Garfield : The Meinertzhagen Mystery : The Life and Legend of a Colossal Fraud

| 2007 | | Geb, F:15x22,5 cm, 376 S, 14 Schwarzweißfotos. | WG: Buch | Richard Henry Meinertzhagen (1878 - 1967) wurde nicht nur als bedeutender Militarist und Politiker, sondern auch als wichtiger Ornithologe seiner Zeit angesehen. Unter anderem war er Präsident des »British Ornithologists' Club«. Sein Status in der britischen Oberschicht - neben den, ebenfalls aus Deutschland eingewanderten Rothschilds besaß die Familie führende Bankhäuser Großbritanniens - verhalf ihm zu hohem Ansehen, das verhinderte, daß seine "Taten", sowohl in militärischer, politischer, als auch ornithologischer Hinsicht lange Zeit nicht angezweifelt wurden. Brian Garfield beleuchtet nun, nach einer langen Zeit der Recherchen, das wirkliche Leben Meinertzhagens. "Kein Krimi kann spannender sein!" resümiert deshalb auch Dr. Walther Thiede in seiner Rezension in den »Ornithologischen Mitteilungen« (Jg. 59, Heft 7/8-2007, S. 280/281). | Tall, handsome, charming Col. Richard Meinertzhagen (1878-1967) was an acclaimed British war hero, a secret agent, and a dean of international ornithology. His exploits inspired three biographies, movies have been based on his life, and a square in Jerusalem is dedicated to his memory. Meinertzhagen was trusted by Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George, Chaim Weizmann, David Ben Gurion, T. E. Lawrence, Elspeth Huxley, and a great many others. He bamboozled them all. Meinertzhagen was a fraud. Many of the adventures recorded in his celebrated diaries were imaginary, including a meeting with Hitler while he had a loaded pistol in his pocket, an attempt to rescue the Russian royal family in 1918, and a shoot-out with Arabs in Haifa when he was seventy years old. True, he was a key player in Middle Eastern events after World War I, and during the 1930s he represented Zionism's interests in negotiations with Germany. But he also set up Nazi front organizations in England, committed a half-century of major and costly scientific fraud, and -- oddly - may have been innocent of many killings to which he confessed (e.g., the murder of his own polo groom -- a crime of which he cheerfully boasted, although the evidence suggests it never occurred at all), while he may have been guilty of at least one homicide of which he professed innocence. A compelling read about a flamboyant rogue, The Meinertzhagen Mystery shows how recorded history reflects not what happened, but what we believe happened. | [E] | |