Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil
Author: Ron Rosenbaum
When Hitler's war ended in 1945, the war over Hitler--who he really was, what gave birth to his unique evil--had just begun. Hitler did not escape the bunker in Berlin but, half a century later, he has managed to escape explanation in ways both frightening and profound. Explaining Hitler is an extraordinary quest, an expedition into the war zone of Hitler theories. This is a passionate, enthralling book that illuminates what Hitler explainers tell us about Hitler, about the explainers, and about ourselves.
New York Times Book Review
A report on . . .refractory issues of Hitler theory, and on the theorists themselves, by a sharp, critical investigative journalist.
Michael R. Marrus
[Rosenbaum] has a sympathetic ear, a knack for classification and a sharp, critical mind. -- The New York Times Book Review
People Magazine
What made Hitler so evil? There are dozens of conflicting theories, the most engaging of which are dissected here.
Washington Post Book World - Marc Fisher
Cultural criticism served up as riveting narrative history. . .with words and ideas that surprise, amuse and even elevate the reader.
Boston Globe
Uniquely illuminates one of the darkest corners of modern experience.
Gabriel Schoenfeld
Glistens with insight and intelligence and shimmers with originality — Commentary
Library Journal
Rosenbaum, a literary journalist (Esquire, New York Times Magazine), believes that although much has been written about Hitler, not much has been settled. Drawing on archival research and interviews with historians, he has produced a well written work of historiography and, at times, investigative journalism, tracing the history not of Hitler per se, but of the 'Hitler explainers.' Beginning with the intrepid Munich Post reporters of the '20s and early '30s, who dared to challenge Hitler's controlled public image and were a thorn in his side, to the early postwar historians (Trevor-Roper and Bullock) and the new generation of scholars (Browning and Goldhagen), the author gives these historians opportunities to address questions that might not have been covered in their published works. Readers expecting a full-length biography of Hitler (which was not the author's purpose) will no doubt be disappointed, but Rosenbaum admirably sheds light on the many quarrels and inconsistencies in the literature, from the mysterious death of Geli Raubal (Hitler's niece), to the question of Hitler's evil, to the debate between functionalists and intentionalists. -- John A. Drobnicki, CUNY York College Library
Library Journal
Rosenbaum, a literary journalist (Esquire, New York Times Magazine), believes that although much has been written about Hitler, not much has been settled. Drawing on archival research and interviews with historians, he has produced a well written work of historiography and, at times, investigative journalism, tracing the history not of Hitler per se, but of the 'Hitler explainers.' Beginning with the intrepid Munich Post reporters of the '20s and early '30s, who dared to challenge Hitler's controlled public image and were a thorn in his side, to the early postwar historians (Trevor-Roper and Bullock) and the new generation of scholars (Browning and Goldhagen), the author gives these historians opportunities to address questions that might not have been covered in their published works. Readers expecting a full-length biography of Hitler (which was not the author's purpose) will no doubt be disappointed, but Rosenbaum admirably sheds light on the many quarrels and inconsistencies in the literature, from the mysterious death of Geli Raubal (Hitler's niece), to the question of Hitler's evil, to the debate between functionalists and intentionalists. -- John A. Drobnicki, CUNY York College Library
Lance Morrow
Brilliant. . .Restlessly probing and deeply intelligent. -- Time Magazine
Lawrence L. Langer
...[A] picaresque excursion through the landscape of theories about Hitler's criminality and...his hatred of Jews....Rosenbaum....roams the intellectual countryside in pursuit of Hitler's authentic identity, meeting...a cast of characters....[who] have different ideas about the nature and origin of the evil...that led to the destruction of European Jewry. -- The Atlantic Monthly
Marc Fisher
Cultural criticism served up as riveting narrative history. . .with words and ideas that surprise, amuse and even elevate the reader. -- Washington Post Book World
Michiko Kakutani
An important contribution. . .An exciting, lucid book informed by old-fashioned moral rigor and common sense. -- The New York Times
Gabriel Schoenfeld
Glistens with insight and intelligence and shimmers with originality -- Commentary
The Philadelpia Inquirer
Reading this book is like having a long conversation with someone who's passionate, brilliant.
