Customer Reviews

Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This superb book draws the reader closer to understanding this historically enigmatic and often bizarre human being who so changed the world of the 20th century. Although there are a myriad of such books that have appeared in the half-century since Hitler's demise in the dust and rubble of Berlin, this particular effort, which draws from hundreds of secondary sources, many of which have never before been cited, paints an authentic and masterful portrait of Hitler as an individual. This is an absolutely singular historical work; and it will almost certainly displace other, older tomes as the standard text on the early life and rise of Adolph Hitler.

Although I must confess that I intensely dislike reading through the early years of most biographies as depicted in so many other treatments of famous individuals, I loved reading this particular book. Kershaw takes a quite different and novel approach, and it is one I enjoyed. Here, by carefully locating and fixing the individual in the context and welter of his times, it yields a much more enlightening approach toward painting a meaningful comprehensive picture of how a neglected and conflicted boy meaningfully became such a terribly flawed and troubled man. Thus, we see the boy grow and change in whatever fashion into a man, tracing the rise of this troubled malcontent from the anonymity of Viennese shelters to a fiery and meteoric rise into politics, culminating in his ascent to rule Germany. Kershaw memorably recreates the social, economic, and political circumstances that bent and twisted Hitler so fatefully for the history of the world.

Hitler was, in Kershaw's estimation, a man most representative of his times, reflecting a widespread disaffection with democratic politics, steeped in the virulent anti-Semitism of his Viennese environment, twisted and experienced in the cruelties and absurdities of the First World War, thrust by circumstance and disposition into the sectarian, dyspeptic, and rough & tumble politics of the 1920s, and rising by finding himself the most unlikely of politicians with an unusual ability to orate and emote. It is also interesting to discover that Hitler had an unusually acute (though uneven) intellect, is rumored to have possesed a 'photographic memory', and was said to have an amazing ability to discuss and quote facts and figures and then subsequently casually weave them into a conversation that witnesses found spellbinding and convincing. He was also unquestionably quite charismatic and charming.

From the beginning Kershaw argues it is impossible to understand `why' Hitler without understanding this extremely toxic and strange combination of social, economic, and cultural factors that characterized Germany in the post-war era. Thus, by the time he begins his ineluctable rise to power, we much better understand both `how' and `why' such a seemingly unlikely cast of characters as the Nazis succeeded so wildly beyond what one would expect to be possible in a sane and sophisticated modern industrial state.

This is fascinating stuff, as is his treatment of the concomitant rise of the slugs, thugs, and under-life accompanying him into the corridors of power and influence. Here is the world's greatest single collection of otherwise underachieving bullies, fanatics, pseudo-intellectuals, and fellow travelers, who clashed into an uneasy coalescence that formed the nucleus of the single greatest force for collective evil seen in the modern world. One's mind reels at the scene at the book's conclusion, as the newly formed Nazi power structure begins applying the progressively strangulating neck-lock on Germany's Jews, religious leaders, and other `malcontents'. I await the publication of volume two of this effort with eager anticipation. Enjoy!

Through Ian Kershaw's masterful use of all available sources, including primary and secondary source material he has put together a most intriguing study on one of the many men that shaped the 20th century. From a small Austrian village to the promulgation of the Nuremberg laws, this book takes the reader through Hitler's rise to power - one of epic proportions.

Kershaw's keen sense of understanding mixed with detailed research has brought forth a well documented book; one that's beautifully laid out and easy to use as a research tool. The chapters, "list of works cited" along with "notes" help the reader to go back into the annals of history to locate the material used in this work. This work outlines his beginnings and uses previously unpublished material to take you into the minds of those closest to him.

Hitler was a masterful speaker and used his talents to build up the citizens of Germany giving them what they desired - self worth, obligation and a sense of duty. Germany was crying out to be rescued from a post war depression; so he took the country by the throat and pulled it from the ashes to rise like a majestic phoenix.

Adolf Hitler - a little known corporal from World War I, who believed he survived a mustard gas attack by divine intervention, rose to power and unleashed the might of the German army unto the world.

This book is a remarkable achievement and my hat is off to Mr Kershaw for all his hard work. This is an excellent biography filled with insight!

