Hitler: A Global Biography

by Brendan Simms

Overview

From a prize-winning historian, the definitive biography of Adolph Hitler
Hitler offers a deeply learned and radically revisionist biography, arguing that the dictator's main strategic enemy, from the start of his political career in the 1920s, was not communism or the Soviet Union, but capitalism and the United States. Whereas most historians have argued that Hitler underestimated the American threat, Simms shows that Hitler embarked on a preemptive war with the United States precisely because he considered it such a potent adversary. The war against the Jews was driven both by his anxiety about combatting the supposed forces of international plutocracy and by a broader desire to maintain the domestic cohesion he thought necessary for survival on the international scene.
A powerfully argued and utterly definitive account of a murderous tyrant we thought we understood, Hitler is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the origins and outcomes of the Second World War.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541618206
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	10/01/2019
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	704
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Brendan Simms is a professor in the History of International Relations and fellow at Peterhouse College, Cambridge. He is the author of eight previous books, including The Longest Afternoon: The 400 Men Who Decided the Battle of Waterloo and Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, from 1453 to the Present, shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize. He lives in Cambridge, UK.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations xi

Acknowledgements xiii

Prologue xv

Introduction xvii

Part 1 Humiliation

1 Sketch of the Dictator as a Young Man 3

2 Against a 'World of Enemies' 9

3 The 'Colonization' of Germany 18

Part 2 Fragmentation

4 The Struggle for Bavaria 57

5 Anglo-American Power and German Impotence 77

6 Regaining Control of the Party 105

Part 3 Unification

7 The American Challenge 115

8 Breakthrough 140

9 Making the Fewest Mistakes 166

Part 4 Mobilization

10 The 'Fairy Tale' 187

11 The 'Elevation' of the German People 215

12 Guns and Butter 234

Part 5 Confrontation

13 'Living Standards' and 'Living Space' 273

14 'England is the motor of opposition to us' 300

15 The 'Haves' and the 'Have-Nots' 347

Part 6 Annihilation

16 Facing West, Striking East 397

17 The Struggle against the 'Anglo-Saxons' and 'Plutocracy' 446

18 The Fall of 'Fortress Europe' 500

Conclusion 551

Notes 557

Index 633

Editorial Reviews

This vivid and painstakingly researched volume revises fundamentally how historians ought to view the geopolitical motivations of the Nazi leader. Simms argues that Hitler did not see the Soviet Union as the primary obstacle to his expansionist ambitions. From the start, his real enemies were the United Kingdom and the United States.... Engaging and essential reading for anyone interested in Hitler's policymaking.

Foreign Affairs

Brendan Simms has a bold hypothesis…This fascinating book will force us to rethink the strategy of the Second World War in a way that none other has in more than a generation.”

Eliot Cohen

This vigorously researched book will no doubt spark controversy for its bold thesis, but Simms delivers. His revisionist thesis...is backed with solid evidence from the Bavarian archives, making this a must read.

Choice

A powerful new biography.

New York Times Timothy Snyder

Simms...challeng[es] much recent scholarship...A preoccupation with Anglo-American capitalism, he contends, drove the Third Reich's ideology in its formative years, more than the oft-cited obsession with Bolshevism...He has made sound use of the Bavarian archives.

Observer

A worthwhile reexamination of some long-standing assumptions about the Third Reich...Thought-provoking.

National Review

Combining intellectual verve with gravity, this analytical biography's tightly integrated arguments are based on prodigious research and original conceptualizations. Often gripping, the book's fresh thinking concerning Hitler's anxieties about Anglo-America and the qualities of Germany's population directs readers to reconsider established perceptions about his intentions, motivations, and behavior.

author of Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Or Ira Katznelson

A radically new assessment of the Fuhrer's world view and the motivation for his plunging the world into a terminal struggle for survival.

Daily Mail

Fascinating...[Simms] believes that, despite the attention Hitler has received, there is an unknown Hitler that other biographers and historians have missed-the Hitler who spent his political career grappling with the emergence of America as the dominant power of the 20th century. After reading Hitler: A Global Biography, one has to agree. A thought-provoking guide to seeing what happens when dictators read America wrong.

