of the book that the Hitler Table Talks cannot be used as a historical source. He slams on it, and the historians he mentions, over and over, shaming them for using this source. But then, right at the very end of the book, he says However, and this is very important, the results presented in this book should absolutely not be interpreted as meaning that the Table Talks are not authentic. They really are, at least for the most part, memoranda of statements that Hitler made at some point or another in his wartime HQs. They were made by either Heim, Picker, Müller, or Bormann, although there are also some notes that have no name attached to them. Yes, the German version of the Table Talks is not a forgery. It is a valid primary source. Yes it is. It is no different than using any memoir in existence. Guderian, Manstein, Keitel, all these guys quoted Hitler saying stuff, and they're deemed to be valid sources. Well, Heim, Picker, Müller, Bormann, and the others did the exact same thing. They all quoted Hitler saying stuff to the best of their recollection, and in the case of Bormann, at least, he did this during the war, thereby making it more reliable than some of these later memoirs. So, unless you want to throw out all your beloved memoirs, all the diaries that supposedly quoted people, and all the other sources that do similar things, you cannot throw out the Table Talks. It is a valid primary source. Nielsen sort of mentioned this throughout, but basically didn't spell it out until the end. Why? Because it would have been a very short book. He did not prove that the Table Talks were forgeries. He did show, which we already knew, that other sources were forgeries. But we already knew that. And he did show that the French and English versions of the Table Talks were false, which we already knew, and again, most of the groundwork had already been done by Richard Carrier. Nielsen went into more detail and explained the history of the Table Talks as well, which is great. It's nice to have it all in one place. But ultimately he didn't prove that the Table Talks were forgeries. It is therefore still a valid source. All this criticism laid at Rainer Zittelmann, Kershaw, and all these other historians, including myself from the comments, because we use the German version of the Table Talks, is therefore invalid. But let's go back to what he said before. He said that using multiple sources to back up your points, a common method by historians, is wrong, because you're still using unreliable sources. First, if a source is so problematic that it always has to be supported by other, more reliable sources, then what is gain by using it? Would it not then be better to simply use only the more reliable sources? No, and the first reason is because there are no reliable sources, and those more reliable sources are still unreliable. But even still, you don't get to just dismiss some sources in favour of others. That leads us down a bad road. You cannot selectively quote, nor can you selectively pick the sources you're going to use. You have to use all the sources that you can, even the ones you don't like. Otherwise you cannot come to a rational, all-round conclusion that has considered all sides of an argument. The only way to know the truth is to have a serious debate over it, and without the debate, without the back and forth, you cannot see the flaws in your own argument. History therefore lies in the heart of the debate, and you cannot have a debate if you're not listening to your opponent, or reading from sources you don't like. Secondly, the reason we use multiple sources is to show that it's not just a one-off statement or idea. Rainer Zickleman points this out in his book that Nilsen read, but didn't acknowledge. "...that is the reason why, in this study, we constantly cite many references, sometimes even very similar ones, from the most varied sources as proofs of the opinions Hitler held on various subjects. While in certain instances this might detract from the readability of the study, even though many parallel citations are only referred to in the notes, we believed it to be important that we support Hitler's previously less well-known opinions on various topics in such detail as to clearly demonstrate to the reader that these are not randomly selected statements, which are atypical for Hitler, but rather statements which represent his thinking." If Hitler says that the moon is made of cheese on one occasion, then we could dismiss it by saying that he was just joking, or was misquoted, or whatever. But if he says it in ten different sources from ten different occasions, all of which provide more context, we can safely assume that he meant it, or maybe it was a joke, depends on the context. So it's best to use multiple sources, a convergence of evidence, to back up what we're saying, because it adds weight to the interpretation of the past that we're trying to express. And what is gained by using so-called problematic sources? Well, let's think about it in a different way. All sources are problematic. Therefore, if we were being nihilistic in the way we view our history, we would say that the whole of history is flawed, and therefore all the narratives are wrong too, and we cannot know the truth about the past. And that's right, but for the wrong reasons. History is not the study of the past. It is the study of the record of the past. And that's not the same thing. Unless a god of some kind descends from the heavens and provides us with the objective truth, we cannot ever know the objective truth. There is no objective truth in history. It is subjective in nature. Each individual goes through their own journey, a pilgrimage through history, to discover whatever they consider to be the truth. It's their truth. They may impart that knowledge onto others, but ultimately it's down to those individuals to discover their own truth for themselves. The primary sources are the road beneath their feet, and the people they meet on the way are the historians pointing you in certain directions. But ultimately, you must make the journey alone. And to make sure that what we see is right, that we're not coming to the wrong conclusions, we've got to bounce ideas off each other. Our collective interpretation might still be wrong, but we have no other choice. We just can't jump in a time machine and go back and watch Hitler have dinner, nor can we ask God to tell us what he said. So until we invent the time machine, or