The Mare's Nest

by David Irving

Twelve thousand German scientists and engineers laboured with sixteen thousand slave labourers to build the secret weapons that would reduce London to how close they came to success! Here is the full story written from secret British and German documents, and from the private papers of the scientists and war leaders who mounted the British Intelligence counter-offensive. In Germany inter-service rivalry undermined the competing weapons projects until all were too late; and in Britain the most tempestuous dispute of the war thundered along the corridors of Whitehall, while senior defense scientists waged their personal battles. For a year, the British War Cabinet was led to believe that the German rockets were a well-planned giant hoax, a mare s nest as the Prime Minister s personal Scientific Adviser, the controversial Lord Cherwell, put it on October 25, 1943. Here are the secret disputes and intrigues that rocked the War Cabinet for eighteen vital months of the Second World War. Here too is the full story of the heroic R.A.F. Bomber Command assault on the Peenemünde rocket installations. This narrative of the tremendous duel between Hitler with his research scientists and engineers and the British Government with its Intelligence and Scientific experts and codebreakers, will enhance Mr. Irving s reputation for brilliant investigation of little known aspects of the last war.

Genres: History, War

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

David John Cawdell Irving is an English author who has written on the military and political history of World War II, especially Nazi Germany. He was found to be a Holocaust denier in a UK court in 2000 as a result of a failed libel case.

Irving's works include The Destruction of Dresden (1963), Hitler's War (1977), Churchill's War (1987) and Goebbels: Mastermind of the Third Reich (1996). In his works, he argued that Adolf Hitler did not know of the extermination of Jews, or, if he did, he opposed it. Though Irving's negationist claims and views of German war crimes in World War II (and Hitler's responsibility for them) were never taken seriously by mainstream historians, he was once recognised for his knowledge of Nazi Germany and his ability to unearth new historical documents, which he held closely but stated were fully supportive of his conclusions. His 1964 book The Mare's Nest about Germany's V-weapons campaign of 1944-45 was praised for its deep research but criticised for minimising Nazi slave labour programmes.

By the late 1980s, Irving had placed himself outside the mainstream of the study of history, and had begun to turn from "'soft-core' to 'hard-core' Holocaust denial", possibly influenced by the 1988 trial of Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel. That trial, and his reading of the pseudoscientific Leuchter report, led him to openly espouse Holocaust denial, specifically denying that Jews were murdered by gassing at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Irving's reputation as a historian was further discredited in 2000, when, in the course of an unsuccessful libel case he filed against the American historian Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books, High Court Judge Charles Gray determined in his ruling that Irving willfully misrepresented historical evidence to promote Holocaust denial and whitewash the Nazis, a view shared by many prominent historians. The English court found that Irving was an active Holocaust denier, antisemite and racist, who "for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence". In addition, the court found that Irving's books had distorted the history of Hitler's role in the Holocaust to depict Hitler in a favourable light.

Reviews

[Mikko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though Irving has since lost his credibility as a historian due to his activities in the fields of historical revisionism and Holocaust-denial, The Mare's Nest is proof that he was quite a talent in the former department. The book traces the history of the Nazi vengeance weapons; the first operational cruise and ballistic missiles as well as an ultra-long-range cannon; in parallel with the mainly British espionage, defence and counterattack work from the mid-30s all to way to the end of the war.

The text itself flows well and is an enjoyable read. However, Irving's presentation is a tad academic and detailed at times, though most long lists and charts have been placed in footnotes. This may put off some casual readers but anyone with even a passing interest in WW2 should find the book enjoyable. (Review based on 1st Finnish edition, 1965.)

[Bobby Daugherty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very detailed report on the German Vengeance weapons program and the British Intelligence fumbling of the wartime investigation. The demands of the war and internal politics seem to have delayed the process before it could achieve it's potential.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of David Irving's earlier works, The Mare's Nest was first published in 1964 and it is still the most comprehensive account of the German secret weapons programme of WWII.