Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis (Allen Lane History) [Paperback]

George VI thought him a "damnable villain" and Neville Chamberlain found him not quite a gentleman, but to the rest of the world Adolf Hitler has come to personify modern evil to such an extent that his biographers have always faced an unenviable task. The two most renowned biographies of Hitler--by Joachim C Fest (Hitler) and by Alan Bullock (Hitler: A Study in Tyranny)--painted a picture of individual tyranny which, in the words of AJP Taylor, left Hitler guilty and every other German innocent. Decades of scholarship on German society under the Nazis now make that verdict unsafe, and so the modern biographer of Hitler must account both for his terrible mindset and his charismatic appeal. In the second and final volume of his mammoth biography of Hitler, covering the climax of Nazi power, the reclamation of German-speaking Europe, and the horrific unfolding of the final solution in Poland and Russia, Ian Kershaw manages to achieve both these tasks. Following on from Hitler: Hubris 1889-1936 the epic Hitler: Nemesis 1936-1945 takes the reader from the adulation and hysteria of Hitler's electoral victory in 1936 to the obsessive and remote "bunker" mentality which enveloped the Fuhrer as Operation Barbarossa (the attack on Russia in 1942) proved the beginning of the end. Chilling yet objective: a definitive work.--Miles Taylor --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'...Hitler the man jumps out at the reader from virtually every page. [He ] comes across as a cold, friendless, lonely, unfeeling and utterly self-centred creature whose private life was virtually non-existent. Hitler was driven by the goal of total and ruthless success in politics and war. Power, the total domination of the new racially-pure Germany over a racially and ethnically cleansed Europe, and the ideas and practices of war were all that mattered to him - and God help those crossed him.' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'Extraordinary scholarship' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'To understand Hitler's brief walk with the Devil, there can be no better starting point than Mr Kershaw's book.' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Winner of the Wolfson History Prize, the Bruno Kreisky Prize in Austria for Political Book of the Year, and the inaugural British Academy Book Prize. (Prizes and awards )

'Kershaw demonstrates brilliantly and painstakingly how, step by step, hat and fear was brought about, and so horrifyingly used...[Kershaw is] a historian of a new generation and a new century...' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'Nemesis is an achievement of the very highest order, by the historian who is Britain's uncontested expert on Nazi Germany...It will be some decades before anyone will need to shine a searching light once more into the rank darkness of that German bunker.' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'Ian Kershaw's two volumes on Hitler must rank as one of the greatest scholarly and biographical achievements of our time.' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Following the enormous success of HITLER: HUBRIS this book triumphantly completes one of the great modern biographies. No figure in twentieth century history more clearly demands a close biographical understanding than Adolf Hitler; and no period is more important than the Second World War. Beginning with Hitler's startling European successes in the aftermath of the Rhinelland occupation and ending nine years later with the suicide in the Berlin bunker, Kershaw allows us as never before to understand the motivation and the impact of this bizarre misfit. He addresses the crucial questions about the unique nature of Nazi radicalism, about the Holocaust and about the poisoned European world that allowed Hitler to operate so effectively.

Kershaw nominated for two major awards
Ian Kershaw's HITLER: NEMESIS has now been shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize and the Whitbread Prize for Biography. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

IAN KERSHAW's other books include Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris; Making Friends with Hitler; Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-4; and The End: Hitler's Germany, 1944-45. Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis received the Wolfson History Prize and the Bruno Kreisky Prize in Austria for Political Book of the Year, and was joint winner of the inaugural British Academy Book Prize. Until his retirement in 2008, Ian Kershaw was Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield. For services to history he was given the German award of the Federal Cross of Merit in 1994. He was knighted in 2002 and awarded the Norton Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2004. He is a Fellow of the British Academy.