Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil, updated edition

by Ron Rosenbaum

Overview

Hitler did not escape the bunker in Berlin but, seven decades 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780306823183
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	07/08/2014
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	520
Product dimensions:	8.90(w) x 6.00(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Ron Rosenbaum's books include The Shakespeare Wars, How the End Begins, and The Secret Parts of Fortune, a collection of his nonfiction writing which has appeared in Harper's, the New Yorker, and the New York Times Magazine, among other periodicals. He has also edited an anthology about contemporary anti-Semitism, Those Who Forget the Past.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Updated Edition vii

Introduction: The Baby Pictures and the Abyss xi

Part 1 The Beginning of the Beginning

Chapter 1 The Mysterious Stranger, the Serving Girl, and the Family Romance of the Hitler Explainers 3

Chapter 2 The Hitler Family Film Noir 16

Chapter 3 The Poison Kitchen: The Forgotten First Explainers 37

Part 2 Two Postwar Visions: Sincerity and Its Counterfeit

Chapter 4 H. R. Trevor-Roper: The Professor and the Mountebank 63

Chapter 5 Alan Bullock: Rethinking Hitler's Thought Process 78

Part 3 Geli Raubal and Hitler's "Sexual Secret"

Chapter 6 Was Hitler "Unnatural"? 99

Chapter 7 Hitler's Songbird and the Suicide Register 118

Chapter 8 The Dark Matter: The Sexual Fantasy of the Hitler Explainers 135

Part 4 Hatred: Complex and Primitive

Chapter 9 Fritz Gerlich and the Trial of Hitler's Nose 155

Chapter 10 The Shadow Hitler, His "Primitive Hatred." and the "Strange Bond" 179

Part 5 The Art of Evil and the Future of It

Chapter 11 To the Gestapo Cottage: or, A Night Close to the Fuhrer 201

Chapter 12 David Irving: The Big Oops 221

Part 6 The War over the Question Why

Chapter 13 A Tale of Three Kafkas: A Cautionary Parable 239

Chapter 14 Claude Lanzmann and the War Against the Question Why 251

Chapter 15 Dr. Louis Micheels: There Must Be a Why 267

Part 7 Blame and Origans

Chapter 16 Emil Fackenheim and Yehuda Bauer: The Temptation to Blame God 279

Chapter 17 George Steiner: Singling out the Jewish "Invention of Conscience" 300

Chapter 18 Singling out Christianity: The Passion Play of Hyam Maccoby 319

Chapter 19 Daniel Goldhagen: Blaming Germans 337

Chapter 20 Lucy Dawidowicz: Blaming Adolf Hitler 369

Afterword to the Updated Edition 396

Notes 421

Acknowledgments 447

Index 451

About the Author 465

Editorial Reviews

A New York Times Bestseller

Time
"Brilliant...restlessly probing and deeply intelligent"

David Remnick, author of Lenin's Tomb
"A remarkable journey by one of the most original journalists and writers of our time"

Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
"Fascinating...A provocative work of cultural history that is as compelling as it is thoughtful, as readable as it is smart.... Mr. Rosenbaum has made an important contribution to our understanding not just of Hitler, but of the cultural processes by which we try to come to terms with history as well.... He has written an exciting, lucid book informed by old-fashioned moral rigor and common sense."

Gabriel Schoenfeld, Commentary
"Glistens with insight and intelligence and shimmers with originality."

Marc Fisher, Washington Post
"Cultural criticism served up as riveting narrative history...with words and ideas that surprise, amuse, and even elevate the reader."

George Steiner, The Observer (UK)
"A work of importance and fascination"

Ian Kershaw, author of Hitler: 1889-1936: Hubris, in The Guardian (UK)
"Intriguing, thought provoking, and intelligent"

Financial Times
"Explaining Hitler [is] a work of almost uncanny percipience and stamina."

New York Times, 1/8/16
“Considered one of the definitive examinations of the Nazi dictator’s mind.

From the Publisher