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Summary: Full of information
Review: This book is great. It's full of pictures and information on Hitler. It really goes into detail about his life. Recommended
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Summary: ALL QUESTIONS ANSWERED.
Review: This politically incorrect subject has left the details and origins of Nazism untouched. One would believe that the gates of hell simply opened up to burp out the Hitler cartoon of the mass media. Unfortunatly, this over-simplification leaves many questions unanswered about one of the most complex and critical personalities in history . John Toland answers anything you would ever want to know about Hitler, his colleages, and his motivations. Why did they do it? Who sorrounded and supported Hitler? Who were his close supporters? Where were his family and friends during this catastrophe? What events in his youth affected and molded his world view? ----- Toland leaves no stone unturned. Toland posses very few theories. He does not try to taint history with viewpoint. He meticulously gives a chronological account filled with direct accounts from all the family, friends, and confidants of Hitler.
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Summary: Thoroughly readable & compelling.
Review: I had some misgivings about delving so deeply into the foreboding world of Adolph Hitler, fearing perhaps that knowing about all the minutiae of a protagonist whose legacy still conjures up such dreadful revulsion might imbue him with qualities that could make him seem "regular", or God forbid, even sympathetic. The book is an exhaustive work of nearly 1,000 pages, though it is thoroughly engrossing and the time passed quickly thanks to Toland's great literary talent.
What emerges is a rather non-editorialized look at an improbable man who happened to have been endowed with some talents and considerable single-mindedness at exactly the right (or wrong) time and place to "blossom". The reader comes away with an understanding of Germany between the wars and hopefully with an appreciation of the great importance that must be placed on treaties not as a means to end one conflict but rather to avoid another. Of course, I do not excuse what happened, but it is clear that National Socialism grew all too well in the bitter agar of Versailles.
Aside from Hitler, his most intimate circle is well developed, including Himmler, Goebbels, Goring & Eva Braun. Occasional glances at Mussolini, Franco and others add more depth. His conflicts with the General Staff progress throughout the book, and they are the mirror into which Corporal Hitler cannot stand to gaze. The more things go astray, the more grotesque the image he sees becomes, and naturally he is sure it is the looking glass, not himself, that is responsible.
This book did not make me see Hitler as more or less of a human being; he remains what he was, a destroyer of people, most especially of his own people. It is no small irony that his last dictation in the bunker makes no apologies for the 6 million Jews he murdered, but rather predicts that he will one day be celebrated for it throughout the world. Instead, his acts brought down the German state and spawned the Jewish state that without him might not yet have come into being.
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Summary: A better tradition in historical writing
Review: Surely, unless you happen to be a student or author planning to regurgitate the work of others, the interest in history is not in a parade of dates and names, but in world-shaping events and the people behind them. In this sense Toland's book is in a better tradition.
I have read several books on Hitler. The least useful ones are the high profile date and name books by Bullock and Kershaw and I advise the reader without academic motivation to avoid them as too dry or making shallow interpretations of the man. In fact one can only wonder at the whole business of making books by only reading books, in comparison to eyewitness testimony of Toland interviews.
Nevertheless, despite the books biographical use this is not quite a work of psychological explanation and I strongly recommend George Victor's "Hitler: the search for the origins of his evil", a book I have complete confidence in, to supplement a basic command of Hitler biography like this. My criticism of Toland's book therefore is that it may well be longer than is necessary for your needs of studying men over events, but it has plenty of early Hitler biography and is more reliable than a shorter work of the ironic and entertaining Robert Payne.
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Summary: One of the better HITLER biographies
Review: Although none of the American or British authors has succeeded in giving an un-biased and fully factual account of Hitler's fascinating life, Toland's biography is one of the better ones. It is full of facts and reads very smoothly, almost like a novel. Nevertheless, Werner Maser's (updated German) biography is by far the best. Taking into account, however, the difficulties I've had tracking Maser down in the USA, and considering all your other options, this book is one of the best you are going to get, fellow history lovers. You may have to settle for that. As is the case with ALL works regarding HITLER, this biography contains several "half-truths" and heresay, so don't take everything as FACT. (But then, that advice applies to all printed material.) Still, Toland's work is a good read.
