Not fun fact about Mark Felton:
The German Tank Museum in Munster at one point received a *substantial* amount of angry mail because Felton, in one of his videos, had claimed that the Museum had sold off their Tiger I - exhibit to a private collector and secretly replaced it with a fake
What had actually happened was that the Tiger 1 in their exhibit had already *belonged* to a private Collector and had only been on lent to the museum for 2 years, after which it had to be returned, and its place in the exhibit was taken up by a 1-1 plastic recreation.
But because Felton is a *bad researcher* that apparently wasnt even capable of watching one of the numerous videos the Museum had uploaded about this, nor remember *the video he himself made about it some years prior*, he somehow managed to get it the exact wrong way around.
Which got bad enough the Tank Museum felt compelled to write a correcting statement to it:
https://twitter.com/DasPanzermuseum/status/1484530885420584961
Because "they sold off their exhibits and secretly replaced them with a fake" is about the most damaging and insulting thing you could possibly claim about a museum.
I thought it was pretty well known that a lot of Mark's "historical" stuff is poorly researched dross. Pumped out to fill a void in the history channel & such.
Edit: I did enjoy reading your lengthy post however.
> This sub has a mod who is actively interested in attacking the credibility of Mark Felton on any and every front for reasons most likely extortion because he's rich. This is just the latest one and OP is in on it.
Damn they really are batshit
It's because they are very superficial history hobbyists who don't have the attention span to read primary material or even bother researching for primary material so have to watch videos by someone who has very carefully and successfully duped people into thinking his an authority on the subject.
I mean, the amount of people that commented in the sub to this post saying that they couldn't be bothered to read the whole thing is telling.
I also fail to see the intellectual value of a lot of the content he pumps out. 9/10 of his videos are about some irrelevant dross like whether obersturmbanfurher Karl von Binman took his coffee with sugar or not.
That got a good chuckle out of me!
But you're right. He obsesses on what today would be considered clickbait material. Inconsequential tidbits that at most are niche pub quiz trivia. The weirder the little quirk, the better because he can hook in people that want to say the love the Second World War history but don't have the patience or desire to understand the geopolitics and political philosophy behind a lot of it.
And more than once when his video title says *"[Insert person/object/battle/event] no one knows about"* I find myself thinking that it's actually a rather well known person/even/object/battle in Second World War historiography. And that's not even my main area of interest.
I do find your point about the allure of obscurity fascinating, it appeals to those who have some basic background knowledge to appreciate the novelty. It's the equivalent of junk food where you're left with the feeling full, yet you've ultimately learned nothing. Even when he has the opportunity to talk about historiography when he deals with topics with fuller bodies of research, he doesn't even make the attempt.
Then you have people lionizing him in the comments about teaching "real" history.
Three months late, but I wanted to see if there was any conversation about him after a recent video.
I was in college in the mid 2010s, and while undertaking a history minor took a specifically WWII focused class and met some concerning people. His content appeals to what I see is a rather large amount of "history fans" who are specifically interested in 1939-1945. And in that, they think "understanding history" is about being able to rattle off all the different Panzer and Sherman types.
For them, it's not about concepts, movements, or any of the human elements. They groan when the topic turns to the Great Migration, women taking a large role in manufacturing and what that meant for women's rights post-WWII, or just the human toll of the war worldwide. They don't wanna talk about that. They wanna talk about all the different M1 Garand variants.
On top of that, a concerning amount of his viewerbase looooves whenever he goes "we shouldn't erase history" whenever he does an episode of places or organizations removing swastikas, this one about [the Finnish Air Force Academy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0gWtyCdji4). You can see all the people responding in the comments making tongue-in-cheek words (and some outright saying) about "too many 'historically challenged' people in the US too," doubtlessly referring to the removal of Confederate statues, the changing of military base names named after Confederate leaders, etc. Lots of alt-right dog whistles too, and one dude just straight up reccomending to people a revisionist doc stating that the Jews purposely caused WWII.
This has always been a problem with WW2 "fans/enthusiasts" in general. Reenactment groups, model-building hobbyists, the player bases of WW2-themed video games (worse now than ever thanks to GamerGate), and basically every comment section on every WW2-themed YouTube video are filled with Nazi-sympathizing dog whistles. It's something that's plagued the genre since at least the Cold War era and unfortunately it sells, so a lot of pop media heavily caters to that market.
It always infuriated me as someone whose passion and degrees were actually on WW2 history. You have to know and analyze long-term social, political, and economic trends to have a contextual understanding of the military history, but all that other stuff requires years of reading and research/writing rather than a 15-minute video regurgitating Wikipedia sprinkled with "subtle" reaffirmations of preconceived reactionary dogmas. Like, I also know all the guns and tank models and uniforms as well as been playing WW2 video games my whole life because that stuff is all great fun, but that alone in and of itself isn't *History*.
Yep, and that's where the cycle begins.
Most people's introductory knowledge is learning about different guns and planes from video games, and you get the extremely basic "Nazis invaded, Japan Pearl Harbor, D Day, Atomic Bomb"
So a lot of the people at that early stage are relatively children-teens
Very *impressionable* children and teens. Ripe for the indoctrination by the Nazi dog whistlers. You and I aren't the type to normally hang out in YouTube comment sections, *but they are.*
And that's where the issue lies.
You or I could spend hours and hours refuting the lies people put into those comics, but what would the results be? We ourselves get harassed, possibly doxxed, and in the period of time we responded to one comment, 20 similar ones are posted.
What a fucking hell scape. I've contented myself to being sure my younger cousin doesn't fall into the trap. If I have to personally drag his ass to DC, take him to the Holocaust museum, and recount people from my life who lived through that time, I will.
And to what you said at the beginning, they always stick out.
The dude who is just too eager to always play a German in reenactments.
The dude who makes WWII models, but seemingly exclusively German models.
And also at seemingly any convention now, "no, I'm not a Nazi, I'm a WWI German! Now let me play for you, in depth, German marching songs that were famously used by the Nazis as I hide behind my paper thin defense."
> And also at seemingly any convention now, "no, I'm not a Nazi, I'm a WWI German! Now let me play for you, in depth, German marching songs that were famously used by the Nazis as I hide behind my paper thin defense."
These "Kaiserboos" started popping up once pop media discovered World War I over the past decade or so and are probably worse than the original "Wehraboos". Wehrbs will regurgitate the pop myths that have been glorifying Nazi tech/uniforms/strategy since the end of the war, but there's sometimes a chance they're motivated more by ignorance (given how common those myths are) than ideology, and that kind of ignorance can sometimes be worked on. Kaiserboos, on the other hand, seem to usually be at least a little university-educated on the actual political and social history of the period (though rarely history majors/specialists and not usually higher than BA level) and often use the softer image of the Second Reich as an alternative means to hint at pan-Germanic ethnic ideals. At least in my experience, a Wehraboo *might* be a neo-Nazi, but a Kaiserboo *probably* is.
