Unless otherwise noted, quotations from Hitler’s Mein Kampf are taken from the translation by Ralph Mannheim.
Prologue: A little context …
1 Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, p. 80.
2 The finest biographies of Hitler – Ullrich, Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939; Kershaw; Fest, Hitler; Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny – tend to give less emphasis to the role of the First World War in shaping Hitler’s character than it deserves. Three well-researched books assess Hitler’s record in the Great War: Carruthers, Private Hitler’s War 1914–1918; Weber, Hitler’s First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War; and Williams, Corporal Hitler and the Great War 1914–1918: The List Regiment. Jetzinger’s Hitler’s Youth traces Hitler’s life from childhood to his early political career (but is dated and unfairly discredits August Kubizek, Hitler’s boyhood friend). Several ‘psycho-histories’ attempt to diagnose Hitler’s post-war mental state, implying that war trauma led to the Holocaust: Bromberg and Small, Hitler’s Psychopathology; Dorpat, Wounded Monster: Hitler’s Path from Trauma to Malevolence; Waite, The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler; Hiden and Farquharson, Explaining Hitler’s Germany: Historians and the Third Reich, pp. 13–32. For a view of the US wartime secret service (OSS), see Murray, ‘Analysis of the Personality of Adolf Hitler, with Predictions for his Future Behavior and Suggestions for Dealing With Him Now and After Germany’s Surrender’, OSS Archives, October 1943.
3 See Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. For online data, see: http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/capital21c/en/pdf/F10.6.pdf and http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/capital21c/en/pdf/F12.4.pdf
4 Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa: The White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912, p. xxi.
5 Ham, 1914: The Year the World Ended, pp. 399–413.
6 See Mitchell, The Great Train Race: Railways and the Franco-German Rivalry, 1815–1914; Feuchtwanger, Imperial Germany, 1850–1918, Table 1, p. 199.
7 See Hennock, The Origin of the Welfare State in England and Germany, 1850–1914.
8 See BBC debate, ‘The Necessary War’, 4 June 2014: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03wtmz6
9 Ham, pp. 575–600.
10 Ibid., pp. 22–35.
11 Brook-Shepherd, The Austrians: A Thousand-Year Odyssey, pp. 95–6; Kolmer (ed.), ‘The Linz Program’, Parlament und Verfassung in Österreich [Parliament and Constitution in Austria], Vol. 3, pp. 212–14: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/FacultyInformation/jking/linz_pro[1].htm
1 ‘At the time I thought everything should be blown up’
1 Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, p. 11.
2 Hamann, Hitler’s Vienna: A Portrait of the Tyrant as a Young Man, p. 7.
3 Bloch, ‘My Patient Hitler’, Collier’s Weekly, 15 March 1941, p. 35.
4 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 20.
5 Bloch, p. 36.
6 Kubizek, The Young Hitler I Knew: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Childhood Friend, p. 21.
7 Quoted in Grafton, ‘Mein Buch’, New Republic, 24 December 2008.
8 Bromberg and Small, Hitler’s Psychopathology, p. 41.
9 Mein Kampf, p. 17.
10 Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, pp. 13–14.
11 Bromberg and Small, p. 44; see also Waite, The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler.
12 Mein Kampf, p. 8.
13 Ibid., p. 9.
14 Ibid., p. 10.
15 Kershaw, p. 18.
16 Kubizek, p. 25.
17 ‘Interview with Hitler’s Sister on 5th June 1946’, Modern Military Records, US National Archives.
18 Mein Kampf, p. 10.
19 Jetzinger, Hitler’s Youth, pp. 105–6.
20 Goebbels, The Goebbels Diaries, p. 331.
21 Quoted in Hamann, op. cit, p. 19.
22 Ibid.
23 Ullrich, Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939, p. 19.
24 Fest, Hitler, p. 21.
25 Kubizek, pp. 6–10; Jetzinger, pp. 166–8.
2 ‘At home I do not remember having heard the word Jew’
1 Kubizek, The Young Hitler I Knew: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Childhood Friend, p. 6.
2 As Ian Kershaw, Brigitte Hamann, Hugh Trevor-Roper and other historians attest.
3 Bromberg and Small, Hitler’s Psychopathology, p. 51.
4 Kubizek, p. 13.
5 Ibid., p. 8.
6 Ibid., p. 10.
7 Ibid., p. 26.
8 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 51.
9 Richter, Historical Dictionary of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy, p. 98.
10 Mein Kampf, p. 51.
11 ‘The Making of Adolf Hitler’, Timewatch, BBC documentary, 4 January 2002.
12 Kubizek, p. 32.
13 Hanfstaengl, Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus: Memoiren eines politischen Aussenseiters [Between the White and Brown House: Memoirs of a Political Outsider], p. 174.
14 Kubizek, p. 34.
15 ‘The Making of Adolf Hitler’.
3 ‘I had honoured my father, but my mother I had loved’
1 Vaget, ‘Syberberg’s “Our Hitler”: Wagnerianism and Alienation’, Massachusetts Review, Vol. 23, No. 4, Winter 1982, pp. 593–612.
