×
Home Intro People Events Equipment Places Maps Books Photos Videos Other Reference FAQ About
     

World War II Database

The Hitler Book

Author:
ISBN-10: 1400152038
ISBN-13: 9781400152032
Contributor:
Review Date:

Full Title: The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared for Stalin from the Interrogations of Otto Günsche and Heinz Linge, Hitler's Closest Personal Aides

Immediately after the end of WW2, Joseph Stalin expressed an interest in learning of his one-time ally-of-convenience turned bitter enemy Adolf Hitler, particularly to the cause of his death. Soviet intelligence scrambled to gather information, and most of the information came from Hitler's personal aides Heinz Linge and Otto Günsche. Rather than merely an analysis of Hitler's final days, however, those in charge quickly recognized that the information they had extracted from the two was enough to compile a biography of Hitler between the mid-1930s and 1945.

The Hitler Book began with the German dictator in the mid-1930s, relatively new to power. Given that this book was written by the NKVD with Stalin as the primary audience, Hitler was portrayed as a capitalist who allied with wealthy industrialists to take over Eastern Europe. Such claims were said to be from Linge and Günsche, who were captured by the Soviet Union after the war and brought to the Russian capital of Moscow, divulging such information upon torture or the product of the liberties that the NKVD editors had taken. If one could ignore such obvious "editorials", however, this book could be viewed as a great insight of the personal side of Adolf Hitler during his years of power, viewed from an angle that we largely had not seen before. While we often read of his military decisions and involvement in the Holocaust, Hitler's daily life was far less familiar to us, and The Hitler Book filled this gap. His relationship with Eva Braun, the companionship of his dog Blondi, the daily luncheons with his court of friends and their wives, and his dependency to the drugs that his personal physician Dr. Theodor Morell gave him daily were all intimately described as observed by low level functionaries Linge and Günsche who were with Hitler as much as the high ranking officials like Hermann Göring and Albert Speer and military high command officers such as Wilhelm Keitel and Alfred Jodl.

That was not to say that the book contained no mention of military matters, however. Hitler's outburst at Heinz Guderian and Keitel's timidness before Hitler were likely over-dramatized in an attempt to please Stalin, but taken in with a grain of salt, this book reflected the German leader's style in the meddling of the campaigns and some of the happenings that led to the various successes and failures on the battlefields of the European War.

As hinted previously, the book also suffered significantly from the fact that it was originally written by the NKVD with political motives. While Hitler was without a doubt considered a warlord, the fact that Germany and the Soviet Union joined forces to invade and partition Poland, as well as the negotiations with Germany for the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States, were completely ignored. Similar to most works of the Soviet era, Anglo-American contributions to the European War, both in terms of the invasion of Italy and France as well as the contribution of war materials to the Soviet Union with Lend Lease, were downplayed. Last but not least, as Stalin engaged his own anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist policies in the late 1940s, the Holocaust as a whole was hardly mentioned even though millions had died as the result, despite that most those who died were of areas within Soviet influence after the war.

As this book was a translation, naturally, the Soviet view points and distortions could not be blamed on the editors/translators Henrik Eberle and Matthias Uhl. Additionally, they must be commended for the excellent translation that made the book such an easy read in English. As I reviewed this title in its audio book form, I must also comment that narrator Michael Prichard did a great job reading the book.

I highly recommend The Hitler Book for that the intimate descriptions of Hitler showed him as an individual rather than the personification of Nazi Germany that we were more often presented. Nevertheless, it must be read with the understanding that the material largely came from evidence given under torture, and the material edited to suit the liking of Stalin.



Back to Main | Back to Book Reviews Index




Did you enjoy this article or find this article helpful? If so, please consider supporting us on Patreon. Even $1 per month will go a long way! Thank you.

Share this article with your friends:

 Facebook
 Reddit
 Twitter

Stay updated with WW2DB:

 RSS Feeds


Posting Your Comments on this Topic

Your Name
Your Email
 Your email will not be published
Comment Type
Your Comments
 

Notes:

1. We hope that visitor conversations at WW2DB will be constructive and thought-provoking. Please refrain from using strong language. HTML tags are not allowed. Your IP address will be tracked even if you remain anonymous. WW2DB site administrators reserve the right to moderate, censor, and/or remove any comment. All comment submissions will become the property of WW2DB.

2. For inquiries about military records for members of the World War II armed forces, please see our FAQ.

A review copy or review sample of this product was provided by the publisher or vendor to WW2DB; opinions expressed in this review are not influenced by this fact.

Change View
Desktop View

Search WW2DB
More on The Hitler Book
Related Person:
» Hitler, Adolf

Affiliated Link:
» The Hitler Book
Famous WW2 Quote
"All that silly talk about the advance of science and such leaves me cold. Give me peace and a retarded science."

Thomas Dodd, late 1945


Support Us

Please consider supporting us on Patreon. Even $1 a month will go a long way. Thank you!

Or, please support us by purchasing some WW2DB merchandise at TeeSpring, Thank you!