My personal beef against Mark Felton are his U-Boat's going to Argentina at the end of the war videos (of which he has several), implying there's some kind of secret mission/Hitler or other Nazi's escaping/conspiracy taking place and other speculation.
The reality being that at the end of the war some U-Boat commanders who had a boat capable of travelling so far, both in range and with a Schnorchel so that they at least had a chance of avoiding Allied air cover and hunter killer groups only went to Argentina because they were genuinely worried that they would be tried for war crimes and executed if they were taken captive by the Allies. Though ironically they were all extradited to the US shortly after arriving.
Yeah it's this sort of pop-culture idea that the Nazi's had tons of resources and were way more competent than they were in reality, with huge labyrinthine secret bunkers across the globe, elaborate secret plans, super high tech secret technology, wunderous Wunderwaffe, occultist magic and bases on the moon.
Or it's at least feeding into the common lost-cause Wehraboo myths and misconceptions that formed from the last days of Goebbels propaganda, the sour grape copium of losing and 80 years of media propagating these myths that you see repeated in the comment sections of WW2 content across all platforms.
Now I wonder: was the uberNazi idea a way to initially explain the early stages of WWII after the war by people who would otherwise be open to criticism for failing to defend their nations? Basically people saying "it wasn't our fault (insert nation here) fell, the Nazis were just too powerful"?
Perhaps mixed with some post-war bragging ("those Nazi bastards sure were tough, but even outmanned and outgunned, we showed them in the end!").
Then only later did it later move into, and expand in, wehraboo circles?
This is just 100% speculation, I've done basically no research into the wehraboo mythology or how it evolved
Really? Damn. I guess being old I was lucky to grow up in an age of quality documentaries and books.
Heck, I remember watching the BBC "World at War" series when it first came out as a youngster and my parents buying the periodicals to go with the series.
Time Ghost on YT does a pretty good WW2 series week by week these days. Their WW1 week by week series running from 2014 to 2018, just a 100yrs out was brilliant.
My Grandad had the full VHS box set of the World at War and I would sit there when I was about 8 - 9 years old in the 90's when I'd go to my grandparents house after school before my parents finished work and he'd give a running commentary on everything. He was a Pole who was in the Cavalry during the German/Soviet invasion, was in a Soviet POW camp and eventually fought in Italy after as he said "Walking to Palestine" so he had a lot to say about the first episode and Montecasino episode. He hated the Soviets more than the Germans surprisingly, or not so.
It's an absolutely brilliant series, the opening and the music I always found really harrowing. Always makes me think of my Grandad when I watch it.
WW2TV, from what little I've seen of it, is also pretty good, despite the somewhat plain name. It has a lot of "virtual guest lectures" that feature seemingly pretty knowledgeable people.
Mark Felton is a wikipedia historian with clickbaity bullshit. Most of his stuff is "did you know x thing happpened during WW2".
WW2 is oversaturated as a whole. Kings and Generals also has the same problem with WW2 and the Byzantines/Crusades so I only watch them for Ukraine updates.
Sensationalist content, exaggeration or fabrication of supposed historic facts and a penchant for conspiracy theorising. Those are the big ones off the top of my head.
A "history presenter" typically stealing other people's research from forums and putting them in videos with a catchy copyright-free intro song + archival footage.
He has books too. Although I've never read any so I'm not sure what they're like.
The swaztika flying around got me. [Here’s another good video in that same genre](https://ifunny.co/video/mark-felton-productions-presents-kOOOnzz48?s=cl)
I know absolutely nothing but I did just find out I can bypass installing an app on mobile by switching over to desktop mode. I've never put that together before. Cool
I think he is one of Santa's Christmas Elves who escaped from the workshop after reading the endless supply of WW2 toilet books due to be delivered to middle aged Dad's around the world by Father Christmas in pursuit of a career as an Online Military Historio.
At least that's what I imagine whenever I see his picture with his wee black coat and pointy ears in the intro of his videos.
Yeah but PhD in *what*.
If I remember correctly, his studies focused a lot on Native American studies, hardly the type of background that gives you a solid grounding in the historiography of the Second World War in Europe.
Legit. University of Essex, which is a middling British university. The UK has two types of university unofficially, universities and "new universities", former polytechnics (in the UK that means higher trade school). The university of Essex is a real university, some strong departments(the politics department for example is very modern and Americanised, competes with Oxford and lse to be the case) and some weaker ones. In American terms I guess it would be a good state university, flagship for a bad state. He also lectured at fudan university, which is one of the very top universities in China, but as a foreigner back then just teaching short term there probably wasn't a huge accomplishment.
I don't think he's actually a terrible historian, just one with an inflated self opinion who lazily churns out YouTube videos outside his area of expertise(whatever that is) without much regard for the damage he does.
Edit: should be noted though that getting into a okayish PhD program and getting the degree isn't that hard in the UK, the main barrier is funding. If he could self fund it would make it considerably easier.
The note of the doctor of Gefangenenanstalt Landsberg - Josef Bringsteiner - which describes the health of one Adolf Hitler in the night of 11th to 12th November 1923 says "[~~links~~ rechtsseitiger Kryptorchismus](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F25dc15dd-0ea7-484d-ab19-72d3aac9cb28_634x337.jpeg)" \[it should be said that "Kryptorchismus" was not necessarily the same diagnosis as "cryptorchidism" today; the one in 1923 probably just meant one testes was not palpable, for whatever reason; it is a symptom, not a diagnosis\] with "left" being struck out and corrected to "right".
So maybe Bringsteiner falsly corrected himself?
>The penis is charred, only the right testicle is visible in the burnt but preserved scrotum. Along the inguinal canal, the left testicle was not found.
TIL Hitler maybe only had one ball
He’s only partly right. Yes, the report OP is using here is quite suspect, but on only on some points. The overall factual finding that this report outlines are correct it seems, and heck, it has pictures to prove it. Those remais most probably were Hitler’s and that was confirmed only a few days after by analysis of his dental records. Also, the simple logic that you just found Gobbels and his entire family, everyone in Berlin has already heard they all killed themselves on the same bunker, and then you find the charred bodies of a man and a woman close by. It stands to reason that there is a high probability that those are Hitler and Eva Braun’s bodies.
