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Hitler's Cosmopolitan Bastard: Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and His Vision of Europe
by Martyn BondIn the turbulent period following the First World War the young Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi founded the Pan-European Union, offering a vision of peaceful, democratic unity for Europe, with no borders, a common currency, and a single passport. His political congresses in Vienna, Berlin, and Basel attracted thousands from the intelligentsia and the cultural elite, including Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, and Sigmund Freud, who wanted a United States of Europe brought together by consent. The Count's commitment to this cooperative ideal infuriated Adolf Hitler, who referred to him as a "cosmopolitan bastard" in Mein Kampf.Communists and nationalists, xenophobes and populists alike hated the Count and his political mission. When the Nazis annexed Austria, the Count and his wife, the famous actress Ida Roland, narrowly escaped the Gestapo. He fled to the United States, where he helped shape American policy for postwar Europe. Coudenhove-Kalergi's profile was such that he served as the basis for the fictional resistance hero Victor Laszlo in the film Casablanca.A brilliant networker, the Count guided many European leaders, notably advising Winston Churchill before his 1946 Zürich speech on Europe. A friend to both Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and President Charles de Gaulle, Coudenhove-Kalergi was personally invited to the High Mass in Rheims Cathedral in 1961 to celebrate Franco-German reconciliation. A provocative visionary for Europe, Coudenhove-Kalergi thought and acted in terms of continents, not countries.For the Count, the United States of Europe was the answer to the challenges of communist Russia and capitalist America. Indeed, he launched his Pan-European Union thirty years before Jean Monnet set up the European Coal and Steel Community, the precursor to the European Union. Timely and capitivating, Martyn Bond's biography offers an opportunity to explore a remarkable life and revisit the impetus and origins of a unified Europe.
Hitler's Commando: The Daring Missions of Otto Skorzeny and the Nazi Special Forces
by Charles Messenger Otto Skorzeny Dan RavivHe was one of the smartest, toughest, most courageous soldiers to fight in World War II. A hero to all who knew him. And he was a Nazi . . . Otto Skorzeny was Germany’s top commando in the Second World War—and one of the most famous men in the history of special forces. His extraordinary wartime career was one of high risk and adventure that few will ever equal. When Mussolini was imprisoned in Italy in 1943, it was Skorzeny who successfully led the daring glider rescue, winning the Knight’s Cross and receiving a promotion as a result. He took a critical role in the Ardennes offensive with a controversial plan to raise a brigade disguised as Americans with captured Sherman tanks. And when his captured countrymen spread a false rumor that he was planning to assassinate Eisenhower, the Allied leader was confined to his headquarters under guard for protection. Dubbed “the most dangerous man in Europe” by the Allies, he was awarded the German Cross in Gold. Here, Skorzeny tells the full story of his exploits in the gripping true story of “a brave and resourceful man who served an evil cause” (New York Journal of Books).
Hitler's Commanders: German Action in the Field, 1939–1945
by James LucasAs absolute as Hitler's control over the German war machine was, it depended on the ability, judgment and unquestioning loyalty of the senior officers charged with putting his ideas, however difficult, into effect.Top military historian James Lucas examines the stories of fourteen of these men: all of different rank, from varied backgrounds, and highly awarded, they exemplify German military prowess at its most dangerous. Among his subjects are Eduard Dietl, the commander of German forces in Norway and Eastern Europe; Werner Kampf, one of the most successful Panzer commanders of the war; and Kurt Meyer, commander of the Hitler Youth Division and one of Germany's youngest general officers.The author, one of the leading experts on all aspects of German military conduct of the Second World War, offers the reader a rare look into the nature of the German Army a curious mix of individual strength, petty officialdom and pragmatic action.
