Ian Kershaw is the premier historian on Hitler and Nazi Germany and this book from the Profiles in Power series is an excellent study on the roots, success, and ultimate destruction of the "Fuehrercult." Two schools of thought are used by historians to understand the power of Nazism. "Intentionalists" see the Nazi regime as the embodiment of Hitler as the totalitarian leader. "Structuralists," however, believe the policies and, ultimately, the crimes of Nazi Germany were stumbled upon by underlings working under a loose framework rather than a deliberate program. As one would expect, Kershaw takes from both these theories to develop his comprehensive profile.

Kershaw examines Hitler's worldview of racial struggle, anti-Semitism, and living space for the German empire--how these ideas developed (Hitler's background) and how Hitler used them to create his leadership image. This Fuehrercult unified a fractional party, helped repress opposition, and created a mass following. Through Hitler's charismatic leadership the German people would be prepared to fight the Nazi fight (inevitably WWII). Kershaw also looks at the feudal-like power relations inside the Third Reich; a regime of open-ended decrees that left no "smoking gun" pointing at Hitler for the Final Solution. Finally, Kershaw examines the destruction of Hitler's power during which the irrational optimism that "Providence" (i.e. Hitler's will) would prevail was still believed by many (particularly the 'court' of Hitler's bunker). I recommend this book especially to advanced history students who want an in-depth examination of Hitler's power in a compact 230-page book. The book includes footnotes, an index, a chapter on further readings, and a chronology of events.

It is not your typical biography of Hitler. It is a thorough examination and analysis of Hitler's rise to power. It examines how he got power, how he maintained power, how he used power, and, finally, how he lost power. Quite an interesting book. Be sure to check out other books in this "Profiles in Power" series.

The subject says it all. I had to write an A-level coursework essay on Nazi Germany and this book was the most helpful thing I could possbily have had by my side. Thank you Mr Kershaw!

The fourth and latest edition of Ian Kershaw's book discussing the major themes and debates in the historical writing about the Nazi period. Kershaw's book covers the earliest descriptions of the the Nazi state from the 1930's to the present time.
An updated edition including an excellent bibliography.

Professor Kershaw's book describes the social impact of and reaction to the "Hitler Myth" created by the Nazi propaganda machine. It explains what the "Hitler Myth" was and the effect the Myth had in the German society. The book discusses the rise and development of the Myth during the pre-war years. It also explores the fall and final bankruptcy of the empty Myth. Generally, it is an excellent book on German society during the Nazi Era.

We surely need books like Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners that examine German society as a whole in an effort to understand how Hitler came to power and held it for so long. But we also need classic, political biographies that focus on the dictator himself. Kershaw's book, the first volume of a projected two-part biography, pays some attention to how ripe a demoralized Germany was for demagoguery after the Treaty of Versailles, but the author's focus is on Hitler and his political career'the decisions he made as he rose to power and those he made once he attained it. What distinguishes this effort is the extent of documentation as Kershaw, a professor of history at the University of Sheffield, exploits the full Goebbels diaries and texts of early Hitler speeches only recently made accessible. Also notable is the portrait Kershaw draws of Hitler as surprisingly remote from the thuggery, greed and corruption of his followers, high and low, even as he actively encouraged the development of a cult of personality. Kershaw closes with an examination of Hitler's remilitarization of the Rhineland, a fait accompli made possible by the timidity and disarray of Germany's supine neighbors. Had the French marched, Hitler said later, "we would have had to withdraw... with our tails between our legs." By 1936, Kershaw writes, events had substantiated Hitler's hubris. A "nemesis" (subtitle of the next volume) would in reality not emerge before 1941. Kershaw's massive work (made somewhat too massive by some repetition) is valuable for the rigor with which it portrays Hitler not as some supernatural evil force ejected into history from beyond but as a thoroughly natural figure'evil, surely, but historically evil.

