Joachim Peiper by Jens Westemeier, A Review

[phylo_roadking]

Been a problem all night........I'd better go whilst I am completely demolished

The first version was the more obviously correct of the two!

[phylo_roadking]

I wonder if Michael has anything in his bookcases I could borrow - "The Ladybird Book of War Criminals"? "Jamie Oliver's Stalingrad Cookbook - 101 recipes for a dead horse"? "Children's Travel Compendium - I-Spy Concentration Camps"?...

[Uncle Joe]

"...convicted war criminals." This is my favorite as it is a very clever way to condemn one combatant as the convictions were solely based on being on the losing side.

[Tom Houlihan]

The review too biased, too emotionaly tied to the subject, to be of any value to an independent mind.

Damen und Herren, it would seem that too much personal animosity has been allowed to impact this thread. Let's see if we can get it squared away, shall we?

First of all, a book review, by anyone, is simply their opinion of the work. A good review presents the writer's take on the work, hopefully backed up by examples from the book. Now, in a case such as this, speculation as to why the author has written two entirely different books on the same man may or may not have a place. Personally, I think this speculation is valid in this case. Oberst Westermeier has his own reasons for writing what he did, and face it. It is possible that he is unable to discuss them publicly. Or, he just might not give a sh*t what any of us think about his personal motives.

Erik bought the book, and read it. He wrote a review. If you don't like the review, fine! There is no need to attack Erik, or his motives, or his personal politics, or to amplify the fact that you think he's a son-of-a-b*tch and you can't stand him! There is no requirement to like anybody here!

If you think his review is BS, then go get your own copy, read it, and write your own review! Don't write it to spite Erik, or to suck up to JW. Write it to share your opinion of the book with others. I've written several reviews on this site, and others (okay, I copied the same ones!). Some people agreed, some people disagreed. I was dismayed by one response in particular, but I finally realized it wasn't personal. So, I did what I recommend all of you do. I got over it!!

I find it hard to fathom why so many people are contributing to this thread, never having read the book. These quotes seem to sum it up:

This is true; without facts at your disposal from reading the books, how could you embark on an argument? Uninformed opinion is much safer ground

Might be a runner...................if I didn't have a range of other publications that give me an insight into Peiper and his actions. That 'balanced and rounded view' culled from a great number of books not specific to the man give me the confidence to say Eric's review is biased. Far more biased about Peiper than anything I have read in Agte.

Mike, seriously, how can you attack Erik's review of this book, based on what you've read in other books? The review is about this one book in particular. How can you say Erik's review is biased? You haven't read the book, so you don't know! I haven't read the book, which is why I've stayed out of this.

This thread is way too long for what it's supposed to be. The bulk of this thread is not discussing the book. The bulk of this thread is attacking the author of the review. I really don't care about Erik's motivations, although I will confess I've had the opportunity to discuss this matter with him. I would recommend that if you haven't read the book, you stay out of this discussion until you have something of significance to contribute.

[michael kenny]

[quote="Tom HoulihanErik bought the book, and read it. He wrote a review. If you don't like the review, fine! There is no need to attack Erik, or his motives, or his personal politics, or to amplify the fact that you think he's a son-of-a-b*tch and you can't stand him! There is no requirement to like anybody here!

[/quote]

And where can we se all this?

I siad the review was too biased.
I never mentioned personal politics or attacked anyone.

I was dismayed by one response in particular, but I finally realized it wasn't personal. So, I did what I recommend all of you do. I got over it!!

Sound advice!

[michael kenny]

"...convicted war criminals." This is my favorite as it is a very clever way to condemn one combatant as the convictions were solely based on being on the losing side.

Do you mean he was framed? The evidence was planted?

[Paddy Keating]

Michael,

There are a number of fairly balanced accounts of the trial of the KG Peiper men accused not just of the Malmedy massacre but of other killings of surrendered American soldiers and more than a hundred Belgian civilians. It is quite clear that confessions were obtained by torture prior to the trial and that the death sentences were not carried out because the convictions were unsafe.

As for Erik's review, I can only endorse Tom Houlihan's remarks. It is a balanced review and it is perhaps that balance that has rendered it so provocative from the viewpoints of the small but vocal group of people who attacked it on another website and are now trying the same strategy here, albeit within the behavourial parameters imposed by the hardworking Feldgrau moderator team. However, Oberst Westemeier is certainly prepared to discuss his work, as this screenshot shows.



