best biographies of hitler

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Why was Adolf Hitler significant?

How did adolf hitler rise to power, why did adolf hitler start world war ii, who were adolf hitler’s most important officers, how did adolf hitler die.

Adolf Hitler

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• Public Broadcasting Service - American Experience - Hitler and Goebbels: A Deadly Partnership
• Spartacus Educational - Biography of Adolf Hitler
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Holocaust Encyclopedia - Adolf Hitler: Early Years, 1889–1913
• The National WWII Museum - How Did Adolf Hitler Happen?
• BBC - iWonder - Adolf Hitler: Man and Monster
• Jewish Virtual Library - Biography of Adolf Hitler
• Adolf Hitler - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11)
• Adolf Hitler - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
• Table Of Contents

Hitler was of great historical importance—a term that does not imply a positive judgment—because his actions changed the course of the world. He was responsible for starting World War II , which resulted in the deaths of more than 50 million people. It also led to the extension of the Soviet Union ’s power in eastern, central, and Balkan Europe, enabled a communist movement to eventually achieve control in China , and marked the decisive shift of power away from western Europe and toward the United States and the Soviet Union. In addition, Hitler was responsible for the Holocaust , the state-sponsored killing of six million Jews and millions of others.

Hitler’s rise to power traces to 1919, when he joined the German Workers’ Party that became the Nazi Party . With his oratorical skills and use of propaganda, he soon became its leader. Hitler gained popularity nationwide by exploiting unrest during the Great Depression , and in 1932 he placed second in the presidential race. Hitler’s various maneuvers resulted in the winner, Paul von Hindenburg , appointing him chancellor in January 1933. The following month the Reichstag fire occurred, and it provided an excuse for a decree overriding all guarantees of freedom. Then on March 23 the Enabling Act was passed, giving full powers to Hitler. When Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934, the chancellorship and the presidency were merged, and Hitler secured his position as Führer (“leader”).

Hitler had an overriding ambition for territorial expansion, which was largely driven by his desire to reunify the German peoples and his pursuit of Lebensraum , “living space” that would enable Germans to become economically self-sufficient and militarily secure. Such goals were greeted with support by many within Germany who resented the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles , which had ended World War I . Through various means he was able to annex Austria and Czechoslovakia with little resistance in 1938–39. Then on September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland , which had been guaranteed French and British military support should such an event occur. Two days later both countries declared war on Germany, launching World War II .

A key figure of Hitler’s inner circle was Joseph Goebbels , minister of propaganda and a fervent follower whom Hitler selected to succeed him as chancellor. However, Goebbels only held the post for one day before committing suicide. Also notable were Hermann Göring , who was a leader of the Nazi Party and one of the primary architects of the Nazi police state in Germany; Heinrich Himmler , who was second in power to Hitler; Joachim von Ribbentrop , foreign minister and chief negotiator of various treaties; Martin Bormann , who was one of Hitler’s closest lieutenants; and Walther Funk , an economist who served as president of the Reichsbank.

As Soviet troops entered the heart of Berlin , Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945, in his underground bunker. Although there is some speculation about the manner of his death, it is widely believed that he shot himself. Eva Braun , whom he had recently married, also took her own life. According to his wishes, both bodies were burned and buried. Almost immediately, however, conspiracy theories began. The Soviets initially claimed that they were unable to confirm Hitler’s death and later spread rumors that he was alive. According to subsequent reports, however, the Soviets recovered his burnt remains, which were identified through dental records. Hitler’s body was secretly buried before being exhumed and cremated, with the ashes scattered in 1970.

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Adolf Hitler (born April 20, 1889, Braunau am Inn , Austria—died April 30, 1945, Berlin , Germany) was the leader of the Nazi Party (from 1920/21) and chancellor ( Kanzler ) and Führer of Germany (1933–45). His worldview revolved around two concepts: territorial expansion and racial supremacy . Those themes informed his decision to invade Poland , which marked the start of World War II , as well as the systematic killing of six million Jews and millions of others during the Holocaust.

Hitler’s father, Alois (born 1837), was illegitimate . For a time he bore his mother’s name, Schicklgruber, but by 1876 he had established his family claim to the surname Hitler. Adolf never used any other surname.

After his father’s retirement from the state customs service, Adolf Hitler spent most of his childhood in Linz , the capital of Upper Austria . It remained his favourite city throughout his life, and he expressed his wish to be buried there. Alois Hitler died in 1903 but left an adequate pension and savings to support his wife and children. Although Hitler feared and disliked his father, he was a devoted son to his mother, who died after much suffering in 1907. With a mixed record as a student, Hitler never advanced beyond a secondary education . After leaving school, he visited Vienna , then returned to Linz, where he dreamed of becoming an artist. Later, he used the small allowance he continued to draw to maintain himself in Vienna. He wished to study art, for which he had some faculties , but he twice failed to secure entry to the Academy of Fine Arts. For some years he lived a lonely and isolated life, earning a precarious livelihood by painting postcards and advertisements and drifting from one municipal hostel to another. Hitler already showed traits that characterized his later life: loneliness and secretiveness, a bohemian mode of everyday existence, and hatred of cosmopolitanism and of the multinational character of Vienna.

In 1913 Hitler moved to Munich . Screened for Austrian military service in February 1914, he was classified as unfit because of inadequate physical vigour; but when World War I broke out, he petitioned Bavarian King Louis III to be allowed to serve, and one day after submitting that request, he was notified that he would be permitted to join the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment. After some eight weeks of training, Hitler was deployed in October 1914 to Belgium , where he participated in the First Battle of Ypres . He served throughout the war, was wounded in October 1916, and was gassed two years later near Ypres . He was hospitalized when the conflict ended. During the war, he was continuously in the front line as a headquarters runner; his bravery in action was rewarded with the Iron Cross , Second Class, in December 1914, and the Iron Cross, First Class (a rare decoration for a corporal), in August 1918. He greeted the war with enthusiasm, as a great relief from the frustration and aimlessness of civilian life. He found discipline and comradeship satisfying and was confirmed in his belief in the heroic virtues of war .

Hitler Biographies

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Anthony Read's top 10 books about Hitler and the Third Reich

Anthony Read's latest book is The Devil's Disciples: The Lives and Times of Hitler's Inner Circle.

1. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L Shirer

For me, this is the grandaddy of them all, the standard work by which all others on the subject are still measured. A brilliant and respected journalist, Shirer was actually there for much of the time and it shows. Erudite, comprehensive and detailed, always lively and readable, it is the model of what a popular narrative history should be. My own copy has been read and referred to so often it is falling apart.

2. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny by Alan Bullock

Another essential benchmark in the study of Hitler and the Third Reich. First published a mere seven years after Hitler's death, it remains as definitive now as it was then, as Bullock himself proved 40 years later when he incorporated much of it into his equally magisterial Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives.

3. Hitler (2 vols) by Ian Kershaw

With the benefit of a further half-century of international scholarship and research since Bullock and the other early biographers, Kershaw - despite describing himself as an 'anti-biographer' - has produced what may well be the ultimate version of Hitler's life and of the unique circumstances that made him possible. A masterful achievement.

4. The Past is Myself by Christabel Bielenberg

In contrast to the works of professional historians, personal diaries and memoirs putting a human face on the story of the Third Reich are essential to an understanding of life under Nazi rule. Among those on my shelves by anti-Nazis are Berlin Underground by Ruth Andreas-Friedrich, The Berlin Diaries of Marie 'Missie' Vassiltchikov, Schlage die Trommel... by my old friend Maria Gräfin von Maltzan, Ich Will Leben by Klaus Scheurenberg, and many others. But my favourite is this account by Christabel Bielenberg, who sadly died on November 2, 2003, aged 94. As she wrote in her introduction: 'I am English; I was German, and above all, I was there.'

5. Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer

This is the other side of the coin, the most readable and least repulsive of the Nazi memoirs. It provides a fascinating glimpse of working with Hitler - but should perhaps be read in conjunction with Gitta Sereny's aptly titled Albert Speer: his Battle with Truth.

6. Letters to Freya by Helmuth James von Moltke

This is one of the most moving testaments of the resistance to Hitler, a series of letters to his wife by a noble man on trial for his life after the July 20 plot. They reveal the intellectual and emotional honesty of Moltke, the archetypal 'good German', and his incredible bravery as he approached his execution on January 24, 1945, more concerned with saving his fellow victims than himself.

7. The Face of the Third Reich by Joachim C Fest

Unlike my new book, which I conceived as a multiple biography wrapped in a continuous narrative, Fest's masterpiece is a series of separate essays on leading personalities. Each is a psychological study of an individual, linked to an examination of the relevant aspect of National Socialism and the Nazi regime, all presented with intellectual rigour and considerable insight. A seminal work.

8. The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert

The literature on the Nazi persecution of the Jews and the so-called Final Solution is almost as vast as that on Nazism and the Third Reich. Trying to encompass the Holocaust in a single book would therefore seem to be a hopeless task, but Gilbert comes as close as is humanly possible with this deeply compassionate book, never letting us forget that though a million deaths may be a statistic, each one is a tragedy.

9. Hitler's War Aims by Norman Rich

In this impressively comprehensive two-volume study, Rich manages to cover just about every aspect of Hitler's ambitions and achievements outside Germany, dealing with the ideology, the methods and the results of the great drive for Lebensraum beyond the old Reich.

10. The German Dictatorship by Karl Dietrich Bracher

On its first publication in 1969, Bracher's book was described as 'the first, correct, full and comprehensive account of the origins, the structure and the machinery of the Nazi dictatorship'. Since then, it has been often emulated but never bettered. For anyone seeking to understand the roots and causes of the Nazi phenomenon, it is essential, and sobering, reading.

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Two Hitler biographies draw eerie parallels to contemporary politics

Peter Longerich and Brendan Simms each shed light on the dictator’s role in not only Germany but also on the world stage. 

• By Steve Donoghue

November 12, 2019

It is clear from today’s headlines that biographies of Adolf Hitler are horrifying relevant. The currents of instability and anger that flowed through Germany in the 1930s feel more immediate, as nationalism gains a beachhead in Europe and white supremacy rears its head in the United States. 

When Peter Longerich, one of the world’s foremost historians of Nazi Germany, wrote his enormous biography of Adolf Hitler back in 2015, it might have been possible for some people to imagine that the darkest lessons of Nazism had been learned. 

But a study of the dictator has always been relevant. The whole Hitler-biography industry has tended to take one of two broad approaches to parsing that relevance: Either Hitler was a sui generis figure who warped the course of German history almost entirely through his own personal actions, or he was merely or mostly a handy cog in a state machinery that would have worked along much the same lines with or without him. Hitler’s assault on that state machinery, what Longerich refers to in “Hitler: A Biography” as the “fragmentation of the traditional state apparatus of power,” took the form of an intense melding of psychopath and institutional structures. 

“These structures were indissolubly linked to him personally, and indeed in general his dictatorship represented an extraordinary example of personalized power,” Longerich writes. “The regime’s ‘structures’ are inconceivable without Hitler and Hitler is nothing without his offices.” It’s a note he sounds throughout his book, with Hitler “consistently evading any collective or formalized decision-making process” and instead aiming to “personalize the political process to an extreme degree.”

Longerich’s account follows the dolorously familiar arc of Hitler’s life and the ruinous course of World War II, and the English-language translation, a herculean feat accomplished by Jeremy Noakes and Lesley Sharpe, never flags, always smartly conveying Longerich’s peculiarly magisterial readability. It would be entirely understandable if even the hardiest readers blanched a bit at spending nearly 1,400 pages with Adolf Hitler, but Longerich, Noakes, and Sharpe have done as much as humanly possible to make the prospect enticing. (Alongside Daniel Steuer’s edition of Wolfram Siemann’s biography of Prince Metternich, this is the most impressive translated biography of the year.)

