Hitler: A Study in Tyranny Paperback – International Edition, 29 Nov. 1990

Say what you like about Hitler. He was a great painter! Forget about your Rembrandts and your Picassos and your Van Goghs and the rest of those gratuitous, brainless and mindless daubers! Now Hitler!!? There WAS a painter! TWO rooms in ONE day!!! That's what I call PAINTING!! Okay.....so bathrooms and landings cost extra and sometimes he got things out of perspective! But he WAS a PAINTER!! And if he liked you..... well..... he'd slip you the odd dirty postcard for free. Of course, we'd always reciprocate with a sticky bun. Adolf or Ada as we called him loved his sticky buns! He loved nothing better than a big dollop of fresh cream on his sauerkraut sandwiches! Sometimes we'd get to talking and boy could he talk!! He'd tell us of his ambitions in life. He said he wanted to paint Poland and then Russia. Naturally, we'd try to talk him out of it. "You haven't enough paint to do big jobs like that, Ada! Stick to painting Germany!" We'd say. He'd always reply " Some day I'll have enough paint to paint the world! You just watch me!" What a guy! What a guy! He just lived for painting! What a guy! Happy days! Happy days!Seriously, folks........It is the greatest tragedy that " unser alter "Freund" " Mr Schicklgruber wasn't cornered and collared by the German police (as they were at that time) the first time that he ever stood up to spew his diabolical claptrap and locked up by the same German police in the nearest mental asylum with the rest of the fruitcakes of whom there were so many in Germany at that time. It is also a great tragedy that he wasn't killed by the British tourist John Scott Ellis who had the good fortune to knock the nutcase down as he (Mr Ellis) drove down Briennerstrasse in Munich on 22 August 1931 in his car. It is also a great tragedy that Mr Schicklgruber wasn't killed earlier on 13 March 1930 when he and his "electioneering" henchmen survived the speeding truck whose driver , unfortunately, had the bad luck and the bad taste to narrowly miss and obliterate Schicklgruber and his passengers. It is a great tragedy that the German High Command in 1938 abandoned their plan to have the little Bohemian corporal arrested and declared insane. It is a great tragedy that von Stauffenberg hadn't succeeded in blowing the Austrian vagabond and street cleaner to smithereens. It is a great tragedy that the German people had not laughed and laughed at Schicklgruber's maniacal nonsense, instead of applauding and cheering his insane rants and instead sent the little runt Schicklgruber back to oblivion and to the hell from which he most undoubtedly came. So many opportunities missed..........Tragically, it was not to be.A great book by Bullock which details the rise and fall of a deranged nonentity who in other times would have remained an unknown and deranged nonentity.Hitler and Stalin: Parallel livesJealous HeartWrite in Style: A Guide to Good EnglishBoxer Gifts Text Speak Mug with Gift Box, Laugh Out Loud

One reviewer here describes Hitler as a “deranged nonentity”, which I think is one of the best descriptions yet. I have read a great many books about the third Reich, and in my student travels in the ‘60s met a fair number of unrepentant Nazis, but nothing has given me such a clear idea of the basic character of Hitler as this. A nobody. Someone who even from childhood showed no talents; basically a born layabout. His only talent was his voice, and he employed that to such diabolical effect that by the time it was silenced over 50 million lives had been lost, European Jewry annihilated, and Europe wrecked. The appalling thing about it is that, though he himself murdered no one, his oratory encouraged and inspired so many thousands to murder at his command. Even a deranged nonentity can achieve very little unless there are others to do his work for him, and unfortunately they came crawling out of their obscurity to do just that. A great pity that he survived the First World War!A very impressive book.

THIS IS A STUDY BOOK TO ADD TO MY LARGE COLLECTION AND IT PROVED TO BE AN EXCELLENT VOLUME. THE AMAZON FORMAT IS GOOD, HOWEVER WITH JUST A FEW LINES OF PRODUCT INFORMATION, IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN YOUR INTENDED PURCHASE ELSEWHERE BEFORE BUYING, THERE IS A CERTAIN ''LEAP OF FAITH'' WHEN PURCHASING THIS WAY. I WOULD NORMALLY USE THE TERM ''PURCHASING BLIND'' BUT WITH AMAZON AND THIS SELLER A LOT OF POSITIVE INFORMATION WAS GIVEN ON THOSE SAID , FEW LINES WHICH GAVE ME CONFIDENCE TO BUY, FAR FROM BLIND, AND I WAS EXTREMELY PLEASED WITH THIS BOOK. IT IS A THOROUGH REFERENCE AND WITH OVER 800 PAGES OF QUALITY REFERENCE, IT IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED. MANY THANKS TO THIS SELLER AND THE AMAZON PLATFORM.

a fascinating book a real page turner - it seems to me that history and our lives on this earth are a cosmic smattering of random luck - never mind the idea of great usually men and the cult of the individual. How this lunatic came to power is completely random and was dependent on all the random people in his life, timing and the times he was living in, the great cosmic giggle - one thing is for sure Hitler was just a man but what made him the evil monster he became was ending up at the head of an institution as delusional and powerful as a government backed by an utterly twisted ruling class. Here we are on the brink of a golden age while at the same time the power lunatics continue on with their deluded destructive global chess game.

If you read only one biography on Hitler, then this is the one it should be.First published in 1952 and revised in 1962 with the benefit of information that came to hand in the intervening period. A biography written whilst the events were still fresh and from sources that lived during the era, but with the later revisions enough time had lapsed to ensure that nearly all the relevant information was available. A biography that is unlikely to be excelled this far removed from the events.

I purchased the original paper back over 30 years ago....Unfortunately, over the years it has fallen apart. When I saw the latest edition on Amazon I decided to buy it again. Why? Simply, Alan Bullock's book is a classic piece of historical writing. Any one who wishes to read about the causes of the World War Two; Germany and Hitler should read this publication. It is not sensational in any way, simply an accurate account of why and how Hitler came to power.

Just grate.

This book is a masterpiece.In some areas of the topic it has been superseded by later scholarship, but the main threads of the argument are of a high order.