The two part Ian Kershaw's biography of Adolph Hitler are separate but equal portions of the life of Adolph Hitler, not the most popular, attractive or marketable of personages to dedicate a two volume biography. Though each volume is capable of standing on its own, both should be read in sequence.

The first volume, Hubris 1889-1936, deals with Hitler's origins, various incarnations, and initial rise to power in 1936. This volume ends with Hitler's controversial invasion of the Rhineland. The second volume, Nemesis: 1936-1945, immediately picks up where the first leaves off, and takes us through the escalating war to its inevitable conclusion just outside a bunker in Berlin within range of the Soviet's artillery. Throughout both, we walk uncomfortably close to Adolph Hitler, and his minions.

The overall work takes us through Hitler's full life in astonishing and carefully researched detail, clarifying and confirming what we knew, but more importantly debunking myths and leaving open to speculation events still without a definitive resolution. Where the author doesn't know and is forced to guess based upon what he does know, the reader is clearly informed. This is not often the case in many biographies and is a credit to this work.

Throughout, the reader will come away with a sense of the "history as close-call," as Hitler approaches total failure and obscurity several times only to move on to what will become his fateful destiny for both himself and the world. Like a good novel the author allows us to speculate on our own on what might have been if for example, Hitler had been admitted to the school of architecture in Vienna. The author builds suspense and drama throughout.

The second longer volume is a quicker and easier read, despite the occasionally gruesome subject matter. Nemesis takes us methodically through World War II. We are there for every decision, every triumph, and every failure. The slow unfolding of the war and the eventual turn of the tide against Germany is developed again with a keen sense of drama. The author develops the narrative as if we don't know what's going to happen next or how it will all end and does a fine job of it.

As one might expect, both volumes require a large emotional investment. But it is worth it if you are to understand much about where we are today and how we got here. If you were to ask yourself before you read these works and after, what shaped the twentieth century, you might very well arrive at two very different answers. It is often interesting to speculate on how the world would look today if there had been no Hitler. Fortunately the author spares us that speculation.

Many biographies to detriment stray from the subject matter to dwell on the peripheral matters with only remote ties to the subject matter. Not so here, the author rarely cuts way from his Hitler himself and even then only briefly. Very quickly we are back at Hitler's side watching over his shoulder or through the eyes of those around him. The author binds us to Hitler throughout making it clear that it is not always comfortable or safe to be in the room when Hitler loses his temper.

The Kershaw freely admits it was never his intent to write a biography of Hitler, and he is not enamoured of his subject. He takes an odious subject and brings it to life. This makes for an interesting well written, but ultimately disturbing biography of the man of the century.

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!

Before reading this sly piece of revisionist propaganda the reader would do well to re-acquaint him or herself with the FACTS of WW2 on the Eastern Front. Remember: the Germans marched into the USSR intending eventually to exterminate 30 million Soviet citizens for "lebensraum"; the German occupation succeeded in fact in killing 10 million Soviet civilians; the Germans killed at least 2 million of these people in anti-partisan operations; Soviet partisans killed maybe 50,000 German soldiers and far less civilians; and finally that some Kalmyks, Chechens, Tatars, and Ukranians willfully collaborated with the Germans. Reading this book and especially watching the companion TV series one is left with the impression that the Germans and Soviets were morally equivalent. With a tricky editorial slight of hand the author/s make it seem that civilians in occupied territories suffered as much from partisans as Germans (based on anecdotal testimonials); that the Ukranian nationalists and others fighting the Soviets weren't collaborators (again based on anecdotal testimonials from those selfsame nationalist/collaborators) and that the deportations of Kalmyks and Chechens and other ethnic groups with a history of collaboration was equivalent to the Holocaust (when in fact the US did the same thing to Japanese-Americans with NO history of collaboration). The impression is given that the ruthless Soviet fight to liberate their own country was as evil as the German invasion and occupation. Remember when you read this book that 95% of the civilian victims in the USSR were killed one way or another by Germans and that the Soviets were not the Nazis.