Wall Street Journal Arthur Herman

Simms argues forcefully that [Hitler's] primary motivation was a fear that Germany would be crushed by the Anglo-Saxon capitalism epitomised by the US and the British Empire.

History Today

If many Hitler books are scarcely worth reading, this one commands attention through its originality and sheer intelligence...A thoroughly thought-provoking, stimulating biography which all historians of the Third Reich will have to take seriously.

Irish Times

Impressive and intriguing...By drawing our attention to the centrality of historical emigration to Hitler's racial vision of a Great Germany, Simms adds a new dimension to our understanding of the thinking that drove history's most notorious figure. Crisply written and well-researched, there is much in this book that enlightens and stimulates.

The Interpreter

[Hitler] challenges some of our longstanding ideas about the man who ruled Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945...Highly provocative.

Financial Times

After more than 100,000 publications on the evil of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi responsibility for Second World War, it is difficult to offer much new. But Brendan Simms has written a provocatively novel interpretation of the ascendance of Hitler, and why he prompted and lost a global war: his Hitler was always driven more by envy and fear of Anglo-American capitalists than fright of the Soviet Bolsheviks-and more from worries about the comparative inferiority of the German Volk than from arrogance about its purported superiority. Enthralling and enlightening revisionist history at its best.

author of The Second World Wars Victor Davis Hanson

A pathbreaking and elegantly written account of Hitler and his foreign policy that is rooted in the existing literature but goes beyond it to make new claims. Simms marshals considerable evidence to show that Hitler was more preoccupied with a worldwide struggle with America and Britain then he was by Jews and Bolshevism. His claims of Aryan racial superiority masked concerns about German inferiority; he hoped to improve the 'racial stock' by positive as well as negative eugenics. Simms rejects revisionist claims that see Hitler's foreign policy as constrained or compelled by German society and institutions. A must read for anyone interested in the Third Reich and the long shadow it cast over the 20th century.

Richard Ned Lebow

[Simms] builds on previous scholarship to make a bold thesis-that Hitler's principal obsession was not communism but rather 'Anglo-America' and global capitalism...A vigorous, original study that adds to the ongoing scholarship.

Kirkus

"Fascinating...[Simms] believes that, despite the attention Hitler has received, there is an unknown Hitler that other biographers and historians have missed-the Hitler who spent his political career grappling with the emergence of America as the dominant power of the 20th century. After reading Hitler: A Global Biography, one has to agree. A thought-provoking guide to seeing what happens when dictators read America wrong."—Arthur Herman, Wall Street Journal

"This vivid and painstakingly researched volume revises fundamentally how historians ought to view the geopolitical motivations of the Nazi leader. Simms argues that Hitler did not see the Soviet Union as the primary obstacle to his expansionist ambitions. From the start, his real enemies were the United Kingdom and the United States.... Engaging and essential reading for anyone interested in Hitler's policymaking."—Foreign Affairs

"A powerful new biography."—Timothy Snyder, New York Times

"[Hitler] challenges some of our longstanding ideas about the man who ruled Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945...Highly provocative."—Financial Times

"[Simms] builds on previous scholarship to make a bold thesis-that Hitler's principal obsession was not communism but rather 'Anglo-America' and global capitalism...A vigorous, original study that adds to the ongoing scholarship."—Kirkus

"A radically new assessment of the Fuhrer's world view and the motivation for his plunging the world into a terminal struggle for survival."—Daily Mail

"Simms...challeng[es] much recent scholarship...A preoccupation with Anglo-American capitalism, he contends, drove the Third Reich's ideology in its formative years, more than the oft-cited obsession with Bolshevism...He has made sound use of the Bavarian archives."—Observer

"If many Hitler books are scarcely worth reading, this one commands attention through its originality and sheer intelligence...A thoroughly thought-provoking, stimulating biography which all historians of the Third Reich will have to take seriously."—Irish Times

"Impressive and intriguing...By drawing our attention to the centrality of historical emigration to Hitler's racial vision of a Great Germany, Simms adds a new dimension to our understanding of the thinking that drove history's most notorious figure. Crisply written and well-researched, there is much in this book that enlightens and stimulates."—The Interpreter

