David Irving

The War Path

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The writing of Hitler's War: In a rather rude letter, David Irving explains to his publisher, May 1968

David Irving writes:

ONCE AGAIN we are indebted to Linda Nelson of Illinois for producing the pdf file by scanning the original book. It is very labour-intensive work, and demands skill and meticulous concentration. On November 26, 2002 I wrote to her explaining why it was important to prepare a text scan of The War Path (the first stage of preparing the pdf file).

Let me reveal my thinking: I have recently looked at the first editions (1978, 1978) of Hitler's War and The War Path and I feel that they lost style and readability in the abridging process, which I partly did myself and partly subcontracted to others. I am therefore planning in 2-3 years' time to produce an expanded two-volume edition of the book, beautifully illustrated, using the original 1977, 1978 texts, and including the new materials that have been brought into the 2001 edition.

I found myself being criticized by the Court in the Lipstadt trial for having cut out what they considered to be key sentences or paragraphs (in the abridging process); of course they were not deliberately cut for political, slanting reasons, but that is what the Court maintained.

This task will involve producing clean text scans of both the 1977 and 1978 volumes, which can then also be posted as pdfs, of course using the original indices; and then embarking on the delicate task of prising them apart and inserting the implants. For which I may hire a suitable brainy person, as it will involve only surgery. I would then edit the resulting two volumes, and perhaps even insert the annotations on a numbered basis, which is what students always look for.

FACT: The 1991 Focal Point edition is now out of print; copies sell for $500 and $1000 each on Amazon.com

THE book The War Path was originally written as part of the biography, Hitler's War. In 1975 the German publisher Ullstein, without informing me, quietly dropped these sixteen chapters from the book and began their edition, Hitler und seine Feldherren, with the outbreak of war; this made nonsense of many of the references in later chapters, but that is how publishers sometimes are. I ordered all sales of the German edition halted as soon as I found out.

After Hitler's war became an international bestseller, I had no difficulty in finding major publishers for the prewar chapters, which appeared as The War Path.