Published in 1960 and adapted as a Landmark Book a year later for children as The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler, this title made use of the author's personal experiences as a reporter in the era of German National Socialism, of captured National Socialist documents, and of interviews with surviving National Socialists.
This is not a feel good story—it's really a downer. Even if you've seen or read about bad war things in your life, this will be a challenge to get through; you'll likely have to take regular breaks from this one.
There's a lot to learn from this book, but two things in particular stand out.
First, the problem of appeasement of Hitler and the German National Socialists. One could assume that Chamberlain and Halifax could not reasonably have foreseen the nightmare that would come from their appeasement policy but if you study the topic in more depth, it becomes more clear that it should have been obvious to everyone at the time that appeasement was insane. This book goes into detail about how Hitler kept telling Chamberlain, "Oh don't worry. This is the last country I need to take over. You should give it to me so you don't start a war." It may have made sense to fall for that once. But not twice, and certainly not three times.
Second, some have said that Hitler was an evil genius. Irredeemable, of course, but at least gifted militarily, as evidenced by his vast conquest. This book demonstrates that there was no genius—just evil. His early military success was due almost entirely to overconfidence and to the naïveté and cowardice of his opposition. Hitler kept taking bold, ill-advised chances to conquer countries that clung to foolish hopes of neutrality or that backed down too easily until finally he stretched his resources too far in the most spectacularly evil arrogant campaign that inevitably destroyed him.
This book highlights the testimony of Nazi generals who knew they would have been crushed had Britain and France attacked them during their earliest aggression. Instead, these countries allowed the already overextended National Socialists to take more and more, having de facto war inflicted upon millions in order to carry on the pretense of avoiding de jure war. Fortunately, this did not last forever and due to the courage and resolve of many, the Third Reich eventually fell.
—The above is adapted from a review by a friend who wished to not have his name attached
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