"Simms argues forcefully that [Hitler's] primary motivation was a fear that Germany would be crushed by the Anglo-Saxon capitalism epitomised by the US and the British Empire."—History Today

"A worthwhile reexamination of some long-standing assumptions about the Third Reich...Thought-provoking."—National Review

"This vigorously researched book will no doubt spark controversy for its bold thesis, but Simms delivers. His revisionist thesis...is backed with solid evidence from the Bavarian archives, making this a must read."—Choice

"A pathbreaking and elegantly written account of Hitler and his foreign policy that is rooted in the existing literature but goes beyond it to make new claims. Simms marshals considerable evidence to show that Hitler was more preoccupied with a worldwide struggle with America and Britain then he was by Jews and Bolshevism. His claims of Aryan racial superiority masked concerns about German inferiority; he hoped to improve the 'racial stock' by positive as well as negative eugenics. Simms rejects revisionist claims that see Hitler's foreign policy as constrained or compelled by German society and institutions. A must read for anyone interested in the Third Reich and the long shadow it cast over the 20th century."—Richard Ned Lebow, professor of War Studies, King's College London

"Brendan Simms has a bold hypothesis — that it was Hitler's fixation on the United States and Great Britain, and his fear of German decay and degeneracy that drove his strategic thinking and behavior, and he argues it with exceptional eloquence and force. This fascinating book will force us to rethink the strategy of the Second World War in a way that none other has in more than a generation."—Eliot Cohen, Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

"After more than 100,000 publications on the evil of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi responsibility for Second World War, it is difficult to offer much new. But Brendan Simms has written a provocatively novel interpretation of the ascendance of Hitler, and why he prompted and lost a global war: his Hitler was always driven more by envy and fear of Anglo-American capitalists than fright of the Soviet Bolsheviks-and more from worries about the comparative inferiority of the German Volk than from arrogance about its purported superiority. Enthralling and enlightening revisionist history at its best."—Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Second World Wars

"Combining intellectual verve with gravity, this analytical biography's tightly integrated arguments are based on prodigious research and original conceptualizations. Often gripping, the book's fresh thinking concerning Hitler's anxieties about Anglo-America and the qualities of Germany's population directs readers to reconsider established perceptions about his intentions, motivations, and behavior."—Ira Katznelson, author of Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time

From the Publisher

2019-08-04
A British academic builds on previous scholarship to make a bold thesis—that Hitler's principal obsession was not communism but rather "Anglo-America" and global capitalism.

Situating his argument alongside the vast research of others, which he carefully delineates in a pointed introduction, Simms (History/Univ. of Cambridge; The Longest Afternoon: The 400 Men Who Decided the Battle of Waterloo, 2015, etc.) stresses the global processes that motivated Hitler—e.g., the crash of 1929 and the Depression—and the galvanizing might of the Americans, which he believed was largely due to the German emigrant drain from the motherland. The author draws from sources he believes to be neglected as well as a deep reading of Mein Kampf, and he locates the origins of Hitler's strategic approach to the enemy in the years during and following World War I, after which he emerged "as a rather lonely figure on the margins of German and world history." Moving thematically—from "Humiliation" to "Fragmentation," "Unification," "Mobilization," "Confrontation," and "Annihilation"—Simms shows how Hitler's early experience of "humiliation" (as an artist, soldier witnessing Germany's defeat, and leader of the failed putsch) led into an obsession with the successful Anglo-Saxon model—i.e., the American dream, at least partly driven by German emigration. His plan for the vast expansion of the Reich "had less to do with hatred of Bolshevism and eastern European Jewry, and more to do with the need to prepare the Reich for a confrontation or equal coexistence with an Anglo-America whose dynamism mesmerized [him]." Thus, Simms asserts, Hitler's motivation was less a hatred of communism (the classic argument) than obsession with the racial bolstering that Germany needed to take its rightful place in the global order. Moreover, Simms finds that in building his plan for an expanded empire, Hitler used the model of the British Empire's colonialism and the American colonization of the West.

A vigorous, original study that adds to the ongoing scholarship.

Kirkus Reviews