What do you think?
Rate this book
Adolf Hitler, 2 Vols
WWII, the Holocaust, 50 million deaths, famine & suffering unimaginable. Who could have dreamed such a Wagnerian scene in the mid-20th century? Only one Adolf Hitler. How he brought it off, how he staged the takeover of a great nation, all its resources, largely with the consent & approbation of its people, in their full knowledge of what he stood for & intended to do--this is what fascinates, & this is the theme of John W. Toland's powerful, definitive biography."Masterful...compelling...remarkably documented...a landmark."--John Barkham Reviews
1036 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1976
3 people are currently reading
50 people want to read
About the author
John Toland
40 books192 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
John^Toland - 17th century theologian, Philosopher & Satirist
John^^Toland - American writer and historian (WWII & Dillinger)
John^^^Toland - Article: "The Man who Reads Minds"
John Willard Toland (June 29, 1912 in La Crosse, Wisconsin - January 4, 2004 in Danbury, Connecticut) was an American author and historian. He is best known for his biography of Adolf Hitler.[1]
Toland tried to write history as a straightforward narrative, with minimal analysis or judgment. This method may have stemmed from his original goal of becoming a playwright. In the summers between his college years, he travelled with hobos and wrote several plays with hobos as central characters, none of which achieved the stage.[2] At one point he managed to publish an article on dirigibles in Look magazine; it proved extremely popular and led to his career as a historian.
One exception to his general approach is his Infamy: Pearl Harbor and Its Aftermath about the Pearl Harbor attack and the investigations of it, in which he wrote about evidence that President Franklin Roosevelt knew in advance of plans to attack the naval base but remained silent. The book was widely criticized at the time. Since the original publication, Toland added new evidence and rebutted early critics. Also, an anonymous source, known as "Seaman Z" (Robert D. Ogg) has since come forth to publicly tell his story.
Perhaps his most important work, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1971, is The Rising Sun. Based on original and extensive interviews with high Japanese officials who survived the war, the book chronicles Imperial Japan from the military rebellion of February 1936 to the end of World War II. The book won the Pulitzer because it was the first book in English to tell the history of the war in the Pacific from the Japanese point of view, rather than from an American perspective.
The stories of the battles for the stepping stones to Japan, the islands in the Pacific which had come under Japanese domination, are told from the perspective of the commander sitting in his cave rather than from that of the heroic forces engaged in the assault. Most of these commanders committed suicide at the conclusion of the battle, but Toland was able to reconstruct their viewpoint from letters to their wives and from reports they sent to Tokyo. Toland died in 2004 of pneumonia.
While predominantly a non-fiction author, Toland also wrote two historical novels, Gods of War and Occupation. He says in his autobiography that he earned little money from his Pulitzer Prize-winning, The Rising Sun, but was set for life from the earnings of his biography of Hitler, for which he also did original research.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tol...
John^Toland - 17th century theologian, Philosopher & Satirist
John^^Toland - American writer and historian (WWII & Dillinger)
John^^^Toland - Article: "The Man who Reads Minds"
John Willard Toland (June 29, 1912 in La Crosse, Wisconsin - January 4, 2004 in Danbury, Connecticut) was an American author and historian. He is best known for his biography of Adolf Hitler.[1]
Toland tried to write history as a straightforward narrative, with minimal analysis or judgment. This method may have stemmed from his original goal of becoming a playwright. In the summers between his college years, he travelled with hobos and wrote several plays with hobos as central characters, none of which achieved the stage.[2] At one point he managed to publish an article on dirigibles in Look magazine; it proved extremely popular and led to his career as a historian.
One exception to his general approach is his Infamy: Pearl Harbor and Its Aftermath about the Pearl Harbor attack and the investigations of it, in which he wrote about evidence that President Franklin Roosevelt knew in advance of plans to attack the naval base but remained silent. The book was widely criticized at the time. Since the original publication, Toland added new evidence and rebutted early critics. Also, an anonymous source, known as "Seaman Z" (Robert D. Ogg) has since come forth to publicly tell his story.