In the last decade or so there have been a number of excellent works emanating from historians regarding the nature of the conflict between the German and Soviet forces during Operation Barbarossa. This provocative, entertaining, and very well written history based on the popular BBC series and written by by Laurence Rees of the German assault into the Soviet Union and the ensuing war along the Eastern front employs a wealth of information released from Soviet archives in the last ten years and emphasizes the enormous struggle in terms of the fate of the Nazi state as well as the enormous contribution of the Russians to the Allied effort. Like a number of other recent works such as Richard Overy's "Russia's War", Glantz and Houses' "When Titans Clashed", and Alan Clark's classic "Barbarossa" it emphasizes Soviet strengths and attributes as central to the eventual result. Unlike earlier efforts that argued that blame for losing the war belonged to the Germans, all of these books argued that one must recognize the massive strengths and military cunning of the Russians in winning this campaign, which he terms to be the "battle of the century".

Like the TV series it is based on, this book is a spellbinding read! All the basics found in the other recent works is here in spades; a tragic misinterpretation of Soviet strength by the German high command, especially of the Russian troop reserves and manpower resources, which were a whopping three times as large as believed, the curious notion that by simply crushing the troops massed between the border and the Leningrad-Moscow-Crimea salient the German forces would thereby crush the communist government and send the country into anarchy, chaos, and ruin, and the profound German arrogance in believing they could master and quickly dominate this gargantuan nation of several hundred million in a short savage campaign lasting only a single season. Hitler and the German General Staff were consistently shocked and amazed by the continuing tenacity, resourcefulness, and endurance of an army they had presumed to have already beaten in the opening weeks of the campaign. As in the other tomes, he marvels as to how the Russians, after losing two million men in a single two-month period could rally itself, reorganized, re-outfit, and send another two million into combat so quickly. In so doing, he treads on well-covered ground.

Yet he also broaches other aspects of the war between the Soviet forces and the Wehrmacht not so well covered in the other books, and this adds immeasurably to the value and entertaining qualities of the book. For example, he makes the curious argument that it was the defeat of the German forces at the hands of the Russians that led to the Holocaust. The argument is curious given the fact that the systematic murder of both the indigenous and German Jewish populations in both Poland and elsewhere (including within Germany itself) had already begun in earnest before the turn in fortunes along the Eastern front. Of course, it appears to be true that the particular manner in which the Nazis approached the issue of the extermination of the Jews and others was profoundly influenced by the exigent circumstances caused by the disastrous campaign along the Eastern front, it seems specious to argue that it would not have happened had the Germans been victorious.

In matter of fact, it was a central canon of Nazi ideology that the Jews were central to the Aryan struggle, and it was this rabid belief in the reputed world-wide Jewish conspiracy against the Aryan race that was motivating them to exterminate the Jewish population, not the Wehrmacht's impending defeat at the hands of the Soviets. The primary reason for proceeding with Operation Barbarossa in the first place was to systematically exterminate the indigenous population through a three-pronged operation involving murder, slavery and starvation and subsequent use of the conquered land for future German settlement. Therefore, although one must admit the particular character of the Holocaust was influenced by what was happening along the eastern front, one wonders as to the reasons for this misguided and wrong-headed line of argument.

Rees is absolutely correct, however, in arguing that the nature of the conflict was biblical in its magnitude, ferocity, and endurance. The climatic conditions, including the most severe winter fighting ever recorded, were unprecedented. The lack of supplies and the consequent hunger, hand to hand fighting, in which the Germans soldiers were aghast at the willingness of the Russians to fight with almost bestial ferocity, and the intense continuing artillery barrage used by both sides all support Rees contention that this was the battle of the century. My recommendation is that your read this along with the books mentioned above. Doing so will leave you with a much better understanding of the war along the Eastern front and better appreciated how the Russians did so much to help win the European theater of the Second World War. Enjoy!

