Hitler: The Missing Years

by Ernst Hanfstaengl and Egon Hanfstaengl

Book Overview

An intimate friend of Adolf Hitler’s who turned against him during the Nazi rise to power delves into the character of one of history’s most evil dictators.Of American and German parentage, Ernst... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1559702788
• ISBN13: 9781559702782
• Release Date: November 1994
• Publisher: Arcade Publishing
• Length: 308 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

"There are no brains in the party,Hanfstaengl. They are just a lot of pinheads."--Spengler

The title of this book grabbed my attention. After having read it,I feel the title is poorly chosen. What's with missing years? The years between 1921 and 1937 were the years when Hitler and the Nazi Party developed from a handful of radical disidents into an organization that wrecked havoc throughout Europe and were the cause of many millions of death and in the end produced nothing but misery. First of all,when I started to read this book a few days ago,there were only 6 Reviews here,and by the time I finished there was another added,Sept 22,2006. I must say,that Review by is very detailed ,gives a good summary of the book and adds a lot of information by a person who is knowledgeable in the political thinkink of the times. He delves much deeper into the politics of Socialism, both with Hitler and in America, than Hanfstaengl does in his book.That review makes good reading. More than the political thoughts of Hitler,I was more interested in what it was about Hitler that allowed him to gain such power over the people who joined with him. After all he was very simple in intelect and certainly not into deep political thinking. The control of France of the Ruhr,hamstringing the German people,coupled with his anti-clerical,anti-Semitic,anti-Bolshevist hatreds were the basics of his thinking. In this book we see how ,once he had gained attention with his skills in oratory and ability to inflame a crowd,people got behind him and created the monster that Hitler and the Party became. We see how most of these people involved had little more than hatred coupled with blind ambition and a complete lack of any moral compasses, were able to advance by injecting fear into anyone or anything that got in their path. As we travel through these years with Hanfstaengl,we can see,just as he did,that this whole movement could end up nowhere but in its own destruction. I have never read anything about Hitler that so well showed what a shallow and evil bunch of hate filled people that the leadership and personalities of the Nazi Party were composed of. Is there any point in reading all this stuff today? I believe so.It is now 85 years since 1921 when the things that lead to WWII in Europe were developing.We see many of the same things going on today and if we don't learn from history we may be forced to learn the lessons all over again.

Fascinating, At Times Gossipy, Account

I read this book a few years ago and a lot of it came back to me when I watched the T.V. movie on CBS recently. These "missing years" (i.e. the early years before Hitler came to power) aren't really "missing" (there is plenty of information out there on Hitler's ascent to power) but are told from an insider's perspective. As Hitler biographer John Toland states in the inside jacket of this book, "Ernst Hanfstaengl and his family were in my opinion closer to Hitler than any other family during those crucial [early] years." Hanfstaengl met Hitler in 1921 when he was drawn to the ambitious politician during a speech in a Munich beer hall. He befriended Hitler and became his foreign press secretary only to become disillusioned by Hitler's increasingly fanatic and anti-Semitic rhetoric accompanying and following the release of Mein Kampf. In the Missing Years, the reader gets insight into the early organization of the NSDAP and the emergence of Hitler's mass appeal. Hanfstaengl explains the way Hitler could express the thoughts of his audience: "Many a time I have seen him face a hall plentifully sprinkled with opponents ready to heckle and interject, and in his search for the first body of support, make a remark about food shortages and domestic difficulties or the sound instinct of his women listeners which would produce the first bravos" (68). As to Hitler's political strategy, Hanfstaengl states, "He did not make a revolution to acquire power, but acquired power in order to make a revolution" (172)." As to the Jewish question, Hitler, at one point, told Hanfstaengl "I need the Jews as hostages" (211). Hanfstaengl was close to Hitler, so much so that he received the jealous wrath of the other members of Hitler's inner circle. Hitler enjoyed listening to Hanfstaengl play the piano, so Hitler's other disciples played the radio full blast when he arrived or, as in the case of Goebbels, play recordings of Wagner or Hitler's own speeches for Hitler to prevent any influence Hanfstaengl might have (192).The most intriguing part of the book is the gossip on Hitler's bizarre behavior around women, including Hanfstaengl's wife. This seedy information includes Geli Raubal and Hitler's pornographic drawings (163). Readers may be skeptical over some of the accounts (he admits to hearing some of the accounts third hand) but I, for one, would not be surprised if they were all true. This book does not have an index, which is a little irritating when one is trying to look up information, but the chapters are fairly short (16 chapters, 308 pages).

