The book “Hitler: A Study in Tyranny” is written by Alan Bullock, an outstanding British historian who devoted greater part of his life to the study of people who had made valuable influence on the European history in the twentieth century. It should be mentioned that for the first time Bullock’s biography of Adolf Hitler was published in 1952, and this book is considered to be was the first biography of the Fuerer. Later it was republished in 1962 and in 1991 the abridged edition published by HarperPerennial appeared. The latter is the book under our consideration.
The subject of the book under study is the historic personality of Adolf Hitler, the person who managed to change the flow of the European history of the twentieth century, the person who caused the most devastating, murderous and expensive war in the history of mankind, the World War II. Speaking about the factual material and the sources that were used by Bullock while writing the biography, two key points should be mentioned. The first one is that the first edition was written almost immediately after the end of the World War II and this meant that a lot of genuine materials were available at that time. The second fact that should be taken into account is that, fortunately, Adolf Hitler suffered a defeat and he had no opportunity to falsify the truth and make influence on the documents or any other sources of information, in comparison with, for instance, Joseph Stalin. Thus, Bullock referred to “Mein Kampf” by Adolf Hitler (1939), which may be considered a primary source of information and, moreover, it is evident that the value of this book is great as it contains the elements of the Fuerer’s autobiography and information about his ideology. What is more, the author made use of Hitler’s speeches and writings: “Die Reden des FĂĽhrers nach der MachtĂĽbernahme”, “Hitler’s Words” (Speeches, 1922-43), etc. Besides, Alan Bullock used a lot of other first-hand sources, such as memoirs of the people from Hitler’s milieu and of those who took active part in the war (Otto Dietrich, Josef Goebbels, K.W. Krause, etc.), articles and the materials of the Nuremberg Trials. The author resorted to secondary sources only in that case, if they covered the materials that had not been published earlier. On the whole, this bibliography seems to be complete and impressive, the only thing to mention is that the author should have included the memoirs of Albert Speer (1970), an interesting and quite controversial figure on the arena of World War II.
On reading the Fuhrer’s biography, a reader may observe that Alan Bullock had the intention to give the reading audience the full portrait of Adolf Hitler. The historian wanted to throw light on all periods of his life from the moment of his birth to his decease and to show the process of disappearance of a person with the name Adolf Hitler and immediate appearance and terrible route of the Fuhrer that is marked by millions of dead victims. Furthermore, Bullock wanted to describe the way how one person, “a man without a name” and “not even a citizen of the country he aspired to rule” could inspire the whole country to awful actions with the help of excellent skill of manipulation human mind (Bullock 485). It is worth mentioning that, obviously, the biographer wanted to be impartial in order to create an unbiased historical picture, though his hatred towards Hitler may be read between lines. Bullock wanted to warn humanity about the possible tragedies connected with dictatorship, though dictatorship is not the subject of the book, but the dictator himself is. In order to support the subject of the book, the author brings forward several key ideas and concepts of the work: to a large extent, Hitler got his power due to intrigues, though his charisma was unquestionable; Hitler was the symptom of malaise of the whole Europe, though it was most remarkable in Germany. It is unjust to accuse only one person of the war, though enormity of his guilt is unquestionable, but his actions were to a certain extent inspired by the political mood of the time.
All three books that compose the biography create the impression of a continuous flow, the process of Fuhrer’s disclosure. The “Party Leader” informs the reader about Hitler’s youth; the second book, “Chancellor”, prepares us for the beginning of the war, it creates the atmosphere of anticipation of the beginning of the military actions. In the third book, “War-Lord”, Bullock describes the flow of war and presents dual image of Hitler as risky and violent military leader, but at the same time stresses the awkwardness of his orders and decisions that became fatal for him and German army in the end of the war. It must be mentioned that in comparison with the first and second book, “War-Lord” is a bit intricate and difficult for understanding due to numerous military details.
Consequently, the biographer successfully manages to prove his theses throughout the book. This may be proved by numerous examples, one of which is as follows: “whoever lights the torch of War in Europe can wish for nothing but chaos” (Bullock 187). This quotation is taken from Hitler’s speech and vividly characterizes him as second to none cynic, eloquent, mesmerizing but mad tyrant with immense thirst for power over the whole world.
Now let us tackle the advantages and disadvantages of the book under consideration. Among its unquestionable merits we would like to mention unbiased presentation of information, that was an uphill task for Bullock, Hitler’s contemporary. The author has no intention of imposing his views on the reader, his leaves it to him to make a final decision and to draw a conclusion about the personality of the Fuhrer and his actions.
What we especially liked about the book was the information about Hitler’s childhood. We are firmly convinced that a person’s character is mainly formed in his/her childhood; this is why many causes of Hitler’s actions may be traced in his early years of life. Absolutely unexpected was the fact that young Adolf had dreamt about becoming an artist and that he had “a dramatic conflict between himself and his father over his ambition” (Bullock 4). His father is described as a person of fierce and despotic temper, and they say, like father like son. Still, to tell the truth, in the first chapter and the first book we would like Bullock to present more references to the interviews with people who knew young Hitler well and remembered him as a child and young adult.
As we have already mentioned above, the author presents the unbiased view of the situation, and this is, certainly, an advantage, but the thing that is practically absent in this book is psychological description of the Fuhrer’s portrait. The book throws light on historical situation on Europe, military actions and other details, what we would like more is a bit of psychological analysis.
Holocaust, as one of the greatest tragedies, atrocities and absurdities of the World War II, has always aroused strong emotions in everyone’s soul. Still, only several pages are devoted to it in the book. Besides, the concept of “pure” race was one of the key concepts of the Nazis ideology (Bullock 229). Bullock, certainly, did not underestimate the importance of holocaust; he should just have presented more information on the topic.
In conclusion, let us say that we consider the book “Hitler: the Study in Tyranny” to be a work of great talent, that satisfies all the requirements of the genre of biography. The author did his best to disclose the thesis and draw a clear and accessible picture of the image of the greatest tyrant and murderer of the twentieth century, and, it must be confessed that he succeeded in doing it. At the same time, the book cannot be put into the category of books for pleasure reading, because of the monstrosity of the deeds, events and thoughts described. In fact, it is plain impossible to write about the Fuhrer in the light manner and Bullock achieved the best of all possible results. As it is natural that every educated person should know about the man who had almost destroyed the world, “Hitler: A Study in Tyranny” should be read at least once for no one to repeat Hitler’s mistakes any more.
Bibliography
Bullock, Alan. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny. NY: Harper Perennial, 1991.
Hitler, Adolf and Royal Institute of International Affairs. The speeches of Adolf Hitler, 1922-1939. Oxford: Oxford University press, 1942.
Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. Berlin: Eher, 1939.
Speer, Albert. Inside the Third Reich. New York: MacMillan, 1970.