Goebbels: The Man Who Created Hitler

by Viktor Reimann

English, German (translation)

Genres: Biography

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Detailed account of the creation of nazi Germany, from a Goebbels prospective

[Patricio Mollo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marvelous account of Goebbels life and his unique character. Without him, Hitler would've never seized power.

[Vincent · Rating 3 out of 5]

This biography of Joseph Goebbels is informative and readable, but ultimately lacking, as you need other books to get fully informed about this personality

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a review of the edition scanned into the Internet Archive, the first English language edition from 1977. This was originally published in Germany under the title Dr. Goebbels.

The translator was Stephen Wendt. Something was definitely lost in translation -- the knowledge of English. I am in no way a fluent speaker of German, but I know enough to realize that this is a clumsy translation, at best. Some German quirks in the language are puzzling when translated directly into English. For example, in Hitler's final rant about Goring (sorry I can't do the umlaut), he uses a word translated as "morphinist." Most, if not all, English readers would say "morphine addict." Morphinist sounds like a sexual fetish -- and who knows, maybe it was with Goring, but that's not my point.

Perhaps the most egregious translation was for Krystallnacht. The most direct translation is "Crystal Night" but that's not how most English readers with some familiarity of WWII refer to it. We usually call it The Night of Broken Glass.

Germans at the time tended to refer to political parties by their initials instead of names or nicknames -- and Wendt chose to do the same. See how unnecessarily confusing this was?

There were some historical errors, too. The most memorable was the cause of death for Rommel. Here, the author went with the Nazi Party line that Rommel succumbed to injuries from Allied bombing. He committed suicide after the failure of Operation Valkryie.

There is also a lot of generalizing instead of giving details, which is the fault of the author and not the translator. The author was writing for a German audience, so he expected readers to be fully knowledgeable about German history, especially Germany between the Wars. If I hadn't read Before the Deluge, I would've been at sea.

Many biographers commit the sin of falling in love with their subjects, instead of being impartial. Reiman, in the end, commits this sin, despite spilling a lot of ink about Goebbels selling his soul and being schizophrenic.

You're better off reading a more recently published biography of Goebbels. Any of them.

[Pam Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its about Hitlers loyal acolyte who kept a diary as a constant companion, was a unsuccessful writer, penniless for most of his life and had a troubled relationship. Saw himself as " a wreck on a sandbank" and in his early years took to drinking and experienced depression. I really enjoyed learning about history at its best and this book is history and education all rolled into one.

[Mark Bargent-Gotch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, highly informative and highly recommended.