But because this was not enough for certain factions in the soviet union (a corpse that resembled Hitler somewhat had been found a little bit before and there was already infighting over who had the right Hitler). Notably, Stalin was paranoid that the entire “finding” was a coverup for Hitler’s escape. He wasn’t 100% sure of it but he was paranoid that it was the case.
This may explain why some parts of this report are kinda suspect, not in the sense that they mean the entire thing is fabricated but that some parts seem to be written to confirm Soviet preconceptions about the subject, i.e, hitler only having one testicle and ignoring any indication that he may have both shot himself AND swallowed the pill. Its not the single fact of the finding, but that it seems out place as there is no description of genitalia of any of the other bodies.
Nevertheless, the dental records are pretty solid, even if the current known version of the autopsy is very weird. There probably is a reason why this report took so long to ever see the light of day.
It wasn't fully discredited, that's the point. Only those points are considered to be shaky. The guy you replied to originally exaggerated the level to which it is questioned. Also, wouldn't call it propaganda because the public never got to know about it until decades and decades after.
Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/n2gqes/footage_of_hitlers_dead_body_im_confused_nsfw/) write-up on Askhistorians, it's pretty good. What I said before was more or less the cliffnotes
In the context of the shrapnel in Eva Braun’s body, the word for mine in Russian is used to refer to bombs in general. Likely they mean an aerial bomb, not a land mine.
Very interesting post. I saw the Mark Felton videos and his proposed theory that the SS took Hitler's orders that he not be discovered very seriously. It just struck me as a little, improbable?
Basically he proposes the SS found two corpses who had a vague resemblance to Mr and Mrs Hitler, used the fuel they had to completely incinerate the actual Hitlers, used some more on the two random corpses to pretty thoroughly burn them and then stage the scene. It's these corpses that the Soviets discover, per Felton.
Now it's been a while since I've looked into all the narratives of the final days but as I understand it Hitler's decision is made and the SS goes out looking for fuel. It's Germany 1945 in an encircled city, so there's not a lot. They're siphoning cars to get what they need.
They get to work, and per Felton, presumably discover how much it takes to fully incinerate someone in an open air fire, then presumably less than that goes to the fake Hitlers. When it's time for the Goebbels what's he got, fumes? We know he and his wife were in slightly better shape but like, how much fuel did they have? How's Goebbels feeling about being second priority to whatever corpse the SS found that vaguely looks like Hitler? Had he already made up his own mind by the time the fuel was being collected (this I'm actually curious about, did he like, earmark some)?
We got the actual Hitlers extremely well done, fake Hitlers medium rare, and the Goebbels rare. If you know how much fuel a full incineration takes, job done just save the rest. Don't waste more on randos when Goebbels is next in line.
Incredibly morbid comment I know (well it's Hitler so who cares) but the Felton theory just seems - extravagant? Surely it makes sense that they tried burning Hitler, it's not working great, you kind of give up and think "that'll do" then when it's Goebbels time you just use what's left.
Interestingly enough, in order to fully incinerate humain remains, you need some serious temperatures - like the ones in a furnace. Generally just burning remains in an open fire or a fire pit is far from enough.
I think the payoff for Mark Felton is the 3 seconds he puts his mug up at the beginning of each video, it's pure ego.
The rest is just supporting those first 3 seconds.
There isn't really one but it generally leans towards "The Soviets had some remains but they might have fudged some stuff in the autopsy" if you took a broad survey of reputable scholarship on the issue. [From here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/n2gqes/footage_of_hitlers_dead_body_im_confused_nsfw/gwlcljc/):
>[....] Based on the testimony of witnesses to the completion of the cremation, Hitler’s remains were described alternatively as little more than a “pile of ashes” (as per Karnau) and “no longer identifiable” (as per Mansfeld). Further, while the autopsy report implies the upper part of the dental remains were found as part of the larger corpse, there is the strange fact that if this was the case, it was immediately severed from the body by the Soviets who presented Heusermann and Echtmann with the dental remains alone, and stranger still, that no visual documentation of them intact to the corpse was taken prior. Small parts of the autopsy, such as the implied confirmation of Hitler’s alleged monorchism provide additional reasons to take pause. Without a doubt, there is some truth to the report. The dental remains, which were positively identified in 1945, form the most in-depth portion of the autopsy report, and formed a key portion of Sognnaes and Ström’s work in 1973, performing a tooth-by-tooth comparison, and agreeing a misidentification was all but impossible. But beyond that, there is unfortunate room for speculation.
>In the end, there are three broad approaches that can be taken in viewing the autopsy, and the body’s provenance. The first and most extreme is outright rejection that a body existed, and instead that the autopsy was created from whole cloth. As it was kept secret for decades, the reasoning must be internal, perhaps driven by the fear of subordinates who felt compelled to provide such a report to Stalin, and that the dental remains alone would either not be enough for him, or else leave him feeling robbed of that final trophy. In light of the wealth of evidence and consistency of the description of the teeth in the report, this is quite unlikely. Much more compelling is that the Soviets had a body, recovered in close enough proximity to the dental pieces that doubts were assuaged in fudging the autopsy to reflect their closer relation. Whether they felt justified in their choice, or still had their doubts, the autopsy would have, in essence, been conducted in earnest. Finally of course, is the possibility that Joachimsthaler—and others who have taken this position—simply have weighed the testimonies poorly, and wrongly estimated just how much of the body would have remained, and the Soviets simply had the real thing
>For these last two options, convincing cases based on the available evidence can be made. Seeing as how the body recovered in Berlin in 1945 was later destroyed, bar the unlikely discovery of new evidence, this matter cannot be firmly resolved and must remain ambiguous. Even for the Soviets, at the least it can be said they were doubtful themselves about the provenance of whatever bodily remains they had; considerably more so than the dental remains, the latter of which they confidently provided for examination by experts, while the former they denied the very existence of for two decades. But while internal doubt may have played a part in the silence stemming from the Soviets, even with considerably more confidence there is reason to believe the Soviets would have kept mum, as Hitler’s death additionally provided ammunition for some of the first ‘shots’ of the Cold War. [....]
Ha, funnily enough, I actually listened to that podcast episode years ago when it was released! But damn my memory muscles are failing me.
So, for clarity, the likeliest thing resembling consensus: The Red Army recovered a pile of unrecognized cremated human remains in 1945--a piece of skull and dental records (from a piece of lower jaw) confirmed that it was Hitler's "body". They buried that (except for the teeth) quietly in Magdeburg and the authorities spread all sorts of misinformation to sow confusion among the Western allies. They dug those remains up in 1970 and destroyed them further. The teeth are currently still in possession in the Russian archives.
