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Adolf Hitler #1
Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939
A major new biography-an extraordinary, penetrating study of the man who has become the personification of evil. For all the literature about Adolf Hitler there have been just four seminal biographies; this is the fifth, a landmark work that sheds important new light on Hitler himself. Drawing on previously unseen papers and a wealth of recent scholarly research, Volker Ullrich reveals the man behind the public persona, from Hitler's childhood to his failures as a young man in Vienna to his experiences during the First World War to his rise as a far-right party leader. Ullrich deftly captures Hitler's intelligence, instinctive grasp of politics, and gift for oratory as well as his megalomania, deep insecurity, and repulsive worldview. Many previous biographies have focused on the larger social conditions that explain the rise of the Third Reich. Ullrich gives us a comprehensive portrait of a postwar Germany humiliated by defeat, wracked by political crisis, and starved by an economic depression, but his real gift is to show vividly how Hitler used his ruthlessness and political talent to shape the Nazi party and lead it to power. For decades the world has tried to grasp how Hitler was possible. By focusing on the man at the center of it all, on how he experienced his world, formed his political beliefs, and wielded power, this riveting biography brings us closer than ever to the answer. Translated from the German by Jefferson Chase.
1008 pages, Audiobook
First published September 30, 2013
1351 people are currently reading
5913 people want to read
About the author
Volker Ullrich
35 books211 followersVolker Ullrich was born in Celle. He studied history, literature, philosophy and education at the University of Hamburg. From 1966 to 1969 he was assistant to the Hamburg’s Egmont Zechlin Chair. He graduated in 1975 after a dissertation on the Hamburg labour movement of the early 20th Century, after which he worked as a Hamburg school teacher. He was, for a time, a lecturer in politics at the Lüneburg University, and in 1988 he became a research fellow at Hamburg’s Foundation for 20th-century Social History. Since 1990 Ullrich has been the head of the political section of the weekly newspaper Die Zeit.
Ullrich has published articles and books on 19th- and 20th-century history. In 1996 he reviewed the thesis postulated in Daniel Goldhagen’s book Hitler's Willing Executioners that provoked fresh debate among historians.
In 1992 he was awarded the Alfred Kerr Prize for literary criticism, and, in 2008, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Jena.
Ullrich has published articles and books on 19th- and 20th-century history. In 1996 he reviewed the thesis postulated in Daniel Goldhagen’s book Hitler's Willing Executioners that provoked fresh debate among historians.
In 1992 he was awarded the Alfred Kerr Prize for literary criticism, and, in 2008, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Jena.
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December 7, 2019
I cannot find any fault with Volker Ullrich's Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939. It is articulate, heavily researched, fearless in challenging long-held assumptions with historical facts and overall just a terrifying pleasure to read. Note that in the last volume of Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle, there is a fantastic aside of several hundred pages about Hitler which also makes for an interesting read! Anyway, back to Ullrich...the next volume is supposed to appear in June 2020 from Bodley Head with ISBN: 9781847922878.
The author covers the events in Hitler's life up to 1939 interspersed with occasional chapters to illuminate parts of Hilter's dark personality. There are two chapters that deal with Hitler's relationship with women (and purported by apparently false rumors of homosexuality). Unlike his other cronies, he did not drink (à la Trump) and did not whore (unlike Trump) and was a vegetarian, and was - at least until his brief imprisonment at Landsberg in 1923) - probably a virgin. This author does not play up sexuality as a primary motivation in the manic psychosis of Hitler. His explanation is more than Hitler was tortured by feelings of inadequacy and economic inferiority which he overcompensated for in his incredible speaking voice, his perfect photographic memory, and his expert political maneuvering.
As for Klara Hitler's influence on Hitler, the tragedy of her early, untimely death probably did damage him, but - as posited by the author - his relationships with women such as Winifred Wagner, the widow of Richard Wagner's son Siegfried, seemed to be adequate substitutes - in this case Winifred would play an older woman despite being younger than Hitler. Note that this relationship was platonic and not sexual in all likelihood. That being said, it is clear that he felt women were "inferior creatures" because he was careful to ensure that all the people in positions of power were men and that the pretty much well-known liaison between Eva Braun and himself remain hidden from public scrutiny.
Hitler's father Alois was a brutal disciplinarian who savagely treated his wife and kids - albeit not uncommon at that time (or even, sadly, today) - and Hitler's mother Klara did her best to protect her favorite child, Adolf from the violence. He was a mediocre student and sort of a loner. Two important events happen when he is 18 years old: his mother is diagnosed by the Jewish family doctor, Eduard Bloch (Hitler grudgingly looked up at Bloch's window during Anschluss in Linz in 1938 as Bloch said after he narrow escape to the United States in 1941) with breast cancer in 1907, she improves under his care, Hitler is rejected from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, and his mother dies of cancer in 1908 at the age of 47. It is likely that this rejection by the "establishment" (which haunted him from then on and was at the root of his detest of intellectuals) and the death of his mother that started to destroy his soul. That being said, he quickly developed a talent for hiding his true feelings as he hid his rejection from the school from his parents. In 1909, he moves to Vienna and becomes embittered by his struggle (well documented of course in Mein Kampf) to survive on his meager art skills. It is also at this time in Vienna that he began to imbibe anti-Semitism. Due to the economic factors, there was an influx of Jews from eastern Europe into Vienna leading many to fear that Vienna was being "Jewified". It seems likely that Hitler wanted to place the blame of his own failure to succeed and advance personally on an external factor and like many Austrians of that epoch, he settled on the Jews as a convenient and popular scapegoat. But, for the moment, his changing views did not make him the outspoken demagogue that he would later become in Munich to which he emigrated in May 1913. Other than a squabble with Austrian authorities over military service, he was still a relatively quiet, friendless person.
After the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, all of Germany was caught up in a wave of nationalism leading up to Germany's declaration of war. In reality, this wave was political manipulation by Kaiser Wilhelm II and Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg who propagandized external threats from Russia as the bogeyman: by feeding this fear of invasion, they stoked up a cross-class, cross-party fire of nationalism resulting in massive public demonstrations such as those in Munich from July to October 1914 which Hitler witnessed and in which he was caught up emotionally. He immediately tried to get enlisted to fight for the Germans and was sent to Lechfield in the "List" Regiment (so named for its first commander Colonel Julien List).
There is a fascinating and absolutely critical historical sidenote here (page 53), where the author explains that when the German army retreated in September 1914 to the Marne having failed to encircle and destroy the French army, that the war has already lost on paper and yet this fact was never released to the public. This is particularly critical because, in his later rhetoric, Hitler would always put Germany in the position as the victim of aggression whereas the truth was utterly different. And since the public was never told the truth, they believed Hitler and the NSDAP's "fake news" which justified in their minds the extreme measures that the Nazis began to take in the 20s and 30s to "revenge German honor" supposedly lost during WWI.
Hitler's baptism by fire (p55-57) was the near-complete annihilation of the "List" Regiment including its namesake and commander near Ulm in October 1914). In mid-November 1914, near the western front, Hitler left a tent where the new commandant of the List company, Philipp Engelhard just 5 minutes before the tent was shelled and its occupants seriously injured or killed - one of many lucky escapes that Hitler would play up in his "divine mission" in Mein Kampf in that he felt that "God" had saved him. Hitler became a courier between the regimental command and the front line and was present at the horrific Battle of the Somme. Here again, he luckily survives but on October 5, 1916, Hitler was hit by shrapnel when the staff bunker was hit by a shell. While he was recovering behind the lines, he learned of the accusations of profiteering leveled against the Jews (although, in truth, it was the corrupt government safely behind the battle lines was engaged in profiteering but conveniently fermenting these anti-Semitic lies to hide their tracks.) This was particularly disingenuous as thousands of Jews were fighting in the trenches for Germany. Hitler's List Regiment continued to participate in all the major skirmishes up to the end of the war with heavy casualties. Another great irony of history is that it was likely that Jewish lieutenant Hugo Gutmann was probably the person that put Hitler up for the Iron Cross. Hitler's thanks? "We had a Jew in our regiment, Gutmann, a coward beyond compare." (p. 70). In October 1918, his unit went back to the front where he was nearly blinded by mustard gas.
I will be less verbose about the rest of Hitler's career - I just learned so much about the formation of Hitler's psyche in the years leading up to the 20s that I wanted to spend some time on them.
It was horrifying to read about how Hitler decapitated and recuperated the DAP (German Worker's Party) and soon NSDAP (same with National Socialist) party which became his primary vehicle to taking power. I knew that a primary motivation for Hitler's rise was the unfairness of the Treaty of Versailles after WWI, but what I didn't know was that when Hitler was in Munich during later 1918, he witnessed first-hand the Bolshevik Republic of Bavaria - a short-lived Communist revolution that was mercilessly repressed by a mercenary group, the Freikorps (which gave Hitler ideas for the SA and later the SS) sent by the government in Berlin. From this moment on, Hitler becomes virulently anti-Semitic and anti-Communist - two subjects that became interchangeable in his invective. While his paranoia versus the Communists can be understood based on the Revolution of October 1917 and the small-scale revolution he witnessed in 1918 in Munich, the anti-Semitism that came to be such a core value for Hitler remains, for me at least, still somewhat mysterious. As Ullrich points out, Jews made up only 1,9% of the population of Germany, but there had always been pogroms against them - under the pretense of "Jesus killers" and the like. It was sad to learn that Dachau was opened as soon as Hitler was declared Chancellor in 1933. They wasted little time in unleashing their violence. I felt physically ill reading in particularly about Krystallnacht. Horrifying.
Suffice it to say that the entire book is incredibly informative and thought-provoking. It is HIGHLY recommended for those who wish to understand how monsters are created and how monstrous regimes are born out of ignorance and concessions to ignorance. In the present period, fascism is still a real and present risk and must be fought.
The world has not gotten beyond it's latent (and not so latent) racism and anti-Semitism and books like Volker Ullrich's Hitler Ascent make an irrefutable case for caution and the dangers of underestimating the capacity for evil and manipulation by populist rabble-rousers. Still weeks later, this book echoes in my mind. With the Fascists gaining 100 seats in the Bundestag on 24 Sept 2017, unfortunately, the nightmare is still a threat even 80 years later :(
The author covers the events in Hitler's life up to 1939 interspersed with occasional chapters to illuminate parts of Hilter's dark personality. There are two chapters that deal with Hitler's relationship with women (and purported by apparently false rumors of homosexuality). Unlike his other cronies, he did not drink (à la Trump) and did not whore (unlike Trump) and was a vegetarian, and was - at least until his brief imprisonment at Landsberg in 1923) - probably a virgin. This author does not play up sexuality as a primary motivation in the manic psychosis of Hitler. His explanation is more than Hitler was tortured by feelings of inadequacy and economic inferiority which he overcompensated for in his incredible speaking voice, his perfect photographic memory, and his expert political maneuvering.
As for Klara Hitler's influence on Hitler, the tragedy of her early, untimely death probably did damage him, but - as posited by the author - his relationships with women such as Winifred Wagner, the widow of Richard Wagner's son Siegfried, seemed to be adequate substitutes - in this case Winifred would play an older woman despite being younger than Hitler. Note that this relationship was platonic and not sexual in all likelihood. That being said, it is clear that he felt women were "inferior creatures" because he was careful to ensure that all the people in positions of power were men and that the pretty much well-known liaison between Eva Braun and himself remain hidden from public scrutiny.
Hitler's father Alois was a brutal disciplinarian who savagely treated his wife and kids - albeit not uncommon at that time (or even, sadly, today) - and Hitler's mother Klara did her best to protect her favorite child, Adolf from the violence. He was a mediocre student and sort of a loner. Two important events happen when he is 18 years old: his mother is diagnosed by the Jewish family doctor, Eduard Bloch (Hitler grudgingly looked up at Bloch's window during Anschluss in Linz in 1938 as Bloch said after he narrow escape to the United States in 1941) with breast cancer in 1907, she improves under his care, Hitler is rejected from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, and his mother dies of cancer in 1908 at the age of 47. It is likely that this rejection by the "establishment" (which haunted him from then on and was at the root of his detest of intellectuals) and the death of his mother that started to destroy his soul. That being said, he quickly developed a talent for hiding his true feelings as he hid his rejection from the school from his parents. In 1909, he moves to Vienna and becomes embittered by his struggle (well documented of course in Mein Kampf) to survive on his meager art skills. It is also at this time in Vienna that he began to imbibe anti-Semitism. Due to the economic factors, there was an influx of Jews from eastern Europe into Vienna leading many to fear that Vienna was being "Jewified". It seems likely that Hitler wanted to place the blame of his own failure to succeed and advance personally on an external factor and like many Austrians of that epoch, he settled on the Jews as a convenient and popular scapegoat. But, for the moment, his changing views did not make him the outspoken demagogue that he would later become in Munich to which he emigrated in May 1913. Other than a squabble with Austrian authorities over military service, he was still a relatively quiet, friendless person.
After the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, all of Germany was caught up in a wave of nationalism leading up to Germany's declaration of war. In reality, this wave was political manipulation by Kaiser Wilhelm II and Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg who propagandized external threats from Russia as the bogeyman: by feeding this fear of invasion, they stoked up a cross-class, cross-party fire of nationalism resulting in massive public demonstrations such as those in Munich from July to October 1914 which Hitler witnessed and in which he was caught up emotionally. He immediately tried to get enlisted to fight for the Germans and was sent to Lechfield in the "List" Regiment (so named for its first commander Colonel Julien List).
There is a fascinating and absolutely critical historical sidenote here (page 53), where the author explains that when the German army retreated in September 1914 to the Marne having failed to encircle and destroy the French army, that the war has already lost on paper and yet this fact was never released to the public. This is particularly critical because, in his later rhetoric, Hitler would always put Germany in the position as the victim of aggression whereas the truth was utterly different. And since the public was never told the truth, they believed Hitler and the NSDAP's "fake news" which justified in their minds the extreme measures that the Nazis began to take in the 20s and 30s to "revenge German honor" supposedly lost during WWI.
Hitler's baptism by fire (p55-57) was the near-complete annihilation of the "List" Regiment including its namesake and commander near Ulm in October 1914). In mid-November 1914, near the western front, Hitler left a tent where the new commandant of the List company, Philipp Engelhard just 5 minutes before the tent was shelled and its occupants seriously injured or killed - one of many lucky escapes that Hitler would play up in his "divine mission" in Mein Kampf in that he felt that "God" had saved him. Hitler became a courier between the regimental command and the front line and was present at the horrific Battle of the Somme. Here again, he luckily survives but on October 5, 1916, Hitler was hit by shrapnel when the staff bunker was hit by a shell. While he was recovering behind the lines, he learned of the accusations of profiteering leveled against the Jews (although, in truth, it was the corrupt government safely behind the battle lines was engaged in profiteering but conveniently fermenting these anti-Semitic lies to hide their tracks.) This was particularly disingenuous as thousands of Jews were fighting in the trenches for Germany. Hitler's List Regiment continued to participate in all the major skirmishes up to the end of the war with heavy casualties. Another great irony of history is that it was likely that Jewish lieutenant Hugo Gutmann was probably the person that put Hitler up for the Iron Cross. Hitler's thanks? "We had a Jew in our regiment, Gutmann, a coward beyond compare." (p. 70). In October 1918, his unit went back to the front where he was nearly blinded by mustard gas.
I will be less verbose about the rest of Hitler's career - I just learned so much about the formation of Hitler's psyche in the years leading up to the 20s that I wanted to spend some time on them.
It was horrifying to read about how Hitler decapitated and recuperated the DAP (German Worker's Party) and soon NSDAP (same with National Socialist) party which became his primary vehicle to taking power. I knew that a primary motivation for Hitler's rise was the unfairness of the Treaty of Versailles after WWI, but what I didn't know was that when Hitler was in Munich during later 1918, he witnessed first-hand the Bolshevik Republic of Bavaria - a short-lived Communist revolution that was mercilessly repressed by a mercenary group, the Freikorps (which gave Hitler ideas for the SA and later the SS) sent by the government in Berlin. From this moment on, Hitler becomes virulently anti-Semitic and anti-Communist - two subjects that became interchangeable in his invective. While his paranoia versus the Communists can be understood based on the Revolution of October 1917 and the small-scale revolution he witnessed in 1918 in Munich, the anti-Semitism that came to be such a core value for Hitler remains, for me at least, still somewhat mysterious. As Ullrich points out, Jews made up only 1,9% of the population of Germany, but there had always been pogroms against them - under the pretense of "Jesus killers" and the like. It was sad to learn that Dachau was opened as soon as Hitler was declared Chancellor in 1933. They wasted little time in unleashing their violence. I felt physically ill reading in particularly about Krystallnacht. Horrifying.