PK

[sid guttridge]

Hi PK and pzrmeyer,

So, in essence, you are offering absolutely no evidence that Westermeier's second book was in any way influenced by the requirements of furthering his military career, but "speculate a possible motive"! Hardly the most convincing basis for an argument! We can all "speculate a motive", but unless it has some basis in evidence it carriers no value whatsoever and amounts to mere unsupported innuendo. It is a classic case of "playing the man, not the ball".

No, I haven't read either book. But I have read your "review" and posts here.

What I have learnd from these is that;

1) By your own admission Westermeier's book is not plagued by any major factual errors.

2) That he is not a bad historian.

3) That you yourselves indulge in non-evidence based "speculation" on the subject.

So why should one prefer your critique of Westermeier's work over the book itself?

As far as I can see, you don't contend that Westermeier's opinions lie outside the available evidence, just that you don't like the tone of his latest critique. Is that fair?

Cheers,

Sid.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Tom,

A review is as much up for discussion as the subject of that review.

Just as one must maintain a reasonable standard of evidence when writing a historical work, one must maintain a reasonable standard of evidence when writing a review.

What is more, a review is no more immune from questioning than the book it is reviewing.

In this case the reviewer in one area, by his own admission, strayed into the territory of pure speculation. In doing so, he attacked the author, not the contents of the book being reviewed, which all seem agreed are factually pretty accurate. This is known as "playing the man, not the ball" after the football foul.

Rather than defend the indefensible, surely the best thing is to withdraw the purely speculative part of the review?

There is a natural tendency amongst all of us to defend anything we have written. However, we all occasionally overstate our cases and, in the interests of accuracy and reputation it is sometimes prudent to back off a little.

Cheers,

Sid.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Phylo,

May I add the following titles to your reading list, which appeared in an earlier Feldgrau thread:

"Mein Kampf" by Adolf Hitler.

In which the moderate leader of the liberal democratic NSDAP reveals his compassionate struggle to promote inter-ethnic tolerance and the status quo in post-Versailles Germany for fear that anything less may lead to a conflagration even worse than the Great War.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


"Denial Denied" by Maximo Volte-Fasce.

In which the prominent Holocaust denier dispassionately reassesses the weight of evidence available and concedes that he was wrong.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


"OK, we were a little on the rough side occasionally." by Gunther Meek.

The fullish, frankish and candidish confessions of the "Only the Entertainments Officer" of the Waffen-SS's really well behaved 39th "Baron von Munchausen" Volunteer Division. Including reproductions of the original recommendations that gained meek the Ritterkreuz mit Rhinestones.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Paddy Keating]

1) By your own admission Westermeier's book is not plagued by any major factual errors.

Wrong.

3) That you yourselves indulge in non-evidence based "speculation" on the subject.

Speculation is allowable as long as it is not misrepresented as fact.

So why should one prefer your critique of Westermeier's work over the book itself?

I do not think either of us expects anyone to prefer Erik's review of Westemeier's revised work to the work itself. The review is nothing more than Erik's opinion. Some of us agree with it. Others don't. Some agree with some of it.

As far as I can see, you don't contend that Westermeier's opinions lie outside the available evidence, just that you don't like the tone of his latest critique. Is that fair?

That's a no-brainer question, as far as I am concerned. As it happens, I did not much like the "tone" of Westemeier's first book and I am just as unimpressed by the "tone" of this one. As I said, in my opinion, neither text would have made it past a professional editor and into print without some fairly major editing.

That's not a swipe at the author, by the way. 99% of book manuscripts require extensive editing and rewriting. Neither of Westemeier's texts or drafts appear to have been reviewed by an editor.

PK

[sid guttridge]

Hi Paddy,

1) What are the major factual errors then?

2) What is the value of speculation if it has no evidential back up? We can all speculate in a fantasy world, but here we are talking history, which is evidentially based.

3) Fair comment.

4) God preserve us from interfering editors! I don't mind them making a text read easier, but they shouldn't interfere with the "tone" of a manuscript. That is not their job. The "tone" has to be set by the author. The editor's job is to ensure that this "tone" is conveyed to the reader in an easily inderstood manner, not to censor the contents in order to alter the tone.

