Author Description

'It's not with horns on his head or with a forked tail that the devil comes to us, you know. He comes with a captivating smile, spouting idealistic sentiments, winning one's loyalty. We cannot say that Adolf Hitler violated the German people. He seduced us.’ HANS FRANK Having described Hitler’s early life, this book looks at his rise in politics and his attempts to grasp power by means of revolution. Hitler’s revolutionary period lasted from 1919 to November 1923 and covers one of the most volatile periods in modern German history. Beer kellers were like wild west saloons when political meetings were held and at night Munich became more like Dodge City; armed gangs prowled the streets and assassins travelled the country looking for high-profile targets. The Communists were looking for a coup while the fascist paramilitary outfits trained with the regular Army. The Weimar Republic was like a time bomb waiting to explode. This book follows Hitler’s progress as he rises in local politics, describes the growth of his feared SA and shows how he turned the streets of Munich into a battle zone. It explains how he used his oratory to seduce, it examines his peculiar personality and illustrates how his brand of extremism dovetailed into the boiling frustration of a people strangled by the Treaty of Versailles. At the end of this period Hitler settled down to write the infamous Mein Kampf and here its pages are examined and explained.