The books contain many of Hitler's speeches and these oftentimes make boring reading. Hitler was a superlative orator, but without him delivering the words, they invariably fall flat. It is scarcely edifying to read Hitler's speeches and that is what the bulk of this set is all about. However, Domarus' includes his own remarks and editing, all of which are superb. He includes little vignettes about Hitler's entourage, daily habits and private life, and his insights are both informative and accurate.

So if you're seriously into this period of history and have a strong willingness to shell out big bucks for some superb editing, then this is your baby.

Knowing that Von Stauffenberg was the man who carried the bomb into the meeting to try to assassinate Adolf Hitler, I was drawn to this book by the title. So it was not only the title, but also the subject matter. West chooses interesting subjects. The bomb plot to kill Hitler, the Jack the Ripper murders, Lord Byron (who, according to Caroline Lamb, was mad, bad and dangerous to know).

So, drawn by the subject matter, intrigued by the title (what was it that made Von Stauffenberg's hours rich?), I picked up the book. LOVED the cover.

I find it hard to describe Paul West's style. The closest I can come is to say it is a densely written book. There are a lot of words, and not all the words carry one forward into the tale. Indeed, in some instances one feels like one has stepped into a small eddy of words and only after whirlling about a bit does one spin out of the eddy and move on to the next. When not half way through the book I recognized we were coming upon the moment of Von Stauffenberg's demise, and given that the narrator of the book was Von Stauffenberg himself, I was curious to see how West was going to approach the second half of the book. I underestimated the man. The death of the narrator did not phase him for one moment. Nor did it cause a change in the voice of the book. Goodness. I hadn't expect that.

I have also read The Women Of Whitechapel - drawn again by subject, title and cover. But I give. As curious as I am about Bela and his white Christmas, about Lord Byron and his doctor, I'm gonna give it a pass

'A Faulty History Dissected' takes aim at Irving and any other historian who has the audacity to deviate from the status quo. Jackel is undoubtedly in league with those members of the political/historical-writing community who wish to violate the right to free speech -oddly enough, something they claim to champion in other arenas.

The problem with Irving is that he is a diligent researcher, he just is corrupted with blatant racism which renders his conclusions on the Reich one-sided and specious. Any historian starting out with Irving's premises is standing on faulty ground. But Jaeckel is out of his league here and it clearly shows. His footnotes frequently lead to discredited sources and his conclusions are haphazard and disjointed.

Irving deserves critical, harsh examination, but it needs to be done by an historian of greater skill and repute than Jaeckel.

Contrary to what you may have read in the preceding reviews here, Jackel is a very reputable historian, the author of two invaluable and highly regarded works ("Hitler's Weltanschauung" and "Hitler in History") that are required reading for anyone who studies Nazi Germany. There is nothing outlandish or shabby in his current book criticizing Irving--it is in fact rock solid, like all his other work. This compact, admirable volume makes a good companion to Richard J. Evans's effective debunking of Irving.

Wyden, a German born American Jew who had worked in the the US Army's denazification program and later as a journalist takes the reader on a disorganized, disjointed journey though modern Germany (with random side trips to the US and Austria as well as to the past). Almost every sentence until the closing chapters of this book reeks of disdain for the "complex people" he was not indicting.

The Hitler Virus' first and major sin is it's disorganization as the reader is taken from chapter to chapter in random directions with no controlling vision of what he is trying to say. The few good chapters (dealing with David Irving and the children of Nazi parents) are dealt with much better in books he cites (Lipstadt's Denying the Holocaust and Sichrovsky's Born Guilty).

The second deadly sin of this book is it's terrible abuse of statistics when he does use them. Numbers are clothed in yellow language meant to slant the reader without explaining other factors which can only be inferred. When the numbers are not as shocking as he'd like, Wyden often mentions how Germans are unlikely to admit unpolitic feelings to pollsters, which I thought was a novel defense of desperation.

The best example of this is early in the book:

"Another poll in the new millennium revealed that 79 percent of Germans see May 8, 1945, as a day of liberation rather than a day of defeat. However, if one considers different age groups separately, 87 percent of people under the age of thirty think that May 8, 1945 was a day of liberation, while only 67 percent of those over fifty do."

Perhaps, being an American, I tend to think of 67 percent as a high figure for any poll, and hardly worth an "only", especially given that if it was indeed taken at the end of the century than this poll would have included East Germans for whom the end of World War II was the start of a forty year nightmare, and certainly not a day of liberation.

Wyden also fails to place facts in context--in a chapter on Konrad Adenauer he proposes what he thinks will be a shocking revaluation that the post-war chancellor was not a true democrat. I haven't read any serious book on post war Germany that suggested he was. It is a well known fact that Adenauer hated consulting the Bundestag and would frequently end run the parliamentary process if he could.

Wyden though infers the chancellor was a nazi because of the brown past of several of his appointees. One has to wonder how one was going to find enough people qualified to run the government in post war West Germany with no brown past. After all, this was not an occupied state being freed.

