10 See Ernst Schulte Strathaus, expert on cultural questions in the staff of the Führer’s deputy, to Gerhard Klopfer, 5 Oct. 1936, requesting “that the Gestapo and the Security Service collect information on the writer Konrad Heiden.” BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/45.
11 See Lukacs, Hitler, p. 22f.; Gerhard Schreiber, Hitler: Interpretationen 1923–1983: Ergebnisse, Methoden und Probleme der Forschung, Darmstadt, 1984, pp. 312–14.
12 Bullock, Hitler, p. 382. Bullock revised his position in later works, in particular his double biography Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, London, 1991.
13 Hermann Rauschning, Die Revolution des Nihilismus, Zurich, 1938, p. 56. Rauschning repeated this assessment when he published his conversations with Hitler (Gespräche mit Hitler, Zurich, 1940). Bullock and Fest saw this book as a major source, while Kershaw doubted its authenticity. See Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris, p. xiv. The present volume also does not use this source. On the question of the authenticity of Gespräche mit Hitler, see Jürgen Hensel and Pia Nordblom (eds.), Hermann Rauschning: Materialien und Beiträge zu einer politischen Biographie, Osnabrück, 2003, pp. 151ff.
14 Eberhard Jäckel, Hitlers Weltanschauung: Entwurf einer Herrschaft (1969), revised edition, Stuttgart, 1981. Jäckel’s investigation had been triggered by the British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper’s remark that Hitler’s world view had been fixed from 1923 at the latest, and was afterwards expressed “absolutely clear and consequential” in his actions. Quoted in ibid., p. 19.
15 Eberhard Jäckel, “Rückblick auf die sogenannte Hitler-Welle,” Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 28 (1977), pp. 695–710, at p. 706.
16 Karl-Dietrich Bracher, “Hitler—die deutsche Revolution: Zu Joachim Fests Interpretation eines Phänomens,” Die Zeit, 12 Oct. 1973. Bracher, who published major works on the demise of the Weimar Republic, the rise of the Nazis and the Hitler dictatorship in the 1950s and 60s, himself helped pave the way for a more intense, critical investigation of the formation, structure and consequences of National Socialism and the Third Reich. See Karl-Dietrich Bracher, Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik (1955), 3rd revised edition, Villingen, 1960; idem, Wolfgang Sauer and Gerhard Schulz, Die nationalsozialistische Machtergreifung: Studien zur Errichtung des totalitären Herrschaftssystems in Deutschland 1933/34 (1960), new edition, Frankfurt am Main and Vienna, 1974; idem, Die deutsche Diktatur: Entstehung, Struktur, Folgen (1969), 7th edition, Cologne, 1993.
17 Theodor Schieder, “Hitler vor dem Gericht der Weltgeschichte,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 27 Oct. 1973.
18 Fest, Hitler, p. 22. See also ibid., p. 216: “Hitler’s rise to the point where he exercised an almost magical hold on people’s imaginations is unthinkable without the coincidence of an individual and a social-pathological situation.”
19 Ibid., p. 1035.
20 See Hermann Graml, “Probleme einer Hitler-Biographie: Kritische Bemerkungen zu Joachim C. Fest,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 22 (1974), pp. 76–92, at pp. 83, 88; Hannes Heer, “Hitler war’s”: Die Befreiung der Deutschen von ihrer Vergangenheit, Berlin, 2005, p. 33f.
21 See Fest, Hitler, p. 291f.
22 See Volker Ullrich, “Speers Erfindung,” Die Zeit, 4 May 2005; idem, “Die Speer-Legende,” Die Zeit, 23 Sept. 1999. The correspondence preserved in the Koblenz Federal Archive (N1340/17, 1340/53, 1340/54) reveals how closely Speer, Fest and the publisher Jobst Wolf Siedler worked together. The author plans to publish a separate study dedicated to this topic.
23 Klaus Hildebrand, “Hitler: Rassen- und Weltpolitik. Ergebnisse und Desiderata der Forschung,” Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 19/1 (1976), pp. 207–24, at p. 213.