2 Kubizek, The Young Hitler I Knew: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Childhood Friend, p. 53.
3 Hamann, Hitler’s Vienna: A Portrait of the Tyrant as a Young Man, p. 24.
4 Vaget, pp. 597–98.
5 Kubizek, p. 145.
6 Hamann, Hitlers Edeljude, p. 81.
7 Hamann, Hitler’s Vienna, p. 28.
8 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 20.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Bloch, ‘My Patient Hitler’, Collier’s Weekly, 15 March 1941, p. 39; Jetzinger, Hitler’s Youth, pp. 176–81.
12 Kubizek, p. 166ff.; Hamann, Hitler’s Vienna, p. 54.
13 Macleod, ‘Mrs Hitler and Her Doctor’, Australasian Psychiatry, 13 (4), December 2005, pp. 412–14.
14 Ibid.
15 Mein Kampf, p. 19.
16 Bloch, p. 39.
17 Carruthers, Private Hitler’s War 1914–1918, p. 66.
18 See Cocks, ‘The Hitler Controversy’: reviews of Adolf Hitler by John Toland, Hitler’s War by David Irving, The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler by Robert G. L. Waite, Hitler among the Germans by Rudolph Binion, in Political Psychology, Vol. 1, No. 2, Autumn 1979, pp. 67–81. See also Macleod.
19 Cocks, ‘The Hitler Controversy’, pp. 72–3.
20 Hamann, Hitler’s Vienna, p. 69.
21 Macleod.
4 ‘The whole academy should be dynamited’
1 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 20.
2 Quoted in Carruthers, Private Hitler’s War 1914–1918, p. 73.
3 See Hašek, The Good Soldier Švejk and his Fortunes in the World War.
4 Mein Kampf, p. 77.
5 Ibid.
6 Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, p. 31.
7 Ibid., p. 32.
8 See Hamann, Hitler’s Vienna: A Portrait of the Tyrant as a Young Man, pp. 78–82, and also her ‘Jews in Vienna’, Porges Family site: http://www.porges.net/JewsInVienna/1HistoricalBackground.html
9 Hamann, pp. 59–62.
10 Kubizek, The Young Hitler I Knew: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Childhood Friend, p. 199ff.
11 Fest, Hitler, p. 31.
12 Kubizek, pp. 126 and 210–20.
13 Mein Kampf, p. 24; Kubizek, p. 202.
14 Fest, pp. 32–4.
15 Quoted in Hamann, p. 136.
16 Mein Kampf, p. 41.
17 Quoted in Hamann, p. 137.
18 Kubizek, p. 123.
19 Heiden, The Führer: Hitler’s Rise to Power, pp. 43–50. For his condition, see also Smith, Adolf Hitler: His Family, Childhood, and Youth, p. 127; Fest, p. 45.
20 Mein Kampf, pp. 40–2; Hamann, pp. 206–11.
21 Mein Kampf, p. 40.
22 Bromberg and Small, Hitler’s Psychopathology, p. 71.
23 Ibid.
24 Hanisch, ‘I was Hitler’s Buddy’, New Republic, 5 April 1939, pp. 239–300. See also Carruthers, Hitler’s Violent Youth: How Trench Warfare and Street Fighting Moulded Hitler, Chapter 5: ‘The Jewish Question’.
25 Hanisch, pp. 239–300.
26 Quoted in Hamann, p. 379.
27 Fest, p. 47.
5 ‘Is this a German?’
1 Fest, Hitler, p. 52.
2 Kubizek, The Young Hitler I Knew: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Childhood Friend, p. 275.
3 Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944, p. 230ff.
4 Waite, The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler, p. 51; see also Fuchs, The Limits of Ferocity: Sexual Aggression and Modern Literary Rebellion, p. 123.
5 Kubizek, p. 120.
6 Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, p. 44ff.
7 Taylor, The Habsburg Monarchy, 1809–1918: A History of the Austrian Empire and Austria–Hungary, p. 9.
8 Kubizek, p. 9.
9 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 35; Ryback, Hitler’s Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life.
10 Hitler, Mein Kampf (trans. Roberto), p. 15.
11 Hamann, Hitler’s Vienna: A Portrait of the Tyrant as a Young Man, pp. 74–8.
12 Ibid., pp. 230–3.
14 Ibid., p. 69.
15 Ullrich, Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939, p. 43; see also Hamann, pp. 239–42; Kershaw, pp. 60–7; and Toland, Adolf Hitler, Vol. 1, p. 48ff.
16 Mein Kampf, p. 56.
17 Ibid., pp. 60–61.
18 Ibid., p. 58.
19 Hanisch, ‘I was Hitler’s Buddy’, New Republic, 5 April 1939, pp. 239–300. See also Hamann, pp. 166 and 347–59.
20 Hamann, pp. 164–6.
21 Hanisch.
22 Ibid.
23 Quoted in Hamann, p. 498.
24 Mein Kampf, p. 52.
25 Boyer, ‘Karl Lueger and the Viennese Jews’, Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, Vol. 26, Issue 1, 1981.
26 Hamann, p. 286.
27 Ibid.
28 Kershaw, p. 35.
29 Turner, ‘To Hitler via Two Men’, American Scholar, Vol. 6, No. 1, Winter 1937, p. 9.
30 Mein Kampf, p. 107.
31 Quoted in Lukacs, The Hitler of History, p. 71.
32 Ibid.
6 ‘I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven’
1 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 123.
2 Ibid.
3 Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944, p. 115.
4 Mein Kampf, pp. 123–4.
5 Ibid., p. 126.
6 Ibid., p. 127.
7 Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, p. 82.
