I think this can apply to any piece of work where you’ve invested time and energy and seen it hijacked. I won’t elaborate but I recently wrote a guidance document that went on the web, following a spell of critical feedback, rewriting and much huffing and puffing on my part. I was browsing the web at a later date for some info and found a document that was strangely familiar… my efforts had been nicked and repurposed. I’m still not sure whether to be pleased because they thought it was a worthy piece of guidance, or annoyed because of all the aggro I went through to write it without any credit! Hey ho.
Well Walt – couldn’t agree with you more! Been happening to me for years. But it isn’t always historians who fail to give credit. Sometimes it’s governments!
In 1978 I wrote to The US Department of State telling them I thought I had located two bars of Reichbank gold, missing since 1945. Could they please help and investigate? Nope! I didn’t give up and in 1983 with some help from the Sunday Times I finally got their attention. The Department of State said they would investigate (although they knew nothing about it!) and could I send them all my records and research material which I did.
By March 1985 State reported it had been unable to ascertain the disposition of the gold bars so they were going to approach the German government to see if they could help.
Fast forward to May 1997. Bank of England issue a press release saying they had received 2 bars of gold bullion in September 1996 which were identifiable as the two bars of gold that I had written about in my book Nazi Gold published in 1984. Yes, the same two! So, I wrote to State to ask what was going on. Unfortunately, the Assistant Legal Adviser who had been ‘dealing with it’ from 1978 died in July 1997 and the new guy couldn’t tell me what had happened.
I only found out a couple of years ago that the two bars had been turned over to the US government by the German government in an official ceremony on the 27th September 1996. And I wasn’t even invited!!! How bad is that? There was a cover up by the British, US, German and French governments. I have the papers now but not a single acknowledgment from the US government. However, on a brighter note, the Secretary General of the Tripartite Gold Commission, knew the whole background and arranged for me to see, handle and be photographed with ‘my’ Nazi Gold in the gold bullion vaults of the Bank of England.
Here's another one. In 2010 the US Congress sanctioned the official publication of a book entitled Hitler’s Shadow – Nazi War Criminals, US Intelligence, and the Cold War. The preface states the book has ‘produced new evidence of war crimes ….post-war documents on the search for war criminals….
One section is devoted to ‘The Cases of Eugen Fischer and Anton Mahler’. This is the opening paragraph. ‘The cases of Eugen Fischer and Anton Mahler, two senior Gestapo officers in Munich and Augsburg, demonstrate similarities to the Barbie case. Historians have known about this since the 1980s that the CIC had relationships with them. But their CIC files provide many new details’. This is suffixed by Note 41 which does cite my book ‘America’s Secret Army -The Untold Story of the Counter Intelligence Corps’ published in 1989.
However, that casual nod is totally inaccurate because in a 1989 edition of World War Investigator (a magazine I had formerly owned) the lead article, splashed on the cover, is ‘America’s Gestapo Network’. Seven pages including the ‘new’ CIC files and a list of questions for the US Government on the case. So, if you read that story you didn’t have to wait another 21 years to learn what I had already exposed in great detail.
Jun 15, 2022·edited Jun 15, 2022Liked by Guy Walters
Great Post Guy & one I can empathise with. I spent my doctoral studies writing the biography of Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy, legal expert on marriage & family law & militant suffragist. My book was published in 2011, when few historians (let alone the general public) knew EWE existed. Now, in 2022, she's featured on the Fawcett statue plinth in Parliament Square & has her own statue in Congleton, Cheshire where she lived for 50 years.
In suffrage circles EWE is now a "household name", and school children in Cheshire know her story. I recently met an A'level student who is trying for Oxbrige. She told me she hopes to write Elmy's next biography! At first I was a bit taken aback, EWE was "my" topic, but then I thought again. If history is to evolve, new interpretations (well informed ones only of course,) need to be encouraged. And I'm too much in my dotage to want to write from another angle. Before too long I found myself sharing with this bright young scholar just how she could write about Elmy from a totally different angle, making something new of the sources by using a different methodology. I actually got a feel good feeling into the bargain!
I read Rubenhold’s book and listened to her podcast, both fascinating. The response from largely male (I imagine) Ripperologists was simply outrageous. I’m not an academic or historian but I do think it’s important that due credit is given to whom ever did the original research. A later writer might something new but they should acknowledge their launching point. As an aside I think we are living in a golden period; fabulous new books, terrific on line resources, and great presentations such as yours and your buddy Adrian Weale’s.