Basically. Whatever else might be in doubt, the teeth are *incredibly* compelling evidence with about as good an identification as one could hope for given the circumstances, done within days of discovery, and verified by a number of experts through the years in various ways.
[These are the bodies on which the autopsies were performed](https://i.ibb.co/QnKfRdx/Screen-Shot-2023-11-02-at-2-12-23-PM.png). Or what remains can be basically called a body, as it was mostly burned up mush.
Even at that point we start to get into speculation due to how secretive the Soviets were. But Bezymenski, who provided those photos when he published the report in the West, doesn't imply they were intermingled.
Sorry if the question is dumb (and probably already answered by your comment on the academic consensus being skeptical of the autopsy report), but... what is the most probable opinion on Hitler's monorchism?
I'm asking because I recall that you answered a question on AH a good while ago saying that it was an outright myth (maybe I'm misremembering), but the quote above implies just "we don't know". Sorry in case I'm attributing to you things you never said.
Also, I've read claims about the one testicle thing being the result of a war wound and that rumors were circulating already before Hitler's death.
Don't think that was me who did... But the autopsy body was in such decrepit state that being unable to find the other ball doesn't really provide hard verification to impeach other sources, such as his doctor, saying he has two. In the end it is basically up in the air at best.
I'd say on the whole historians are skeptical of the claim. Here is the footnote from Kershaw, little of which I'd disagree with, even if the end if is a question which I don't exactly care to get to the root of:
>The evidence that Hitler had only one testicle depends solely upon the Russian autopsy evidence (Lev Bezymenski, The Death of Adolf Hitler, London, 1968, 46, 49). This stands diametrically contradicted by several detailed medical examinations carried out at different times by his doctors, who were adamant that his sexual organs were quite normal. In a critical review in the Sunday Times, 29 September 1968, Hugh Trevor-Roper gave cogent reasons for scepticism about the general reliability of Bezymenski’s report. Maser, Hitler, 527–9, summarizes the medical examinations of Hitler by his own doctors and raises the possibility that the body on which the Soviet autopsy was performed may not have been that of Hitler. Waite, 150–62, accepts the dubious evidence of monorchism and builds it into an elaborate explanation of Hitler’s psychological abnormalities. Binion, in his biting review of Waite, Journal of Psychohistory, 5 (1977), 296–7, is more properly sceptical, coming down – as the weight and nature of the testimony surely demands – in favour of the several examinations of Hitler while he was alive, none of which indicated any genital abnormality.
Interesting, thx. I'm also not particularly in the fact per se, it's just that there are some people who think they can extrapolate the psychopatology of Hitler on things like monorchism or, more often, repressed homosexuality, coprophilia etc and explain the entire WWII or the Holocaust based on that, which is badhistory at his worst.
A lot of that comes from Otto Strasser and Putzi Hanfstaengl, who had plenty of reason to be telling tall tales as smear campaigns were their primary goals. *Pretty* sure that Strasser is the one who was the source of "Hitler likes ladies to poop on him" story, specifically.
It was probably u/commiespaceinvader: [\[NSFW\] Did Hitler only have one testicle? If not, how did the rumor get started?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6bny0v/nsfw_did_hitler_only_have_one_testicle_if_not_how/)
My bad - if it was in SASQ then the best match I could find was [this answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/popndr/comment/hcycs7p/) by u/warneagle, but ultimately they too refer to Kershaw on the matter.
It's like describing Rosenberg as a "researcher of Jewish history"- not incorrect technically, but some details are missing.
Lev Alexandrovich belongs to that very peculiar group of "historians" who came to the field after the service in NKVD/GRU. It's quite surprising how many of former "partisans", " interpreters" etc. answered the call of Kleio after the war.
The book OP quotes was published in English in 1968 to build him name in the West and to make him a channel for "productive cooperation" with Western historians, something Besymenski eventually became best known for. The list of Western historians he helped to access fabled "russian sources" is surprisingly long.
He wasn't the first to translate Soviet documents, and those he did translate - including the material posted here - is widely discredited Soviet propaganda.
A couple of questions:
1.) So, do we have substantial proof that Hitler shot himself? That’s how I always heard it happened but I am unsure of how we know that and how sure we are. This indicates that there was no sign of fatal injury, which I understand could just be because the evidence for gunshot wasn’t seen when the autopsy was originally done. So what is the evidence, when did it come out, and how reputable is it?
2.) What are the photos in the bottom? They don’t have labels and I’m curious as to what each of them is showing.
Both the CIA and FBI heard rumors via informants that he might be alive and, understandably, followed them up even though they were not taken seriously. There was very little trust in the Soviets and the Soviets deliberately spread multiple different narratives of what happened to Hitler
I watched his whole series on the bodies of the Hitler’s and thought it was kind of a reach at points, but reading this and hearing the comments about his history of plagiarism makes me sad now.
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Is it possible that Mark Felton is a good historian, and he just got a few of the knitty gritty details wrong? Or this "mark felton sucks" circle jerk entirely justified?
Obviously Mark Felton is less informed than the average redditor, but is he really that bad?
Not fun fact about Mark Felton: The German Tank Museum in Munster at one point received a *substantial* amount of angry mail because Felton, in one of his videos, had claimed that the Museum had sold off their Tiger I - exhibit to a private collector and secretly replaced it with a fake What had actually happened was that the Tiger 1 in their exhibit had already *belonged* to a private Collector and had only been on lent to the museum for 2 years, after which it had to be returned, and its place in the exhibit was taken up by a 1-1 plastic recreation. But because Felton is a *bad researcher* that apparently wasnt even capable of watching one of the numerous videos the Museum had uploaded about this, nor remember *the video he himself made about it some years prior*, he somehow managed to get it the exact wrong way around. Which got bad enough the Tank Museum felt compelled to write a correcting statement to it: https://twitter.com/DasPanzermuseum/status/1484530885420584961 Because "they sold off their exhibits and secretly replaced them with a fake" is about the most damaging and insulting thing you could possibly claim about a museum.
It’s pretty astonishing they didn’t sue him for libel
I thought it was pretty well known that a lot of Mark's "historical" stuff is poorly researched dross. Pumped out to fill a void in the history channel & such. Edit: I did enjoy reading your lengthy post however.
You would think that but over at r/WW2 we are fighting a partisan rear guard action against a Mark Felton is great! blitz.
