NAZI Germany: Hester Vaizey guides Venusian and Martian readers

Hester Vaizey reviews two new works about NAZI Germany in the book review section of the Spectator Magazine for about 20 May 2011. One of the books is Giles Milton’s Wolfram: the boy who went to war. I wonder for whom she imagines she was writing that review. I would guess that parts of it would have been suitably pitched for twelve-year old British readers in the 1950s and 1960s, youngsters whose parents would have talked endlessly, as did my own, about ‘the Germans’ and bombing. 
   I quote from her discourse: ‘There was no single uniform experience of Nazism.’ Maybe the next quotation would be more fit for fifteen-year-olds since the first word could be a challenge, ‘rhetoric and reality were not the same thing’, but then we revert again to what is suitable for history fledglings. ‘Milton’s account reveals that Germans, too, experienced real suffering in wartime, whether it was separation from loved ones, chronic food shortages or the Allied bombing.’ My word, Milton must, in her estimation, be some mighty scholar! Yet there is more, as she sees it, by way of a revolution in interpretation of German experience between 1933 and 1945, ‘Milton’s close analysis of the experiences of Germans demonstrates that they too could be victims of the war.’ Gosh..., indeed, remarkably close analysis must have been required to turn our understanding upside down after such a fashion!  

    I suggest that you read the whole review for yourself. Those quotations do not constitute the extent of her approach to the book: she sees other similar break-through revelations for our understanding. I went to the comments section of the page, but found that everyone else was too embarrassed to express their views on that startling review. 

     Such a piece, which I fear may be the anorexic end of a coming wedge, is another landmark along a declining path in copy editorship at the Spectator. The rot began to inch in a couple of years ago with increasingly frequent inattention to aberrant spelling and usage, and now, it seems, it is creeping to judgement on and acceptance of material appropriate to what is a highly literate and aware readership. As readers, we have long been accustomed in the book reviews to incisive insight, teasing paradox and other clever tricks, not to mention assumption of a wealth of deep background knowledge. Ms. Vaizey, buck up! The readership of the Speccie has never noticeably been an element of any intellectual Lumpenproletariat. And poor Giles Milton deserves and could expect a bit better of your Cantabrigian fastnesses.