Kirkus Reviews
A resourcefully imaginative examination of our desperate search for an explanation of ultimate evil. In the vast literature on Hitler and the Holocaust, one question recurs again and again: Why? If the 'how' (the mechanics and bureaucracy) of the 'final solution' has been detailed, then the vexatious 'why' still haunts the world's collective conscience. Rosenbaum (Travels with Dr. Death; Manhattan Passions), a New York Observer cultural affairs columnist, brings a journalist's vigorous, querying temperament to a topic that all too often drowns in opaque pedantic moralizing.
Rosenbaum has read extensively and thoughtfully; he also casts a wide intellectual net, writing chapters on the interpretive musings of H.R. Trevor-Roper, Alan Bullock, Yehuda Bauer, the philosopher Berel Lang, literary critic George Steiner, filmmaker Claude Lanzmann, and even the Hitler apologist and revisionist David Irving. (Conspicuously and curiously absent is Primo Levi, whose work The Drowned and the Saved is a classic in the field.) Potentially explosive subjects—for example, Hitler's reportedly 'abnormal' sexuality—are handled with discerning intelligence. Rosenbaum employs a brilliant methodological stratagem by taking Albert Schweitzer's 1906 study, The Quest for the Historical Jesus, as a model. Schweitzer realized that the 19th-century school of German Protestant 'higher criticism,' which prided itself on its 'scientific' positivism in explaining Jesus, actually revealed more about scholars themselves than the historical figure they were studying. Similarly, Rosenbaum shows how the various attempts to 'explain' Hitler are prisms that reflect our ownfears and desires. This leads, of course, to the not insignificant matter of Rosenbaum's own fears and desires, ironically not fully addressed by the author. Yet his great contribution is that, unlike most Holocaust scholars, he refuses to offer a definitive explanation. Instead, he lays out with memorable clarity a series of tantalizing interpretations, preferring a 'poetry of doubt' that allows us to grapple for ourselves with the question of evil. Profound and provocative.
What People Are Saying
Sam Tanenhaus
Bold and provocative...Illuminates the most perplexing unsolved mystery of the twentieth century...In Explaining Hitler, profound historical quesitons spring urgently and hauntingly to life.
Robert Conquest
A major contribution...It goes deep into the basic issues of ethics, of free will and the problem of evil.
Gerald Posner
A work of exceptional scholarship...A must-read for anyone interested in trying to understand Hitler.
David Remnick
A remarkable journey by one of the most original journalists and writers of our time.
David Remnick
A remarkable journey by one of the most original journalists and writers of our time. -- Author of Lenin's Tomb
Table of Contents:
| Introduction: The Baby Pictures and the Abyss | ||
| Pt. 1 | The Beginning of the Beginning | |
| Ch. 1 | The Mysterious Stranger, the Serving Girl, and the Family Romance of the Hitler Explainers | 3 |
| Ch. 2 | The Hitler Family Film Noir | 16 |
| Ch. 3 | The Poison Kitchen: The Forgotten First Explainers | 37 |
| Pt. 2 | Two Postwar Visions: Sincerity and Its Counterfeit | |
| Ch. 4 | H. R. Trevor-Roper: The Professor and the Mountebank | 63 |
| Ch. 5 | Alan Bullock: Rethinking Hitler's Thought Process | 78 |
| Pt. 3 | Geli Raubal and Hitler's "Sexual Secret" | |
| Ch. 6 | Was Hitler "Unnatural"? | 99 |
| Ch. 7 | Hitler's Songbird and the Suicide Register | 118 |
| Ch. 8 | The Dark Matter: The Sexual Fantasy of the Hitler Explainers | 135 |
| Pt. 4 | Hatred: Complex and Primitive | |
| Ch. 9 | Fritz Gerlich and the Trial of Hitler's Nose | 155 |
| Ch. 10 | The Shadow Hitler, His "Primitive Hatred," and the "Strange Bond" | 179 |
| Pt. 5 | The Art of Evil and the Future of It | |
| Ch. 11 | To the Gestapo Cottage; or, A Night Close to the Fuhrer | 201 |
| Ch. 12 | David Irving: The Big Oops | 221 |
| Pt. 6 | The War over the Question Why | |
| Ch. 13 | A Tale of Three Kafkas: A Cautionary Parable | 239 |
| Ch. 14 | Claude Lanzmann and the War Against the Question Why | 251 |
| Ch. 15 | Dr. Louis Micheels: There Must Be a Why | 267 |
| Pt. 7 | Blame and Origins | |
| Ch. 16 | Emil Fackenheim and Yehuda Bauer: The Temptation to Blame God | 279 |
| Ch. 17 | George Steiner: Singling out the Jewish "Invention of Conscience" | 300 |