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Summary: Indepth study of the life of Hitler
Review: This book dives deep into the life of Adolf Hitler. It explores his family origins and the life that led up to him becoming the ruler of Germany. It is a very informitive and well written book. Mr. Toland takes a very nonpartial stand point throughout the entire book, only delivering the facts, not coloring them. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know about the real life of hitler, not what mainstream society thinks.
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Summary: Bewilderingly Enlightening
Review: Most people who pick up this book will already have a general knowledge of World War II and its figures. I certainly count myself among that group. But there was something in every book or novel I read and every documentary I saw that always troubled me a bit: in stark contrast to the academic treatment of ALL other political figures, I was never greeted with anything on the subject of Adolf Hitler other than the typical "he was cold-blooded, a megalomaniac, an evil genius, a butcher, a spellbinder . . ." Of course, there are obvious reasons for this, not the least of which that they're all true, but also that there are virtually no intellectual adherents to radical German fascist ideas and the German defeat basically brought the curtain down on the Nazi party. Other tyrants, Stalin and Mao, for example, still (incredibly) have their advocates in the intellectual world, and although these people are largely warped, I believe that their tireless efforts to rehabilitate the cult of personality to which they belong gives us a richer, more interesting and more accurate portrait of the figure in question. Anyway, I've always been a little annoyed that I had never read or seen a sympathetic portrayal of Hitler (aside from that of fanatical propaganda) and have always wondered, what was he REALLY like? Well, John Toland, in his startlingly animated biography, "Adolf Hitler," has succeeded in painting a much more dynamic and accurate portrait of the real man from the Austrian border town. We learn that what really motivated Hitler was not anti-Semitism, but that his anti-Semitism was a by-product of his real inspirations: his absolutely insane LOVE of Germany and his all-consuming HATRED of Bolshevism, represented in large part by Jewish figures in Eastern Europe and the U.S.S.R. We also learn that many popular myths (e.g. his having died a virgin; lacking a testicle; latent homosexuality) were expeditiously damning, but, in fact, categorically false. But the most bewildering and brilliant parts were anecdotes which illustrate counterintuitive facts about Hitler and other Nazis. We learn, for example, that Hitler not only had close Jewish friends during his formative years, but actually went to lengths to shield certain Jews from the horrible effects of Nazism. The Jewish doctor who presided over Hitler's mother was one who was spared the tragic fate wrought upon others with whom he shared ethnicity. We are told of the horribly ironic COMPASSION, twisted HUMANITY, and deep remorse of Heinrich Himmler, who presided over the system of extermination camps. Under Himmler's authority, Nazi guards were actually executed for brutalizing Jewish inmates. I realize that the concept of humane genocide is a little difficult to wrap oneself around, intellectually and emotionally, but it seems to have been one of the ideals characteristic of Nazi ideology. But the presence of humane impulses does nothing to mitigate the actual horror of the holocaust; it does, in fact, create more mind-boggling moral questions. Regardless of the degree to which these "positive" traits really permeated Hitler's world, to have read them, learn that they existed, and to be able to weigh them, is a deeply valuable educational experience for which I thank the author. This was a truly amazing book.
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Summary: Comprehensive Biography
Review: John Toland does a exemplory job of telling the life and times of Adolf Hitler. This book contains deep, detailed description of all events in his life from the day he was born until the day he committed suicide. This book is not intended for those who want a brief synopsis of Hitler, as many parts of the book are very detailed. For those, however, who are eager to expand their knowledge of early 20th century Germany, they need look no further than this book.
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Summary: Adolf Hitler superstar!
Review: This book gives us fans an insight into the genius of Mr. Hitler. Never before have we been able to delve into the life of the greatest leader ever with such detail. This book illustrates the type of genius that can do this sort of work.
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Summary: A comprihansive guide to Hitler
Review: I have been reading about Hitler now for 15 years and allmost 40 diffrent book on the subject, and this book is one best I've read on Hitler and Germany.
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