8 Heinz, Germany’s Hitler, p. 51.
9 Payne, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, pp. 100 and 102.
10 Fest, Hitler, p. 62; see also Jetzinger, Hitler’s Youth, p. 253ff.
11 Jetzinger, p. 265; Carruthers, Private Hitler’s War 1914–1918, p. 104.
12 Mein Kampf, p. 128.
13 Ibid., p. 158.
14 Ibid., p. 161.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 Ferguson, The Pity of War: Explaining World War I, pp. 28–30.
18 Weber, Hitler’s First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War, p. 17.
19 Mein Kampf, p. 162.
7 ‘I passionately loved soldiering’
1 Asquith, Memories and Reflections 1914–1927, Vol. II, p. 195.
2 Grey, Twenty-Five Years, 1892–1916, p. 20.
3 ‘Report of a speech delivered by Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, German Imperial Chancellor, on 4 August 1914’, Appendix to ‘Germany’s Reasons for War with Russia’, German White Book, World War I Document Archive: https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/The_German_White_Book
4 Ibid.
5 Bethmann-Hollweg, Reflections on the World War, p. 147.
6 ‘Report of a speech delivered by Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg’.
7 Ibid.
8 Tirpitz, My Memoirs, Vol. I, pp. 279–80.
9 Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944, p. 43.
10 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 163.
11 Williams, Corporal Hitler and the Great War 1914–1918: The List Regiment, p. 9.
12 Weber, Hitler’s First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War, p. 24.
13 Ibid., p. 20.
14 Ibid., p. 18.
15 Hitler, Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924 [Complete Notes 1905–1924], No. 24, p. 59.
16 Mein Kampf, p. 165.
8 ‘Louvain was a heap of rubble’
1 Tuchman, The Guns of August, p. 164.
2 German soldiers’ song, printed in Daheim, the army field newspaper, No. 50, August–September 1914, p. 442, Heidelberg Historical Records.
3 ‘The Martyrdom of Belgium: Official Report of Massacres of Peaceable Citizens, Women and Children by the German Army’.
4 Kluck, The March on Paris: The Memoirs of Alexander von Kluck, 1914–1918, p. 26.
5 ‘The Martyrdom of Belgium’, p. 5.
6 Ibid., p. 13.
7 Ibid., p. 8.
8 Ibid., p. 9.
9 Ibid., p. 17.
10 Quoted in Tuchman, p. 321.
11 ‘The Martyrdom of Belgium’, p. 1.
12 Quoted in Gilbert, The First World War: A Complete History, p. 88.
13 ‘The Martyrdom of Belgium’, p. 19.
14 Hitler, Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924 [Complete Notes 1905–1924], No. 26, p. 60.
15 Solleder (ed.), Vier Jahre Westfront, Geschichte des Regiments List R.I.R. 16 [Four Years on the Western Front, History of the List Regiment, 16th R.I.R.], p. 325.
16 Hitler (ed. Jochmann), Monologues at Hitler’s Headquarters from 1941 to 1944, p. 407ff.
17 Williams, Corporal Hitler and the Great War 1914–1918: The List Regiment, p. 41.
18 Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen, No. 30, p. 68ff. Hitler’s ‘Hepp Letter’ is published in full in English in several books and websites. See Carruthers, Private Hitler’s War 1914–1918, p. 34.
19 Maser, Hitler’s Letters and Notes, p. 50.
20 Quoted in Weber, Hitler’s First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War, p. 32.
21 Williams, p. 49; Maser, p. 53.
22 Quoted in Heiden, The Führer: Hitler’s Rise to Power, pp. 68–75.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.
9 ‘I was right out in front, ahead of everyone’
1 Beckett, Ypres: The First Battle 1914, p. 60.
2 Foch, The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, p. 169.
3 Beckett, p. 58.
4 Ibid.
5 Keegan, The First World War, p. 143.
6 Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 164–5.
7 For detailed accounts of the battle at Langemarck, see Sheldon and Cave, Ypres 1914: Langemarck; and Beckett.
8 Mein Kampf, p. 165.
9 Mend, Adolf Hitler im Felde, 1914–1918 [Adolf Hitler in the Field, 1914–1918], pp. 19–20; Williams, Corporal Hitler and the Great War 1914–1918: The List Regiment, p. 58.
10 Quoted in Carruthers, Private Hitler’s War 1914–1918, pp. 125–9; see other translations in Heiden, The Führer: Hitler’s Rise to Power, pp. 70–71; and Williams, p. 57.
11 Carruthers, pp. 125–9.
12 Ibid.
13 Geoffrey, review of Blut und Paukboden. Eine Geschichte der Burschenschaften [Blood and Duelling Lofts, A History of Student Societies] by Heither et al., in German Studies Review, Vol. 22, No. 1, February 1999, pp. 141–2.
14 Heiden, p. 71.
15 Keegan, p. 144.
16 Quoted in Beckett, p. 103.
17 Ibid.
18 Heiden, p. 71.
19 Bromberg and Small, Hitler’s Psychopathology, p. 77.
20 Quoted in Williams, p. 54.
21 Quoted in Weber, Hitler’s First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War, p. 48.
22 Mein Kampf, p. 145.
23 Weiskopf, ‘Penetrating the “Intellectual Gas Mask”’, Books Abroad, Vol. 17, No. 1, Winter 1943, pp. 9–12.
24 Baird, review of The Attractions of Fascism: Social Psychology and Aesthetics of the ‘Triumph of the Right’, ed. John Milfull, German Studies Review, Vol. 15, No. 1, February 1992, pp. 169–170.
