 Reply-To: H-NET List for History of the Holocaust
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Wednesday, August 9, 2000 List Editor: Jim Mott Questions about an Irving Cite (Nack) From: Irwin Nack I RECENTLY finished a small biography on Erwin Rommel written back in 1983 by Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr. At the end of the book, Mitcham discusses Rommel's
connection to the July 20th plotters and relates a
conversation Rommel allegedly had with SS General Sepp
Dietrich on July 17, 1944 (several hours before Rommel
was seriously wounded in an air attack and three days before
the failed attempt on Hitler's life). According to Mitcham,
Rommel "went so far as to ask Dietrich, Given the Dietrich's long history of loyalty to Hitler, this seemed somewhat far-fetched. My suspicions were confirmed when the footnote to the passage cited David Irving's "Hitler's War" Has anyone ever come across a reference to such support (or even inaction) by Dietrich from a (shall we say) "more reliable source"?
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DAVID IRVING has written this response to Mott and Nack, Thursday, August 10, 2000 WHEN people have questions to ask about my sources, why do they engage in this fearful whispering campaign behind my back instead of asking me outright? I am highly accessible, with a very large website; and letters addressed to me as "David Irving, writer, London," reach me without difficulty. (Try it!) Mr Nack asks about a reported highly unusual exchange between Sepp Dietrich and Field Marshal Rommel. An author (quite wrongly) cites my biography Hitler's War as his source. It is not in any of the editions of that work, including the current millennium edition (available as a free download at www.fpp.co.uk/books).
The Dietrich-Rommel dialogue was reported by another general who was present at the time. He overheard it, and related it in British captivity (a CSDIC (UK) Report). That document, and all my other source documents for Rommel -- I was the first to identify and transcribe his shorthand diaries --, are archived on my microfilms DJ150 thru DJ160, which I have deposited with the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich, and which are also available from Academic Microfilms Ltd in Wakefield, England. It may be that your correspondent Mr Nack's inquiry will turn up somebody he can regard (with a sneer) as a "more reliable source" than me: but I doubt it. David Irving
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Would
you always execute my orders, even if they contradicted the
Fuehrer's orders? Dietrich extended his hand and replied,
"You're the boss, Herr Feldmarschall, I obey only you --
whatever it is you're planning."
Perhaps
the American author did not want to reveal how heavily his
Rommel biography derived from my own famous 1977 Rommel
biography Trail of the
Fox (E P Dutton Inc., New
York; Weidenfeld, London; Mondadori, Milan; Hoffmann &
Campe, Germany; Der Spiegel, Germany, etc., etc.)©Focal Point 2000
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