The German Association of Historians (VHD) formulated its criticism of a video of the online offer from ARD and ZDF "funk" about Adolf Hitler extremely politely the historians' association found that the portrait of Hitler would “grossly falsify the historical facts of the First World War”.

Michael Hanfeld

responsible editor for features online and "media".

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How gross was the falsification? The historians describe it precisely: From minute 5:44 of the seven and a half minute long film, “it is claimed that the military victories of the German Reich over Austria-Hungary ('We have won again against Austria!') Had reinforced Hitler's 'hatred of Austria'. The German Reich did not fight Austria-Hungary in World War I, rather both states were the main allies in the belligerent military alliance of the Central Powers. "

One would think that this basic constellation should be familiar to someone who tries to fathom the personality of Adolf Hitler and to bring this closer to a young audience.

But it is apparently not or it stands in the way of the interpretation approach of the video that appeared in the Youtuber series “The Biograph”.

The video has little to say about Hitler's hatred of Jews and the Nazi extermination ideology, it is aimed at something else.

“In the video”, the Association of Historians in Germany stated, “the veto power of facts was disregarded” in order to “make the narrative of Hitler's personal hostility towards Austria plausible”.

"We very much regret this mistake"

The criticism of the video, which was uploaded on December 9th last year, was apparently taken lightly at "funk" at first. In the comment column for the video on Youtube, according to the VHD, the false statement was admitted as a "small error". However, the reference or correction is not stored on the “funk” website or in the video itself. At least that has changed after the historians reported on Thursday. The video is now offline. And “The Biograph” honestly tells his audience: “Hey guys, unfortunately we made a mistake in our video about Adolf Hitler, which we initially only resolved in the comments. It is now clear to us that this was not enough,have therefore taken the video offline for the time being and will upload it again, revised, in the next few days. "

When asked on “funk” on Friday it was said that it was true “that a major mistake had been made in the said video.

We very much regret this mistake ”.

The first thing to do is to “pinn a corrective comment in the corresponding comment column on YouTube”.

They are working out "currently how the error could have come about", have taken the video offline and will upload it again "with a corresponding change".

The correction "should have taken place at an earlier point in time" in the video as well.

Take the incident as an opportunity to “check our format-specific acceptance processes and strengthen existing control mechanisms”.

Not only the historians are looking forward to the processing.