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edwest2 26th April 2016 20:27

Phoenix - a complete history of the luftwaffe 1918-1945. Volume 1
 
An ambitious undertaking. Available now.


http://www.helion.co.uk/phoenix-a-co...1918-1934.html





Usual disclaimer,
Ed

Fanair 9th May 2016 18:33

Re: Phoenix - a complete history of the luftwaffe 1918-1945. Volume 1
 
Hello, do you have the table of contents of this book ?

Thank you very much

Alain

edwest2 23rd May 2016 19:30

Re: Phoenix - a complete history of the luftwaffe 1918-1945. Volume 1
 
I am sorry, but I do not have this information. Perhaps you can write to the publisher.




Best,
Ed

Rudi Penker 24th May 2016 14:36

Re: Phoenix - a complete history of the luftwaffe 1918-1945. Volume 1
 
http://www.sound-bm.com/de/allgemein...1918-1934.html

Lennart Andersson 26th December 2017 17:19

Re: Phoenix - a complete history of the luftwaffe 1918-1945. Volume 1
 
Phoenix. A Complete History of the Luftwaffe 1918-1945 by Richard Meredith. A review.

Phoenix. A Complete History of the Luftwaffe 1918-1945. Volume 1. The Phoenix is Reborn (Helion & Co, 2016). The first 650-page volume of this mammoth work is about the period 1918-1934. The first impression is that it is a vey ambitious tome. The style is scientific with numbered sections, illustrations and tables and there is a copious amount of footnotes, in fact often 50% of the page area. There are 54 introductory pages of content listings, abbreviations and explanations before the main text begins, and a 25-page index at the end. That is all good. At a glance it looks very impressive, but there are serious problems with this book.

“Inevitably massive use has been made of secondary sources”. This sentence in the Introduction sets the first alarm bell ringing. It soon transpires that the author has not done any original research at all of his own and that is the main flaw with the book! This is astonishing and almost unbelievable, considering the volume of work laid down and the publisher’s commitment.

What about secondary sources then? A wealth of good and well researched articles and books have appeared, mostly in German, during the last 20 years or so, but, incredibly, the only “modern” literature in this category that appear in the footnotes are one of Volker Koos’ Heinkel books (but strangely not his other books) and the book on Erprobungsstellen in the Deutsche Luftfahrt series. That Bruno Lange and Karl-Heinz Völker appear in the literature list is of course no surprise, but to find William Green (1970) and eight books by Heinz Nowarra (1963, etc) sets the big alarm bell in motion.

Books by Green, Nowarra, Vajda & Dancey and similar authors, many now up to fifty years old, would not be used by any serious author as sources today, because the well-established fact that they are full of self-invented “facts” that have distorted German aviation history for years. This means that the text of this book contains the same type of “facts” that are found in those books. This discovery is quite depressing and also means that there is no use in making a full review of the book.

A few examples will suffice. On pages 516 to 522 the author deals with airframe production. Let us have a look at what is said about the Heinkel He 51: The HD 51a, which was D-ILGY, was the version that was ordered into production, first nine pre-production He 51A-0s that were delivered from July 1934. Deliveries of the He 51A-1 started in April 1935. He 51A-2 D-IFTI was the production prototype for 14 He 51W naval fighters delivered in 1934.

Not a single item of this information is correct! D-ILGY was the He 51 V7 (c/n 1485), the habit of ordering pre-production batches had not yet been invented in 1933, the versions mentioned (A-0, A-1 and A-2) never existed, in fact the sub-version number suffixes was not introduced until much later, the first production He 51s were of the He 51C and He 51D (floatplane) versions and first deliveries started in February 1935. The floatplane version had the alternative designation He 51S (or See) and 32 were built. In addition, the registrations given for the nine “pre-production” aircraft are all from random production He 51C aircraft. So what are the “sources” for this? William Greens Warplanes of the Third Reich from 1970, Nowarra’s books and Vajda & Dancy’s German Aircraft Industry and Production - all three veritable fairy tale books.