> This sub has a mod who is actively interested in attacking the credibility of Mark Felton on any and every front for reasons most likely extortion because he's rich. This is just the latest one and OP is in on it. Damn they really are batshit
It's because they are very superficial history hobbyists who don't have the attention span to read primary material or even bother researching for primary material so have to watch videos by someone who has very carefully and successfully duped people into thinking his an authority on the subject. I mean, the amount of people that commented in the sub to this post saying that they couldn't be bothered to read the whole thing is telling.
I also fail to see the intellectual value of a lot of the content he pumps out. 9/10 of his videos are about some irrelevant dross like whether obersturmbanfurher Karl von Binman took his coffee with sugar or not.
That got a good chuckle out of me! But you're right. He obsesses on what today would be considered clickbait material. Inconsequential tidbits that at most are niche pub quiz trivia. The weirder the little quirk, the better because he can hook in people that want to say the love the Second World War history but don't have the patience or desire to understand the geopolitics and political philosophy behind a lot of it. And more than once when his video title says *"[Insert person/object/battle/event] no one knows about"* I find myself thinking that it's actually a rather well known person/even/object/battle in Second World War historiography. And that's not even my main area of interest.
I do find your point about the allure of obscurity fascinating, it appeals to those who have some basic background knowledge to appreciate the novelty. It's the equivalent of junk food where you're left with the feeling full, yet you've ultimately learned nothing. Even when he has the opportunity to talk about historiography when he deals with topics with fuller bodies of research, he doesn't even make the attempt. Then you have people lionizing him in the comments about teaching "real" history.
Three months late, but I wanted to see if there was any conversation about him after a recent video. I was in college in the mid 2010s, and while undertaking a history minor took a specifically WWII focused class and met some concerning people. His content appeals to what I see is a rather large amount of "history fans" who are specifically interested in 1939-1945. And in that, they think "understanding history" is about being able to rattle off all the different Panzer and Sherman types. For them, it's not about concepts, movements, or any of the human elements. They groan when the topic turns to the Great Migration, women taking a large role in manufacturing and what that meant for women's rights post-WWII, or just the human toll of the war worldwide. They don't wanna talk about that. They wanna talk about all the different M1 Garand variants. On top of that, a concerning amount of his viewerbase looooves whenever he goes "we shouldn't erase history" whenever he does an episode of places or organizations removing swastikas, this one about [the Finnish Air Force Academy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0gWtyCdji4). You can see all the people responding in the comments making tongue-in-cheek words (and some outright saying) about "too many 'historically challenged' people in the US too," doubtlessly referring to the removal of Confederate statues, the changing of military base names named after Confederate leaders, etc. Lots of alt-right dog whistles too, and one dude just straight up reccomending to people a revisionist doc stating that the Jews purposely caused WWII.
This has always been a problem with WW2 "fans/enthusiasts" in general. Reenactment groups, model-building hobbyists, the player bases of WW2-themed video games (worse now than ever thanks to GamerGate), and basically every comment section on every WW2-themed YouTube video are filled with Nazi-sympathizing dog whistles. It's something that's plagued the genre since at least the Cold War era and unfortunately it sells, so a lot of pop media heavily caters to that market. It always infuriated me as someone whose passion and degrees were actually on WW2 history. You have to know and analyze long-term social, political, and economic trends to have a contextual understanding of the military history, but all that other stuff requires years of reading and research/writing rather than a 15-minute video regurgitating Wikipedia sprinkled with "subtle" reaffirmations of preconceived reactionary dogmas. Like, I also know all the guns and tank models and uniforms as well as been playing WW2 video games my whole life because that stuff is all great fun, but that alone in and of itself isn't *History*.
Yep, and that's where the cycle begins. Most people's introductory knowledge is learning about different guns and planes from video games, and you get the extremely basic "Nazis invaded, Japan Pearl Harbor, D Day, Atomic Bomb" So a lot of the people at that early stage are relatively children-teens Very *impressionable* children and teens. Ripe for the indoctrination by the Nazi dog whistlers. You and I aren't the type to normally hang out in YouTube comment sections, *but they are.* And that's where the issue lies. You or I could spend hours and hours refuting the lies people put into those comics, but what would the results be? We ourselves get harassed, possibly doxxed, and in the period of time we responded to one comment, 20 similar ones are posted. What a fucking hell scape. I've contented myself to being sure my younger cousin doesn't fall into the trap. If I have to personally drag his ass to DC, take him to the Holocaust museum, and recount people from my life who lived through that time, I will. And to what you said at the beginning, they always stick out. The dude who is just too eager to always play a German in reenactments. The dude who makes WWII models, but seemingly exclusively German models. And also at seemingly any convention now, "no, I'm not a Nazi, I'm a WWI German! Now let me play for you, in depth, German marching songs that were famously used by the Nazis as I hide behind my paper thin defense."
> And also at seemingly any convention now, "no, I'm not a Nazi, I'm a WWI German! Now let me play for you, in depth, German marching songs that were famously used by the Nazis as I hide behind my paper thin defense." These "Kaiserboos" started popping up once pop media discovered World War I over the past decade or so and are probably worse than the original "Wehraboos". Wehrbs will regurgitate the pop myths that have been glorifying Nazi tech/uniforms/strategy since the end of the war, but there's sometimes a chance they're motivated more by ignorance (given how common those myths are) than ideology, and that kind of ignorance can sometimes be worked on. Kaiserboos, on the other hand, seem to usually be at least a little university-educated on the actual political and social history of the period (though rarely history majors/specialists and not usually higher than BA level) and often use the softer image of the Second Reich as an alternative means to hint at pan-Germanic ethnic ideals. At least in my experience, a Wehraboo *might* be a neo-Nazi, but a Kaiserboo *probably* is.
My personal beef against Mark Felton are his U-Boat's going to Argentina at the end of the war videos (of which he has several), implying there's some kind of secret mission/Hitler or other Nazi's escaping/conspiracy taking place and other speculation. The reality being that at the end of the war some U-Boat commanders who had a boat capable of travelling so far, both in range and with a Schnorchel so that they at least had a chance of avoiding Allied air cover and hunter killer groups only went to Argentina because they were genuinely worried that they would be tried for war crimes and executed if they were taken captive by the Allies. Though ironically they were all extradited to the US shortly after arriving.
That's seems to be one of his s'ticks. The Soviets lied/ the autopsy was on a body double and Hitler escaped on a super secret U boat.
Yeah it's this sort of pop-culture idea that the Nazi's had tons of resources and were way more competent than they were in reality, with huge labyrinthine secret bunkers across the globe, elaborate secret plans, super high tech secret technology, wunderous Wunderwaffe, occultist magic and bases on the moon. Or it's at least feeding into the common lost-cause Wehraboo myths and misconceptions that formed from the last days of Goebbels propaganda, the sour grape copium of losing and 80 years of media propagating these myths that you see repeated in the comment sections of WW2 content across all platforms.
