Volume 26, Number 13 · August 16, 1979
More on Mrs. Hitler
By Hugh Trevor-Roper
In response to All in the Family
(June 28, 1979)
To the Editors:
I must apologize for an error in my review of The Memoirs of Bridget Hitler [NYR, June 28]. I there quoted the author's reference to "the ill-fated Count von Spreti" and remarked that since Count von Spreti met his ill fate in 1970, that particular passage in the "memoirs" seemed to be a later interpolation. I had forgotten that there was another equally ill-fated Count von Spreti, who met his ill fate (he was executed on Hitler's orders) in 1934. I therefore withdraw that remark and the inference deduced from it.
Incidentally, since my review was published, I have had an opportunity to see the "original" typescript of Mrs. Hitler's "memoirs" in the New York Public Library, and can say that there are substantial differences between the text as typed and the text as published. The editor of the published text can presumably explain these differences.
H.R. Trevor-Roper
Oxford, England