Henry Picker was a lawyer

Lawyer

A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

, stenographer and author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 who co-transcribed and first published transcripts of Adolf Hitler's

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 informal talks, known colloquially as the Table Talk

Hitler's Table Talk

Hitler's Table Talk is the title given to a series of wartime conversations and monologues delivered by Adolf Hitler, which were transcribed from 1941 to 1944...

.

Biography

Henry Picker was born in Wilhelmshaven, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. The son of a German senator, Picker studied law and graduated from the University of Kiel

University of Kiel

The University of Kiel is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the Academia Holsatorum Chiloniensis by Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and has approximately 23,000 students today...

 in 1936. Picker became a member of the Nazi Party in 1930, and in 1942 became a senior executive and legal staff member in the Führer Headquarters

Führer Headquarters

The Führer Headquarters , abbreviated FHQ, is a common name for a number of official headquarters used by the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and various German commanders and officials throughout Europe during World War II...

.

Hitler's Table Talk

Picker's version of the Table Talk was published in 1951 under the title Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier, and relied upon the original German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 notes he acquired from Heinrich Heim

Heinrich Heim

Heinrich Heim was a lawyer and NSDAP Ministerialrat who transcribed and co-published with Werner Jochmann transcripts of Adolf Hitler's informal talks, known colloquially as Hitler's Table Talk. Heim's version of the table talk was published in 1980 under the title Adolf Hitler Monologe im...

 taken from July 1941 to March 1942, and Picker's own notes taken from March 21, 1942 through August 2, 1942.

The first edition of Picker's Table Talk was arranged thematically, unlike the French and English editions which were arranged chronologically

Chronology

Chronology is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time, such as the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It is also "the determination of the actual temporal sequence of past events".Chronology is part of periodization...

. A later edition of Picker's work was published in 1963, which was more extensive, carefully annotated, chronologically organized, and published with an introduction by German historian Percy Ernst Schramm

Percy Ernst Schramm

Percy Ernst Schramm was a German historian of medieval political symbolism and ritual. His research focused primarily on the ideology of the medieval state, particularly the ways in which the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire in the Middle Ages represented their authority through images and rituals,...

. Both the second (1963) and third (1976) editions contain several testimonials by fellow bunker officers relating to the books's accuracy and authenticity, including General Gerhard Engel

Gerhard Engel

Gerhard Michael Engel was a highly decorated Generalleutnant in the Wehrmacht during World War II who commanded several divisions. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves...

. Picker was involved in several legal battles with François Genoud

François Genoud

François Genoud was a noted Swiss financier and a principal benefactor of the Nazi diaspora through the ODESSA network and supporter of Middle Eastern liberation groups during the post-World War II 20th century. He was considered the Swiss financier of the Third Reich.- Early life:Genoud was from...

 and Hugh Trevor-Roper concerning the copyrights to the work.

External links

• Was Catholic Hitler A "Christian"? - by Richard Carrier
  Richard Carrier
  Richard Cevantis Carrier is an American historian. He is best known for his writings on Internet Infidels, otherwise known as the Secular Web, where he served as Editor-in-Chief for several years....