We have all heard it said "history is written by the victors", but who said it? I wanted to use it in an essay and thought I should put the effort in to finding who it is from. Everything seems to hit dead ends. One site says Winston Churchill said it, another says it is a Latin proverb (with no actual latin text turning up that I can find), while yet another says it was written by an African-American rights activist associated with Melcom-X.

Does anyone know the answer to this riddle? If it is Latin, does anyone know what the latin was? I am sure the answers are out there but Google is not helping on this one.

Reichsmarschall Herman Goering may have been quoting someone else, but he said 'The victor will always be the judge and the vanquished the accused'. And he was right. Remember he was being tried by 4 countries, including the Soviet Union, for waging aggressive war, and found guilty.

Originally Posted by Abd_Yesua_alMasih

We have all heard it said "history is written by the victors", but who said it? I wanted to use it in an essay and thought I should put the effort in to finding who it is from. Everything seems to hit dead ends. One site says Winston Churchill said it, another says it is a Latin proverb (with no actual latin text turning up that I can find), while yet another says it was written by an African-American rights activist associated with Melcom-X.

Does anyone know the answer to this riddle? If it is Latin, does anyone know what the latin was? I am sure the answers are out there but Google is not helping on this one.

Sorry, I do not. But to speculate, this "proverb" is so manifestly true, that I believe almost every culture in almost every nation throughout history would have a handful of independent (unorthodox?) thinkers that would easily observe this.

Hey Fraser,

It is good to hear from you. Are you still away from home?

BTW,
I have heard that saying also but can't possibly tell you who first stated it.