"Hofschroer court case" Topic

This does not surprise me at all. I knew him in the German re-enactment scene many years ago, and the sentence reflects the reasons he left that scene, as told to me by a witness.

@ snapper

What, you mean he was a suspected kiddy-fiddler back then?

It's a terrible shame,if guilty you do the time but it doesn't have to be.

@ 4th Cuirassier

That is exactly what I was told by a mutual friend who was present. PH left the event overnight and was never seen again at any Napoleonic reenactment.

As an American and not a Napoleonic scholar of any stripe, I just read the books, did it not take the Prussian army and the British army both to wear down, tie down, and ultimately bleed the French enough to keep them away from Brussels and finally defeat this army and Napoleon's scheme for a comeback? An awful lot of good men died probably needlessly for Napoleons delusions of grandeur. I think there is more than enough honor to go around to both British and Prussian soldiers of that era.

He wrote some interesting papers on the Prussian Army of 1806 and I have his books also, interesting read but I realize that his later writing he always seemed to have an axe to grind.

Have a couple of his books, and as a Prussian aficionado enjoyed his writing. But either way it is a terrible shame to have happened.

I disagree profoundly with those who say too bad he's a paedophile but at least Hofschroer has contributed something to the study of the period. He is actually worse than Hamilton-Williams because the latter just wanted to flog a few books and disappeared when exposed. Hofschroer has actually been quite successful at introducing ignorance and bias into the canon and has thus reduced knowledge rather than adding to it. We actually have no idea whether anything he claims to have found in the German language archives says what he says it does, or even exists. We have good reason to think otherwise, because he has a proven track history of mendacity, abuse and misrepresentation of sources, and delusion.

As well as being a prolific downloader of paedophile pornography, he has libelled another historian and had to pay him damages;
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accused the police, a libel court judge, and the social services of conspiring to steal his mother's house;
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- a defence dismissed by the judge as "outrageous"; he has called a female civilian police worker a "pervert [who] covers up for the many kiddie diddlers and granny abusers in the police";
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- described by that judge as "deeply unpleasant personal abuse and vilification"; and he has been sectioned under the Mental Health Act (which, for non-UK readers, means that "someone has to be suffering from a mental disorder of a nature or degree which warrants your detention in a hospital for assessment or treatment and that you ought to be detained in the interests of your own health, your own safety or with a view to the protection of others.")
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It has long been evident from the poor reasoning, irrational conclusions, bizarre partiality and strawman arguing techniques of his books that his judgment is not to be relied on, but given all the above, I would not believe anything he asserted on any subject. If he told me the sky was blue and grass was green I'd get another source.

Hofschroer has actually been quite successful at introducing ignorance and bias into the canon and has thus reduced knowledge rather than adding to it. We actually have no idea whether anything he claims to have found in the German language archives says what he says it does, or even exists.

Whoa. That is way over the top and not true, and certainly not truer than what any number of authors have done.

There are many things to suggest that he is not a good or balanced person, but that doesn't apply to his scholarship…You certainly wouldn't discount accusations of being a pedaphile because he produced good scholarship. You shouldn't judge his historical works on Hofschroer's unpleasant personality or mental problems etc. etc.

Saying that, of course his works should be judge on their merits like any other author's work.

@ McLaddie

Absolutely it's true. His potty claims about Waterloo have entered the canon as somehow fit to be taken at face value. They are not. He is no better than Hamilton-Williams. He has subtracted from our understanding of the era.

Personally yes, I certainly do "judge his historical works on Hofschroer's unpleasant personality or mental problems ". I doubt 100% the claims and analysis of someone with Hofschroer's judgement and proven mendacity. Why on earth would you not? If he'll lie in court, why wouldn't he lie about what is or is not in an archive?

Would Jimmy Savile's autobiography be honest and reliable? Savile's should actually be more reliable in that he was never convicted and thus never technically lost his good character.

Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus, as the Romans had it.

So what is now the received wisdom. Were the Prussians at waterloo?

@ Marc

No they weren't. Wellington failed to mention them, starting in the Waterloo Despatch.

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Personally yes, I certainly do "judge his historical works on Hofschroer's unpleasant personality or mental problems ". I doubt 100% the claims and analysis of someone with Hofschroer's judgement and proven mendacity. Why on earth would you not? If he'll lie in court, why wouldn't he lie about what is or is not in an archive?