as Carrier puts it, the Jesus reappears, we're kind of stuck with bouncing ideas off each other to try and find out what's right. It's a free market of ideas, rather than this central-planet objective-truth rubbish. There is no objective truth. Value is subjective, and so is the truth. It's down to the individual to discover the truth for themselves, and then realise that other people may have different truths. And that's fine. You can try and persuade them, but ultimately it's down to them to come up with a subjective truth for themselves. Now yes, we might need to treat our sources with all the necessary reservations, as Zittelman put it, but this isn't a meaningless statement. The sources are problematic, and we should warn others who may not realise this, about the dangers of said sources. This isn't a controversial idea. There will be people listening to this who have heard me rant about this before. But then there will be new viewers who are going to be completely blown away by what I'm saying right now. They've probably never even considered any of this before. So if I say, hey, you should treat every source with reservation, and realise that the people who made the sources are biased and agendered, then they're going to see history in a different light. And they're going to learn that you've got to think critically and ask who the authors are, and what their objectives are, etc, in order to weigh up the value of a particular source. That's actually teaching history theory to others. Zittelman's statement about using all the necessary reservations is clear. He's confirming to the reader that this source is problematic, so we must take it with a grain of salt, because a given statement, or the entire source, might be proven incorrect later. The whole source might be thrown out as a forgery. And that's fine. We've made it clear to everyone else that we are aware that this source might be lower down the pecking order when it comes to sources. That's a good thing, and isn't a difficult concept to understand. Now, because of Nielsen's beliefs and unwillingness to use what he deems to be less reliable sources, he starts coming to some false conclusions, meaning that his book itself is therefore less than a perfect source. The irony. He says "...Hitler's views remained constant during his political career, and thus his views on many topics were very easy to estimate for anyone writing a book about him and claiming to have had conversations on certain subjects with him." What he's trying to argue is that the Table Talks are forgeries. He's trying to paint the idea in the reader's heads that the authors just took Mein Kampf and other sources, and then rewrote and rearranged the concepts within them to present the new text as if it was something different. In other words, he's of the opinion that the authors of the Table Talks plagiarized the text from other areas. And maybe they did. However, we don't have evidence of that, and this is just Nielsen's opinion. Yet, despite this, there have been people in the comments of my videos saying Nielsen showed that the Table Talks were forgeries, or false, or whatever. No, he did not. But the way he wrote the book implies that that's what he's saying. In some sections of the book, Nielsen showed that Hitler's views in the Table Talks were no different than what could be found in Mein Kampf, implying to the reader that it was a forgery. But then, in other sections, he shows that the views were different. But instead of concluding that maybe Hitler's opinions had changed over time, he concluded that this meant it was most likely made up, because Hitler's views were not consistent in the 20 years between the two sources. But hold on, which is it? Are people allowed to change their mind over the course of 20 years, or should we say the exact same things 20 years apart? Like, make up your mind? Well, we can prove that some of Hitler's views did in fact change over time. Zittelmann himself shows this with help from several sources, not including the Table Talks. For example, Hitler initially accepted the authority of officers in any given situation, and had special respect for them. That attitude obviously changed later on, even if elements of it remained, and there's a contradiction within Hitler's personality as a result. But of course, Nielsen has asserted, without evidence, that Hitler's beliefs didn't change. And we must just believe him, because how else would he be able to imply that the Table Talks are forgeries? At another point, he argues that because Hitler told the same false story in Mein Kampf and the Table Talks, that proves that Hitler was lying to his entourage. "...the fact that Hitler lies to his small private entourage shows us that there is absolutely no reason for us to accept the portrayal of Hitler's character as it comes across in the nightly conversations recorded in the Table Talks. The fabricated biographical details were so central to the persona that Hitler projected before his followers that he would not let anyone look behind the façade and see the reality of his early life. In that sense there was no real Hitler to be revealed during those nightly conversations. He had become the propaganda image." Yes, Hitler lied. Well done. Yes, the Table Talks were not recorded in secret, and Hitler most likely knew his words would be recorded in some way. Therefore, yes, we can conclude that the Table Talks aren't a peek behind the curtain. We're only getting the propaganda image of Hitler. Right, but that doesn't mean that there's no point in using the Table Talks. Yes, Hitler had become the propaganda image. Great. So the Table Talks are 100% relevant, and a valid source on Hitler's views, since they allow us to confirm that Hitler lived and breathed propaganda. Fantastic. And since history is the study of human action per axiology, not the study of the secret inner thoughts of the individuals in question, we can only study what he spoke or did, and what others recorded of him saying and doing. Therefore, we cannot dismiss the Table Talks just because they don't offer us a record into his most innermost thoughts. It also doesn't matter, as Nielsen argues, that the Table Talks offer nothing new with regards to several topics with what Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf. Whether the Table Talks offer anything new or not is irrelevant. It's still a source of information, and either confirms Hitler's views, or shows