Why Primary Sources Matter

The Telephone Game of History

Academic history operates on a citation system not unlike a game of telephone. Historian A reads a document and writes about it. Historian B reads Historian A’s book and cites it. Historian C reads Historian B’s book and cites that. By the time a claim appears in a popular history, it may be three or four steps removed from the original source — and at each step, there is an opportunity for distortion.

This is not conspiracy. It is the natural consequence of a system where most historians work from published sources rather than archival ones. Archival research is expensive, time-consuming, and often requires language skills that many anglophone historians lack. It is far easier to cite the standard works and add a fresh interpretation.

Irving’s Method

David Irving’s approach to history is built on a simple principle: go to the original documents first. Before consulting any secondary source, he seeks out the private diaries, official files, decoded signals, personal letters, and unpublished memoirs of the people who were actually present.

This method requires an unusual combination of skills. Irving is fluent in German, reads documents in the original hand (including the notoriously difficult Kurrentschrift cursive used in German official records), and has spent decades building personal relationships with the families and estates of key historical figures.

The result is a body of work that frequently contradicts the received narrative — not because Irving sets out to be controversial, but because the original documents sometimes tell a different story from the one that has been passed down through the citation chain.

What Gets Lost in Translation

When historians work exclusively from published sources, several things tend to get lost:

• Context. A document seen in isolation means one thing; seen alongside the documents that preceded and followed it, it may mean something quite different.
• Nuance. Original documents are full of crossed-out words, marginal notes, and amendments that reveal the thought process behind the final text.
• Contradictions. Archives frequently contain documents that contradict the official version of events. These are the documents that secondary sources tend to omit.
• Human detail. Private diaries and personal letters reveal the fears, doubts, and private opinions that never appear in official records or published memoirs.

A Practical Example

Consider the question of Allied strategic bombing. The standard histories present it as a regrettable but necessary component of the war effort. The original documents — the minutes of the Air Ministry meetings, the target selection committees, the private correspondence between Bomber Harris and Churchill — reveal a far more complex picture: one of internal dissent, moral doubt, and a deliberate policy of targeting civilian populations that many senior commanders opposed.

This is not revisionism. It is simply what the documents say. The distinction between primary-source history and secondary-source history is not ideological; it is methodological. And the difference matters.

The Archive at Focal Point

Over fifty years of research, David Irving has amassed one of the largest private collections of Second World War documents outside the national archives. Much of this material is now available for free at fpp.co.uk — the Focal Point Publications archive — where researchers can access thousands of original documents, letters, diaries, and transcripts.

“No historian of the Second World War can ignore David Irving. His work on German archival sources has made a major contribution to the historiography of World War II.”
— Professor John Keegan, The Daily Telegraph