Young Hitler, Paul Ham
Young Hitler, Paul Ham
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Young Hitler
The Making of the Führer

Author: Paul Ham

Narrator: James Anderson Foster

Unabridged: 9 hr 37 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/05/2018


Synopsis

By looking deeply into the Führer's childhood, war experiences, and early political career, this rigorous narrative seeks to answer this question: How did the early, defining years of Hitler’s life affect his rise to power?When Adolf Hitler went to war in 1914, he was just 25 years old. It was a time he would later call the “most stupendous experience of my life.”That war ended with Hitler in a hospital bed, temporarily blinded by mustard gas. The world he eventually opened his newly healed eyes to was new and it was terrible: Germany had been defeated, the Kaiser had fled, and the army had been resolutely humbled.Hitler never accepted these facts. Out of his fury rose a white-hot hatred, an unquenchable thirst for revenge against the “criminals” who had signed the armistice, the socialists he accused of stabbing the army in the back, and, most violently, the Jews―a direct threat to the master race of his imagination―on whose shoulders he would pile all of Germany’s woes.By peeling back the layers of Hitler’s childhood, his war record, and his early political career, Paul Ham’s Young Hitler: The Making of the Führer seeks the man behind the myth. More broadly, Paul Ham seeks to answer the question: Was Hitler’s rise to power an extreme example of a recurring type of demagogue―a politician who will do and say anything to seize power; who thrives on chaos; and who personifies, in his words and in his actions, the darkest prejudices of humankind?

About Paul Ham

Paul Ham is the author of several histories, including Hiroshima Nagasaki; Sandakan; and 1914: The Year the World Ended. A former journalist and publisher, he has worked for the Financial Times Group and was the Australia correspondent for the Sunday Times of London for many years. He now lives in Paris.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Julie on July 26, 2018

How did a young man who wanted to be an artist end up one of the most reviled, evil men of recent history? As a mother, I have often wondered what horrible mistakes his family must have made to raise a son that ordered the deaths of millions of people. It turns out the answer really isn't as simple......more

Goodreads review by Tariq on November 17, 2014

This is an important book which tries to put the human element back into the monster and evil Hitler who has been judged as solely responsible for the death of millions in Europe. Hitler has emerged as a reclusive youth who managed to confront his youth armed with illusions of grandeur. With no fami......more

Goodreads review by Grumpus on June 08, 2020

Everybody knows Hitler, the adult. This covers the early years and how he became that man. I knew he was a painter and a soldier in WWI, but up until now had never read any accounts of people he interacted with during those phases of his early life. That was eye-opening. When wondering how could Hitl......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on May 14, 2018

I enjoyed the factual stuff...but didn't need the Guardian-editorial concluding chapter/epilogue...in which Ham parades his clear-and-present political bias...in a wishy-washy polemic worthy of Hitler's 'Mein Kampf'!...even down to use of vituperative epithets (he's an Aussie!) & wild conjectures (b......more

Goodreads review by Glen on November 14, 2016

Not much new here, but still interesting.......more