“Hitler: A Global Biography,” the season’s other major Hitler book, is half the length of Longerich’s, but what it lacks in length it makes up in scrappy contentiousness. On some levels, Simms argues, “Hitler’s biography, and perhaps the history of the Third Reich more generally, need to be fundamentally rethought.”

Simms’ revisionism doesn’t primarily involve either of those two broad approaches to looking at Hitler and the structures of power, but rather attempts to get at the heart of the man’s thinking; not the Hitler Germans voted for, as Simms puts it, but the Hitler they got. According to the author, Hitler’s motivations have been largely misunderstood: He was far more obsessed with rivaling the British and Americans in the world than he was with, for instance, attacking Bolshevism. “He sought not world domination, but world power status, that is parity, or at least a recognized sphere of influence,” Simms writes. “The Führer did not really expect to defeat Anglo-America, only to outlast it: militarily, economically, and mentally.”

In the rarefied world of Nazi scholarship, an author claiming that Hitler didn’t seek world domination qualifies as incendiary, and Simms comes back repeatedly to that aspect of his narrative, his version of a Hitler who was in revolt against what Simms refers to as the “Anglo-American capitalist world order” and cared about that world order more than anything – including his signature obsession. “The root of his Jew-hatred, therefore, was primarily to be found in his hostility to global high finance rather than his hatred of the radical left,” Simms writes. “Those who do not want to speak about Hitler’s anti-capitalism should remain silent on his anti-Semitism.”

More than a few readers of that last line will respond with a quick “Says who?” Simms is clearly expecting to raise some hackles, and this makes his book a different reading experience from Longerich’s. It’s unlikely that many readers will soldier through both books, but unfortunately, the times may warrant it.

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Hitler: A Life review: A rounded picture of the man’s personality and power

Peter longerich’s biography of hitler is a comprehensive and impressive work.

This particular reviewer approached Peter Longerich’s study of Hitler with mixed feelings because he is himself – full disclosure – publishing a new biography in September.

Longerich is very well qualified to write such a work, having been a considerable presence in the field for more than 30 years. He has written authoritative accounts of the structures of the Third Reich – especially the SA and Rudolf Hess’s Nazi party Chancellery – before moving on to the study of the Holocaust, and a short but compelling book on the depth of Hitler’s involvement in the mass murder of the Jews, despite David Irving’s attempts at denial. More recently, Longerich has produced large-scale biographies of two of the regime’s most notorious figures, Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels.

I am happy to say that Hitler: A Life is a very good book, fluently translated by Jeremy Noakes and Lesley Sharpe. It is comprehensive on the domestic side of the story, and draws on the newer literature of the past two decades.

Longerich takes us expertly through the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship and racial state, and fully delivers on his promise to supply a 'history of the regime' and biography

Longerich’s work is much more than just a synthesis, however, partly because he grounds his account in new material (printed and some archival), but mainly because his emphasis on Hitler’s centrality to the workings of the Third Reich runs contrary to the older “structuralist” view which saw him as more or less the prisoner of larger forces in German society. Longerich explicitly challenges the iconic two-volume biography by Ian Kershaw, which looked more to the character of Hitler’s power than the man himself. Instead, Longerich emphasizes “Hitler’s autonomous role as an active politician”.

The result is a fine-grained and generally very persuasive account of Hitler’s rise to power, his rule within Germany, and especially the nature of his authority. Longerich spends relatively little time on Hitler’s early life, claiming that events before 1919 have little to say about his later trajectory. He does, however, skilfully cast Hitler as a “nobody” who emerged out of the maelstrom of early 20th-century Austro-German politics. Longerich then provides a good account of Hitler’s skill at playing his opponents off against each other in the late 1920s and early 1930s, but the bulk of the book is devoted to the period of the Third Reich itself.

History and biography

Longerich takes us expertly through the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship and racial state, with its exclusionary and ultimately genocidal policies. He fully delivers on his promise to supply a “history of the regime” alongside a biography. Inevitably, much of this is familiar, but Longerich often finds new and interesting angles.

Instead of separating out Hitler's private life in a separate chapter, the author integrates this into the main narrative

For example, he shows that the infamous Day of Potsdam at which Hitler supposedly co-opted the Prussian elites was a fraught event for him, whose detail and choreography he did not control. He also contradicts the claim by Kershaw and others (including myself) that the notorious Berlin Olympics were a propaganda victory for the regime. In fact, the foreign press resonance was highly ambivalent. Longerich also argues that Hitler did not back euthanasia until relatively late, contrary to Kershaw’s claim that that he had supported it as far back as the 1920s; here the evidence is unclear.

Longerich shows how Hitler’s role in German politics remained crucial during the war, despite the many demands on his time; that the radicalisation of policy in Poland, which was murderous from the start, followed his explicit instructions; that most of the key impulses in domestic politics – characterised by what Longerich calls a “Führer autocracy” – came from Hitler himself.

Often-mythologised figures such as Martin Bormann are given their due, but down to size. Whether it was constitutional and administrative changes in the Reich itself, policy in the occupied territories, or the radicalisation of measures against the Jews, which eventually led to the murder of six million people, Longerich shows Hitler to have been the directing force.

Rounded picture

Longerich also does not neglect Hitler’s personality. He decisively rebuts Joachim Fest, author of a famous biography in the 1970s (entitled Hitler), who claimed that his subject was basically a “non-person”. Instead of separating out Hitler’s private life in a separate chapter, the author integrates this into the main narrative where appropriate, for example with respect to the shock of his niece and possible lover Geli Raubal’s suicide (on which he wisely refuses to speculate), or the subsequent relationship with Eva Braun. Longerich’s decision to steer clear of both voyeurism and prudishness is surely the right one. The author also provides insight into Hitler’s keen artistic and musical interests. The result is a generally rounded picture of the man and his times.

All in all this is an impressive book, which significantly moves the dial back in the direction of a Hitler who was 'master in the Third Reich'

Having said all this, I am also happy to say that this is not (and no book can ever be, of course) the last word on Hitler. Longerich’s impressive grip on Nazi domestic politics and Hitler’s authority is not quite replicated in the fields of ideology and strategy. The author is aware of the führer’s anti-capitalism, but seriously underplays its salience in his belief system. Hitler’s fear and hatred of international finance capitalism was a key driver of his strategic world view and his anti-Semitism; he lumped “world Jewry”, the United States and the British Empire together as the “haves” who were grinding the faces of the global “have-nots”, such as the German Reich. By contrast, Hitler was less concerned by Bolshevism and the Soviet Union, which he saw as agents of international capitalism, and for this reason Longerich somewhat overstates the importance of communism and the Eastern Front in Hitler’s mind.

Here Longerich’s decision largely to set aside the pre-1919 period does not serve him well. It was during the first World War, or at least in his subsequent reflection on that conflict, that Hitler was confronted by the might of Anglo-America. He regarded the “Anglo-Saxons”, as he dubbed them in the standard German parlance of the time, not only as an economic and military, but also a demographic and racial threat. Hitler was haunted by the spectre of German emigrants returning as enemy soldiers, something which he ironically did more than anybody else to bring about again after his declaration of war on the US.

Finally, Longerich does not say enough about Hitler’s sense of the fundamental weakness of the German people, even once purged of the Jews and other “undesirable” elements. He should have placed more emphasis, for example, on Hitler’s fear of Bavarian separatism, a salient factor in his thinking during the early 1920s, which fuelled his worry about the innate German tendency towards fragmentation. Hitler’s belief that some of the best Germans had left the country in the course of the 19th century and “fertilised” the US and the British Empire aggravated his sense of inferiority towards the “Angle-Saxons”.

All in all, though, this is an impressive book, which significantly moves the dial back in the direction of a Hitler who was “master in the Third Reich”, as Norman Rich put in during an earlier debate. If Longerich is a little weaker on ideology and grand strategy, that only means that while he told us much, there is still more to say.