24 These became available in an edition prepared by the Munich Institute for Contemporary History from the 1980s.
25 Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris, pp. xii, xxvi, xxix (quotation on p. xxvi).
26 So Norbert Frei in his review “Dem Führer entgegenarbeiten,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 6 Oct. 1998.
27 Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris, pp. 529–31. See also ibid., pp. 436–7: “Remarkable in the seismic upheavals of 1934–4 was not how much, but how little, the new chancellor needed to do to bring about the extension and consolidation of his power.”
28 Klaus Hildebrand, “Nichts Neues über Hitler: Ian Kershaws zünftige Biographie über den deutschen Diktator,” Historische Zeitschrift, 270 (2000), pp. 389–97, at p. 392.
29 See the author’s reviews of Kershaw’s two volumes: “Volk und Führer,” Die Zeit, 8 Oct. 1998; “Die entfesselten Barbaren,” Die Zeit, 19 Oct. 2000.
30 Frank Schirrmacher, “Wir haben ihn uns engagiert,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 6 Oct. 1998.
31 Numerous books have been published that provide new insight into Hitler’s personality and certain phases of his life—or at least promise to do so—the complete titles of which can be found in the bibliography. Claudia Schmölders’ “physiognomic biography,” Hitlers Gesicht (2000); Lothar Machtan’s controversial revelatory study about Hitler’s alleged homosexuality, Hitlers Geheimnis (2001); Birgit Schwarz’s ground-breaking work about Hitler’s views on art, Geniewahn: Hitler und die Kunst (2009); Timothy W. Ryback’s research into Hitler’s library and his reading habits, Hitler’s Private Library (2009); Dirk Bavendamm’s portrayal of his early years, Der junge Hitler (2009); Thomas Weber’s investigation into Hitler’s experiences in the First World War, Hitler’s First War (2010); Ralf Georg Reuth’s attempt to explain the origins of Hitler’s anti-Semitism, Hitlers Judenhass (2009); Othmar Plöckinger’s path-breaking studies about Hitler’s “formative years” in Munich from 1918 to 1920 (2013) and the history of Mein Kampf (2006); Ludolf Herbst’s thesis about the creation of a German messiah, Hitlers Charisma (2010); Mathias Rösch’s examination of Die Münchner NSDAP 1925–1933 (2002); Andreas Heusler’s history of the Brown House, Wie München zur “Hauptstadt der Bewegung” wurde (2008); and Sven Felix Kellerhoff’s and Thomas Friedrich’s investigation into Hitler’s relationship with the capital, Hitlers Berlin (2003) and Die missbrauchte Hauptstadt (2007). Hitler’s private life too has attracted increased attention over the last decade, from Anton Joachimsthaler’s documentation Hitlers Liste (2003), which attempts to shed light on his personal relationships by investigating the list of gifts presented by Hitler in 1935/6, to Brigitte Hamann’s research into Hitler’s relationship with the Wagner family, Winifred Wagner und Hitlers Bayreuth (2002) and with the Linz doctor Eduard Bloch, Hitlers Edeljude (2008); Wolfgang Martynkewicz’s portrait of Munich publishers and early Hitler supporters Hugo und Elsa Bruckmann, Salon Deutschland (2009); Anna Maria Sigmund’s reconstruction of the triangular relationship between Hitler, his niece Geli Raubal and his driver Emil Maurice, Des Führers bester Freund (2003); to Heike B. Görtemaker’s meticulously researched biography, Eva Braun: Ein Leben mit Hitler (2010), which explodes numerous myths surrounding the Führer’s