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| History is not for the historian alone. If so, what would anyone understand of it but what is compiled in a text book or perceived in a movie? Though the more mundane topics and schools of thought are too academic and dry for general consumption, there is a need for writers to grasp something of the historian’s craft to better inculcate our work within the proper context of time. |
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Last month I indulged a bit of my academic training in the discipline of research and why we should endeavor to practice sound principals in relating anything of the past in our present writing. The past is akin to a document in pieces and scattered about the country that may tell a story as a singular instance but whose full story is only discernable when each piece is put into proper place. Modern history can be more complete what with the burgeoning of technology used to capture it. Video, audio, writing, and archival techniques will make the historians who study the latter half of this century and the next more fully armed with material from which to interpret the our current day. But interpret they will still have to. Interpretation is the real gift of history a historian can give his contemporaries. It can also be the greatest curse he can leave upon his generation when his interpretation is flawed or motivated by other design besides revelation.
Sources
Primary
Secondary
Tertiary
Myth busting
Keep it real
Draw your own conclusions
Last month I looked at sources and why any thorough research should encompass all three. Today, I want to take a look at myth busting and why myths should be rooted out of any usage in an historical context.
Myth Busting
What is myth
Why is it important to avoid
Two examples of historical myth
Hitler’s suicide – heroic or cowardly end
Waffen SS training methods
Myth is to History as urban legends are to e-mail. We’ve all gotten the e-mail at one time or the other about how Proctor and Gamble sold its corporate soul to the Devil in exchange for success, how its symbol is derived from pagan and satanic ritual, and how the company should be boycotted. Or the one with the recipe for the cookie or the little boy who’s dying of leukemia and his only wish is to receive a million gift cards. I say historical myth is to the urban legend as there is always some hint of plausibility to it; some shred of truth that allows us to suspend disbelief and adopt that myth as part of our understanding of an event or person. Myths in the context of history often take on an anecdotal quality, something we tell about someone that becomes accepted as truth and helps to describe a mood or characteristic rounding out a narrative. Unfortunately, myths can be so widely accepted, even at the academic level of historical monograph, that it becomes accepted as fact when it may only have the anecdote itself to call upon for validation.
How does one steer clear of myth, especially when those very myths can be found in the most reputable of sources? Applying the first part of my discussion of historical research will help. Having a variety of source material to draw from will shine the light on myth as one may even refute and label something gleaned from another as mythical in origin. A myth is anything that cannot be directly substantiated in the source material as it relates to the subject at hand. Did Adolf Hitler shoot himself in the temple or did he die the coward’s death of cyanide poisoning or did he use both? Did he have his SS Adjutant Max Wunsche administer the coup de gras after the cyanide? What is the source of the data and can it be trusted is the question a researcher should ask themselves when jotting down notes or facts relating to the subject. As with the latter case, the source of the data relating to the deaths of Adolf and Eva Hitler was the Russian SMERSH (Russian Military Intelligence) autopsies performed upon the bodies once they were discovered in the Reich’s Chancellery. Motivated by a need to present to the world the charred remains as having died as a coward, the autopsies declared that Hitler ingested cyanide yet physical evidence explored by an American after the war suggested a single shot to the temple. Here was a case where the Russians held all of the cards by possession of the physical evidence and the autopsy reports as source material, including a good portion of the witnesses to Hitler’s last days on earth. Eyewitness testimonies from the sixty odd people connected with the bunker had irregularities leading one to mixed conclusions as to what did happen.
Though there was suspicion regarding a self inflicted pistol wound, the histories up until the 1970’s relied upon Russian story of a suicide by cyanide. An investigation by the NKVD (Russian internal security) discovered the SMERSH sloppiness in the autopsies but the political power of SMERSH kept the secret in the dark until the fall of the Berlin wall and the eventual collapse of communism. As a result long dark archives were opened to outside scrutiny and fragments of Hitler’s skull were discovered in a box along with interrogation documents of several of those close to Hitler whom the Russians captured. What do Historians think now? As revealed by Ada Petrova and Peter Watson in The Death of Hitler the answer was both. Though the Soviets were loath to admit it, Hitler was man enough to put a bullet in his own skull while using the ampoule of cyanide as a hedge in case the round did not do its work. Physical evidence and the testimony of those who disposed of the bodies point to those conclusions. Hence the suicide by cyanide or a coup de gras administered by Hitler’s SS adjutant became myth – both based upon some fact but motivated by desires other than a recounting of the truth.
This latter example is probably the kind of every day myth one is likely to run into; one that becomes accepted in the absence of evidence to shed light upon it. Admittedly, these are the most difficult to root out yet many histories of the 3rd Reich or on Hitler’s rise to power rely too exclusively upon the cowardly suicide myth than on the report written by James O’Donnell, the American GI who had been allowed to view the bunker in 1945. Though not a trained historian, O’Donnell wrote his treatise concluding the shot to the temple despite going against the popular conclusions of Hugh Trevor Roper’s excellent work The Last Days of Hitler.
Only time and evidence will tell against this type of myth; another reason to rely upon multiple sources for your material.