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CHAPTER ONE The Hitler of History By JOHN LUKACS Alfred A. Knopf Read the Review Historiographical Problems The purpose of historical knowledge -- The extraordinary popular interest in Hitler -- Its development and continuation -- His treatment by historians -- Its evolution -- The relationship of history and biography -- Principal problems -- The documentary problems -- The limits of our knowledge We are not yet finished with Hitler ("[wir sind] mit Hitler noch lange nicht fertig"), wrote two members of a younger generation of German historians, independently of each other, in the 1980s--and this is so in both the broader and the narrower sense of "finished." The first of these should be evident. History means the endless rethinking--and reviewing and revisiting--of the past. History, in the broad sense of the word, is revisionist. History involves multiple jeopardy that the law eschews: People and events are retried and retried again. There is nothing profound in this observation, since this is what all thinking is about. The past is the only thing we know. All human knowledge springs from past knowledge. All human thinking involves a rethinking of the past. This is true in the narrower sense, too, involving the historical profession. The notion that once the scientific method has been applied accurately, with all extant documents exhausted, the work will be finished and the result will be final ("the final and definitive history of the Third Reich, certified by German, American, British, Russian, liberal and conservative, nationalist and Jewish historians") is a nineteenth-century illusion. There are now probably more than one hundred biographies of Hitler, while there is no certainty that the 101st may not furnish something new and valid. What may matter even more than the accumulated quantity of the research (note the word "re-search") is the quality of the revision. What is its purpose? In the broader sense, the purpose of historical knowledge is more than accuracy; it is understanding. In the narrower sense, the purpose of a revisionist historian may be exposé, scandal, sensation--or the more or less unselfish wish to demolish untruths. It may be his desire for academic or financial success, to further his advancement in the eyes of his colleagues, or, in the greater world, to gain publicity; or to further the cause of a political or national ideology--on which the treatment of his subject sometimes depends. There will be evidence in this book that this applies--on occasion--to the historical treatment of Hitler too. Before I turn to professional historians and biographers of Hitler, I must pay some attention to the extraordinary, and continuing, interest in Hitler during the last fifty years. The quantity of books, articles, films, and television programs dealing with Hitler surpasses that addressed to other main figures of the now-ending twentieth century: Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill, de Gaulle, Mussolini, Mao. Fifty years after Hitler's death, popular interest in him continues. I must essay at least a sketchy account of its course. During Hitler's lifetime, his Mein Kampf was, of course, a publishing success--in England and the United States especially before the war--though few people (including Germans) took the trouble to read it in its entirety. Unlike Mussolini and other dictators, Hitler did not wish to see an adulatory biography of himself published during his lifetime in Germany; in fact, except for a few odd earlier biographies, photographic albums, and collections of his speeches, there were none. (Hitler himself deemphasized, if not altogether dismissed, Mein Kampf after 1936, in private conversations at least--even though it was written in the first person, and even though the first part amounted to his intellectual autobiography.) From his various remarks, it also seems that--unlike Churchill or De Gaulle, or even Napoleon at St. Helena--in the event of his retirement, Hitler would have had little inclination to write or dictate his memoirs. The news of his death left the world numb. That was not the numbness of a stunning shock; it was, rather, the news of something that had been somehow expected and perhaps even discounted in advance. Of course there was a difference between the reactions of the German people and those of other peoples of the world, understandably so--but there was, perhaps, one overwhelming (or was it an underwhelming?) condition: people did not want to think much about Hitler when there were so many other immediate and pressing things for them to think about. That condition prevailed for some years. Among some of his German contemporaries, there was--and still is--a tendency to blame Hitler for all the evils that he had visited on the world and for what also had befallen themselves: an understandable tendency that somehow separated him from them, distinguishing his life and his doings from their lives and their doings during the war. Examples of this were the memoirs of many German generals (most of them published in the early 1950s), who blamed Hitler, not themselves, for blunders in the war, for great battles lost--often exaggeratedly, and sometimes incorrectly. Around 1960, there developed a change--outside Germany at first and then in Germany too. Interest in Hitler, in the Third Reich, in World War II, including the "Holocaust" (a word that was not then current), arose anew, especially in the United States. Books such as William Shirer's superficial The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960) became best-sellers, or near-best-sellers. The capture and trial of Adolf Eichmann, as well as other events, revived first the American, then the German and worldwide, interest in the history of the mass murder of Jews during World War II--to which American Jews and their organizations had not devoted extensive interest before the 1960s. There were, I think, three main reasons for this revival of fascination with World War II and Hitler. The first was the emergence of a new generation of people who were too young to have lived through the war, whence their interest in its dramatic figures and events. The second, more evident reason was the publication and the availability of more and more sources and documents. The third was the gradual abatement of the so-called cold war with Russia: It was now obvious that World War II was not only more dramatic than the cold war but that Hitler was more interesting than Stalin (and Nazis than Communists). All of these conditions still prevail nearly forty years later, at the time of this writing. In the 1960s and 1970s, biographies of Hitler began to multiply; so did other books, articles, plays, television programs, films, including so-called documentaries, and so forth. By the early 1970s, German commentators had begun to speak of a "Hitler-Welle," a "Hitler-wave"--a phenomenon applicable to some extent to the United States and perhaps Britain too. However, a wave has a crest and a trough, and that trough has not yet appeared. During the last twenty-five years the price of Hitler memorabilia has risen steadily, outpacing not only inflation but the price of almost all other objects or works of art or of manuscripts and autograph letters achieved at world auctions. In 1981, a German forger went to much trouble to manufacture pages of a diary that was supposedly handwritten by Hitler. The result was a worldwide sensation (lamentably, at least two celebrated--non-German--historians declared the "documents" to be plausibly genuine) until the forgery became evident. Sixteen years later it is fair to say that popular interest (which, to be sure, is not and will never be accurately measurable) in Hitler is as prevalent as before, in many places of the world, and on many levels. These levels vary, of course: from the honest curiosity of amateurs of history to the kind of prurient or near-prurient curiosity evinced by people who are attracted to manifestations and incarnations of evil. To these, alas, a new kind of curiosity may be added, especially now after the collapse and virtual disappearance of communism: the interest of those who are beginning to wonder whether Hitler and National Socialism did not represent, mutatis mutandis, an alternative not only healthier than communism but healthier than the decaying liberal democracy of the West. In any event: the evolution, and the endurance, of the popular interest in Hitler did not altogether differ from the evolution of studies of Hitler among reputable and professional historians. In 1985, the German historian Martin Broszat stated that historians must proceed from the "demonization" to the "historicization" of National Socialism and, consequently, of Hitler--a desideratum as well as a statement of something that, for some time, had been obvious. The view that Hitler was not a "demonic"--that is, at least by inference, an ahuman and ahistorical--phenomenon but a historical figure, incarnating various human characteristics and endowed with recognizable talents, is shared not only by some historians but by more and more people. All of this eventually leads to the question--question, if not problem--of his place in the history of the twentieth century or, indeed, in the history of the world. I shall have to come to this in the last chapter of this book, even though its principal topic is not Hitler's life but his treatment by historians. I know that the two topics are not altogether separable, since the history of history is history too. But the two themes are not identical: This work is not a biography of Hitler. It is a treatment of a historical problem--more precisely, of a number of problems. The first problem, or, rather, condition--in order, though not necessarily in importance--is the tremendous accumulation of materials about Hitler. The canon of professional historiography, established in the nineteenth century (and mostly in Germany), calls for the professional historian to exhaust all of the sources (above all, the primary sources) relating to his topic. For more than a century now, the volume of printed materials alone has become such that for most topics--especially, but not exclusively, twentieth-century topics--the complete fulfillment of this requirement is no longer possible. Obviously this includes the topic of Hitler. An annotated and judiciously commentated bibliographical study by Gerhard Schreiber was published in 1984, with a subsequent expanded edition in 1988; yet, because of the very nature of its subject, this excellent guide to research could not be complete, either. This does not mean that the serious historian should throw up his hands in despair. Every historian necessarily proceeds on the basis of incomplete evidence. At the same time the extent of his admissible evidence is potentially limitless--another difference between history and the law. As the great Jacob Burckhardt once said: There is, strictly speaking, no definite historical method; what the historian must be good at is bisogna saper leggere (Burckhardt put it in Italian): He must know how to read (another suggestion of quality as well as of quantity). This leads us to the second condition. Among those who "know how to read," among serious historians dealing with Hitler, does "serious" mean "professional"? Yes, and no. Or, more precisely: no, rather than yes. The notion that serious--meaning not only readable but reliable--history can be written only by professional historians, holders of a Ph.D. degree, was another nineteenth-century idea: an idea not without considerable merit and substance, with many enduring and positive results, but an illusion nonetheless. This, too, is especially evident in the twentieth century. Among the best and most reliable historians of Hitler we find professional and nonacademic writers alike. We will see that, perhaps especially in Hitler's case, the possession of a professional degree, or even of a prestigious university chair, has been no guarantee against some rather serious errors, while for other writers the absence of such academic qualifications has not compromised, circumscribed, or otherwise limited their valuable achievement. Such are two elementary conditions of a survey of Hitler historians; and again, because of the tremendous mass of books about Hitler a survey is all this can be. It will be limited to some of the main works, and to the general evolution of Hitler study: for an evolution there has been, with a few recognizable milestones (and--as late as 1996--an evolution without a perceptible end). More than sixty years ago, the first substantial study of Hitler was written by Konrad Heiden (1901-1966) and published in Zurich in 1936. Heiden was a German émigré, a journalist--a condition that, in his case, was an advantage rather than a handicap because of the readable and crisp style of his writing, much of which was in the historical present tense. At the same time the work was a serious one. Heiden had evidently followed Hitler for many years, with acute interest. His account of Hitler's life and career (the book ended with June-July 1934) was dense with details and often remarkably accurate. Nearly forty years later, Joachim Fest paid his tribute to Heiden's book, which had obviously stood the test of time. This was in spite of the obvious condition that Heiden could not have read materials that had appeared since. Some of his errors were picked up by other historians, notably Maser, decades later. But the value of Heiden's biography was enhanced by his often insightful and personal commentaries about political figures and the political atmosphere of the period--while he was honest enough to dismiss legends and anecdotes about Hitler after having scrutinized them. Heiden's main thesis is as valid now as it was more than sixty years ago: Hitler was underestimated, dangerously so, by his opponents as well as by his temporary allies. All in all, this is a creditable achievement, better than both Heiden's subsequent volume about Hitler's foreign policy (1937) and a Hitler biography by another German émigré journalist, Rudolf Olden. And then, despite the unchartable flood of books about Germany and Nazism before, during, and after World War II,no considerable study or biography appeared until more than fifteen years after Heiden's work, and more than five years after Hitler's suicide. There was one exception worthy of mention--exception, because, strictly speaking, Hugh Trevor-Roper's The Last Days of Hitler (1947) was neither a biography nor a study of Hitler; it dealt with only the last ten days of Hitler's life in the bunker underneath the New Reich Chancellery (a dramatic enough topic that has since attracted at least a dozen other writers, memoirists, amateur historians, and novelists). Trevor-Roper's book was inspired by his participation in a British intelligence group that attempted to ascertain the actual circumstances of Hitler's death. The result was fairly comprehensive and accurate; well written, too, with perhaps one shortcoming: The description of the then physically broken, hobbling, fanatic, cornered dictator, irrational in some of his expectations and directives, did not consider or admit Hitler's remaining rational considerations in his capacity as a statesman (to which we shall turn in chapter 5)--"rational," that is, as some of these were from his own viewpoint. This relatively small book proved to be an important element in Trevor-Roper's (later Lord Dacre) career: this late-Tudor and Stuart historian became a respectable and judicious commentator on the historiography of Hitler and the Third Reich. In 1952, Alan Bullock (1914- ; later Lord Bullock) produced the first substantial biography of Hitler by an English historian. Composed in the British tradition, without academic jargon, it was, commercially speaking, perhaps the most successful of all Hitler biographies. It was an important achievement, also, because its author could profit from the unusually rapid availability of captured German documents produced at Nuremberg and published soon after the war. Its direct and straightforward narrative style was, and still remains, an important element in its reputation and success. At the same time, Bullock's interpretation--or, rather, description--of Hitler's character was one-dimensional: that of "an entirely unprincipled opportunist." We ought not to attribute to Hitler high principles or great moral virtues; but Bullock's portrait was much too simple. (His short descriptions of others--to wit, Hess and Göring--were very good.) Of course this was an early biography: Bullock could not yet profit from the subsequent outpouring of documents, papers, memoirs, and at least partial revelations over the next forty years. Still, even in the later editions many of Bullock's original errors--errors of judgment as well as fact--remained. Meanwhile, in the very year of Bullock's publication, a significant development occurred within Germany (more precisely, West Germany) itself. This was the establishment of serious historical studies to be devoted to recent German history, including that of the Third Reich and thus, at least indirectly, of Hitler. "Zeitgeschichte" in German signifies something slightly different from the English term "contemporary history," where, in accord with both the traditions and the practice of the language, the meaning of "contemporary" rolls on largely undefined (and even more different from France, where, for a long time, "histoire contemporaine" has meant history after 1815, an increasingly senseless definition). Eventually (this was not made clear before 1951), "Zeitgeschichte" in Germany came to denote history after 1914, a fairly sensible categorization (which, however, will gradually lose its point as the twenty-first century proceeds). Thus in 1951 and after, "Zeitgeschichte" (and, of course, mainly German contemporary history) was accepted as a respectable academic discipline, to be researched, studied, and taught in German universities. There was a moral purpose underlying this proposition. It was the wish to establish for Germans a reputable and solid fundament for a proper perspective on their recent past. The result was the founding of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte and of its scholarly historical quarterly, the Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (vfz), which remains to this day the best journal of contemporary history in the world. Its principal founders were Hans Rothfels, a German conservative historian, who had returned from his exile in the United States, and Theodor Eschenburg, a German political thinker with unsullied credentials. Thus it may be said that the "historicization" of the Third Reich had begun more than thirty years before Professor Broszat pronounced its desirability. Yet there was--and still is--an appreciable difference between the "historicization"--that is, the de-demonization--of the Third Reich and that of Hitler. Around that time, the first serious German postwar biography of Hitler appeared, by Walter Görlitz (1913-1991) and Herbert A. Quint (1922- ). They were amateur historians (Görlitz went on to a respectable career in journalism), Pomeranian conservatives who were particularly interested in military history. They concentrated on the political Hitler. Written from a German conservative perspective, in a readable and rapidly flowing style (though perhaps with an excess of exclamation points), the book contained some inaccuracies but also some insightful observations that would later be made independently by other historians.Ý The best part of their work dealt with the political ascent of Hitler, and with the fatal--moral as well as political--shortcomings of his potential opponents and actual allies in the 1930-34 period. The book's weakness lay in its authors' very brief treatment of the last six years of Hitler's life and the war (only 92 out of 633 pages). The Görlitz-Quint portrait of Hitler was unexceptionally condemnatory: that of a fanatic radical who destroyed much that was valuable in Germany, including the unity of the German state. In depicting Hitler as such, they did not entirely differ from Bullock's "unprincipled opportunist," but their perspective was, of course, different. There was, during the 1950s, a certain duality with regard to the Hitler era. Because of the existence--more important, the perception--of Russian and Communist aggressiveness, there was a popular (and, in many instances, public) tendency to regard communism and Russia as more dangerous and perhaps even more evil than were Hitler and the Third Reich--a tendency then evident in the United States, though not in Britain. Within West Germany, this corresponded to the popular inclination to regard World War II as consisting of two different wars: the war of the Third Reich against the Western democracies which was regrettable and should have been avoided; and the war against Soviet Russia, in which Germany had been a defender of Western civilization, something the Western democracies should have understood. Essentially, this tendency amounted (and still amounts) to at least a partial exoneration of the German people and of their armies during World War II, though not of Hitler. Except for a few pamphlets and fragments of Nazi memoirists, no serious attempt at an apology for Hitler was then made. On the other hand, among younger historians the scholarly study of aspects of the Third Reich had begun, as was evident in many studies and articles not only in the vfz but in many other political and cultural periodicals. During the 1950s the first significant works of later Hitler-specialists such as Andreas Hillgruber first appeared--even though it was not until the 1960s that "Zeitgeschichte" began to be included in the curriculum of upper-level German schools (and that the trials of Germans accused of war crimes were put on the docket of German courts). We have seen that interest in Hitler revived around 1960, and this had visible effects on historiography too. The 1960 publication of The Origins of the Second World War by the self-confident maverick among English historians, A. J. P. Taylor (1906-1990), must be mentioned here, even though Taylor was not a biographer of Hitler. (Nor was his book--as has sometimes been wrongly stated--a stunning attempt to rehabilitate him.) What Taylor attempted to assert was that Hitler was not so different (if different at all) from other ambitious German statesmen of the past; that during the 1930s he knew how to take advantage of the weakness of his opponents and of the opportunities they made possible for him; that, in short, Hitler was more of a short-term opportunist and less of a long-range ideologue than it was assumed. On occasion, Taylor presented his evidence on the sudden development of some of Hitler's decisions convincingly; at other times, with considerable legerdemain. His book had an effect on the diplomatic history of the period, but practically none on the evolving historical portrait of Hitler. In the early 1960s, there appeared three biographical studies of Hitler, by Heiber, Gisevius, and Schramm--in ascending order of their importance. Of these, Helmut Heiber's (1924- ) portrait was the most conventional, though not devoid of insightful passages. Hans Bernd Gisevius (1904-1974) had been connected to the 1944 conspirators against Hitler; he worked for a while for Allen Dulles and the OSS in Switzerland. Valuable elements in his biography were his analysis of the Hitler-Papen and Hitler-Hindenburg relationships, and his treatment generally of Hitler in the early 1930s; noteworthy, too, was his shrewd recognition of Hitler's duality, suggesting that Hitler often incarnated diverse personalities, even in his photographs. At the same time, his presentation of Hitler's world of ideas was somewhat superficial: While Gisevius (as did many others) tended to rely heavily on Mein Kampf, he also wrote that Hitler's ideas were not at all original. Return to the Books Home Page

