The Hitler of History

Rating:
Summary: For a deeper look...
Review: Having studied Adolf Hitler intensely for the past six or seven years, I must admit I am torn between liking and disliking this book. I praise the author for attempting to dig deeper into Hitler's background and offering his readers SOME valuable insights that many other historians have overlooked and the book was obviously well-researched, for the most part.
On the other hand, I didn't like the author's style of writing at all, and he tended to ramble quite frequently. Also, some of the things he presented as "facts" (for example he states that Hitler's father was an abusive alcoholic who was more or less hated by his son Adolf-- this was not the case!) have little or no backing, making this just one more of many inaccurate sources. I can only recommend this work to serious students of Hitler who go into it with their eyes open.

Rating:
Summary: Gave me a deeper understanding of Hitler
Review: I have been very intrested in Hitler and national socialism since I was 13. I'm 23 now so I have read quite many books on the subject by now. when I first read this book about two years ago I was stunned by it. The aurthor John Lukacs seem to have a bottomless knowledge of the 20th centurary European history. Although you can criticize his somewhat "was and is always right" attitude, he none the less often presents his case so compelling arguments that I buy most of his thesis. He explains that nationalism, and nationalsocialism not only was a german phenomenon but an universal idea, which dominated th 20th century, and was far more important than communism or even old style UK-US libaral democracy. He also explains Hitlers antisemitism and his place in Germanys history. For me this book was an awakning, and I have read it many times. I understand Hitler and the national socialistic movement much better now. Hitler did not create the national socialism. Even though in Germany he used the radical nationalism in his want for power, he was rather the most central revolutionary figure, of that movement. The only a little bit annoying is that Lukacs takes much time argue against the british history revisionist, and holocaust denier David Irving. This may well be with well intent, but I think its rather unnecessary. It would be better to just ingnore him, this takes needless space from other important insights. Irving has already been repitudated by so many before.

Rating:
Summary: Showing the True Colours of the Prince of Darkness
Review: I must confess that I am fascinated by larger than life bogeymen of history. I devour biographies about such characters as Mao, Hitler, Himmler, Beria, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mussolini, Fidel Castro, Franco, Robespierre, Lenin, Fouche, Napoleon, Richelieu. While obviously one could never lump them all together (there is a universe of difference between a psychopathic genocidal maniac such as Pol Pot and a respected architect of royal authority such as Richelieu), they all share one common trait, and that is of having been thought (fairly, in most cases) to be dark, even satanic. And the darkest and most satanic of all is Hitler. The man seems irredemeable, a compendium of all that is beastly and vulgar. Hannah Arendt's dictum about Adolf Eichman ("the banality of evil") seems even more adequate for Eichman's namesake and compatriot Hitler.

Lucaks' book shines a light through the Fuehrer's inner darkness. In so doing he actually manages something of a re-appraisal that is, nonetheless, far off from a rehabilitation. He shows how Hitler as a person was actually a much more complex and unfathomable being than the pantomime villain he has frequently been represented (remember the Hitler of "Springtime for Hitler" in Mel Brooks' "The Producers"? Many serious historians have not been much more realistic in their portrayals). He shows that this brand of spiritual evil is not diminished by Hitler's many positive personal traits (such as his fearlesness, his photographic memory, his iron will, or his personal honesty). I thought it very fitting that he would dare to discuss evil in an explicitly religious context. Contemporary indifference to traditional categories such as good and evil, and relativistic appraisals of everything, get in the way of an accurate understanding of what Hitler was about. Hitler was not a cartoon character dribbling spit from his lower lip as he ranted and raved for the benefit of a few like-minded maniacs. He was an intelligent, hard-working man who was able to inspire an great nation with his vision. Unfortunately, this vision was inhuman and hellish. The evil that he conjured burned him from the face of this earth. The tragic magnificence of his destiny is well conjured by Lucaks' erudition and elegant writing style. His strong moral sense is also useful to have as one gazes into the abyss.

If you will only read one book about Hitler, make it this one, and if possible follow it up with Burleigh's "Third Reich".

Rating:
Summary: Lukacs plays God
Review: It is an accepted convention in academia that the academic (in the case the Historian) forms his argument and sets it forth acknowledging with bibliographical references those who have gone before him and whose ideas he has borrowed. Provided that he borrows from a wide variety of sources and comes up with some new interpretations of his own it is possible to have produced something original and worth reading.

Lukacs offends this convention unapologetically in his book The Hitler of History. What he says he set out to do is describe how the interpretation of the subject has evolved through the 100 odd biographies but what we get instead is Lukacs standing aloof and playing God by passing judgement on those who have gone before and then interjecting with his own anecdotal interpretations of particular points as he goes along.

One could sympathize with former biographers for not being overenamoured with this approach and it would not surprise me to see Lukacs snubbed academically - but having said that I did find the book worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Hitler and History, Hitler and Historians
Review: John Lukacs looks at the historiography of Hitler. The Hitler of History is not a biography in any sense of the word although biographical details of Hitler's life are presented throughout and, often, in very illuminating ways. This book looks at the historians and the historiographical problems surrounding Hitler (and there are many of both). It is not necessarily for the uninitiated but will be more useful to those with a little background knowledge of the various theories being promoted and with some of the work already out there. There will be a little (or a lot) to upset any historian but there is also much to consider. The last chapter is a corker both to read and to contemplate and sums up much that has gone before in a well-written, lucid and exciting manner. This book is not the place to first read about Hitler, but it should undoubtably be the second place.

