Compelling and thought provoking
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The first book in Ian Kershaw's autobiography of Adolf Hitler is a fascinating read, it is extremely detailed in content.
The book starts with Hitler's parentage and then tells of his childhood, his activities before the first world war are described. There is a brief description of the years of the first world war and how Hitler was wounded in a gas attack and stayed in a military hospital in Pasewalk.
The formulation of Hitler's antisemite views are discussed in detail.
How Hitler became involved in politics after the first world war, is described in detail, and also the story of how the NSDAP was founded by Anton Drexler. The Munich Putsch is detailed and the imprisonment of Hitler afterwards. All along, the author tells the reader of the other characters involved in Hitler's life, and also the prevailing social and economic conditions, both globally and in Germany during the time.
The author argues that the rise of the NSDAP was linked to the depression of the 1930s, and shows this to be the case. The rise of the Fuhrer cult, and the NSDAP portraying Hitler as some type of demi-god is described.
All in all I found the book to be fascinating and also quite frightening in places, especially the blood laws, outlawing marriages between "aryans" and jews.
This book should be required reading for current and future politicians, so they can ensure a party like the NSDAP never gain power like that again.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the second world war, and also those interested in politics.
I believe this book alongside the 2nd book "Nemesis" Hitler, 1936-1945: Nemesis (Allen Lane History)will be the standard text on Hitler for many years to come.
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A GREAT MANIPULATOR OR A MADMAN..?
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So he had trouble keeping up at school and was a bit of a misfit, yet he grew up determined to be a leader - and almost took over the world. Frightening to look into the face of the little boy - and the teenager - knowing what he became - and after all these years the world still reels from his atrocities.
Brilliant book for reference if you don`t want to read the whole thing.
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A historical magnus opus.
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Looking at some of the earlier reviews I have to wonder if the reviewers have actually understood the book. Kershaw doesn't rehash the 'Hitler as a lucky non-entity' argument. He shows (again and again) how Hitler, through his hard-won dominiation of the Nazi party, coupled with his undoubted genius as an orator, came to power in Germany. The early chapters on the unique social and political conditions within Germany which allowed a demagogue like Hitler to prosper are worth the price of the book alone. Also, the charge that Kershaw is 'woolly' on the root of Hitlers' anti-semitism is deeply flawed. No-one can acurately pin-point what made Hitler so rabidly anti-semetic without resorting to cod-philosophy, which is exactly what real historians (like Kershaw) avoid.
Hitler: Hubris is not only the best book on Hitler I have ever read, it's the best book period.
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Intriguing but somewhat disappointing
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This book was hailed as the tell-all book of the early years of Hitler but I have go agree with `A Reader' below....it's most definitely not ground-breaking. I gave it 3 stars because it gave me a background to the man and followed how he became the most talked about leader of the 20th century but this book failed to get inside the mind of Hitler in any way and really only told me things that I probably could have picked up from any book. Considering it was hailed as the definitive book about Hitler I expected more.
Hubris looks like a huge book but don't be put off.....the last 300 or so pages are dedicated to references and citations so there is in actual fact less than 600 pages of type.....in a very small font granted. Hubris is most certainly worth a read but I found it quite long-winded and repetitive at times. From the sequence of events it was obvious that Hitler's rise to power was more by fluke than design.....I just didn't think Kershaw needed to repeat how much of a fluke it was over and over again. There are many, many groups and individuals to keep track of in this book so it takes quite a bit of concentration and is more certainly not a book I'd recommend you put down and come back to in a few months time. If you're looking for something light-weight then I'd recommend looking elsewhere.
I have already bought Nemeses and although I was disappointed with Hubris I am looking forward to the next installment.
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The definitive Hitler biography? I don't think so.
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This is a massively ordinary book about an extraordinary subject. In its 591 pages, Kershaw never says a single thing you could call startling or provocative, though he can be irritating. His syntax is sometimes sloppy, and occasionally he commits the historian's cardinal sins of tendentiousness and imprecision. To give a minor example, it is never enough to tell us that some unfortunate person was beaten up by Nazis - they are always beaten up by Nazi thugs (thugs being at one and the same time redundant and uninformative).
His central thesis - hardly original, and hardly convincing - is that Hitler was a nobody, a mediocrity, who did nothing himself, and achieved success only by the miscalculations and hesitations of others.
Determined to avoid any hint that Hitler was in any way outstanding (except as a "speaker"), Kershaw will not even allow that he was at least an outstanding political mischief-maker or, even more, an outstanding villain.
Again and again he expresses the surprise of a diligent, well-educated man that someone he sees as an idler and an ignoramus could have achieved so much. In this, he repeats the mistake made throughout the nineteen-twenties and thirties by the establishment figures who consistently underestimated Hitler, and were consistently wrong-footed by him.
Reading the effusive blurbs on the cover and fly-leaf ("trenchant", "magisterial", "the Hitler biography for the 21st Century"), one can only assume that the writers have not actually read this volume through, or have never read better, briefer, and more incisive studies of Hitler. Read AJP Taylor's "Origins of the Second World War", or the section on Hitler in John Keegan's "The Mask Of Command", and you will learn more about Hitler's personality than Kershaw conveys in this entire book.
Yet this is a book worth reading. Its reasonably ordered mass of facts about a very dangerous phenomenon is of lasting use and relevance. And despite its sometimes paint-drying pace, it conveys moments of genuine dismay - that in the mid 1920s a monster was being born, and that in the early 1930s it was all too easy to convert civilisation into barbarity.
This may not be "the Hitler biography for the 21st Century", but it will do for now.
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