Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris

the writing of a biography of Hitler – integrating a history of the individual into an analysis of his impact on German society – as ‘insoluble’. A harsh judgement on biographies of Hitler in general, in a thoughtful and interesting approach to the social sources of Hitler’s power, was also offered by Michael Kater, ‘Hitler in a Social Context’,
Central European History,
14 (1981), 243–72, here esp. 243–6. A less pessimistic evaluation is provided by Gregor Schöllgen, ‘Das Problem einer Hitler-Biographie. Überlegungen anhand neuerer Darstellungen des Falles Hitler’,
Neue politische Literatur,
23 (1978), 421–34, reprinted in Karl Dietrich Bracher, Manfred Funke, and Hans-Adolf Jacobsen (eds.),
Nationalsozialistische Diktatur 1933–1945. Eine Bilanz,
Bonn, 1983, 687–705.
    7 . Gerhard Schreiber,
Hitler. Interpretationen 1923–1983. Ergebnisse, Methoden und Probleme der Forschung,
Darmstadt, 1984, 13.
    8 . Guido Knopp,
Hitler. Eine Bilanz,
Berlin, 1995, 9.
    9 . The essential survey is that of Schreiber,
Hitler. Interpretationen;
a more recent critical and thoughtful assessment of the interpretations advanced by biographers of Hitler is provided by John Lukacs,
The Hitler of History,
New York, 1997. See also Ron Rosenbaum, ‘Explaining Hitler’,
New Yorker,
1 May 1995, 50–70. For further evaluations of the differing approaches, see Klaus Hildebrand,
Das Dritte Reich,
Munich/Vienna, 1979, 132–46, and Ian Kershaw,
The Nazi Dictatorship. Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation,
3rd edn, London, 1993, chs. 4–6. Earlier historiographical analyses and attempts to address the problem of the ‘Hitler factor’ were provided by: Klaus Hildebrand, ‘Der “Fall” Hitler’,
Neue politische Literatur,
14 (1969), 375–86; Klaus Hildebrand, ‘Hitlers Ort in der Geschichte des Preußisch-Deutschen Nationalstaates’,
Historische Zeitschrift,
217 (1973), 584–631; Wolf-Rüdiger Hartmann, ‘Adolf Hitler: Möglichkeiten seiner Deutung’,
Archiv für Sozialgeschichte,
15 (1975), 521–35; Eberhard Jäckel, ‘Rückblick auf die sogenannte Hitler-Welle’,
Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht,
28 (1977), 695–710; Andreas Hillgruber, ‘Tendenzen, Ergebnisse und Perspektiven der gegenwärtigen Hitler-Forschung’,
Historische Zeitschrift,
226 (1978), 600–621; Wolfgang Mich-alka, ‘Wege der Hitler-Forschung’,
Quaderni di storia,
8 (1978), 157–90, and 10 (1979), 125–51; John P. Fox, ‘Adolf Hitler: the Continuing Debate’,
International Affairs
(1979), 252–64; and William Carr, ‘Historians and the Hitler Phenomenon’,
German Life and Letters,
34 (1981), 260–72.
    10 . Alan Bullock,
Hitler: a Study in Tyranny,
revised edn, Harmondsworth, 1962, 804. Bullock later completely revised his early views (see Rosenbaum, 67). The centrality of Hitler’s ideology is fully incorporated into the analysis in Alan Bullock,
Hitler and Stalin. Parallel Lives,
London, 1991.
    11 . See, for example, the comment of Karl Dietrich Bracher, ‘The Role of Hitler: Perspectives of Interpretation’, in Walter Laqueur (ed.),
Fascism. A Reader’s Guide
,Harmondsworth, 1979, 193–212, here 201: ‘It was indeed Hitler’s
Weltanschauung
and nothing else that mattered in the end, as is seen from the terrible consequences of his racist anti-semitism in the planned murder of the Jews.’ In the realm of foreign policy, the programmatic driving-force of Hitler’s ideology is most strongly emphasized by Klaus Hildebrand,
Deutsche Außenpolitik 1933–1945. Kalkül oder Dogma?,
4th edn, Stuttgart/Berlin/Cologne, 1980, 188–9. The internal coherence of Hitler’s ideas was fully illustrated for the first time by Eberhard Jäckel,
Hitlers Weltanschauung. Entwurf einer Herrschaft,
Tübingen, 1969, extended and revised 4th edn, Stuttgart, 1991.
    12 . Cit. H. R. Trevor-Roper,
The Last Days of Hitler,
3rd edn, London, 1962, 46.
    13 . This standard line of GDR historiography was nowhere more expressively captured than by Wolfgang Ruge, ‘Monopolbourgeoisie, faschistischer Massenbasis und NS-Programmatik’, in Dietrich Eichholtz and Kurt Gossweiler (eds.),
Faschismusforschung. Positionen, Probleme, Polemik,
Berlin (East), 1980, 125–55, who saw (141)
Mein Kampf
as having ‘the role of a testimonial
(Empfehlungsschreiben)
to the great captains of industry
(Wirtschaftskapitäne)’,
and spoke (144) of Hitler as the ‘star agent’
(Staragenten)
of’ the most extreme monopolists (
Monopolherren)’
of big