Corporal Hitler and the Great War 1914-1918: The List Regiment (Cass Military Studies) [Paperback]

This is a review of CORPORAL HITLER AND THE GREAT WAR 1914-1918 by John F. Williams a Research Fellow in the Department of Germanic Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. This is a fairly new book published in 2005 as part of the Cass Military Studies known and loved by history buffs around the world.

Mr. Williams writes well and has ransacked the published literature for information about the Bavarian 116th Reserve Infantry Regiment and Adolf Hitler, its most notorious soldier. Dubbed the "List Regiment" after its first commander, the 116th served on the Western Front throughout the Great War and it took horrendous casualties. Mr. Williams does an excellent job of reconstructing the regiment's movements and actions throughout the war. That, in and of itself is quite an achievement and makes the book worthwhile for the serious student of military history.

Mr. Williams encounters some glitches, in my opinion, in his reconstruction of Corporal Hitler's service, however. He attempts to address some of the questions raised by Professor Lothar Machtan in THE HIDDEN HITLER which asserts that Hitler was homosexual and that there are some legitimate questions about his service record during the war. Machtan notes on p. 92 of his book that "we do not know to this day why Hitler really won the Iron Cross First Class in 1918" or if it was even awarded? And, why did he remain a Corporal in a regiment which desperately needed experienced officers?

Mr. Williams attempts to deal with Professor Machtan's questions by acknowledging his thesis that Hitler was homosexual without really accepting it as a fact. He states that Corporal Hitler refused offers of promotion because he didn't want to be transferred. That, of course, assumes that such offers of promotion were forthcoming.

Mr. Williams gives Corporal Hitler the benefit of a doubt on his war honors also. He repeats Machtan's account of the all the various accounts of how Hitler won the Iron Cross First Class by either capturing French soldiers (differing numbers of them, by the way) or dashing through heavy shell fire to deliver a message that the List Regiment had been mistakenly taken under fire by its own artillery. Which was it?

Mr. Williams advances the novel explanation that it was all of them in combination and that the Iron Cross First Class was awarded for a pattern of behavior, not just one incident. In other words, it was a bit like the Good Conduct Medal for US soldiers. Williams sticks doggedly to his view of Corporal Hitler that there were "never ... [any negative observations] to his courage or soldierly virtues. Doubt no longer attaches to Hitler's courage under fire or his record as a Great War soldier. He was awarded both grades of the Iron Cross and deservedly so." (pp. 1-2).

Williams is too generous to Corporal Hitler in my opinion and fails to answer Machtan's questions based on extensive research in German archives. A professor of history at Bremen University, Machtan had better access to archival resources than Mr. Williams in Australia. As noted, Williams had to rely on published accounts for most of his material.

Williams does produce a useful account and students of military history and Hitler will doubtless find it interesting even though it's becoming more difficult to find copies of CORPORAL HITLER AND THE GREAT WAR 1914-1918. Besides, there's nothing else comparable that I've seen describing Hitler's wartime service.

I liked the book and gave it four stars.

Of the 800 or so German regiments that served on the Western Front during World War I, the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry, named the List Regiment after its first commander, had one distinguishing feature. It was the regiment that had Private then Corporal Hitler in its ranks.

It was in the regiment that Hitler claimed he changed from a self-confessed 'weak-kneed cosmopolitan' into an anti-Semite and ardent pan-German nationalist. It was here that he decided he must place his dreams of architectural or artistic glory on hold and instead devote his immediate post-war future to politics. As Hitler claimed, the List Regiment provided him with his University of Life.

It was also here that he developed his understanding of military affairs. In the greatest successes of the regiment, in defensive actions on the Aubers Ridge, Hitler developed that the belief well-entrenched and well-supplied German soldier, suitably motivated and ideologically reinforced was invincible.

It was this kind of belief that led Hitler to many of the decisions he made during the entirely different situations in World War II. But after all, this was his university.

This is a splendid book on describing the war on the Western Front, and how being there influenced Hitler. Highly recommended.