I think this can apply to any piece of work where you’ve invested time and energy and seen it hijacked. I won’t elaborate but I recently wrote a guidance document that went on the web, following a spell of critical feedback, rewriting and much huffing and puffing on my part. I was browsing the web at a later date for some info and found a document that was strangely familiar… my efforts had been nicked and repurposed. I’m still not sure whether to be pleased because they thought it was a worthy piece of guidance, or annoyed because of all the aggro I went through to write it without any credit! Hey ho.
Well Walt – couldn’t agree with you more! Been happening to me for years. But it isn’t always historians who fail to give credit. Sometimes it’s governments!
In 1978 I wrote to The US Department of State telling them I thought I had located two bars of Reichbank gold, missing since 1945. Could they please help and investigate? Nope! I didn’t give up and in 1983 with some help from the Sunday Times I finally got their attention. The Department of State said they would investigate (although they knew nothing about it!) and could I send them all my records and research material which I did.
By March 1985 State reported it had been unable to ascertain the disposition of the gold bars so they were going to approach the German government to see if they could help.
Fast forward to May 1997. Bank of England issue a press release saying they had received 2 bars of gold bullion in September 1996 which were identifiable as the two bars of gold that I had written about in my book Nazi Gold published in 1984. Yes, the same two! So, I wrote to State to ask what was going on. Unfortunately, the Assistant Legal Adviser who had been ‘dealing with it’ from 1978 died in July 1997 and the new guy couldn’t tell me what had happened.
I only found out a couple of years ago that the two bars had been turned over to the US government by the German government in an official ceremony on the 27th September 1996. And I wasn’t even invited!!! How bad is that? There was a cover up by the British, US, German and French governments. I have the papers now but not a single acknowledgment from the US government. However, on a brighter note, the Secretary General of the Tripartite Gold Commission, knew the whole background and arranged for me to see, handle and be photographed with ‘my’ Nazi Gold in the gold bullion vaults of the Bank of England.
Here's another one. In 2010 the US Congress sanctioned the official publication of a book entitled Hitler’s Shadow – Nazi War Criminals, US Intelligence, and the Cold War. The preface states the book has ‘produced new evidence of war crimes ….post-war documents on the search for war criminals….
One section is devoted to ‘The Cases of Eugen Fischer and Anton Mahler’. This is the opening paragraph. ‘The cases of Eugen Fischer and Anton Mahler, two senior Gestapo officers in Munich and Augsburg, demonstrate similarities to the Barbie case. Historians have known about this since the 1980s that the CIC had relationships with them. But their CIC files provide many new details’. This is suffixed by Note 41 which does cite my book ‘America’s Secret Army -The Untold Story of the Counter Intelligence Corps’ published in 1989.
However, that casual nod is totally inaccurate because in a 1989 edition of World War Investigator (a magazine I had formerly owned) the lead article, splashed on the cover, is ‘America’s Gestapo Network’. Seven pages including the ‘new’ CIC files and a list of questions for the US Government on the case. So, if you read that story you didn’t have to wait another 21 years to learn what I had already exposed in great detail.
Great Post Guy & one I can empathise with. I spent my doctoral studies writing the biography of Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy, legal expert on marriage & family law & militant suffragist. My book was published in 2011, when few historians (let alone the general public) knew EWE existed. Now, in 2022, she's featured on the Fawcett statue plinth in Parliament Square & has her own statue in Congleton, Cheshire where she lived for 50 years.
In suffrage circles EWE is now a "household name", and school children in Cheshire know her story. I recently met an A'level student who is trying for Oxbrige. She told me she hopes to write Elmy's next biography! At first I was a bit taken aback, EWE was "my" topic, but then I thought again. If history is to evolve, new interpretations (well informed ones only of course,) need to be encouraged. And I'm too much in my dotage to want to write from another angle. Before too long I found myself sharing with this bright young scholar just how she could write about Elmy from a totally different angle, making something new of the sources by using a different methodology. I actually got a feel good feeling into the bargain!
I read Rubenhold’s book and listened to her podcast, both fascinating. The response from largely male (I imagine) Ripperologists was simply outrageous. I’m not an academic or historian but I do think it’s important that due credit is given to whom ever did the original research. A later writer might something new but they should acknowledge their launching point. As an aside I think we are living in a golden period; fabulous new books, terrific on line resources, and great presentations such as yours and your buddy Adrian Weale’s.
This kind of behaviour renews my faith in Wikipedia. It never grumbles about others.