Hitler's Charisma: Leading Millions into the Abyss
by Laurence ReesFuelled by hate, incapable of forming normal human relationships, unwilling to listen to dissenting voices, Adolf Hitler seemed an unlikely leader, and yet he commanded enormous support and was able to exert a powerful influence over those who encountered him. How did Hitler become such an attractive figure to millions of people? That is the question at the core of Hitler's Charisma. Acclaimed historian and documentary filmmaker Laurence Rees examines the nature of Hitler's appeal and reveals the role his supposed "charisma" played in his success. Here is a fascinating social, psychological and historical investigation into the formation of a personality whose determination and vision would at the outset convince a small group of like-minded political and social outcasts but would eventually win over an entire nation and plunge the rest of the world into a cataclysm unlike any that had ever been seen before. Hitler's Charisma is a natural culmination of twenty years of writing and research on the Third Reich and a remarkable examination of the man and the mind at the heart of it all.(With 16 pages of black-and-white illustrations)
Hitler's Bastard: Through Hell and Back in Nazi Germany and Stalin's Russia
by Eric PleasantsOf all the extraordinary individual accounts that have come out of the Second World War and its aftermath, few can compare with that of Eric Pleasants, a member of the 'bastard' British wing of Hitler's SS - the British Free Corps. In this compelling autobiography, Pleasants writes of the bizarre and traumatic years he spent as a prisoner of the twentieth century's most notorious dictators. A life-long pacifist, Pleasants spent the early years of the war on occupied Jersey. He was imprisoned by the Nazis for petty crimes and the years that followed held a whirlwind of unexpected turns. He lived life on the run in occupied Paris, was captured and recruited into the British Free Corps of the Waffen SS, found love with a young German woman, witnessed the bombing of Dresden and attempted to escape from Soviet troops along the sewers of Berlin. When the war ended, Pleasants found himself on the Communist side of the Iron Curtain. By now a strong man in a travelling circus, he was arrested by the KGB on charges of espionage and sentenced to 25 years' slave labour in the notorious camps of Artic Russia. Only with Stalin's death in 1953 was Pleasants finally released from his unique kind of purgatory, after nearly half a lifetime of peripatetic nightmare. He died in 1998 at the age of 87. Hitler's Bastard remains a remarkable testimony to his imperishable will to survive.
Hitler's Aristocrats: The Secret Power Players in Britain and America Who Supported the Nazis, 1923–1941
by Susan RonaldSusan Ronald, acclaimed author of Hitler's Art Thief takes readers into the shadowy world of the aristocrats and business leaders on both sides of the Atlantic who secretly aided Hitler and Nazi Germany.Hitler said, “I am convinced that propaganda is an essential means to achieve one’s aims.” Enlisting Europe’s aristocracy, international industrialists, and the political elite in Britain and America, Hitler spun a treacherous tale everyone wanted to believe: he was a man of peace. Central to his deception was an international high society Black Widow, Princess Stephanie Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst, whom Hitler called “his dear princess.” She, and others, conspired for Hitler at the highest levels of the British aristocracy and spread their web to America's wealthy powerbrokers.Hitler’s aristocrats became his eyes, listening posts, and mouthpieces in the drawing rooms, cocktail parties, and weekend retreats of Europe and America. Among these “gentlemen spies” and “ladies of mystery” were the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Lady Nancy Astor, Charles Lindbergh, and two of the Mitford sisters. They were the trusted voices disseminating his political and cultural propaganda about the “New Germany,” brushing aside the Nazis’ atrocities. Distrustful of his own Foreign Ministry, Hitler used his aristocrats to open the right doors in Great Britain and the United States, creating a formidable fifth column within government and financial circles.In a tale of drama and intrigue, Hitler’s Aristocrats uncovers the battle between these influencers and those who heroically opposed them.
Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow
by Susan Campbell BartolettiIn her first full-length nonfiction title since winning the Robert F. Sibert Award, Susan Campbell Bartoletti explores the riveting and often chilling story of Germany's powerful Hitler Youth groups.<P><P> "I begin with the young. We older ones are used up... But my magnificent youngsters! Look at these men and boys! What material! With them, I can create a new world." --Adolf Hitler, Nuremberg 1933<P> By the time Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, 3.5 million children belonged to the Hitler Youth. It would become the largest youth group in history. Susan Campbell Bartoletti explores how Hitler gained the loyalty, trust, and passion of so many of Germany's young people. Her research includes telling interviews with surviving Hitler Youth members.<P> Newbery Medal Honor book and Sibert Honor book
The Hitler Years: Triumph, 1933-1939
by Frank McDonoughFrom historian Frank McDonough, the first volume of a new chronicle of the Third Reich under Hitler's hand.On January 30th, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed the German Chancellor of a coalition government by President Hindenburg. Within a few months he had installed a dictatorship, jailing and killing his leftwing opponents, terrorizing the rest of the population and driving Jews out of public life. He embarked on a crash program of militaristic Keynesianism, reviving the economy and achieving full employment through massive public works, vast armaments spending and the cancellations of foreign debts. After the grim years of the Great Depression, Germany seemed to have been reborn as a brutal and determined European power.Over the course of the years from 1933 to 1939, Hitler won over most of the population to his vision of a renewed Reich. In these years of domestic triumph, cunning maneuvers, pitting neighboring powers against each other and biding his time, we see Hitler preparing for the moment that would realize his ambition. But what drove Hitler's success was also to be the fatal flaw of his regime: a relentless belief in war as the motor of greatness, a dream of vast conquests in Eastern Europe and an astonishingly fanatical racism.
The Hitler Years: Disaster, 1940-1945
by Frank McDonoughThe Second Volume of a new chronicle of the Third Reich under Hitler's hand, ending with his death and Germany's disastrous defeat.In The Hitler Years: Disaster 1940-1945, Frank McDonough completes his brilliant two-volume history of Germany under Hitler’s Third Reich. At the beginning of 1940, Germany was at the pinnacle of its power. By May 1945, Hitler was dead and Germany had suffered a disastrous defeat. Hitler had failed to achieve his aim of making Germany a super power and had left her people to cope with the endless shame of the Holocaust. Despite Hitler's grand ambitions and the successful early stages of the Third Reich's advances into Europe, Frank McDonough convincingly argues that Germany was only ever a middle-ranking power and never truly stood a chance against the combined forces of the Allies. In this second volume of The Hitler Years, Professor Frank McDonough charts the dramatic change of fortune for the Third Reich and Germany's ultimate defeat.
Hitler Was My Friend: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Photographer
by Heinrich HoffmannHeinrich Hoffman was a key part in the making of the Hitler legend, the photographer who carefully crafted the image of the Fhrer as a godlike figure. Hoffmann published his first book of photographs in 1919, following his work as an official photographer for the German army. In 1920 he joined the Nazi Party, and his association with Hitler began. He became Hitler's official photographer and traveled with him extensively. He took over two million photographs of Hitler, and they were distributed widely, including on postage stamps, an enterprise that proved very profitable for both men. Hoffmann published several books on Hitler in the 1930s, including The Hitler Nobody Knows (1933). Hoffmann and Hitler were very close, and he acted not only as a personal confidante—his memoirs include rare details of the Fhrer—but also as a matchmaker it is Hoffmann who introduced Eva Braun, his studio assistant, to Hitler.At the end of the war, Hoffmann was arrested by the US military, who also seized his photographic archive, and was sentenced to imprisonment for Nazi profiteering. This edition of a classic book includes photographs by Hoffmann and a new introduction by Roger Moorhouse.
Hitler versus Hindenburg
by Larry Eugene JonesHitler versus Hindenburg provides the first in-depth study of the titanic struggle between the two most dominant figures on the German Right in the last year before the establishment of the Third Reich. Although Hindenburg was reelected as Reich president by a comfortable margin, his authority was severely weakened by the fact that the vast majority of those who had supported his candidacy seven years earlier had switched their support to Hitler in 1932. What the two candidates shared in common, however, was that they both relied upon charisma to legitimate their claim to the leadership of the German nation. The increasing reliance upon charisma in the 1932 presidential elections greatly accelerated the delegitimation of the Weimar Republic and set the stage for Hitler's appointment as chancellor nine months later.
