I bought Ian Kershaw's
biography of Hitler a few years ago and have been re-reading it. I've read a few bios of the man and Kershaw's is certainly the best. He tells the story in two volumes:
Hubris which covers the period from birth through the German remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936, and
Nemesis which covers the rest of his life. In Greek drama, hubris is excessive pride and arrogance which leads to confrontation with the gods, and nemesis is the vengeance of the gods. These serve as apt descriptions of Hitler's life, the phase in which he is built up from nothing to supreme, absolute power, followed by the phase of total destruction. To use Hitler's own preferred imagery, this second phase would be
Götterdämmerung.
What Kershaw does best is to trace the evolution of key Hitlerian ideas. For example, in
Hubris, he follows the development of Hiter's self-image. In the beginning of the Nazi movement, he viewed himself as the drummer, the messenger who would pave the way for the great leader to follow. As he advances within the party, he gradually begins to see himself not only as the messenger for the great leader, but the great leader himself. To use messianic imagery that many of his followers used at the time, he initially filled the John the Baptist role, and then began to see himself in the Christ role. One of the main threads in
Nemesis is the evolution of what would become the Final Solution. The idea of extermination and mass murder did not emerge fully formed. Rather it developed over time.
Kershaw also devotes much text to analyzing the real operations of the Nazi regime. For some reason, the Third Reich has the reputation of being an exceedingly efficient system. In a classic
Star Trek episode, I believe those are the words Spock uses to describe the regime. The reality was far different. In the Nazi system, under the idea of the Führer principle, the government was a system of dictators, each reporting to higher level dictators, a bureaucratic tree culminating in the absolute dictator, Hitler. But Hitler had little interest in the day to day operations of his government, so there was little direction, resulting in a system of petty leaders all conspiring to advance their own position, often stepping over each other in the process.
The most significant consequence of this is what Kershaw calls "working toward the Führer." Rather than Hitler providing direct control and guidance over the Reich, lower level, grass-roots party activists came up with policies on their own, policies which they believed consistent with the general principles and guidelines Hitler had laid down. This does exoneraterate Hitler from what happened. It is simply a reflection of how the regime operated on a day to day basis. Other author have talked about this, but Kershaw brings it into sharper focus than others have.
Another key contribution of the biography is that Kershaw deconstructs Hitler from the superb strategist who could see so far into the future, as so many other authors have, unwittingly buying into the Führer cult that so characterized the regime, and re-casts him as a superb opportunist. As an example, rather than plotting the details of the Reichstag fire, for example, he reacts to it and takes advantage of the opportunity. This has the important effect of humanizing Hitler.
Now, there are some flaws in the book. One huge difficulty in writing a biography of Hitler is that the man is all but non-existent for most of the period readers care about. As early as
Mein Kampf, Hitler is consciously building a carefully constructed image of himself, an image that is crucial to his own position and which therefore must be kept up at all times. Few people ever really knew the man, he had few friends, even fewer confidants. Therefore, any biography inevitably becomes more a history of the Third Reich than a true biography.
Kershaw writes in a easily accesible style, but can be a bit sloppy in building his narrative. He oftens references future events without context or explanation, which if the reader is not already familiar with those events, will be confusing.
I like the motif of the Hubris-Nemesis structure, but I don't agree with the transition point. Certainly the remilitarization of the Rheinland is an important event, but it seems to me the real breaking point was the Munich accord in 1938. From the Rheinland through Munich, Hitler continued to exhibit some measure of caution, he still listened to dissenting views, he still recognized some limitations to his own greatness. After Munich, there was nothing of the sort. He had nothing but contempt for his opponents, both within and without Germany, seeing them as inferior to himself and guided by fear and cowardice. After Munich, Hitler was convinced of his infallibility and will therefore suffer no dissent. The difference is seen in the events of 1939, which were much more reckless, culminating in the invasion of Poland and the triggering of the war which came about because Hitler simply ignored all the warning signs, signs that he paid some attention to before Munich, that he would not get away with this one. Thus, Munich, not the Rheinland, represents the high point of the Hubris phase and the transition to the destruction of Nemesis.
But none of these flaws undermine the quality of the book and its contribution to the scholarship of the Nazi era.