Another proof Wyden gives to paint Adenauer brown is the fact that he pushed High Commissioner McCoy to commute the death sentences of several convicted war criminals. A point to remember is that the Federal Republic had outlawed the death penalty in the forming of the Basic Law and at the very least the chancellor had asked that the sentences be commuted to fall in line with this. This is not to say that is the only reason Adenauer lobbied for McCoy on behalf of the war criminals, but it is a side that Wyden simply does not inform the reader of.

Perhaps to me most insidious is not the German bashing, or the disorganization, or even the 'lies, damn lies and statistics' but the fact that this subject deserved better.

The only thing I agree with Wyden about is that Adolf Hitler is the big pink elephant sitting in the middle of German life, and of any conversation about history between Germans or with Germans and non-Germans. But sadly, Wyden abandons his stated goal, only talking about neo-Nazies and anti-emegrant feeling in passing and ignoring the basic hardships left behind in the old DDR which might foster a rise of a right-wing party.

Wyden treats Germans and Austrians as if they are interchangeable, and my great fear is that the lay reader which this book is aimed at will not understand the fundamental difference between the two German speaking nations. Farther afield are discussions of American hate publishers and Nazi collectors which seem to have only tangential baring on the issue of if the virus is alive in Germany today.

The only people who will be satisfied with this book are those who had preconceived notions about a people who's national guilt will last much longer than anyone has a right to demand of them. The author began his work by telling the reader he was close to the subject, what he did not tell his readers is that he was TOO close to his subject.

The book does at times meander but I suspect that is due to the fact the author didn't have the chance to polish up his manuscript before his death. If you want to understand many of the current political undertows sweeping the globe today, the Hitler Virus will give you insight into the insidious nature of hate, political extremism, and where with the help of religion horrors such as the holocaust occur. My only complaint is that once again only the Jewish victims of the holocaust are referred to. Once and for all people need to understand there were another six to seven million people killed in camps who were non Jews. They too deserve to be remembered.

Books from the PROBLEMS IN EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION SERIES are designed for upper-level undergraduate and graduate level European history courses. That being said, this book is not an introductory text. The authors of the articles go directly into their subjects, without providing any significant background information. Therefore, you need to have an historical base level of knowledge to work from. Nonetheless, it is an excellent tool for students, scholars and general readers of modern European history.

The text is best used in class discussions and debate.

An excellent representation of Nazi historical scholarship.

After Hitler commits suicide (which is not a spoiler because it's historical fact) the novel shifts to four treasure hunters. They are a likable bunch.

However, the reader is left with a question: What does this all have to do with Hitler? We are finally told that in the last chapter.

The last chapter is rushed and far-fetched. It is a shame because the story was very enjoyable. This book can be read in a day or two.

Yes, this story is entertaining but the ending has absolutely no bite.

Everyman, even Adolf Hitler, has some good qualities or talents--a fact which this author seems not able to admit.

According to Alan Wykes, Adolf Hitler was scum from the day he was born. He is variously described as "stupid," and "lazy," and simply a no talent bum; a would-be artist without talent. Actually, I have seen some of Hitler's drawings reproduced, and they were quite good--and I am a retired professional commercial artist.

If Hitler had anything to do with the powerful symbolism of the National Socialist party (The Swastika, etc.) and the striking uniforms of the German Army and the Luftwaffe--and I have no doubt his was the last word--he shows a very strong sense of graphic drama. It will be a while before the world again views such powerful graphic symbolism.

Aside from that, Wykes makes a flimsy case for Hitler's having contracted a case of syphillis in his early life in Vienna. The case is extremely circumstantial, and I think dubious. Throughout his adult life, he appeared to be of robust good health and physically attractive. Besides, even if true, so what? The point seems to be that anyone with "the syph" is automatically a worthless scumbag. Therefore it's worth tagging Hitler with it, or at least his being a sexual pervert, which many others have intimated.

Losers don't write history, and there is much that Hitler's regime perpetrated that led to a binge of hatred after the war on the part of the vistorious allies. Much of it, of course, was propaganda (yes, we, too, created propaganda.)

This is not meant to be a defense of Hitler, which would be a difficult task even if I were an admirer, which I'm not, but it would be refreshing, after nearly sixty years, to be able to read a somewhat neutral account of the Second World War, written by someone not infected with virulent hatred for the losers.

After the "Civil" war in the United States, histories were written by the victors who made Abe Lincoln out to be a saint who freed the slaves, and the Southern states to be cruel
slave-masters who deserved whatever they got. Of course, such an account is far from the truth. Lincoln was in fact a dictator who nearly destroyed the Constitution, and suspended the Bill of Rights during his term,imprisoning his political enemies without trial and bringing about a totally unnecessary war that caused over 600,000 American deaths. That part is universally overlooked, until recently when aome authors,like Thomas DiLorenzo for example, have begun to show what really happened.

I'm waiting for such a book about Germany, depicting its warriors as being as courageous and honorable as our own. Some have surfaced already, like Joseph Gilbey's "Langsdorf of the Graf Spee."

Maybe it will take a little longer--more distance between us and WWII.In any case, it would be refreshing to be able to read a more objective history of Hitler's life, without the author's pen dripping with hatred, loathing and belittling of everything associated with him. Hate is poor motivation for writing anything of value.

Joseph H. Pierre