The Flight from Hitler's Shadow: Making Martyrs of Evil

Hey everyone, it’s good to be back with all of you. I’ve just finished a lengthy writing session for grad school—my final semester of classes!—as well as some family issues that needed my immediate attention during most of March. But I’m back with a new special, historiography-focused episode of History Impossible. It was actually not one I was planning to do, but after my lengthy and productive conversation with the host of the Crackpot History podcast, and after the incredibly positive reception I received from that interview, I decided it was probably a good idea to get deep into the historiographic weeds with the recent tumult that continues regarding Darryl Cooper’s Martyr Made podcast and its own attempt at revising World War II and Third Reich history.

When it comes down to it, trying to be a revisionist about World War II is probably like trying to be a revisionist about something like Star Wars. You can certainly try and do it, and you might even be good at it, but you’re always going to encounter people who know more (or at least truly believe they know more) than you ever will. That honestly has always interested me less when it comes to Darryl’s work on this subject; I have always been much more interested in specifically where he gets his information since, frankly, that is what he has always been the most cagey about. While his admission of using David Irving is well-enough known, there is much more to this story of where the premise of “Enemy: The Germans’ War” actually seems to be coming from (at least, as of its current releases).

Because I cannot leave well enough alone, this is an exploration through the archives of where such ideas as those we’ve been hearing about from Darryl Cooper and many of those in his historiographic wheelhouse have their origin.

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