lover. In addition, we have Ulf Schmidt’s medical-historical study, Hitlers Arzt Karl Brandt (2009), Jürgen Trimborn’s studies on Hitler’s favourite sculptor, Arno Breker: Der Künstler und die Macht (2011) and his star director, Leni Riefenstahl: Eine deutsche Karriere (2002); Karin Wieland’s dual biography, Dietrich & Riefenstahl: Der Traum von der neuen Frau (2011); and Timo Nüsslein’s portrait of Hitler’s first architect, Paul Ludwig Troost, 1878 –1934 (2012). At the same time a wealth of biographies has been published of leading figures in the Weimar Republic and the Nazi regime, which also shed light on Hitler and his rule. These include Wolfram Pyta’s broad canvas, Hindenburg: Herrschaft zwischen Hohenzollern und Hitler (2007), as well as Stefan Krings on Hitler’s press spokesman Otto Dietrich (2010); Ernst Piper on Hitler’s chief ideologue Alfred Rosenberg (2005); Robert Gerwarth on the head of the Reich Security Main Office, Reinhard Heydrich (2011); Dieter Schenk on Hitler’s chief lawyer and later general governor of occupied Poland, Hans Frank (2006); Hans Otto Eglau on Hitler’s sponsor, the industrialist Fritz Thyssen (2003); Christopher Kopper on Hitler’s banker, Hjalmar Schacht (2006); Kirstin A. Sc
häfer on “Hitlers first field marshal,” Werner von Blomberg (2006); Klaus-Jürgen Müller on Major-General Ludwig Beck (2008); and Johannes Leicht on Heinrich Class, chairman of the Pan-Germanic League. In addition there have been numerous monographs and essays on particular aspects of the Third Reich, which have enriched our understanding of the foundation and functioning of the Nazi Regime. I shall mention here only Götz Aly’s provocative study Hitlers Volksstaat (2005); Adam Tooze’s history of the Nazi economy, The Wages of Destruction (2007); Wolfgang König’s investigation of the National Socialist consumer society, Volkswagen, Volksempfänger, Volksgemeinschaft (2004); Markus Urban’s portrayal of the party rallies, Die Konsensfabrik (2007); the surprise bestseller by Eckart Conze, Norbert Frei, Peter Hayes und Moshe Zimmermann about the history of the Foreign Office, Das Amt und die Vergangenheit (2010); Frank Bajohr’s enlightening research into corruption in the Nazi era, Parvenüs und Profiteure (2001); and Michael Wildt’s ground-breaking investigations into the leadership of the Reich Security Main Office, Generation des Unbedingten (2002) and the violence directed against Jews in the German provinces, Volksgemeinschaft als Selbstermächtigung (2007). The concept of Volksgemeinschaft (ethnic community) in particular has been debated extensively by historians in recent years. It is therefore not surprising that the German Historical Museum in 2010 showed an exhibition on the connection between ethnic community and crime; the exhibition catalogue, edited by Hans-Ulrich Thamer and Simone Erpel, was published as Hitler und die Deutschen: Volksgemeinschaft und Verbrechen. On the concept of Volksgemeinschaft see also the collection of essays edited by Frank Bajohr and Michael Wildt, Volksgemeinschaft: Neue Forschungen zur Gesellschaft des Nationalsozialismus (2009). Last but not least, with his trilogy The Coming of the Third Reich (2004), The Third Reich in Power (2006) and The Third Reich at War (2009), the British historian Richard J. Evans has given us the most comprehensive history of National Socialism to date, which deserves to be called the standard work on the subject.