Suffice it to say that the entire book is incredibly informative and thought-provoking. It is HIGHLY recommended for those who wish to understand how monsters are created and how monstrous regimes are born out of ignorance and concessions to ignorance. In the present period, fascism is still a real and present risk and must be fought.
The world has not gotten beyond it's latent (and not so latent) racism and anti-Semitism and books like Volker Ullrich's Hitler Ascent make an irrefutable case for caution and the dangers of underestimating the capacity for evil and manipulation by populist rabble-rousers. Still weeks later, this book echoes in my mind. With the Fascists gaining 100 seats in the Bundestag on 24 Sept 2017, unfortunately, the nightmare is still a threat even 80 years later :(
March 9, 2017
Hitler: The Ascent (1889-1939) by Volker Ullrich is a 2016 Knopf publication.
Obviously, this is not the type of book I typically read. My husband and son read books, watch documentaries, and movies about world war two all the time, and I always find something else to do.
While I do enjoy reading about history, this period of history and the topic of war is just not my thing. Hitler is a person I prefer not to think about and I certainly don’t like the images that war conjures up. So, why did I check out this book?
The main reason I decided to read this book is that the focus is on Hitler’s rise and not his reign. How did he manage to draw in so many people? Become so charismatic? How did his ‘ movement’ get started and was he always such a tyrant? What about his childhood, his family? Did he have any human qualities? Issues? Any time Hitler's name is mentioned I have wondered what made him the kind of person he was and if his background was an indicator of the man he would become.
The author immediately stresses that this book is not an attempt to ‘humanize’ or normalize, Hitler, or to create a softer image of of the man, but to deconstruct the mythology of him.
As I have said, I never read one thing about Hitler, except in school, which was a long time ago, so I can’t compare this book with any other books written about him, which there are many. But, this one did give me a clearer picture of Hitler – the man- as opposed to Hitler- the dictator/ monster.
This book does cover a vast period of time and is very lengthy, and also contains a large section of notes. There were periods where the discussion of Hitler’s experiences in the first world war, strategies and such, for example, were extremely dull and dry for someone like me, but, the picture drawn of the man, shows exactly how closeminded he was, exposes his sick perversions, his sociopathy, and revealed him to be a charlatan, almost like a master of disguise.
This book, which is very, very detailed, and is slow going if you aren’t an expert on the subject as there are many situations and names I was not familiar with. Still, I do have a much better idea of man, the climate in Germany that helped get his movement off the ground and how he managed to rise to power.
For me this book gave me answers to many of the questions I’ve had about Hitler, about how and why he got became the vile monster he did, almost like a ‘character study’, but is also an insightful piece of history which could also serve as a word of caution.
After reading a few other reviews, it is obvious I'm a little out of my depth here, my knowledge is slim on this subject, and I’m not exactly the audience the book was written for. But, I did manage to get through the book, a little at a time and it was certainly informative. The author is obviously very knowledgeable about his subject, and the book has been well researched.
I don’t see myself looking for more information on Hitler, as this book was difficult enough to digest, but for those looking for a more in depth look at the man behind the myth, this book is the one you need!
4 stars
Obviously, this is not the type of book I typically read. My husband and son read books, watch documentaries, and movies about world war two all the time, and I always find something else to do.
While I do enjoy reading about history, this period of history and the topic of war is just not my thing. Hitler is a person I prefer not to think about and I certainly don’t like the images that war conjures up. So, why did I check out this book?
The main reason I decided to read this book is that the focus is on Hitler’s rise and not his reign. How did he manage to draw in so many people? Become so charismatic? How did his ‘ movement’ get started and was he always such a tyrant? What about his childhood, his family? Did he have any human qualities? Issues? Any time Hitler's name is mentioned I have wondered what made him the kind of person he was and if his background was an indicator of the man he would become.
The author immediately stresses that this book is not an attempt to ‘humanize’ or normalize, Hitler, or to create a softer image of of the man, but to deconstruct the mythology of him.
As I have said, I never read one thing about Hitler, except in school, which was a long time ago, so I can’t compare this book with any other books written about him, which there are many. But, this one did give me a clearer picture of Hitler – the man- as opposed to Hitler- the dictator/ monster.
This book does cover a vast period of time and is very lengthy, and also contains a large section of notes. There were periods where the discussion of Hitler’s experiences in the first world war, strategies and such, for example, were extremely dull and dry for someone like me, but, the picture drawn of the man, shows exactly how closeminded he was, exposes his sick perversions, his sociopathy, and revealed him to be a charlatan, almost like a master of disguise.
This book, which is very, very detailed, and is slow going if you aren’t an expert on the subject as there are many situations and names I was not familiar with. Still, I do have a much better idea of man, the climate in Germany that helped get his movement off the ground and how he managed to rise to power.
For me this book gave me answers to many of the questions I’ve had about Hitler, about how and why he got became the vile monster he did, almost like a ‘character study’, but is also an insightful piece of history which could also serve as a word of caution.
After reading a few other reviews, it is obvious I'm a little out of my depth here, my knowledge is slim on this subject, and I’m not exactly the audience the book was written for. But, I did manage to get through the book, a little at a time and it was certainly informative. The author is obviously very knowledgeable about his subject, and the book has been well researched.
I don’t see myself looking for more information on Hitler, as this book was difficult enough to digest, but for those looking for a more in depth look at the man behind the myth, this book is the one you need!
4 stars
January 12, 2025
“If there is one thing we admire about National Socialism it’s the fact that it has succeeded, for the first time in German politics, in the complete mobilization of human stupidity.”
The first volume of Ullrich's ‘Hitler’ books, is a detailed and excellently written and organized account of Hitler’s early years, his seizure of power and his rise.
The book is a study of Hitler both as a human being and as a monster; it is an analysis of his psyche and character.
The book is broken down into chapters revolving around his activities in WWI, his personal life and his attitude towards women, his besotted fans, his hostility towards Jews and so on and ends in 1939 and Nazi Germany’s takeover of Czechoslovakia.
“This is the best day of my life…I will go down in history as the greatest German ever.”
You know, what terrified me the most, wasn’t Hitler and his determination to take over the whole world or his hatred of the Jewish people or his belief in the Germans being the master race.
No, what chilled me to the bone was the ‘Cult and community’ section.
It’s one thing to approve of a leader and his principles and vote for him and even in extreme cases defend his ideas at a family gathering and another thing to name a daughter Hitlerina or Adolfina, have a bread named after him or worship him like a god.
There was no sorcery, no witchery and no coercion; just a deluded and deranged nonentity who managed to turn the civilized nation of Beethoven, Goethe and Brahms into a bunch of killers, haters and betrayers.
The first volume of Ullrich's ‘Hitler’ books, is a detailed and excellently written and organized account of Hitler’s early years, his seizure of power and his rise.
The book is a study of Hitler both as a human being and as a monster; it is an analysis of his psyche and character.
The book is broken down into chapters revolving around his activities in WWI, his personal life and his attitude towards women, his besotted fans, his hostility towards Jews and so on and ends in 1939 and Nazi Germany’s takeover of Czechoslovakia.
“This is the best day of my life…I will go down in history as the greatest German ever.”
You know, what terrified me the most, wasn’t Hitler and his determination to take over the whole world or his hatred of the Jewish people or his belief in the Germans being the master race.
No, what chilled me to the bone was the ‘Cult and community’ section.
It’s one thing to approve of a leader and his principles and vote for him and even in extreme cases defend his ideas at a family gathering and another thing to name a daughter Hitlerina or Adolfina, have a bread named after him or worship him like a god.
There was no sorcery, no witchery and no coercion; just a deluded and deranged nonentity who managed to turn the civilized nation of Beethoven, Goethe and Brahms into a bunch of killers, haters and betrayers.
September 24, 2024
UPDATE 8 YEARS ON: Trump says that if he loses the election it will be the fault of the Jews and promises that in his mass deportation program he will issue serial numbers to all deportees. Exactly how this serial number could be matched permanently to the deportee to prevent their re-entry is not specified. Even the Washington Post is catching on. (Search for "Don't scoff at the Hitler comparisons. Trump's rhetoric is that bad"),
UPDATE 7 YEARS ON: after when, in November 2023, Donald Trump compared his political opponents to “vermin” that will be “rooted out” his campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, explained what would happen to anyone comparing Trump to Hitler:
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
When I see leading historians of 1930’s Germany being asked if the Nazis and the Trump administration have anything in common I used to expect them to chuckle politely, quote Godwin’s Law and tell us how different 21st century America is from pre-WW2 Europe. Sad to say, but this is not what they do.
Well before Trump expressed his sympathy for the “…good people…” attending the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Richard J. Evans was writing about how the Trump administration was ‘Too Close for Comfort’ to the Nazis. Timothy Snyder made the comparison even more explicit. talking about Trump's November election and, for good luck, compared the GOP to the incompetent German conservatives who tried to control Hitler’s rise.
With Evan’s and Snyder’s words in mind, where better place to try and discern the similarities and differences between Hitler and the 45th President of the United States- than in the pages of a recent, comprehensive and critically praised biography of Hitler.
So after finishing this thousand plus page book, what have I found? To begin with, making a comparison between Hitler and Trump is not as easy as I expected. This is not because of a lack of points in common but because there are so many. One begins to wonder whether the exercise is more of a psychological illusion. Might I be seeing Hitlerian traits in Trump in the same way people see themselves in the vague generalities about one’s personality that come from the cleverer type of fortune teller? Let's take a closer look at the facts, starting with a few of the more trivial points of comparison between the two dictators and then moving on to the core of the matter.
Neither Trump nor Hitler lack self belief. Is such belief justified? We find in Trump one of the best known examples of the Dunning-Kruger effect but in Hitler’s case one cannot be so sure. Hitler was good at school, but lazy. Talking about the class photo:
Hitler had and Trump still has obsessions with personal hygiene, diet and physical health. Where Hitler was a vegetarian Trump’s first choice is always meat - overdone steak with ketchup or a McDonalds. Not much in common there you may think at first glance, but Hitler became a vegetarian because he believed he would die young and was trying to reduce his cancer risk. Trump believes his vital energies will be exhausted if he does too much exercise over his lifetime (“Donald Trump Thinks Exercise Makes you Die Young” ), hence the USD137,000 spent to date by the US taxpayer for golf carts for the Secret Service. All that walking is bad for your health.
But as soon as we find a commonality – an obsession with personal hygiene and health (Trump hates to touch people because of the germs) – we find a contradiction again. Hitler fought bravely in WW I but had a troubling attitude towards women. Trump also participated in a little known war, fighting his “own personal Vietnam” which involved Trump heroically avoiding contracting venereal disease:
I could go on with a host of other traits that Trump and Hitler share in common; the violent fits of temper, the contempt towards perceived inferiors, the racism, the reluctance to drink alcohol and the rest of it. Instead let’s take a closer look at the one place where Trump and Hitler really are inseparable, where they are as tight as a Senator and his Super PAC, and that is in the relation of both of them to objective truth:
There were big Nazi lies: Hitler knowingly portrayed himself as a peace maker during the period of re-armament while Germany was still vulnerable to a pre-emptive attack, he lied about the Anschluss, he lied at the Munich conference . There were, and still are, big Trump lies: everyone will have cheap healthcare, tax cuts will benefit the middle class, parts of Europe are under Sharia law and so on. There were fewer small Nazi lies (they tended to lie big) but the list of small Trump lies is never ending, tedious and petty. Just in the last week we have:
What this mendacity has in common for both Trump and Hitler is that it pays no regard to its human cost. Hitler was prepared to lie and so bring about the deaths of millions for his vision of the German nation. Trump seems equally prepared to lie brazenly and recklessly and bring about the death of millions, in Trump's case indirectly by depriving them of healthcare or directly by doing his best to start a war. Unlike Hitler, Trump’s mendacity is only intended to boost his ratings and nothing more.
So it is lies that define both Trump and Hitler better than any other single trait. How about their followers?
The people that surrounded Hitler were motivated by a personal lust for money and power at any cost. Their greed stood behind state sanctioned murder, theft, invasion and war with no regard to the lives of the people of Germany, Europe or the world. Hitler provided the drive, intelligence (undoubtedly Hitler was both cunning and intelligent) and obscene vision to carry him and his cronies to levels of wealth and power they never imagined they could reach.
The people that surround Trump are very much the same as the class of people that surrounded Hitler; greedy liars with no moral compass putting their own bizarre ideologies above the common good (DeVos, Pence) or doing the bidding of others for money no matter the damage to the majority (Pruitt).
The problem that Trump’s followers have is that, unlike Hitler, Trump lacks the intelligence or skill to move their agendas forward. In contrast to Hitler, Trump makes no real effort to direct any policy matters except to the extent that they might, by coincidence, look good on Fox News that day. Trump leaves all the work of running a government to his followers. In Trump what we have today is the very 21st century phenomenon of fascism by delegation, fascism sub-contracted and fascism outsourced.
A comparison between Trump and Hitler is not so straightforward. There are certainly some rare personality traits they share that I am sure are shared by other authoritarian personalities; mendacity, narcissism, self obsession more generally. However besides mendacity there is another thing about their historical situation that they have also common, perhaps the most important commonality of them all but also one of the easiest to overlook. What was true for Hitler in relation to Germany in 1933 remains entirely true in relation to Trump and America’s situation today:
UPDATE 7 YEARS ON: after when, in November 2023, Donald Trump compared his political opponents to “vermin” that will be “rooted out” his campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, explained what would happen to anyone comparing Trump to Hitler:
“Those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House,” Cheung told The Washington Post on Monday.As a person somewhat averse to having their "whole existence" or even just their “sad, miserable existence” being “crushed” I will probably not be planning any more holidays in Hawaii in the increasingly likely event that Trump wins in 2024.
Cheung later added that he meant to say their “sad, miserable existence” instead of their “entire existence.”
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
When I see leading historians of 1930’s Germany being asked if the Nazis and the Trump administration have anything in common I used to expect them to chuckle politely, quote Godwin’s Law and tell us how different 21st century America is from pre-WW2 Europe. Sad to say, but this is not what they do.
Well before Trump expressed his sympathy for the “…good people…” attending the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Richard J. Evans was writing about how the Trump administration was ‘Too Close for Comfort’ to the Nazis. Timothy Snyder made the comparison even more explicit. talking about Trump's November election and, for good luck, compared the GOP to the incompetent German conservatives who tried to control Hitler’s rise.
With Evan’s and Snyder’s words in mind, where better place to try and discern the similarities and differences between Hitler and the 45th President of the United States- than in the pages of a recent, comprehensive and critically praised biography of Hitler.
So after finishing this thousand plus page book, what have I found? To begin with, making a comparison between Hitler and Trump is not as easy as I expected. This is not because of a lack of points in common but because there are so many. One begins to wonder whether the exercise is more of a psychological illusion. Might I be seeing Hitlerian traits in Trump in the same way people see themselves in the vague generalities about one’s personality that come from the cleverer type of fortune teller? Let's take a closer look at the facts, starting with a few of the more trivial points of comparison between the two dictators and then moving on to the core of the matter.
Neither Trump nor Hitler lack self belief. Is such belief justified? We find in Trump one of the best known examples of the Dunning-Kruger effect but in Hitler’s case one cannot be so sure. Hitler was good at school, but lazy. Talking about the class photo:
The 10-year-old [Hitler] occupies the middle of the top row with his arms crossed and his face slightly overexposed ‘in a pose of demonstrative superiority’. The young boy was obviously not plagued by self-doubt.
Hitler had and Trump still has obsessions with personal hygiene, diet and physical health. Where Hitler was a vegetarian Trump’s first choice is always meat - overdone steak with ketchup or a McDonalds. Not much in common there you may think at first glance, but Hitler became a vegetarian because he believed he would die young and was trying to reduce his cancer risk. Trump believes his vital energies will be exhausted if he does too much exercise over his lifetime (“Donald Trump Thinks Exercise Makes you Die Young” ), hence the USD137,000 spent to date by the US taxpayer for golf carts for the Secret Service. All that walking is bad for your health.
The young man, who according to Kubizek had always dressed properly and was extremely conscious of hygiene
But as soon as we find a commonality – an obsession with personal hygiene and health (Trump hates to touch people because of the germs) – we find a contradiction again. Hitler fought bravely in WW I but had a troubling attitude towards women. Trump also participated in a little known war, fighting his “own personal Vietnam” which involved Trump heroically avoiding contracting venereal disease:
Paying prostitutes to initiate him into the ways of love, as was common among men of his age from middle-class backgrounds, was out of the question for Hitler: according to Kubizek, he was terrified of contracting syphilis.