I would like to add a short paragraph to my review of Oct.12:

In the first editions of Hitler's "Mein Kampf" he wrote: "If Germany ever gets involved in a war with the Soviet Union, that will be the end of Germany". He was right, of course, and the sentence was deleted in later editions. Why did he start the war? He believed it to be inevitable, so he attacked when the Russians were unprepared.

Ian Kershaw's "Hitler" is the best biography on Hitler...period! Is it perfect? No. The first volume was more personal and probably a little better than the second. The second gets a little too caught up in the war. There is some neglect of Hitler's very personal relationships with Magda Goebbels, Winifred Wagner, Eva Braun etc. But, Hitler's almost daily decisions during the war years are wonderfully covered as are his relationships with the military leaders and Nazi Party chiefs surrounding him. His grand vision for a new Reich is amply detailed and Hitler the man and the leader is well presented. His strategic military thinking is also well covered. His responsibility for the elimination of the Jews and others in Europe is well documented. All in all, a grand effort. We are fortunate to have these volumes...Fest is great, but not as new or comprehensive. Bullock doesn't measure up...not even close. John Toland...no. Colin Cross, forget it. While it is always a good idea to read a number of authors, if you are going to own just one biography...this is the one.

This is the second and concluding volume of Ian Kershaw's biography of Hitler. It takes up the story in 1936 when Hitler started a policy of rearmament followed by territorial expansion.

The major problem in reading this book is nothing to do with the author who writes with considerable skill. It has nothing to do with the material in the book that includes updated material and a perspective, which is more in line with reality than earlier books. The problem is that Hitler was such a boring self centered and self-pitying person. After 1943 when Germany started to suffer defeat after defeat he withdrew from most social intercourse with other people. He suffered paranoid delusions that he was being continually betrayed and would eat by himself and bore anyone senseless about what a raw deal he was getting.

By this time Hitler spent most of his time directing the German military. He was not involved as was Stalin with day to day control of his part or directing industrial production. The others dealt with in the book are generally military commanders. Most of them have the moral depth of a dried out puddle and their main complaint with Hitler was that he seemed a bit common and low class.

Early biographies of Hitler were influenced by the memoirs of German Generals. In addition early histories of Nazism were influenced by the times. After Hitler had gone the west faced a far more serious opponent in Joseph Stalin. There was an urgent need to incorporate West Germany into European Defence. It thus became convenient to shelve off responsibilities for what had happened in the war to Hitler and the SS. Books written by German Generals had the aim of white washing thier reputations and placing the blame on Hitler for the defeat of Germany and its racist policies. These memoirs led to earlier histories of Germany absolving Germans for crimes of the time. More recent books such as Hitler's Willing Executioners have sought to show that the crimes of the regime were broadly embraced. That every little village in Germany was willing to put up signs insulting Jews and to force them out. Kershaw's book spares no punches and shows how the German military totally embraced Hitler's plans for the destruction of Russia reducing it to a rural appendage of Germany.

Since the war has become more distant the phenomena of revisionism has come into being. That is suggestions that the genocide of the Jews did not take place and that Hitler had a limited role in it.

Kershaw's tries to rebuff these theories and discusses the Holocaust in the light of there allegations. The book clearly shows that the destruction of the Jew's was Hitler's responsibility. It does however suggest that the policy was arrived at in a different way than normally was thought to be the case. That is that rather than they're being a specific order at a certain point that the Jews be eliminated the policy evolved. The background to the policy was Hitler who never seemed to make a speech that did not centre on racial hatred. He continually spoke out against "Jewish Bolshevism" portraying communism as the work of Jews. The killing of Jews in a systematic way seems to have started on the Eastern Front and grew out of the killing of Communist Officials. The police units who had the responsibility of killing communists started to routinely kill Jews at the same time. This led in turn to the establishment of the extermination camps. Kershaw shows that the decision clearly would have been referred to Hitler. The way that he does this is to show how all other decisions involving the execution of significant numbers of people were referred to Hitler. Hitler made decisions about the continuation and ceasing of the euthanasia programs for instance. At the same time Hitler was eager for such decisions to be verbal ones rather than written decrees to avoid the repercussions of such decisions.

