Defying Hitler

Defying Hitler
Author: Sebastian Haffner
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2019-07-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Defying Hitler was written in 1939 and focuses on the year 1933, when, as Hitler assumed power, its author was a 25-year-old German law student, in training to join the German courts as a junior administrator. His book tries to answer two questions people have been asking since the end of World War II: “How were the Nazis possible?” and “Why did no one stop them?” Sebastian Haffner’s vivid first-person account, written in real time and only much later discovered by his son, makes the rise of the Nazis psychologically comprehensible. “An astonishing memoir... [a] masterpiece.” — Gabriel Schoenfeld, The New York Times Book Review “A short, stabbing, brilliant book... It is important, first, as evidence of what one intelligent German knew in the 1930s about the unspeakable nature of Nazism, at a time when the overwhelming majority of his countrymen claim to have know nothing at all. And, second, for its rare capacity to reawaken anger about those who made the Nazis possible.” — Max Hastings, The Sunday Telegraph “Defying Hitler communicates one of the most profound and absolute feelings of exile that any writer has gotten between covers.” — Charles Taylor, Salon “Sebastian Haffner was Germany’s political conscience, but it is only now that we can read how he experienced the Nazi terror himself — that is a memoir of frightening relevance today.” — Heinrich Jaenicke, Stern “The prophetic insights of a fairly young man... help us understand the plight, as Haffner refers to it, of the non-Nazi German.” — The Denver Post “Sebastian Haffner’s Defying Hitler is a most brilliant and imaginative book — one of the most important books we have ever published.” — Lord Weidenfeld

The Hitler Book

The Hitler Book
Author: Henrik Eberle
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Total Pages: 419
Release: 2009-03-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 0786734914

Stalin had never been able to shake off the nightmare of Adolf Hitler. Just as in 1941 he refused to understand that Hitler had broken their non-aggression pact, he was in 1945 unwilling to believe that the dictator had committed suicide in the debris of the Berlin bunker. In his paranoia, Stalin ordered his secret police, the NKVD, precursor to the KGB, to explore in detail every last vestige of the private life of the only man he considered a worthy opponent, and to clarify beyond doubt the circumstances of his death. For months two captives of the Soviet Army -- Otto Guensche, Hitler's adjutant, and Heinz Linge, his personal valet--were interrogated daily, their stories crosschecked, until the NKVD were convinced that they had the fullest possible account of the life of the Fü In 1949 they presented their work, in a single copy, to Stalin. It is as remarkable for the depth of its insight into Adolf Hitler -- from his specific directions to Linge as to how his body was to be burned, to his sense of humor -- as for what it does not say, reflecting the prejudices of the intended reader: Joseph Stalin. Nowhere, for instance, does the dossier criticize Hitler's treatment of the Jews. Today, the 413-page original of Stalin's personal biography of Hitler is a Kremlin treasure and it is said to be held in President Putin's safe. The only other copy, made by order of Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushchev, in 1959, was deposited in Moscow Party archives under the code number 462A. It was there that Henrik Eberle and Matthias Uhl, two German historians, found it. Available to the public in full for the first time, The Hitler Book presents a captivating, astonishing, and deeply revealing portrait of Hitler, Stalin, and the mutual antagonism of these two dictators, who between them wrought devastation on the European continent.

Mein Kampf

Mein Kampf
Author: Adolf Hitler
Publisher: ببلومانيا للنشر والتوزيع
Total Pages: 522
Release: 2024-02-26
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Madman, tyrant, animal—history has given Adolf Hitler many names. In Mein Kampf (My Struggle), often called the Nazi bible, Hitler describes his life, frustrations, ideals, and dreams. Born to an impoverished couple in a small town in Austria, the young Adolf grew up with the fervent desire to become a painter. The death of his parents and outright rejection from art schools in Vienna forced him into underpaid work as a laborer. During the First World War, Hitler served in the infantry and was decorated for bravery. After the war, he became actively involved with socialist political groups and quickly rose to power, establishing himself as Chairman of the National Socialist German Worker's party. In 1924, Hitler led a coalition of nationalist groups in a bid to overthrow the Bavarian government in Munich. The infamous Munich "Beer-hall putsch" was unsuccessful, and Hitler was arrested. During the nine months he was in prison, an embittered and frustrated Hitler dictated a personal manifesto to his loyal follower Rudolph Hess. He vented his sentiments against communism and the Jewish people in this document, which was to become Mein Kampf, the controversial book that is seen as the blue-print for Hitler's political and military campaign. In Mein Kampf, Hitler describes his strategy for rebuilding Germany and conquering Europe. It is a glimpse into the mind of a man who destabilized world peace and pursued the genocide now known as the Holocaust.

Hitler

Hitler
Author: Volker Ullrich
Publisher: Knopf
Total Pages: 1034
Release: 2016
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 038535438X

Originally published: Germany: S. Fischer Verlag.