I could go on with a host of other traits that Trump and Hitler share in common; the violent fits of temper, the contempt towards perceived inferiors, the racism, the reluctance to drink alcohol and the rest of it. Instead let’s take a closer look at the one place where Trump and Hitler really are inseparable, where they are as tight as a Senator and his Super PAC, and that is in the relation of both of them to objective truth:
Seventeen years after the fall of the Third Reich, in his memoirs the former Finance Minister Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk identified ‘bottomless mendacity’ as Hitler’s primary personal characteristic. ‘He wasn’t even honest towards his most intimate confidants’, Krosigk recalled. ‘In my opinion, he was so thoroughly untruthful that he could no longer recognize the difference between lies and truth.’
There were big Nazi lies: Hitler knowingly portrayed himself as a peace maker during the period of re-armament while Germany was still vulnerable to a pre-emptive attack, he lied about the Anschluss, he lied at the Munich conference . There were, and still are, big Trump lies: everyone will have cheap healthcare, tax cuts will benefit the middle class, parts of Europe are under Sharia law and so on. There were fewer small Nazi lies (they tended to lie big) but the list of small Trump lies is never ending, tedious and petty. Just in the last week we have:
“…The Failing @nytimes set Liddle’ Bob Corker up…”, “…The Trip by @VP Pence was long planned…”, “…Senator Bob Corker “begged” me to endorse him…”, “…The issue of kneeling has nothing to do with race…”A difference between Hitler’s lies and Trump’s lies is that those of Hitler had a clear and unchanging purpose: the promotion of the German Volk, Lebensraum and the destruction of the Jewish race. Trumps lies also have a purpose but one of an entirely different nature: the promotion of Donald Trump and the feeding of his narcissistic ego for the brief moment the lie is uttered.
What this mendacity has in common for both Trump and Hitler is that it pays no regard to its human cost. Hitler was prepared to lie and so bring about the deaths of millions for his vision of the German nation. Trump seems equally prepared to lie brazenly and recklessly and bring about the death of millions, in Trump's case indirectly by depriving them of healthcare or directly by doing his best to start a war. Unlike Hitler, Trump’s mendacity is only intended to boost his ratings and nothing more.
So it is lies that define both Trump and Hitler better than any other single trait. How about their followers?
The people that surrounded Hitler were motivated by a personal lust for money and power at any cost. Their greed stood behind state sanctioned murder, theft, invasion and war with no regard to the lives of the people of Germany, Europe or the world. Hitler provided the drive, intelligence (undoubtedly Hitler was both cunning and intelligent) and obscene vision to carry him and his cronies to levels of wealth and power they never imagined they could reach.
The people that surround Trump are very much the same as the class of people that surrounded Hitler; greedy liars with no moral compass putting their own bizarre ideologies above the common good (DeVos, Pence) or doing the bidding of others for money no matter the damage to the majority (Pruitt).
The problem that Trump’s followers have is that, unlike Hitler, Trump lacks the intelligence or skill to move their agendas forward. In contrast to Hitler, Trump makes no real effort to direct any policy matters except to the extent that they might, by coincidence, look good on Fox News that day. Trump leaves all the work of running a government to his followers. In Trump what we have today is the very 21st century phenomenon of fascism by delegation, fascism sub-contracted and fascism outsourced.
A comparison between Trump and Hitler is not so straightforward. There are certainly some rare personality traits they share that I am sure are shared by other authoritarian personalities; mendacity, narcissism, self obsession more generally. However besides mendacity there is another thing about their historical situation that they have also common, perhaps the most important commonality of them all but also one of the easiest to overlook. What was true for Hitler in relation to Germany in 1933 remains entirely true in relation to Trump and America’s situation today:
Hitler’s path to power was anything but inevitable: in January 1933, it would have been eminently possible to prevent his nomination as Reich chancellor.Trump remaining President or, God forbid, his re-election in 2020 is also not inevitable if only those in a position to do so had the courage to act.
August 17, 2021
"What good fortune for those in power that people do not think."
- HITLER
===============
“The old GOP does not exist anymore. It’s gone the way of the old Whig party. But, rather, it's now a party of populists and nationalists devoted to Trump.”
-Steve Bannon
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politi...
=======
Thanks to a NYT review of this book by Michiko Kakutani (that actually came out before Trump was elected) we have the following bullet points to sum up Hitler as presented in Volker Ullrich's biography..
Seriously who does this remind us of in every detail?
• Hitler was often described as an egomaniac who “only loved himself” — a narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization and a “characteristic fondness for superlatives.” His manic speeches and penchant for taking all-or-nothing risks raised questions about his capacity for self-control, even his sanity. The author underscores Hitler’s shrewdness as a politician — with a “keen eye for the strengths and weaknesses of other people” and an ability to “instantaneously analyze and exploit situations.”
• Hitler was known, among colleagues, for a “bottomless mendacity” that would later be magnified by a slick propaganda machine that used the latest technology (radio, gramophone records, film) to spread his message. A former finance minister wrote that Hitler “was so thoroughly untruthful that he could no longer recognize the difference between lies and truth” and editors of one edition of “Mein Kampf” described it as a “swamp of lies, distortions, innuendoes, half-truths and real facts.”
• Hitler was an effective orator and actor, adept at assuming various masks and feeding off the energy of his audiences. Although he concealed his anti-Semitism beneath a “mask of moderation” when trying to win the support of the socially liberal middle classes, he specialized in big, theatrical rallies staged with spectacular elements borrowed from the circus. “Hitler adapted the content of his speeches to suit the tastes of his lower-middle-class, nationalist-conservative, ethnic-chauvinist and anti-Semitic listeners." The speeches were full of coarse phrases and put-downs of hecklers. Even as he fomented chaos by playing to crowds’ fears and resentments, he offered himself as the visionary leader who could restore law and order.
• Hitler increasingly presented himself in messianic terms, promising “to lead Germany to a new era of national greatness,” though he was typically vague about his actual plans. He often harked back to a golden age for the country “to paint the present day in hues that were all the darker. Everywhere you looked now, there was only decline and decay.”
• Hitler’s repertoire of topics was limited, and reading his speeches in retrospect, “it seems amazing that he attracted larger and larger audiences” with “repeated mantralike phrases” consisting largely of “accusations, vows of revenge and promises for the future.”
But Hitler virtually wrote the modern playbook on demagoguery, arguing in “Mein Kampf” that propaganda must appeal to the emotions — not the reasoning powers — of the crowd. Its “purely intellectual level,” Hitler said, “will have to be that of the lowest mental common denominator among the public it is desired to reach.” Because the understanding of the masses “is feeble,” he went on, effective propaganda needed to be boiled down to a few slogans that should be “persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”
• Hitler’s rise was not inevitable. There were numerous points at which his ascent might have been derailed, the author contends; even as late as January 1933, “it would have been eminently possible to prevent his nomination as Reich chancellor.” He benefited from a “constellation of crises that he was able to exploit cleverly and unscrupulously” — in addition to economic woes and unemployment, there was an “erosion of the political center” and a growing resentment of the elites.
The unwillingness of Germany’s political parties to compromise had contributed to a perception of government dysfunction and the belief of Hitler supporters that the country needed “a man of iron” who could shake things up. “Why not give the National Socialists a chance?” a prominent banker said of the Nazis. “They seem pretty gutsy to me.”
• Hitler’s ascension was aided and abetted by the naïveté of domestic adversaries who failed to appreciate his ruthlessness and tenacity, and by foreign statesmen who believed they could control his aggression. Early on, revulsion at Hitler’s style and appearance led some critics to underestimate the man and his popularity, while others dismissed him as a celebrity, a repellent but fascinating “evening’s entertainment.”
Politicians, for their part, suffered from the delusion that the dominance of traditional conservatives in the cabinet would neutralize the threat of Nazi abuse of power and “fence Hitler in.” “As far as Hitler’s long-term wishes were concerned,, his conservative coalition partners believed either that he was not serious or that they could exert a moderating influence on him. In any case, they were severely mistaken.”
• Hitler, it became obvious, could not be tamed — he needed only five months to consolidate absolute power after becoming chancellor. “Non-National Socialist German states with pressure from the party grass roots combining effectively with pseudo-legal measures ordered by the Reich government.”
Many Germans jumped on the Nazi bandwagon not out of political conviction but in hopes of improving their career opportunities, while fear kept others from speaking out against the persecution of the Jews. The independent press was banned or suppressed and books deemed “un-German” were burned. By March 1933, Hitler had made it clear “that his government was going to do away with all norms of separation of powers and the rule of law.”
• Hitler had a dark, Darwinian view of the world. And he would not only become “a mouthpiece of the cultural pessimism” growing in right-wing circles in the Weimar Republic, but also the avatar of what Thomas Mann identified as a turning away from reason and the fundamental principles of a civil society — namely, “liberty, equality, education, optimism and belief in progress.”
--------
Fascism is a patriarchal cult of the leader, who promises national restoration in the face of supposed humiliation by a treacherous and power-hungry global elite, who have encouraged minorities to destabilize the social order as part of their plan to dominate the “true nation,” and fold them into a global world government. The fascist leader is the father of his nation, in a very real sense like the father in a traditional patriarchal family. He mobilizes the masses by reminding them of what they supposedly have lost, and who it is that is responsible for that loss.
The film shown to the Trump mob on January 6....
https://vimeo.com/508134765
- HITLER
===============
“The old GOP does not exist anymore. It’s gone the way of the old Whig party. But, rather, it's now a party of populists and nationalists devoted to Trump.”
-Steve Bannon
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politi...
=======
Thanks to a NYT review of this book by Michiko Kakutani (that actually came out before Trump was elected) we have the following bullet points to sum up Hitler as presented in Volker Ullrich's biography..
Seriously who does this remind us of in every detail?
• Hitler was often described as an egomaniac who “only loved himself” — a narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization and a “characteristic fondness for superlatives.” His manic speeches and penchant for taking all-or-nothing risks raised questions about his capacity for self-control, even his sanity. The author underscores Hitler’s shrewdness as a politician — with a “keen eye for the strengths and weaknesses of other people” and an ability to “instantaneously analyze and exploit situations.”
• Hitler was known, among colleagues, for a “bottomless mendacity” that would later be magnified by a slick propaganda machine that used the latest technology (radio, gramophone records, film) to spread his message. A former finance minister wrote that Hitler “was so thoroughly untruthful that he could no longer recognize the difference between lies and truth” and editors of one edition of “Mein Kampf” described it as a “swamp of lies, distortions, innuendoes, half-truths and real facts.”
• Hitler was an effective orator and actor, adept at assuming various masks and feeding off the energy of his audiences. Although he concealed his anti-Semitism beneath a “mask of moderation” when trying to win the support of the socially liberal middle classes, he specialized in big, theatrical rallies staged with spectacular elements borrowed from the circus. “Hitler adapted the content of his speeches to suit the tastes of his lower-middle-class, nationalist-conservative, ethnic-chauvinist and anti-Semitic listeners." The speeches were full of coarse phrases and put-downs of hecklers. Even as he fomented chaos by playing to crowds’ fears and resentments, he offered himself as the visionary leader who could restore law and order.
• Hitler increasingly presented himself in messianic terms, promising “to lead Germany to a new era of national greatness,” though he was typically vague about his actual plans. He often harked back to a golden age for the country “to paint the present day in hues that were all the darker. Everywhere you looked now, there was only decline and decay.”
• Hitler’s repertoire of topics was limited, and reading his speeches in retrospect, “it seems amazing that he attracted larger and larger audiences” with “repeated mantralike phrases” consisting largely of “accusations, vows of revenge and promises for the future.”
But Hitler virtually wrote the modern playbook on demagoguery, arguing in “Mein Kampf” that propaganda must appeal to the emotions — not the reasoning powers — of the crowd. Its “purely intellectual level,” Hitler said, “will have to be that of the lowest mental common denominator among the public it is desired to reach.” Because the understanding of the masses “is feeble,” he went on, effective propaganda needed to be boiled down to a few slogans that should be “persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”
• Hitler’s rise was not inevitable. There were numerous points at which his ascent might have been derailed, the author contends; even as late as January 1933, “it would have been eminently possible to prevent his nomination as Reich chancellor.” He benefited from a “constellation of crises that he was able to exploit cleverly and unscrupulously” — in addition to economic woes and unemployment, there was an “erosion of the political center” and a growing resentment of the elites.
The unwillingness of Germany’s political parties to compromise had contributed to a perception of government dysfunction and the belief of Hitler supporters that the country needed “a man of iron” who could shake things up. “Why not give the National Socialists a chance?” a prominent banker said of the Nazis. “They seem pretty gutsy to me.”
• Hitler’s ascension was aided and abetted by the naïveté of domestic adversaries who failed to appreciate his ruthlessness and tenacity, and by foreign statesmen who believed they could control his aggression. Early on, revulsion at Hitler’s style and appearance led some critics to underestimate the man and his popularity, while others dismissed him as a celebrity, a repellent but fascinating “evening’s entertainment.”
Politicians, for their part, suffered from the delusion that the dominance of traditional conservatives in the cabinet would neutralize the threat of Nazi abuse of power and “fence Hitler in.” “As far as Hitler’s long-term wishes were concerned,, his conservative coalition partners believed either that he was not serious or that they could exert a moderating influence on him. In any case, they were severely mistaken.”
• Hitler, it became obvious, could not be tamed — he needed only five months to consolidate absolute power after becoming chancellor. “Non-National Socialist German states with pressure from the party grass roots combining effectively with pseudo-legal measures ordered by the Reich government.”
Many Germans jumped on the Nazi bandwagon not out of political conviction but in hopes of improving their career opportunities, while fear kept others from speaking out against the persecution of the Jews. The independent press was banned or suppressed and books deemed “un-German” were burned. By March 1933, Hitler had made it clear “that his government was going to do away with all norms of separation of powers and the rule of law.”
• Hitler had a dark, Darwinian view of the world. And he would not only become “a mouthpiece of the cultural pessimism” growing in right-wing circles in the Weimar Republic, but also the avatar of what Thomas Mann identified as a turning away from reason and the fundamental principles of a civil society — namely, “liberty, equality, education, optimism and belief in progress.”
--------
Fascism is a patriarchal cult of the leader, who promises national restoration in the face of supposed humiliation by a treacherous and power-hungry global elite, who have encouraged minorities to destabilize the social order as part of their plan to dominate the “true nation,” and fold them into a global world government. The fascist leader is the father of his nation, in a very real sense like the father in a traditional patriarchal family. He mobilizes the masses by reminding them of what they supposedly have lost, and who it is that is responsible for that loss.
The film shown to the Trump mob on January 6....
https://vimeo.com/508134765
October 3, 2023
The March of Madness.
German historian Volker Ullrich has produced an exceptional piece of work with this first of two volumes on one of the most evil and fascinating figures of the twentieth century; Adolf Hitler. Ullrich, in his introduction notes that writing a book on Hitler is extremely difficult and complex and so requires the greatest attention to detail. Ullrich has lived by this manifesto and as such has produced the best study of the Führer, one where Ullrich understands him and as a result so have I.
Starting with a family history in provincial Austria-Hungry, dissecting the myths of Jewish ancestry (debunked by Ullrich) and who Hitler’s father may have been, we also learn the Hitler myth was built by the Führer himself. Alois, his father was not a drunk who beat him mercilessly. He was a disappointment to his father, who was a hard man, had looked to climb the social ladder. All of the opportunities for young Adolf were there too, he just didn’t take them. This changes the outlook that an especially cruel and sadistic childhood builds monsters. Not true of Stalin, Lenin, Geobbels or Hitler. There are no excuses or mitigation. Ullrich revisits all of the stages and important events of Hitler’s life, events that we think shaped him, but probably didn’t. The death of his beloved mother Klara at an early age, did not instil a life long hatred of Jews, as the myth would have us believe. Her Jewish doctor Edward Bloch actually got special protection by the Gestapo in the Third Reich and was allowed to emigrate. Perhaps the crucial point in his life was being rejected from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. As Ullrich notes this pushed him onto the streets and a road to radicalisation. But it wasn’t fully there yet. His life in Vienna is fascinating to say the least, scruffy, thin, malnourished and living to sell paintings of the streets along with other schemes.
When war came, Hitler petitioned to the King of Bavaria to join a local regiment rather than fight for the multi ethnic Habsburg empire he hated. Following German’s defeat he was devastated and truly believed in the stab in the back myth. This is where the radicalisation started after the Treaty of Versailles. A time of complete instability and a breaking of Germany, there was built a large amount of consensus within the army and wider society that the Jews had caused this destruction and trauma and so needed to be removed from society. For there on in Hitler did not hide his desire to remove the Jews from Germany (the idea of extermination came later, deportation was the early idea) or destroy the hated Bolshevism of the east. The term ‘Jew’ and ‘Bolshevik’ were used interchangeably. This shows that supporters had no excuse, they couldn’t claim they didn’t know, it was all written in Mein Kampf and featured in most speeches.
