I've got hold of a copy of the book. I certainly didn't want to as I found the publisher's 'hype' rather off-putting and I instinctively knew that I wasn't going to like it. But I'm enjoying it - sort of. But as some have pointed out, the author - Victoria Taylor - is a 'professional' historian. This is not some random re-telling of the Luftschlacht um England. Having been asked to think about the author's 'goal' in writing the book the way she did, I'm starting to understand why she has not used too many post-war accounts from those directly involved and preferred period diaries and letters.
No 'white-washing'.
I was initially rather sceptical of the publisher's claims for this work. But Chapter 18 entitled 'Better liars than flyers' (incidentally, not in quotation marks...) might possibly be described as 'revelatory' .
You can probably guess what's coming, in fact page 325 is an account of a Luftwaffe pilot roped into a bit of mass-killing. Perhaps shocking to the general reader, although apparently not a new account by any means. The 'problem' here of course is that this has little to do with the Battle of Britain as such..although the author strives hard to show us that it does.
The book according to its author is not about the 'cartoonish' Luftwaffe that we are apparently all familiar with, presumably from the movie 'The Battle of Britain' - which Taylor actually spends a couple of pages psycho-analysing. Briefly put, it would appear that nowadays we all think of the men of the Luftwaffe as being mostly 'honourable opponents' and 'worthy foes' - who suffered and died as did our own brave RAF heroes. This is largely the influence of people like Galland and movies like 'The Battle of Britain'.
The book according to its author is not about the 'cartoonish' Luftwaffe that we are apparently all familiar with, presumably from the movie 'The Battle of Britain' - which Taylor actually spends a couple of pages psycho-analysing. Briefly put, it would appear that nowadays we all think of the men of the Luftwaffe as being mostly 'honourable opponents' and 'worthy foes' - who suffered and died as did our own brave RAF heroes. This is largely the influence of people like Galland and movies like 'The Battle of Britain'.
The reality - according to Taylor - is that in some instances the men of the Luftwaffe were hard-bitten Nazis, some of whom relished anti-semitic violence; '..the chivalrous fighter pilots did not cancel out the small pool of ruthless killers who already lurked in all branches of the Luftwaffe by the summer of 1940..'
Other Luftwaffe men were already disgusted at the treatment meted out to Jews and civilians and not just in Poland. Lehweß-Litzmann - former Kommodore of KG 3 who went over to the Soviets - flew his first sorties over England during late 1940. The author goes so far as to state that '[..] the German 'knights of the air' should not be detached from the crimes that the regime committed..' The problem here of course is that the Battle of Britain was not the 'ideological' war that characterised the fighting in the East, although according to Taylor it very much was..
So what is Victoria Taylor's goal in compiling this book in the way that she has? Apparently to 'remind' us that the Luftwaffe crews were not brave 'ordinary men' - the myth of 'just like us' - but ideologically driven and intent on furthering a tyrannical dictator's ambitions of conquest...
Unfortunately for the reader looking for a 're-telling' of the battle from the German side - which is after all what the title is selling - the author's attempts to drive home this point leads her to wander way off topic in places; from medical experiments on political prisoners to the beginnings of mass murder etc etc. Taylor's book is not an an 'unbiased' account of the Battle of Britain as per the title. The lengthy chapters covering Poland, Noway, France and the campaign in the West don't so much set the stage for the Battle of Britain as ram home what 'nasty' people the German Wehrmacht actually were. They only partly focus on key engagements and do not mention the strengths and weaknesses of the combatants for the period in question. This is a not a 'who shot down who' book. There are lengthy digressions that take in the 'views' of the German media - heavily controlled by the Propaganda Ministry so I'm struggling to understand the value of these - and personal accounts from the home front that have little or no connection to the Battle of Britain. Nowadays the differences between amateur and professional in military history, and in other areas, has blurred, a little perspective is required. Some 'amateurs' have been researching and writing about the Luftwaffe for many years. Taylor - and her publisher - seem wholly unaware of some areas of research and of some of the experienced authors out there in the Luftwaffe enthusiast fraternity. Doubtful if she's ever read Bungay or Vasco or even Goss. As a result her book is far too 'lop-sided'. At best, 70% of this book pertains to the title, the rest is discourse to prove the point being rather clumsily made. There are no new revelations. And, as another commentator has suggested, regardless of Taylor's credentials, her book could well have been more accurately entitled 'A random essay about the early years of WWII, including brief mentions of the Battle of Britain'. In fact while the publisher would never have gone for it, many of the criticisms about Taylor's work might easily have been deflected with this more 'accurate' title.