Rating:
Summary: Somewhat superficial
Review: Lukacs is an emigre Hungarian professor, and is known in the literary community as a historian of moderately conservative Christian Democratic opinions. Several times through this book Lukacs declares that he is writing a history of Hitler, not the Third Reich. Concentrating largely on biographies of Hitler, Lukacs argues that the key experience of Hitler was his experience in Munich during the Bavarian Revolution, not is life in pre-war Vienna. Hitler was sane; he was a nationalist, not a patriot, and he did not really take racism or anti-communism very seriously. His domestic programs were radical, not conservative, and he attacked the Soviet Union largely to remove Britian from the war. His combination of nationalism and socialism makes him the most influential leader of the century.

The book's key flaw comes from its emphasis on biography. No historian would wish to study Roosevelt's life simply by looking at this biographies, while ignoring William Leuctenberg or Robert Dallek. Lukacs spends too much time criticitizing minor quasi-apologetic works by John Toland and David Irving. But he ignores Kershaw's invaluable historiographical guide, The Nazi Dictatorship. Books on foreign policy by Gerhard Weinberg and Noprman Rich, works on the German economy by Harold James and Richard Overy, specific monographs by Tim Mason, Robert Gellately, and Claudia Koonz; all these go unmentioned. Lukacs does not look at the functionalist studies of Martin Broszat and Hans Mommsen, nor at the biographies of other Nazis, such as Richard Breitman on Himmler, Gitta Sereny on Speer and Richard Overy on Goering. Particularly striking is his attempt to argue that Hitler was not really hostile to Communism, in contrast to a large historical consensus that Hitler's expansionist plans against the Soviet Union were at the core of his ideology. He seems to argue that the attack, which Hitler began making plans for as soon as France was defeated, was almost exclusively defined to knock Britain out of the war. He ignores the work of Arno Mayer and Omer Bartov who have found that for German soldiers the concept of "Judeo-Bolshevism" was a very real and very lethal concept." He makes not mention of them, or the Commissar Order, or the whole despoilation of Russia.

Like many historians Lukacs can be hostile to theory, with unsatisfactory results. He makes the emotionally satisfying but intellectual adequate contrast between good, humane, conservative Patriotism and bad modern abstract Nationalism. At one point he suggests that patriotism can be racist but not inhumane, since American Southerners would not deny that blacks are Americans. Apparently he is unaware that plans for deporting African-Americans were common currecny for more than a century after independence. Lukacs makes no reference to the more historical approach to nationalism made by his fellow Central European emigres, Eric Hobsbawm and Ernest Gellner, or by the Czechoslovak historian, Miroslav Hroch. Lukacs praises the military conspirators of 1944 and ignores their anti-democratic and anti-Semitic views, while dismissing worker resistance. At one point he quotes a 1952 account who declares that Nazism was a movement of the "masses of the city," which muddles the fact that the core of Nazi support was in small Protestant villages. After spending ten pages belaboring the obvious conclusion that Hitler was worse than Napolean, Lukacs finally ends with a sententious conclusion meandering on the depths of Hitler's evil. All in all, a rather overrated book.

Rating:
Summary: "We are not finished with Hitler"
Review: Lukacs opens his book with the quote above signifying that our obsession with Adolf Hitler is still very much alive. It's a conflicting obsession; we are repulsed by man and his behavior, yet fascinated by the times. It speaks to motives which Lukacs hints at in his conclusion, but which are not central to his book. This is not a psychoanalysis nor a biography of Hitler; it is instead a historiography of the main biographies; "the history of the evolution of our knowledge of Hitler, apparent as that is in the writings of a great variety of his many biographies".

Indeed, there are many, dozens, beginning with the first by Konrad Heiden in 1936. Lukacs surveys many of the principal ones and tells us his preferences - E. Deuerlein's 'Hitler: Eine Politsche Biographie and Joachim Fest's 'Adolf Hitler: A Biography'. Another of significance was by Alan Bullock - one of the first to use German documents from Nuremberg. Germans of course have written many, and it is out of these that emerged the 1980's Historikerstreit (Historical Controversy) in German academia. Neoconservative histories appeared, charged with attempting to 'rehabilitate' Hitler. Counter charges of character assasination were made, and amid the vitriol moderation and debate departed. Lukacs is critical of the revisionist histories but also of the controversy as a whole because of the shredding of "the acceptance of a general consensus, for which many respected German historians and intellectuals had been aiming for at least 40 years" Despite the attention to methodology and academic disputes, the book is not pedagogical. Teaching strives for balance and history demands it, and wheras Lukacs comes down heavily against revisionists he does a good job of synthesis across a broad range of opinions.