Ullrich shows how this rise was by luck and chance to Hitler. Not so much to the rest of the world. The grand speeches where he came alive versus the strange and anti social private man. He was an enigma, did anyone really know or get close to him? When he showed weakness or humanity he seemed to go back into political mode. Often at dinner parties or soirées he would set off into a monologue, sometimes lasting over an hour. Talking as if to a huge crowd. One wonders how this man took over the most powerful country in Europe. But Ullrich shows us how. The master of divide and conquer playing rivals off each other on the far right of politics and inside the NSDAP, with a mix of bullying, threats, violence and flattery he rose to the top. Then there was the 1929 economic crash and hyperinflation. Exceptional conditions which would only bring about an extreme consequence.
There are thematic chapters interwoven to the chronology. Nothing has divided historians more than Hitler’s relationships with women. The one with the young Geli Raubal was complicated and is still unknown to what extent they got to know each other. Was it sexual? Possible. Was it mutual, Ullrich says yes. He doted on her and she encouraged it. But he also harassed her and forbid a potential marriage to her chauffeur. She died in mysterious circumstances in a hotel in 1931, with a pistol Hitler had given her. Equally complex are his relationships with Magda Geobbels and Eva Braun. Braun was kept secret from the wider public for a long time, but as servants had noted, they were definitely together. He was not gay, asexual or had abnormal genitalia, he wanted to preserve the myth that he was married only to the Germany and the NSDAP.
Ullrich notes Hitler was petit bourgeois, narrow minded, uneducated and insecure. But also arrogant and self righteous. He had a great memory, but was not cultured and knew little of the world outside of Germany. He had only been to France as a private in WWI and apart from childhood in Austria, had not travelled to any other country. He spoke no language other than German. He was only interested in Germans. His contemporaries knew this. Some chose to ignore it. As a result he thought he knew better than specialists, problems which would grow once war started. He hated the old Germany, Hohenzollerns, monarchists and the royal houses as much as Jews, homosexuals or liberally minded people. The church was disposed but also useful to him. The NSDAP was the new religion, loyalty base, outlook and tradition. This was everything. Old allegiances to the Kaiser needed to die. All essential when understanding National Socialism was a warped and unique ideology.
This is a detailed and refreshing look at this most horrific of individuals. But it is essential to read as any reader will discover the horror truth. The accidental rise, the myth built by himself and his subordinates. He was not a great man with new ideas and was truly bad for Germans. The second book focuses on war, holocaust and downfall. A strong stomach will be needed. But Ullrich is the best person to guide one through that journey. An outstanding book.
German historian Volker Ullrich has produced an exceptional piece of work with this first of two volumes on one of the most evil and fascinating figures of the twentieth century; Adolf Hitler. Ullrich, in his introduction notes that writing a book on Hitler is extremely difficult and complex and so requires the greatest attention to detail. Ullrich has lived by this manifesto and as such has produced the best study of the Führer, one where Ullrich understands him and as a result so have I.
Starting with a family history in provincial Austria-Hungry, dissecting the myths of Jewish ancestry (debunked by Ullrich) and who Hitler’s father may have been, we also learn the Hitler myth was built by the Führer himself. Alois, his father was not a drunk who beat him mercilessly. He was a disappointment to his father, who was a hard man, had looked to climb the social ladder. All of the opportunities for young Adolf were there too, he just didn’t take them. This changes the outlook that an especially cruel and sadistic childhood builds monsters. Not true of Stalin, Lenin, Geobbels or Hitler. There are no excuses or mitigation. Ullrich revisits all of the stages and important events of Hitler’s life, events that we think shaped him, but probably didn’t. The death of his beloved mother Klara at an early age, did not instil a life long hatred of Jews, as the myth would have us believe. Her Jewish doctor Edward Bloch actually got special protection by the Gestapo in the Third Reich and was allowed to emigrate. Perhaps the crucial point in his life was being rejected from the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. As Ullrich notes this pushed him onto the streets and a road to radicalisation. But it wasn’t fully there yet. His life in Vienna is fascinating to say the least, scruffy, thin, malnourished and living to sell paintings of the streets along with other schemes.
When war came, Hitler petitioned to the King of Bavaria to join a local regiment rather than fight for the multi ethnic Habsburg empire he hated. Following German’s defeat he was devastated and truly believed in the stab in the back myth. This is where the radicalisation started after the Treaty of Versailles. A time of complete instability and a breaking of Germany, there was built a large amount of consensus within the army and wider society that the Jews had caused this destruction and trauma and so needed to be removed from society. For there on in Hitler did not hide his desire to remove the Jews from Germany (the idea of extermination came later, deportation was the early idea) or destroy the hated Bolshevism of the east. The term ‘Jew’ and ‘Bolshevik’ were used interchangeably. This shows that supporters had no excuse, they couldn’t claim they didn’t know, it was all written in Mein Kampf and featured in most speeches.
Ullrich shows how this rise was by luck and chance to Hitler. Not so much to the rest of the world. The grand speeches where he came alive versus the strange and anti social private man. He was an enigma, did anyone really know or get close to him? When he showed weakness or humanity he seemed to go back into political mode. Often at dinner parties or soirées he would set off into a monologue, sometimes lasting over an hour. Talking as if to a huge crowd. One wonders how this man took over the most powerful country in Europe. But Ullrich shows us how. The master of divide and conquer playing rivals off each other on the far right of politics and inside the NSDAP, with a mix of bullying, threats, violence and flattery he rose to the top. Then there was the 1929 economic crash and hyperinflation. Exceptional conditions which would only bring about an extreme consequence.
There are thematic chapters interwoven to the chronology. Nothing has divided historians more than Hitler’s relationships with women. The one with the young Geli Raubal was complicated and is still unknown to what extent they got to know each other. Was it sexual? Possible. Was it mutual, Ullrich says yes. He doted on her and she encouraged it. But he also harassed her and forbid a potential marriage to her chauffeur. She died in mysterious circumstances in a hotel in 1931, with a pistol Hitler had given her. Equally complex are his relationships with Magda Geobbels and Eva Braun. Braun was kept secret from the wider public for a long time, but as servants had noted, they were definitely together. He was not gay, asexual or had abnormal genitalia, he wanted to preserve the myth that he was married only to the Germany and the NSDAP.
Ullrich notes Hitler was petit bourgeois, narrow minded, uneducated and insecure. But also arrogant and self righteous. He had a great memory, but was not cultured and knew little of the world outside of Germany. He had only been to France as a private in WWI and apart from childhood in Austria, had not travelled to any other country. He spoke no language other than German. He was only interested in Germans. His contemporaries knew this. Some chose to ignore it. As a result he thought he knew better than specialists, problems which would grow once war started. He hated the old Germany, Hohenzollerns, monarchists and the royal houses as much as Jews, homosexuals or liberally minded people. The church was disposed but also useful to him. The NSDAP was the new religion, loyalty base, outlook and tradition. This was everything. Old allegiances to the Kaiser needed to die. All essential when understanding National Socialism was a warped and unique ideology.
This is a detailed and refreshing look at this most horrific of individuals. But it is essential to read as any reader will discover the horror truth. The accidental rise, the myth built by himself and his subordinates. He was not a great man with new ideas and was truly bad for Germans. The second book focuses on war, holocaust and downfall. A strong stomach will be needed. But Ullrich is the best person to guide one through that journey. An outstanding book.
April 3, 2021
Thank goodness I listened to this first volume of Volker Ullrich's massive biography of Hitler in 2021 and not 2020 or 2019. It chronicles Hitler's rise to power and I think my head would have exploded had I read it earlier.
April 28, 2016
Hitler – Demystified
Most people today think that they know a lot about Hitler, that any more books about him are a waste of time and add nothing. This book on Hitler is the Volker Ullrich’s first volume on Hitler, that demystifies some of the ‘legends’ that have grown around him, examines how this Austrian came to lead Germany, rebuild confidence in the country and build a cult around himself.
In my opinion this magisterial volume builds and compliments the work of Sir Ian Kershaw and Ullrich also admits as much in his introduction to this 760 paged volume. Ullrich has also been able to use the few sources that have become available since the publication of Kershaw’s two volumes, as well as re-reading all existing research sources.
My Great-grandfather was born in Lwow/Lemberg in 1889, part of Polish Galicia that was then under Austrian control, the same year Hitler was born in Austria itself. Both fought in the First World War technically on the same side, but like most Poles it was with no great love for Austrian it was because they were forced to defend Polish Galicia from the Russians. In 1918 my Great-Grandfather was celebrating the end of the war and the rebirth of Poland that had escaped the clutches of Austria. Whereas Hitler was in Germany licking his wounds like many Germans, blaming the leadership of Germany for selling them out. These events would affect both differently, but one went on to reap his revenge on Poland amongst others.
Ullrich as well as building on what Kershaw told the world about Hitler, he takes a look at Hitler the man and attempts to give us a forensic account of the person up to 1939. It has always been a mystery to many how Hitler was able to mesmerise the German people and take over the instruments of power with little to no resistance.
What we do learn is that Hitler was the ultimate salesman who could sell dreams to people who needed something they could hold on to. What is interesting is how lazy Hitler actually was, how after his walk at the Berghof with his entourage, he would be driven back while everyone else was made to walk. He could not drive, nor swim and with his love of the alps could not ski!
Most books on Hitler try to paint the man as having hidden depths, this book shatters that image completely. What Hitler did understand, the need to control the narrative, the overarching message you want to expand and make people believe. This is very much the concept of the modern politician and public relations consultant, he who owns the narrative controls the story the public will receive.
Something that Ullrich does discuss is the love life Hitler had, such as it was, and that he was attracted to teenagers, and that led to the suicide of his own 17-year-old niece. It does come across that it was quite complicated and not what the public perceived.
There are many interesting chapters in this volume that cover many topics from the early life of Hitler, through the War and Versailles, to the failed putsch and on to writing Mein Kampf. We are also told that Hitler’s antisemitism that developed was different to his actual interactions with Jews.
This is one of the most important books on Hitler that has ever been published especially as this starts to peel away the mask of Hitler the man rather than the Hitler the projected leader. This is an excellent volume that gets under Hitler’s skin, makes us see the man as a charlatan who happened to be lazy, shallow, attracted to teenage girls rather than women his age and very narrow minded.
This is an excellent volume that all students of German History should be required to read and absorb. Ullrich has been able to approach the subject with sensitivity as well as honesty and paints the picture that succeeds in breaking down the myths that have built up around Hitler the person.
Most people today think that they know a lot about Hitler, that any more books about him are a waste of time and add nothing. This book on Hitler is the Volker Ullrich’s first volume on Hitler, that demystifies some of the ‘legends’ that have grown around him, examines how this Austrian came to lead Germany, rebuild confidence in the country and build a cult around himself.
In my opinion this magisterial volume builds and compliments the work of Sir Ian Kershaw and Ullrich also admits as much in his introduction to this 760 paged volume. Ullrich has also been able to use the few sources that have become available since the publication of Kershaw’s two volumes, as well as re-reading all existing research sources.
My Great-grandfather was born in Lwow/Lemberg in 1889, part of Polish Galicia that was then under Austrian control, the same year Hitler was born in Austria itself. Both fought in the First World War technically on the same side, but like most Poles it was with no great love for Austrian it was because they were forced to defend Polish Galicia from the Russians. In 1918 my Great-Grandfather was celebrating the end of the war and the rebirth of Poland that had escaped the clutches of Austria. Whereas Hitler was in Germany licking his wounds like many Germans, blaming the leadership of Germany for selling them out. These events would affect both differently, but one went on to reap his revenge on Poland amongst others.
Ullrich as well as building on what Kershaw told the world about Hitler, he takes a look at Hitler the man and attempts to give us a forensic account of the person up to 1939. It has always been a mystery to many how Hitler was able to mesmerise the German people and take over the instruments of power with little to no resistance.
What we do learn is that Hitler was the ultimate salesman who could sell dreams to people who needed something they could hold on to. What is interesting is how lazy Hitler actually was, how after his walk at the Berghof with his entourage, he would be driven back while everyone else was made to walk. He could not drive, nor swim and with his love of the alps could not ski!
Most books on Hitler try to paint the man as having hidden depths, this book shatters that image completely. What Hitler did understand, the need to control the narrative, the overarching message you want to expand and make people believe. This is very much the concept of the modern politician and public relations consultant, he who owns the narrative controls the story the public will receive.
Something that Ullrich does discuss is the love life Hitler had, such as it was, and that he was attracted to teenagers, and that led to the suicide of his own 17-year-old niece. It does come across that it was quite complicated and not what the public perceived.
There are many interesting chapters in this volume that cover many topics from the early life of Hitler, through the War and Versailles, to the failed putsch and on to writing Mein Kampf. We are also told that Hitler’s antisemitism that developed was different to his actual interactions with Jews.
This is one of the most important books on Hitler that has ever been published especially as this starts to peel away the mask of Hitler the man rather than the Hitler the projected leader. This is an excellent volume that gets under Hitler’s skin, makes us see the man as a charlatan who happened to be lazy, shallow, attracted to teenage girls rather than women his age and very narrow minded.
This is an excellent volume that all students of German History should be required to read and absorb. Ullrich has been able to approach the subject with sensitivity as well as honesty and paints the picture that succeeds in breaking down the myths that have built up around Hitler the person.
April 18, 2023
Mein Leben lang versuche ich bereits, wenngleich auch nicht zu verstehen, so doch zumindest nachzuvollziehen, wie Hitler und seine NSDAP in Deutschland an die Macht kommen konnten - wie konnte ein verkrachter “Kunstmaler” zum Diktator werden? Wie konnte ein Bierkeller-Agitator Millionen in seinen Bann ziehen, sie geradezu verführen, fanatisieren und in den Untergang treiben? Was bringt einen Menschen dazu, sechs Millionen Menschen jüdischen Glaubens, Sinti und Roma, Menschen mit Beeinträchtigungen und viele weitere Personengruppen systematisch zu verfolgen und zu ermorden? Was treibt einen Menschen an, einen Weltkrieg zu entfesseln?
Was also liegt näher, als sich mit Hitler selbst und seiner Biographie auseinanderzusetzen? Bullock, Fest, Kershaw - ich habe sie alle gelesen und obschon sie alle ihre Stärken und Schwächen hatten - keine Biographie war so umfassend, detailliert und tiefgreifend wie die vorliegende “neue” (der vorliegende Band erschien 2013, der zweite Teil 2018) Biographie von Volker Ullrich.
Hervorragend in geschliffenem hochsprachlichem Deutsch geschrieben gelingt Ullrich die Darstellung von Hitlers Aufstieg ausgesprochen gut. In unterschiedlich langen Kapiteln berichtet er weitgehend kapitel-intrinsisch chronologisch, mit kurzen Vor- und Rückgriffen, über die verschiedenen “Etappen”, z. B. beginnt Ullrich mit “Der junge Hitler” über “Die Wiener Jahre” bis hin zu “Die Berghof-Gesellschaft”, “Im Kampf gegen die Kirchen” und beendet diesen ersten Band mit “Auf dem Weg in den Krieg”.
Etwas “überrumpelt” war ich vom Umfang dieses Bandes - auf meinem Kindle immerhin 2000 Seiten. Dank der für mich perfekten Detailtiefe ergibt sich jedoch ein bemerkenswert klares Bild von Hitler und es gab schlicht keine “Längen”. Anzumerken ist, dass “nur” ca. 1300 Seiten das eigentliche Werk ausmachen. Die restlichen rund 700 Seiten bestehen aus dem exzellenten Quellen- und Literaturverzeichnis sowie den Abbildungsnachweisen.
Dies ist auch insofern wichtig, als Ullrich erfreulicherweise mit sehr vielen und qualitativ hochwertigen Quellen gearbeitet hat - darunter auch solche, die früheren Biographen nicht zur Verfügung standen, sodass hier auch tatsächlich neuere Erkenntnisse eingeflossen sind.
Auch mit diesen früheren Biographen setzt sich Ullrich immer mal wieder auseinander und erklärt, warum und auf Basis welcher Quellen er partiell zu anderen Einschätzungen gelangt.
Wenig überraschend beginnt die Biographie mit der Kindheit und Jugend Hitlers und zeigt, wie seine Erfahrungen und Enttäuschungen in seiner frühen Lebensphase seine spätere Entwicklung beeinflussten. Ullrich geht dann auf Hitlers Versuche ein, in Wien als Künstler Fuß zu fassen, bevor er schließlich in die Politik eintrat. Der Autor beschreibt Hitlers frühe politische Karriere als Mitglied der Deutschen Arbeiterpartei und seine Beteiligung an dem gescheiterten Putschversuch von 1923.
Ullrich analysiert insbesondere auch detailliert Hitlers Nutzung der Rhetorik und Propaganda sowie seine schauspielerischen Fähigkeiten, um die Unterstützung des deutschen Volkes zu gewinnen. Der Autor beschreibt auch die politischen und wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen in Deutschland, die Hitler und der NSDAP den Weg zur Macht ebneten.
