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The Fuhrer Hardcover – January 1, 2002

by Konrad Heiden (Author), Ralph Manheim (Translator)

3.9 18 ratings

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Konrad Heiden's penetrating, firsthand portrayal of Hitler's developing career and the Nazi's consolidation of power remains as incisive and compelling as it was when first published at the height of the Second World War. As a German citizen, Heiden watched Hitler grow from a small-time demagogue and failed revolutionary to a dangerously influential politician and finally dictator in total control of his party and eventually Germany.

Print length

614 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Castle Books/Book Sales
Publication date

January 1, 2002
Dimensions

6 x 1.75 x 8.75 inches
ISBN-10

0785815511
ISBN-13

978-0785815518
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Konrad Heiden
22
Hardcover
16 offers from $9.13
Albert Speer
1,108
Paperback
105 offers from $2.89

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Castle Books/Book Sales (January 1, 2002)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 614 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0785815511
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0785815518
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.05 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.75 x 8.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,367,434 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #14,981 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- #59,177 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
3.9 18 ratings

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Ralph Manheim
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Ralph Frederick Manheim (April 4, 1907 – September 26, 1992) was an American translator of German and French literature, as well as occasional works from Dutch, Polish and Hungarian. He likened translation to acting, the role being "to impersonate his author".
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Konrad Heiden
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3.9 out of 5

18 global ratings

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Mark Newell PhD

Heiden: Wellspring of Nazi research

Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2013

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Obviously, the best research is developed from original sources and documents. Short of going to Germany and UK, US archives, (which I have done) one must search for sources closest to the original. Heiden is one such source. He lived during the era in question, he read the newspapers of the day, he was there when documents were fresh and unadulterated and he reports with the unbiased insight of the professional journalist (yes, they did exist once). Heiden's style is clear, concise and highly informative and to read this work is to realize how subsequent 'researchers' have misunderstood, bowdlerized and misrepresented the facts about Hitler's rise to power and his conduct of the war. This book is a must read for any one seeking facts as opposed to pre-digested opinion cannibalized from the plethora 'spin' sources used to create the "new" "non-fiction" available today. Here is early insight into the circumstances that allowed a singularly evil regime to rise from the ashes of post World War One Germany.

6 people found this helpful

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adam

Great book! I recommend!

Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2009

The book is insightful and most interesting, the author was a young student at the time Hitler and his followers were rising to power. It was easy to read (2 nights) and reads almost like a novel..Unlike Pang, I did not find it scholarly and ponderous (though he recommends the book despite this objection).

5 people found this helpful

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Ty C. Kempton

It has a lot of the early history of what ...

Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2015

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It has a lot of the early history of what happened in Nazi Germany not very far into it so far but what I have read is interesting. Appears to be very well researched and is well written.

3 people found this helpful

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WAZMAN

Heil

Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2012

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I still find it absolutely amazing how this person came very close to almost ruling the world, yet his family lives somewhere in America today ?

2 people found this helpful

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Arnold E. Bjorn

An Interesting Historical Curiosity

Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2014

Konrad Heiden was the author of one of the first non-authorized biographies of Hitler; an English version was published in 1936. This book was revised and reissued several times, with this penultimate iteration (titled "Der Fuehrer") first released in 1944 and covering the history of Hitler and the Nazi movement up until the abortive Röhm coup in 1934. It was written in German; for the translation credit is given to Ralph Manheim, who has also produced the still most commonly used English-language edition of Hitler's own "Mein Kampf" and whose ponderous but very precise style is amply evident here. Both before and after, Heiden also authored a large number of books, articles and pamphlets on Nazi Germany; best known today is probably his "History of National Socialism" (1934).

As a Jew, Socialist, left-wing journalist and vocal opponent of Nazism, Heiden belonged to nearly all the groups leasts liked by Hitler, and realized as much; soon after the accession of the Hitler government, he wisely saw fit to leave a Germany where he was no longer welcome. It is therefore no surprise that he is very hostile to the subject of his biography, for both political and personal reasons. All the same, he produces a spirited portrait of his bête noire: his style has been aptly described as "Suetonian," which is an elevated way of saying lively, journalistic, a touch gossipy and full of more or less amusing anecdotes of indeterminate provenance and frequently unflattering character. Only rarely does he list his sources, which makes his account problematic for the critical historian to use; while many of his stories are not inherently implausible, others have a touch of the fantastic to them, and some are demonstrably erroneous rumors. (For example, his frivolously speculative sections on der Führer's sex life -- A perennial favorite of popular historians.) On the other hand, he does on occasion quote interesting primary documents, among them a private letter by Corporal Adolf Hitler at the front to a pre-war acquaintance in Munich: A real treat back then, although nowadays such documents are also available elsewhere (for example, in Werner Maser's published sample of Hitler's private writings).