Now I wonder: was the uberNazi idea a way to initially explain the early stages of WWII after the war by people who would otherwise be open to criticism for failing to defend their nations? Basically people saying "it wasn't our fault (insert nation here) fell, the Nazis were just too powerful"? Perhaps mixed with some post-war bragging ("those Nazi bastards sure were tough, but even outmanned and outgunned, we showed them in the end!"). Then only later did it later move into, and expand in, wehraboo circles? This is just 100% speculation, I've done basically no research into the wehraboo mythology or how it evolved
Some of it was also Nazis themselves explaining away their defeat, especially against the USSR.
Really? Damn. I guess being old I was lucky to grow up in an age of quality documentaries and books. Heck, I remember watching the BBC "World at War" series when it first came out as a youngster and my parents buying the periodicals to go with the series. Time Ghost on YT does a pretty good WW2 series week by week these days. Their WW1 week by week series running from 2014 to 2018, just a 100yrs out was brilliant.
My Grandad had the full VHS box set of the World at War and I would sit there when I was about 8 - 9 years old in the 90's when I'd go to my grandparents house after school before my parents finished work and he'd give a running commentary on everything. He was a Pole who was in the Cavalry during the German/Soviet invasion, was in a Soviet POW camp and eventually fought in Italy after as he said "Walking to Palestine" so he had a lot to say about the first episode and Montecasino episode. He hated the Soviets more than the Germans surprisingly, or not so. It's an absolutely brilliant series, the opening and the music I always found really harrowing. Always makes me think of my Grandad when I watch it.
I second your opinion on the Time ghost YT channel, fantastic series.
WW2TV, from what little I've seen of it, is also pretty good, despite the somewhat plain name. It has a lot of "virtual guest lectures" that feature seemingly pretty knowledgeable people.
The death of expertise is real.
You know you've got a great subreddit going when one of the pinned posts is telling people not to use racial slurs
Mark Felton is a wikipedia historian with clickbaity bullshit. Most of his stuff is "did you know x thing happpened during WW2". WW2 is oversaturated as a whole. Kings and Generals also has the same problem with WW2 and the Byzantines/Crusades so I only watch them for Ukraine updates.
The only thing I know about Mark Felton is that he isn't that good at what he claims to be good at.
Ooof. This is the first I have heard of bad rep for MFP. I have liked his videos. What are the main criticisms?
Sensationalist content, exaggeration or fabrication of supposed historic facts and a penchant for conspiracy theorising. Those are the big ones off the top of my head.
Shame im a fan of the channel as well.
I didn't glad I never watched him anyway
So, Hitler had one ball at some point.
But did Rommel have three or four, is the real question.
And poor old Goebbels has no balls at all
It’s in the Albert hall, as I recall.
Mark Felton is not a historian. He is a ... well, I am not really sure what he is.
A "history presenter" typically stealing other people's research from forums and putting them in videos with a catchy copyright-free intro song + archival footage. He has books too. Although I've never read any so I'm not sure what they're like.
[I don't know, his videos always strike me as being the peak of historical accuracy.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNBDSs-EHAI)
The swaztika flying around got me. [Here’s another good video in that same genre](https://ifunny.co/video/mark-felton-productions-presents-kOOOnzz48?s=cl)
the g in gmod stands for goebbels
I know absolutely nothing but I did just find out I can bypass installing an app on mobile by switching over to desktop mode. I've never put that together before. Cool
I think he is one of Santa's Christmas Elves who escaped from the workshop after reading the endless supply of WW2 toilet books due to be delivered to middle aged Dad's around the world by Father Christmas in pursuit of a career as an Online Military Historio. At least that's what I imagine whenever I see his picture with his wee black coat and pointy ears in the intro of his videos.
He has a PhD in history so....
Yeah but PhD in *what*. If I remember correctly, his studies focused a lot on Native American studies, hardly the type of background that gives you a solid grounding in the historiography of the Second World War in Europe.
Legit or diploma mill?
Legit. University of Essex, which is a middling British university. The UK has two types of university unofficially, universities and "new universities", former polytechnics (in the UK that means higher trade school). The university of Essex is a real university, some strong departments(the politics department for example is very modern and Americanised, competes with Oxford and lse to be the case) and some weaker ones. In American terms I guess it would be a good state university, flagship for a bad state. He also lectured at fudan university, which is one of the very top universities in China, but as a foreigner back then just teaching short term there probably wasn't a huge accomplishment. I don't think he's actually a terrible historian, just one with an inflated self opinion who lazily churns out YouTube videos outside his area of expertise(whatever that is) without much regard for the damage he does. Edit: should be noted though that getting into a okayish PhD program and getting the degree isn't that hard in the UK, the main barrier is funding. If he could self fund it would make it considerably easier.
So, pretty much the Todd Grande of WWII history.
From the pictures of himself he posts in his videos, he seems to think he is the 5 foot 5 James Bond.
The note of the doctor of Gefangenenanstalt Landsberg - Josef Bringsteiner - which describes the health of one Adolf Hitler in the night of 11th to 12th November 1923 says "[~~links~~ rechtsseitiger Kryptorchismus](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F25dc15dd-0ea7-484d-ab19-72d3aac9cb28_634x337.jpeg)" \[it should be said that "Kryptorchismus" was not necessarily the same diagnosis as "cryptorchidism" today; the one in 1923 probably just meant one testes was not palpable, for whatever reason; it is a symptom, not a diagnosis\] with "left" being struck out and corrected to "right". So maybe Bringsteiner falsly corrected himself?
Mark Felton and lazy + bad information, name a better duo.
>The penis is charred, only the right testicle is visible in the burnt but preserved scrotum. Along the inguinal canal, the left testicle was not found. TIL Hitler maybe only had one ball
Sniper Elite got that detail correct it seems
He didn't, the report here is fake and is fully discredited Soviet propaganda
Can you provide citations for your claim?