Was mir an dieser Biographie besonders gefallen hat, ist, dass Ullrich nicht nur Hitlers Leben und Karriere beschreibt, sondern auch die politischen und gesellschaftlichen Ereignisse, die im Hintergrund abliefen und Hitlers Aufstieg überhaupt erst ermöglichten. Der Autor zeigt, wie Hitlers Ideologie und Rhetorik in den Kontext der politischen und wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen der Zeit passen.
Ullrichs Schreibstil ist klar und prägnant, ohne jemals trocken oder langweilig zu werden. Die Verwendung von Zitaten und Anekdoten aus Hitlers Leben verleiht dem Buch zusätzliche Tiefe und ermöglicht es dem Leser, sich ein lebendiges Bild von Hitlers Persönlichkeit und Ideologie zu machen. Häufig greift Ullrich hier kritisch auf die Goebbels-Tagebücher zurück, nutzt aber auch die Tagebücher von Luise Solmitz und weiteren Zeitzeugen.
Insgesamt ist "Adolf Hitler: Die Jahre des Aufstiegs 1889 - 1939 Biographie" von Volker Ullrich eine faszinierende und umfassende Darstellung von Hitlers Leben und Aufstieg. Ullrich bietet eine sorgfältige Analyse von Hitlers Aufstieg zur Macht und zeigt, wie er die politischen und gesellschaftlichen Bedingungen seiner Zeit nutzte, um seine Ideologie zu verbreiten und eine breite Unterstützung zu gewinnen.
Eine beeindruckende Meisterleistung, deren zweiten Band ich ebenfalls im Laufe dieses Jahres lesen werde.
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Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam
Was also liegt näher, als sich mit Hitler selbst und seiner Biographie auseinanderzusetzen? Bullock, Fest, Kershaw - ich habe sie alle gelesen und obschon sie alle ihre Stärken und Schwächen hatten - keine Biographie war so umfassend, detailliert und tiefgreifend wie die vorliegende “neue” (der vorliegende Band erschien 2013, der zweite Teil 2018) Biographie von Volker Ullrich.
Hervorragend in geschliffenem hochsprachlichem Deutsch geschrieben gelingt Ullrich die Darstellung von Hitlers Aufstieg ausgesprochen gut. In unterschiedlich langen Kapiteln berichtet er weitgehend kapitel-intrinsisch chronologisch, mit kurzen Vor- und Rückgriffen, über die verschiedenen “Etappen”, z. B. beginnt Ullrich mit “Der junge Hitler” über “Die Wiener Jahre” bis hin zu “Die Berghof-Gesellschaft”, “Im Kampf gegen die Kirchen” und beendet diesen ersten Band mit “Auf dem Weg in den Krieg”.
Etwas “überrumpelt” war ich vom Umfang dieses Bandes - auf meinem Kindle immerhin 2000 Seiten. Dank der für mich perfekten Detailtiefe ergibt sich jedoch ein bemerkenswert klares Bild von Hitler und es gab schlicht keine “Längen”. Anzumerken ist, dass “nur” ca. 1300 Seiten das eigentliche Werk ausmachen. Die restlichen rund 700 Seiten bestehen aus dem exzellenten Quellen- und Literaturverzeichnis sowie den Abbildungsnachweisen.
Dies ist auch insofern wichtig, als Ullrich erfreulicherweise mit sehr vielen und qualitativ hochwertigen Quellen gearbeitet hat - darunter auch solche, die früheren Biographen nicht zur Verfügung standen, sodass hier auch tatsächlich neuere Erkenntnisse eingeflossen sind.
Auch mit diesen früheren Biographen setzt sich Ullrich immer mal wieder auseinander und erklärt, warum und auf Basis welcher Quellen er partiell zu anderen Einschätzungen gelangt.
Wenig überraschend beginnt die Biographie mit der Kindheit und Jugend Hitlers und zeigt, wie seine Erfahrungen und Enttäuschungen in seiner frühen Lebensphase seine spätere Entwicklung beeinflussten. Ullrich geht dann auf Hitlers Versuche ein, in Wien als Künstler Fuß zu fassen, bevor er schließlich in die Politik eintrat. Der Autor beschreibt Hitlers frühe politische Karriere als Mitglied der Deutschen Arbeiterpartei und seine Beteiligung an dem gescheiterten Putschversuch von 1923.
Ullrich analysiert insbesondere auch detailliert Hitlers Nutzung der Rhetorik und Propaganda sowie seine schauspielerischen Fähigkeiten, um die Unterstützung des deutschen Volkes zu gewinnen. Der Autor beschreibt auch die politischen und wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen in Deutschland, die Hitler und der NSDAP den Weg zur Macht ebneten.
Was mir an dieser Biographie besonders gefallen hat, ist, dass Ullrich nicht nur Hitlers Leben und Karriere beschreibt, sondern auch die politischen und gesellschaftlichen Ereignisse, die im Hintergrund abliefen und Hitlers Aufstieg überhaupt erst ermöglichten. Der Autor zeigt, wie Hitlers Ideologie und Rhetorik in den Kontext der politischen und wirtschaftlichen Bedingungen der Zeit passen.
Ullrichs Schreibstil ist klar und prägnant, ohne jemals trocken oder langweilig zu werden. Die Verwendung von Zitaten und Anekdoten aus Hitlers Leben verleiht dem Buch zusätzliche Tiefe und ermöglicht es dem Leser, sich ein lebendiges Bild von Hitlers Persönlichkeit und Ideologie zu machen. Häufig greift Ullrich hier kritisch auf die Goebbels-Tagebücher zurück, nutzt aber auch die Tagebücher von Luise Solmitz und weiteren Zeitzeugen.
Insgesamt ist "Adolf Hitler: Die Jahre des Aufstiegs 1889 - 1939 Biographie" von Volker Ullrich eine faszinierende und umfassende Darstellung von Hitlers Leben und Aufstieg. Ullrich bietet eine sorgfältige Analyse von Hitlers Aufstieg zur Macht und zeigt, wie er die politischen und gesellschaftlichen Bedingungen seiner Zeit nutzte, um seine Ideologie zu verbreiten und eine breite Unterstützung zu gewinnen.
Eine beeindruckende Meisterleistung, deren zweiten Band ich ebenfalls im Laufe dieses Jahres lesen werde.
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Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam
June 27, 2021
This was first published in 2013. The paperback version I read is 1,000 pages long but 250 of those are the notes and index. But still, 758 for volume 1 of a two-volume biography. I am not a war nut by any means, but I read a historian in BBC History magazine detailing how good this was.
Ullrich explains in the introduction why he has written this mammoth first volume of ‘Hitler’ when there have been so many in the past. ‘This biography seeks to show the sort of person he was since the 1920s: a fanatic Jew hater, who could tactically conceal his anti-Semitism but who never lost sight of his aim of ‘removing’ Jews from German society.’ This is the crux, ‘the sort of person he was’. He is going to show his human qualities, habits, and characteristics. ‘In a sense, Hitler will be ‘normalised’ – although this will not make him seem more ‘normal’. If anything, he will emerge as even more horrific.’
It is fantastic and easy to read. Yes, it is heavily researched, but the details are not boring in the slightest. It is written in such a way that I was completely hooked from beginning to end.
The beginning is from Hitler’s grandparents, his parents to his birth to WWI and then, ‘In the space of only four years, Hitler had gone from an unknown soldier in the First World war to a popular public speaker who was a main attraction in Munich and who had begun to capture the imagination of people beyond Bavaria. He owed his phenomenal rise to the particular social and political crises of the post-war period, which provided an unusually advantageous situation for a right-wing populist of his ilk’. He had become party leader of the NSDAP which grew in membership at a fast rate.
The title of this volume is ‘Ascent’, and my word is that true. From being virtually homeless to running the country. Bill Bryson talked about life on earth happening because conditions were just right at that time. This seems to be the same for Hitler and his NSDAP party. A collection of things coming together at just a time to push him to the front.
We go through to 1939 where this volume ends. Will I be purchasing the second volume? Oh yes, I will. The one gripe I had is that we followed Hitler’s youth and his journey to Germany and politics. This was fantastic. I was gripped. Once he became Chancellor in 1933 the book then gets structured into specific chapters rather than a chronological biography and I thought it lost a bit of it’s flow due to that.
Ullrich explains in the introduction why he has written this mammoth first volume of ‘Hitler’ when there have been so many in the past. ‘This biography seeks to show the sort of person he was since the 1920s: a fanatic Jew hater, who could tactically conceal his anti-Semitism but who never lost sight of his aim of ‘removing’ Jews from German society.’ This is the crux, ‘the sort of person he was’. He is going to show his human qualities, habits, and characteristics. ‘In a sense, Hitler will be ‘normalised’ – although this will not make him seem more ‘normal’. If anything, he will emerge as even more horrific.’
It is fantastic and easy to read. Yes, it is heavily researched, but the details are not boring in the slightest. It is written in such a way that I was completely hooked from beginning to end.
The beginning is from Hitler’s grandparents, his parents to his birth to WWI and then, ‘In the space of only four years, Hitler had gone from an unknown soldier in the First World war to a popular public speaker who was a main attraction in Munich and who had begun to capture the imagination of people beyond Bavaria. He owed his phenomenal rise to the particular social and political crises of the post-war period, which provided an unusually advantageous situation for a right-wing populist of his ilk’. He had become party leader of the NSDAP which grew in membership at a fast rate.
The title of this volume is ‘Ascent’, and my word is that true. From being virtually homeless to running the country. Bill Bryson talked about life on earth happening because conditions were just right at that time. This seems to be the same for Hitler and his NSDAP party. A collection of things coming together at just a time to push him to the front.
We go through to 1939 where this volume ends. Will I be purchasing the second volume? Oh yes, I will. The one gripe I had is that we followed Hitler’s youth and his journey to Germany and politics. This was fantastic. I was gripped. Once he became Chancellor in 1933 the book then gets structured into specific chapters rather than a chronological biography and I thought it lost a bit of it’s flow due to that.
October 12, 2016
The public’s fascination with Adolf Hitler remains strong even sixty years after his suicide in the Fuhrer bunker in April, 1945. To date over 120,000 books have been written about Hitler and Volker Ullrich’s new biography, HITLER: ASCENT 1889-1939 is a welcome addition to this ever increasing bibliography. Up until now Ian Kershaw’s two volume work was the recognized standard in this genre replacing earlier volumes by Alan Bullock, and Joachim Fest as the most comprehensive works on Hitler. Kershaw argued that Hitler was motivated by two obsessions as he pushed Germany toward war; the removal of the Jews, and German expansion to the east. Overall, Ullrich agrees with Kershaw’s thesis, but what makes his book so important is his ability to synthesize the vast material that has already exists, his access to a great deal of new primary materials, and it has been almost twenty years since Kershaw’s work was published. Ullrich should be commended for his voluminous research supported by his extensive endnotes. These endnotes contain a treasure-trove of information for scholars of the Nazi regime, their leaders, and their rise to power.
Many wonder what the keys were to Hitler’s success. Ullrich correctly depicts a man who was able to conceal his real intentions from friends and foes alike as one of the keys to his success. He had the ability to instantly analyze political situations and exploit them, including his political opposition. His success rests on his improvisational style of leadership where he created numerous internal conflicts from which he emerged as the indispensable man. Ullrich breaks the myth that Hitler lacked personal relationships arguing that he was able to separate his political and private spheres which impacted his pursuit of power greatly. Another key that Ullrich stresses in understanding Hitler is examining the reciprocal nature of his relationship with the German people that contributed to his enormous popularity. It was not a forgone conclusion that Hitler would come to power, but domestic opposition leaders underestimated his abilities, as would foreign leaders after he consolidated power in 1934. Ullrich’s aim “is to deconstruct the myth of Hitler, the ‘fascination with monstrosity’ that has greatly influenced historical literature and public discussion of the Fuhrer after 1945. In a sense, Hitler will he ‘normalised’—although this will not make him seem more ‘normal.’ If anything, he will emerge as even more horrific.”
Ullrich’s study is extremely comprehensive. He does not spend a great deal of time concerning Hitler’s childhood and upbringing, just enough to explore a few myths associated with Hitler’s childhood which he debunks, i.e.; he did not grow up in poverty as his father Alois had a good pension; he did not blame the Jews for the death of his mother from cancer; and he did not blame the Jews for his inability to be admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts The biography becomes detailed as the Ullrich explores the effect Fin-de-Siècle Austria on Hitler and the author does an excellent job reviewing the historiography pertaining to Hitler’s intellectual development. Hitler is presented as an autodidact who was self-educated which explains how he acquired his anti-Semitic prejudices and German nationalist ideas. But it is Hitler’s experience in World War I that shaped the man, without which he would have remained “a nobody” with pretensions of being an artist.
Ullrich’s work successfully shifts the focus of his study on to Hitler the person as is evidenced by an excellent chapter, “Hitler the Human Being.” It is here that Ullrich delves into Hitler’s behavior and personality and tries to lift the mask that makes it difficult to penetrate Hitler’s shifting persona. Hitler’s personality is a compilation of dichotomies.* He was a dictator who kept people at a distance, but sought company to avoid being alone with himself. He could be caring and empathetic at times, but at the same time he could commit or order brutal acts. Ullrich is correct in pointing out that Hitler was an actor and chameleon who was able to manipulate others who did not see through him as he overcame his personal insecurities and was able to shift many of them on to the German people in order to seize power.
Other important chapters include “Month of Destiny: January 1933,” where Ullrich details Hitler’s path to the Chancellorship by taking the reader through the numerous elections, the strategies pursued by Hitler and his cohorts, the approach taken by the opposition, and the political infighting on all sides of the political spectrum. January 30, 1933 became the turning point in the history of the twentieth century, but at the time Ullrich correctly points out leaders and the German public were not totally aware of its significance because most power brokers believed that the Franz von Papen-Paul von Hindenburg-Alfred Hugenberg alliance would be able to control Hitler. As is repeatedly pointed out in the narrative it was just another example of people underestimating the new German Chancellor. When examining if there were opportunities to stop Hitler’s ascent, Ullrich recapitulates the ideas of Karl Dietrich Bracher’s THE GERMAN DICTATORSHIP published in 1972. Further, no one should have been surprised by Hitler’s actions after he rose to power, because his speeches, other public utterances, and his book MEIN KAMPF carefully delineated what he proposed to do.
In the realm of what he did do it is carefully reconstructed in the chapters, “Totalitarian Revolution,” and “Eviscerating Versailles.” After achieving power on January 30, 1933 over the next year we witness the Nazi consolidation of power through the creation of the first concentration camp at Dachau; the passage of the Enabling Act, or “The Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Reich,” which was used to create a dictatorship in the hands of the Chancellor as Hitler could now formulate laws without the approval of the Reichstag; and lastly, The Night of the Long Knives which destroyed the SA and the last vestige of political opposition. As far as Hitler’s foreign policy was concerned the enemy was the Bolshevik-Jewish conspiracy and the key to its destruction was the step by step dismantling of the Treaty of Versailles. Ullrich takes us through this process and the tactic Hitler employed throughout the period was to simultaneously appear as conciliatory and presenting his adversaries with a fait accompli, i.e., German military rearmament and the occupation of the Rhineland in March, 1936. The response of the west was one of appeasement and Hitler recreated a strategy that worked so effectively domestically – implementing policy that fostered foreign diplomats to underestimate him. Overall, there is little that is new in this part of the narrative, but Ullrich’s clear analysis and Jefferson Chase’s excellent translation make events and policies easy to understand, particularly the historical implications that would result in World War II.
After reading Ullrich’s narrative I am not certain he has met his goal of “humanizing” Hitler because no matter how the material is presented he remains the historical monster that his actions and belief system support. To Ullrich’s credit he has written a carefully constructed biography that should be seen as the most comprehensive biography of Hitler to date, and I look forward to the second volume that will carry us through the end of World War II.
*To explore Hitler from a psychological perspective you might consult:
Binion, Rudolph. HITLER AMONG THE GERMANS
Langer, Walter. THE MIND OF ADOLF HITLER
Waite, Robert. HITLER: THE PSYCHOPATHIC GOD
Many wonder what the keys were to Hitler’s success. Ullrich correctly depicts a man who was able to conceal his real intentions from friends and foes alike as one of the keys to his success. He had the ability to instantly analyze political situations and exploit them, including his political opposition. His success rests on his improvisational style of leadership where he created numerous internal conflicts from which he emerged as the indispensable man. Ullrich breaks the myth that Hitler lacked personal relationships arguing that he was able to separate his political and private spheres which impacted his pursuit of power greatly. Another key that Ullrich stresses in understanding Hitler is examining the reciprocal nature of his relationship with the German people that contributed to his enormous popularity. It was not a forgone conclusion that Hitler would come to power, but domestic opposition leaders underestimated his abilities, as would foreign leaders after he consolidated power in 1934. Ullrich’s aim “is to deconstruct the myth of Hitler, the ‘fascination with monstrosity’ that has greatly influenced historical literature and public discussion of the Fuhrer after 1945. In a sense, Hitler will he ‘normalised’—although this will not make him seem more ‘normal.’ If anything, he will emerge as even more horrific.”