Lukacs has written the book for the general reader so we find themes that have broader appeal. Hitler as strategist and statesman; as nationalist and patriot; Hitler's views on arts, architecture and technology. Questions are posed and answers sought. When did he develop his ideologies?, What about racism, anti-semitism, anti-bolshevism? and Lukacs most provocative question - Was Hitler a revolutionary leader? It's provocative because historians understanding of the concept 'revolutionary leader' implies also 'modern' leader. This makes all of us uncomfortable; we prefer not to think of such a leader or leadership style as having any relevance to present day discussions on political science. This is precisely the context in which Hitler is studied in a 1989 biography by German historian Rainer Zeitelmann. Lukacs supports Zeitelmann's view that "Hitler was truly a revolutionary, and that, consequently, his aspirations and visions were modern". Mildly contoversial initially but heatedly so when it became apparent that Zeitelmann had a political agenda, which he buttressed with his history. In Germany, right wing ultranationalism is spelt only one way - s.c.a.r.y. Was this a new Historikerstreit that Lukacs himself got entangled in with his support for Zeitelmann? No, Lukacs supports the revolutionary concept but condemns the ideology. However in his concluding statement, Lukacs seems to show some misgivings about even dabbling in support for Hitler as a 'modern'. He warns "If Western civilization melts away, threatening to collapse [Hitlers] reputation may rise in the eyes of orderly people, who may regard him as a tough last architect of an imperial order." It's a sobering thought to end on and it's depressing that 'we are not finished with Hitler'. Nothing is resolved and we loose sight of the bigger picture with too much attention to written minutiae. The reality remains...

...Nothing I wrote in the thirties saved one Jew from Auschwitz (W. H. Auden)

Rating:
Summary: Pompous, Conservative, 1950's Style History
Review: The author spends too much time trashing Marxism and telling us which biographers and writers are "respectable" in the eyes of him and his co-thinkers. One would never guess that Hitler's main support came from aristocrats, capitalists and the "respectable" middle class from reading this book. Lukaks' contention that Hitler was a revolutionary rather than a reactionary is utterly unconvincing. What kind of revolutionary sucks up to capitalists, generals and aristocrats, outlaws abortion, seeks and gains the support of the Catholic and Protestant churches, and smashes Marxist and Social Democratic movements? This book is a tired rehash of Cold War ideology.

Rating:
Summary: An interesting take on historiography
Review: The book is basically Lukacs setting forth his views on the historiography of Hitler. Because of the depth of the subject, it would naturally be impossible to provide a comprehensive account in such a small book and, in many ways, what Lukacs provides is nothing new to someone familiar with the subject. Also, unfortunately, it does not include discussion of Kershaw's recent monumental bio. That being said, I found much of his take on Hitler interesting. His discussion of Hitler being more of a nationalist than a racist, for example, is not particularly controversial, but it's nice to actually read a 'popular' history book that acknowledges the complexities involved in historical judgments. Lukacs takes on specific aspects of Hitler's history that, I would assume, he found particularly interesting, such as the influence that Vienna and/or Munich had on Hitler, the nature of Hitler's statesmanship, and whether Hitler was a reactionary or revolutionary. Although one might not agree with some of the point he makes, as no one is infallible, Lukacs' take on the historiography of Hitler is definitely a worthy read.

Rating:
Summary: Not recommended
Review: This book was a disappointment. On the good side, John Lukacs certainly knows all about Hitler, and the body of historical work *about* Hitler. In the introduction he says he will survey the Hitler biographies, pointing out their flaws and virtues, and he's well-equipped to do that.

But after the first chapter --- which goes through every major biography in chronological order --- he divides the rest of the book into aspects of Hitler's life. There's a chapter on Hitler as a statesman, Hitler and the Jewish question, Hitler and Munich, Hitler's apologists, etc. Lukacs uses the main text to describe Hitler's life, then he packs the bottom of each page with footnotes. The footnotes refer to the biographies of Hitler. Some of the notes crowd out the main text, making the book very hard to read.

Lukacs has two fatal flaws in his writing style. One is his habit of telling you which facts about Hitler are right, which are wrong, and never bothering to tell you WHY he thinks so. He quotes a biography, then writes "This is not true." Okay, but why should I take Lukacs' word for it? I'm sure he appreciates a little skepticism, since this book is essentially about being skeptical of the way historians have depicted Hitler over the years. But Lukacs doesn't seem to realize that he can't just say yea or nay to each statement he quotes. It's not convincing.

The second fatal flaw is his need to criticize Marx, communism, Stalin, and the USSR whenever possible. Obviously, these topics should be criticized (especially Stalin). But statements about the bestial nature of Russians and the lunacy of Marx are a little too shrill. Do we need another historian telling us that the commies are bad? Lukacs treats Hitler's life with an admirable degree of nuance. Lukacs chooses his words carefully when he describes the Nazi party, Nazi Germany, Hitler, and even the term "totalitarian." But when the commies are mentioned, that level of sophistication is gone. He just rants.

I can't recommend this book. It has a promising start, but it quickly drops in quality as you go. When I got into it, I looked forward to reading about other books. I wanted to know which Hitler biographies are best, and which should be avoided. But that's not what this book is.