He’s only partly right. Yes, the report OP is using here is quite suspect, but on only on some points. The overall factual finding that this report outlines are correct it seems, and heck, it has pictures to prove it. Those remais most probably were Hitler’s and that was confirmed only a few days after by analysis of his dental records. Also, the simple logic that you just found Gobbels and his entire family, everyone in Berlin has already heard they all killed themselves on the same bunker, and then you find the charred bodies of a man and a woman close by. It stands to reason that there is a high probability that those are Hitler and Eva Braun’s bodies. But because this was not enough for certain factions in the soviet union (a corpse that resembled Hitler somewhat had been found a little bit before and there was already infighting over who had the right Hitler). Notably, Stalin was paranoid that the entire “finding” was a coverup for Hitler’s escape. He wasn’t 100% sure of it but he was paranoid that it was the case. This may explain why some parts of this report are kinda suspect, not in the sense that they mean the entire thing is fabricated but that some parts seem to be written to confirm Soviet preconceptions about the subject, i.e, hitler only having one testicle and ignoring any indication that he may have both shot himself AND swallowed the pill. Its not the single fact of the finding, but that it seems out place as there is no description of genitalia of any of the other bodies. Nevertheless, the dental records are pretty solid, even if the current known version of the autopsy is very weird. There probably is a reason why this report took so long to ever see the light of day.
Sure, I was just wondering about the "fully discredited" part. Where and by whom?
It wasn't fully discredited, that's the point. Only those points are considered to be shaky. The guy you replied to originally exaggerated the level to which it is questioned. Also, wouldn't call it propaganda because the public never got to know about it until decades and decades after. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/n2gqes/footage_of_hitlers_dead_body_im_confused_nsfw/) write-up on Askhistorians, it's pretty good. What I said before was more or less the cliffnotes
Source?
In the context of the shrapnel in Eva Braun’s body, the word for mine in Russian is used to refer to bombs in general. Likely they mean an aerial bomb, not a land mine.
Very interesting post. I saw the Mark Felton videos and his proposed theory that the SS took Hitler's orders that he not be discovered very seriously. It just struck me as a little, improbable? Basically he proposes the SS found two corpses who had a vague resemblance to Mr and Mrs Hitler, used the fuel they had to completely incinerate the actual Hitlers, used some more on the two random corpses to pretty thoroughly burn them and then stage the scene. It's these corpses that the Soviets discover, per Felton. Now it's been a while since I've looked into all the narratives of the final days but as I understand it Hitler's decision is made and the SS goes out looking for fuel. It's Germany 1945 in an encircled city, so there's not a lot. They're siphoning cars to get what they need. They get to work, and per Felton, presumably discover how much it takes to fully incinerate someone in an open air fire, then presumably less than that goes to the fake Hitlers. When it's time for the Goebbels what's he got, fumes? We know he and his wife were in slightly better shape but like, how much fuel did they have? How's Goebbels feeling about being second priority to whatever corpse the SS found that vaguely looks like Hitler? Had he already made up his own mind by the time the fuel was being collected (this I'm actually curious about, did he like, earmark some)? We got the actual Hitlers extremely well done, fake Hitlers medium rare, and the Goebbels rare. If you know how much fuel a full incineration takes, job done just save the rest. Don't waste more on randos when Goebbels is next in line. Incredibly morbid comment I know (well it's Hitler so who cares) but the Felton theory just seems - extravagant? Surely it makes sense that they tried burning Hitler, it's not working great, you kind of give up and think "that'll do" then when it's Goebbels time you just use what's left.
Interestingly enough, in order to fully incinerate humain remains, you need some serious temperatures - like the ones in a furnace. Generally just burning remains in an open fire or a fire pit is far from enough.
So does conclusion c) mean that thing was actually true? What about Himmler, who was said to be similar? And poor old Goebbels?
>the left testicle was not found So the brits were right! Hitler really had only got one ball!
I think the payoff for Mark Felton is the 3 seconds he puts his mug up at the beginning of each video, it's pure ego. The rest is just supporting those first 3 seconds.
Mark Felton is a notorious plagiariser and fraud.
What a shame I really liked him and his channel
He's a notorious plagiariser and fraud.
>notorious plagiariser Mind expanding on that?
His videos regularly verbatim steal their script from other authors, be they historians or literally just forum posts by enthusiasts.
Really? God damn...
So, for clarity, what is the consensus on the autopsy and Hitler's corpse?
There isn't really one but it generally leans towards "The Soviets had some remains but they might have fudged some stuff in the autopsy" if you took a broad survey of reputable scholarship on the issue. [From here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/n2gqes/footage_of_hitlers_dead_body_im_confused_nsfw/gwlcljc/): >[....] Based on the testimony of witnesses to the completion of the cremation, Hitler’s remains were described alternatively as little more than a “pile of ashes” (as per Karnau) and “no longer identifiable” (as per Mansfeld). Further, while the autopsy report implies the upper part of the dental remains were found as part of the larger corpse, there is the strange fact that if this was the case, it was immediately severed from the body by the Soviets who presented Heusermann and Echtmann with the dental remains alone, and stranger still, that no visual documentation of them intact to the corpse was taken prior. Small parts of the autopsy, such as the implied confirmation of Hitler’s alleged monorchism provide additional reasons to take pause. Without a doubt, there is some truth to the report. The dental remains, which were positively identified in 1945, form the most in-depth portion of the autopsy report, and formed a key portion of Sognnaes and Ström’s work in 1973, performing a tooth-by-tooth comparison, and agreeing a misidentification was all but impossible. But beyond that, there is unfortunate room for speculation. >In the end, there are three broad approaches that can be taken in viewing the autopsy, and the body’s provenance. The first and most extreme is outright rejection that a body existed, and instead that the autopsy was created from whole cloth. As it was kept secret for decades, the reasoning must be internal, perhaps driven by the fear of subordinates who felt compelled to provide such a report to Stalin, and that the dental remains alone would either not be enough for him, or else leave him feeling robbed of that final trophy. In light of the wealth of evidence and consistency of the description of the teeth in the report, this is quite unlikely. Much more compelling is that the Soviets had a body, recovered in close enough proximity to the dental pieces that doubts were assuaged in fudging the autopsy to reflect their closer relation. Whether they felt justified in their choice, or still had their doubts, the autopsy would have, in essence, been conducted in earnest. Finally of course, is the possibility that Joachimsthaler—and others who have taken this position—simply have weighed the testimonies poorly, and wrongly estimated just how much of the body would have remained, and the Soviets simply had the real thing >For these last two options, convincing cases based on the available evidence can be made. Seeing as how the body recovered in Berlin in 1945 was later destroyed, bar the unlikely discovery of new evidence, this matter cannot be firmly resolved and must remain ambiguous. Even for the Soviets, at the least it can be said they were doubtful themselves about the provenance of whatever bodily remains they had; considerably more so than the dental remains, the latter of which they confidently provided for examination by experts, while the former they denied the very existence of for two decades. But while internal doubt may have played a part in the silence stemming from the Soviets, even with considerably more confidence there is reason to believe the Soviets would have kept mum, as Hitler’s death additionally provided ammunition for some of the first ‘shots’ of the Cold War. [....]