Ullrich’s study is extremely comprehensive. He does not spend a great deal of time concerning Hitler’s childhood and upbringing, just enough to explore a few myths associated with Hitler’s childhood which he debunks, i.e.; he did not grow up in poverty as his father Alois had a good pension; he did not blame the Jews for the death of his mother from cancer; and he did not blame the Jews for his inability to be admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts The biography becomes detailed as the Ullrich explores the effect Fin-de-Siècle Austria on Hitler and the author does an excellent job reviewing the historiography pertaining to Hitler’s intellectual development. Hitler is presented as an autodidact who was self-educated which explains how he acquired his anti-Semitic prejudices and German nationalist ideas. But it is Hitler’s experience in World War I that shaped the man, without which he would have remained “a nobody” with pretensions of being an artist.
Ullrich’s work successfully shifts the focus of his study on to Hitler the person as is evidenced by an excellent chapter, “Hitler the Human Being.” It is here that Ullrich delves into Hitler’s behavior and personality and tries to lift the mask that makes it difficult to penetrate Hitler’s shifting persona. Hitler’s personality is a compilation of dichotomies.* He was a dictator who kept people at a distance, but sought company to avoid being alone with himself. He could be caring and empathetic at times, but at the same time he could commit or order brutal acts. Ullrich is correct in pointing out that Hitler was an actor and chameleon who was able to manipulate others who did not see through him as he overcame his personal insecurities and was able to shift many of them on to the German people in order to seize power.
Other important chapters include “Month of Destiny: January 1933,” where Ullrich details Hitler’s path to the Chancellorship by taking the reader through the numerous elections, the strategies pursued by Hitler and his cohorts, the approach taken by the opposition, and the political infighting on all sides of the political spectrum. January 30, 1933 became the turning point in the history of the twentieth century, but at the time Ullrich correctly points out leaders and the German public were not totally aware of its significance because most power brokers believed that the Franz von Papen-Paul von Hindenburg-Alfred Hugenberg alliance would be able to control Hitler. As is repeatedly pointed out in the narrative it was just another example of people underestimating the new German Chancellor. When examining if there were opportunities to stop Hitler’s ascent, Ullrich recapitulates the ideas of Karl Dietrich Bracher’s THE GERMAN DICTATORSHIP published in 1972. Further, no one should have been surprised by Hitler’s actions after he rose to power, because his speeches, other public utterances, and his book MEIN KAMPF carefully delineated what he proposed to do.
In the realm of what he did do it is carefully reconstructed in the chapters, “Totalitarian Revolution,” and “Eviscerating Versailles.” After achieving power on January 30, 1933 over the next year we witness the Nazi consolidation of power through the creation of the first concentration camp at Dachau; the passage of the Enabling Act, or “The Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Reich,” which was used to create a dictatorship in the hands of the Chancellor as Hitler could now formulate laws without the approval of the Reichstag; and lastly, The Night of the Long Knives which destroyed the SA and the last vestige of political opposition. As far as Hitler’s foreign policy was concerned the enemy was the Bolshevik-Jewish conspiracy and the key to its destruction was the step by step dismantling of the Treaty of Versailles. Ullrich takes us through this process and the tactic Hitler employed throughout the period was to simultaneously appear as conciliatory and presenting his adversaries with a fait accompli, i.e., German military rearmament and the occupation of the Rhineland in March, 1936. The response of the west was one of appeasement and Hitler recreated a strategy that worked so effectively domestically – implementing policy that fostered foreign diplomats to underestimate him. Overall, there is little that is new in this part of the narrative, but Ullrich’s clear analysis and Jefferson Chase’s excellent translation make events and policies easy to understand, particularly the historical implications that would result in World War II.
After reading Ullrich’s narrative I am not certain he has met his goal of “humanizing” Hitler because no matter how the material is presented he remains the historical monster that his actions and belief system support. To Ullrich’s credit he has written a carefully constructed biography that should be seen as the most comprehensive biography of Hitler to date, and I look forward to the second volume that will carry us through the end of World War II.
*To explore Hitler from a psychological perspective you might consult:
Binion, Rudolph. HITLER AMONG THE GERMANS
Langer, Walter. THE MIND OF ADOLF HITLER
Waite, Robert. HITLER: THE PSYCHOPATHIC GOD
February 10, 2017
This is a review of the hardcover, not the audio. This is the third of the 4 major Hitler bios that I've read. In some strange way, the appalling story never gets old. Ullrich is a very good writer with an instinct for the telling details and where to put them. Despite that, I could only read the book in twenty or thirty page chunks. It's just too depressing - how lucky Hitler was, how many times his way could have been blocked forever but was not, the disgusting character of the other top Nazis (none of whom had anything like his talent for rousing and organizing a mass movement, meaning if Hitler had been stopped it's quite possible the whole movement would have collapsed). And then there's the behavior of the German people, the consequences of which are still with them - and us. I look forward to book 2, where justice - way too little and way too late - was done.
February 7, 2017
Highly readable yet excruciatingly detailed account of Hitler's rise to power. Volker Ullrich is both a historian and a journalist, and it shows, since he makes this one of the most accessible 'serious' biographies I've ever read.
Like everyone who's taken GCSE History, I know the bullet points of pre-WW2 Germany: how Hitler was a frustrated artist, the Beer Hall putsch, Night of the Long Knives, Kristallnacht, "peace in our time", etc. This book turns them into a story that makes sense.
What's unusual about this book is how much we know about Hitler's movements, plans, intentions, and even private words on a day by day, and hour by hour, basis. At times it feels like half of his inner circle kept diaries about current events; but Ullrich always carefully chooses the briefest yet most powerful quotes, and translates them into informal English. As a result, everything feels incredibly real.
Of course, it's impossible to avoid drawing comparisons to Trump. Hitler, like Trump, was continually underestimated and had a huge inferiority complex. I suppose time will tell, but the one good piece of news is that Hitler seems a hell of a lot smarter than Trump. Unfortunately, Trump and the Republicans show a disturbing inclination to do away with the rule of law because they feel they have the popular will behind them, or due to some kind of emergency situation. This biography shows just how far that tendency can take us.
Like everyone who's taken GCSE History, I know the bullet points of pre-WW2 Germany: how Hitler was a frustrated artist, the Beer Hall putsch, Night of the Long Knives, Kristallnacht, "peace in our time", etc. This book turns them into a story that makes sense.
What's unusual about this book is how much we know about Hitler's movements, plans, intentions, and even private words on a day by day, and hour by hour, basis. At times it feels like half of his inner circle kept diaries about current events; but Ullrich always carefully chooses the briefest yet most powerful quotes, and translates them into informal English. As a result, everything feels incredibly real.
Of course, it's impossible to avoid drawing comparisons to Trump. Hitler, like Trump, was continually underestimated and had a huge inferiority complex. I suppose time will tell, but the one good piece of news is that Hitler seems a hell of a lot smarter than Trump. Unfortunately, Trump and the Republicans show a disturbing inclination to do away with the rule of law because they feel they have the popular will behind them, or due to some kind of emergency situation. This biography shows just how far that tendency can take us.
October 28, 2016
The first volume (with a second volume to follow) of Volker Ullrich's new biography of Hitler is very good. There are lots of Hitler biographies out there and this one is comparable to the greats, such as Kershaw's two volume work. Why the need for a new Hitler bio? Ullrich addresses this himself in the introduction - he has some new sources to tap and there is such interest that new generations need to be reintroduced this is very strange man. In part, the topic is fascinating. Besides Jesus, this is likely the most written about man ever, and his rule really did reshape the world. ... but this could lead to bad new biographies just as easily to good ones. The strength of the book comes from how Ullrich, an accomplished historian and journalist, has approached Hitler. On the one hand, the life is told as it unfolds, with Hitler moving through stages, during which he makes choices and acts, with consequences that shape what comes next. Along with this traditional way to construct a story, Ullrich also writes his book with an acknowledgement of his unique subject that looks back over the whole story to identify the origins of what Hitler became. So for example, when does the monstrous anti-semite Hitler first display himself? When did his speaking capabilities arise? When did his caution give rise to world threatening arrogance and brinksmanship? The result is a complex story, with lots of details, but a really compelling account. Ullrich also trades off between sequential story telling (typical in a bio) and a topical treatment of key issues, such as Hitler's personal life or his evolving strategy towards organized religion in Germany. The result is a view of Hitler has having arrived on the scene more or less developed by the mid-1920s. This is also a view that highlights Hitler as an exceptional actor/liar who could present many faces to the world and could jump in and out of different roles with relative ease.
In developing this complex view of Hitler the leader, Ullrich also emphasizes how the led were actually led - how Hitler managed his party and his regime. The disorder of Nazi rule has long been recognized by such historians as Bracher, and Ullrich makes Hitler's presentational multi-tasking and his "divide and conquer" management style as central to his success. This is a very enlightening book because of these perspectives and how Ullrich ties them together. I cannot wait until the second volume is written and translated. The first volume takes us up to the outbreak of World War II.
I can only touch on the book's richness here. For example, I just finished a new book on TE Lawrence (Lawrence in Arabia) followed by Lawrence's memoirs. The comparison between Hitler and Lawrence at different times is obvious. They were born within a year of each other (Lawrence was older.) Both were shaped by disenchantment following WW1, although in very different ways. Both thrived in combat but were more unsettled by peace. Both were cultural outsiders seeking new and somewhat adopted identities with somewhat mixed success - the Austrian who would be German and the British Oxford grad who identified more with the Arabs than with England. The legacy of both was shaped by their writings and both became very public constructed persons while individual behind the public persona remains a bit unclear for both to this day. I could go on.
That is only the first comparison that comes to mind. I am sure there are more.
This book gained some notoriety from a recent NYT review that seemed to tie Hitler to the current US election cycle and one of the candidates. A careful reading of the review, which I strongly recommend, shows a masterful piece of editorial choice in emphasizing aspects of Hitler that appeared to have parallels in a certain candidate. A careful reading of the book, however, will quickly raise some critical dimensions (military experience, relationships with women) where Hitler could hardly be more different than the candidate. That is OK. I never entertained a strict parallel with the candidate - there are fundamental differences. The comparison is a useful one to analyze, even with the significant differences. Ullrich has even written about it, although I suspect he does not mind it - since it might otherwise to sell large numbers of a 1000 page biography. If it gets people to read more history, that is fine with me.
In developing this complex view of Hitler the leader, Ullrich also emphasizes how the led were actually led - how Hitler managed his party and his regime. The disorder of Nazi rule has long been recognized by such historians as Bracher, and Ullrich makes Hitler's presentational multi-tasking and his "divide and conquer" management style as central to his success. This is a very enlightening book because of these perspectives and how Ullrich ties them together. I cannot wait until the second volume is written and translated. The first volume takes us up to the outbreak of World War II.
I can only touch on the book's richness here. For example, I just finished a new book on TE Lawrence (Lawrence in Arabia) followed by Lawrence's memoirs. The comparison between Hitler and Lawrence at different times is obvious. They were born within a year of each other (Lawrence was older.) Both were shaped by disenchantment following WW1, although in very different ways. Both thrived in combat but were more unsettled by peace. Both were cultural outsiders seeking new and somewhat adopted identities with somewhat mixed success - the Austrian who would be German and the British Oxford grad who identified more with the Arabs than with England. The legacy of both was shaped by their writings and both became very public constructed persons while individual behind the public persona remains a bit unclear for both to this day. I could go on.
That is only the first comparison that comes to mind. I am sure there are more.
This book gained some notoriety from a recent NYT review that seemed to tie Hitler to the current US election cycle and one of the candidates. A careful reading of the review, which I strongly recommend, shows a masterful piece of editorial choice in emphasizing aspects of Hitler that appeared to have parallels in a certain candidate. A careful reading of the book, however, will quickly raise some critical dimensions (military experience, relationships with women) where Hitler could hardly be more different than the candidate. That is OK. I never entertained a strict parallel with the candidate - there are fundamental differences. The comparison is a useful one to analyze, even with the significant differences. Ullrich has even written about it, although I suspect he does not mind it - since it might otherwise to sell large numbers of a 1000 page biography. If it gets people to read more history, that is fine with me.
October 20, 2023
The first of a two volume biography of Hitler. Volker Ullrich begins with a thought provoking introduction where he compares the four well known biographers of Hitler (Heiden, Bullock, Fest, Kershaw) and contrasts their work to what will likely become the fifth main body of work on Hitler.
Ullrich has an interesting approach here; he sets out to humanize Adolf Hitler:
"My aim is to deconstruct the myth of Hitler, the 'fascination with monstrosity' that has so greatly influenced historical literature and public discussion of the Führer after 1945. In a sense, Hitler will be 'normalized' -although this will not make him seem more 'normal'If anything, he will emerge as even more horrific."
There is a lot of focus on Hitler's personality, or should we say personalities? He had an uncanny ability to wear different masks in different occasions, and he was particularly good at deception-- at making people think he was well meaning, or even caring at times.
He was extremely complicated, it's one of the things that make his biography so fascinating.
The chapter titled "Hitler and Women" was particularly memorable, and I think it (once again) does away with some of the myths pertaining to his sexuality.
Another chapter, "The Berghof Society and the Führer's Mistress" offered an interesting look at what Hitler was like around people who got a glimpse of the man behind the Godlike image he wanted to portray to the world.
I learned that Hitler didn't know how to swim nor drive, and that he abhorred snow. He liked to sometimes ridicule people by doing impressions, and sometimes would actually fall asleep during his monologues ((his listeners would later act like they hadn't noticed (that must have been funny as hell)).
Ullrich has an interesting approach here; he sets out to humanize Adolf Hitler:
"My aim is to deconstruct the myth of Hitler, the 'fascination with monstrosity' that has so greatly influenced historical literature and public discussion of the Führer after 1945. In a sense, Hitler will be 'normalized' -although this will not make him seem more 'normal'If anything, he will emerge as even more horrific."
There is a lot of focus on Hitler's personality, or should we say personalities? He had an uncanny ability to wear different masks in different occasions, and he was particularly good at deception-- at making people think he was well meaning, or even caring at times.
He was extremely complicated, it's one of the things that make his biography so fascinating.
The chapter titled "Hitler and Women" was particularly memorable, and I think it (once again) does away with some of the myths pertaining to his sexuality.
Another chapter, "The Berghof Society and the Führer's Mistress" offered an interesting look at what Hitler was like around people who got a glimpse of the man behind the Godlike image he wanted to portray to the world.
I learned that Hitler didn't know how to swim nor drive, and that he abhorred snow. He liked to sometimes ridicule people by doing impressions, and sometimes would actually fall asleep during his monologues ((his listeners would later act like they hadn't noticed (that must have been funny as hell)).
July 21, 2024
A landmark biography. The author writes a detailed intimate portrait of his subject and provides the reader with an analysis of previous efforts by other authors to explain his choices of interpretations. This is an absolutely magnificent effort. The research is flawless, the approach original, easy to read. From my experience as a reader of the period I would recommend the books by Shirer The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany and EvansThe Coming of the Third Reich to document the nazi regime and the biography by Ullrich to describe its principal actor.
June 28, 2017
Extremely detailed (maybe a tad too much detail at times). Nonetheless, this book covers Hitler's rise to power and provides analysis into his personal life, relationships with the German people, the churches and his ability to instil a messiah-like faith in his capabilities.
A 750 page tome, where Hitler's early life up to the end of WWI is covered in the first 70 pages. So little is known of his early life. Ullrich's book goes on to show how little is known about Hitler the man. While it is known he was a vegetarian, bohemian, dog lover, art lover, nationalist, autodidact, introvert, moody, chameleon, motivator and strategist, he remains a man of mystery, unpredictability and evil.
If it was not for WWI, Hitler would have probably lived a life of obscurity. If it was not for the political machinations of others, he would never have been Chancellor.
An impressive biography.
A 750 page tome, where Hitler's early life up to the end of WWI is covered in the first 70 pages. So little is known of his early life. Ullrich's book goes on to show how little is known about Hitler the man. While it is known he was a vegetarian, bohemian, dog lover, art lover, nationalist, autodidact, introvert, moody, chameleon, motivator and strategist, he remains a man of mystery, unpredictability and evil.
If it was not for WWI, Hitler would have probably lived a life of obscurity. If it was not for the political machinations of others, he would never have been Chancellor.
An impressive biography.