25 Ibid.
10 ‘You will hear much more about me’
1 Ryback, Hitler’s Private Library: The Books That Shaped his Life, p. 4.
2 Ibid.
3 Quoted in Maser, Hitler’s Letters and Notes, p. 54.
4 Ryback, p. 5; Williams, Corporal Hitler and the Great War 1914–1918: The List Regiment, p. 11.
5 Quoted in Williams, p. 14.
6 Carruthers, Private Hitler’s War 1914–1918, p. 139.
7 Weber, Hitler’s First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War, p. 78.
8 Quoted in Carruthers, p. 149.
9 Quoted in Weber, p. 98; Meyer, Mit Adolf Hitler im Bayerischen-Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment 16 List [With Adolf Hitler in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment List], p. 35. See also: Calvin College, German Propaganda Archive, Michigan State University Press.
10 Quoted in Flood, Hitler: The Path to Power, p. 16.
11 Lloyd-Burch, private papers, IWM.
12 Quoted in Williams, p. 81.
13 Carruthers, p. 141.
14 Diver, ‘Journal reveals Hitler’s dysfunctional family’, Guardian, 4 August 2005.
15 Mend, Adolf Hitler im Felde, 1914–1918 [Adolf Hitler in the Field, 1914–1918], pp. 47–51.
16 Quoted in Carruthers, p. 145.
17 Ibid., p. 141.
18 Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944, pp. 232–3.
19 Quoted in Carruthers, p. 155.
20 Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944, p. 76.
21 ‘Wannsee Conference and the “Final Solution”’, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
22 Ham, Passchendaele: Requiem for Doomed Youth, p. 413 and Appendix 8, p. 477.
23 Quoted in Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, p. 94; Heiden, The Führer: Hitler’s Rise to Power, pp. 68–75; Maser, pp. 73–6; Mend, p. 163.
24 Mend, pp. 61–2.
25 Ibid.
26 Williams, p. 134.
27 Toland, Adolf Hitler, p. 70; Cocks, reviews of Toland, Adolf Hitler; Irving, Hitler’s War; Waite, The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler; Binion, Hitler among the Germans, Political Psychology, Vol. 1, No. 2, Autumn 1979, pp. 67–81.
28 Heiden, p. 72.
29 Quoted in Carruthers, p. 152.
30 Brandmayer, Meldegänger Hitler [Hitler the Messenger], p. 36; Toland, p. 64; Williams, p. 13.
31 Brandmayer, pp. 136–40.
32 Fest, Hitler, p. 70.
11 ‘At last my will was undisputed master’
1 Quoted in Williams, Corporal Hitler and the Great War 1914–1918: The List Regiment, p. 104; Mend, Adolf Hitler im Felde, 1914–1918 [Adolf Hitler in the Field, 1914–1918], pp. 85–95.
2 Williams, p. 111.
3 Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, p. 92; Brandmayer, Meldegänger Hitler [Hitler the Messenger], pp. 52–6.
4 Carruthers, Private Hitler’s War 1914–1918, p. 158.
5 Dorpat, Wounded Monster, p. 86; Flood, Hitler: The Path to Power, p. 16.
6 Quoted in Holmes, The Western Front, p. 37.
7 Harris, Douglas Haig and the First World War, pp. 153–77.
8 Ryback, Hitler’s Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life, pp. 9–11.
9 Osborn, ‘The Beginning of the End of German Jewry’, 25 January 1933, Jewish Museum, Berlin.
10 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 165.
11 Quoted in Carruthers, p. 150.
12 Ryback, p. 13.
13 Mend, p. 186; Brandmayer, pp. 48–58.
14 Sheffield, Forgotten Victory: The First World War – Myths and Realities, p. 190.
15 Solleder (ed,), Vier Jahre Westfront, Geschichte des Regiments List R.I.R. 16 [Four Years on the Western Front, History of the List Regiment, 16th R.I.R.], p. 241.
16 Brandmayer, pp. 62–5.
17 Quoted in Williams, pp. 156–7.
18 Mein Kampf, p. 192.
19 Vincent, The Politics of Hunger: The Allied Blockade of Germany, 1915–1919, pp. 21–2.
20 Ibid.
21 Quoted in Vincent, p. 45.
22 Herwig, The First World War: Germany and Austria–Hungary, 1914–1918, p. 280.
23 Ibid., p. 291.
24 Mein Kampf, p. 192.
25 Ibid., pp. 192–3.
26 ‘Project find postcard from Hitler’, Europeana 1914–18, an archival project partnered by Oxford University and the British Library, University of Oxford.
27 Weber, Hitler’s First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War, p. 173.
28 Mein Kampf, pp. 193–4.
29 Williams, p. 95; Mend, p. 78.
30 Weber, p. 144.
12 ‘For the last time the Lord’s grace smiled on His ungrateful children’
1 Williams, Corporal Hitler and the Great War 1914–1918: The List Regiment, p. 161.
2 Weber, Hitler’s First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War, p. 165.
3 Wiedemann, Der Mann, der Feldherr werden wollte [The Man Who Wanted to Be Commander], p. 30.
4 Ullrich, Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939, p. 60.
5 Solleder (ed.), Vier Jahre Westfront, Geschichte des Regiments List R.I.R. 16 [Four Years on the Western Front, History of the List Regiment, 16th R.I.R.], p. 284.
