When I first wrote die Stunde X, I was in my early twenties, there was no such thing as the Internet (at least, not to the masses), and the source material for my research into the Third Reich consisted of a dozen or so large volumes detailing everything from the brutality of the Nazi regime to the Hugo Boss uniforms of the SS. I mentioned – very briefly, I think – the British Expeditionary Force being wiped out on the beaches of Dunkirk, but I didn’t delve too deeply into the history. That wasn’t really what die Stunde X was about.

To say that the research material was flawed is rather overcritical of well written and well researched text books. Gaps in my knowledge were due to my not having a direct link to the answer to a particular question, and inevitably, I filled in the blanks myself, using my imagination.

So there were mistakes, and this brief article will address some of them, and know that my face is red as I write this. This is an evolving article, and though there are only two “glaring errors” at the moment, I will update it if more should come to light. I’m sure there are one or two more errors.

---

The SS ranks

Now, the SS ranks themselves are accurate. My research on that was very meticulous. What is incorrect is that I gave the Gestapo officers in the story SS ranks when officially they should’ve been given non-SS police ranks. Though police officers – and the Gestapo was a police department (the Secret State Police) – could join the SS, and were encouraged to do so, they retained their civilian ranks at work. But I gave Wolf Loritz and his brute of a torturer Keitel SS ranks. A small error but one which I have maintained throughout the series, rather than change it. I can at least imagine that in my timeline, Gestapo officers had SS ranks.

---

Aktion T4

Aktion T4 was the policy of using euthanasia to rid society of people who were deemed to have a life unworthy of life – or lebensunwertes Leben. It had its roots in the forced sterilization of people with defects or mental illnesses carried out in a number of countries across the globe in the early twentieth century. The first victims of Aktion T4 – named after Tiergartenstraße 4, the address in Berlin where the murders were initially carried out – were mentally or physically disabled, but throughout the six years of the program, people who were classed as a drain on society were given the Gnadentod, or mercy death. The mistake that I made when mentioning Aktion T4 was that the Nazis did not refer to it as Aktion T4. To them, it was just a euthanasia program. It was given the Aktion T4 moniker during the post-war trials, where doctors were convicted for their involvement in the program, and some were themselves deemed to have a life unworthy of life, and were hanged. So the term Aktion T4 should never have been used in die Stunde X, nor in any of the follow-up novels.

---

Perhaps the errors aren’t that glaring. Let me know if you notice any. A special Shaun Stafford no-prize will be awarded if you do.