January 6, 2019
Ullrich’s first volume of his Hitler biography is superb. Perhaps we are now far away from Hitler to be able to see him at least somewhat dispassionately. In this book Hitler the watercolor painter, the soldier, the rabble rouser, the politician, the lover, comes alive. He was a rather pedestrian man, of conventional tastes, but quite cultured and exceptionally smart and tough. He had no friends, only associates and these only inasmuch as they were useful. He was a gifted actor and a master manipulator. He had a remarkably consistent mindset and, in spite of his ability as a liar, he did say what he would do were he given a chance. People gave him the chance. Great story, very well told.
February 6, 2021
Why this Hitler biography?
Other than the fact that it's as readable as the most compelling crime novel and as rewarding as the heartiest literary work, "Ascent" — the first in German historian Volker Ullrich's two-part biography on Adolf Hitler — doesn't make the mistake of viewing Hitler's early years through the lens of the atrocities he was later responsible for.
Ian Kershaw, who penned the last comprehensive biography of Hitler — also two parts, Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris in 1998 and Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis in 2000 — seemed to suggest that, outside of his skills as a demagogue, Hitler was rather unremarkable. Ullrich, by contrast, illustrates Hitler's remarkable talents, not merely as a speaker capable of stirring the masses, but as an actor and a peerless charmer.
Kershaw views Hitler as evil incarnate, and even Hitler's childhood and teenage years are filtered through the reality of the concentration camps.
The Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle: Book 6 contains a 400-page essay on Hitler in which he takes Kershaw to task for this.
"Kershaw's work," Knausgaard writes, "is marred by his describing everything, and I mean everything, about Hitler extremely negatively, even such aspects as relate to his childhood and youth, and if his whole life were tainted by what he would become and do some twenty years later ... as if evil were some core inside him, immutable and irremediable, and thereby an explanation of why things turned out the way they did. Such an understanding of Hitler is immature, and makes Kershaw's books, renowned as the definitive Hitler biography, almost unreadable."
Nothing about Hitler, not even his childhood, is shown by Kershaw and society at large in anything but the darkest of tones. This makes Hitler unique among other historical villains like Stalin and even the biblical Judas as being allowed to be depicted with some nuance.
Of his childhood and early adolescence, Kershaw writes that Hitler had a "indolent and purposeless existence" and "saw fit to do no more than dawdle away his time drawing and dreaming."
At the age of 16, Hitler left school. When he was 18, Hitler's beloved mother, Klara, died. "In these two years," Kershaw writes, "Adolf lived a life of parasitic idleness — funded, provided for, looked after, and cosseted by a doting mother."
In his entire account, Kershaw seeks to depict Hitler at every stage of life in only the most negative possible light. Of this, Knausgaard writes:
"Kershaw and almost two generations with him have condemned Hitler and his entire being as if pointing to his innocence when he was nineteen or twenty-three, or pointing to some of the good qualities he retained throughout his life, where a defense of him and of evil. In actual fact the opposite is true: only his innocence can bring his guilt into relief."
This tendency was on full display last month.
On January 6th, in a speech at the rally in Washington, D.C. that incited the riot at the US Capitol, Republican Congresswoman Mary Miller stated, "Hitler was right on one thing: He said, ‘Whoever has the youth, has the future.’ Our children are being propagandized."
Miller was widely condemned for three of those words: "Hitler was right," because even the timeless expression, "Even a broken clock is right twice a day" doesn't apply when it comes to Hitler, who can never be said to have been "right" about anything.
The word "Right," after all, can both mean to be correct in an upright, moral sense, and to be correct on the answer to a question on a test, for example. The two need not be needlessly conflated.
One can argue that Hitler, like Stalin and, one would presume, the majority of other abhorrent individuals, were "right" at least on occasion. Hitler put forward the idea for the German autobahn, after all, and the need for a car that average German could afford, the "Volkswagen" — literally, the "people's car." Though Hitler was obviously not "right," as in "good" or "moral," when it came to anything.
It is ironic, then, that a politician can be widely derided for saying "Hitler was right on one thing" but that same politician can vote to support fascist policies by a fascist president and the outrage is noticeably absent from the same quarters. A world in which words are criticized more harshly than actions is an upside-down world.
As tired as the comparisons are, you can't read "Ascent" and not be reminded of things of current events taking place under right wing governments in Poland, Brazil, the US, and elsewhere. The tactics of the right have not changed, it's just the degree of honesty that has.
As Ullrich's book makes clear, all Germans needed to do was read "Mein Kampf" (and sales record in Germany at the time show that a majority likely did) and they could see what Hitler wanted to do because he wrote openly of it.
His grotesque, absurd anti-Semitism was on full display both in text and in his frothing speeches, as were his obvious warlike aims. Thus the idea that the majority of Germans were deceived by Hitler must be a myth. There was propaganda, to be sure, but the truth was on the streets, in the vanished Jewish neighbors.
Ullrich provides some fascinating insights. For example, the number of people — particularly women — who were captivated by Hitler's eyes.
"Hitler's eyes were startling and unforgettable," according to Martha Dodd, the daughter of the US Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, after being introduced to Hitler in 1933. "They seemed pale, blue in color, were intense, unwavering, hypnotic."
Hitler also apparently hated it when women wore makeup, dubbing it "war paint."
I also gained a whole new respect for the great German author Thomas Mann, who disdained Hitler from early on.
National Socialism pursued a "politics of the grotesque," Mann wrote, "replete with Salvation Army allures, reflexive mass paroxysms, amusement-park chiming, cries of hallelujah and mantra-like repetition of monotonous slogans until everyone foamed at the mouth."
Thomas Mann's eldest son, Klaus Mann, writes scathingly of Hitler, whom he called "an evil philistine with a hysterically opaque gaze in his pale, swollen visage." The younger Mann describes with particularly hilarity watching Hitler eat one strawberry tart after another in Munich's Carlton tearoom "with half-infantile, half predatory greed."
"It was certainly not very pleasant to sit that close to such a creature," Klaus Mann wrote in his autobiography, "The Turning Point," "but still I could not keep my eyes off the vile mug. I had never found him particularly attractive, neither in pictures nor in person on the illuminated grandstand; but the ugliness I encountered now exceeded all my expectations. The vulgarity of his features was soothing and made me feel better."
Ullrich notes that Hitler's physical reaction caused observers to repeatedly underestimate him and his political skills.
I could go on, but you'd be better off exploring this one on your own. So let me just say that this is the Hitler biography to read given all those that have come before and all those that are yet to come.
I don't see how it could be bettered.
Other than the fact that it's as readable as the most compelling crime novel and as rewarding as the heartiest literary work, "Ascent" — the first in German historian Volker Ullrich's two-part biography on Adolf Hitler — doesn't make the mistake of viewing Hitler's early years through the lens of the atrocities he was later responsible for.
Ian Kershaw, who penned the last comprehensive biography of Hitler — also two parts, Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris in 1998 and Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis in 2000 — seemed to suggest that, outside of his skills as a demagogue, Hitler was rather unremarkable. Ullrich, by contrast, illustrates Hitler's remarkable talents, not merely as a speaker capable of stirring the masses, but as an actor and a peerless charmer.
Kershaw views Hitler as evil incarnate, and even Hitler's childhood and teenage years are filtered through the reality of the concentration camps.
The Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle: Book 6 contains a 400-page essay on Hitler in which he takes Kershaw to task for this.
"Kershaw's work," Knausgaard writes, "is marred by his describing everything, and I mean everything, about Hitler extremely negatively, even such aspects as relate to his childhood and youth, and if his whole life were tainted by what he would become and do some twenty years later ... as if evil were some core inside him, immutable and irremediable, and thereby an explanation of why things turned out the way they did. Such an understanding of Hitler is immature, and makes Kershaw's books, renowned as the definitive Hitler biography, almost unreadable."
Nothing about Hitler, not even his childhood, is shown by Kershaw and society at large in anything but the darkest of tones. This makes Hitler unique among other historical villains like Stalin and even the biblical Judas as being allowed to be depicted with some nuance.
Of his childhood and early adolescence, Kershaw writes that Hitler had a "indolent and purposeless existence" and "saw fit to do no more than dawdle away his time drawing and dreaming."
At the age of 16, Hitler left school. When he was 18, Hitler's beloved mother, Klara, died. "In these two years," Kershaw writes, "Adolf lived a life of parasitic idleness — funded, provided for, looked after, and cosseted by a doting mother."
In his entire account, Kershaw seeks to depict Hitler at every stage of life in only the most negative possible light. Of this, Knausgaard writes:
"Kershaw and almost two generations with him have condemned Hitler and his entire being as if pointing to his innocence when he was nineteen or twenty-three, or pointing to some of the good qualities he retained throughout his life, where a defense of him and of evil. In actual fact the opposite is true: only his innocence can bring his guilt into relief."
This tendency was on full display last month.
On January 6th, in a speech at the rally in Washington, D.C. that incited the riot at the US Capitol, Republican Congresswoman Mary Miller stated, "Hitler was right on one thing: He said, ‘Whoever has the youth, has the future.’ Our children are being propagandized."
Miller was widely condemned for three of those words: "Hitler was right," because even the timeless expression, "Even a broken clock is right twice a day" doesn't apply when it comes to Hitler, who can never be said to have been "right" about anything.
The word "Right," after all, can both mean to be correct in an upright, moral sense, and to be correct on the answer to a question on a test, for example. The two need not be needlessly conflated.
One can argue that Hitler, like Stalin and, one would presume, the majority of other abhorrent individuals, were "right" at least on occasion. Hitler put forward the idea for the German autobahn, after all, and the need for a car that average German could afford, the "Volkswagen" — literally, the "people's car." Though Hitler was obviously not "right," as in "good" or "moral," when it came to anything.
It is ironic, then, that a politician can be widely derided for saying "Hitler was right on one thing" but that same politician can vote to support fascist policies by a fascist president and the outrage is noticeably absent from the same quarters. A world in which words are criticized more harshly than actions is an upside-down world.
As tired as the comparisons are, you can't read "Ascent" and not be reminded of things of current events taking place under right wing governments in Poland, Brazil, the US, and elsewhere. The tactics of the right have not changed, it's just the degree of honesty that has.
As Ullrich's book makes clear, all Germans needed to do was read "Mein Kampf" (and sales record in Germany at the time show that a majority likely did) and they could see what Hitler wanted to do because he wrote openly of it.
His grotesque, absurd anti-Semitism was on full display both in text and in his frothing speeches, as were his obvious warlike aims. Thus the idea that the majority of Germans were deceived by Hitler must be a myth. There was propaganda, to be sure, but the truth was on the streets, in the vanished Jewish neighbors.
Ullrich provides some fascinating insights. For example, the number of people — particularly women — who were captivated by Hitler's eyes.
"Hitler's eyes were startling and unforgettable," according to Martha Dodd, the daughter of the US Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, after being introduced to Hitler in 1933. "They seemed pale, blue in color, were intense, unwavering, hypnotic."
Hitler also apparently hated it when women wore makeup, dubbing it "war paint."
I also gained a whole new respect for the great German author Thomas Mann, who disdained Hitler from early on.
National Socialism pursued a "politics of the grotesque," Mann wrote, "replete with Salvation Army allures, reflexive mass paroxysms, amusement-park chiming, cries of hallelujah and mantra-like repetition of monotonous slogans until everyone foamed at the mouth."
Thomas Mann's eldest son, Klaus Mann, writes scathingly of Hitler, whom he called "an evil philistine with a hysterically opaque gaze in his pale, swollen visage." The younger Mann describes with particularly hilarity watching Hitler eat one strawberry tart after another in Munich's Carlton tearoom "with half-infantile, half predatory greed."
"It was certainly not very pleasant to sit that close to such a creature," Klaus Mann wrote in his autobiography, "The Turning Point," "but still I could not keep my eyes off the vile mug. I had never found him particularly attractive, neither in pictures nor in person on the illuminated grandstand; but the ugliness I encountered now exceeded all my expectations. The vulgarity of his features was soothing and made me feel better."
Ullrich notes that Hitler's physical reaction caused observers to repeatedly underestimate him and his political skills.
I could go on, but you'd be better off exploring this one on your own. So let me just say that this is the Hitler biography to read given all those that have come before and all those that are yet to come.
I don't see how it could be bettered.
June 26, 2021
Adolf Hitler…. That name will forever be remembered for as long as humanity exists. I have always had a fascination with this man, his beliefs, his inner circle, and how people could follow someone like him. There are people who are fascinated with serial killers, and they love reading about them, but don't glorify them; I happen to be interested in dictators like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Lenin, and Mussolini, but I don't glorify them, the same applies to my interest in military history. I’ve always wanted to know the minute details of his life, his beliefs, and I often wonder what made him so firm in his convictions. Volker Ulrich’s book is the first book I’ve really read that is a biography on Adolf Hitlers life. I have been wanting to read Rainer Zeitlemans book on Hitler, but the prices for it have been expensive, so I decided to buy this two-volume set. I am glad I did, because this book really did a great job covering Hitler’s life. I look forward to reading and reviewing the second book.
I feel like this book is a revelation to me, in that it shows me not only how much I thought I knew about Hitler was false, it shows me how much I have not learned many years prior, when I was not reading, but watching documentaries and YouTube videos. As an American, who’s an old hand of the public school, it shows how disastrous the curriculum of history is, and how hyper telecommunication is taking away the intellectual knowledge to be gathered from books.
I learned how the Nazis truly came to power in the Weimar Republic, and how Hitler quickly got rid of all of his opponents. I learned that many Germans did not like the Nazi bureaucracy, but they loved Hitler and thought he would sort it all out for them. Many who were against him eventually saw him as their savior, and they also began to turn a blind eye against the anti-Semitic policies. I also saw how Hitler got bolder after occupying the Rhineland, and how he began to see himself as being led by divine providence. Compare him in 1933, he was a lot more introverted, shy, and when he first met Mussolini, he looked so small; look at him in 1936-1937, he stands tall, he is not introverted, he feels confident, and he begins to push the western allies more and more.
In this book, you get an understanding of the situation for Hitler, and how he ruled Nazi Germany, and didn’t micromanage things like Stalin did, but let his inner circle, and party comrades do work, creating a Darwinist environment where they tried to go to great lengths to please Hitler.
I will not spoil the book anymore, but I hope you get a chance to read it and know what this man was all about.
I feel like this book is a revelation to me, in that it shows me not only how much I thought I knew about Hitler was false, it shows me how much I have not learned many years prior, when I was not reading, but watching documentaries and YouTube videos. As an American, who’s an old hand of the public school, it shows how disastrous the curriculum of history is, and how hyper telecommunication is taking away the intellectual knowledge to be gathered from books.
I learned how the Nazis truly came to power in the Weimar Republic, and how Hitler quickly got rid of all of his opponents. I learned that many Germans did not like the Nazi bureaucracy, but they loved Hitler and thought he would sort it all out for them. Many who were against him eventually saw him as their savior, and they also began to turn a blind eye against the anti-Semitic policies. I also saw how Hitler got bolder after occupying the Rhineland, and how he began to see himself as being led by divine providence. Compare him in 1933, he was a lot more introverted, shy, and when he first met Mussolini, he looked so small; look at him in 1936-1937, he stands tall, he is not introverted, he feels confident, and he begins to push the western allies more and more.
In this book, you get an understanding of the situation for Hitler, and how he ruled Nazi Germany, and didn’t micromanage things like Stalin did, but let his inner circle, and party comrades do work, creating a Darwinist environment where they tried to go to great lengths to please Hitler.
I will not spoil the book anymore, but I hope you get a chance to read it and know what this man was all about.
May 13, 2020
Truly an excellent and detailed book about the life and ascension of Hitler until 1939 !
Highly recommended!
Highly recommended!
Want to read
February 2, 2018
Wenn Sie die Wörter verwenden 'ist er wie' dann alle Änderungen.
Das politische linksgerichtete mag den Ausdruck verwenden: 'er ist wie'.
Das ist sehr nützlich.
(Er mag Juden, und er wird von vielen von ihnen unterstützt)
Tatsächlich ist es eine verschiedene Frisur... ohne Schnurrbart.
Lessons from Hitler’s Rise
Christopher R. Browning
in:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/...
Trump/Hitler comparisons are overstated. How did Hitler actually consolidate power?
By Sebastian Schutte
in: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/m...
November 28, 2020
Outstanding First of a Two Volume Biography
This is an excellent biography of Adolf Hitler in the ascent of his rise rise as Fuhrer. It covers his childhood, trouble in school, attempt at being a painter and his entrance as a soldier in WWI. Later he becomes involved in the government using repeated tropes, that Jews were the cause of the Treaty of Versailles, the problems with the government and working steadily to increase popularity and power. The book goes up to 1939 when he has invaded Czechoslovakia which the author sees as Hitler’s decent. Before that he was fully accepted into Austria and highly popular. Britain and France were allowing Hitler to do whatever he wanted and the German public watched a severe program against Jews that previously would have been brought reactions of horror. Highly recommended.