Ian Kershaw's book is simply exceptional in every way. His grasp of the primary and secondary sources on Hitler and Germany is astonishing. Despite what might appear to be a weighty tome, with thousands of footnotes, Kershaw has organized his material and presented it in elegant prose that drives the Hitler story along at a brisk pace--and draws the reader along too.

Perhaps more impressive than Kershaw's research and writing, is his analysis. The reader will come away from this book with, at this point in time, the most cogent, insightful interpretation one can find of how Hitler came to power. Kershaw brilliantly lays out how Hitler's "belief" system was formed, where it fit into the Germany of Hitler's time, and how Hitler was able to match his talents as a propagandist and mesmerizing speaker to the "needs" of the German people. Kershaw does not accept simplistic explanations about Hitler's rise to power--there was nothing inevitable about it, it was not the "nature" of the German people that produced Hitler, etc. Instead, Kershaw presents a sober, balanced account that clearly lays out in detail the political, economic, and social situation in Germany, the times, and the man--and his luck--all of which led, as he notes in his final setence, Germany into the abyss.

This book does not attempt to sensationalize Hitler. Rather it is an extraordinary piece of scholarship, analysis, and writing--this is the one book about Hitler and Germany that should be read. I look forward with great anticipation to a second volume.

This is a solid but unspectacular study of Hitler--hardly the definitive account trumnpeted by its publisher and by some reviewers here. Many reviewers have commented on how many sources--including primary ones-that the author turns to. I had the opposite reaction. To be sure, there is a huge bibliography and many notes (more on these later)but I saw, as someone trained in history, a lot of padding here. Perhaps more surprising is how frequently Kershaw turns to a handful of works to guide him--and these are almost always secondary ones. For instance, on the question of the role of big business in Hitler's rise to power, Kershaw relies almost exclusively on Turner's Big Business. Maddeningly in the text, (Chapter 10, p. 392 in the paperback version) he writes that on 19 November, "the Reich President (Hindenburg) was handed a petition carrying 20 signatures from businessmen demanding the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor." Yet Kershaw fails to mention who these businessmen were and in the footnote he provides no further information about them, only that the document is printed elsewhere. This is not terribly helpful for the reader. Also, Kershaw relies a great deal on Goebbels notebook accounts of Hitler, sometimes almost exclusively, but Goebbels the supreme sycophant is hardly the most reliable observer.

Returning to the problem of footnotes in Kershaw's study, there is much, much information in the notes that should have been incorporated into the text. For instance, the whole account of the Reichstag fire (weak in the text) is fleshed out in more detail in the footnotes. Numerous other examples of this abound: Kershaw simply has a poor notion of what should be read in the text and what should be in the footnotes. Footnotes should be to document the text not to supplant it.

Perhaps the biggest flaw in this biography--and it is a major one--is that Hitler himself gets lost many times in Kershaw's pages. I have little notion of Hitler the man from these numerous pages--certainly less so than that provided by Toland for instance, who is also a far superior writer. When he does talk about Hitler's personal life, he seems to almost recount it along the lines of Nerin E. Gun's Eva Braun, Hitler's Mistress while only footnoting that source, I think, once. To my mind, Gun provides an essential amount of information into Hitler's psyche that is largely missing in this work. I further believe that Kershaw overemphasizes Hitler's blandness and he underestimates his talents (his superb sense of timing, his ability to read his enemies). Although Hitler undoubtedly was the beneficiary of the economic chaos of his times and the aftermath of WWI, he surely brought more to the table than what Kershaw gives him credit for. All in all, I found this work largely predictable and given its newness, with very few new insights.

The effort to explain Hitler's meteoric and improbable rise in post World War I Germany has spawned something of a cottage industry in academia and other circles. In many ways, this first in a two-volume biography of the fascist leader is a contribution to that debate. Biographer Ian Kershaw concedes that "explaining Hitler" isn't easy. In the preface he uses Churchill's famous assessment of Soviet Russia to describe the Nazi leader: a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

Indeed, the more one reads about Hitler - his humble roots in provincial Austria, his poor academic performance and general lack of higher education, his lack of discipline and poor work habits, his complete lack of organizational acumen, his prissy behavior and eccentric, aloof personality - the more inexplicable his emergence as a national demigod in one of the most advanced cultures in the world becomes.