6 Quoted in Sheldon, The German Army at Passchendaele, p. 43.
7 Ibid., p. 59.
8 Beumelburg, Flandern 1917, p. 10.
9 Bostyn (ed.), Passchendaele 1917: The Story of the Fallen and Tyne Cot Cemetery, p. 15.
10 Beumelburg, p. 10.
11 Kuhl, Der Weltkrieg 1914–1918: Dem Deutschen Volke dargestellt [The World War, 1914–1918, For the German People], pp. 121–2.
12 Ham, 1914: The Year the World Ended, p. 589.
13 Ham, Passchendaele: Requiem for Doomed Youth, Appendix 1 ‘Casualty Figures’, pp. 447–8.
14 Ibid., pp. 411–12.
15 Williams, p. 173.
16 Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944, p. 94.
17 Quoted in Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, p. 93.
18 Herwig, The First World War: Germany and Austria–Hungary, 1914–1918, p. 284.
19 Ibid., p. 254.
20 Ibid., p. 332.
21 Ibid., p. 273.
22 Ibid., p. 292.
23 ‘Spotlights on History: The Blockade of Germany’, National Archives, United Kingdom. See also Osborne, Britain’s Economic Blockade of Germany, 1914–1919; and Grebler and Winkler, The Cost of the World War to Germany and to Austria-Hungary, p. 78.
24 ‘Spotlights on History’.
25 Maser, Hitler’s Letters and Notes, p. 96; also quoted in Weber, p. 202.
26 Rupprecht, My War Diary, 3 November 1917.
27 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 198.
13 ‘Since the day I stood at my mother’s grave, I had not wept’
1 Sheffield, Forgotten Victory: The First World War – Myths and Realities, p. 100.
2 Edmonds, Official History of the Great War: Military Operations France and Belgium 1917, Vol. 2, p. 490.
3 Sheffield, p. 233.
4 ‘Sir Douglas Haig’s “Backs to the Wall” Order, 11 April 1918’: www.firstworldwar.com/source/backstothewall.htm
5 Quoted in Weber, Hitler’s First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War, p. 209.
6 Ibid., p. 210.
7 Quoted in Carruthers, Private Hitler’s War 1914–1918, p. 166.
8 Beumelburg, Flandern 1917, p. 27.
9 Gibbs, From Bapaume to Passchendaele 1917, p. 139.
10 Quoted in Dorpat, Wounded Monster: Hitler’s Path from Trauma to Malevolence, p. 86.
11 See Weber.
12 Quoted in Ullrich, Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939, p. 59.
13 Ibid.
14 Quoted in Weber, p. 176.
15 Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, p. 96.
16 Quoted in Carruthers, pp. 174–5.
17 Ibid., pp. 177–8.
18 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 93.
19 See ‘Facts about Sulfur Mustard’, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/sulfurmustard/basics/facts.asp
20 See Weber, p. 221.
21 Ibid., pp. 220–21.
22 Armbruster, Jan, and Theiss-Abendroth, Peter, ‘Deconstructing the myth of Pasewalk: Why Adolf Hitler’s psychiatric treatment at the end of World War I bears no relevance’, Archives of Clinical Psychiatry (São Paulo), Vol. 43, No. 3, May/June 2016.
23 Kitchen, The German Offensives of 1918, p. 234.
24 Weldon Whalen, Robert, ‘War Losses (Germany)’, International Encyclopedia of the First World War: http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/war_losses_germany
25 Sheffield, p. 263.
26 Mein Kampf, p. 204.
14 ‘What was all the pain in my eyes compared to this misery?’
1 Wheeler-Bennett, ‘Ludendorff: The Soldier and the Politician’, Virginia Quarterly Review, 14 (2), Spring 1938, pp. 187–202; see also Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 31.
2 Churchill, History of the Second World War, Vol. I: The Gathering Storm, pp. 47–8.
3 Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 205–6.
4 Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, p. 104.
5 Herwig, ‘Clio Deceived: Patriotic self-censorship in Germany after the Great War’, International Security, 12 (2), Autumn 1987, p. 9.
6 Quoted in Ullrich, Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939, p. 76.
7 Quoted in Williams, Corporal Hitler and the Great War 1914–1918: The List Regiment, p. 162.
8 Mein Kampf, p. 200.
9 Quoted in Kershaw, p. 122.
15 ‘I could speak!’
1 Quoted in Ullrich, Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939, p. 80.
2 Kellogg, The Russian Roots of Nazism: White Émigrés and the Making of National Socialism, 1917–1945, p. 278.
3 Steigmann-Gall, The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945, p. 16.
4 Müller, Mars und Venus: Erinnerungen 1914–1918 [Mars and Venus: Memories 1914–1918], p. 338.
5 Ibid., p. 338ff.
6 Bromberg and Small, Hitler’s Psychopathology, p. 84.
7 Ullrich, p. 83.
8 See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_231_of_the_Treaty_of_Versailles; and https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Versailles. For the best book on the treaty, see: MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World.
9 Keylor, The Legacy of the Great War: Peacemaking, 1919, p. 34.
10 Kolb, The Weimar Republic, p. 31; Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History, p. 47.
11 Völkischer Beobachter, 6 April 1920.
12 Burleigh, p. 47.
13 Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War, p. 80.
