Hitler: Memoirs Of A Confidant

by Ruth Hein, Henry Ashby Turner Jr. (Editor)

The author, at one point a prominent Nazi official shares his memories of Hitler and recounts Hitler's conversations and opinions concerning politics, marriage, art, economics, and the Jews

Genres: History, Germany, Memoir, Politics, Biography, Nonfiction

336 pages, Hardcover

First published September 10, 1985

Reviews

[Harvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read ! The book is a compilation of private conversations Hitler had with Wagener, a close confident during the 1920s-1930s, before Hitler became chancellor. They are conversations on every topic really. The American historian Henry Ashby Turner wrote a long preface to explain how the confessions were compiled and why they are accurate. Let's just say the book portrays a different Hitler from the character most people think he was. The book really shook my world. It originally was edited by Yale University Press, but they stopped editing it. So, it's hard to find a printed copy. However, there are ebook copies online.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Nazi Party boss (Gauletier) of Danzig before the war, Otto Wagener, held intimate conversations with his chief, Adolf Hitler, and preserved them for posterity. Hitler comes off far more thoughtful than in most post-war biographies, well-read, attending lectures on the latest discoveries in physics, and still pragmatic as to whom Germany should take for an ally, England or, the dream of many German rightists, including prominent Nazis, Russia. (Significantly, Italy is never once mentioned.) Hitler is not preoccupied with Communism, within or without Germany. He unfurls a theory of race history for Wagener that places more emphasis on roots and soil than political ideology. Hitler has a very strong sense of racial memory. Visiting a historical museum with Wagener he asks the curator to correlate "the places in Germany where the swastika was used in ancient times" with Germany today. The curator obliges and Hitler exclaims to Wagener, "You see! It is where our Party organization is strongest now". In his own twisted and sick way Hitler praises the Jews for "maintaining themselves pure" by prohibiting exogamy, even in modern times. The decline and fall of the global Aryan race, already treated in MEIN KAMPF, is used by Hitler to explain why Germany must expand in living space, and fast. Wagener tries to push Hitler in the direction of an alliance with Britain based on "shared Nordic" roots but Hitler is noncommittal. Where Wagener sees diplomatic ties and balance of power Hitler only notices racial strength and weakness. Unlike the TABLE TALK and MEIN KAMPF this Hitler is willing to listen to opposing views, if they will further German conquests. Wagener's "voice of reason" in these talk is not always convincing but this record is fascinating and vital for understanding German aims in World War II.