The Hitler Myths: Exposing the Truth Behind the Stories About the Führer
by Sjoerd J. de BoerAdolf Hitler remains one of the most discussed figures in world history. Every year, an untold number of articles and books are published, and television programs and internet pages are produced, by respected historians through to amateur conspiracy theorists. One of the consequences of this continuous flow of stories is that, over time, increasing numbers of falsehoods and fabrications have emerged about Hitler. Many of these have subsequently gained credence by virtue of their constant repetition – however bizarre they may be. These include such claims that Hitler was impotent (contradicted by another myth that he had an illegitimate son), that he had Jewish ancestors, or that he had killed his niece. Another claim, one of the most persistent, is that he did not commit suicide but escaped Berlin to live in Argentina for years after the war, despite his well-recorded failing health. What is the truth about his corpse, his sexual experiences, his years of poverty, his complete dominance of his subordinates? How much of what we think we know is the result of intentional or misunderstood modern interpretations? Many rumours also circulated during Hitler’s life and, with the passage of time, have been presented as facts despite having no substantial foundation. Was Hitler really a hero of the First World War and, if so, why was he not promoted beyond the rank of corporal? Was he the true author of Mein Kampf and did he write a second book that was never published, and was Hitler initially a socialist? In The Hitler Myths the author clinically dissects many of these myths, often in a highly amusing fashion, as he exposes the inaccuracies and impossibilities of the stories. The myths – the familiar and the obscure – are discussed chronologically, following the course of Hitler’s life. In his analysis of each of the myths, the author draws on an array of sources to prove or disprove the rumours and speculations – once and for all!
Hitler, My Neighbor: Memories of a Jewish Childhood, 1929-1939
by Edgar Feuchtwanger Bertil Scali Adriana HunterAn eminent historian recounts the Nazi rise to power from his unique perspective as a young Jewish boy in Munich, living with Adolf Hitler as his neighbor. Edgar Feuchtwanger came from a prominent German-Jewish family--the only son of a respected editor and the nephew of a best-selling author, Lion Feuchtwanger. He was a carefree five-year-old, pampered by his parents and his nanny, when Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Party, moved into the building opposite theirs in Munich. In 1933 the joy of this untroubled life was shattered. Hitler had been named Chancellor. Edgar's parents, stripped of their rights as citizens, tried to protect him from increasingly degrading realities. In class, his teacher had him draw swastikas, and his schoolmates joined the Hitler Youth. Watching events unfold from his window, Edgar bore witness to the Night of the Long Knives, the Anschluss, and Kristallnacht. Jews were arrested; his father was imprisoned at Dachau. In 1939 Edgar was sent on his own to England, where he would make a new life, a career, have a family, and strive to forget the nightmare of his past--a past that came rushing back when he decided, at the age of eighty-eight, to tell the story of his buried childhood and his infamous neighbor.
The Hitler Kiss: A Memoir of Czech Resistance
by Radomir LuzaThis gripping autobiography is at once a heart-pounding adventure story, a moving recollection of a larger-than-life father, and an important account of the Czech resistance. Radomir Luza's father was a revered army general when the Nazis stormed into Czechoslovakia. After his father went underground to avoid arrest and torture, the nineteen-year-old Radomir spent weeks in a Gestapo prison. Upon his release, he joined his father in hiding. General Luza became the military commander of the Czech resistance, while Radomir secretly helped organize the country's largest resistance network. Luza's narrative makes palpable the terror of being constantly hunted and nearly snared by betrayals and Gestapo raids. The Hitler Kiss is a portrait of courage, tenderness, optimism, and sheer survival.
Hitler - Films from Germany
by Karolin Machtans Martin A. RuehlThe first book-length study to critically examine the recent wave of Hitler biopics in German cinema and television. A group of international experts discuss films like Downfall in the context of earlier portrayals of Hitler and draw out their implications for the changing place of the Third Reich in the national historical imagination.