Many attribute the success of the Nazis solely to the unique social and political circumstances of Weimar Germany: the humiliation of Versailles, the threat of Bolshevism from the East and internally, native and increasingly virulent anti-Semitism, and the economic hardship of reparation payments and then the affects of the Great Depression. Kershaw cites all of these as contributing factors to the Nazis electoral gains beginning in the early 1930s, but he argues that it was Hitler - and only Hitler - that could have made the Nazi's ultimate political triumph a reality. In the early 1920s there were nearly 100 small nationalist groups in Germany (known as the Volkisch movement) that preached roughly the same ultra-patriotic, socialist and anti-Semitic themes as the Nazis. And there were scores of Hitler-like leaders out speaking in beerhalls promoting the cause of German national redemption and the inherent evil of Marxism and Jewry. But there was only one Hitler. Only he could pack the largest theaters in Germany with wild-eyed supporters. Only he could unite the far Right in a concerted effort to topple the Weimar Republic. Only he could convert a diverse mix of rural schoolteachers, urban professionals and Protestant clergy to his vision of a new Germany in hour-long harangues in massive public addresses that looked and felt more like religious revivals than political speeches. Hitler benefited from the tumultuous times in which he lived and he certainly needed the patronage and support of others along the way, but Kershaw maintains that his unlikely journey to the apogee of power in Germany was no accident.

Two points stressed by Kershaw struck me as especially interesting and quite surprising. First, with the notable exceptions of an unusual gift for public speaking, an innate understanding of the power of propaganda and a powerful memory for facts and figures, Hitler was a man remarkably devoid of talent and, as Kershaw tells it, rather lazy and disinterested. Second, Kershaw also stresses how little Hitler and his Nazi party actually did proactively to secure their complete dominance over the German government, military and economy. Many of the most far-reaching changes after Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933 were undertaken on the initiative of others, while the main opposition groups just basically closed up shop.

In closing, the idea that a man with Hitler's background, limited natural abilities and radical viewpoints could rise so far, so fast is so improbable (not to mention horrifying) that it almost defies believability. And when Hitler boldly completed the re-militarization of the Rhineland in 1936 and held a plebiscite on his rule, he received 99% endorsement. He was probably the most genuinely popular leader in the world at the time. Incredible.

Mr Kershaw has written a very engrossing study of Hitler's personal and political lives. The book is very well written - accessible to the general reader, but with a wealth of footnotes for those who would like to dig deeper on their own.

Kershaw has done an admirable job in trying to get at the truth of the events of Hitler's life - not an easy task with so many layers of myth obscuring the subject. One example is the time that Hitler spent in Vienna before the First World War. Using primary and secondary sources, Kershaw paints a detailed picture of Hitler's years in Vienna - a picture that is often at odds with Hitler's own version as published in Mein Kampf.

This book is an authoritative examination of Hitler's "formative years", the creation of the Nazi Party and Hitler's rise to absolute power. I am looking forward to the publication of the second volume.

This is the biography not just of Adolf Hitler, but of the Germany in which he lived. Again and again, Kershaw explains the interactions of a peculiar individual with peculiar times and how, so often, so achingly, history might have been different.

Occasional turgidity of prose can be pardoned for the brilliance of his analysis and the astonishing labor of his scholarship.

I speak as a general reader, expert at nothing. This volume has exactly 200 hundred pages (200) of notes and references. It is written with clarity and with a fluid style with sufficient variation, and outstanding structure, and so is no struggle for the general reader - no purple prose, or academic dryness, and is easy to follow the logical and grammatical development of sentence, paragraph and chapter. Its topic sentences are sometimes quite memorable eg, "Crisis was Hitler's oxygen. He needed it to survive." p. 200. In the work, Professor Kershaw refers to housewives like Luise Solmitz, and to reporters like William Shirer and to Generals like Ribbentrop in equal measure. We learn Hitler became a millionaire in his own right through the sales of Mein Kampf. We learn Hitler was, apparently, responsible for breaking the shackles of Versailles, restoring military pride and making Germany a force "to be reckoned with" whilst his party was seen as corrupt and violent - this in itself, how he was able to separate himself from his party so convincingly, is measure of his political skill. We learn (or at least I do) that Hitler introduced compulsory sterilization of the hereditary sick but that the ground had been prepared by the "experts" before Hitler took office. This book is not just a political, or military history, but a social and economic history as well. I suppose the study of this era in the World's history should be required reading for every citizen. Democracy as we know it, emerged the victor at the end of the 20th century, but only by the hair of its chinny chin chin.