| Ch. 18 | Singling out Christianity: The Passion Play of Hyam Maccoby | 319 |
| Ch. 19 | Daniel Goldhagen: Blaming Germans | 337 |
| Ch. 20 | Lucy Dawidowicz: Blaming Adolf Hitler | 369 |
| Notes | 397 | |
| Acknowledgments | 425 | |
| Index | 429 |
New interesting book: Forgotten Man or The Goal
Atomic Tragedy: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to use the Bomb Against Japan
Author: Sean L Malloy
Atomic Tragedy offers a unique perspective on one of the most important events of the twentieth century. As secretary of war during World War II, Henry L. Stimson (1867-1950) oversaw the American nuclear weapons program. In a book about how an experienced, principled man faltered when confronted by the tremendous challenge posed by the intersection of war, diplomacy, and technology, Sean L. Malloy examines Stimson's struggle to reconcile his responsibility for "the most terrible weapon ever known in human history" with his long-standing convictions about war and morality.
Ultimately, Stimson's story is one of failure; despite his beliefs, Stimson reluctantly acquiesced in the use of the atomic bomb against heavily populated Japanese cities in August 1945. This is the first biography of Stimson to benefit from extensive use of papers relating to the Manhattan Project; Malloy has also uncovered evidence illustrating the origins of Stimson's commitment to eliminating or refining the conduct of war against civilians, information that makes clear the agony of Stimson's dilemma.
The ultimate aim of Atomic Tragedy is not only to contribute to a greater historical understanding of the first use of nuclear weapons but also to offer lessons from the decision-making process during the years 1940-1945 that are applicable to the current world environment. As the United States mobilizes scientists and engineers to build new and supposedly more "usable" nuclear weapons and as nations in Asia and the Middle East are replicating the feat of the Manhattan Project physicists at Los Alamos, it is more important than ever that policymakers and analysts recognize the chain of failures surrounding thefirst use of those weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Ed Goedeken - Library Journal
These two new books provide important perspectives on the continuing debate about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, which ultimately concluded the war in the Pacific and World War II. Were these bombings necessary? Rotter's well-written narrative looks at the development of the bomb from an international standpoint and recounts the vigorous competition between the Allies and the Axis powers to come up with an effective atomic weapon that could be used to turn the tide of war. Going beyond the accounts found in such classics as Richard Rhodes's The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Rotter delves into the complex personalities of the numerous military, political, and scientific leaders who were engaged in this enterprise. In so doing, he creates the context-both in military and in diplomatic terms-that led the Americans to use the bomb on the two unsuspecting Japanese cities.
Malloy's study of Henry L. Stimson, who served as secretary of war during World War II, is equally valuable. Stimson, who was in his seventies during the war, was one of the Republican Party's most respected elder statesmen, having been in Hoover's and Taft's cabinets before. He was a deeply moral man who believed in the rule of law to keep international order. Yet despite his fervent belief in moral suasion, he succumbed to the allure of the atomic bomb-and all its attendant horrors-when presented with the possibility that the terrible war could be concluded through its use, even though at the expense of civilian life. Malloy's book, which builds on earlier work by Hodgson (The Colonel) and Morison's classic Turmoil and Tradition, presents us with an updated and exceedinglyinsightful assessment of the aging statesman, perhaps no longer at the top of his game yet faced with one of our country's most challenging decisions during its most awful conflict. Malloy believes Stimson's decision to support the bomb went against his most cherished beliefs and was for many a disappointing conclusion to an outstanding career of public service. Both of these works are highly recommended for all collections.
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