One of the main sources for the present volume was the 1980 volume of Hitler’s collected notes, Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924, ed. Eberhard Jäckel and Axel Kuhn, and the subsequent 13-volume edition of Hitler’s speeches, writings and decrees, Reden, Schriften, Anordnungen—1925–1933, completed by the Munich Institute for Contemporary History in 2003. Both editions demonstrate conclusively how early Hitler’s obsessive world view developed and how consistent it remained; see Wolfram Pyta, “Die Hitler-Edition des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte,” Historische Zeitschrift, 281 (2005), pp. 383–94. It would be welcome if the Institute were to bring out a likewise thoroughly edited volume of direct Hitler source material for the period 1933–1945. Until that happens, historians will have to rely on Max Domarus’s collection of Hitler’s speeches and proclamations, Reden und Proklamationen, which is less than satisfactory in a number of respects. Particularly crucial for the present volume were the files of Reich Chancellery, published by the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Sciences together with the German Federal Archive as Akten der Reichskanzlei: Die Regierung Hitler. Kershaw had no access to vols. 2–6, edited by Friedrich Hartmannsgruber and covering the years 1934 to 1939, which appeared between 1999 and 2012. One major source, which has never been fully analysed, are the diaries of Joseph Goebbels, edited by Elke Fröhlich and commissioned by the Munich Institute for Contemporary History. They have only been available to scholars since 2006. Although stylised and written with an eye towards posterity, the diaries, given the proximity of Goebbels to his Führer, contain important insights into Hitler’s thinking and motivation. They also yield a surprisingly vivid depiction of Hitler the private person. On the value of the diaries as historical source material see Angela Hermann, Der Weg in den Krieg 1938/39. Studien zu den Tagebüchern von Joseph Goebbels, Munich 2011, pp. 1–11. For criticism of the Munich edition, albeit exaggerated, see Bernd Sösemann, Alles nur Propaganda? Untersuchungen zur revidierten Ausgabe der sogenannten Goebbels-Tagebücher des Münchner Imstituts für Zeitgeschichte, in Jahrbuch der Kommunikationsforschung, 10 (2008), pp. 52–76. Just as valuable a source as the writings of Hitler’s allies are those of his contemporaries in general, both admirers and detractors. The latter category includes Thomas Mann, Victor Klemperer, Thea Sternheim, Theodor Heuss, Sebastian Haffner and Count Harry Kessler, whose diaries only appeared in their entirety with the publication in 2010 of vol. 9, covering the period 1926–1937. Another important source are the reports made by foreign diplomats from ten different countries published by Frank Bajohr und Christoph Strupp of the Hamburg Institute for Contemporary History in 2011 under the title Fremde Blicke auf das “Dritte Reich.”
In addition to consulting published source material the author also carried out substantial research of his own at the Federal Archive Berlin-Lichterfelde, the Federal Archive Koblenz, the Munich Institute for Contemporary History, the main Bavarian State Archive and the Bavarian State Library in Munich, and the Swiss Federal Archive in Bern. The author was surprised how much there was still to discover there, even though Hitler’s life is considered one of the most thoroughly researched subjects in history.
32 Cited in Andreas Hillgruber, “Tendenzen, Ergebnisse und Perspektiven der gegenwärtigen Hitler-Forschung,” Historische Zeitschrift, 226 (1978), pp. 600–21, at p. 612.
33 Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris, p. xxiv. See also Kershaw’s interview with Franziska Augstein and Ulrich Raulff: “In gewisser Weise war er der Mann ohne Eigenschaften,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 1 Oct. 1998: “Above all I wanted to specify the context in which he was able to function, that is, in which a person of his limited abilities was able to rise to positions of ever-greater power.”
34 Kershaw, Hitler: Hubris, p. xii.
35 James P. O’Donnell, “Der grosse und der kleine Diktator,” Der Monat, 30 (1978), pp. 51–62, at p 61. In conversation with the American historian Harold Deutsch on 11 May 1950, Hitler’s former military adjutant, Gerhard Engel, remarked: “Just think how many faces Hitler had. He was one of the most elegant actors ever seen in the history of the world…Compared with him…a man like Mussolini was a mere amateur, despite his Caesar-like gestures.” IfZ Munich, ZS 222, vol. 2.
36 Fest, Hitler, p. 29.
37 Schwerin von Krosigk to Georg Franz, 13 July 1962; BA Koblenz, N 1276/42.
38 Heiden, Adolf Hitler: Der Mann gegen Europa, p. 213. See also ibid., p. 214: there Heiden writes that the subjugator of men was “one of the unhappiest people in his private life.”
39 Bullock, Hitler, p. 380; Fest, Hitler, pp. 714, 718.
40 Kershaw in “In gewisser Weise war er der Mann ohne Eigenschaften.” See also Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, p. xxv: the “black hole” of Hitler the private individual.