Hitler by Volker Ullrich

R eaders might believe there is no need for another book on Adolf Hitler. After all, there have been tens of thousands over the last 60-plus years. Yet German historian Volker Ullrich’s two-volume biography—the first, published in English in 2016, on Hitler’s rise, and the second, new this year, on the denouement of his reign—is a testament to what a great historian can do with original research and brilliant synthesis on even the most-trodden terrain. This second volume, translated to English by Jefferson Chase, explains how the seeds of Hitler’s downfall sprung from the very same qualities (obsession, fanaticism, deceit, refusal to listen to others) that helped him rise to power.

Buy Now: Hitler on Bookshop | Amazon

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Nonfiction Books » History Books » Modern History (1800-1945) » World War 2

The best books on the holocaust, recommended by steven katz.

In the years immediately after World War II, the Holocaust was little studied. That all changed with the publication of Raul Hilberg's book, The Destruction of the European Jews. Steven Katz , professor of Jewish Holocaust Studies at Boston University and former Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies, introduces the best Holocaust books.    

The Destruction of the European Jews by Raul Hilberg

Night by Elie Wiesel

Judenrat by Isaiah Trunk

Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher Browning

Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto by Emanuel Ringelblum

1 The Destruction of the European Jews by Raul Hilberg

2 night by elie wiesel, 3 judenrat by isaiah trunk, 4 ordinary men: reserve police battalion 101 and the final solution in poland by christopher browning, 5 notes from the warsaw ghetto by emanuel ringelblum.

Y ou’ve picked books for us to help understand the Holocaust , and your first choice is The Destruction of the European Jews , the landmark study of the Holocaust by Raul Hilberg. This was first published half a century ago, and now runs to three volumes. Can you tell me about it?

He had great difficulty getting it published, but, once it did get published, people saw that it was a subject of enormous historic importance. Also, the way he carried it out – Hilberg, as a young man, had helped do some of the research for the trials at Nuremberg and elsewhere. So, his close knowledge of the huge collection of German documents that had been brought together for those trials just changed the whole landscape. And Raul continued to work on this book for the next 50 years – he only passed away two years ago – and it grew and grew into the present three-volume edition.

And why did he have trouble getting it published?

At that time people did not seem to feel that the Holocaust was a subject that would have a readership, that there was a lot of interest in it. Today we’re so well aware, it’s so much part of the public discourse and the public conversation, but at that time it was a subject that was little talked about in public. The survivors didn’t talk, and the victimisers didn’t talk, so there was a general agreement to push it to the side – both in scholarship and in general conversation.

Is there anything you would point to in the book as being of special significance?

Yes, his method. He was a student at Columbia University, of political science. So his method is that of a political scientist. Also, more importantly, what Raul did was emphasise the German side of the Holocaust. He didn’t study Jewish documents that closely, or look at the behaviour of the victims, at resistance, or anything like that. He went right to the documents he knew from the war trials, and he concentrated on the way the mass murder was organised by the German state, by the Nazis.

He had an eye especially for the issues of bureaucracy and technology, which he thought were the decisive factors that made this a new kind of major crime. What was special here was the use of modern organisational techniques, of which he was a student, to carry out this mass murder.

And no one had focused on that before?

The second book on your list of Holocaust books is Night, a short but extremely powerful book by Elie Wiesel.

This was published by Elie Wiesel and now is probably the best known memoir that has been written about the experience of the death camps. Elie Wiesel was a young boy of 14 when his tiny city, a place called Sighet, mostly Jewish, in what was then the Romania-Hungary borderland, was overrun. You have to remember that until 1944, Hungarian Jewry had been spared the most extreme forms of Nazi violence. But in 44 the situation changed and the Nazis essentially took over much of the organisation of the Jewish population in Hungary. They came into his little town, the shtetl, and they took him and his family. He went to Auschwitz, where his father died. But he survived the war, miraculously.

Then, in the 1950s, he wrote a memoir in Yiddish. It was a very long memoir, too long, and at that time he was living in Paris. He was with some French intellectuals who told him to shorten the volume and to publish a very watered down or limited version in French. Which he did – and the rest is history. It started to be read widely, and it continues to have an enormous impact all over the world. For example, a few years ago in Chicago they chose it as the book of the year that everybody in all the schools read. Also, Oprah Winfrey picked his book, the new translation, for her book club recently. So I would say of all the books that people read about the Holocaust, besides The Diary of Anne Frank , the most famous memoir is by Elie Wiesel.

What do you think makes it so good?

I think the way the personal scenes are described, the telling scene of his father’s death, the characters he is able to draw and portray and this strange twilight life that people lived. All that has enormous emotional power. And he has the craft; he is a novelist and, unlike many memoirs (which are all important and all have information and all shed light), this has a literary kind of quality. He is able to bring to the focus of the reader a deep emotional power, and something also of the mysteriousness of what happened in the camps. There was something here that really reached the limits of human experience.

“There was something here that really reached the limits of human experience”

Next on your list of Holocaust books is Isaiah Trunk’s Judenrat , about the Jewish councils in the ghettos.

There is always a discussion and emphasis in films and in various kinds of public conversation about the role of the Germans: What did Hitler order? Why was Hitler obsessed with the Jews? Why did the Third Reich do what it did in the way of anti-Semitism? What was the logic of their racial policy? Why did they create death camps, Einsatzgruppen [see below] and ghettos? But the story is only partially a German story. The victims of the tragedy are the Jews and, therefore, it’s a crucial thing in studying the Holocaust to be able to see the response of the victims.

Now, this comes in many places and in many forms and one of the most controversial was in the ghettos. The ghettos lasted from early 1940, when the first ghetto was enclosed, till the last ghetto, the Lodz ghetto, was dismantled in August of ’44. And there were hundreds of ghettos spread all over Europe. So for five years, millions of Jews lived and died in these enclosed spaces, and to some degree they had the ability to control aspects of their life. The Germans would give an order, a work order, food requirements, issues about health, deportations, whatever it was, and it was the Jews themselves who had to pass these orders on and implement them to a large degree. Now the people who were in power to do that were the members of Jewish councils. One of the first things the Nazis did when they established a ghetto was to establish a Jewish council – big ghettos had bigger councils, small ghettos also had councils. The Nazis directly appointed the leaders of the ghetto councils and they were the crucial mediators between the German overlord, German policies and the Jewish people.

Now after the war, there was tremendous debate about their role, about how they acted, about the morality of some of them, about the fate of many of them. It became especially heated during the Eichmann trial in the early 1960s in Israel, when Hannah Arendt published her book Eichmann in Jerusalem , which is still widely read and very well known. She essentially accused them of being collaborators, and said that had there been no Jewish councils, had there been no Jewish leadership, more Jews would have survived, there would have been less mass murder. So this subject is at the very centre of the study of the Holocaust. And Isaiah Trunk, who is a survivor, undertook this study of the various councils and investigated the question of collaboration and of cowardice , of heroism, of support for resistance or lack of support. And his book has become one of the really great classics of Jewish Holocaust literature.

And what does he conclude?

On to the next book on your list of Holocaust books which is Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. This book is presumably looking at the issue of how ordinary people came to carry out such atrocities?

This was a book written by Christopher Browning who now teaches at the University of North Carolina. Chris found a collection of documents that were testimonies given at a trial of a group of German police and they talk about their role in the murder of eastern European Jewry. One needs to know that with the invasion of Russia, in the summer of 1941, the Nazis organised a new form of violence, and they called them Einsatzgruppen . There were four groups of men. They were not volunteers, they were assigned to these units. The largest group was a thousand men and there were three slightly smaller units, a total of 3,000 men. And their orders were very simple – to go in right on the heels of the Wehrmacht [the German army], as the Russians retreated and the Nazi army moved forward.

They were to go into the large towns first and then the smaller communities, round up all the Jews and murder them. Initially, the order seems to have been for Jewish men, but very soon after, on the direct order of Heinrich Himmler, it turned to the killing of women and children as well. These groups went literally from town to town, rounded up the Jews and either shot them or put them in the synagogue and set it ablaze. Or, for example, as they did in Vilnius in Lithuania, they marched them outside the city, to the wooded areas, made them dig large trenches, lined them up, shot them, then the next group had to go in, get shot, lie down on the first group, and slowly you have a pyramid effect of bodies on bodies. Then it would be covered over. So this murder – which took about a million and a half lives over 18 months – was primarily carried out by these four groups. But they were not alone. They had assistance, both from the Wehrmacht, (though the army would deny it for many years) and from various police battalions. There were local police battalions – Lithuanians, Ukrainians, etc. But other battalions came from Germany, what were called ‘order police’.

So this group that Chris Browning wrote about was Order Police Battalion 101. And they describe the extraordinary behaviour that they participated in. Now the reason this is such an important book and raises deep questions is that when you study the Holocaust you ask almost immediately: How could people do this? How could men who had their own children, go out and murder other children? How could men who are fathers take children and smash their heads against a wall? Or husbands take women and rip open their wombs and kill their infants and shoot them behind the ear? So the Browning book raised that question in a very, very strong and powerful way, based on firsthand testimony. He also tries to offer a series of explanations of human behaviour that are more controversial. The story of this battalion was then picked up by Daniel Goldhagen, who wrote the book that caused such an enormous stir, Hitler’s Willing Executioners . That was probably the greatest stir in Holocaust publications since Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem.

And what did he argue?

Goldhagen laid the charge against Germans, specifically, of possessing what he called an eliminationist anti-Semitism at the very heart of their character, of their culture, of their society. And that, of course, raised issues of collective guilt, and, also, is there such a thing as a national identity? It set off an enormous controversy in Germany and elsewhere. So the two books together that took the same set of documents as their central evidence, are a vital part of the debate today about the Holocaust, over the behaviour of the murderers.

And what explanations does Browning offer that you agree with?