Perhaps his most important work, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1971, is The Rising Sun. Based on original and extensive interviews with high Japanese officials who survived the war, the book chronicles Imperial Japan from the military rebellion of February 1936 to the end of World War II. The book won the Pulitzer because it was the first book in English to tell the history of the war in the Pacific from the Japanese point of view, rather than from an American perspective.
The stories of the battles for the stepping stones to Japan, the islands in the Pacific which had come under Japanese domination, are told from the perspective of the commander sitting in his cave rather than from that of the heroic forces engaged in the assault. Most of these commanders committed suicide at the conclusion of the battle, but Toland was able to reconstruct their viewpoint from letters to their wives and from reports they sent to Tokyo. Toland died in 2004 of pneumonia.
While predominantly a non-fiction author, Toland also wrote two historical novels, Gods of War and Occupation. He says in his autobiography that he earned little money from his Pulitzer Prize-winning, The Rising Sun, but was set for life from the earnings of his biography of Hitler, for which he also did original research.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tol...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
November 24, 2020
Page 306 (my book)
Heinrich Heine, a Jew, [wrote a century before Hitler’s ascension to power in 1933]: “German thunder is truly German; it takes its time. But it will come, and when it crashes it will crash as nothing in history crashed before. The hour will come… A drama will be performed which will make the French Revolution seem like a pretty idyll… Never doubt it; the hour will come.”
This is, at close to 1,000 pages, a thorough examination of the life of Adolf Hitler. It depicts him as a human being, not as a monster or crazy or a lunatic. Hitler did interact normally (albeit at times domineeringly) with those in his social circle. He was a master manipulator and knew how to use people.
Several interesting aspects of his life are high-lighted in this book.
During his years in Vienna, prior to the outbreak of World War I, Hitler as a rootless, and at times homeless person, started to discover his “gift of speech”. He would often engage in arguments and hold himself well with the group of men who gathered round him in the various shelters where he was living.
Page 75 by 1918
Hitler was far from the dreamy eyed volunteer of 1914. Four years in the trenches had given him a sense of belonging along with a degree of self-confidence. Having fought for Germany, he was truly German; … he had pride in his manhood. He had entered the army a raw youth, remarkably underdeveloped for all his twenty-four years and hardships in Vienna.
After 1918 Hitler became an obsessive anti-Semite. Prior, like many Europeans, he had a “normal” anti-Semitic attitude. His speeches became laden with a virulent exterminationist anti-Semitism. His hate and virulence became primarily focused on the Jewish people. So, in the 1920’s his speeches clearly pointed in the direction that he was to take.
He also stoked the fear of Communism in his speeches and the decadence of democracy – and in both of these he blamed Jewish leadership. He used a nativist pull on the German people (volk).
He could be many things to many different groups of people – workers, business leaders, religious people were all magnetized by Hitler. Women especially were drawn to him. His rallies were like the rock shows of our current era – with music, light shows and then a mesmerizing speech by the Fuhrer.
Page 146
Hitler skillfully appealed to primitive emotions and when audiences left meetings they remembered few details, only that they must join Hitler’s crusade to save Germany.
He became adulated – a Messiah to the German people. His speeches and rallies had strong religious overtones with the swastika being prominent. The author points out that the swastika flag was a counterpoint to the hammer and sickle communist flag. The Nazis used pageantry to pull in their worshippers. It was like a mass cult. Hitler built up his leadership. He killed Rohm (the leader of the storm troopers) and others to consolidate his position.
Page 110
For centuries [the swastika] had represented not only for Europeans but also for certain North American Indian tribes the wheel of the sun or the cycle of life. From now on, and perhaps forevermore, the swastika would have a sinister connotation.
All in the Party in the 1920s had to pledge allegiance to Hitler. By the 1930s that would extend to all of Germany – more so to the Army (the Wehrmacht).
Hitler had an on and off again sexual relationship with Eva Braun beginning in the 1930’s. By the time the war started she would have an apartment or a room adjacent to him. Of course, due to the war Hitler was often absent.