41 Hans Mommsen, interviewed by Ulrich Specks, “Ein Mann ohne Privatsphäre,” Frankfurter Rundschau, 10 Oct. 2001.
42 See the Bild-Zeitung headline of 21 Aug. 2004: “Darf man ein Monster als Menschen zeigen?” See also “Der Film Der Untergang zeigt ihn als Menschen. Darf man das?,” Tagesspiegel, 11 Sept. 2004.
43 Albert Speer, Spandauer Tagebücher (1975), Berlin and Munich, 2002, p. 63 (entry for 10 Feb. 1947).
44 Leni Riefenstahl, letter to Albert Speer, 8 Jun. 1976; BA Koblenz, N 1340/49.
45 Fest, Hitler, p. 697 ff.
46 Stefan Zweig, Die Welt von Gestern: Erinnerungen eines Europäers, Stuttgart and Hamburg, p. 415.
47 Kershaw in “In gewisser Weise war er der Mann ohne Eigenschaften.”
48 Sebastian Haffner coined the phrase in Geschichte eines Deutschen: Die Erinnerungen, 1914–1933, Stuttgart and Munich, 2000, p. 88.
49 Rudolf Augstein, “Hitler oder die Sucht nach Vernichtung der Welt,” Der Spiegel, no. 38, 1973, pp. 63–86, at p. 63.
50 Eberhard Jäckel, “Hitler und die Deutschen: Versuch einer geschichtlichen Erklärung,” in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Festschrift für Karl-Dietrich Erdmann, ed. Hartmut Boockmann, Kurt Jürgensen and Gerhard Stoltenberg, Münster, 1980, pp. 351–64, at
p. 364.
1 The Young Hitler
1 Adolf Hitler, Monologe im Führerhauptquartier 1941–1944: Die Aufzeichnungen Heinrich Heims, ed. Werner Jochmann, Hamburg, 1980, p. 357 (dated 21 Aug. 1942).
2 See Dirk Bavendamm, Der junge Hitler: Korrekturen einer Biographie 1889–1914, Graz, 2009, p. 54.
3 See Anna Maria Sigmund, Diktator, Dämon, Demagoge: Fragen und Antworten zu Adolf Hitler, Munich, 2006, p. 125f. (on p. 124 see the facsimile of the legal documents dated 16 Oct. 1876); Guido Knopp, Geheimnisse des “Dritten Reiches,” Munich, 2011, pp. 25–9. The facsimile of the parish register was first published in Franz Jetzinger, Hitlers Jugend: Phantasien, Lügen und Wahrheit, Vienna, 1956, p. 16.
4 For a summarised discussion of the possible motives see Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, London, 1998, pp. 5–9.
5 Particularly Werner Maser, Adolf Hitler: Legende—Mythos—Wirklichkeit, 12th edition, Munich and Esslingen, 1989, p. 36. Following this, Wolfgang Zdral, Die Hitlers: Die unbekannte Familie des Führers, Frankfurt am Main and New York, 2005, p. 19f.
6 Bayerischer Kurier, 12 March 1932; BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/13. The special edition of the Wiener Sonn- und Montagszeitung with the headline “Hitler heisst Schücklgruber” in BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/17.
7 Hans Frank, Im Angesicht des Galgens: Deutung Hitlers und seiner Zeit auf Grund eigener Erlebnisse und Erkenntnisse, Munich and Gräfelfing, 1953, p. 330f. For the history of the speculation about Hitler’s Jewish grandfather also see Brigitte Hamann, Hitlers Wien: Lehrjahre eines Diktators, Munich and Zurich, 1996, pp. 69–72; Knopp, Geheimnisse des “Dritten Reiches,” pp. 18–20. For a genealogical tree see ibid., pp. 16–18.
8 See Maser, Adolf Hitler, pp. 27–30.
9 August Kubizek, Adolf Hitler: Mein Jugendfreund, Graz and Göttingen, 1953, p. 59.
10 Statement of Herr Hebestreit, a customs officer in Braunau, from 21 June 1940; BA Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 26/17a.
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