Other myths are sometimes just as insidious but easier to spot as in a common anecdotal reference to Waffen SS training techniques in WWII. Here we have an example of anecdote being carried too far into fact, or at least while perhaps not stated as fact recounted regardless to prove a point of the fanaticism of Waffen SS recruits. The yarn goes that Waffen SS recruits (the Waffen SS was the military arm of Himmler’s SS, means Armed SS) were subject to standing at attention while a grenade was detonated upon their helmeted head. While it cannot be proved that it was never done it also cannot be proved that it was especially on any systematic basis within SS training. Two conclusions then arise from this question: 1. it was either so common that the common SS mann felt no need to recount its occurrence in memoirs or letters written home, or 2. it never was applied. Again, histories encompassing the Waffen SS often draw upon this anecdotal snippet as means of demonstrating the barbaric and inhuman Waffen SS fanaticism. Yet, history is little served by spurious remarks meant to stir an emotional response for its own purpose. What is probable is it was used by the soldiers themselves as a demonstration of prowess or courage as a dare between braggarts.
As with all myth there is a kernel of truth somewhere. Yet this is a good example of myth used for the wrong reasons. Even as anecdote, its use is erroneous without the proof to back it up even if one qualifies it as such. Here the researcher has to judge between the usage of the tale in official histories and the absence of it in personal narratives from Waffen SS soldiers both then and now.
As we have seen, myth can be today’s truth but tomorrow’s falsehood or it can be just plain myth with little to account for it. It is always incumbent upon the researcher to decide what to include in their work; whether that be for non-fiction history or for fictional history. The only way to guard against myth is to round out your research and give credence to opposing views, weighing them upon the scales of probability then fashioning conclusions based upon the weight of evidence.
Next time we’ll wrap up with keeping it real and drawing conclusions.
What myths have you encountered that you previously understood to be facts?
Have you been guilty of unknowingly promulgating myth?
phil1861
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I’ve chosen this month to plug a few non-fictional history items on site on a variety of historical topics.
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demor
Submitted Comment:
I recently read a work by Jeff Shaara titled, "Rise to Rebellion." The feature of this novel that captured me was that it examined the preliminaries to the Revolution from inside the minds of the players on both sides. I have no idea how much poetic license was employed, but it was facinating and forced me to think that these people after all were individuals each with their own idiosyncracies.
Zeke
Micheal Shaara’s The Killer Angels was the first fictional history novel I ever read about the battle of Gettysburg. The artistic license is the conversations and other material the author throws in to bring one character out or diminish another while sticking to the historical facts and characters. To be sure, the research needed to write historical fiction is no less than that of the non-fiction monograph.
Scottiegazelle 
Submitted Comment:
I don't write historical fiction, but I am a genealogy buff, and many of the points you make here apply in that realm, too. One thing to remember - even the "source documents" are suspect. Birth certificates, for instance, typically weren't filed immediately, so dates and parents names could be suspect. As you said, the more research you do, the better.
Great newsletter! Keep it up!
Good point Scottiegaz, even official records do not always agree on certain facts. Care in choosing sources and corroborating with variety is always the best policy.
Trisha 
Submitted Comment:
I'm in college with a minor in history. I've found that writing history is so hard because their are so many different accounts and conclusions about it. I took a Civil War & Slavery class and I'm still not sure if Lincoln was the Great Emancipator or the relunctant emancipator. Research points in both directions. Although that can be frustrating, I think the complexity takes all the "boringness" out of history; and reminds me just how much the past is like the present.
Text book history is boring, real history taught well or books on certain subjects written well will always inform and entertain at the same time. The interpretations are what historians fight and argue over and what makes history more than dates and names.
Starr* Rathburn
Submitted Comment:
Is there a way to see the archives on these newsletters? I accidentally deleted one that I wanted to keep. Thanks!
Starr*
Yes, the Newsletter archive system has just been automated and they can now be found off of the Member Tools menu under Newsletters.
robi4711
Submitted Comment:
I don't have aspirations to write a historical novel or story, but thanks for your words of advice. Until now I've done exactly what you say can't work. I've went to Google for help. That's the laziness in me. Thanks again because you also detail why Googling for info doesn't work well.
Google is a great search tool for finding resources for anything. However, just because it’s on a web page does not make it a golden source for information. Like all non-fiction historical monograph sources for facts are listed in either footnote or in appendix form as standard procedure. If it’s on a web page, look for references for the facts listed or consider it a suspect source of information.
Melissa is fashionably late!
Submitted Comment:
Hi Pookie! Great newsletter about research! You asked:
If you do not usually write historical pieces but find need of doing research, how do you go about it?
When I was writing for the Horror/Scary Newsletter, I habitually did my research online. Where I looked for my information depended upon my topic, but I generally tried to stay with web sites that seemed well informed.
I also purchased a few books to add to my research. Most of them had to do with the writing craft, such as Stephen King's On Writing. I use several of them in my everyday writing, but also refer to them when advising others about the writing craft.
That's all I have to add. Thanks for the informative newsletter!
Research skills apply to a variety of written disciplines, the historian has nothing else but their research to rely upon. Thanks for the comments!
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For Authors: July 27, 2005 Issue [#525]
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