The other story

It is common to dismiss Hanfstaengl's account of his years with Hitler as a biased story written by a Nazi who had fallen out with his leader. However, almost all those who remained close to Hitler and survived (Strasser, Ludecke and various servants and so on) tell very similar stories. There is, in fact, an entire literature on Hitler which deals with his relationship, for instance, with Geli Raubal, the story of the pornographic pictures for which he was blackmailed. This material is almost always dismissed (by Kershaw, for instance, who has done an excellent biography) as being suspect or irrelevant whereas other material which has similar provenance is used quite happily. Why this should be, I don't really know. The picture drawn by Hanfstaengl in this book is far more 'human'. He promotes the notion that Hitler changed radically after Geli's violent death and this is intelligently countered by Ron Rosenbaum in Explaining Hitler -- however, Hitler's terror of the power that was suddenly to become reality (and therefore a responsibility) is more likely to have 'changed' him. Whatever the reasons for the change, books like this provide an insight where the political intersects with the personal and for me much of Hitler's 'mysterious' behaviour later (including his bad military decisions) can be explained through studying books like this. None of the others appear to be in print and the Ludecke, which I think is the best, is scarcely mentioned (not at all in Explaining Hitler). It certainly contradicts the more or less agreed story which Kershaw, in the tradition of other excellent biographies, repeats. It could be that novelists and writers like Primo Levi have more to tell us now than historians. If your idea of Hitler is of a powerful superman leading a great nation into a massive war, then you probably will be disappointed by this book and the others like it. If you see him as a lucky, psychopathic nerd, as I do, then this book will help you understand a bit more about the personality of the man whose carefully manufactured myth somehow touched the soul of Germany, debased the myth and stained the soul. Five stars for being unusual, but, of course, it must be taken with a certain scepticism, so four stars... Highly recommended, however, to anyone seriously interested in understanding how a civilised nation can find itself voting a monster into power. I think it could happen to any of us. To some of us it has already happened. It can happen in America. It can happen in Britain. Germany, Russia, Poland, Italy, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Roumania and other European countries with a record of humane political progress until 'everything changed' into rule by a dictator and a police state. It comes upon us suddenly, if we aren't watchful democrats. The constitutions of many of those countries were not so different to those of America or Britain, say, and we should never congratulate ourselves that such things

This Is A Book That's Worth Reading.

This is a very informative and interesting book. Ernst Hanfstaengl was in very close proximity to Hitler and his innercircle for several years, until Hitler eventually froze him out. Hanfstaengl gives you knowledge into Hitler's personality and behavior that makes for some very insightful reading. He tells how he and other people around Hitler tried to steer him away from his negative ways. The author also talks candidly about Joseph Goebbels. Since Hanfstaengl was very close to Hitler in the early years of the Nazi Party, he has much to say about the future leader of Germany. This is one book that should be read by anyone interested in Hitler and his inner workings. Recommended.

Hanfstaengl tackles Hitler's road to power...

Ernst Hanfstaengl was a part of Hitler's inner circle from the period of 1921-1937 when he was forced to flee for his life from the Nazis after his relations had almost completely deteriorated. It is from this perspective that we see an intimate account of the megalomaniac, Adolf Hitler. Hanfstaengl has combined wonderful writing with significant pieces of history to produce this reliable book--and a tremendously interesting and enjoyable one at that!