14 Ullrich, p. 85.
15 Hitler, Letter to Herr Gemlich in ‘Adolf Hitler: First Anti-Semitic Writing’, 16 September 1919, Jewish Virtual Library: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Adolf_Hitler’s_First_Antisemitic_Writing.html
16 Quoted in Ullrich, p. 87. For several other records of this episode, see Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, p. 107, fn79.
17 Phelps, ‘Hitler and the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei’, American Historical Review, Vol. 68, No. 4, July 1963, pp. 974–86.
18 Fest, Hitler, p. 119.
19 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 355.
20 Quoted in Ullrich, p. 88.
21 Hoffmann, Hitler Was My Friend: The Memoirs of Hitler’s Photographer, p. 46.
22 Binchy, ‘Adolf Hitler’, Studies: An Irish quarterly review of letters, philosophy and science, Vol. 22, No. 85, March 1933, p. 29.
23 Schramm, Hitler: The Man and the Military Leader, p. 21.
24 Völkischer Beobachter, 22 April 1922.
25 Ibid.
16 ‘The movement was on the march’
1 Quoted in Fest, Hitler, p. 92.
2 Ibid. See also Hitler’s speeches published in Völkischer Beobachter on 27 April 1920, 22 September 1920, 28 July 1922 and other dates.
3 ‘Program of the German Workers’ Party (1920)’, German History in Documents and Images (GHDI): http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=3910
4 Hitler, Mein Kampf (trans. Murphy), p. 160. (Mannheim, p. 370, translates this dramatic moment: ‘Thus slowly the hall emptied. The movement took its course.’).
5 Phelps, ‘Hitler and the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei’, American Historical Review, Vol. 68, No. 4, July 1963, p. 985.
6 Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, p. 132.
7 Redles, ‘The Nazi Old Guard: Identity Formation During Apocalyptic Times’, Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, Vol. 14, No. 1, August 2010, p. 35.
8 Ibid., p. 26.
9 Mein Kampf (trans. Murphy), p. 37.
10 Heiden, ‘Hitler’s Better Half’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 20, No. 1, October 1941, p. 75.
11 Ibid., p. 74.
12 Ibid., p. 73.
13 Ibid., p. 85.
14 Ibid., p. 75.
15 Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944, p. 168.
16 Orlow, ‘The Organizational History and Structure of the NSDAP, 1919–23’, Journal of Modern History, Vol. 37, No. 2, June 1965, p. 216.
17 Ibid., p. 208.
18 Ibid., p. 226.
19 Heiden, p. 77.
20 Kershaw, p. viii.
21 Heiden, p. 73.
22 Orlow, p. 218.
23 Ibid., p. 210.
24 Lukacs, The Hitler of History, p. 67.
25 Bromberg and Small, Hitler’s Psychopathology, p. 90.
26 Ibid.
17 ‘The world of the woman is the man’
1 Schramm, Hitler: The Man and the Military Leader, pp. 17–18.
2 Palmer, ‘Did Hitler Invent the Hitler Mustache?’, Slate, 30 May 2013.
3 Hanfstaengl, Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus: Memoiren eines politischen Aussenseiters [Between the White and Brown House: Memoirs of a Political Outsider], p. 69.
4 Moorhouse, ‘On Hitler’s Teeth – or, the Death of a Dictator’, historian at large (personal blog), 25 March 2015, http://historian-at-large.blogspot.fr/2015/03/on-hitlers-teeth-or-death-of-dictator.html
5 Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, p. 162.
6 Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, p. 68. See also Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives.
7 Schramm, p. 126.
8 Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, p. 68.
9 Hiden and Farquharson, Explaining Hitler’s Germany: Historians and the Third Reich, p. 26.
10 Schramm, pp. 10–11.
11 Ibid., p. 12.
12 Ibid., p. 30.
13 Ibid., p. 93.
14 Hanfstaengl, pp. 123–4; Bromberg and Small, Hitler’s Psychopathology, p. 92.
15 Schramm, p. 36.
16 Neumann and Eberle, Was Hitler Ill?: A Final Diagnosis, p. 29.
17 Ibid., p. 31.
18 Kershaw, p. 220.
19 For a sample of the range of speculation about Hitler’s sexuality, see Bromberg and Small; Ullrich, Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939; Kershaw; Neumann and Eberle; Hayman, Hitler and Geli; Heiden, Hitler: A Biography; Langer, ‘A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler, His Life and Legend’; Waite, The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler; and Dorpat, Wounded Monster: Hitler’s Path from Trauma to Malevolence. The most reliable conclusions are those of Ullrich, Kershaw, and Neumann and Eberle.
20 Schramm, p. 39.
21 Ibid., p. 122.
22 Lukacs, The Hitler of History, p. 43.
23 Murray, ‘Analysis of the Personality of Adolf Hitler’, OSS Archives, October 1943.
24 For a sample of the range of speculation about Hitler’s ‘psychological disorders’, see Bromberg and Small; Ullrich; Kershaw; Neumann and Eberle; Hayman; Heiden; Langer; Waite; and Dorpat. The most reliable conclusions are those of Ullrich, Kershaw and Neumann and Eberle.