When Hitler attained power in 1933 he would mask his speeches – more so because now he was being followed by the international press. His priority was to rebuild the German Army.
Page 329 July, 1933
Germany was controlled by a single party and that party was controlled by a single man.
Page 409 1936, the military march into the Rhineland
[Hitler] had learned that his own political instincts were sounder than those of his generals. It was a victory of far-reaching import, reinforcing faith in his own destiny.
Page 409 by 1936
No head of state in the world enjoyed such popularity. He had manoeuvred his country in little more than three years from supplicant to challenger.
Everything in the German state became geared to the goals of Hitler – the army, business and industry, the schools. “Hitler is the nation” (page 526).
Because of his early victories in the occupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss of Austria, and his “negotiated” takeover of Czechoslovakia Hitler came to believe in his infallibility. But Czechoslovakia was his first mistake; he underestimated the limits of the democracies (England and France). By breaking his Munich deal when invading the remainder of Czechoslovakia in early 1939 he had burnt his bridges – and this led to the declaration of war when Germany invaded Poland.
The authors’ analysis of the Nazi-Soviet pact of August 1939 is spot-on.
Page 638
One of the most important treaties (Nazi-Soviet pact] in world history had been completed and signed without argument in a few hours, proof that both Hitler and Stalin wanted agreement, that both knew exactly what they would give to get what they wanted.
This belief in his infallibility led to massive problems when the war tides changed at the end of 1942. Hitler never relinquished his aura of dominance and became increasingly surrounded by sycophants.
The author also discusses the Final Solution and leaves no doubt that Hitler was fully aware and in agreement of what occurred. Hitler often avoided written documents of his most important decisions. The author also makes it evident that the main purpose of Hitler’s war was to eliminate European Jewry – plus others that were in the way of German dominance like Poles, Slavs, Russians, and Gypsies. The German people were to occupy the lands forcibly vacated; this had already started in Poland.
An interesting quote that Hitler used prior to his invasion of the Soviet Union is an apt warning to all invaders.
Page 774
“At the beginning of each campaign one pushes a door into a dark unseen room. One can never know what is hiding inside.”
Page 821 September 1942 General Warlimont
“The man’s confidence has gone with the realization that the Soviets cannot be beaten,” generals had witnessed “his faults, his errors, his illusions and his daydreams.”
But one could add that these Generals did not have the courage to contradict the man. Such was his hold over them.
This is an immense work on the man who changed the course of the twentieth century.
Heinrich Heine, a Jew, [wrote a century before Hitler’s ascension to power in 1933]: “German thunder is truly German; it takes its time. But it will come, and when it crashes it will crash as nothing in history crashed before. The hour will come… A drama will be performed which will make the French Revolution seem like a pretty idyll… Never doubt it; the hour will come.”
This is, at close to 1,000 pages, a thorough examination of the life of Adolf Hitler. It depicts him as a human being, not as a monster or crazy or a lunatic. Hitler did interact normally (albeit at times domineeringly) with those in his social circle. He was a master manipulator and knew how to use people.
Several interesting aspects of his life are high-lighted in this book.
During his years in Vienna, prior to the outbreak of World War I, Hitler as a rootless, and at times homeless person, started to discover his “gift of speech”. He would often engage in arguments and hold himself well with the group of men who gathered round him in the various shelters where he was living.
Page 75 by 1918
Hitler was far from the dreamy eyed volunteer of 1914. Four years in the trenches had given him a sense of belonging along with a degree of self-confidence. Having fought for Germany, he was truly German; … he had pride in his manhood. He had entered the army a raw youth, remarkably underdeveloped for all his twenty-four years and hardships in Vienna.
After 1918 Hitler became an obsessive anti-Semite. Prior, like many Europeans, he had a “normal” anti-Semitic attitude. His speeches became laden with a virulent exterminationist anti-Semitism. His hate and virulence became primarily focused on the Jewish people. So, in the 1920’s his speeches clearly pointed in the direction that he was to take.
He also stoked the fear of Communism in his speeches and the decadence of democracy – and in both of these he blamed Jewish leadership. He used a nativist pull on the German people (volk).
