ABSTRACT
Here we get to follow the process leading up to the publication of Genoud’s Bormann-Vermerke in 1980 by historian Werner Jochmann. This chapter shows that Jochmann, too, although a very diligent and highly respected historian, cut corners in order to portray the text that he was publishing as the only reliable version. For instance, it shows that Jochmann never had access to the “original” documents – an impossibility since Genoud never had those – but only photocopies of Genoud’s photocopies. Jochmann of course never mentioned this fact to his readers. Instead, Jochmann engages in a polemic against Picker’s Tischgespräche in order to argue that the text in Genoud’s hands was more “authentic” – a claim that was not only false but, more importantly, missed the point in that it did not take into account how Heim’s (and the other authors’) notes were in fact created. Jochmann, too, became a victim of the feeling of being “privileged” to have been given access to Genoud’s manuscript, something that many scholars had been trying so hard to get before him and failed. Clearly, Jochmann, just as Trevor-Roper before him, was not able to keep a critical distance from the documents that he was validating.
