Hitler's World View: A Blueprint for Power [Paperback]

Eberhard Jackel (Author), Herbert Arnold (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674404254 | ISBN-13: 978-0674404250 | Publication Date: May 1981

Even the demonic Hitler had a comprehensive philosophy, and Jä ckel probes deeply into the dictator's mind to determine how he viewed the world.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A highly intelligent and very valuable book by one of the ablest writers on Nazism in Germany. Hitler's world view-the intellectual system which was the dynamic force of his career--is too often omitted from the history of his movement. Jäckel has reconstructed it with great skill and scholarship. His book tills a serious gap: it shows us the human motor which drove that otherwise inexplicable machine of brutal conquest and extermination.
--H.R. Trevor-Roper

[Jäckel's] critique of the self-contradictions historical research has brought upon itself by abandoning systematic analysis and relying instead on intuitive judgments and the obiter dicta of ex-Nazis such as Hermann Rauschning is cogent and convincing. So also is his analysis of the development of Hitler's ideas from the "conventional foundations" with which he began in 1920.
--Geoffrey Barraclough (New York Review of Books )

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (May 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674404254
• ISBN-13: 978-0674404250
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #363,045 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #49 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( H ) > Hitler, Adolf

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Analysis of the development of Hitler's Ideas., October 20, 2002

By 

M. A. Ramos (Florida USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hitler's World View: A Blueprint for Power (Paperback)

This book gives us a look at how Hitler viewed the world. This book is written with great skill. Here it is shown that Hitler had a self-consistent Weltanschauung. It is an analysis of Hitler's own writtings; both versions of "Mein Kampf" and his "Secret Book". See why he did what he did. The reason for his domestic and foreign policy. The truth that Hitler was neither a nationalist nor a socialist but a racist. And his thoughts on the Jews. And how he convinced himself that only through expansion, racial purity and the destruction of the Jewish people could any Nation/Race survive and prosper.

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars HITLER'S "PHILOSOPHY", April 6, 2001

By 

[e-mail] (Lajas, PR, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hitler's World View: A Blueprint for Power (Paperback)

Hitler's Mein Kampf is one of the most boring books I have read. Even knowing what happened, I found myself thinking: "He must be thinking metaphorically; he really can't mean this." Jaeckel succeeded in making Hitler comprehensible, weird, but compresensible. He in particular clarifies the fact that Hitler was neither a nationalist nor a socialist but a racist. That's why he ordered the destruction of Germany. For him, the Germans were not fit to survive his death. The author also points to the ambiguities in Hitler's attitudes towards the Jews. If the Jews were so inferior, why were they a threat to the "Aryans." Hitler thought of the Jews as subhuman but also as the anti-race, somewhat like matter::anti-matter. Anyone who is interested in the most powerful, the most significant and the most enigmatic of leaders from the 16 th to the 21st centuries should read this book.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding book, January 7, 2006

By 

Gregory Deckard (Mobile, AL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hitler's World View: A Blueprint for Power (Paperback)

"Everything which has had a historical effect, even though and perhaps precisely because it is repugnant, must be analyzed and understood dispassionately. This is still the task of historical scholarship"

Those are the last two lines of this wonderfully written book and is precisely the approach Jackel took when he wrote it. We all know that Hitler was a terrible human being. What we don't need are authors writing books with that approach.

What Jackel has done is what more authors of history should aspire to. He has written a brilliant and well-researched book that speaks in facts and occurences without emotion. It better allows the reader to absorb and analyze the material and gives a seemingly non-biased view of one of history's most interesting figures.