Hitler e Estaline: Os Tiranos e a Segunda Guerra Mundial
by Laurence ReesO conceituado historiador Laurence Rees mergulha nas profundezas dos regimes cruéis de Hitler e Estaline e mostra até que ponto os dois homens brutalizaram o mundo à sua volta. Dois ditadores do século XX distinguem-se pelo impacto e crueldade que tiveram no mundo. Aliados por um curto período de tempo durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial, Hitler e Estaline tentaram depois exterminar-se mutuamente em campanhas de guerra nunca vistas no mundo moderno, afetando soldados e civis de igual modo. Quilómetros sem fim da Europa de Leste foram arruinados neste combate mortal e milhões de vidas foram sacrificadas. Recorrendo a testemunhos inéditos de soldados do Exército Vermelho e da Wehrmacht, de civis que sofreram durante o conflito e daqueles que conheceram pessoalmente os dois homens, esta obra-prima — o culminar de 30 anos de trabalho — do autor bestseller Laurence Rees, um dos melhores historiadores contemporâneos, analisa o percurso dos dois tiranos durante a Segunda Guerra Mundial, quando a Alemanha e a União Soviética travaram a maior e mais sangrenta guerra da História, demonstrando que, apesar de ferozes adversários, Hitler e Estaline eram, em grande medida, os dois lados de uma mesma moeda. «Da autoria de um dos mais conceituados especialistas na Segunda Guerra Mundial, este é um relato importante, original — e devastador — de Hitler e Estaline como ditadores.» Robert Service, autor de Estaline — Uma Biografia «Neste estudo fascinante de dois monstros, Laurence Rees é extraordinariamente percetivo e original.» Sir Antony Beevor, autor de Estalinegrado «Laurence Rees combina de forma brilhante testemunhos poderosos, uma narrativa vívida e uma análise irrefutável neste soberbo relato de como dois terríveis ditadores lideraram os seus países na guerra mais destrutiva e desumana da História.» Sir Ian Kershaw, autor de Hitler «Um trabalho extraordinário e de grande coragem. Revelador, fascinante e extremamente relevante, mostra Hitler e Estaline como nunca foram mostrados. Uma verdadeira história do nosso tempo, com tantas lições a retirar para o mundo conturbado em que vivemos hoje que irá revolucionar o entendimento que temos destes dois tiranos.» Damien Lewis, autor de The Nazi Hunters
The Hitler Conspirator: The Story of Kurt Freiherr von Plettenberg and Stauffenberg's Valkyrie Plot to Kill the Führer
by Eberhard SchmidtKurt Baron von Plettenberg (1891-1945) was the descendant of Westphalian aristocratic family, and a soldier in both world wars. The expectations, which he along with many of his later fellow conspirators of the 20 July 1944 plot to kill Hitler initially had of the “Third Reich”, are soon disappointed, when he recognizes the true nature of the regime. When he accepts the office as general agent of the former Prussian royal house of the Hohenzollerns in 1942, he already belongs to the inner circle of the resistance planning Operation Valkyrie. <p><p> After the assassination attempt, however, he is not immediately discovered as one of the conspirators. Out of consideration for the house of Hohenzollern, which Hitler considers to be his most dangerous internal enemy, he acted more carefully than many others. Yet only a few weeks before the end of the war Plettenberg is finally denounced and arrested, too. <p> This biography shows for the first time how Kurt von Plettenberg, who belonged to the inner circle of conspirators around Stauffenberg, found a way to prevail during those difficult times and how significantly he influenced the resistance.