Browning goes through different explanations and I agree with a lot of things, and I disagree with a lot of things. There’s the old explanation that people just follow orders. There have been various experiments done since World War II, especially by a man named Stanley Milgram at Yale, where he experiments with his students to see how far they will go just to get an A in a class. And then there are various discussions by social scientists and others about brutalisation of people in times of war, how values change.

And then you get those who emphasise the force of indoctrination and anti-Semitism: that’s the Goldhagen explanation. Browning himself put a lot of weight on the issue of peer pressure. The people in these groups were given the opportunity to step out and not participate. But almost no one did, because they were afraid of being called cowards and losing the respect of other people in the group. Browning puts a special importance on that psychological element, that people are very conformist, very afraid of stepping out and being seen as saying no to the group. Goldhagen found that explanation much too tepid for a crime like this and focused on the profound importance of ideology. So these are the debates that have been going on and I happen to think that ideology was probably more important than Christopher Browning gives it credit for.

People are just capable of horrific things. Look at the Rwandan genocide .

You don’t have to wait for the Rwandan genocide. Already 200 years ago Hegel referred to human history as a slaughter bench. We have had mass crimes and violence and killing of the innocent since the time of Cain and Abel. What is special about the Holocaust is not that you have violence and killing, but that the core is an ideological drive to make a complete extinction of an entire people. That seems to me to be the central and uniquely ideological element in the Holocaust.

“What is special about the Holocaust is that the core is an ideological drive to make a complete extinction of an entire people”

The last of your Holocaust books is Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto by Emmanuel Ringelblum.

This again is a way of having access to the Jewish side of the tragedy. There was an organisation started in the Warsaw ghetto by a great man named Emmanuel Ringelblum. Ringelblum had been a historian before the war, and when the war began he had a stroke of genius, of tragic genius. He organised a team of people to go out and save all the material they could find about the life of the ghetto. He also commissioned some of his colleagues to go out and do investigations of subjects that might be important to future generations: for example, how did the Jewish children behave in the ghetto? How did Jewish women behave in the ghetto? What was the self-help operation in the ghetto? What happened to orphans? What was the food supply like? How was it distributed? What about religious services? What about traditional religious communities, the rabbis and students?

His group was called the Oneg Shabbat group, because they met on the Sabbath, and they collected enormous quantities of material, because they were anxious that the world should have information the Nazis would not give them. They did not want the Nazi voice to be the only voice about the ghetto; they wanted the Jewish voice to be heard. So they collected this material and near the end of the war, when it was clear that the Warsaw ghetto was going to go up in smoke as a result of the uprising in Passover of ’43, they put it in big metal milk cans and buried them. After the war, they found most of these cans, not all of them. So the single most important source of information about Jewish behaviour during the war in the ghettos comes to us from these Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto from Ringelblum and his team. The Oneg Shabbat records are absolutely the most essential Jewish documents we have from the Holocaust.

And Ringelblum was executed?

He did survive for a while after the Warsaw uprising, but, yes, he was killed during the war.

Is there a personal element to what he writes?

He tries not to. He certainly has his point of view. He is critical of certain kinds of Jewish behaviour, he is critical of certain actions – but the idea was really to be an objective ghetto chronicler, and he tries very hard to do that, not to let his own emotions get in the way. Though, of course, in the situation in which he found himself, and the Jewish people found themselves, it was impossible to separate out judgments altogether. So you get some very critical judgments about the Jewish council, about the Jewish police in the ghetto, and some of the other people who are in leadership roles. But, by and large, the importance of the collection, of the material, is this good faith effort to collect material and provide for future generations a record of what was going on, on a daily basis, in the Jewish communities under siege.

Holocaust Studies is your field. In July 2009 there was an article in the New York Review of Books, “Holocaust: The Ignored Reality” by Timothy Snyder, arguing that there has been too much focus, when it comes to the Holocaust, on western European Jewry, when the bulk of the killing was of eastern European Jews. Was that an important article?

It was an important article, but it wasn’t anything new. He made it sound as if he had discovered the wheel. The fact is that scholars know that the centre of the Holocaust was not in western Europe, but in eastern Europe – in Poland, and in the Baltic states, the Ukraine, the borderlands of Russia, Romania, and eventually Hungary. That was the great central Jewish community of Europe, and that was where the big ghettos existed and that was where the policy of the Einsatzgruppen took place, with the invasion of Russia. Finally, the six death camps – camps that were set up specifically for the production of corpses – were all in Poland. So people were brought to Poland from other places, and they were put in Poland because Poland was at the centre of Jewish life. There were 3.3 million Jews in Poland before the war, there were another four or five million Jews in the Pale of Settlement, the westernmost part of the Soviet Union. There were hundreds of thousands of Jews in the Baltic states, there were almost 800,000 in Hungary, three-quarters of a million in Romania.

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So, it comes as no surprise that, if you’re going to kill the Jews of Europe, you’re going to do it in central and eastern Europe, and the Nazis knew that and did that. So the emphasis in that article is correct – it’s only outsiders, people who don’t really know all the details, who get their information from Hollywood, who concentrate on western Europe. But scholars knew that eastern Europe was the centre of the storm and that’s why Hilberg, for example, concentrates so much on Polish activity, the role of the German state in Poland, that’s why the Jewish council book by Trunk is primarily about Polish ghettos, Browning’s book is about war on the eastern front with the invasion of Russia, and so on.

In terms of the number of Jews killed by the Nazis, is there consensus on that?

Himmler himself had come up with a number through various methods when he wanted to find out what he had accomplished, and that was six million. And that became a kind of canonical number at Nuremberg and afterwards. There are different totals that have been offered by scholars who have gone back to study the death camp records, the Einsatzgruppen records, etc. The numbers all fall somewhere in the five to six million range. That’s the overwhelming consensus, and nobody who is not a Holocaust denier has any trouble finding that there were at least 5.1, 5.2 million, up to 6 million, 6.2 million deaths when you total all the various places people were killed in the records we have.

And that includes eastern Europe where we don’t know as much what went on?

It includes eastern Europe. For example, of the 3.3 million Jews in Poland, after the war 92-93 per cent were dead. In Vilnius and Riga and other parts of those Baltic states you have a 96 per cent death rate, the highest anywhere. We have lots of evidence – the Nuremberg tribunal did a pretty thorough job of collecting documentation, the Russians collected documentation, and the Germans themselves kept lots of documents that were captured. So we have a pretty good idea of where and how this was done. It’s not exact, there are still things to learn and important information to be discovered, but the broad outline, especially the numerical, demographic outline, is pretty clear.

February 22, 2018

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Steven Katz

Steven Katz holds the Alvin J. And Shirley Slater Chair in Jewish Holocaust Studies at Boston University and is the former Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies.

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Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography Paperback – January 1, 1992

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian John Toland’s classic, definitive biography of Adolf Hitler remains the most thorough, readable, accessible, and, as much as possible, objective account of the life of a man whose evil effect on the world in the twentieth century will always be felt. Toland’s research provided one of the final opportunities for a historian to conduct personal interviews with over two hundred individuals intimately associated with Hitler. At a certain distance yet still with access to many of the people who enabled and who opposed the führer and his Third Reich, Toland strove to treat this life as if Hitler lived and died a hundred years before instead of within his own memory. From childhood and obscurity to his desperate end, Adolf Hitler emerges as, in Toland’s words, “far more complex and contradictory . . . obsessed by his dream of cleansing Europe Jews . . . a hybrid of Prometheus and Lucifer.”

• Print length 1120 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Anchor
• Publication date January 1, 1992
• Dimensions 6 x 2.55 x 9.2 inches
• ISBN-10 9780385420532
• ISBN-13 978-0385420532
• Lexile measure 1170L
• See all details

Editorial Reviews

“The first book that anyone who wants to learn about Hitler or [World War II] in Europe must read. . . . A marvel.” — Newsweek “Toland weaves the epic tapestry of popular history, meshing together thousands of details into monumental narratives of wartime drama.” —Chicago Tribune “An unusually revealing picture . . . highly detailed . . . marvelously absorbing  . . . must be ranked as one of the most complete pictures of Hitler.” — The New York Times “A significant contribution.” — Houston Chronicle

From the Publisher

From the inside flap, from the back cover, about the author.

John Toland, the author of fifteen works of history and fiction, including Infamy: World War II and Its Aftermath , received the Pulitzer Prize for his magisterial Rising Sun: The Decline of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945 . Mr. Toland died in 2004.

Product details

• ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0385420536
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Anchor; First Edition (January 1, 1992)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 1120 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780385420532
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0385420532
• Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1170L
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 2.55 x 9.2 inches
• #16 in Historical Germany Biographies
• #333 in Political Leader Biographies
• #386 in World War II History (Books)

About the authors

John toland.

John Willard Toland (June 29, 1912 – January 4, 2004) was an American writer and historian. He is best known for a biography of Adolf Hitler and a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of World War II-era Japan, The Rising Sun.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Giuseppe Lo Duca

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Natalʹi︠a︡ A. Reshetovskai︠a︡

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Customers find the book extraordinary, never confusing, and flows easily from one paragraph. They also appreciate the interesting and important details that are incomplete or incomplete. Readers describe the biography as comprehensive and unbiased.

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Customers find the book extraordinary, fantastic, and easy to read and understand. They say it's a good introduction to Hitler's life and times. Readers also mention that the speeches are hypnotic and motivational.

"...Exhaustively researched, thoroughly detailed, and well-written , this book reads like a fascinating novel...." Read more

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"...1. It has been an interesting read so far2. The author does a good job AT TIMES of being able to get you into the book3...." Read more

"...His speeches were both hypnotic and motivationally forceful enough to develop a hard core of followers who recognized his leadership abilities...." Read more

Customers find the book provides interesting and important details that are incomplete in other books. They also say the author has done a great job of both research and writing. Readers also say that the information seems accurate and that the book separates fact from myth.

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"...in my understanding of especially that era, I found this book a tremendous resource , authoritative but unpretentious, personal, fair and unbiased in..." Read more

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"...It presents the full picture of Hitler and the circumstances leading to the Second World War...." Read more

"...All in all, this is a very detailed biography of Adolf Hitler . I would recommend this to those interested in history." Read more

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"...A long book , educational and presenting a new look into how Hitler was in the right place at the right time for his rise to power." Read more

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"...It's an engaging and fascinating look at the greatest villain of our time." Read more

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Hitler: Essential Background Information

Adolf Hitler  (1889-1945) is unquestionably the central figure in the story of the Holocaust.  It was the combination of his virulent hatred of Jews and his success in creating a political movement that was able to seize control of Germany that made the campaign to exterminate the Jews possible. 

Hitler’s origins :  Hitler was born in a small town in Austria in 1889.  He was the son of a local customs official and his much younger third wife.  Hitler’s father was an illegitimate child and it is uncertain who his father was, but there is no evidence for the legend that this unidentified grandfather was Jewish.  Hitler’s father was harsh and distant. He had a closer relationship with his mother, and her death from cancer when he was 17 was traumatic for him. Hitler had a normal education.  As a young man, he showed no special talents.  He wanted to study art, and moved to Vienna after his mother’s death in hope of being accepted to art school, but was turned down for lack of talent. 

