Becoming Hitler: The Making Of A Nazi [hardcover] [nov 23, 2017] Weber

The story of the making of Adolf Hitler that we are all familiar with is the one Hitler himself wove in his 1924 trial, and then expanded upon in Mein Kampf. It tells of his rapid emergence as National Socialist leader in 1919, and of how he successfully rallied most of Munich and the majority of Bavaria's establishment to support the famous beer-hall putsch of 1923. It is an account which has largely been taken at face value for over ninety years. Yet, on closer examination, Hitler's account of his experiences in the years immediately following the First World War turns out to be every bit as unreliable as his account of his experiences as a soldier during the war itself. In Becoming Hitler, Thomas Weber continues from where he left off in his previous book, Hitler's First War, stripping away the layers of myth and fabrication in Hitler's own tale to tell the real story of Hitler's politicization and radicalization in post-First World War Munich. It is the gripping account of how an awkward and unemployed loner with virtually no recognizable leadership qualities and fluctuating political ideas turned into the charismatic, self-assured, virulently anti-Semitic leader with an all-or-nothing approach to politics with whom the world was soon to become tragically familiar. As Weber clearly shows, far from the picture of a fully-formed political leader which Hitler wanted to portray in Mein Kampf, his ideas and priorities were still very uncertain and largely undefined in early 1919 - and they continued to shift until 1923. It was the failed Ludendorff putsch of November 1923 - and the subsequent Ludendorff trial - which was to prove the making of Hitler. And he was not slow to spot the opportunity that it offered. As the movers and shakers of Munich's political scene tried to blame everything on him in the course of the trial, Hitler was presented with a golden opportunity to place himself at the centre of attention, turning what had been the 'Ludendorff trial' into the 'Hitler trial'. Henceforth, he would no longer be merely a local Bavarian political leader. From now on, he would present himself as a potential 'national saviour'. In the months after the trial, Hitler cemented this myth by writing Mein Kampf from his comfortable prison cell. His years of metamorphosis were now behind him. His years as Fuhrer were soon to come COVER 1 BECOMING HITLER: THE MAKING OF A NAZI 4 COPYRIGHT 5 DEDICATION 6 CONTENTS 7 PRELUDE 14 PLATE SECTION 26 PART I: GENESIS 42 CHAPTER 1: Coup d’État: (November 20, 1918 to February 1919) 44 CHAPTER 2: A Cog in the Machine of Socialism: (February to Early April 1919) 68 CHAPTER 3: Arrested: (Early April to Early May 1919) 86 CHAPTER 4: Turncoat: (Early May to Mid-July 1919) 110 PART II: NEW TESTAMENTS 140 CHAPTER 5: A New Home at Last: (Mid-July to September 1919) 142 CHAPTER 6: Two Visions: (October 1919 to March 1920) 172 CHAPTER 7: A 2,500-Year-Old Tool: (March to August 1920) 200 CHAPTER 8: Genius: (August to December 1920) 224 CHAPTER 9: Hitler’s Pivot to the East: (December 1920 to July 1921) 248 PART III: MESSIAH 272 CHAPTER 10: The Bavarian Mussolini: (July 1921 to December 1922) 274 CHAPTER 11: The German Girl from New York: (Winter 1922 to Summer 1923) 296 CHAPTER 12: Hitler’s First Book: (Summer to Autumn 1923) 314 CHAPTER 13: The Ludendorff Putsch: (Autumn 1923 to Spring 1924) 334 CHAPTER 14: Lebensraum: (Spring 1924 to 1926) 354 Epilogue 370 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 380 ABBREVIATIONS 384 NOTES 386 Prelude 386 Chapter 1: Coup d’État 387 Chapter 2: A Cog in the Machine of Socialism 390 Chapter 3: Arrested 393 Chapter 4: Turncoat 398 Chapter 5: A New Home at Last 401 Chapter 6: Two Visions 407 Chapter 7: A 2,500-Year-Old Tool 411 Chapter 8: Genius 414 Chapter 9: Hitler’s Pivot to the East 416 Chapter 10: The Bavarian Mussolini 418 Chapter 11: The German Girl from New York 421 Chapter 12: Hitler’s First Book 423 Chapter 13: The Ludendorff Putsch 427 Chapter 14: Lebensraum 429 Epilogue 431 ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS & PRIVATE PAPERS AND INTERVIEWS 432 Archival Collections 432 Private Papers and Interviews 433 BIBLIOGRAPHY 434 Websites 448 TV Documentaries 448 INDEX 450 "An award-winning historian charts Hitler's radical transformation after World War I from a directionless loner into a powerful National Socialist leader. In Becoming Hitler, award-winning historian Thomas Weber examines Adolf Hitler's time in Munich between 1918 and 1926, the years when Hitler shed his awkward, feckless persona and transformed himself into a savvy opportunistic political operator who saw himself as Germany's messiah. The story of Hitler's transformation is one of a fateful match between man and city. After opportunistically fluctuating between the ideas of the left and the right, Hitler emerged as an astonishingly flexible leader of Munich's right-wing movement. The tragedy for Germany and the world was that Hitler found himself in Munich; had he not been in Bavaria in the wake of the war and the revolution, his transformation into a National Socialist may never have occurred. In Becoming Hitler, Weber brilliantly charts this tragic metamorphosis, dramatically expanding our knowledge of how Hitler became a lethal demagogue"-- Provided by publisher Examines Hitler's years in Munich after World War I and his radical transformation from a directionless loner into the leader of Munich's right-wing movement