He could be many things to many different groups of people – workers, business leaders, religious people were all magnetized by Hitler. Women especially were drawn to him. His rallies were like the rock shows of our current era – with music, light shows and then a mesmerizing speech by the Fuhrer.
Page 146
Hitler skillfully appealed to primitive emotions and when audiences left meetings they remembered few details, only that they must join Hitler’s crusade to save Germany.
He became adulated – a Messiah to the German people. His speeches and rallies had strong religious overtones with the swastika being prominent. The author points out that the swastika flag was a counterpoint to the hammer and sickle communist flag. The Nazis used pageantry to pull in their worshippers. It was like a mass cult. Hitler built up his leadership. He killed Rohm (the leader of the storm troopers) and others to consolidate his position.
Page 110
For centuries [the swastika] had represented not only for Europeans but also for certain North American Indian tribes the wheel of the sun or the cycle of life. From now on, and perhaps forevermore, the swastika would have a sinister connotation.
All in the Party in the 1920s had to pledge allegiance to Hitler. By the 1930s that would extend to all of Germany – more so to the Army (the Wehrmacht).
Hitler had an on and off again sexual relationship with Eva Braun beginning in the 1930’s. By the time the war started she would have an apartment or a room adjacent to him. Of course, due to the war Hitler was often absent.
When Hitler attained power in 1933 he would mask his speeches – more so because now he was being followed by the international press. His priority was to rebuild the German Army.
Page 329 July, 1933
Germany was controlled by a single party and that party was controlled by a single man.
Page 409 1936, the military march into the Rhineland
[Hitler] had learned that his own political instincts were sounder than those of his generals. It was a victory of far-reaching import, reinforcing faith in his own destiny.
Page 409 by 1936
No head of state in the world enjoyed such popularity. He had manoeuvred his country in little more than three years from supplicant to challenger.
Everything in the German state became geared to the goals of Hitler – the army, business and industry, the schools. “Hitler is the nation” (page 526).
Because of his early victories in the occupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss of Austria, and his “negotiated” takeover of Czechoslovakia Hitler came to believe in his infallibility. But Czechoslovakia was his first mistake; he underestimated the limits of the democracies (England and France). By breaking his Munich deal when invading the remainder of Czechoslovakia in early 1939 he had burnt his bridges – and this led to the declaration of war when Germany invaded Poland.
The authors’ analysis of the Nazi-Soviet pact of August 1939 is spot-on.
Page 638
One of the most important treaties (Nazi-Soviet pact] in world history had been completed and signed without argument in a few hours, proof that both Hitler and Stalin wanted agreement, that both knew exactly what they would give to get what they wanted.
This belief in his infallibility led to massive problems when the war tides changed at the end of 1942. Hitler never relinquished his aura of dominance and became increasingly surrounded by sycophants.
The author also discusses the Final Solution and leaves no doubt that Hitler was fully aware and in agreement of what occurred. Hitler often avoided written documents of his most important decisions. The author also makes it evident that the main purpose of Hitler’s war was to eliminate European Jewry – plus others that were in the way of German dominance like Poles, Slavs, Russians, and Gypsies. The German people were to occupy the lands forcibly vacated; this had already started in Poland.
An interesting quote that Hitler used prior to his invasion of the Soviet Union is an apt warning to all invaders.
Page 774
“At the beginning of each campaign one pushes a door into a dark unseen room. One can never know what is hiding inside.”
Page 821 September 1942 General Warlimont
“The man’s confidence has gone with the realization that the Soviets cannot be beaten,” generals had witnessed “his faults, his errors, his illusions and his daydreams.”
But one could add that these Generals did not have the courage to contradict the man. Such was his hold over them.
This is an immense work on the man who changed the course of the twentieth century.
January 2, 2013
My first substantial adult reading experience at age ten was Shirer's Rise & Fall of the Third Reich. Dad had served in both theatres--indeed, almost everyone's father had served in WWII or Korea in our government-assisted community in Lake County, Illinois. The War, wars in general, were very much on my mind, on our minds, during childhoods endured through the centennial years of our own civil war.
