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Hitler, April 2012
Hardcover / e-Book
Basic Books
April 2012
On Sale: March 27, 2012
244 pages
ISBN: 0465031285
EAN: 9780465031283
Kindle: B007ILBZ0S
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Biography
A ruthless dictator who saved his country from economic ruin
only to nearly destroy it—and an entire people—in his quest
for world domination, Adolf Hitler forever changed the
course of history. In this masterful account of Hitler’s
life, biographer A.N. Wilson pulls back the curtain to
reveal the man behind the mythic figure, shedding new light
on Hitler’s personality, his desires, and his complex
relationship with the German people. While Hitler maintained that his life had been characterized
by “struggle” from its very beginnings, Wilson shows that
the reality could not have been more different. Hitler grew
up in middle-class comfort and, as a young man, lacked
ambitions of any sort besides a vaguely bohemian desire to
become an artist. And while the Hitlerian mythos holds that
he forged his skills as a leader during the First World War,
Wilson explains the truth: Hitler spent most of the war as
an office boy miles from the front lines, and only received
his cherished Iron Cross because of his slavishness to the
officers he served. The army gave him a sense of purpose and
brotherhood, however, which continued to inspire Hitler once
the war ended. Hitler left the army with no skills, contacts, or money—and
yet, within fourteen years, he would become chancellor of
the German nation. Wilson describes the story of Hitler’s
ascent as one of both opportunism and sheer political
shrewdness. He possessed no real understanding of the
workings of government but had a prodigious knack for public
speaking, and found that a large number of Germans,
despairing at their country’s recent defeat and terrified by
the specter of international communism, were willing to
listen to the right-wing fantasies that had taken root
inside his head. Allying himself with the extremist German
Workers’ Party (soon renamed the National Socialist Party),
Hitler offered many Germans a seductive vision of how the
country might raise itself back up and reclaim its rightful
place at the center of world politics. Wilson shows that, although Hitler’s bid for power stalled
at first, he soon gained traction with a German public
starved for hope. Using his skills as a manipulator, Hitler
found himself first at the head of the Nazi Party, then at
the helm of the German nation. Wilson explores the forces
that allowed Hitler to become Chancellor of Germany, and
later to march Germany into total war. He examines Hitler’s
increasingly virulent anti-Semitism and his decision to
implement the Final Solution to exterminate European Jews,
and he considers Hitler’s tactical successes—and failures—in
World War II. Wilson also reveals a great deal about how
Hitler’s personal life affected his time as Germany’s
leader, from the lasting pain caused by the death of his
mother and the suicide of his young niece to his poor health
and addiction to the drugs prescribed by his doctor. As
Wilson demonstrates, Hitler the Führer was not so different
from Hitler the bohemian: lazy, moody, and hypersensitive,
he ruled more through intimidation and the mystifying force
of his personality than through any managerial skill or
informed decision-making. His story—and that of Germany—is
ultimately a cautionary tale. In a modern era enamored with
progress, rationality, and modernity, it is often the
darkest and most chaotic elements of society that prove the
most seductive. Hitler’s unlikely rise to power and his uncanny ability to
manipulate his fellow man resulted in the deaths of millions
of Europeans and a horrific world war, yet despite his
colossal role in world history, he remains mythologized and,
as a result, misunderstood. In Hitler, A.N. Wilson limns
this mysterious figure with great verve and acuity, showing
that it was Hitler’s frightening normalcy—not some
otherworldly evilness—that makes him so truly terrifying.
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