There's a saying that when it comes to history that "All that is true is not new and all that is new is not true" and this is certainly correct. I recently read John Mosier's The Myth Of The Great War and this sums up the saying . Revisonary history where facts are ignored and subjectively made by using different and highly biased stats in order to come to an incorrect conclusion . Did you know the Germans won the battle of the Marne in 1914 and the battle of Verdun in 1916 ? Not something I'd read before Mosier brought it to the public attention and a view that contradicts nearly ever other historian's analysis of The Great War . It also begs the question if the Germans were so successful why didn't they win the war ? That's because according to Mosier it was the American army's introduction to the war that won it for the allies . Certainly this was a factor in the attrition involving the conflict where Britain , France and Germany were dead on their feet but it should also be remembered that in the 100 days the British army killed and captured more Germans than the French , Belgian and American armies combined . A fact ignored by Mosier who also ignores the fact that the British navel blockade had effectively starved Germany in to submission and if it wasn't for the 1918 armistice Germany would have collapsed sometime in 1919 . Of course it's possibly wrong to single out Mosier for subjective bias disguised as fact but The Myth Of The Great War is a classic example of what I'm talking about and ADOLPH Hitler THE GREATEST STORY NEVER TOLD by Dennis Wise intrigued me judging by the comments here . As someone who can't find out enough about military history would this documentary tell me something I didn't know ?
The early part does the age old technique of documentary storytelling by having a combination of archive footage , reconstruction and voice over . We learn the early life of Hitler who was born in an Austrian town , was a choir boy at the local Catholic chapel that had a Swastika in its stained glass window which Hitler later adopted as his party's symbol . He wanted to be an artist and when war broke out in 1914 he enlisted in the German army where he was a popular soldier with his comrades , had a fairly distinguished military career and heard of the armistice when he was recovering in a hospital bed while suffering from gas poisoning . Leaving the army he found Germany tearing itself apart with factions of the left and right . Forming the right wing National Socialist German Workers Party Hitler enters constitutional democratic politics , becomes part of a coalition government in 1933 and abolishes democracy . In his favour as the 1930s progress he achieves full employment and eradicates hyper-inflation while the rest of the Western world is still suffering from The Great Depression . The Nazis even introduce environmentalist programes and warn about the dangers of smoking tobacco
So far so good but it didn't tell this viewer a single thing he hadn't already known . After 45 minutes of this the documentary takes a sharp twist in tone and becomes what many people on this page recognise this as - propaganda of the worst sort . The communists and democracies were all in cahoots with one another and it was all down to the Jews . Every cheap trick is used to paint the Nazis as being nowhere as bad as history has painted them . The German military had Jewish soldiers in it . Yes but even here there's spin put upon it . The Jewish blood line is maternal so someone called "Goldberg" possibly wouldn't qualify as Jewish under Rabbinic tradition . Neither might they be viewed as Jewish under the Nazi regime . Erhard Milch , Eric Von Mannstien and Reinhard Heydrich were of vague Jewish descent . Indeed it might have been that the Nazi hierarchy had people such as Eichmann and Hitler himself of having a long distant Jewish bloodline . It doesn't alter the fact that the Nazis were genocidal racists who hated non Aryan races in general and the Jewish race in particular and millions were murdered for "Not being European enough"
Perhaps the worst aspect is the what-a-aboutery and moral equivalence on show here . Every low blow in the book is used to paint the Nazis as not doing any thing much worse than anyone else might have been doing . Stalin invaded neighbouring countries and murdered millions . Stalin reduced the population of the Soviet Union to cannibalism . This is entirely true but as anyone who has the most basic knowledge of the Second World War will tell you off the top of their head that during the Nazi siege of Leningrad 1.5 million brave defenders died with many of them starving to death . Pot . Kettle . Black . Likewise the American racism against the native population of the 19th Century and the "Jim Crow" laws are brought . Well Mr Wise if you want to make a documentary chronicling American racism please don't let us stop you but don't make a documentary justifying or excusing genocide as this one tries and fails to do
The early part does the age old technique of documentary storytelling by having a combination of archive footage , reconstruction and voice over . We learn the early life of Hitler who was born in an Austrian town , was a choir boy at the local Catholic chapel that had a Swastika in its stained glass window which Hitler later adopted as his party's symbol . He wanted to be an artist and when war broke out in 1914 he enlisted in the German army where he was a popular soldier with his comrades , had a fairly distinguished military career and heard of the armistice when he was recovering in a hospital bed while suffering from gas poisoning . Leaving the army he found Germany tearing itself apart with factions of the left and right . Forming the right wing National Socialist German Workers Party Hitler enters constitutional democratic politics , becomes part of a coalition government in 1933 and abolishes democracy . In his favour as the 1930s progress he achieves full employment and eradicates hyper-inflation while the rest of the Western world is still suffering from The Great Depression . The Nazis even introduce environmentalist programes and warn about the dangers of smoking tobacco
So far so good but it didn't tell this viewer a single thing he hadn't already known . After 45 minutes of this the documentary takes a sharp twist in tone and becomes what many people on this page recognise this as - propaganda of the worst sort . The communists and democracies were all in cahoots with one another and it was all down to the Jews . Every cheap trick is used to paint the Nazis as being nowhere as bad as history has painted them . The German military had Jewish soldiers in it . Yes but even here there's spin put upon it . The Jewish blood line is maternal so someone called "Goldberg" possibly wouldn't qualify as Jewish under Rabbinic tradition . Neither might they be viewed as Jewish under the Nazi regime . Erhard Milch , Eric Von Mannstien and Reinhard Heydrich were of vague Jewish descent . Indeed it might have been that the Nazi hierarchy had people such as Eichmann and Hitler himself of having a long distant Jewish bloodline . It doesn't alter the fact that the Nazis were genocidal racists who hated non Aryan races in general and the Jewish race in particular and millions were murdered for "Not being European enough"
Perhaps the worst aspect is the what-a-aboutery and moral equivalence on show here . Every low blow in the book is used to paint the Nazis as not doing any thing much worse than anyone else might have been doing . Stalin invaded neighbouring countries and murdered millions . Stalin reduced the population of the Soviet Union to cannibalism . This is entirely true but as anyone who has the most basic knowledge of the Second World War will tell you off the top of their head that during the Nazi siege of Leningrad 1.5 million brave defenders died with many of them starving to death . Pot . Kettle . Black . Likewise the American racism against the native population of the 19th Century and the "Jim Crow" laws are brought . Well Mr Wise if you want to make a documentary chronicling American racism please don't let us stop you but don't make a documentary justifying or excusing genocide as this one tries and fails to do