Hitler's Court: The Inner Circle of The Third Reich and After

by Heike B Görtemaker

Overview

"...a fascinating look at the levers and layers of power in the Third Reich." — Historical Miniatures Gaming Society

Hitler was not a lonely, aloof dictator. Throughout his rise in the NSDAP, he gathered a loyal circle around him, which later took on the features of a regular court, and was surrounded by people who celebrated, flattered and intrigued him.

Who belonged to this inner circle around Hitler? What function did this court fulfill? And how did it influence the perception of history after 1945? Using previously unknown sources, Heike Görtemaker explores Hitler's private environment and shows how this inner circle made him who he was.

Biographies of Hitler often concentrate on his obsession with self-image: "If you subtract what politics is about him, little or nothing remains," said Ian Kershaw, and Joachim Fest asserted: "He did not have a private life." For Alan Bullock the "Führer" was an "uprooted man without a home or family". Hitler's inner circle, the Berghof Society, was his private retreat. But the court was more than that. It provided him with the support he needed to be able to take on the role of "Führer" at all, while at the same time allowing him to use its members as political front men. Most of all, it represented a conspiratorial community whose lowest common denominator was anti-Semitism.

In this book, Heike Görtemaker asks new questions about the truth behind Hitler's inner circle and, for the first time, also examines the "circle without leaders"; the networking of the inner circle after 1945.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781526790705
Publisher:	Pen and Sword
Publication date:	01/12/2022
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	1,146,803
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Dr Heike B. Görtemaker, born in 1964, is a German historian and author. She studied History, Economics and German Literature in Berlin and Bloomington, Indiana. In 2005 she published a biography of Margret Boveri, a prominent German journalist from the 1930s to the 1970s. In 2010 she wrote the best seller 'Eva Braun: Life with Hitler', which was translated into 15 languages. She appears frequently in TV documentaries on the Third Reich and lives with her husband near Berlin.

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

Part 1 Hitler's Circle 1

Chapter 1 Defeat and Flight 3

Chapter 2 Forming the Circle 16

Chapter 3 Seizing Power 55

Part 2 The Berghof Community 91

Chapter 4 In the Führer's 'Restricted Area' 93

Chapter 5 Witnesses and Believers 132

Chapter 6 The Court at War 168

Part 3 The Court without the Führer 201

Chapter 7 Confronting the Victors 204

Chapter 8 Criminal Prosecution and Integration 220

Epilogue 238

Endnotes 241

Bibliography 339

Index of People 349

Editorial Reviews

"...one of the most important books to allow historians, and the curious in general, to peek into a world absolutely unbreachable."

ARGunners.com

"...an inherently fascinating and exceptionally well written, organized and presented study of the man who plunged the world into a war that costs the lives of countless millions of men, women, and children."

Midwest Book Review

"...a fascinating look at the levers and layers of power in the Third Reich."

Historical Miniatures Gaming Society