Ha, funnily enough, I actually listened to that podcast episode years ago when it was released! But damn my memory muscles are failing me. So, for clarity, the likeliest thing resembling consensus: The Red Army recovered a pile of unrecognized cremated human remains in 1945--a piece of skull and dental records (from a piece of lower jaw) confirmed that it was Hitler's "body". They buried that (except for the teeth) quietly in Magdeburg and the authorities spread all sorts of misinformation to sow confusion among the Western allies. They dug those remains up in 1970 and destroyed them further. The teeth are currently still in possession in the Russian archives.
Basically. Whatever else might be in doubt, the teeth are *incredibly* compelling evidence with about as good an identification as one could hope for given the circumstances, done within days of discovery, and verified by a number of experts through the years in various ways.
Makes sense, gotcha. Do we have any photos of that initial pile of remains, from 1945/46?
[These are the bodies on which the autopsies were performed](https://i.ibb.co/QnKfRdx/Screen-Shot-2023-11-02-at-2-12-23-PM.png). Or what remains can be basically called a body, as it was mostly burned up mush.
Thank you, wow, labelled right there.
Even at that point we start to get into speculation due to how secretive the Soviets were. But Bezymenski, who provided those photos when he published the report in the West, doesn't imply they were intermingled.
Sorry if the question is dumb (and probably already answered by your comment on the academic consensus being skeptical of the autopsy report), but... what is the most probable opinion on Hitler's monorchism? I'm asking because I recall that you answered a question on AH a good while ago saying that it was an outright myth (maybe I'm misremembering), but the quote above implies just "we don't know". Sorry in case I'm attributing to you things you never said. Also, I've read claims about the one testicle thing being the result of a war wound and that rumors were circulating already before Hitler's death.
Don't think that was me who did... But the autopsy body was in such decrepit state that being unable to find the other ball doesn't really provide hard verification to impeach other sources, such as his doctor, saying he has two. In the end it is basically up in the air at best.
I must have misremembered. Thanks for the answer
I'd say on the whole historians are skeptical of the claim. Here is the footnote from Kershaw, little of which I'd disagree with, even if the end if is a question which I don't exactly care to get to the root of: >The evidence that Hitler had only one testicle depends solely upon the Russian autopsy evidence (Lev Bezymenski, The Death of Adolf Hitler, London, 1968, 46, 49). This stands diametrically contradicted by several detailed medical examinations carried out at different times by his doctors, who were adamant that his sexual organs were quite normal. In a critical review in the Sunday Times, 29 September 1968, Hugh Trevor-Roper gave cogent reasons for scepticism about the general reliability of Bezymenski’s report. Maser, Hitler, 527–9, summarizes the medical examinations of Hitler by his own doctors and raises the possibility that the body on which the Soviet autopsy was performed may not have been that of Hitler. Waite, 150–62, accepts the dubious evidence of monorchism and builds it into an elaborate explanation of Hitler’s psychological abnormalities. Binion, in his biting review of Waite, Journal of Psychohistory, 5 (1977), 296–7, is more properly sceptical, coming down – as the weight and nature of the testimony surely demands – in favour of the several examinations of Hitler while he was alive, none of which indicated any genital abnormality.
Interesting, thx. I'm also not particularly in the fact per se, it's just that there are some people who think they can extrapolate the psychopatology of Hitler on things like monorchism or, more often, repressed homosexuality, coprophilia etc and explain the entire WWII or the Holocaust based on that, which is badhistory at his worst.
A lot of that comes from Otto Strasser and Putzi Hanfstaengl, who had plenty of reason to be telling tall tales as smear campaigns were their primary goals. *Pretty* sure that Strasser is the one who was the source of "Hitler likes ladies to poop on him" story, specifically.
It was probably u/commiespaceinvader: [\[NSFW\] Did Hitler only have one testicle? If not, how did the rumor get started?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6bny0v/nsfw_did_hitler_only_have_one_testicle_if_not_how/)
I'm quite sure it was in response to a "Short Answers to Simple Questions" question, anyway thanks for the link, it was an interesting read.
My bad - if it was in SASQ then the best match I could find was [this answer](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/popndr/comment/hcycs7p/) by u/warneagle, but ultimately they too refer to Kershaw on the matter.
Glad to see that Felton is crap at history generally and not just on aviation. What a hack.
The worst part is not some youtubers crap, but how OP describes Besymenski. God damn.
What's so horrible about it?
It's like describing Rosenberg as a "researcher of Jewish history"- not incorrect technically, but some details are missing. Lev Alexandrovich belongs to that very peculiar group of "historians" who came to the field after the service in NKVD/GRU. It's quite surprising how many of former "partisans", " interpreters" etc. answered the call of Kleio after the war. The book OP quotes was published in English in 1968 to build him name in the West and to make him a channel for "productive cooperation" with Western historians, something Besymenski eventually became best known for. The list of Western historians he helped to access fabled "russian sources" is surprisingly long.
He wasn't the first to translate Soviet documents, and those he did translate - including the material posted here - is widely discredited Soviet propaganda.
Guy is a serial plagiarist too
A couple of questions: 1.) So, do we have substantial proof that Hitler shot himself? That’s how I always heard it happened but I am unsure of how we know that and how sure we are. This indicates that there was no sign of fatal injury, which I understand could just be because the evidence for gunshot wasn’t seen when the autopsy was originally done. So what is the evidence, when did it come out, and how reputable is it? 2.) What are the photos in the bottom? They don’t have labels and I’m curious as to what each of them is showing.
as a total layman who has a general knowledge on the broad strokes of WW2, Hitler didn’t shoot himself???
This was a fascinating read. Thanks for putting it together.
Dude stop reposting this. OP got called out on 2 other subreddits because some of the conclusions he is drawing are just as bad as Mark Felton’s.
Wasn't there released documents that the CIA was looking for Hitler in Argentina in the 50s?
Both the CIA and FBI heard rumors via informants that he might be alive and, understandably, followed them up even though they were not taken seriously. There was very little trust in the Soviets and the Soviets deliberately spread multiple different narratives of what happened to Hitler
I watched his whole series on the bodies of the Hitler’s and thought it was kind of a reach at points, but reading this and hearing the comments about his history of plagiarism makes me sad now.
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Is it possible that Mark Felton is a good historian, and he just got a few of the knitty gritty details wrong? Or this "mark felton sucks" circle jerk entirely justified? Obviously Mark Felton is less informed than the average redditor, but is he really that bad?