Sources of Hitler’s anti-semitism :  Because we have very little reliable information about Hitler’s early life, it is hard to determine exactly when he became a confirmed anti-semite.  His own account, in his book  Mein Kampf , is not entirely accurate:  by the time he wrote it, he wanted to make it appear that he had adopted anti-semitic ideas quite early in his life.  Prejudice against Jews was widespread in the early 20 th  century, but there is no evidence that Hitler’s family was particularly anti-semitic.  Discussions of Hitler’s antisemitism focus on three periods in his life:

• The  Vienna  years (1909-1913) :  Hitler later claimed this was when he developed his antisemitic outlook.  Vienna had a large Jewish minority (about 10% of the population when Hitler lived there).  It was also a hotbed of ethnic conflict, as members of all the different populations of the Austrian Empire (Czechs, Poles, Croats, Hungarians) migrated to the rapidly growing capital.  Hitler observed the success of the city’s popular mayor, Lueger, who was regularly re-elected on a virulently anti-semitic program.  He also probably read some of the widely circulated racist and anti-semitic literature that was easily available in the city.  Many of these pamphlets also claimed that Jews were the main architects of modern capitalism, and that they lived off the sweat of honest non-Jewish workers.  On the other hand, Hitler was a regular visitor in at least one Jewish family’s home, and his efforts to support himself by selling paintings were made possible primarily by Jewish art dealers.  In other words, Hitler had not yet made anti-semitism the center of his life during this period, despite his later claims.
• The war years and the defeat of  Germany  (1914-1919) :  although he was an Austrian citizen, Hitler volunteered to serve in the German Army at the start of World War I.  He served through all four years of the conflict, although he rose only to the rank of corporal.  He identified completely with the German cause, and was deeply disturbed by the defeat of 1918.  Like many disappointed soldiers, he believed that the army had been “stabbed in the back” by traitors.  Although German Jews had loyally supported their country during the war, they were more likely than other Germans to welcome the new, democratic  Weimar   Republic  established after the defeat.  This led to accusations that Jews were responsible for Germany’s defeat.  In addition, the war had led to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the establishment of the  Bolshevik  or  Communist  regime there, devoted to the overthrow of capitalism.  In 1919, there was a short-lived attempt to create a Communist government in Germany as well.  Enemies of the Communists pointed to the role of a few Jews in this movement and labeled Communism a Jewish conspiracy.  Modern scholars, particularly Hitler biographer Ian Kershaw, tend to see these years, rather than the Vienna period, as the time when Hitler’s ideas about Jews really became fixed.  This focuses attention on the impact of the war, rather than the ethnic hatreds in pre-war Austria.
• The first years of the  Weimar   Republic   (1919-1923) :  After the war, Hitler lived in Munich, a city overrun with bitter ex-soldiers and others angry at the new democratic government in Berlin.  He began to associate with some of the many groups formed to agitate against all the evils affecting Germany:  capitalism, Communism, the unpopular Treaty of Versailles, democracy, and the Jews.  By September 1919, Hitler had clearly come to see the Jews as the organizing force behind these problems.  He also began to speak of Germany’s need to conquer additional territory— Lebensraum  or “living space”—for itself, at the expense of the “Jewish Bolsheviks” in Russia.  There was nothing original about his ideas.  He did begin to make a name for himself, however, because of his unusual speaking ability.  By 1920, he had become one of the most popular agitational speakers in Munich.  He took over one of the many small ultra-right-wing groups, the German Workers’ Party (later renamed National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Nazis for short) and built it up into a larger group, although its support was still mostly limited to Munich and surrounding areas.  Anti-semitism was a regular part of Hitler’s message throughout this period.  By 1923, he thought anger against the Weimar Republic was widespread enough to make the overthrow of the government possible; he wanted to set up a right-wing government, but did not yet imagine himself as its leader.  This  Beer Hall Putsch  (Nov. 9, 1923) failed when the army and the police refused to support it.  Hitler was arrested, and his movement seemed to have failed.  During this period, Hitler became an effective propagandist for anti-semitism, but his ideas on the subject had formed earlier.

The Stages of Hitler’s Rise to Power (1924-1933) After the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, Hitler was tried and sentenced to prison.  Most observers assumed that his political career was over.  The extreme economic problems that had weakened the Weimar Republic in its first few years eased starting in 1924, and fewer people were attracted to political extremism.

• 1924 :  In prison, Hitler writes  Mein Kampf , setting out his ideas.  In his absence, it becomes clear that no one else can create a successful ultra-right-wing movement
• 1925-28 :  Hitler, released from prison, reconstitutes the Nazi Party under his exclusive leadership.  The Party does very poorly in elections, but this period allows Hitler to recruit a small but devoted group of followers, including many who would be leading figures in the Nazi regime after it came to power.
• 1929-32 :  the start of the world economic depression following the crash of the United States stock market in October 1929 gives Hitler a chance.  As unemployment skyrockets in Germany, voters turn against parties associated with the Weimar Republic.  The Nazis score a series of successes in state elections.  Hitler benefits from the deep divisions among the other German political parties.  The  Communists  hope to profit from the Depression.  They blame Germany’s problems on capitalism, call for a revolution, and refuse to cooperate with any of the others parties.   Conservative nationalist  parties blame parliamentary democracy and the Versailles treaty for Germany’s problems.  They hope to use the economic crisis to overturn the constitution and restore an authoritarian system similar to the pre-war monarchy.  They see Hitler as a potentially useful ally.  The  Social Democratic Party  is the strongest defender of the democratic system, but blames the “bourgeois” pro-capitalist parties for the economic crisis.  The  Catholic   Center  party has the greatest weight in the government, but has no remedy for the Depression.  By contrast, the Nazis offer a simple explanation of the crisis—it’s the fault of the Jews—and a simple program for ending it.  In national parliamentary elections in September 1930, the Nazis score an unexpected success, winning 18% of the vote and becoming the second-largest party (after the Social Democrats).  In 1932, Hitler runs for president against the celebrated war hero Hindenburg and wins 37% of the vote. 
• 1932-1933:   An unpopular coalition government led by the Center Party fails to gain support, and new parliamentary elections are called in July 1932; Hitler’s party wins 37% of the vote, while the Communists get 16%.  No majority coalition in favor of democracy can be established any more.  Various right-wing politicians compete with each other to create a government that will rule by decree.  Hitler is offered a place in one of these schemes, engineered by von Schleicher, in August 1932, but refuses because he would not have full control.  New elections are held in November 1932 to break the deadlock.  For the first time since 1929, the Nazis’ share of the vote goes down, to 32%.  Fearing that his moment may be about to pass, Hitler becomes more conciliatory to Schleicher.  On January 30, 1933, an agreement is announced:  Hitler will be named Chancellor (prime minister).  Despite the broad support for the Nazis, the party will have only four seats in the cabinet.  Schleicher and other conservatives expect Hitler’s extremism to undermine his popularity; they will then be able to dismiss him and keep power themselves. 

Significant points about Hitler’s rise to power : (1) Hitler’s success owed a great deal to the weakness of democracy in Germany; (2) it took the Great Depression to create the conditions in which Hitler could come to power; (3) although his party did become the largest in Germany, Hitler was not elected to office; the Nazis never won an absolute majority of votes, even in the final elections held after they came to power in March 1933; (4) Hitler became Chancellor thanks to the calculations of right-wing nationalist politicians who thought they could use his popularity to destroy the Weimar system.

The best biographies of Hitler :  historians rely on the three serious and thoroughly researched biographies of Hitler.  There are other good books about Hitler, but there is also an enormous literature of very dubious quality dealing with him, which often relates rumor as if it was fact.  The three essential books about Hitler are:

• Alan Bullock,  Hitler: A Study in Tyranny .  Originally published in 1952, this book is now somewhat dated but still very readable and essentially accurate on the stages of Hitler’s rise to power.
• Joachim Fest,  Hitler .  Originally published in 1973, this is the most important examination of Hitler’s life by a German scholar.
• Ian Kershaw,  Hitler  (2 vs., 1999 and 2000):  Even longer and more detailed than Bullock and Fest, Kershaw’s recent biography incorporates the latest research on topics such as Hitler’s early life, and shows why many of the stories about Hitler included in earlier biographies are no longer considered reliable.  This will undoubtedly be the standard biography of Hitler for many years to come.

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What does the JD in JD Vance stand for? 5 things to know about Trump’s running mate

Tonight, America will meet former President Donald Trump's pick for running mate in the November elections, JD Vance, when he gets up in front of a crowd of delegates and GOP party leaders at the 2024 Republican National Convention .

For many people not paying attention to politics, Vance, 39, the Senator from Ohio, will be a complete unknown. But they might have read his book. or seen the movie.

What is JD Vance known for?

In 2016, Vance released his book "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis." It became one of the breakout hits of the election cycle that year.

The book follows Vance’s hardscrabble childhood and white, working-class family from his grandparents in Kentucky’s Appalachia region to his coming-of-age in Middletown, Ohio and his later success at Yale Law School and in Silicon Valley. Vance also chronicles his time in the Marines and higher education, touching on “generational upward mobility” and carrying “the demons of his chaotic family history.”

Pundits  began using his memoir to explain  Trump’s popularity with white, rural voters in the 2016 election but at the time Vance himself openly criticized Trump.

Ron Howard directed an adaptation of the book , which was released in select theaters and on Netflix in 2020 and starred Amy Adams as his mother, Bev Vance, and  Glenn Close  as his grandmother, Mamaw.  Gabriel Basso  plays J.D. Vance and Owen Asztalos plays a younger version of him. Close received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her portrayal.

But critics panned the movie and some Appalachians hated it , claiming it reinforced stereotypes about rural Americans and offered easy answers for complicated situations.

Did JD Vance call Trump 'America's Hitler'?

Early in his public life, Vance was not a Trump fan.

During a 2016 NPR interview , Vance called Trump "noxious" and joked about writing in his dog on the 2016 ballot. He also referred to the former president as "cultural heroin" in a  column for The Atlantic  that year.

In a Facebook message from 2016 that an old college roommate made public , he reached out to Vance to get his opinion on Trump.

"I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical a--hole like Nixon who wouldn't be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he's America's Hitler," Vance wrote. "How's that for discouraging?"

However, in his runup for the Senate in 2022, Vance changed his tune and even managed to secure Trump's endorsement in the GOP primary. He went on to defeat former Rep. Tim Ryan,  who called Vance  an "a-- kisser" during one of their debates.

What does 'JD' Vance stand for?

Like Vance's political opinions, his name has evolved over the years .

• He was born James Donald Bowman.
• His middle name was changed from Donald, his father's name, to David after his parents divorced.
• As a teenager, he took the last name Hamel, after his stepfather.
• He legally adopted the surname of his maternal grandparents, Vance, when he married his wife, Usha, in 2014.

Vance prefers to go by JD, the name used in his memoir, on his official  U.S. Senate biography and by Trump when he announced his vice-presidential pick.

Is JD Vance a Catholic?

If elected, Vance would be the second Catholic vice president in U.S. history, following President Joe Biden’s tenure in the position during Barack Obama’s presidency,  the National Catholic Register reported .

Who is JD Vance's wife?

Vance's wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, 38, was a litigator for Munger, Tolles and Olson LLP , a national firm based in San Francisco, although she was no longer listed as employed by the firm once Trump announced his VP pick.

The pair met at Yale Law School, which both attended. The Vance's have three children: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel.

The New York Times has reported  Usha Vance is the daughter of Indian immigrants  and grew up in the San Francisco area. Usha Vance worked as a law clerk for both the Supreme Court of the United States, working for Chief Justice John Roberts, and the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, working for Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

Haley BeMiller, Cincinnati Enquirer; Brenna Gauchat, Arizona Republic; Bethany Bruner, USA TODAY NETWORK contributed to this story

Your guide to Adolf Hitler: key facts about the Nazi dictator

He's one of the most well known – but reviled – figures in history. But how much do you know about German dictator Adolf Hitler? Here's everything you need to know about the Nazi leader, from his rise to power to the truth about his death in Berlin in 1945...

• Rachel Dinning
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Adolf Hitler is one of the most well-known – and despised – figures in history. He was the chief architect of the Second World War , following his rise to power as the leader of the Nazi Party in the 1920s. His anti-Semitic policies lead to the deaths of more than six million Jews during the Holocaust, cementing his reputation as one of the most infamous men in history.

Here's your guide to the German dictator – from his early life growing up in Austria to his rise to power and eventual death during the Second World War...

Hitler: key facts

Born: Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn, Austria.

