Categories: Opinion and Editorial

A Review of Sir Ian Kershaw’s Biography of Hitler

Historians often ask themselves how history might have developed differently without particularly important people like Alexander the Great, Karl Marx, or Constantine. These individuals and people like them have made contributions so vast to the development of the human race that we would live in a different world if they have never been born or had never accomplished the things for which we remember them. Even historians who reject the great man theory of history in favor of one that places more emphasis on long term social and economic trends must admit that history would be vastly different without these key figures. While we do not like to think of Adolf Hitler as a great man his life certainly had a vast influence on the 20th century. Because of the numerous and powerful ways he influenced events before, during, and after the Second World War, one must know something about his life to understand the most destructive war in the history of world. Because the after effects of that war continue to influence our daily lives over sixty years later, knowing something about Hitler can greatly aid our understanding of the present.

Because of his historical significance, Hitler has had no shortage of biographers. In the preface to the first volume of his biography, Sir Ian Kershaw mentions two by Alan Bullock and Joachim Fest. He praises the first as a masterpiece and the second as stylistically brilliant. Perhaps the best biography on Hitler in print, however, is by Kershaw himself. Incorporating new sources available only since the fall of the Soviet Bloc, Kershaw’s two volume biography of Hitler is as close to definitive as anything we are likely to see. Kershaw, is know regarded by many as the world’s foremost authority on Hitler. He even received a knighthood for his work on the subject.

Kershaw’s book proves an invaluable supplement to other readings on the Third Reich. In it, he provides detailed answers to such complex questions as how Hitler came to power and how the Nazi government worked. While fascinating, the answers to these complex questions are far to long to fit into any textbook or memoir that deals with Germany or even the Third Reich in general. For example, in his A History of Modern Germany Since 1815 Frank B. Tipton concludes a discussion about the fall of the Weimar Republic by saying simply that, On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. He says nothing about the political maneuvering that placed Hitler into that position. Kershaw, in contrast, devotes a whole chapter to that specific topic and makes it very clear that Hitler would never have become Chancellor without the assistance of high ranking members of the Weimar government.

In every aspect of Hitler’s life, Kershaw gives a detailed portrait while informing the reader what is certain and what is speculation through the use of extensive endnotes. The more one reads, the more one realizes that no one, including Kershaw, can ever be certain about many of the events of Hitler’s life. The more we study, the more questions we have and the more frustrated we may become when we realize that there simply are no answers to many of these questions. Hitler was, for good reasons, a very secretive man. That and the fact that there is no one with whom he had an intimate relationship who can tell us what he was really like mean that we often have few quality sources to choose from when trying to piece together the chronology of his life. At the same time, however, there can be little doubt about the significance of his life. The fate of millions and the history could have been very different without Adolf Hitler. That is a truth conveyed quite clearly in Sir Ian Kershaw’s two volume biography of Hitler.