One is continually struck by the degree to which there was sympathy for Hitler's program in every part of German society. Racism was deeply part of German life and there was never any trouble getting Germans out to beat up some innocent Jewish people or to break their shop windows and to steal from them. Courts, police, the army and all other instruments of government embraced the Nazis with excitement and passion. There was never a moments hesitation or sympathy for the Jews, Poles Russians or any of the victims of the regime.

With regard to the military history of the period he demonstrates that the German Army were generally supportive of Hitler and his strategy up to 1944. This support not only included his strategy by the means by which it was to be achieved. Prior to the invasion of Russia Hitler had decided to destroy Russia as an entity. He wanted to kill all members of the communist party and to reduce Russia to a nation of peasants. He aimed at not only shooting all communist officials but he wanted to destroy the major cities of Leningrad and Moscow. The higher ranks of the German Army were totally behind this policy as shown by another recent book Hitler's War in the East by Muller and Uebershar. They lectured to their soldiers on the need to kill Russian officials and that the war was one of extermination. Hitler's Generals and large numbers of Germans were believers in a racist nationalism.

As a book this two-volume study is no doubt the definitive biography of Hitler and has incorporated recent developments. It is however not a pleasant read.

The second volume of Kershaw's biography of Hitler cements his reputation as one of the finest historians of modern Germany. Throrough and definitive on every topic, scrupulously and fulsomely annotated, with many brilliant passages, Kershaw's life is not simply the definitive account of a dictator, but of the society that created him and the world he ravaged. Most biographies simply concentrate on the man and elide the background that made him possible. Kershaw's book, by contrast, is superb in noting both the extent to which he influenced Germany and the way larger trends and forces affected his actions.

Particuarly valuable is Kershaw's concept of "working towards the Fuhrer," and the idea of cumulative radicalization. With full acknowledgements to his scholarly mentors and colleagues Martin Broszat and Hans Mommsen, Kershaw notes how Hitler systematically undermined the normal structures of German government. The cabinet did not meet after 1938, the bureaucratic structures lost their authority, and months would go by as Hitler ignored vital issues and instead let competing factions fight it out among themselves. As a result crucial questions like the move towards a war economy in 1937 occurred not by design but as a result of this chaotic regime. The result was that Nazi Germany, apparently the heir to the cruel efficiency of Prussian bureaucracy, had an amazingly flawed bureaucratic regime. The victory of America, Britain and Russia over Italy, Japan and Germany was as much a victory of superior bureaucracy as it was of armies. Kershaw notes how Nazi officials squabbles among themselves and how they spent six months inconclusively debating whether to ban horse racing. Germany did not even try to solve its critical labor shortages by getting rid of domestic servants until the last few months of war, and by then vested interests made sure that it would be largely ineffective.

The consequence was to encourage the most radical groups among the Nazis and those who supported the most vicious alternatives. It was radicals who took the initiative in the anti-Church struggle and it was their momentum which led to Krystallnacht, the ghettoization and Poland, and ultimately the Holocaust. This is not to say that Hitler did not order or encourage the Holocaust. On this issue he was the most radical of the radicals, even if it was Heydrich who was crucial to putting it into practice. "It had consisted of authorizing more than directing." says Kershaw. But his account of how the genocide combined a dialectic of local initiative, central authority and wide government consensus, as we move from the euthanasia program to the first Polish atrocities, to the abandonment of the Madagascar Plan to the Einzatzgruppen and the setting up of the extermination camps, provides an account that makes horrible, yet scholarly impeccable reading.

