Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Historian specializing in the 17th century, best known for proving Hitler's suicide and later asserting the authenticity of the Hitler diaries.
On the island
Eight records
Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat major, K. 595
Vladimir Ashkenazy with the Philharmonia Orchestra
Mozart is a composer who always lifts me up. He has that quality of that ethereal lyrical quality, which is what I really want.
A singer whose voice I've always loved is Kathleen Ferrier ... on my island I want that that's what I mean by that lyrical quality, that touch of melancholy which uh lifts one out of the the world
Traurigkeit ward mir zum Lose (from Die Entführung aus dem Serail)
Edita Gruberová with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Georg Solti
I still I'm still seeking this elevating, slightly melancholy uh beauty, which is what I love in music.
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
I think that Wagner we must admit, is a great musician, great composer. And there are passages in Wagner which I love
Pavane pour une infante défunteFavourite
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Claudio Abbado
I love that that melancholy touch.
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Georg Solti
That lyrical quality which I so love I find particularly in twentieth century composers in Bela Bartock.
Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68 'Pastoral' (Opening)
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by Kurt Masur
We haven't had any Beethoven, who is, after all, the greatest of them all. So perhaps we could uh end uh uh since we're thinking of uh rural solitude with the opening of the pastoral symphony.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:13What sort of mood will you be in in your castaway state? Will you be frantic or philosophical?
philosophical rather than frantic, I think. I don't mind being alone, although ... when one's alone, it's nice to feel that one can at will terminate one's isolation. I think life will be rather dull ... I will need to be cheered up.
Presenter asks
5:47What were your ambitions then as a little boy? What did you intend to make of yourself?
I don't think I ever knew. Life, I consider, is a series of disconnected accidents. And I've drifted along, really. If there was any articulating chord in my life it has been love of books and of reading.
Presenter asks
8:00When was it you first became interested in Germany and in Hitler?
My first interest in Germany was purely literary. I learned German as an ... undergraduate in order to read a German scholarship. But then ... I went to Germany, and it was Hitler's Germany ... in nineteen thirty five, and I found it v very disagreeable. I was so repelled by it that I became anti-German ... until Munich in nineteen thirty eight. And then I realized that ... Hitler's Germany is not going to go away merely by being ... forgotten. So I then started studying it seriously. I read Mein Kampf and I saw war coming and I thought one one's got to know about it.
The keepsakes
The book
Virgil
Yes, but there are not many books that one can re read. I would be happy with them.
The luxury
Has one already got pen, paper, and ink? ... Oh, well that's my luxury. That's it. Endless supply of ... But if I have to choose it is the pen, paper and ink.
Presenter asks
13:05When you finally knew about Philby's treachery, were you entirely horrified, or was there part of you, because you knew the man, that understood?
Well, I was Wasn't that surprised? Because there'd always been a mystery about Philby ... I knew ... that he had been a Communist. And I was astonished ... that he had been accepted in MI six in a department which was really paranoid about communism ... if there was one paradox, there could be another paradox, and so I wasn't all that surprised.
Presenter asks
16:37How did you come to write [The Last Days of Hitler]?
in september nineteen forty five ... Hitler had disappeared from all human ... knowledge for over four months ... the Russians were maintaining that he was in Spain or in the Argentine ... and finally the Russians accused us, the British, of keeping him alive under our protection ... and my commanding officer decided to ... find out the facts ... And he asked me to do it. And it was a ... challenge, an opportunity, and I did it.
Presenter asks
24:42Is there an impulsive streak in you that sometimes takes over from the meticulous historian?
I am sure that what other people say about me is right. I think it is very difficult to know oneself, and my policy now is to agree with everything that anybody says about me.
“Life, I consider, is a series of disconnected accidents. And I've drifted along, really.”
“The Cambridge ... doctrine of the Cambridge spies was that there are higher loyalties than ... to one's government. But that higher loyalty, apparently, in their language, was to their friends. But he betrayed all his friends. I feel that by their own logic they condemn themselves.”
“I would like people to feel that they're part of history, to see the deposit of history around them, to feel the flow of history, the movement of it and themselves in it, and not see the past as a a dead deposit, but as a living continuity.”