Hitler: A Biography

Peter Longerich

Sept 2019 · Oxford University Press

About this eBook

From one of the most prominent biographers of the Nazi period, a new and provocative portrait of the figure behind the century's worst crimes Acclaimed historian Peter Longerich, author of Goebbels and Heinrich Himmler now turns his attention to Adolf Hitler in this new biography. While many previous portraits have speculated about Hitler's formative years, Longerich focuses on his central role as the driving force of Nazism itself. You cannot separate the man from the monstrous movement he came to embody. From his ascendance through the party's ranks to his final hours as Führer in April 1945, Longerich shows just how ruthless Hitler was in his path to power. He emphasizes Hitler's political skills as Germany gained prominence on the world's stage. Hitler's rise to, and ultimate hold on, power was more than merely a matter of charisma; rather, it was due to his ability to control the structure he created. His was an image constructed by his regime - an essential piece self-created of propaganda. This comprehensive biography is the culmination of Longerich's life-long pursuit to understand the man behind the century's worst crimes.

Ratings and reviews

I just started this book. (BTW I've read pretty much every biography of Hitler, and love Kershaw's and am eagerly awaiting volume 2 of Ullrich's bio). But what I hate already of ebook version of this is that the footnotes don't link, so you have to scroll to footnotes and then lose your place. ugh. footnotes are important.

About the author

Peter Longerich is Professor of Modern German History at Royal Holloway University of London and founder of the College's Holocaust Research Centre. An internationally renowned authority on the Nazis, he has published widely on the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, including Holocaust: The Nazi Murder and Persecution of the Jews (2010), which is widely recognized as the standard account of the Nazi machinery of mass murder and the steps by which it unfolded, and Himmler (2011), described by the London Review of Books as "one of the landmark Nazi biographies."