So, only those authors with pleasant and mentally stable personalities are to be trusted? 100%? Do you know how many great historical works would be discounted using that measuring stick? Whatever his historical judgements and analysis, they should be judged on their own merits, using the same criteria as any other historical work. If you feel that Hofschroer's work fails on that level, fine.

No they weren't. Wellington failed to mention them, starting in the Waterloo Despatch.

4th C:

I'm assuming you are being humorous, because Wellington did mention them.

I should not do justice to my own feelings, or to Marshal Blücher and the Prussian army, if I did not attribute the successful result of this arduous day to the cordial and timely assistance I received from them. The operation of General Bülow upon the enemy's flank was a most decisive one; and, even if I had not found myself in a situation to make the attack which produced the final result, it would have forced the enemy to retire if his attacks should have failed, and would have prevented him from taking advantage of them if they should unfortunately have succeeded.

only those authors with pleasant and mentally stable personalities are to be trusted?

No, I'm saying that historians found to be untruthful should be distrusted. Hofschroer is untruthful.

And yes I do know Wellington fully credited the Prussians. Hofschroer's first lie was to claim that English-language accounts overstate the British contribution, and to then fail to cite one single English language account that does so. His bibliography includes no such accounts. He just made the claim up, like a lot else. Starting on 19th June Wellington attributed victory to the Prussian intervention.

No, I'm saying that historians found to be untruthful should be distrusted.

Then you have approached his work as a historical study and found it wanting, correct? Apart from his personal behavior and character?

If so, then you have done what I was suggesting is the approach to take with his histories.

Correct. He has been shown to misrepresent and manipulate sources and his analysis is extremely poor.

Could someone please rehearse the argument for me? IIRC all the dispute boiled down to was whether one believes Wellington or Ziethen about the location of some Allied formations on the 16th, but I daresay I have misremembered the finer points.

Hofschroer maintained that Ziethen had written to Wellington at 5am on the 15th to advise him that the French were advancing and that by 9am this message reached Wellington, who did nothing about it for 16 hours. As proof he cited correspondence from Wellington on the 15th in which he said that he had "heard nothing from Ziethen since this morning". Hofschroer argued that this proved Wellington had known about the French advance since that morning and had done nothing about it all day, and cited Julius Pflug-Harttung (a WW1 era German historian who had access to the now-destroyed correspondence archive of the Prussian commanders) and Ziethen's memoirs written 25 years later.

A number of others, including Greg Pedlow and John Hussey, debunked this by pointing out that this construction would have required Ziethen to have written and had translated a letter to Wellington before he wrote to his own commander; that what Hofschroer misrepresented as Pflug-Harttung's conclusion that the letter was received at 9am was in fact his opening premise for discussion, which he proceeded to debate and then concluded that it was sent at 9am; and that the Ziethen account Hofschroer relied was not the contemporary record, but his deeply fanciful memoirs, which he blurred to make it sound like he was quoting from the former rather than the latter. Their conclusion, and of course Pflug-Hartung's, was that Wellington received Ziethen's message at around 6pm and only had material news (i.e. that this wasn't a feint) 6 hours later.

Hofschroer's response was to harass his critics online and through the courts. At the same time he was also harassing the police with litigation that he was eventually barred from pursuing as vexatious.

He also made a number of misrepresentations in his book about the Siborne model, although that doesn't claim to be history, of course.

So when proper professional historians took a look at the kind of claim he makes, the claim instantly fell apart as based on nothing or indeed based on sources he had misrepresented. Given this, it is unwise to rely in anything else he has written, because if the source is simply what Hofschroer says he has read in some archive, well, given the above, what does his source really say? Who knows? After all, the man who says he found X in some archive is also the man whose defence at his trial was that the police planted evidence on him because they were all paedophiles and associates of Jimmy Savile, who were all in a conspiracy – along with the judge at his libel trial and with Napoleonic historians who disagree with him – to frame him so they could steal his mother's house. It doesn't fill one with confidence, does it?