25 Kaplan, ‘Was Hitler Ill? A Reply to Eberle and Neumann’, German Politics and Society, 33 (3), 1 September 2015, pp. 70–9.
26 Ohler, Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany; see also the review by Evans, ‘Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany – a crass and dangerously inaccurate account’, Guardian, 16 November 2016.
27 Neumann and Eberle, p. 189.
28 Ensor, ‘Who Hitler Is’, Oxford Pamphlets on World Affairs, No. 20, p. 31.
29 Neumann and Eberle, p. 186.
30 Ibid., p. 190.
31 Schramm, p. 35.
32 Ibid., p. 34.
33 Ensor, p. 30.
34 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 322.
35 Dolibois, Pattern of Circles: An Ambassador’s Story, p. 114.
36 Heiden, p. 99; Bromberg and Small, p. 93.
18 ‘You must fight with me – or die with me!’
1 Ensor, ‘Who Hitler Is’, Oxford Pamphlets on World Affairs, No. 20, p. 28.
2 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 544.
3 Steinert, Hitler, p. 125.
4 Hanfstaengl, Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus: Memoiren eines politischen Aussenseiters [Between the White and Brown House: Memoirs of a Political Outsider], p. 84.
5 Redles, Hitler’s Millennial Reich: Apocalyptic Belief and the Search for Salvation, p. 24.
6 Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History, pp. 77–8.
7 Mein Kampf, p. 496.
8 Hitler, Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905–1924 [Complete Notes 1905–1924], No. 101, 19 May 1920, p. 134.
9 Redles, p. 24.
10 Ibid.
11 Quoted in Ullrich, Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939, p. 142.
12 Kershaw, Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris, p. 128.
13 Quoted in Fest, Hitler, p. 183.
14 Ibid; see a different translation in Ullrich, p. 149.
15 Quoted in Ullrich, p. 150.
16 Quoted in Kershaw, p. 129.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Fest, p. 185.
20 Quoted in Kershaw, p. 128.
21 Quoted in Fest, p. 187.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid., p. 192.
24 Landauer, ‘The Bavarian Problem in the Weimar Republic: Part II’, Journal of Modern History, 16 (3), September 1944, p. 222.
25 Quoted in Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, pp. 76–8; Fest, p. 193. See also Hess, Briefe 1908–1933 [Letters 1908–1933], p. 317.
26 Ullrich, p. 162.
27 Fest, p, 195.
19 ‘If fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters had been held under poison gas …’
1 Fest, Hitler, p. 199.
2 See Fleischman, Hitler als Häftling in Landsberg am Lech 1923/25 [Hitler as a Prisoner in Landsberg am Lech 1923/25].
3 Hanfstaengl, Zwischen Weissem und Braunem Haus: Memoiren eines politischen Aussenseiters [Between the White and Brown House: Memoirs of a Political Outsider], p. 157.
4 Ibid., p. 164. Other accounts suggest that Hitler began a strict vegetarian diet after the death of his niece, Geli Raubal.
5 Hanfstaengl, p. 164.
6 Hitler, Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944, p. 218.
7 Quoted in Ullrich, Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939, p. 165.
8 Hitler’s Table Talk 1941–1944, p. 262.
9 Hess, Briefe 1908–1933 [Letters 1908–1933], p. 338.
10 Quoted in Fest, p. 200, from Goethe’s play Torquato Tasso.
11 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 662.
12 Hiden and Farquharson, Explaining Hitler’s Germany: Historians and the Third Reich, p. 16.
13 Fest, p. 204.
14 Schopenhauer, in Parerga and Paralipomena, had written: ‘… the Jews were at all times and by all nations loathed and despised. This may be due partly to the fact that they were the only people on earth who did not credit man with any existence beyond this life and were, therefore, regarded as cattle, as the dregs of humanity, but as past masters in telling lies.’
15 Hitler, The Racial Conception of the World, p. 17.
16 Mein Kampf, p. 198.
17 Mein Kampf (trans. Murphy), p. 42.
18 Mein Kampf, p. 562 – one of many such references to the Jews.
19 Prange (ed.), Hitler’s Words: Two Decades of National Socialism, 1923–1943, p. 68.
20 Mein Kampf, p. 169.
21 Lukacs, The Hitler of History, p. 183.
22 Mein Kampf (trans. Murphy), p. 35.
23 Mein Kampf, p. 65.
24 Prange, p. 68.
25 Mein Kampf (trans. Murphy), p. 60.
26 Luther, The Jews and Their Lies.
27 Luther, ‘That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew’.
28 Luther, The Jews and Their Lies, p. 267. On the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017, the official organizing body of the commemorations issued a paper on Luther’s stance on the Jews – ‘The Reformation and the Jews: an Orientation’ – on behalf of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Reformation Jubilee 2017 (www.luther2017.de). It concluded: ‘[T]he unfathomable crime of the “Final Solution” cannot be traced back to The Jews and Their Lies, for the final objective of Luther’s treatise was not mass murder but expulsion, and its arguments were not racial politics but religious. Hence, that Nazis and German Christians made appeals to its text is beside the point. On the other hand, The Jews and Their Lies was useful for Nazi propaganda because it, too, demonizes the Jews and insists that governments should create lands without them. An anniversary of the Reformation which reflects on the full range of the heritage left by this historical turning point cannot keep silent about such a burdensome legacy.’ This statement is rich in euphemism and understatement. Luther was more than ‘useful’ to the Nazis, and the fiery monk surely would have been aware of the historical impact of his writing. It is hardly ‘beside the point’ that, regardless of what Luther said or meant to say, the Nazis did find inspiration in his words and promoted this in pamphlets and propaganda: https://www.luther2017.de/fileadmin/luther2017/material/grundlagen/Die_Reformation_und_die_Juden_Engl.pdf
