Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

972 Pages·2001·8.69 MB·English

by  Ian (Professor of Modern Histor Kershaw

PENGUIN BOOKS
HITLER 1889 – 1936

‘An exemplary biography – trenchant, thorough, sane, beautifully organized’
John Gross, Sunday Telegraph, Books of the Year

‘Ian Kershaw’s Hitler counts among the most significant works on
contemporary history in the last decades’ Frank Schirrmacher, Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung

‘This is the most impressive biography of Hitler in the English language…
Kershaw’s work supersedes Bullock’s celebrated book in every sense, as well as
the excellent book by the late William Carr’ John Lukacs, Spectator

‘What emerges is an entirely original thesis, a new insight into how this
uniquely calamitous dictator managed to come so close to fulfilling his terrible
aims’ Gitta Sereny, The Times

‘A path-breaking biography [which places] all previous biographies of Hitler
in the shade’ Hans Mommsen, Frankfurter Rundschau

‘By the end of this volume, we understand how Hitler could have become so
identified with Germany, and it with him. Kershaw is able to clarify, perhaps
better than any biographer who preceded him, what made Hitler’s dictatorial
power possible’ Walter Reich, The New York Times Book Review

‘It is now perhaps the best explanation in English of why so many Germans
subordinated themselves to this absurd, obsessive outsider’ John Simpson, Daily
Telegraph, Books of the Year

‘Magisterial’ Anthony Julius, Sunday Telegraph, Books of the Year

‘Compelling… his study will undoubtedly become the standard work,
superseding even the superb biographies of Alan Bullock and Joachim Fest’
Piers Brendon, Mail on Sunday
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ian Kershaw is Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield and
one of the world’s leading authorities on Hitler. He was the historical adviser to
the two BBC series The Nazis: A Warning from History and War of the Century.
He is also the author of ‘The Hitler Myth’: Image and Reality in the Third Reich,
Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich, Bavaria 1933–45 and
The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation; the editor
of Weimar: Why Did German Democracy Fail? and Hitler: A Profile in Power;
and co-editor, with Moshe Lewin, of Stalinism and Nazism: Dictatorships in
Comparison. Hitler 1889–19 36: Hubris was shortlisted for the 1998 Whitbread
Biography Award and the first Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. Hitler
1936–1945: Nemesis was shortlisted for the 2000 Whitbread Biography Award,
and was awarded the Bruno Kreisky Prize in Austria for the Political Book of the
Year and the Wolfson Literary Award for History for 2000.
HITLER

1889–1936: HUBRIS

Ian Kershaw

PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS

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First published by Allen Lane The Penguin Press 1998
Published in Penguin Books 1999
Published in this format in Penguin Books 2001
13

Copyright © Ian Kershaw, 1998
All rights reserved

Extracts from the translation of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler are reproduced by permission of Random
House

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by
way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior
consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar
condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-192579-0
Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgements
Reflecting on Hitler
1. Fantasy and Failure
2. Drop-out
3. Elation and Embitterment
4. Discovering a Talent
5. The Beerhall Agitator
6. The ‘Drummer’
7. Emergence of the Leader
8. Mastery over the Movement
9. Breakthrough
10. Levered into Power
11. The Making of the Dictator
12. Securing Total Power
13. Working Towards the Führer