...the book, not the attitude. The incredible arrogance of Hitler, when we read here, what he said to the German people: "that you have found me...among so many millions is the miracle of our time! And that I have found you, that is Germany's fortune!" Before we reach this moment of utter self absorbtion that took place in 1936, we have to read through this brilliant biography, HITLER 1889-1936: Hubris.

Keeping with the recent tradition exemplified by Peter Fritzsche's GERMANS INTO NAZIS, the new view of Hitler is that he can no longer be seen as the author of his own destiny. Mr Kershaw says plainly that modern biographies of Hitler cannot answer questions about the man by focusing exclusively on him, but only by analyzing German society. He does not go as far as Daniel Goldhagen did in HITLERS WILLING EXECUTIONERS where, unintentionally, Hitler is 'excused', by blaming rabid anti-semitism on the ordinary German.

Mr Kershaw has little interest in psychological theories (particularly psychosexual ones), as explanations for Hitler's behavior. He refers to them but generally says that they are incidental to any true understanding, especially since there is insufficient information available. One such theory is that Hitler's anti-semitism stemmed from the illicit liaison of his grandmother which produced Alois - Hitler's father. Proponents say that Hitler's grandfather may have been a Jew, Kershaw simply says that the "baptismal register left a blank in the space allocated to the baby's father. The name of Hitler's paternal grandfather was not disclosed and, despite much speculation, has remained unknown ever since."

Some of the themes that are developed by Mr Kershaw are as follows:

POLITICAL GOOD FORTUNE and OPPORTUNISM. Hitler's portrayal of himself as a man of political convictions in MEIN KAMPF, is meretricious as, Mr Kershaw shows, rather than acting with intent, or being a triumph of the will, Hitler was simply the master of taking advantage of opportunity. The revolutionary incidents in Munich in 1919 and Hitler's attempted revolt against the national government in 1923, are actually "shaped by circumstance, opportunism, good fortune and, not least, the backing of the army...Hitler did not come to politics, but politics came to him."

GOVERNANCE. One of the consequences of this opportunism is that it had an effect on how Hitler governed. The greatest feat of Hitler's political career was his maneuvering himself into the position of Reich Chancellor in 1933. Precipitously "the 'nobody of Vienna', 'unknown soldier', beerhall demagogue, head of what was for years no more than a party of the lunatic fringe of politics, a man with no credentials for running a complicated state machine...had now been placed in charge of government of one of the leading states in Europe." The result was that there was a state "without any central coordinating body and with a head of government, largely disengaged..."

POWER is the central thread that runs throughout HUBRIS and connects all of Mr Kershaw's themes together. He says, "what has continued in the writing of the book to interest me, is not just how this initially most unlikely pretender to high state office could gain power, but how he was able to extend that power until it became absolute."

'WORKING TOWARDS THE FUHRER.' Mr Kershaw is at his brilliant best in developing this theme. The words were spoken by Hitler's agriculture minister in a speech in 1934. In arguing that it was not possible for Hitler to order from above, everything that was required, the people should therefore cease to await such orders. Mr Kershaw states what was said next. "Rather, however, it is the duty of every single person to attempt, in the spirit of the Fuhrer, to work towards him." This spurred a new type of voluntarism by the people, and also set off a struggle between state agencies in the competition for influence. There was a concomitant progression towards the primacy of politics and politics also became increasingly violent. This setting "invited radical initiatives from below." The origins of the final solution for the Jews can be seen in this context. In general, and in conclusion, working towards the Fuhrer enabled Hitler to accomplish things he wanted done without relying on institutional apparatus. This only served to strengthen his personal mastery and power over party, state, and the people.

Biography should be written by an acute enemy (Arthur James Balfour)

We all qualify as enemies of Hitler but only a few could write a biography to match this one.

This is the first biography of Hitler that I've read. Kershaw is a social historian who admits his bias against biography in the preface. His discomfort with biography shows, and this book suffers in comparison with his earlier book on "The 'Hitler Myth,'" a study of Nazi propaganda that is better written, more interesting, and mercifully shorter.

