“The best single volume available on the torturous life and savage reign of Adolf Hitler.” —Time A bestseller in its original German edition and subsequently translated into more than a dozen languages, Joachim Fest’s Hitler has become a classic portrait of a man, a nation, and an era. Fest tells and interprets the extraordinary story of a man’s and nation’s rise from impotence to absolute power, … nation’s rise from impotence to absolute power, as Germany and Hitler, from shared premises, entered into their covenant. He shows Hitler exploiting the resentments of the shaken, post–World War I social order and seeing through all that was hollow behind the appearance of power, at home and abroad. Fest reveals the singularly penetrating politician, hypnotizing Germans and outsiders alike with the scope of his projects and the theatricality of their presentation. Perhaps most importantly, he also brilliantly uncovers the destructive personality that aimed for and achieved devastation on an unprecedented scale.
As history and biography, this is a towering achievement, a compelling story told in a way only a German could tell it: “dispassionately, but from the inside” (Time).
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It is a true story of how fascism, and Hitler, got control of a country, then a continent, when people did not want the truth, but wanted a good thing only for themselves.
These things are always temporary. But if you read this and compare to recent years it should be a sober reminder of what happens when people think only of their tribe, etc.
We should all be Americans first, regardless of color, creed religion or beliefs. This means we do not always get our wish, but we work together for the greater good.
Rod
I have only finished one-half. I had always believed those stories about his abject poverty in Wien, Austria, but his father had been many years a fairly high ranking civil servant, which paid for all of Hitler’s school expenses had he not been too lazy to utilize it. He lied to the government that he was still in school, after he had dropped out. His parents had real estate holdings, which he inherited in full upon his mother’s death. If he slept on any park benches it was his preference and slothfulness. In short, he was a bum in his youth never seeking gainful employment. Finally, finding someone who could bear his presence, he shared the apartment of another guy; in 1938, he had the Gestapo look up this “old” buddy and murder him. He made a little money selling his water-color Wien street scenes to stick in sofas and chairs. The army was the most formative experience in his life until then and probably for all time. He was not tall or large but slight, perhaps harder for a sniper to see and hit. He discovered, after doing a couple of times what other soldiers were not queuing up to do, he became a successful messenger-runner. The Allies ended that with a good gasing, but unfortunately he recovered after months. It would be easier to run among your own soldiers than go over the top and charge British-French machine guns. Too bad an Allied sniper didn’t kill him.
Perhaps the best single-volume biography of Adolf Hitler ever written.
How did Hitler happen? Anyone alive in the last half of the 20th century has to have asked that question. There is not a simple answer but this book helps peel back the onion, layer by layer by layer. It probes deep into Hitler’s life and psychological make-up. It exposes the chaotic governmental confusion that prevailed and the resulting leadership vacuum that Hitler filled. I expect it is a read that will stay with me for a long, long time.
As troubling as his life and accomplishments were, Hitler was an amazing study in twisted human nature. I found it too close to our present situation!
Excellent, in-depth look at the rise of an evil man. Hitler’s career was so gigantic, and his evil so breath-taking, that it is hard to really look at the man and how he actually worked his politics. In so many ways, he discovered the tools and stances that far too many politicians on both left and right use today. Well worth the read.