ABSTRACT
The table talks are not ad verbatim records of Hitler’s utterances. Neither are they simply recollections; instead, they are carefully crafted literary products created for political purposes. Hitler was neither unaware of the fact that notes were being made at times, nor was he speaking “freely” in any meaningful sense of the word. The book shows how myths and lies from Mein Kampf are repeated in the table talks. The same source criticism and scepticism that are used by historians with regard to e.g. Goebbels’s diaries needs to be applied also to the table talks. The book argues that many of the methods used by historians, e.g. such as reasoning about the authenticity and reliability of a text from so-called “internal evidence” is fatally flawed and that the historians’ source-critical tools need to be sharpened. The book argues that, essentially, the only way anyone can ever confidently use the table talk notes is if what is being referred to can be corroborated by independent sources. An important result is also that The Testament of Adolf Hitler, a document used by many historians, has been shown to be a forgery.
