Project Aims and Development During Project Period

The aim of the project was to investigate the origins, fidelity, and authenticity of the table talks. How, and (perhaps more importantly) why, was it produced? How did it reach us? How was the text distorted in the translation process? Which of the German versions is most accurate? What can we say about their fidelity and authenticity?

This project studies the origins, fidelity and authenticity of one of the most famous sources to Hitler’s utterances during the Second World War, namely the Tischgespräche, or Table talks. Four main versions have been published to date: two German (1951 & 1980), a French (1952), an English (1953). All these editions differ regarding content and timespan, and there exists to date no comprehensive source critical examination of the Tischgespräche, and until now no authoritative judgment as to which is more accurate. There are at least three known authors who all give mutually exclusive accounts of how the text was produced and why (however, initial investigations by me has revealed that almost all information regarding the origins and qualities of this source is uncertain at best and in some cases even fraudulent). These facts notwithstanding, almost every book dealing with Hitler, Nazism, and the Third Reich quotes it more or less uncritically as an authoritative source. The project has combined source criticism with comparative text analysis and archival research.

The project developed largely as in the project proposal; however some important hypotheses had to be discarded when confronted with the primary sources. For example, the suspicion that large parts of the table talk texts were fabrications turned out to be false. Parts of the French and English translations are indeed fabrications, and there are utterances in the German text too that cannot be Hitler's original statements. However, as a whole the German texts are not forgeries; they do indeed record matters that Hitler talked about although they do so filtered through memory and an editing process.

Project Procedure

The project made use of a large number of documents and other sources from both public and private archives in several countries: Germany, France, the US, Italy, and the UK. A large part of the initial work in the project was dedicated to locating and gaining access to the sources in private archives around Europe. Critical analyses of the primary sources were then conducted and scientific articles were written and published.

The Three Most Important Results of the Project

FIRSTLY, the project has shown that these sources cannot be cited as if they contain Hitler's words exactly as he spoke them. This is an important insight and result for any historian that wants to analyze and understand Hitler's ideology and worldview, his goals and purposes during the war years. These sources must be used with much greater care than has so far been the case and they have to be constantly contrasted to other independent sources in order to be properly understood correctly. This understanding has thus far not been spread among historians. Moreover, it has been shown that the "original" notes are missing and even that the term "original" may be misleading in this case. I have been able to show that at least parts of the notes were finished several months after the statements that they purport to portray were uttered, and material were added to the first draft of the text at this later stage. This is obviously rather problematic from a source critical standpoint.

SECONDLY, the project has shown that the table talk sources contain many statements that have been edited, but also several false statements (i.e. that Hitler most likely never uttered); for example lies from "Mein Kampf" are repeated in these sources. Prior to the project it was the dominant view that these sources basically contained Hitler's words verbatim spoken in a private setting (and thereby more reliable). The French and English translations (the latter is in turn a direct translation of the former) are very bad and contain outright fabrications. These should not be used by historians anymore. It can now also be shown that these notes all along had a semi-official character, and it is likely that at least parts of them were intended for publication after the war. Regarding the notes dated in February and April 1945, published in 1981 under the title "Hitlers politisches Testament" (previously published under the titles "Le testament politique d'Hitler" (1959) and "The Testament of Adolf Hitler" (1961)) the project has been able to show that these are most likely forgeries. Historians should refrain from using them.

THIRDLY, the project has been able to completely disprove an argument that has been frequently used by Holocaust deniers, namely that if Hitler does not mention the massmurder of the Jews in these notes then he could not possibly have known about it or ordered it. The semi-official character of the table talks (despite the myth to the contrary which has been spread about them) mean that we cannot expect any such statements to appear in these sources.

The results of this project do not imply that historians cannot use the table talks as sources. However, it does mean that when we do so we have to be aware of their limitations. Comparisons between the table talk notes and recollections of the same statements that have sometimes been recorded by others in Hitler's entourage (such as Goebbels, Rosenberg, or the latter's representative Werner Koeppen) show that the themes are often the same but the specific words used sometimes give a different meaning to what was said. Such differences are very important when analyzing ideological and policy content in Hitler's words. We often cannot decide which version best reflect Hitler's exact words and therefore historians should preferably reference all extant versions. Most of the time there are no parallel notes, however, but this does not mean that the table talk notes become more reliable. The table talk are not canonical texts and should not be treated as such. The same critical methodological principles still apply.

New Research Questions

The project has given rise to a number of new research problems concerning Hitler, National Socialism, and the Third Reich that could be fruitfully investigated in the future. How reliable are many of the other sources with a memoir-like character that several Nazis in the inner circle around Hitler wrote after the war? Albert Speer's memoirs (and so-called diaries) has for a long time been considered unreliable, but a lot remains to be done concerning how unreliable his writings and statements in fact are, and a lot of work remains if historians are to have a full picture of Speer's deceit.

International Dimensions of the Project

The project results have great international importance, and the articles published have already started to fundamentally affect the international research in this field. No historian writing on these topics, and who uses the table talks as sources, can ignore the results of this project. Important contacts with leading historians in Germany, the UK, and the US has guaranteed that the results have spread far and wide within the international historical community.

Dissemination and Public Outreach

As already mentioned, the results of the project have already begun to affect the international research on these topics. This must be considered a remarkably swift acknowledgement as it usually takes longer for Snowe and potentially controversial research results to gain recognition. For example, German historian (and head of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich) Magnus Brechtken favorably references to this research in his book "Albert Speer. Eine Deutsche Karriere" (p. 821) and Cambridge history Professor Brendan Simms will include the results of this project in his upcoming biography of Hitler. Simms' book is the first to fully draw the consequences of this project. The results have also been spread to a broader public through participation's in radio programs and through popular history articles in newspapers (see publication list). Yet another way in which part of the results from the project has been conveyed to the public also internationally is the wiki page about Hitler's table talks (see publication list). The latest German article published in the leading journal "Vierteljahrshefte för Zeitgeschichte", summarizing the main results of the project, was also given a favorable review in the German newspaper "Süddeutsche Zeitung" in December 2018 (see publication list).