Hitler at Home
by Despina StratigakosA look at Adolf Hitler&’s residences and their role in constructing and promoting the dictator&’s private persona both within Germany and abroad. Adolf Hitler&’s makeover from rabble-rouser to statesman coincided with a series of dramatic home renovations he undertook during the mid-1930s. This provocative book exposes the dictator&’s preoccupation with his private persona, which was shaped by the aesthetic and ideological management of his domestic architecture. Hitler&’s bachelor life stirred rumors, and the Nazi regime relied on the dictator&’s three dwellings—the Old Chancellery in Berlin, his apartment in Munich, and the Berghof, his mountain home on the Obersalzberg—to foster the myth of the Führer as a morally upstanding and refined man. Author Despina Stratigakos also reveals the previously untold story of Hitler&’s interior designer, Gerdy Troost, through newly discovered archival sources. At the height of the Third Reich, media outlets around the world showcased Hitler&’s homes to audiences eager for behind-the-scenes stories. After the war, fascination with Hitler&’s domestic life continued as soldiers and journalists searched his dwellings for insights into his psychology. The book&’s rich illustrations, many previously unpublished, offer readers a rare glimpse into the decisions involved in the making of Hitler&’s homes and into the sheer power of the propaganda that influenced how the world saw him.&“Inarguably the powder-keg title of the year.&”—Mitchell Owen, Architectural Digest&“A fascinating read, which reminds us that in Nazi Germany the architectural and the political can never be disentangled. Like his own confected image, Hitler&’s buildings cannot be divorced from their odious political hinterland.&”—Roger Moorhouse, Times
Hitler and the Habsburgs: The Führer's Vendetta Against the Austrian Royals
by James Longo&“A detailed and moving picture of how the Habsburgs suffered under the Nazi regime…scrupulously sourced, well-written, and accessible.&”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) It was during five youthful years in Vienna that Adolf Hitler's obsession with the Habsburg Imperial family became the catalyst for his vendetta against a vanished empire, a dead archduke, and his royal orphans. That hatred drove Hitler's rise to power and led directly to the tragedy of the Second World War and the Holocaust. The royal orphans of Archduke Franz Ferdinand—offspring of an upstairs-downstairs marriage that scandalized the tradition-bound Habsburg Empire—came to personify to Adolf Hitler, and others, all that was wrong about modernity, the twentieth century, and the Habsburgs&’ multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Austro-Hungarian Empire. They were outsiders in the greatest family of royal insiders in Europe, which put them on a collision course with Adolf Hitler. As he rose to power Hitler's hatred toward the Habsburgs and their diverse empire fixated on Franz Ferdinand's sons, who became outspoken critics and opponents of the Nazi party and its racist ideology. When Germany seized Austria in 1938, they were the first two Austrians arrested by the Gestapo, deported to Germany, and sent to Dachau. Within hours they went from palace to prison. The women in the family, including the Archduke's only daughter, Princess Sophie Hohenberg, declared their own war on Hitler. Their tenacity and personal courage in the face of betrayal, treachery, torture, and starvation sustained the family during the war and in the traumatic years that followed. Through a decade of research and interviews with the descendants of the Habsburgs, scholar James Longo explores the roots of Hitler's determination to destroy the family of the dead Archduke—and uncovers the family members' courageous fight against the Führer.
Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives
by Alan BullockForty years after his Hitler: A Study in Tyranny set a standard for scholarship of the Nazi era, Lord Alan Bullock gives readers a breathtakingly accomplished dual biography that places Adolf Hitler's origins, personality, career, and legacy alongside those of Joseph Stalin--his implacable antagonist and moral mirror image.
Hitler and his Women
by Phil CarradiceThis unique biography examines Hitler&’s many female relationships, from his mother and sisters to his girlfriends, secretaries, and adoring public. To most of the world, Adolf Hitler was a ranting, evil demagogue whose insane ambitions caused incalculable harm to humanity. But to the women in his life, he was kind, compassionate, and loving—a man to be admired and adored. In Hitler and His Women, historian Phil Carradice explores the Fuhrer&’s many relationships with women, from his romantic involvements to his interactions with female staff and the thousands of women who flocked to hear him speak. While many are familiar with Eva Braun, she was not alone in her role as the Fuhrer&’s lover. Dozens of women preceded her, including Mitzi Reiter, Henny Hoffmann, and his own niece Geli Raubal. To them and many others, Hitler was the ultimate romantic. From deep familial bonds to a teenage infatuation with a girl he never met, from actresses like Zara Leander to English aristocrat Unity Mitford, Carradice examines how Hitlers relationships with women affected the course of history.