Died: Hitler died by suicide in a Berlin bunker, age 56, on 30 April 1945

Known for: Being the leader of the the Nazi Party and initiating the Second World War. Adolf Hitler replaced Anton Drexler as party chairman of the Nazi Party in July 1921, and soon after he acquired the title führer (“leader”). He was chancellor of Germany from 30 January, 1933, and Führer and chancellor combined from 2 August 1934. His rise to power led to the Second World War and the deaths of more than six million Jews in the Holocaust.

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Family: Adolf Hitler was the fourth of six children born to Alois Hitler (1837–1903) and his third wife, Klara (1860–1907). His full siblings are: Gustav, Ida, Otto, Edmund and Paula, but he also had two half-siblings – Alois Jr and Angela – from his father’s previous marriages. Alois, who was illegitimate, bore his mother’s name Schicklgruber for some time, but by 1876 had established his family claim to the surname 'Hitler'. Adolf Hitler himself never used any other surname.

Early childhood: Most of Hitler’s childhood was spent in Linz, Austria. He had a difficult relationship with his father, with many of their arguments focusing on Hitler’s refusal to behave at school. However he was very fond of his mother, who died in 1907.

Education: Hitler had a mixed education and has generally been considered a mediocre student by many historians. Although his father wished for his son to follow a career in his own footsteps, at a customs office, Hitler had other ideas. Tensions rose when Alois sent Hitler to the Realschule (a type of secondary school) in Linz in September 1900 and Hitler performed poorly. Hitler later suggested that this was an intentional act on his behalf: he deliberately performed badly to show his father that he should be allowed to pursue his dream of becoming an artist.

The narrative doesn't entirely hold up if you consider that, following Alois’s death in January 1903, Hitler’s educational performance deteriorated even more. He went on to study at another school in Steyr, where he had to retake his final exams before leaving without any intentions to take his education any further.

Are we more fascinated with Hitler than any other dictator?

Hitler has been memorialised in countless books, tv shows and films. so why are we fascinated with the nazi dictator, was hitler a good painter.

While leaders including Winston Churchill and George W Bush took up painting as a post-politics hobby, a young Adolf Hitler paid the bills as a jobbing artist from 1910–14. He focused mainly on postcards and advertisements – and earned enough to sustain a living, moving around hostels in Vienna.

He was, however, technically mediocre. He failed the examination for the General School of Painting at the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts, partly down to his struggle to capture the human form. The second time he applied, his sample drawings were considered of such poor quality that he was not even admitted to the entrance examination.

Some might argue that Hitler's art was also oddly pedestrian in a radical era of Picasso and Van Gogh. As a voracious reader of history and mythology, and with a mind bubbling over with political thoughts, it’s somewhat surprising that this angry outsider painted bland postcard scenes of buildings and landscapes.

• When Hitler took cocaine

If painting was not his forte, Hitler's real strength could be found in his oratory skills. "He was, of course, a masterly demagogue – the basis of his early dominance within the Nazi Party," explains Professor Kershaw. "More than any other contemporary German politician, he spoke in a language that gave voice to the anger and prejudice of his audience."

He was also, Kershaw notes, very widely read: "His excellent memory enabled him to recall information on many subjects. This impressed not only those around him and others who were already susceptible to his message."

What did Hitler do during World War One?

Although Adolf Hitler was in his mid-20s at the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, he initially tried to avoid conscription. Then, when made to enlist, he failed the medical. He still ended up in uniform, joining the Bavarian (part of the German) army instead.

Hitler served in this army at the First Battle of Ypres . According to Hitler, his regiment of 3,600 was reduced to 611 during the battle and he was one of only 42 survivors from his 250-strong company. One of his roles was that of a trench runner . He was also wounded at the Somme and was twice awarded the Iron Cross for bravery, once on the recommendation of a Jewish comrade.

Then, on the night of 13–14 October 1918, Corporal Hitler got caught in a mustard gas attack by the British. He spent the rest of the war recovering from temporary blindness, learning of Germany’s surrender in a military hospital, although there is some suggestion that this story was made up by Hitler and that he was in fact being treated for 'hysterical amblyopia', a psychiatric disorder known as 'hysterical blindness'. It was during this time, Hitler later claimed in his political manifesto Mein Kampf (first published in 1925), that “the idea came to me that I would liberate Germany, that I would make it great”.

When did Hitler first become involved with politics?

Hitler first emerged on the political scene in the German city of Munich in late 1919 as a speaker for the right-wing German Workers’ Party (DAP). The DAP changed its name to NSDAP ( Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ) in February 1920, before Hitler officially took over as party chairman in July 1921. The party, which Hitler felt lacked direction, was also referred to as ‘Hitler’s Nazi Party’ at this time, however Hitler himself was not really known outside of Bavaria until much later.

• The dark charisma of Adolf Hitler

During the early 1920s, Hitler purposefully maintained a degree of mystery around himself. He refused to let unofficial photographers take his picture, instead opting to employ his own personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann, who produced a series of bestselling books of pictures that portrayed the Nazi leader as an aloof intellectual. "They aimed to show Hitler as a man of the people and, at the same time, the political philosopher of genius in lofty isolation, among the mountains that surrounded his Alpine retreat near the town of Berchtesgaden, Bavaria, as he pondered Germany’s future and bore the entire burden of responsibility on his shoulders," explains Professor Kershaw. The creation of the 'Hitler mystery' was a masterful move of PR, utilised at a time when other politicians did not pay too much attention to such tactics.

How did Hitler rise to power?

Hitler’s first official grasp for power took place in November 1923. He and his supporters attempted to seize political power in Munich, as a prelude to a takeover in Berlin. Around 2,000 Nazis took part in the violent daytime coup, which became known as the Munich Beer Hall Putsch .

What happened during the Beer Hall Putsch?

When the coup collapsed, Hitler was arrested and charged with treason. The subsequent trial was a complex affair – as historian Roger Moorhouse explains: "Hitler probably should have been sent for trial to the constitutional court at Leipzig, but Munich’s political establishment was keen to keep the matter ‘in house’, for fear of giving oxygen to the rumours of official complicity with the Nazis. So, with a tame, sympathetic judge – Georg Neithardt – presiding, the trial opened in the Munich infantry school on 26 February.

"Those hoping for Hitler’s political demise were to be disappointed. He expertly played the court, assisted by Neithardt, and so reached a much wider audience than he had ever reached before. By the end of the trial, he had a national following for the first time, and had emerged as the undisputed leader of the German radical right."

• Hitler’s millionaire backers: how Germany’s elite facilitated the rise of the Nazis

Hitler served just nine months of his five-year prison sentence at Landsberg Prison. Following his release, he was forbidden from making public speeches but continued speaking to private audiences and gained a reputation as a formidable orator. By the 1930s he had cultivated an elaborate public profile, selling a “novel vision” to his followers and the wider German public. “Hitler was offering national redemption, a ‘new Germany’, a ‘new man’, a ‘new Jerusalem’,” says Moorhouse.

The Nazi party gradually grew in numbers throughout the late 1920s – and by July 1932, they had transformed from a small, revolutionary party to the largest elected party in the Reichstag (German parliament). They did this primarily through the use of effective propaganda, with support from the from the Sturmabteilung (SA), otherwise known as the Brownshirts, a paramilitary wing of the NSDAP.

Rise to dictator

Once Hitler had established himself as a key player in the German political scene of the 1930s, consolidation of his power as a dictator happened rather quickly. He achieved this with a “twin-track approach”, according to historian Richard J Evans.

The first track involved convincing the right-wing government that Hitler should rule Germany by decree. This was agreed by conservatives who were largely motivated by a desire to crush the Communist Party. “In November 1932, the Social Democrats and Communists together had more votes and seats than the Nazis, but they were also deadly enemies of each other and couldn’t get their act together to stop the Nazis. Hitler used legal or quasi-legal powers of the government, particularly the president’s power to rule by decree in a state of emergency,” explains Evans.

• Listen | Historian Frank McDonough discusses the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany, covering the period from the start of the Third Reich to the early months of World War Two

On 23 March 1933, the Reichstag was persuaded by Hitler – through a mixture of threats and inducements – to vote for an Enabling Law that meant that the cabinet (Hitler and the ministers) had the power to issue legislation without reference to the president or to the Reichstag, thereby giving them dictatorial powers.

The second track involved “mass, brutal violence” on the streets. During this time, between 100,000–200,000 people were put into concentration camps or ‘roughed up’ and released on condition of not engaging in politics.

Read more about how Hitler rose to power

Where did Hitler get his ideas?

According to historian Richard J Evans, Hitler drew his political ideas from a variety of sources: “from a version of Social Darwinism that saw society and international relations as a sort of struggle of races for the survival of the fittest; from Arthur de Gobineau, a French theorist who invented the pseudoscientific idea of race theory; from Russian émigrés from the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, who brought with them the idea that Bolshevism and communism were creations of the Jewish race; from a certain amount of what's called ‘geopolitics’, which was invented by an American.”

Why did Hitler hate the Jews?

Anti-Semitism was at the heart of Nazi ideology, but what inspired Hitler’s hatred of the Jews and prompted the creation of a system that ultimately led to the systematic rounding up and killing of some six million people?

Hitler obviously did not invent modern anti-Semitism, which has roots in the Middle Ages . By the 13th century, for example, rules enacted across Europe obliged Jews to wear an identifying badge to distinguish them from non-Jews’. And in medieval Europe specifically, anti-Jewish hostility was exemplified by the concept of ‘the blood libel’, the accusation that Jews were murdering Christian children as part of their Passover rituals.

Although we don’t know how early Hitler formed his opinions of Jewish people, he himself states that he felt anti-Jewish while working as a painter in Vienna – a city with a large Jewish population – before the First World War. “For me this was a time of the greatest spiritual upheaval I have ever had to go through,” he writes in Mein Kampf . “I had ceased to be a weak-kneed cosmopolitan and became an anti-Semite.” Some historians have since suggested that Hitler created this narrative of himself as an early anti-Semite retrospectively – and Mein Kampf should certainly be understood in the context of its purpose as propaganda. Perhaps rather curiously, one of Hitler most loyal patrons while he lived in Vienna as a young artist was a Jew called Samuel Morgenstern.

• Your guide to the Holocaust

What is clearer is that Hitler’s anti-Semitism intensified following Germany’s defeat during the First World War, in which he served as an ordinary soldier on the western front and was decorated for bravery. The defeat had come as a shock to many Germans, who believed that they had been on course to win following the Spring Offensive and victory over Russia in 1918. Following the Allied victory, harsh penalties were imposed on Germany including the loss of certain territories and reparations were demanded, through the Treaty of Versailles .

Like many of his contemporaries, Hitler decided that the reason Germany lost the war was the weak will of the Kaiser, who was deposed in 1918. According to Richard J Evans, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast , “Hitler believed that the Weimar Republic, which succeeded the Kaiser’s Germany, was a Jewish creation, and democracy was something Jewish. These were all complete fantasies. But the effect of the First World War was decisive, including on Hitler's anti-Semitism and his belief the Jews were to blame for everything bad that had happened.”

Was Hitler Christian?

What was hitler’s relationship with eva braun.

Eva Braun (1912–1945) was the long-term companion of Adolf Hitler. The pair married on 29 April 1945 – just one day before they both died by suicide.

German historian Heike B Görtemaker notes that Braun was much more than a passive figure in the Nazi regime. “All members of the Berghof circle, including Eva Braun, were not just witnesses, but convinced of the Nazi ideology,” she writes. “Although it cannot be verified that Braun knew about the Holocaust – and all surviving members of Hitler’s inner circle later denied knowledge – Braun, like all others, was at least informed about the persecution of the Jews, depriving them of any civil rights.”

Was Braun in love with Hitler? It is almost impossible to identify her true feelings, says Görtemaker. However Braun’s closest friend, Herta Schneider, “declared in 1949 that Braun had been in love with Hitler”.

• Why did Hitler choose the swastika, and how did a Sanskrit symbol become a Nazi emblem?

Where did Hitler live?

How did hitler die.