As for his analysis, well, in no particular order:

- he asserts that British historians overstate the value of the British contribution, but fails to cite even one example of this – there are no British histories in his bibliography;
- he provides no comparative analysis of the weight assigned by writers in other languages to the respective contributions, which would reveal whether there is simply a parallel national interest evident in each case;
- he takes no account of the French view, which was that the army to beat was the one they called the "English" led by Wellington. If the Prussian / "German" contribution was so important, why didn't the enemy think so?
- he overlooks the fact that Napoleon set out to defeat Wellington first and only turned on the Prussians because they offered battle;
- he overlooks the fact that the Prussians lost every battle they fought alone and won only when Wellington was there, whereas Wellington's army won every battle it fought;
- he overlooks the fact that Wellington at Waterloo faced the biggest single concentration of French troops in the campaign (73,000 French) with inferior numbers, and lured then to defeat, whereas the Prussians at Ligny faced fewer French than that with greatly superior numbers on ground they chose, and still managed to lose;
- he overlooks the fact that the Prussians were just as doomed without Wellington as vice versa;
- at Waterloo Wellington defeated 63,000 French including all the heavy cavalry while the Prussians struggled to defeat 10,000 French with 30,000 men;
- he overlooks the fact that at Ligny the Prussians were so badly beaten they sent one distant corps to Wellington's aid because the two more numerous nearer corps were still plainly shattered from Ligny;
- he bases his claim that this was a "German" victory on headcount, without considering battle results, and on miles marched without considering that most "German" marching was in fact in headlong retreat;
- he claims further post-Waterloo victories for the Prussians, but does not reflect on whether any were even necessary, given Wellington's accurate judgement that Napoleon post-Waterloo was politically bust regardless. Essentially, Hofschroer here confuses organised punitive looting with military activity.

I think that more or less covers it.

All interesting points 4th. Not sure I agree 100% with all of yours, but good to see it laid out clearly.

Thanks

Marc

Hi Marc

I'm not sure I do either! But I do think they are all reasonable considerations worthy of discussion. The reason I think Hofschroer has lessened understanding of the campaign is because he has persuaded a regrettable number of people that none of the above matters and that it's all about headcount. If so, then Mersah Matruh was not Rommel's victory but an Italian one, Yorktown was a victory for the French, and Kursk was a defeat for the EU.

4th Cuirassier
Just found out about this story at weekend from a mate at my Wargames club. I need to get out more!
Thanks for your concluding posting which is very interesting and helpful.
I am no serious student of the Napoleonic era, but rather an interested amateur, but nevertheless found some of PH's writings both interesting and entertaining.
Personally I feel it is very sad that I shall now be unable to trust a word he has written and disgusted that he has turned out to be the same breed of low life as Saville.
I think I might just bin all his books as a matter of principle.
I am also thinking now of abandoning my proposed Prussians at Ligny project in 28mm.
Thanks to all for a very interesting thread.

For informed comment on this case, do see:

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For comments by anti-child abuse campaigners, go to:

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For the background to the case, see:

grandmabarbara.wordpress.com

All very tragic, but I will still keep the books which I have by him, and refer to them at times.

Rod

All Matt McBride's gibberish has been tested in court and destroyed.

Hofschroer has now been extradited to Austria to face more kiddy-fiddling charges. Obviously the Austrian police are part of the conspiracy.

So Lord Maginnis got it all wrong then?

"The Minister knows it well and over the past three years the Home Office has received hundreds – yes, hundreds – of communications through me about the matter. Successive Secretaries of State [including Theresa May] have been so concerned that none would meet me, despite the fact that Interpol was activated to pursue this elderly lady all the way to her son's home in Austria. Does anyone in authority care that social services and police in North Yorkshire have conspired in the persecution of Mrs Hofschroer and her son? Are details of dismissals, forced retirements and other shady and costly measures pertaining to North Yorkshire Police available to legislators in Parliament? "

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"he overlooks the fact that the Prussians lost every battle they fought alone and won only when Wellington was there, whereas Wellington's army won every battle it fought"

Yes, the Prussians lost at Grossbeeren, Dennewitz and Wartenberg. Where did you get that idea that the Prussians never won a battle they fought on their own?

A "Free Peter Hofschroer" campaign?

What's that, buy one Peter Hofschroer, get a second one free?