Hitler's True Believers

Hitler's True Believers
Author: Robert Gellately
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 465
Release: 2020
Genre: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY
ISBN: 0190689900

Nazi ideology drove Hitler's quest for power in 1933, colored everything in the Third Reich, and culminated in the Second World War and the Holocaust. In this book, Gellately addresses often-debated questions about how Führer discovered the ideology and why millions adopted aspects of National Socialism without having laid eyes on the "leader" or reading his work.

Hitler at Home

Hitler at Home
Author: Despina Stratigakos
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 622
Release: 2015-09-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 0300187602

A look at Adolf Hitler’s residences and their role in constructing and promoting the dictator’s private persona both within Germany and abroad. Adolf Hitler’s makeover from rabble-rouser to statesman coincided with a series of dramatic home renovations he undertook during the mid-1930s. This provocative book exposes the dictator’s preoccupation with his private persona, which was shaped by the aesthetic and ideological management of his domestic architecture. Hitler’s bachelor life stirred rumors, and the Nazi regime relied on the dictator’s three dwellings—the Old Chancellery in Berlin, his apartment in Munich, and the Berghof, his mountain home on the Obersalzberg—to foster the myth of the Führer as a morally upstanding and refined man. Author Despina Stratigakos also reveals the previously untold story of Hitler’s interior designer, Gerdy Troost, through newly discovered archival sources. At the height of the Third Reich, media outlets around the world showcased Hitler’s homes to audiences eager for behind-the-scenes stories. After the war, fascination with Hitler’s domestic life continued as soldiers and journalists searched his dwellings for insights into his psychology. The book’s rich illustrations, many previously unpublished, offer readers a rare glimpse into the decisions involved in the making of Hitler’s homes and into the sheer power of the propaganda that influenced how the world saw him. “Inarguably the powder-keg title of the year.”—Mitchell Owen, Architectural Digest “A fascinating read, which reminds us that in Nazi Germany the architectural and the political can never be disentangled. Like his own confected image, Hitler’s buildings cannot be divorced from their odious political hinterland.”—Roger Moorhouse, Times

Mussolini and Hitler

Mussolini and Hitler
Author: Christian Goeschel
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2018-01-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0300178832

A fresh treatment of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, revealing the close ties between Mussolini and Hitler and their regimes ​From 1934 until 1944 Mussolini met Hitler numerous times, and the two developed a relationship that deeply affected both countries. While Germany is generally regarded as the senior power, Christian Goeschel demonstrates just how much history has underrepresented Mussolini's influence on his German ally. In this highly readable book, Goeschel, a scholar of twentieth-century Germany and Italy, revisits all of Mussolini and Hitler's key meetings and asks how these meetings constructed a powerful image of a strong Fascist-Nazi relationship that still resonates with the general public. His portrait of Mussolini draws on sources ranging beyond political history to reveal a leader who, at times, shaped Hitler's decisions and was not the gullible buffoon he's often portrayed as. The first comprehensive study of the Mussolini-Hitler relationship, this book is a must-read for scholars and anyone interested in the history of European fascism, World War II, or political leadership.

Hitler and Nazi Germany

Hitler and Nazi Germany
Author: Jackson J. Spielvogel
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 576
Release: 2016-09-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1315509156

This text is based on current research findings and is written for students and general readers who want a deeper understanding of this period in German history. It provides a balanced approach in examining Hitler's role in the history of the Third Reich and includes coverage of the economic, social, and political forces that made the rise and growth of Nazism possible; the institutional, cultural, and social life of the Third Reich; the Second World War; and the Holocaust.

On Hitler's Mein Kampf

On Hitler's Mein Kampf
Author: Albrecht Koschorke
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 88
Release: 2017-04-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0262533332

An examination of the narrative strategies employed in the most dangerous book of the twentieth century and a reflection on totalitarian literature. Hitler's Mein Kampf was banned in Germany for almost seventy years, kept from being reprinted by the accidental copyright holder, the Bavarian Ministry of Finance. In December 2015, the first German edition of Mein Kampf since 1946 appeared, with Hitler's text surrounded by scholarly commentary apparently meant to act as a kind of cordon sanitaire. And yet the dominant critical assessment (in Germany and elsewhere) of the most dangerous book of the twentieth century is that it is boring, unoriginal, jargon-laden, badly written, embarrassingly rabid, and altogether ludicrous. (Even in the 1920s, the consensus was that the author of such a book had no future in politics.) How did the unreadable Mein Kampf manage to become so historically significant? In this book, German literary scholar Albrecht Koschorke attempts to explain the power of Hitler's book by examining its narrative strategies. Koschorke argues that Mein Kampf cannot be reduced to an ideological message directed to all readers. By examining the text and the signals that it sends, he shows that we can discover for whom Hitler strikes his propagandistic poses and who is excluded. Koschorke parses the borrowings from the right-wing press, the autobiographical details concocted to make political points, the attack on the Social Democrats that bleeds into an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, the contempt for science, and the conscious attempt to trigger outrage. A close reading of National Socialism's definitive text, Koschorke concludes, can shed light on the dynamics of fanaticism. This lesson of Mein Kampf still needs to be learned.