Journalist Konrad Heiden was one of the first to recognize the young Adolf Hitler's political ingenuity and his potential. In this eyewitness account of his rise to power, the author shows how the unsophisticated, but dangerously charismatic, Hitler turned a volatile situation in Europe to his own advantage. A contemporary interpretation of why and how, by 1934, Germany was in the thrall of Hitler's perverse and self-serving ideology.
Konrad Heiden was an influential journalist and historian of the Weimar Republic and Nazi Eras. He became an early critic of National Socialism after attending a party meeting in 1920. First published in English in 1934, A History of National Socialism provides a detailed account of the growth of the movement through the 1920’s until its assumption of full control of Germany in 1934. It argues that Nazi ideology was extremely pragmatic and able to accommodate a wide diversity of opinion in return for the unconditional support of Hitler as leader.
Journalist Konrad Heiden was one of the first to hear the young Adolf Hitler’s rousing orations and to recognize his political ingenuity and perverse, self-serving ideology. As a staff reporter on the Frankfurter Zeitung, Heiden was one of the first writers to take a stand against Nazism, and his is the only contemporary document to give the whole story of Hitler’s rise to power from the very beginning to the day in 1934 when the Blood Purge eliminated the last opposition, leaving him absolute dictator of Germany. As Heiden states, “his path of murder and violence was, in accordance with Hitler’s beliefs, the right path to greatness.” First published at the height of the Second World War, this new edition of Heiden’s work, which the New York Times Book Review called “remorselessly, ruthlessly objective,” shows it to be not only a profound and revealing narrative but also an important historical document essential to both historian and layman for a greater understanding of the calamitous events that dominated the twentieth century.
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