'The Reichsmarschall' was a different obnoxious brat.

Neither was even officially in the military, and "Reichsmarschall" was a military rank, held only by <Goering> during World War II.

Clearly I should be checking non-chess history facts more carefully when they come from chess history books.

QUESTION: At what point does the magnitude of errors in a chess history book render it "unreliable"?

Example, <Koltanowski's> "Chessnicdotes" is so full of whoppers that nobody in their right mind would believe a word he said.

<Hans Kmoch> is an "inbetweener"? He was actually there with the world champions, working closely with some of them (notably Euwe), and spending time with them. And yet he reproduces some of the biggest whoppers. Believe part of what he says? At the least, try to corroborate it.

<Skinner and Verhoeven> Impeccable, I had thought- but on my fourth pass through their "Alexander Alekhine's Chess Games, 1902-1940" I have found several errors. Not many, but some of them significant.

A notable <Skinner-Verhoeven> error- they report that <Alekhine> was rested during the <France-Cuba> round of the 1939 Olympiad, but he in fact played this round, in a game which is, ironically, duly listed by <Skinner-Verhoeven>:

From The 1939 Olympiad- Round 12, France v Cuba:

Alekhine vs A Lopez Arce, 1939

The horrifying truth is that I should be trying to corroborate every single fact I read in a chess history book, including those listed by "banner authors" publishing in "banner companies" like McFarland.

I have a growing collection of McFarland chess history books, and, like Edward Winter and others, I think they truly are excellent, particularly compared to lesser publishers like Batsford.

However, it would be a mistake to assume that *every fact* in a McFarland book is accurate and *no fact* in a Batsford book is accurate.