This is an excellent biography of Adolf Hitler in the ascent of his rise rise as Fuhrer. It covers his childhood, trouble in school, attempt at being a painter and his entrance as a soldier in WWI. Later he becomes involved in the government using repeated tropes, that Jews were the cause of the Treaty of Versailles, the problems with the government and working steadily to increase popularity and power. The book goes up to 1939 when he has invaded Czechoslovakia which the author sees as Hitler’s decent. Before that he was fully accepted into Austria and highly popular. Britain and France were allowing Hitler to do whatever he wanted and the German public watched a severe program against Jews that previously would have been brought reactions of horror. Highly recommended.
May 30, 2020
This must have been the most compulsive book that I have ever read. Normally with a biography of this size there is some part that you just want to get through to get to the more exciting sections but that never happened at all with this. The whole thing was fascinating and unbelievably thorough in covering subjects from all angles. There must have been a huge amount of research involved.
I knew the gist of the subject matter but this book was difference in that it really shows you Hitler as a person and not just some sort of inhuman monster. That makes it very unsettling.
In terms of what I have learnt from it, the number of opportunities for Hitler’s rise to be stopped was one aspect, as was the complicity of thousands/millions/almost a whole race. Descriptions of the Nuremberg rallies were particularly disturbing. It all feels like one continuous spiral of evil getting more and more out of control until no one could stop it. The book ends with Hitler’s 50th birthday just before the invasion of Poland and the start of the Second World War. It is clear that by then the German people didn’t want to go to war again but could do nothing to stop it.
Everyone needs to read this and its recently published sequel ( I’m taking a short break before starting that to catch up on sleep and work which reading this seriously interferes with!). We need to make sure that it never happens again and after reading this I’m not as sure about that as I was before especially when we are in similar conditions of economic depression and rising nationalism which were necessary parts of Hitler’s rise from an unemployed loser to a kind of national demi-god.
I knew the gist of the subject matter but this book was difference in that it really shows you Hitler as a person and not just some sort of inhuman monster. That makes it very unsettling.
In terms of what I have learnt from it, the number of opportunities for Hitler’s rise to be stopped was one aspect, as was the complicity of thousands/millions/almost a whole race. Descriptions of the Nuremberg rallies were particularly disturbing. It all feels like one continuous spiral of evil getting more and more out of control until no one could stop it. The book ends with Hitler’s 50th birthday just before the invasion of Poland and the start of the Second World War. It is clear that by then the German people didn’t want to go to war again but could do nothing to stop it.
Everyone needs to read this and its recently published sequel ( I’m taking a short break before starting that to catch up on sleep and work which reading this seriously interferes with!). We need to make sure that it never happens again and after reading this I’m not as sure about that as I was before especially when we are in similar conditions of economic depression and rising nationalism which were necessary parts of Hitler’s rise from an unemployed loser to a kind of national demi-god.
December 1, 2016
So much has been written about Hitler that I confess that I was of the opinion that a book of this size would be mired down with boring expatiating writing and endless copious footnote references: Otherwise, I thought, how could the book contain 758 pages. How could such a book be interesting? But the book does contain much information that has not collectively appeared in other related books I have read about Hitler and it is a fascinating read (I cheated by buying the audible and hardcover versions-- I travel for work a lot). All of the common biographical data about the man, political history of Germany, and description of the multiple parties in power are covered. One might wonder how a man with no wealth or apparent political sway could rise to ultimate power in an advanced country such as Germany. Ulrich does an excellent job explaining the unique geopolitical and antisemitic realities existing in Germany before and during Hitler's rise to power: It was the perfect storm. The chapters I felt were the most interesting dealt with Hitler's woman, and in particular, his attraction to and “mentoring” of young girls (not as intellectually challenging to him, it seems) and ultimately to Eva Braun, who ironically, exercised some control over him until his death. This book keeps your attention and is well documented at the same time. You will learn things about Hitler that you didn't know in this book. I highly recommend it.
February 17, 2017
This is a difficult book to rate. It is obviously an incredibly detailed look at the life of Hitler and his rise to power up to the German takeover of Czechoslovakia. The problem for me was the details. They were overwhelming. There were hundreds, if not thousands of names in this that I did not recognize and had a hard time following. At some points it felt as if this book was dealing with issues one day or one week at a time. It also focused almost exclusively on Hitler. Many history books would take a few pages as an aside to introduce important side figures. That was not the case here.
With all of that said, the story is fascinating. The knowledge of the author is simply incredible. I learned a great deal and feel like I have a deep understanding of the Hitler of the 1920s and 1930s. In terms of the history presented, this rating should be 5 stars. I gave it 4 stars because I just had a hard time slugging through many parts of it.
With all of that said, the story is fascinating. The knowledge of the author is simply incredible. I learned a great deal and feel like I have a deep understanding of the Hitler of the 1920s and 1930s. In terms of the history presented, this rating should be 5 stars. I gave it 4 stars because I just had a hard time slugging through many parts of it.
September 16, 2020
I've read a few Hitler biographies over the years, most notably those by Alan Bullock and Ian Kershaw, but this one sounded like it broke new ground so I thought I'd give it a go. It's excellent, sober and detailed while still managing to be extremely readable.
Earlier biographies, understandably anxious to avoid burnishing the myth, have tended to underplay Hitler's talents, leading the reader to wonder how such a mediocre and repulsive nobody came to wield such power. Ullrich is scrupulous in showing how Hitler did indeed possess outstanding gifts of oratory and persuasion, and, particularly in the early years, simply played the game of politics better than his opponents. Another controversy in Hitler studies is to do with just how sincere Hitler's antisemitism was, with some biographers suggesting that he was never really that bothered and merely used antisemitism as a useful tool. Ullrich explodes that notion once and for all, and in doing so removes a large part of the "They didn't know what they were voting for" alibi.
This first volume takes the story up to 1939, with a second volume covering the war years. The basic account of the Nazis' rise to power is interspersed with chapters covering topics such as Hitler's personality, his relations with women and his work habits. The penultimate chapter "Prelude to Genocide" made my blood run cold.
Earlier biographies, understandably anxious to avoid burnishing the myth, have tended to underplay Hitler's talents, leading the reader to wonder how such a mediocre and repulsive nobody came to wield such power. Ullrich is scrupulous in showing how Hitler did indeed possess outstanding gifts of oratory and persuasion, and, particularly in the early years, simply played the game of politics better than his opponents. Another controversy in Hitler studies is to do with just how sincere Hitler's antisemitism was, with some biographers suggesting that he was never really that bothered and merely used antisemitism as a useful tool. Ullrich explodes that notion once and for all, and in doing so removes a large part of the "They didn't know what they were voting for" alibi.
This first volume takes the story up to 1939, with a second volume covering the war years. The basic account of the Nazis' rise to power is interspersed with chapters covering topics such as Hitler's personality, his relations with women and his work habits. The penultimate chapter "Prelude to Genocide" made my blood run cold.
January 14, 2017
Strange as it sounds, I'd been looking for a biography last year that covered the rise of Hitler–not the war years, but the years of his coming to power. In our current events climate in which authoritarianism took a higher profile, this historical context seemed worthwhile, even if there was not a direct correlation between Hitler and current events.
I researched a few titles and didn't feel they were quite what I was looking for, so the NY Times review of "Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939" (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/bo...) immediately piqued my interest.
Ullrich has conducted extensive research (the content of the book ends at 64% on the Kindle edition, and about 35% of the book is notes and bibliography). The bibliography is sorted into (at least) primary and secondary sources. Ullrich has been careful not to sensationalize Hitler, and in fact, debunks or downplays some of the legend around the dictator.
I definitely learned things about German and world history from World War I and the 1920s. I also picked up warnings for the modern day to avoid repeating history.
Tidbits like:
• “His speeches typically began with a look back at “wonderful, flourishing Germany ... This idealised vision of the past allowed Hitler to paint the present day in hues that were all the darker.”
• “the beer-cellar rabble-rouser, who liked to depict himself as a man of the people, in fact despised the masses, which he regarded as nothing more than a tool to be manipulated to achieve his political ambitions.”
• “conspiracy theory had become a stock element of ethnic-chauvinistic German propaganda”
• “Hitler was the one attracting the desire for religious awakening and salvation of those who had fallen down the social ladder or who feared they might be about to.”
• “Fed by those tendencies and carried by a ‘gigantic wave of eccentric barbarism and primitive, populist fairground barking,’ National Socialism pursued ‘a politics of the grotesque…replete with Salvation Army allures, reflexive mass paroxysms, amusement-park chiming, cries of hallelujah and mantra-like repetition of monotonous slogans until everyone foamed at the mouth.’”
• “attempts to depict the NSDAP leader as ridiculous could not combat the phenomenon of Adolf Hitler. Nor did they undermine the tendency of his supporters to see him as the national saviour.”
I also noted many, many passages about the use of religious symbolism and language and the appeal of a political savior, along with the role of the religious community in Hitler's rise. “Hitler was enough of a realist to see that he could never come to power without support from Christian voters.” And how support for Hitler was an issue of belief. When someone believed in Hitler, they could not be rationally argued with.
Then there's the warnings against ethno-nationalism. “Thimme branded the attitude of the Protestant Church ‘towards this organised hatred, murder and forced expulsion’ as ‘simply shameful. How can God’s blessing be upon a movement that is a slap in the face to the simplest and clearest tenets of Christianity?’ he asked in May 1933. ‘The Church has an absolute duty to repeatedly raise a voice of caution and warning about all the injustice coming down from above.’”
Though long, the book reads very well. It was written in German and translated, so there's an occasional strange word or syntax, but only in an endearing way. In fact, there were some great lines. My favorite was “pursuing his goal with the single-mindedness of a sleepwalker.”
The book assumed more understanding of the structure and politics of Germany than I had, but it was a barrier that could be easily overcome.
Bottom line: A study of Hitler may not be enjoyable, but it's worth understanding such a dark time in history. This is an in-depth, readable account. As such, I suggest it.
I researched a few titles and didn't feel they were quite what I was looking for, so the NY Times review of "Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939" (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/bo...) immediately piqued my interest.
Ullrich has conducted extensive research (the content of the book ends at 64% on the Kindle edition, and about 35% of the book is notes and bibliography). The bibliography is sorted into (at least) primary and secondary sources. Ullrich has been careful not to sensationalize Hitler, and in fact, debunks or downplays some of the legend around the dictator.
I definitely learned things about German and world history from World War I and the 1920s. I also picked up warnings for the modern day to avoid repeating history.
Tidbits like:
• “His speeches typically began with a look back at “wonderful, flourishing Germany ... This idealised vision of the past allowed Hitler to paint the present day in hues that were all the darker.”
• “the beer-cellar rabble-rouser, who liked to depict himself as a man of the people, in fact despised the masses, which he regarded as nothing more than a tool to be manipulated to achieve his political ambitions.”
• “conspiracy theory had become a stock element of ethnic-chauvinistic German propaganda”
• “Hitler was the one attracting the desire for religious awakening and salvation of those who had fallen down the social ladder or who feared they might be about to.”
• “Fed by those tendencies and carried by a ‘gigantic wave of eccentric barbarism and primitive, populist fairground barking,’ National Socialism pursued ‘a politics of the grotesque…replete with Salvation Army allures, reflexive mass paroxysms, amusement-park chiming, cries of hallelujah and mantra-like repetition of monotonous slogans until everyone foamed at the mouth.’”
• “attempts to depict the NSDAP leader as ridiculous could not combat the phenomenon of Adolf Hitler. Nor did they undermine the tendency of his supporters to see him as the national saviour.”
I also noted many, many passages about the use of religious symbolism and language and the appeal of a political savior, along with the role of the religious community in Hitler's rise. “Hitler was enough of a realist to see that he could never come to power without support from Christian voters.” And how support for Hitler was an issue of belief. When someone believed in Hitler, they could not be rationally argued with.
Then there's the warnings against ethno-nationalism. “Thimme branded the attitude of the Protestant Church ‘towards this organised hatred, murder and forced expulsion’ as ‘simply shameful. How can God’s blessing be upon a movement that is a slap in the face to the simplest and clearest tenets of Christianity?’ he asked in May 1933. ‘The Church has an absolute duty to repeatedly raise a voice of caution and warning about all the injustice coming down from above.’”
Though long, the book reads very well. It was written in German and translated, so there's an occasional strange word or syntax, but only in an endearing way. In fact, there were some great lines. My favorite was “pursuing his goal with the single-mindedness of a sleepwalker.”
The book assumed more understanding of the structure and politics of Germany than I had, but it was a barrier that could be easily overcome.
Bottom line: A study of Hitler may not be enjoyable, but it's worth understanding such a dark time in history. This is an in-depth, readable account. As such, I suggest it.
November 6, 2016
Not a pleasant or enjoyable subject to read about, but I think it is absolutely critical to understand, right here and right now, exactly how a raving maniac was able to subvert an elected government and seize absolute power. I'm hoping the US will be lucky this time, but bear in mind, it took Hitler a couple tries before he was successful.
Absolutely stunning historical biography. Ullrich has digested all of the primary and secondary sources and produced not just a gripping narrative of Hitler's rise to power, but a deep cultural analysis of the people, cities, environment, and social-governmental structures that led to the rise of Hitler and Nazism. There is so much detail in this book that it is difficult to isolate what is most striking about the book--it's all remarkable, and I learned something new on almost every page. There are two things, though, that stood out for me:
The author makes brilliant use of the primary sources to tell the story for him. There were a couple in particular that stood out for me. Viktor Klemperor's journals are quoted extensively, and I had read some excerpts from his diaries that were published in English several years ago. Ullrich also quoted extensively from the diaries of Count Harry Kessler, particularly from volume 9, which covers the events in the thirties when Hitler seized and subsequently completed his absolute grip on power. A few years ago a substantial selection of Kessler's diaries was published in English, but unfortunately, the selections only went up to 1918. I hope the publisher gets around to publishing more.
I was also struck by the chapter on Hitler's attempts to subvert both the Protestant and Catholic churches in Germany in the thirties. Because the churches were so firmly entrenched in German culture, he was not able to completely subvert them, at least in the thirties. This appears to be one of the very few areas where Hitler was not able to achieve complete and total control, and that was new and surprising to me.
The book is vast and extremely detailed, and I would recommend it highly to anyone interested in the era. The narrative is powerful, but more importantly, the careful and detailed use of the sources was deeply educational. One of my measures of the excellence of any book is how many further books I throw on to my reading list as a result of reading. I added no fewer than five books to my to-read pile as a result of reading Ullrich, and I'm sure I will find a few more as I review my notes on the book. Highly recommended.
Absolutely stunning historical biography. Ullrich has digested all of the primary and secondary sources and produced not just a gripping narrative of Hitler's rise to power, but a deep cultural analysis of the people, cities, environment, and social-governmental structures that led to the rise of Hitler and Nazism. There is so much detail in this book that it is difficult to isolate what is most striking about the book--it's all remarkable, and I learned something new on almost every page. There are two things, though, that stood out for me:
The author makes brilliant use of the primary sources to tell the story for him. There were a couple in particular that stood out for me. Viktor Klemperor's journals are quoted extensively, and I had read some excerpts from his diaries that were published in English several years ago. Ullrich also quoted extensively from the diaries of Count Harry Kessler, particularly from volume 9, which covers the events in the thirties when Hitler seized and subsequently completed his absolute grip on power. A few years ago a substantial selection of Kessler's diaries was published in English, but unfortunately, the selections only went up to 1918. I hope the publisher gets around to publishing more.
I was also struck by the chapter on Hitler's attempts to subvert both the Protestant and Catholic churches in Germany in the thirties. Because the churches were so firmly entrenched in German culture, he was not able to completely subvert them, at least in the thirties. This appears to be one of the very few areas where Hitler was not able to achieve complete and total control, and that was new and surprising to me.
The book is vast and extremely detailed, and I would recommend it highly to anyone interested in the era. The narrative is powerful, but more importantly, the careful and detailed use of the sources was deeply educational. One of my measures of the excellence of any book is how many further books I throw on to my reading list as a result of reading. I added no fewer than five books to my to-read pile as a result of reading Ullrich, and I'm sure I will find a few more as I review my notes on the book. Highly recommended.
March 18, 2018
Gerhard Weinberg wrote of the "30 years European civil war" in reference to the first and second World Wars. It becomes apparent Gavrilo Princip's murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand set in motion events unbound in their specter. Simply put, without the Great War and its ramifications the rise of Hitler is a near impossibility. The details of which are explored in this deeply sourced and well-written biography by Volker Ullrich. The only thing I can say for sure about this book is that while historical events may seem to us a march towards inevitability, it makes it no less tense reading about how they unfolded.
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