One area where Hitler did have a large amount of authority was on military strategy, and Kershaw provides a nuanced account of Hitler's skill as a military leader. As a military leader Hitler's intuitiions were no worse than Stalin's and Churchill's. On questions like the reoccupation of the Rhineland, the attack on Czechoslovakia and the successful war against France Hitler was successful despite the opposition of much of the military. In his largest single mistake, the attack on the Soviet Union, the military shared his dangerous over-optimism. What hampered Hitler as a military leader was not so much his flaws but an ideological fanaticism that prevented him from taking other people's advice and from delegating authority. Even worse than this was a hatred of the Soviet Union which led Hitler to start a war that would have been extremely difficult for him to win. After he started losing his belligerent refusals to retreat may have hastened German defeat. But after Stalingrad and definitely after Kursk he could not have possibly have won and the major problem with his military strategy is that any negotiated peace would have required his removal. For obvious reasons this was not an option for Hitler.

And so we go to the final pages as Kershaw details how Germany was bombed into rubble while Hitler continued his Wagnerian rantings. Gradually the area under his control slips away and his followers fall away or are cut off and we see the final pathetic man behind the hideously empty solipsist. Hitler, Kershaw properly reminds us, was not insane. This makes his death at least, somewhat more satisfying.

Based upon a video series led by Prof. Ian Kershaw, this book posseses a renowned leading scholar to assert its in-depth discovery of the Nazi regime. Overall, we can assert that this book is above all a collection of pictures taken from 1933 to 1945, retracing the 12-year life of the 3d Reich through its leaders. The chronological structure helps the reader dive alongside the European people of the 30's into the abysses of the Holocaust. The latter step is reached after a series of thrilling and frightening visual and written testimonies of that period. Laurence Rees accurately explains the mecanisms of the Nazi regime and its policy towards peoples . Beware however, this bok is not dealing with the military aspect of the 3d Reich but packs a living testimony ,through contemporary witnesses of the deep horror of Hitler's killing machine.

For the serious history student interested in a quick cold-water style immersion in an excellent though disturbing look at the murderous excesses of the Nazi years, this startling book provides a sanguine, surprising, and totally readable overview of the brutalities, torturous acts, and murder accomplished by the Germans during their 12-year reign of terror, complete with hundreds of compelling photographs. Generated as a companion tome to a History Channel documentary, this is a good introduction to the scope and breadth of a mind-boggling range of Nazi atrocities perpetrated not only on European Jews, but also to the infirm, mentally impaired, and to anyone else they had motivation to exterminate. From the early acts of euthanasia of its own 'infirm' and "undesirables" to the systeamtic and publicly witnessed clubbing murder of hundreds of Jews in the streets of 'liberated' Latvian villages, this is a journey into the belly of the fascist beast.

This is a cautionary (and absolutely historically accurate) tale, made especially relevant in the year 2000 by the recent "ethnic cleansing" barbarism in Bosnia and Kosovo, of what can happen when people begin to surrender to the worst impulses of the social realm, and decide to ignore, or stand aside, or to pretend they just don't see where it is all leading. It has something to teach us about the very real dangers associated with unleashing the politics of hate, of what happens when ordinary citizens let other groups break the law to bully and terrorize minorities, when we let the central Government get out of control. History, as told in this excellent book, can teach us about how easily we humans succumb to subconscious evil, and seem to passively slip, almost without really deciding to, down the social and political slope to easy excuses and euphemisms, toward depravity, torture, and genocide. This is a book I highly recommend, although given its provocative and graphic photographic contents I would use caution about limiting its viewing by younger readers.

this book provides a good introduction to the history of the nazi party. it is readable, even for someone who knows very little about the subject, and yet is also a good review for those familiar with WWII-era german history. the many pictures in the book are wonderful and help not only to break up long bits of text to keep the reading interesting, but also to remind one that the people being read about were living, breathing human beings. umm, i like it.