The Cold War was of primary concern. Like everyone else, I feared the Russians and Chinese. Then, as I learned more, I feared the Koreans, the Czechs, the E. Germans, the Rumanians, the Poles, the Albanians, the Estonians, the Latvians, the Lithuanians, the Cubans, the Yugoslavs, the Bulgarians, the Mongolians, the Hungarians and the Vietnamese--especially the nefarious Viet Cong and their subversive ilk throughout the poorer countries of the world. That's what school taught, what the papers reported, what tv showed. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, Nazism and Communism, were virtually as one to my mind--all dictators, all war-mongers. I fully expected I'd have to fight like Dad had--and I was frightened at the prospect. I suffered this terrible ambivalence of fascinated fear throughout primary school.
One of my first research projects in high school was a paper on the war in Vietnam. I read several books, mostly accounts by US soldiers who had served there. All were very much pro-war, anti-insurgency. Then, one night at the grandparents, I got into a discussion about the topic with Dad and his mother's husband, Christian Stousland. They were very much opposed to the war. A know-it-all, I argued manfully with them for hours, learning in the process that there was quite a lot I didn't know. That night I went home and read and thought. I remembered the Life Magazine account of the recent US invasion of the Dominican Republic. There there had seemed to be some ambiguity, some suggestion that maybe we'd supported military dictators against the people. Could this be so? The more I looked into such matters, the more I doubted previous certainties.
High School history classes and membership in the school's Social Science Club did the rest of the job. By junior year I was torn between Trotsky and Gandhi, Communism and pacifism, and believed virtually nothing reported in the mainstream press or by the president about American foreign policy intentions.
Hitler's Germany returned to mind in this context. Could there be some similarity to the Germans' democratic acquiescence to Hitler's policies and our own democratic endorsements of foreign aggression? I began, again, fitfully, to study the history of WWII and the politics behind it.
A subtheme of this study has been to understand the minds of people like Hitler or Theodore Roosevelt who had come to power as advocates of aggressive violence. Toland's biography of Hitler was a good start as regards the former since it is a thorough, but popular, survey of the man's thought and actions.
The Cold War was of primary concern. Like everyone else, I feared the Russians and Chinese. Then, as I learned more, I feared the Koreans, the Czechs, the E. Germans, the Rumanians, the Poles, the Albanians, the Estonians, the Latvians, the Lithuanians, the Cubans, the Yugoslavs, the Bulgarians, the Mongolians, the Hungarians and the Vietnamese--especially the nefarious Viet Cong and their subversive ilk throughout the poorer countries of the world. That's what school taught, what the papers reported, what tv showed. Stalin, Mao and Hitler, Nazism and Communism, were virtually as one to my mind--all dictators, all war-mongers. I fully expected I'd have to fight like Dad had--and I was frightened at the prospect. I suffered this terrible ambivalence of fascinated fear throughout primary school.
One of my first research projects in high school was a paper on the war in Vietnam. I read several books, mostly accounts by US soldiers who had served there. All were very much pro-war, anti-insurgency. Then, one night at the grandparents, I got into a discussion about the topic with Dad and his mother's husband, Christian Stousland. They were very much opposed to the war. A know-it-all, I argued manfully with them for hours, learning in the process that there was quite a lot I didn't know. That night I went home and read and thought. I remembered the Life Magazine account of the recent US invasion of the Dominican Republic. There there had seemed to be some ambiguity, some suggestion that maybe we'd supported military dictators against the people. Could this be so? The more I looked into such matters, the more I doubted previous certainties.
High School history classes and membership in the school's Social Science Club did the rest of the job. By junior year I was torn between Trotsky and Gandhi, Communism and pacifism, and believed virtually nothing reported in the mainstream press or by the president about American foreign policy intentions.
Hitler's Germany returned to mind in this context. Could there be some similarity to the Germans' democratic acquiescence to Hitler's policies and our own democratic endorsements of foreign aggression? I began, again, fitfully, to study the history of WWII and the politics behind it.
