Hitler

January 4, 1999
We surely need books like Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners that examine German society as a whole in an effort to understand how Hitler came to power and held it for so long. But we also need classic, political biographies that focus on the dictator himself. Kershaw's book, the first volume of a projected two-part biography, pays some attention to how ripe a demoralized Germany was for demagoguery after the Treaty of Versailles, but the author's focus is on Hitler and his political career--the decisions he made as he rose to power and those he made once he attained it. What distinguishes this effort is the extent of documentation as Kershaw, a professor of history at the University of Sheffield, exploits the full Goebbels diaries and texts of early Hitler speeches only recently made accessible. Also notable is the portrait Kershaw draws of Hitler as surprisingly remote from the thuggery, greed and corruption of his followers, high and low, even as he actively encouraged the development of a cult of personality. Kershaw closes with an examination of Hitler's remilitarization of the Rhineland, a fait accompli made possible by the timidity and disarray of Germany's supine neighbors. Had the French marched, Hitler said later, "we would have had to withdraw... with our tails between our legs." By 1936, Kershaw writes, events had substantiated Hitler's hubris. A "nemesis" (subtitle of the next volume) would in reality not emerge before 1941. Kershaw's massive work (made somewhat too massive by some repetition) is valuable for the rigor with which it portrays Hitler not as some supernatural evil force ejected into history from beyond but as a thoroughly natural figure--evil, surely, but historically evil. Photos.

September 15, 1998
The first of two volumes from a British biographer.

Starred review from January 1, 1999
Despite numerous interpretations, a horrible ineffability surrounds Hitler and his motivations. To be sure, historians have pinned down the Hitlerian personality, its cold contempt for any human value, its closemindedness, its demonic hatreds; but explaining how he came by his attitudes (and appraising the genuineness of his belief in them) is a controversial exercise. "The Hitler of History" by John Lukacs, a survey of historiographical disputes, hedged its conclusions in anticipation of Kershaw's biography. Although no biography may ever be definitive (thanks to Hitler's secretiveness), Kershaw's approaches that status. Obfuscation about his life began once Hitler became a beer-hall demagogue--his viscious memoir, though revealing, concealed more about his youth. Kershaw's reconstruction of this period effectively handles the biased or faulty source material. But the events that pulled Hitler to prominence and power seem so improbable, even in Kershaw's exhaustively documented but compellingly readable narrative, that Hitler's self-image as a great national savior establishes itself as an explanatory mechanism for his releasing himself--chillingly avowed in his 1934 speech justifying the murder of hundreds of political opponents--from the bindings of law or ordinary morality. The consequences of such an amoral figure at large await Kershaw's second volume, subtitled "Nemesis" and slated for 2000 publication. "Hubris" joins--might even supplant--works by Joachim Fest and Alan Bullock as first-rate biographies of Hitler. ((Reviewed January 1 & 15, 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)