Hitler and Film: The Führer's Hidden Passion
by Bill NivenAn exposé of Hitler’s relationship with film and his influence on the film industry A presence in Third Reich cinema, Adolf Hitler also personally financed, ordered, and censored films and newsreels and engaged in complex relationships with their stars and directors. Here, Bill Niven offers a powerful argument for reconsidering Hitler’s fascination with film as a means to further the Nazi agenda. In this first English-language work to fully explore Hitler’s influence on and relationship with film in Nazi Germany, the author calls on a broad array of archival sources. Arguing that Hitler was as central to the Nazi film industry as Goebbels, Niven also explores Hitler’s representation in Third Reich cinema, personally and through films focusing on historical figures with whom he was associated, and how Hitler’s vision for the medium went far beyond “straight propaganda.” He aimed to raise documentary film to a powerful art form rivaling architecture in its ability to reach the masses.
Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership
by Andrew Roberts'His book is timely and a triumph. Roberts manages to convey all the reader needs to know about two men to whom battalions of biographies have been devoted' EVENING STANDARDAdolf Hitler and Winston Churchill were two totally opposite leaders - both in what they stood for and in the way in which they seemed to lead. Award-winning historian Andrew Roberts examines their different styles of leadership and draws parallels with rulers from other eras. He also looks at the way Hitler and Churchill estimated each other as leaders, and how it affected the outcome of the war. In a world that is as dependent on leadership as any earlier age, HITLER AND CHURCHILL asks searching questions about our need to be led. In doing so, Andrew Roberts forces us to re-examine the way that we look at those who take decisions for us.
Hitler: The Official Third Reich Publication (Images of War Special)
by Bob CarruthersThis exceptional source is probably the best of the contemporary accounts of Hitler in power, albeit from a heavily pro-Nazi stance. The testimonies collected together were based on interviews conducted by Heinz A. Heinz in 1933 and 1934, shortly after Hitler had taken power.Millions of ordinary Germans fell under Hitler's spell and this book is a creation of those emotions. It is very much a product of its time. Written by the party big-wigs, such as Goering, Speer and Goebbels, and published in 1935 under the title Adolf Hitler Bilder Aus Dem Leben Des Furhers, it appeared at a time when they were at the height of their unrivaled powers. This fascinating volume encompasses the superb photography of Heinrich Hoffman, the Munich photographer who was ever present on Hitler's journeys and who grew fabulously wealthy as a result of his intimate access to Hitler. Hitler had an innate understanding of what we would now call public relations. He recognised the excellence of Hoffman's photography and maintained control of his image by limiting the access of other photographers. He also strictly controlled Hoffmann's activities and personally selected the portraits that were allowed to go into circulation.The book incorporates sections on Hitler and the German people, Hitler and the German workers, Hitler and public works and so on, all accompanied by a series of excellent photographs which form a remarkable record of the public face of a man during his brief spell of absolute power. The Nazis were the first party who harnessed the full power of the media in a coherent and all-embracing manner.This is a classic example of the strength of their presentation skills. It is a compelling time-capsule which conveys vividly in almost visceral way the zeitgeist of the thirties in Nazi-Germany. By 1935 the bulk of the German people had fallen in behind Adolf Hitler, and with documents as persuasive as this, it is not too difficult to comprehend the allure of the glittering faade which a stream of publications such as this book sought to create and maintain.
Hitler
by Robin CrossAs Chancellor of Germany between 1933 and 1945, Adolf Hitler exercised unrestricted power over his country's social, political, and economic life. From Hitler's belligerent re-armament programme to his imposition of anti-Semitic legislation and territorially aggressive policies, respected historian Robin Cross maps out the life of one of the most evil men ever to have lived. This succinct and powerful account, illustrated with rare and chillingly evocative photographs, is the essential companion for anyone with a fascination for the twentieth century, the Second World War or the age of dictators.