Carruthers - Hitler (The Official Third Reich Publication)

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First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Coda Books Ltd.

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Published under licence by Pen & Sword Books Ltd.

ISBN: 9781783463220
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Contents

BY BOB CARRTUHERS

BY HERMANN GRING

BY DR. JOSEPH GOEBBELS

BY SS BRIGADE LEADER JULIUS SCHRECK

BY DR. OTTO DIETRICH

BY DR. JOSEPH GOEBBELS

BY OBERGRUPPENFHRER WILHELM BRCKNER

BY DR. JOSEPH GOEBBELS

BY DR. ROBERT LEY

BY DR. JOSEPH GOEBBELS

BY ARCHITECT ALBERT SPEER

BY INSPECTOR GENERAL DR. FRITZ TODT

BY DR. JOSEPH GOEBBELS

BY LIEUTENANT COLONEL FOERTSCH

BY BALDUR VON SCHIRACH

BY PHILIPP BOUHLER

Introduction

BY BOB CARRUTHERS

It is unfortunate that no such detailed account of Hitlers thoughts survives from the pre-war period, instead we have to rely upon a few unreliable witnesses and a series of hagiographies such as the work of Heinz A. Heinz who produced Germanys Hitler first published in 1934. However there are surprisingly few primary accounts of those who knew him during his six years in power as a peace-time leader. This exceptional source is probably the best of the contemporary accounts of Hitler in power, albeit from a heavily pro-Nazi stance. With so little to draw upon we are fortunate indeed therefore to have Heinz and his pre-war collection of primary source recollections by those who knew Hitler. The testimonies collected together were based on interviews conducted by Heinz A. Heinz in 1933 and 1934, shortly after Hitler had taken power. Perhaps the best of the accounts published by those who came to oppose Hitler is the work of Otto Strasser published in exile as Hitler and I. Taken together these two books present a conflicting portrait of the man from those who loved and loathed him.

For many years I have been of the opinion that the influence of German nationalism, his willingness to take risks and an innate love of violence for the sake of violence were the key factors which shaped Hitlers weltanschauung (or world view). I finally found the time to expand upon that view and in order to establish my proposition in the book Hitlers Demons in which I relied extensively on quotations from Hitlers own version of events as published by him in the pages of Mein Kampf. My book relied extensively upon the 1939 translation by James Murphy as published in the United Kingdom by Hutchison and Co. Ltd. as this was the officially sanctioned version during the Nazi era.

Mein Kampf is routinely dismissed as unreadable and this was certainly the case in contemporary circles where many Nazi functionaries, including Gring, privately joked that they had never read the thing. Italian Fascist dictator and Nazi ally, Benito Mussolini, was famously critical, stating that the book was a boring tome that I have never been able to read. He also remarked that Hitlers beliefs, as expressed in the book, were little more than commonplace clichs. For students of history, politics and general readers with an interest in the period that is certainly not the case. While it is true that large sections of political exposition are rambling and turgid, they do nonetheless repay the reader with an insight into the workings of the mind of Adolf Hitler. The book also contains highly accessible elements of autobiography which are intriguing as they afford us the ultimate primary source glimpse into the private world of Adolf Hitler. On balance Im sure most readers would side with Winston Churchill who stated, shortly after Hitlers ascension to power, that no other book deserved more intensive scrutiny.

I still believe that Churchill was right. Mein Kampf should not be dismissed as readily as is so often the case. We should never lose sight of the fact that Hitler was a masterful politician writing for political purposes. We should obviously approach his words with extreme caution, but they should nonetheless be studied and carefully considered, and where there is no reason to do otherwise, we should be prepared to give them weight. This is especially the case where Hitlers account can be cross referenced with other accounts by the likes of Kubizek and Hanisch. However there are surprisingly few primary accounts of those who knew him during his rise to power.

The volume by Heinz A. Heinz was unknown to me at the time Hitlers Demons was written and, although it would not have changed the central thesis of the work, it would certainly have strengthened it. For me, and for many students out there, it represents a treasure trove of additional primary source material on Hitlers pre-war activities which will be of great assistance to many students in years to come. The memoirs of early Nazi functionaries such as Anton Drexler are particularly welcome.

In preparing my own account of the factors which influenced Hitler I relied heavily on the memoirs of Kurt Ludecke entitled I Knew Hitler first published in 1938 which, for many years, were discarded as the vain posturings of a get rich quick fantasist attempting to hitch his wagon to the rising star of one of the most famous politicians in Europe. Increasingly historians have come to reassess Ludecke and in the process have come to accept the essential voracity of much of what he wrote. It is now widely accepted that Ludecke is in essence an accurate, if somewhat self-aggrandising, primary source. Until recent years, and the rehabilitation of Ludecke, scholars and general readers seeking a primary insight into the early life of Adolf Hitler have had to be content with the recollections of his boyhood friend Kubizek and his sometime business associate Reinhold Hanisch; a companion from the Vienna mens hostel. Both of these sources are generally accepted to be accurate accounts of life with Hitler. Add to this the memoirs Putzi Hanfstaengl, Otto Strasser, his war comrades and a few recent pieces which have come to light such as Alexander Moritz Freys account of his war time experiences with Hitler and their subsequent encounters in Munich and, somewhat astonishingly, the main sources have all been explored. There is very little else to build upon with the result that the recent sympathetic analysis and acceptance by the wider academic community of the Ludecke memoirs gives us a highly detailed new and very welcome source from which to attempt to gain a better understanding of the personal life of the man behind the Third Reich.