Quote:
Originally Posted by MW Giles
Do some of you really think that a proper historian only presents facts and does not seek to interpret them. Really?
On a whim I would like to try to answer the question - "Was the zerstörer programme a good use of resources by the Lw in WW2?"
I might gather evidence about how much it cost in time, trouble, effort, life etc. to set up and run the programme
I would then try to work out what it achieved? Where did it fail?
Now it gets difficult, what were the opportunity costs of following the course they did. If they had invested the same resources elsewhere or used the a/c differently, would they have got a better result.
I weigh up the different factors and present to you my findings.
I think it would be possible on the balance of probabilities to come to a rational answer. I am sure that I could not show it beyond reasonable doubt.
Another historian comes along, looks at my hypothesis and conclusions and weighs the different factors differently or adds things I have not thought of. They draw their conclusions and present them.
The world judges which version they like more, or creates their own synthesis.
There is not just one truth out there for God's sake
Martin
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Fer cryin' out loud! The U.S. is under assault by a bankrupt idea called 'my truth.'
With all due respect to Europeans, I see a rather unhealthy obsession with statistics and "what ifs". What if the Germans had allocated their resources to something better or more effective or which could have been fielded sooner?
This is not how the world judges, not by a long shot. Facts are facts. How hard is that for anyone to understand? And they remain so until new documents and new sources become available. As I wrote earlier, millions of pages were classified by the Allies during and partly after the war. I say partly, because there were literally millions of pages to sort through.
Books are published that are read by thousands if not millions of people. There is no logic in taking the position that the same data will be "interpreted" differently just because someone else comes along. One does not guess with data from primary sources.
Sure, people can and have filled in the blanks after the war about rumored developments by the Germans. As the years passed, these turned into "facts" for some. But they were stories created to fill those gaps, both by official and civilian sources. Again, in reference to OSS documents classified since the war, once they were declassified, there was a scramble to look through them. But since these were in the hands of the CIA, who decided to hold some back, other references in the documents that were released pointed to the rest. There was great resistance to releasing the remainder. Delays were attempted. These failed.