Some statements, for example that the Junkers K 45 was the military form of the A 25 (!) and was known as the R 41 in Sweden (page 382), are utter rubbish. There were two J 45/K 45s, first (project only) a military variant of the J 46, which was a development of the A 35, the second one was the military version of the Ju 52. The J 25, or H 25, was a projected development of the J 21/H 21, and the J 41/W 41, later called the F 24 was the single-engined variant of the G 24. No “A 25” or “R 41” ever existed.

There are endless examples of this sort, but this will suffice.

Of course, the only way to find the true facts about aircraft and aviation in Germany is to use original sources in the form of documents, many of which have been available in the archives in Berlin, Freiburg and elsewhere for many years. That a publisher has decided to embark upon such an ambitious and costly publication plan, without making a knowledgeable fact assessment is almost unbelievable. Another sad circumstance is that books of this type will inevitably drain the market for better-researched books.

Final assessment: I am sorry to say that this book can be characterised as a well-written compilation of outdated and often erroneous other books, which probably has its merits in some respects, but if you are looking for “the truth” about German military aviation you must look elsewhere.

Lennart Andersson

Orwell1984 26th December 2017 17:52

Re: Phoenix - a complete history of the luftwaffe 1918-1945. Volume 1
 
Thank you for the above review.
I was considering investing in the above title but will now direct my funds elsewhere!

edwest2 26th December 2017 20:25

Re: Phoenix - a complete history of the luftwaffe 1918-1945. Volume 1
 
Yes, thank you. I am astonished by this. Even though the company I work for publishes fiction books, I am asked to do all sorts of research to make foreign places, weapons, and other things authentic. Some readers will miss the details but in military fiction, people like Tom Clancy cannot afford to be sloppy. That this is being done by an established publisher can only tarnish its reputation in the research community. I think I'll refrain from posting new releases in this series. And perhaps, the publisher should be notified in a civil, factual way.

chinesefox 27th December 2017 08:51

Re: Phoenix - a complete history of the luftwaffe 1918-1945. Volume 1
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by edwest2 (Post 244745)
Yes, thank you. I am astonished by this. Even though the company I work for publishes fiction books, I am asked to do all sorts of research to make foreign places, weapons, and other things authentic. Some readers will miss the details but in military fiction, people like Tom Clancy cannot afford to be sloppy. That this is being done by an established publisher can only tarnish its reputation in the research community. I think I'll refrain from posting new releases in this series. And perhaps, the publisher should be notified in a civil, factual way.

such shame for an established publisher as Helion to fall into this lousy deception

however, the worst scenario could be that helion knew the truth from the beginning , but they decided to publish this half garbage anyway.

taitbb 5th February 2018 05:24

Re: Phoenix - a complete history of the luftwaffe 1918-1945. Volume 1
 
I haven't picked up this book...so am more looking for thoughts on if this book still has any value/use even with its flaws.

First, is there any other comparable modern English language work that delves into this early history with as much detail.

As we all know the vast majority of early luftwaffe documentation is lost. Is there even much official documentation that could have been referenced? Is outdated books from Nowarra sort of all that exists? Even if collected from imperfect memories?

I am asking as still being a potential buyer...as this is an area I have almost no literature on.

Lennart Andersson 5th February 2018 10:59

Re: Phoenix - a complete history of the luftwaffe 1918-1945. Volume 1
 
First, the book. It depends on what you are after. If you need a summary of what has been written before it might be worth the money. The publisher has done a good job with layout, paper quality is good, etc. I found that it has a lot of information about personalities that was useful to me. However, my main interest is aircraft, how many were built, which versions existed, construction numbers, registration numbers, etc, and if you are looking for such information, see my review above. In addition one is left with the impression that this book was compiled a number of years ago, because newer and better German books and articles have not been used.

“The vast majority of early Luftwaffe documentation is lost”. I do not agree. Of course a lot was destroyed at the end of the war, but lots of material still exist, primarily at the Militärarchiv at Freiburg and at the Bundesarchiv in Berlin, but there are several other archives where relevant material can be found as well. It is in fact possible to piece together a fairly accurate history of German military aviation during the fascinating and often neglected 1919-1935 period, but that takes years of research. How do I know this? From personal experience.


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