The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler
By Robert Payne
Erupting like a force of nature, Adolf Hitler sought to dominate the entire world and reshape it according to his own desires…
As a child he had difficulties adapting to school life, to environments with strangers who cared little for him, and such loneliness prompted him to seek solace in a dream world.
However, by the 1930s this was fast becoming reality, and in forcing others to enact his dreams Hitler plunged Germany, and the world, into unprecedented devastation.
Ruthless, calculating and intuitive, the decorated soldier of WWI was a skilled orator, able to seduce the masses as easily as he could manipulate state authority or European leaders.
He was also susceptible to violent rages and possessiveness, which over the course of his life proved testing for any relationship that he formed.
Unwilling, or unable, to see reality, when the tide began to turn in WWII and his subordinates offered wisdom and reason, Hitler saw betrayal and conspiracy.
In The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, Robert Payne explores his public and private life – the living, breathing man – in order to understand how this increasingly isolated, and corrupt, figure was able to attain absolute power.
Praise for Robert Payne
‘The important things about Robert Payne are his sensitive, astute intelligence, his vast erudition, and his magic power over words.’ – The New York Times
‘Payne tells anew the Hitlerian drama… a stark reminder that arrogation of absolute power by any political leader is an invitation to calamity and death.’ – Kirkus
‘Probably no author of this century has produced so many books at such a relatively high level of scholarship’ – The Times
Robert Payne (1911-1983) was the author of many notable works, including The Rise and Fall of Stalin, The Life and Death of Lenin and The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler. Born in England, he was a constant world traveller, a keen observer, but always the biographer, historian, novelist, poet and translator.