Even so, I could hardly read 600-odd pages on Hitler without absorbing much that was new. I learned how, during his unhappy childhood and his aimless wanderings through Vienna, Hitler was constantly exposed to anti-Semitism from the ravings of Schornerer and other extremist xenophobes. I understand better now why Hitler's ranting and raving about exterminating the Jews wasn't taken more seriously even by the unprejudiced; Jew-baiting was such a common rabble-rousing ploy that few realized until too late how serious Hitler was about it. The book shows how it was only after the disastrous Munich Putsch that Hitler began to conceive of himself (as opposed to Ludendorff or a player to be named later) as the one true "Fuehrer."

Kershaw also argues that Hitler's own anti-Semitism was not formed in Vienna, as he claimed in Mein Kampf, but was adopted rather opportunistically when he became a political officer after World War I. And I think (though Kershaw himself doesn't say this), that I understand better why Hitler preached divisive, anti-Semitic hatred even though most German Jews were patriotic, and even though it was anti-Marxism rather than anti-Semitism that was his prime selling point to his audiences. Since Hitler's ideology was socialist (even though his actual practice when he attained power contained few elements of socialism), anti-Semitism was the only way he could distinguish himself from the socialists of the more numerous SPD and KPD. By pretending that these parties were mere Jewish puppets, Hitler could offer his brand of socialism as the only form of socialism that would benefit the great majority of Germans, while claiming that his opponents' version worked for the sole benefit of some fantasized international Jewish conspiracy. Even when the Nazis abandoned their strategy of outcompeting the SPD for the urban labor vote in favor of rallying support in the rural middle class, they still couldn't afford to abandon urban laborers completely. The Nazis still needed some of them, if for no other reason than to swell the ranks of the SA.

Kershaw also clarifies just how eagerly most of German society cooperated with the Nazis' takeover of total power after Hitler was appointed chancellor. I was shocked to learn that the German military's personal oath of allegiance to Hitler was not the Nazis' idea, but originated with War Minister Blomberg and Reichswehr officer Reichenau, under the insane delusion that this would subordinate Hitler to the armed forces rather than vice versa!

Still, this book has many problems. The prose style is convoluted and confusing. Kershaw is disturbingly ready to reject theories out of hand because they don't match his preconceptions, rather than by pointing out any actual evidence against them or any superior evidence in favor of a competing theory. Kershaw's treatment of Hitler's treason trial after the failed putsch is X-Files conspiracy-mongering, positing an agreement by prosecution, tribunal, and an unnamed Bavarian "elite" to go easy on Hitler so Hitler wouldn't reveal the complicity of high Bavarian officials in the putsch. But Kershaw's own evidence suggests that the prosecution presented its case against Hitler vigorously and zealously, that the Bavarian officials Hitler could have implicated weren't really that complicit (their timely warning to the Reichswehr in fact helped crush the putsch), and were in any case promptly sacked after the trial, casting doubt on the theory that the Bavarian government cared about their fate. Hitler's absurdly light sentence is best explained not by any secret, sinister "elite" maneuvers, but by the simple fact that the chief judge was flagrantly, reprehensibly biased in favor of the putschists.

In similar style, Kershaw suggests that Hitler's absence in Landsberg proved him indispensable as the "unifying" force on the German nationalist fringe. But his evidence suggests the exact opposite: that Rosenberg tried to unite the banned Nazi party, still mostly a Bavarian party, with north German racist radicals, and Hitler opposed this. And it was through Hitler's influence that the coarse, boorish Streicher was allowed to dominate the party, who so alienated everybody else on the nationalist right that all hope of union was lost.

Kershaw also fails to explicitly present any explanation for why Hitler's anti-Marxist message was so popular. He briefly tells the story of the Ratesrepublik, the attempted Marxist revolution in Bavaria, but nowhere suggests that it might explain the Germans' widespread fear of Marxism. Nor is there even the most casual reference to the Russian Revolution and the subsequent murderous behavior of the Cheka, which could hardly have failed to impress the German populace. Presented in this way, the popularity of Hitler's anti-Marxist message is made to appear like a mere prejudice as irrational as anti-Semitism, rather than a well-founded fear that Hitler exploited with grisly and tragic results.

In all, Kershaw's biography is better than no biography, but I hope that there are other, better biographies available to help understand the single most disastrous figure of the 20th century.