Think I'll pass old buy.

4th Cuirassier is referring to the 100 Days Campaign and contrasting Blucher and Wellington's fortunes. It has nothing to do with the 1813 Campaign in Germany.

And besides, the Prussians weren't exactly 'on their own' at Grossbeeren or at Dennewitz.

The only Prussian army that Blucher commanded was in 1815 in Belgium.

The Army of Silesia in 1813-1814 was composed of both Prussian and Russian corps, not merely Prussians.

"And besides, the Prussians weren't exactly 'on their own' at Grossbeeren or at Dennewitz."

The French weren't either

in 1812 Boney wouldn't even dare to invade Russia alone with the aid of his numerous allies

And look how well 1812 went with all that German help.

Broadly, between 1794 and 1815, the only way the Prussians won not just against the French but against anyone was with numerical superiority, and / or the assistance of a more militarily effective ally.

Of course, they often still lost battles even given those, but in the absence of those factors, Prussian defeat was assured.

The Prussian army of the era ranks above only the Spanish in overall effectiveness. Depending on which part of the era, it is slightly or significantly better than the Spanish, but still well behind the Russian, Austrian, British, or Portuguese armies.

And who fought with the Prussians at Dennewitz? Some Swedes and maybe a handful of Russians that showed up later? At Grossbeeren the same. Bernadotte purposely kept the Swedes (for the most part) out of battle in 1813.

I suggest anyone disputing this should read "Napoleon and Berlin" which chronicles the problems v. Bulow had with getting Bernadotte to lend support at all.

Now advance to 1815. The Anglo-Allies didnt WIN at QB … it was a Draw and for me it was a French victory … the French held QB on the 17th. The Anglo-Allies retreated. So Wellington LOST.

I am so sick of the "Iron Duke" supporters. Without the allies that fought with the "Iron Duke's" BRITISH troops (that would be Scots and Irish and any Crown troops under BRITISH rule) the BRITISH dont win at all. And lets just toss India in for good measure.

Had the French I Corps shown up it was a French victory as well. Only a mistake in orders and D'Erlon's own errors did the Anglo-Allies come close to a DRAW at QB. Had the I Corps shown up they would have run Wellington back to his ports and off the continent. No Waterloo at all.

Blucher's troops march though knee deep mud to get to the battle. … and here on this forum I still hear "Wellington won the battle." Baloney. The Allies won. It took a team effort. Without the support of Blucher the French and Napoleon roll over the Anglo-Allies.

If it was a "near run thing" with Blucher just imagine what it would have been without him.

Adding this in too… it was NOT Wellington marching away from his supply base at Antwerp to go to Blucher's aid .. it was the other way around. Wellington was looking out for BRITISH interests. Blucher was looking out for ALLIED interests. In 1814 it was the Prussians and Russians of the Army of Silesia that bore the brunt of most of the fighting against Napoleon. Blucher knew the score. Get the war over as soon as possible and it meant fighting through the tangled web of Allied national prejudices.

"And look how well 1812 went with all that German help."

Wow -- I am done here … obviously 4th Cuirassier hasnt read about the French getting the priority over the supplies.

A LOT of German support went into the 1812 campaign. Yes, we can cite v.Yorck for pulling his Prussians out of the campaign but that after the campaign was winding down.

Yes, the Westphalians were not the best fighters but lets not forget the heroic action of some of the Confed of the Rhine troops and others like the Saxon cavalry.

It was not the Germans that let Napoleon down in 1812. Without them how could he have gotten as far he did. They provided him with men to perform garrison duty or cover his flanks. I would pit the Saxon cavalry up against most any regiments Napoleon had.

I suggest you find some historians to read who aren't foaming loony jailbirds, and see what they have to say about 1815 and other campaigns.

yes say this to the heaps of German casualties, denigrating the sacriface of them is a sad attitude, moreover Prussia 1812 was stripped, even French general were concerned about that.

4th cuirassiers – I recommend reading history books – and start with that of Bernard Coppens about the campaign of 1812.

About the quality of the allied units to Napoleon – he was quite content to use them to a huge extend and often they prooved to be on par with the French, see the Beresina for example.