Cheers,

Sid.

[phylo_roadking]

"The Ladybird Book of War Criminals"? "Jamie Oliver's Stalingrad Cookbook - 101 recipes for a dead horse"? "Children's Travel Compendium - I-Spy Concentration Camps"?

"Mein Kampf" by Adolf Hitler.

"Denial Denied" by Maximo Volte-Fasce.

"OK, we were a little on the rough side occasionally." by Gunther Meek.

Sid, there are times when sarcasm is an unknown country to you, aren't there? And going by that you aren't ever going to get a visa to visit.

[pzrmeyer2]

Hey Sid! Here´s an idea: READ THE F--KING BOOK

why are you so hung up on my ¨speculation¨? why is it so unreasonable to offer up a possibilty as to why an author has by his own admission done a complete 180 on his subject? and without any noted new information? and how EXACTLY is this in any way a character slur?
Moreover, funny how you ignore the actual slur submitted without any evidence that an another author, Agte, is a committed adherant of ¨reichsheini´s¨pseudo racial polices (whatever that means). what is your explanation for why Westemeier so completely changed his views? everyone talks about all these new sources yet surprisingly there is no evidence to support this in the book. nearly every cited source dates back to the mid 90s.

furthermore, when I asked for S P E C I F I C evidence from esteemed members Jan Hendrik and Timo that I got anything wrong in my analysis or what EXACTLY Peiper is allegedly guilty of, it is interesting to note that we havent seen or heard from them since.

why arent you upset by yet another and another book made by authors who are profitting by highlighting the useless, ineffective, spotlight stealing Waffen SS? seems its not the groupies churning out this stuff now is it?

As far the ¨convicted war criminal¨post by the troller Kenny, I wonder if there is a member here who is an attorney who can tell us how long it would take (in seconds) for his conviction to be thrown out an appeal. I mean does anyone honestly think that it would stand in a modern, democratic court? All we have is an enormous farce of justice largely done by vengeance seeking folks from the race that that the regime Peiper served in targeted running roughshod with circumstancial evidence, coercion, torture, mock executions, and retroactive application of laws. Apparently the biggest thing you all come up with is that he was an observer of an execution by an experimental method at the time. Please. Hardly an action worthy of a lifetimeof imprisionment, harassment, and murder.

Methinks this is really about an attempt to destroy a person who against his will was made a poster-boy by a regime looking for war heroes to feed its weary population. Timo Worst even confirmed to me of correspondence showing that Peiper was uncomfortable with his celebrity and constant spotlighing with the golden pheseants. Since the nazis held peiper up to be a hero, modern day walter mitty nazi hunters have made it their mission to try to demolish the man despite mountains of personal testimonies that he was a well-respected combat leader and lack of direct evidence that he willfully, knowingly, particpiated and ordered war crimes.

[Paddy Keating]

Guttridge,

An editor's job involves, amongst other things, ensuring objectivity and factual accuracy where necessary. Of course no editor should impose style upon writers in an ideal situation but many "writers" cannot write and their copy needs styling if the readers' experience is not to evoke a sensation of chewing cardboard or watching paint dry. Were it otherwise, serious publishing houses would not have teams of efficient editors to turn their authors' output into acceptable prose. Of course, not all serious publishing houses can claim that all of their editors are as good as they should be. Some publishing houses, at the vanity and pay-to-publish end of the market, do not have any editors at all, which is why so many militaria and military history-related books contain texts full of errors of various kinds and illiterate captions. I have just finished thumbing through a new edition of Skorzeny's memoir and all I can say is that the English is atrocious and the edition should not have made it into print without revisions and corrections. But perhaps you think that this equates to "tone" and that editors should not interfere with the "tone" and "style" of a writer, even if his command of language is questionable? I am sure this is all very "democratic", Guttridge, but one can carry the democratisation - or dumbing down of things so peepel kan unnerstan wot izz aw abaht - of things a bit too far. We could do with a culling not just of bluffers in terms of writing but their counterparts in the specialist publishing business if for no other reason than the amount of paper and ink that would be saved for products that deserve to be on the shelves.

I suppose I am a tad conservative...

PK