29 Prange, pp. 3–5.
30 Ibid., p. 10; Mein Kampf, pp. 372 and 422.
31 Prange, p. 4.
32 Ibid., p. 3.
33 Mein Kampf, p. 452.
34 ‘Jewish Communities of Pre-War Germany’, Holocaust Encyclopaedia http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007052
35 Lukacs, p. 183.
36 Mein Kampf, p. 284.
37 ‘New Fossils from Jebel, Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapiens’, Nature, No. 546, 8 June 2017, pp. 289–92, Macmillan, New York, 2017.
38 Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.
39 Prange, p. 5.
40 ‘Persecution of Homosexuals in the Third Reich’, Holocaust Encyclopaedia: https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005261
41 Mein Kampf, p. 679.
42 Ibid., p. 302.
43 Ibid., p. 170.
44 Hitler, The Racial Conception of the World.
45 New York Times, 21 December 1924.
46 Goebbels, The Goebbels Diaries, Part 1, Vol. 1/1, p. 375.
47 Ibid., Vol. 1/2, p. 96.
Epilogue: The making of the Führer
1 Zweig, The World of Yesterday, p. 361.
2 Prochnik, ‘When it’s too late to stop fascism, according to Stefan Zweig’, New Yorker, 6 February 2017: http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/when-its-too-late-to-stop-fascism-according-to-stefan-zweig
3 Churchill, broadcast, 16 November 1934, in Never give in!: Winston Churchill’s Finest Speeches, p. 89.
4 Churchill, ‘Full transcript of notes of a speech by Winston Churchill broadcast on BBC radio, 10pm, 15 November 1934’, UK Government Parliamentary Archives: http://www.winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1930-1938-the-wilderness/the-threat-of-nazi-germany
5 Fest, Hitler, p. 12.
6 For the rigorous debate about the involvement of the German people and soldiers in the Nazis’ crimes against humanity, see: Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland; Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust; and Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Public Dissent in the Third Reich: Bavaria 1933–1945: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3788269?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents. For a fascinating examination of the psychopaths in our midst, see: Hare, Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us.
7 Fest, p. 7.
8 Williams, Corporal Hitler and the Great War 1914–1918: The List Regiment, p. 3.
9 Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 92.
10 Ibid., p. 220.
11 Ullrich, Hitler: Ascent, 1889–1939, p. 104.
12 Goldhagen.
13 ‘The National Socialist Movement’, Southern Poverty Law Center: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/national-socialist-movement
14 Kovaleski et al., ‘An Alt-Right Makeover Shrouds the Swastikas’, New York Times, 10 December 2016: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/10/us/alt-right-national-socialist-movement-white-supremacy.html?emc=edit_th_20161211&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=55326310
15 ‘25 Points of American National Socialism’, National Socialist Movement, http://www.nsm88.org/25points/25pointsengl.html
16 Herrnstein and Murray, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. Concerning the authors’ claims of a link between intelligence and genes, the American Psychological Association’s Board of Scientific Affairs concluded: ‘There is certainly no such support for a genetic interpretation. It is sometimes suggested that the Black/White differential in psycho metric intelligence is partly due to genetic differences. There is not much direct evidence on this point, but what little there is fails to support the genetic hypothesis.’ Concerning other explanations for ‘racial’ differences in IQ test results, the APA stated: ‘The differential between the mean intelligence test scores of Blacks and Whites (about one standard deviation, although it may be diminishing) does not result from any obvious biases in test construction and administration, nor does it simply reflect differences in socio-economic status. Explanations based on factors of caste and culture may be appropriate, but so far have little direct empirical support. There is certainly no such support for a genetic interpretation. At present, no one knows what causes this differential.’ http://www.intelltheory.com/apa96.shtml Many scientists have more strongly criticized the findings of The Bell Curve. See: Gould, ‘Curveball’, New Yorker, 28 November 1994.
17 ‘This is How Steve Bannon Sees the Entire World’, Buzzfeed (full transcript), 15 November 2016: https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world?utm_term=.sbKXO21Wb#.jjzp4LjNX
18 ‘Pepe and the Stormtroopers: How Donald Trump ushered a hateful fringe movement into the mainstream’, The Economist, 17 September 2016: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21707201-how-donald-trump-ushered-hateful-fringe-movement-mainstream-pepe-and?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/20160915n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/n/n
19 McCants, ‘The implications of Donald Trump’s sharp contrast from Obama and Bush on Islam’, 15 December 2016, Brookings Institution: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/markaz/2016/12/15/the-implications-of-donald-trumps-sharp-contrast-from-obama-and-bush-on-islam/?utm_campaign=Brookings+Brief&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=39427467
20 See Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century.
21 For more on Steve Bannon’s medieval world view, see Green, Devil’s Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency. The seriousness of Bannon’s vision needs to be set against his personal motto, ‘honey badger don’t give a shit’, a reference to the creature’s anarchic habits, as seen on a popular YouTube video, and Bannon’s Leninist conviction that the established world order must be destroyed.