A subtheme of this study has been to understand the minds of people like Hitler or Theodore Roosevelt who had come to power as advocates of aggressive violence. Toland's biography of Hitler was a good start as regards the former since it is a thorough, but popular, survey of the man's thought and actions.
March 14, 2025
a well-researched probe into the mind of HItler
February 22, 2011
OK, so saying you "really like" a book about Hitler is bound to get you some weird looks, but this was an exceptionally deeply researched look into Hitler's life from beginning to end. I'm not sure of all the sources and how Toland got a hold of them, but he got interviews with many of the main players in Hitler's life that were left after the fall of the Third Reich. I felt that it was a revealing look into Hitler's mind without being overwhelming. Toland did occasionally get bogged down in some minute details that aren't very interesting--I don't actually need to know that Hitler ate beans while everyone else had weinerschnitzel thank you, I get it--and he tends to toss out facts and then not elaborate on them very well. For example, he makes a point of saying that Hitler's excessive flatulence was constantly embarrassing him but NEVER MENTIONS IT AGAIN. (My guess--all the beans. Just saying.) But despite those small complaints, this is a book well worth the time it takes to read. I think it's illuminating to see how the German people were completely willing to follow this high school dropout to the brink of madness and beyond. It's a situation that could conceivably, scarily, happen again.
October 17, 2023
Finally, John Toland’s takes on Hitler.
There are Hitler books by experts, conspiracy theorists, crackpots, and those that have strange agendas. We even have “Mein Kompf.”
Everything one reads has a different view of the same man in the same history. John Toland is no different as he has compiled what he considers the truth from actual people that knew Hitler.
This two-volume book (you may have a one-volume book) is professionally written and may give you a different insight into the workings of Hitler. Sometimes it has the feeling of a novel.
If you are interested in part 2 “In the Beginning Was the Word” chapter 6. “The beer hall Putsch”, which is about 33 pages long then you might be interested in “Munich 1923” by John Dornberg.
There are Hitler books by experts, conspiracy theorists, crackpots, and those that have strange agendas. We even have “Mein Kompf.”
Everything one reads has a different view of the same man in the same history. John Toland is no different as he has compiled what he considers the truth from actual people that knew Hitler.
This two-volume book (you may have a one-volume book) is professionally written and may give you a different insight into the workings of Hitler. Sometimes it has the feeling of a novel.
If you are interested in part 2 “In the Beginning Was the Word” chapter 6. “The beer hall Putsch”, which is about 33 pages long then you might be interested in “Munich 1923” by John Dornberg.
May 12, 2024
The rating is obviously for the quality of the book, not the quality of the individual at its focus. This is an incredibly comprehensive biography of one of the most influential figures of the 20th century, whether or not we wish him to be influential. Toland does a good job fleshing out the person of Hitler to show more than a unidimensional figure of hate and destruction. It's interesting to hear a lack of decisiveness of Hitler's mentality toward the Jews and political opponents over time with the more objectively evil actions taken later in time, demonstrating how his growth in power (mostly due to charisma, especially in his speeches) over time led to him engaging in worse opinions and actions overtly formulated.
October 20, 2014
La segunda guerra mundial es el capítulo más fascinante y oscuro de la historia moderna, pero más siniestro aun es su personaje principal y sus colaboradores más cercanos. Este libro narra los hechos de ese pasaje histórico desde una perspectiva objetiva, clara y sin prejuicios. Los motivos personales de Hitler y las razones de su inclinación antisemita, si bien, son plausiblemente atribuibles a una infancia oscura y llena de carencias, lo cierto es que no encuentran justificación: La historia sigue y seguirá condenándolo, y para no repetirla, estamos obligados a conocerla.
December 14, 2013
These books are a good read if you're into Nazi Germany. Very informative on every aspect of Hitler. I learned some new facts.
July 2, 2013
This is the two volume set i read many years ago.
October 13, 2013
Amazing portrait - I really loved it to the last page. Very readable history. I will hopefully read more Toland.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews