your Michael Tang of Hong Kong asks, , for our opinions on three historians Ian Kershaw, Richard “Skunky” Evans, Peter Padfield — WHAT’S your opinion on their works? Personally I find Ian Kershaw to be the better one, though he’s a bit lazy on doing any primary research, and is just profiting from the efforts of others and the halo of his less than justified reputation in historiography.

As for Richard Evans , I have read his In Hitler’s Shadow , a piece of total crappy anti-German propaganda that’s not even worth the paper printed on. But Peter Padfield must rank as one of the lowliest scums in publishing. All his biographies of Himmler , Dönitz or Hess are rubbish — shoddily written and researched, though dressed up as serious historiographical studies through the listing of original sources like KTBs [ war diaries ] (he even claimed the SA was a Freikorps!) Michael Tang