During the last months of the Second World War – and as the prospect of losing the war became ever more apparent – Hitler withdrew into his bunker in Berlin. It was “the last station in his flight from reality”, wrote the Führer’s favoured architect, Albert Speer. Hitler continued to deliver orders from the bunker, including one that dictated his body should be incinerated upon the event of his death (he had heard about the treatment of fellow dictator Benito Mussolini’s body, who had been strung up in a public square in Milan).

• Georg Elser: the man who nearly assassinated Hitler

On 20 April 1945, Hitler’s 56th birthday, the first enemy shell hit Berlin. Soviet troops soon entered the city – and by 30 April 1945, Hitler was dead.

It is generally accepted that Hitler shot himself, although accounts differ as to whether he also bit down on a cyanide capsule. Following his death by suicide, Hitler’s body and that of his long-term mistress Eva Braun, whom he had married a day earlier and who had herself injected cyanide, were removed from the bunker, doused in petrol and set alight.

Rachel Dinning is the Premium Content Editor at HistoryExtra, website of BBC History Magazine and BBC History Revealed.

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Who is JD Vance? What to know about Donald Trump's VP pick

MILWAUKEE - Former President Donald Trump tapped J.D. Vance to be his running mate Monday at the Republican National Convention , catapulting the Ohio GOP senator even more into the national spotlight.

Here’s what you need to know about Vance:

More: Trump made MAGA happen. JD Vance represents those who will inherit it

Where is JD Vance from?

Vance grew up in Jackson, Kentucky and Middletown, Ohio. He described a childhood consumed by poverty and abuse in his best-selling 2016 memoir , "Hillbilly Elegy." Vance's mother struggled with drug addiction, so he spent many of his formative years with his grandmother – known to him as Mamaw.

More: Vice presidential contender has multiple ties to Columbus

Did JD Vance serve in the military?

Vance joined the Marines Corps after high school and served as a public affairs marine in Iraq.

Is JD Vance married?

Vance's wife, Usha Vance, is a litigator for a law firm based in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. The pair met as students at Yale Law School and got married in 2014, one year after they graduated.

Does JD Vance have children?

The couple has three young children: Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel.

Where does JD Vance live?

Vance and his family live in the East Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati. The senator also bought a $1.5 million home in Alexandria, Virginia, last year, Politico reported .

How long has JD Vance been in politics?

Vance was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022 after defeating former Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan for an open seat in Ohio.

What’s the history between Vance and Trump?

Vance openly criticized Trump in 2016 as pundits used his memoir to explain the former president's popularity with white, rural voters. He previously suggested Trump could be "America’s Hitler," called him noxious and compared him to an opioid.

But Vance changed his tune as he geared up for his 2022 Senate run, deleting controversial tweets and crediting Trump for the work he did in office. He secured Trump's endorsement in a chaotic Republican Senate primary and is now one of the former president's most loyal allies.

What are Vance's policy positions?

Vance personifies what's known as the New Right , a populist conservatism that rejects many traditional Republican views. He supports tariffs on trade and opposes U.S. intervention in foreign conflicts, particularly the war between Russia and Ukraine. He's also spoken out against potential cuts to Social Security.

Some of Vance's work in the Senate has been bipartisan. He introduced a rail safety bill with Sen. Sherrod Brown after the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. He also worked with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on legislation to hold executives accountable for failed banks.

At the same time, many of his other bills reflect conservative views. For example, Vance introduced legislation to ban gender-affirming care for minors and a bill to eliminate diversity programs in the federal government.

Where does JD Vance stand on abortion?

Vance opposes abortion and often says the government should find ways to encourage people to have children.

Like other Republicans, however, Vance changed how he discusses the issue after Ohio and other states voted in favor of abortion access last year. In a December CNN interview , he said Republicans must "accept that people do not want blanket abortion bans."

More recently, he told Meet the Press that he supports access to the abortion drug mifepristone.

Haley BeMiller is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.

Why Mitt Romney once said, ‘I don’t know that I can disrespect someone more than JD Vance’

“how can you go over a line so stark as that — and for what”.

By Abby Patkin

In the short time since former President Donald Trump officially tapped him as a running mate , Ohio Sen. JD Vance has continued to dominate the news cycle.

The headlines run the gamut: The “Hillbilly Elegy” author could be the first U.S. vice president to sport facial hair since 1933, according to Slate . As ProPublica reported, he’s also lent credibility to Infowars founder Alex Jones , who infamously claimed the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax.

More on JD Vance:

‘Hillbilly Elegy’: JD Vance’s rise to vice presidential candidate began with a bestselling memoir

5 things to know about jd vance, trump’s 2024 vp pick.

And, as many social media users were quick to point out , Utah Sen. Mitt Romney once quipped, “I don’t know that I can disrespect someone more than J. D. Vance.”

Romney’s scathing words come from McKay Coppins’s biography “Romney: A Reckoning,” an excerpt of which ran in The Atlantic last September. The former Massachusetts governor purportedly shared his thoughts on Vance during one of several interviews with Coppins.

Years earlier, Romney had read “Hillbilly Elegy” and was so impressed that he hosted Vance at his annual Park City summit in 2018, according to Coppins. At the time, Vance was a vocal Trump critic who once called the former president “America’s Hitler” and “cultural heroin.” But in the lead-up to his 2022 Senate run, Vance made himself over in MAGA’s image.

“How can you go over a line so stark as that — and for what?” Romney mused, according to Coppins. “It’s not like you’re going to be famous and powerful because you became a United States senator. It’s like, really? You sell yourself so cheap?” 

Romney added: “How do you sit next to him at lunch?”

Read the excerpt from “Romney: A Reckoning”:

“I don’t know that I can disrespect someone more than J. D. Vance,” Mitt Romney told me when he was running for Senate. More below: https://t.co/khdW2iafq0 pic.twitter.com/sC1YSTMPAl — McKay Coppins (@mckaycoppins) July 15, 2024

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Who is J.D. Vance, the Republican nominee for vice president

Rachel Treisman

Lexie Schapitl

Trump's pick for vice president, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, arrives on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15 in Milwaukee. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images hide caption

For more updates from the 2024 RNC in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, head to the NPR Network's live updates page.

Donald Trump's vice presidential pick is J.D. Vance, a relative newcomer to politics and fierce critic-turned-champion of the former president.

"As Vice President, J.D. will continue to fight for our Constitution, stand with our Troops, and will do everything he can to help me MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN," Trump wrote in his social media announcement on Monday.

James David Vance, who is 39, is a Marine Corps veteran, author and former venture capitalist from Middletown, Ohio . He has represented the state in the U.S. Senate since January 2023.

The Yale Law School graduate and investment banker first rose to national prominence in 2016 with the publication of his memoir Hillbilly Elegy , a bestselling account of his upbringing — and the plight of the white working class — in Appalachia, plagued by poverty, abuse and addiction.

The book, which also faced its share of social and historical critiques , was adapted into a movie in 2020.

Vance went on to found " Our Ohio Renewal ," a since-shuttered nonprofit with focus areas including education and opioid addiction.

"The success of the book has given me the flexibility, but also I think the platform to talk about some of the issues that are most important to me," Vance told NPR in December 2016.

The organization dissolved in less than two years. Next, Vance co-founded a venture capital firm headquartered in Cincinnati and aimed at funding startups in underserved cities.

J.D. Vance's family

Usha Chilukuri Vance look on as her husband is nominated for the office of vice president. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images hide caption

The father of three is married to his Yale Law classmate Usha Chilukuri Vance, who has previously clerked for Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Judge Amul Thapar.

He doesn't add much diversity to the Republican ticket by way of gender or race. But as a 39-year-old millennial, he is considerably younger than Trump — and most of the vice presidents who have held the position he's now seeking.

Vance, who turns 40 on August 2, would be one of the youngest vice presidents in U.S. history if elected.

J.D. Vance's time in the Senate

WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 07: Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) (C) leaves a Republican Senate conference meeting at the U.S. Capitol ahead of votes on February 07, 2024 in Washington, DC. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption

In 2021, after months of hinting at his political ambitions, Vance launched his bid for the U.S. Senate.

He won a crowded primary race in May 2022 with the help of a last-minute endorsement from Trump, of whom he had once been unabashedly critical.

Vance went on to win the general election and assume his seat in the Senate, where he has been a leading defender of Trump and many of his policies , including opposing abortion rights and aid to Ukraine, calling for stronger border policies and downplaying the effects of climate change.

If Trump wins the presidency, Vance would have to resign his seat in the U.S. Senate — leaving an open spot in Ohio. In that case, it would fall to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to appoint his successor.

Under Ohio law , the governor appoints the person to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate until the next election, which would be in November 2026.

J.D. Vance's history on Trump

Vance made no secret of his dislike for then-candidate Trump while promoting his book in 2016, calling him such choice insults as "noxious," "cultural heroin" and "might be America's Hitler."

In an August 2016 interview on NPR's Fresh Air , Vance said he would either vote third party, "hold my nose and vote for Hillary Clinton" or "write in my dog because that's about as good as it seems."

"But I think that I'm going to vote third party because I can't stomach Trump," he added. "I think that he's noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place."

But Vance has dramatically changed his tune over the years, condemning his own criticisms as “stupid” on the campaign trail in 2022. Trump, who has called Vance a “genuine convert” to his cause, seemed to put that checkered history behind them when he endorsed Vance in the primary that year.

“Like some others, J.D. Vance may have said some not so great things about me in the past, but he gets it now, and I have seen that in spades," Trump said. "He is our best chance for victory in what could be a very tough race."

Vance has been a staunch defender of Trump during his time in the Senate, even showing up as a surrogate to the former president’s hush money trial in New York.

Vance even went so far as to blame the rhetoric of the Biden administration for Trump’s attempted assassination at a Pennsylvania rally over the weekend.

J.D. Vance, like Trump, denies 2020 election results

In Sen. J.D. Vance, former President Donald Trump has found a fellow election denier as his running mate — one who's already sown seeds of doubt about the upcoming presidential election.

While running for the Senate in 2022, Vance said on the campaign trail that he thought the 2020 election was “stolen from Trump.” And earlier this year, Vance told ABC News he still questions the results of the 2020 election.

“Do I think there were problems in 2020? Yes, I do,” he told George Stephanopoulos in February.

Vance, who at the time was being floated as a potential vice presidential nominee, also said that President Joe Biden’s victory over Trump should not have been immediately certified.

"If I had been vice president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of electors and I think the U.S. Congress should have fought over it from there," Vance said. "That is the legitimate way to deal with an election that a lot of folks, including me, think had a lot of problems in 2020. I think that's what we should have done."

J.D. Vance on the issues

• Abortion: Vance describes himself as “pro-life,” but during his 2022 Senate campaign said he would like the issue to be left to the states.
• Aid to Ukraine: Vance is one of the leading congressional Republican voices against U.S. aid to Ukraine. In an April op-ed , Vance wrote that he “remains opposed to virtually any proposal for the United States to continue funding this war.”
• Immigration: Vance has taken a hard line on immigration; he has often decried a "crisis" at the southern border and called for funding and constructing a border wall . Speaking on Fox News in June , Vance said he believes the U.S. should conduct "large-scale deportations."

Reaction to his nomination

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN - JULY 15: U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and his wife Usha Chilukuri Vance celebrate as he is nominated for the office of Vice President alongside Ohio Delegate Bernie Moreno on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images hide caption

The White House declined to comment on his tweet following Trump’s VP announcement on Monday. But the Biden campaign was quick to slam Vance in a lengthy statement highlighting his views on abortion, healthcare and January 6.

“Donald Trump picked J.D. Vance as his running mate because Vance will do what Mike Pence wouldn’t on January 6: bend over backwards to enable Trump and his extreme MAGA agenda, even if it means breaking the law and no matter the harm to the American people,” said chair Jen O’Malley Dillon.

Elements of this reporting originally appeared as part of NPR Network  live coverage of the RNC.