they changed over time. That's it. We can't dismiss it because Hitler's views stayed or didn't stay consistent. And, at the end of the section with Zittelmann, Nielsen says that the Table Talks were Hitler's words reconstructed mostly from memory. They show a Hitler-redux, hence the title of the book. This thereby confirms that they are usable, and that the criticism levelled at the aforementioned historians including Zittelmann isn't entirely justified. He then says "...this only goes to show that even serious historians have trouble letting go of sources that they have used and come to like, not to a small degree because they confirm deeply held beliefs about Hitler." Yes, we're not letting go of a valid source until it is proven to be a forgery, which hasn't happened yet. Nielsen hasn't proven it to be a forgery. When it is proven a forgery, we will then dismiss it. Until then, we will keep it. And yes, we are starved of sources when it comes to Hitler's true beliefs. Therefore, historians aren't willing to just throw out a source that you don't like until it has proven a forgery. But I think the best bit is when he chastises Zittelmann for propagating the myth that Hitler was an anti-Semite before the First World War, and that he was a brave soldier and won two Iron Crosses. He then says that these myths have been disproven by Thomas Weber's Hitler's First War, published in 2010, and Anton Joachim Thaler's Hitler's Weg Begann in München, published in 2000. But Zittelmann wrote his book in the 1980s, so how was Zittelmann meant to have known that these were myths when it wasn't proven they were myths until decades later? I would say that's a little unfair. Zittelmann might be good, but he cannot predict the future. Now there was valid criticism of Zittelmann. Nielsen points out that Zittelmann used sources that were proven to be forgeries several years before his book was published. Zittelmann did make a note about these sources in his book, saying that they would be used with reservation. But yes, this is a valid criticism. However, I get the impression that Nielsen just assumes that every historian has read all the works that he's read, and all the works that came before the date of publication. Obviously, that's not true, and this is a dangerous bias. Just because a book was published by the time I say something here, doesn't mean that I've read it, or even agree with it. For example, let's take a look at, I don't know, the Table Talks? I was told not to use the English version, so I didn't. I used the German version. However, having recently read Carrier and Nielsen, I now have a better understanding of the problems with the book. Great. But I didn't read Carrier until recently, even though he wrote his criticism of the Table Talks in 2003. Why? Because I can't read everything. I had listened to his talks on Christianity a while back, but I didn't even know or expect that he'd written anything on Hitler. So how was I meant to know about his work on the Table Talks? You can't just assume that I'm 100% up-to-date and have read absolutely every book that has ever been written. That's an unfair assumption to make, and also physically impossible. And remember, history is subjective, so even if I did read a book, I may subjectively doubt the findings of a particular author. I may not agree with you, or Carrier's conclusions. Zittelmann may not have read, or even agree with, some of the books that came out before his own. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, but you can't assume that every historian you've mentioned is fully aware of those works. I've almost conclusively proven that Wilhelm Hoffmann's diary at Stalingrad was false, or most likely a forgery, for the reasons stated in that video. But I doubt that many of the mainstream historians have even heard of me, let alone watched that video. So I can forgive them if they still use Hoffmann in their works, because they may not agree with my findings, even if they did know about it, because history is subjective. In fact, not even the German texts of the Table Talks are primary sources, in the sense that, for example, Mein Kampf and Hitler's Writer's Book are. They are a secondary source with regard to Hitler's statements, based on the recollections of those who heard him speak. They are thus primary sources, in the same sense that Goebbels' diaries, or any other retroactive recollection of what Hitler said, are primary sources. And those are primary sources. According to Ranker, the German historian who invented modern history, as well as the terms primary and secondary sources, primary sources are those sources written by people who were there and witnessed the event. He did not say that they have to write the primary source immediately afterwards. So long as they had witnessed the event, they were primary sources of the event. Thus, the Table Talks are primary sources, not secondary sources, as you state in the middle of the paragraph. Goebbels' diaries are also primary sources for the same reason. Goebbels witnessed the events he's talking about. Well, so did Picker, Heim, and so on. Now I 100% agree that Ranker did not make the distinction between when a primary source was written, and that is a flaw when it comes to the way we think about memoirs. But I have been on record as saying this in the past, so I have no problem saying it again. Memoirs written years after the events in question are not as reliable as other primary sources. However, they are still classed as primary sources, and they still should be used with reservation. And in the case of the Table Talks, obviously some of it was written at the time. So clearly, they're better than some of the other memoirs that were out there, since elements are based on notes taken at the time, which in the case of other memoirs isn't always the case. There's more to Nielsen's arguments, and I could keep going here, but I think I've made a significant enough dent in the argument he's presented that there's no point flogging a dead horse. Ultimately, we can still use the German version of the Table Talks, but we should treat them as memoirs, not as stenographic notes. Also, history is deeply flawed since every source is problematic, but it's down to each individual to discover their subjective truth about the world. And they must do that by continuing their journey through history, which they can do by watching these videos right here. Thanks for watching, bye for now.