I am so sick of the "Iron Duke" supporters. Without the allies that fought with the "Iron Duke's" BRITISH troops (that would be Scots and Irish and any Crown troops under BRITISH rule) the BRITISH dont win at all. And lets just toss India in for good measure.

You are Peter Hofschroer and I claim my reward.

The Confederation of the Rhine units, especially those of Wurttemberg, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Bavaria, were excellent and performed superbly in the field.

The Wurttemberg horse artillery was especially praised by Ney in Russia as being on a par with the French horse artillery, which was a great compliment.

And don't forget the Swiss…especially at the Berezina. The Berezina Lied is still sung in Switzerland to this day.

Could I just say how fabulously apt it is that bits of disinterred 19th-century Prussian revisionism about Waterloo should be discussed in a thread about Peter Hofschroer's paedophilia.

I can think of no better place to assure such a discussion the attention and respect it deserves.

I just yesterday bought the Osprey Prussian Army of the Lower Rhine…purely because it was in my local bookshop.

Not a great interest for me, although I did do "The Road to Plancenoit" as a diorama. (I wanted to show mud and artillerymen pushing a stuck gun and I have no idea why I did)

As I read it I thought some of the phrasing was a bit weird and only halfway through did I think to check the identity of the author. Of course "Prussian tactics of etc" is also by him.

I am torn here. If he had a brain tumour we would all support him. If he had a mental illness such as Schizophrenia or Manic Depression he would probably be a world famous artist. If he has a mental illness that puts him beyond the accepted pale, we think he is fair game for everyone. I do so wish the Editor would drop this whole topic. I expressed concerns when the trial was in progress (that was very dangerous in UK or US law!)

Since then there has been some very useful discussion about the Prussians pitching up at "Waterloo"….at whatever stage is debatable.

I am torn, as I can see the argument that he seems to have presented some very dodgy "facts". But he has also produced some very, very, detailed accounts of the Prussian 1815 campaign. The trick is to extract the truth from what may be the obsessional nonsense.

The danger in trying to defend him, in any way, is to end up denounced by the likes of Florentine Savonarola followers. I could still end up in the Piazza della Signoria, outside the Palazzo Viecchia just outside my favourite bar…..burnt at the stake

@ deadhead

The critique of Hofschroer or his adherents is not that he should be disbelieved because they share his proclivities. That's a strawman. The critique is that he and they are nonsensically wrong in misunderstanding and misrepresenting Waterloo as a German victory accomplished in the teeth of Wellington's betrayal.

Criticism of his work actually stems from his having been comprehensively debunked years ago as a crappy historian by proper historians, who then knew nothing of his later legal problems.

Hussey's recent book on Quatre Bras and Ligny shows conclusively how Hofschroer's supposedly new and revelatory take on Waterloo was, in fact, a reheating of Prussian nationalists' stale and long-since-debunked nineteenth-century take on Waterloo, fabricated to conceal their own damning shortcomings and to excuse their abject defeat by inferior numbers on ground they chose.

Now it may be that it was his MH issues that led him to all of his various legal, familial, mental and professional problems. The problem for the rest of us is, when someone's unreliable, parts of what they say are correct – but how do we know which parts?

David Irving is an interesting parallel case. In one of his books, he stated that Jews in Germany in some year of the pre-war Nazi era had been convicted of x thousand crimes including 18,000 insurance swindles. He provided a footnote to a source for this: the archive of some bland-sounding news agency. When, in the libel trial, Cambridge historians checked on this, they found there hadn't been more than a few hundred insurance swindles nationally in total. Irving's source turned out to be a news agency set up and run by the Nazi party expressly to spread anti-Semitic lies like that one.

Irving knew this and just repeated ancient Nazi propaganda as fact, ferreted out of an abstruse but authentic archive by his own industrious labours. The exposure of such as this helped persuade the judge that Irving wasn't an objective historian.

When we see Hofschroer or anyone else doing the exact same thing with archive material, we should be cautious. When Hofschroer says an archive says X, who knows what it really says?

A very interesting comparison actually…… Irving and Hofschroer. I only ever read vols 1 and 2 of Hitler's war and, even way back then, thought it was almost an apologia for AH, insisting he never knew what was going on…..of course in later books telling us nothing went on anyway.

Your second paragraph sums it all up nicely.

Thanks!