As was probably inevitable, given his limited sources and personal biases, Heiden's image of the German dictator was in many ways incomplete, and in some severely mistaken. So, for example, he subscribed to the then-common idea of Hitler as a mere power-hungry demagogue, whose politics were largely opportunistic and lacking in conviction. Subsequent inquiry has entirely reversed this view. Moreover, Heiden's own Marxian conceptions strongly color his political analysis of the rise of Hitler's movement. And of course, this book's limited scope by itself precludes any real study of Hitler as leader of Germany, as opposed to leader of the opposition.

Heiden was enormously influential in his day, not least in providing much of the basic framework for Alan Bullock's widely received biography ("Hitler: A Study in Tyranny") and, through this mediator, also Joachim Fest's eloquent and occasionally insightful (but not always impeccably researched) "Hitler" (1973). It is no exaggeration to say that all the significant English-language Hitler biographies until John Toland published his (in 1976) were in large part based on Heiden's work. His strengths and limitations thus significantly influenced theirs, especially as concerns his interpretation of Hitler's youth. Yet neither Bullock nor Fest appears to have been very keen to publicly acknowledge his debt to their now less renowned precursor (though Fest's biography does mention him in passing in an endnote).

* * * * *

In the end, Heiden's book must be read as a product of its day. As such, it has considerable value, not least as a document showing how wartime America imagined Hitler and his movement. As biography, on the other hand, it has long since been superseded by the research of later generations.

Another similar document which may interest a reader of Heiden is Rudolf Olden's Hitler (1936), which is essentially similar (an early Hitler biography, also by a left-leaning German-Jewish journalist in exile) but takes a partially different approach.

7 people found this helpful

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Villa Adoquino

which could easily be the first Chapter of an Alfred Rosenberg Biography

Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2015

This is probably the earliest Hitler Biography in existence. As such, it has the unavoidable "flaw" of not having a "final chapter"; nevertheless, it filled a need in 1944 to inform the public about whom they were dealing with in a timely manner. I found the format to be a little unusual in that it is a biography of Adolf Hitler expanded to include chapters about people important to him. Case in point is Chapter One, which could easily be the first Chapter of an Alfred Rosenberg Biography. This book is heavy on "Theory" and background information about Hitler's rise to power. In fact, there are a couple of "Theory" chapters where Hitler's name only gets passing mention. This is not really a weakness in that these "Theory" chapters show the linkage between Hitler and his Paladins, in particular, Hess, Himmler, Goering, Rosenberg, Feder, Heydrich, Streicher, Esser, Rohm, Bormann, etc. One underlying theme, a theme with extensive buildup, is that there were a lot of loose ends that needed cleaning up if Hitler was to exercise absolute power without someone blackmailing him about inconvenient facts about his family and embarrassing political friends. The final chapter, the Rohm Purge, is the ideal climax to this buildup, as Hitler and the Nazis, not letting a crisis go to waste, use this occasion to not only eradicate Rohm, but a few other pests as well. In stark contrast to other books, this book DOES NOT paint Hindenburg, the last obstacle to Hitler, as some kind of saint, but rather an opportunistic politician who traded on his War Record to enrich himself, a portrayal that has a ring of truth to it. It took me about 3 weeks to read this book, and it had me in a couple of nightmares that I no longer remember; this is because I felt as if I felt as I were in Weimer Germany actually living the events.

2 people found this helpful

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さばとらみーちゃん

ヒトラー本の定番

Reviewed in Japan on December 6, 2012

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ヒトラーに関する本は大量に出版されていて、どれを読んだら良いのか判らずにいたのですが、アーレントの全体主義の起原 The Origins of Totalitarianism: Introduction by Samantha Power の中でこの本が高く評価されていたので、読んでみました。

この本の特徴は、筆者がヒトラーと同時代人で、本書の出版時(1944年)にはまだヒトラーが生きていたという点です。ヒトラーが独裁体制を築き上げていく時代の空気のようなものが感じられ、この人物がなぜここまでの地位に昇り詰めることができたのかが、納得のいく形で描かれていると思います。ヒトラーが民主主義を手玉に取っていく様は、現代にも通じるものがあり、社会にとって何が危険なのかを深く考えさせられます。

反面、この本のカバーしている範囲は「長いナイフの夜」(1934年6月30日未明）とその数日後（筆者はこの事件でヒトラーの体制が確立したと考えています。初版にはHitler's Rise to Powerという副題もあったようです）までで、第二次世界大戦やこれに至る経緯は含まれていません。それで600ページですので、中弛みの感が否めない部分もありますが、これは筆者の力量不足というよりは、ヒトラーの独裁への道に中弛みがあったというべきでしょう。時代の制約から公開資料が少なく、詳細に欠くともいわれていますが(引用元のnotesとbibliographyがないのも難点で星ひとつ減)、アーレントが"have stood the test of time remarkably well"、"remain important for the general interpretation of events"と評価する本書は、ヒトラーに関する必読書だと思います。

2 people found this helpful

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