Chastenings

  Anyone who undertakes an inquiry

  of such a [forensic] kind is

  soon made aware of one important

  fact: the worthlessness of human

  testimony. It is a chastening

  thought to a historian to consider

  how much of history is written on

  the basis of statements no more 

  reliable than those of Admiral

  Doenitz .. If such statements had

  been made and recorded with refer-

  ence to the disputed death of the

  Czar Alexander I in 1825, plenty

  of historians would have been ready

  to take them seriously. 

         

         What might I be ready

         to take seriously, if

         not a gentle teaching

         that frees me from a-

         lienation of distrust?

 

         

Hugh Trevor-Roper

Student [Fellow] of

  Christ Church, Oxford

Late Regius Professor 

  of Modern History

The Last Days of Hitler

1947

  Introduction to the 

    Third Edition

  1956

University of Chicago Press 

  Sixth Edition, 1987©