Description

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What turned Adolf Hitler, a relatively normal and apparently unexceptional young man, into the very personification of evil? To answer this question, acclaimed historian Brigitte Hamann has turned to the critical, formative, years that the young Hitler spent in Vienna. For it was here, behind the glittering curtain of artistic creativity, liberalism and prosperity, that the architect of the Holocaust was born. As a failing, bitter and desperately poor artist, Hitler experienced only the dark underbelly of Vienna, which was seething with fear, racial prejudice, anti-semitism and conservatism. Drawing on previously untapped sources - from personal reminiscences to the records of shelters where Hitler slept - Hamann vividly recreates the dark side of fin de siecle Vienna and paints the fullest and most disturbing portrait of the young Hitler to date - the genesis of the most terrifying dictator the world has ever known.

About the Author

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Hans Mommsen is Emeritus Professor of Modern History at the Ruhr University in Bochum and one of Germany's preeminent historians. His many books include The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy and From Weimar to Auschwitz.

Praise For…

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"A fascinating and impressive book...Hitler's Vienna serves as a prologue to the inhuman." —George Steiner, Times Literary Supplement

"A virtuoso piece both of research and exposition...Brigitte Hamann is an author of great flair, as well as being thoroughly, scholarly, and thoughtful." —Robert Evans, Oxford University

"Hamann's deep knowledge of Vienna and her skeptical approach to previous sources results in a double-sided portrait that will help readers to understand both the Dual Monarchy and WWI and the Third Reich and WWII." —Publishers Weekly

"The world needs another Hitler biography like it needs another squirrel, but this one is different and worth the effort...Hamann paints a fascinating picture of the events and readings that shaped the young Hitler. Highly recommended." —Library Journal

"Books about the young Hitler already fill a large shelf. They can all now be thrown away and replaced by this one, which exposes many of them as bogus. Hamann has utilized several authentic new sources...Admirable sketches of the political and cultural scenes that surrounded Hitler round off an excellent study." —Kirkus UK

"A valuable social history of Vienna's netherworld and an attempt at explaining Hitler's anti-Semitism. We get a meticulous portrait of everyday life in the artistically and philosophically modernist metropolis. Hamann concludes that Vienna's fin-de-siècle malaise was a critical ingredient in the madness that became Nazi Germany." —Kirkus Reviews