Norman Ohler: evaluation

Transcript context

…And also another criticism of his, which I also understand and probably can steel man, is if you look too much through the singular lens of drugs, you can overemphasize it. You can overemphasize how important it was as an explainer of the effectiveness of Blitzkrieg, for example. Because there is some… I mean, I should say there is something really compelling about a singular theory that explains everything, and you can fall in love with it too much as an explainer. So can you steel man his criticism or a criticism you received, and also argue against it? I think he’s absolutely right that you shouldn’t argue in a monocausal way. And this is actually what Mommsen also said to me because, of course, I was enthusiastic about all my drug findings. And he said, “Don’t argue in a monocausal way, especially the war.” There are a lot of variables, a lot of factors, a lot of things going on.…

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