Glossary of Abbreviations
Notes
List of Works Cited
Index
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Every effort has been made to contact all copyright holders. The publishers
will be glad to make good in future editions any errors or omissions brought to
their attention. (Photographic acknowledgements are given in brackets.)
1. Adolf Hitler in his Leonding school photo (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,
Munich)
2. Klara Hitler (Ullstein Bilderdienst, Berlin)
3. Alois Hitler (Ullstein Bilderdienst, Berlin)
4. Karl Lueger (Hulton Getty, London)
5. August Kubizek (The Wiener Library, London)
6. The crowd in Odeonsplatz, Munich, 2 August 1914 (Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, Munich)
7. Hitler with Ernst Schmidt and Anton Bachmann (Bildarchiv Preußischer
Kulturbesitz, Berlin)
8. German soldiers on the Western Front (Hulton Getty, London)
9. Armed members of the KPD Sektion Neuhausen (Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, Munich)
10. Counterrevolutionary Freikorps troops entering Munich (Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, Munich)
11. Anton Drexler (Hulton Getty, London)
12. Ernst Röhm (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich)
13. Hitler’s DAP membership card (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich)
14. Hitler speaking on the Marsfeld (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich)
15. NSDAP mass meeting, Munich, 1923 (Collection Rudolf Herz, Munich)
16. Paramilitary organizations on ‘German Day’, 1923 (Collection Rudolf
Herz, Munich)
17. Alfred Rosenberg, Hitler, Friedrich Weber and Christian Weber
(Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin)
18. Armed SA men manning a barricade (Süddeutscher Verlag, Munich)
19. Armed putschists from the area around Munich (Stadtsmuseum,
Landeshaupstadt Munich)
20. Defendants at the trial of the putschists (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,
Munich)
21. Hitler immediately after his release from imprisonment (Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, Munich)
22. Hitler in Landsberg (Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart)
23. Hitler in Bavarian costume (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich)
24. Hitler in a raincoat (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich)
25. Hitler with his alsatian, Prinz (Collection Rudolf Herz, Munich)
26. The Party Rally, Weimar, July 1926 (Ullstein Bilderdienst, Berlin)
27. The Party Rally, Nuremberg, August 1927 (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,
Munich)
28. Hitler in SA uniform (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich)
29. Hitler in rhetorical pose (Karl Stehle, Munich)
30. Hitler speaking to the NSDAP leadership (Bildarchiv Preußischer
Kulturbesitz, Berlin)
31. Geli Raubal and Hitler (David Gainsborough Roberts)
32. Eva Braun (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich)
33. Reich President Paul von Hindenburg (AKG London)
34. Reich Chancellor Heinrich Brüning with Benito Mussolini (AKG
London)
35. Reich Chancellor Franz von Papen with State Secretary Dr Otto Meissner
(Bundesarchiv, Koblenz)
36. Gregor Strasser and Joseph Goebbels (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,
Munich)
37. Ernst Thälmann (Hulton Getty, London)
38. Nazi election poster, 1932 (AKG London)
39. Candidate placards for the presidential election (Bundesarchiv, Koblenz)
40. Discussion at Neudeck (AKG London)
41. Reich Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher (AKG London)
42. Hitler in evening dress (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich)
43. Hitler bows to Reich President von Hindenburg (AKG London)
44. SA violence against Communists (AKG London)
45. The boycott of Jewish doctors (AKG London)
46. An elderly Jew being taken into custody (AKG London)
47. Hindenburg and Hitler on the ‘Day of National Labour’ (AKG London)
48. Hitler with Ernst Rohm (Süddeutscher Verlag, Munich)
49. Postcard designed by Hans von Norden (Karl Stehle, Munich)
50. Postcard: ‘The Führer as animal-lover’ (Karl Stehle, Munich)
51. Hitler justifying the ‘Röhm purge’ (Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz,
Berlin)
52. Hitler, Professor Leonhard Gall, and architect Albert Speer (Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, Munich)
53. Hitler with young Bavarians (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich)
54. The Mercedes-Benz showroom at Lenbachplatz, Munich (Stadtarchiv,
Landeshauptstadt Munich)
55. Hitler with Karl Krause, Albert Vögler, Fritz Thyssen and Walter Borbet
(AKG London)
56. ‘Hitler in his Mountains’: Heinrich Hoffmann publication (Bayerische
Staatsbibliothek, Munich)
57. New recruits at the Feldherrnhalle, 1935 (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,
Munich)
58. German troops entering the Rhineland (AKG London)