Adolf Hitler

by Joshua Rubenstein

A biography examining both the private and public life of the struggling Austrian artist who rose from obscurity to power as the head of the Nazi Party and, eventually, the German nation.

120 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Joshua Rubenstein is an associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University. He was a staff member of Amnesty International USA from 1975 to 2012. He lives in Brookline, MA.

Reviews

[Owen Loudon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adolf Hitler was a man that rose to power through his passionate and convincing speaking style, but unfortunately used his power for his own personal gain to become an evil dictator. He was born in Austria in 1889. Adolf Hitler wanted to become an artist but got rejected out of the art school in Vienna. He also served during World War I. Later, after getting defeated in World War I, Hitler started a Nazi Party called the Third Reich. He was sworn in as chancellor in 1933 and later led Germany into World War II in 1939. However, he killed himself in 1945.
I gained a lot by reading this book. I did not know that Hitler had multiple siblings. To add on to this, I also did not know he was the fourth child in the family. I also found it interesting how he went from living in a cheap apartment not knowing what to do next to rising to power and being the chancellor of the Nazi Party and leader of Germany. There was a lot of things I found out through reading this book. Like, how he was a messenger in World War I. I do not have many dislikes for this book because I feel like it describes Hitler’s life and rise to power in good detail. However, I did not like how they had concentration camps like Auschwitz that murdered the Jewish and other people to create an Aryan nation. I also did not like that the Nazi party ended a more democratic type of government and took basic rights from the people.
This book is good for most adolescents. I think it belongs in this age group because it talks about mature topics and topics that might be too hard to understand for younger children. This book is good if you want to learn what leadership can do or if you want to know more about World War II and how it started. This would be a great book to pick up for anyone interested in World War II and the life of Adolf Hitler.

[Zhenhao Ren]

I think this book is very good and I learned a lot about Hitler. At first Hitler was very successful and he managed to take over lot's of European countries like France, Poland, Holland, Norway, Greece etc. I was thinking that Hitler is a very lucky person because he won all those battles until 1945 where he had no choice left and commit suicide. When I read that Russia used to be an ally of Germany which means Russia used to be Axis but after Germany attacked Russia Russia became Allies.

[Grace Weber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adolf Hitler by Joshua Rubenstein leaves the reader asking, “What will anyone do to get to the top?”

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6G...

^^ above is a mind map of the general ideas in this book

[Molly Giddens · Rating 3 out of 5]

I skimmed/read this for a little more background on Hitler. Not as informative as I had hoped, and some 'facts' seemed to be in the opinion of the author.

[Anneka · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was kind of depressing but really good.