Hitler's Private Library

by Timothy W. Ryback

A Washington Post Notable Book With a new chapter on eugenicist Madison Grant’s The Passing of the Great RaceIn this brilliant and original exploration of some of the formative influences in Adolf Hitler’s life, Timothy Ryback examines the books that shaped the man and his thinking.Hitler was better known for burning books than collecting them but, as Ryback vividly shows us, books were Hitler’s constant companions throughout his life. They accompanied him from his years as a frontline corporal during the First World War to his final days before his suicide in Berlin. With remarkable attention to detail, Ryback examines the surviving volumes from Hitler’s private book collection, revealing the ideas and obsessions that occupied Hitler in his most private hours and the consequences they had for our world.A feat of scholarly detective work, and a captivating biographical portrait, Hitler’s Private Library is one of the most intimate and chilling works on Hitler yet written.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Books About Books, Politics, Germany, World War II

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Timothy W. Ryback is an American historian and director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague. He previously served as the Deputy-Secretary General of the Académie Diplomatique Internationale in Paris, and Director and Vice President of the Salzburg Global Seminar. Prior to this, he was a lecturer in the Concentration of History and Literature at Harvard University.

Ryback has written on European history, politics and culture for numerous publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker and The New York Times. He is the author of The Last Survivor: Legacies of Dachau, published in 2000. He also wrote Hitler's Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life, published in 2008. Ryback is also author of Rock Around the Bloc: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, published in 1989.

Reviews

[Dimitri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hitler was a terrible person, but there's a lot I identify with him as a reader.

The nightly marathons. The need to read daily. The accumulation keeping pace with the disposable income. The TBR mountain. The pencil-studded dialogue with the opinions on page. The autodidact itch scratched by encyclopedias. The "If I have money, I buy books. If I have a little money left, I buy food" mentality worded by Erasmus.

To have multiple non-partisan observers verdict his used collection as "a comprehensive military history library" is of course an aspiration for a WW buff. I'm up to serveral "you have more books than anyone I know" comments.

My copy has 20 spine cracks for 200 pages, dog-ears, coffee & bolognaise stains, travel wear ...
It has annotations for 30+ books that I feel I should read myself, such as Carlyle's biography of Frederick the Great or Der Untergang des Abendlandes * Also, it was a gift from my father.
In short, with a R. Lee Ermey chorus, "there are many like it, but this one is mine".

Is Timothy Snyder being too self-centered ? If trench dust or a moustache hair fall from between the pages while you are browsing books which librarians have kept in storage for decades, you are allowed to call that "a discovery".

Does he do anything wrong ? Yes, his methodology runs on peacetime signs of use, so he runs out of identifiable material when the war breaks out.
What did Hitler read between 1940 & 1945 ?

*2016's deluxe translation.

[Boudewijn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every evening I read one or two books, even when I go to bed late - Adolf Hitler*

Hitler was an avid reader, so much so that when he had to choose between food and books, often chose the latter. In this book, Timothy W. Ryback examines which writers and books contributed to the formation of Hitler's views. Hitler had an urge to educate himself on various topics, often flipping through his books in search of relevant passages that seemed to support his views. He possessed a vast intellectual knowledge, composed of books by authors such as Darwin, Max Weber, Eckhardt and especially Johann Gottlieb Fichte.

Did Timothy W. Ryback succeed in penetrating Hitlers views? No, but he gets pretty far. Hitler is and remains inscrutable, but his books allow us to see what attracted his attention, where it lingered, what he overlooked and where a question arose or an impression was formed.

Being a fervent reader myself, I repeatedly posed myself the question how I related to Hitler. Just like Hitler, I daily read different books on a varying range of topics such as science, politics, (military) history and social-cultural developments. How would I have fared if I grew up in the same period as Hitler and would have read the same books as he did? In what aspect do the books we read influence or determine the way we see the world, act or determine our fellow men? To answer this is difficult, but I guess we still have an influence or free will on how we would like to contribute to this world. And for me that is: be good and treat others well.

Read in Dutch

* My translation from the original Dutch text

[Mariam Mord'Sith · Rating 3 out of 5]

You could judge a collector by his collection! Hitler was a man better known for burning books than collecting them and yet by the time he died, he owned an estimated 16,000 volumes - Ironic eh?! [He read voraciously].
Walter Banjamin once said that you could tell a lot about a man by the books he keeps - his tastes, his interests, his habits. The books we retain and those we discard, those we read as well as those we decode not to, all say something about who we are. Quoting Hegel, Benjamin noted, "Only when it is dark does the owl of Minerva begin its flight," and concluded, "Only in extinction is the collector comprehended."
Benjamin proposed that a private library serves as a permanent and credible witness to the character of its collector, leading him to the following philosophic conceit: we collect books in the belief that we are preserving them when in fact it is the books that preserve their collector. "Not that they come alive in him," Benjamin posited. "It is he who lives in them.

[Esteban del Mal · Rating 3 out of 5]

What can a person's library tell you about him or her?

After reading this book, I still don't know; but this is an interesting examination of one of history's most infamous bibliophiles. (And sometimes downright creepy -- at one point, the author was examining a book from Hitler's library and discovered "tucked in the crease...a wiry inch-long black hair that appears to be from a moustache.")

Although only a small portion of Hitler's library survives, the relatively few remaining texts do allow for a snapshot, no matter however underdeveloped, of his interests. Predictably, books on pseudo-science, specifically focusing on race, shaped Hitler's early life. He had every German translation of Henry Ford's books on anti-Semitism, and was quoted as saying, "I regard Ford as my inspiration." Later, he superficially read Kant, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer (often taking them out of context, gleaning from their writings what he found “useful”) and mixed their works with contemporary crackpot mysticism in an effort to fashion National Socialism into a sort of quasi-state religion to counter materialism (the philosophical foundation of Communism). Think of the psychology behind those night rallies with big torches and all the pomp, the Führer elevated and framed by the Parteiadler for effect.

Just prior to, and during, WWII, Hitler -- already predisposed to weave the most disparate views into a perverse mosaic -- was surrounded by handlers who filtered the texts he would read to fit his already paranoid and rationalized worldview. Hence, books from sycophants and hangers-on of every stripe informed his "thinking." As the Soviets surrounded Berlin, Hitler apparently felt a kinship with Bismarck (whose biography he had read and re-read) and would draw parallels between their lives to the point that he would seize upon the most strained minutiae as proof of his theory (for instance, seeing the death of FDR as a harbinger of a long-sought fracture in the American-English-Soviet alliance akin to the death of tsarina Elizabeth and the resulting fissure of the alliance between Austria, France and Russia against Germany in 1861).

Then Hitler killed himself and his corpse was burned beyond recognition.

Page 68 has a typo, printing "the" twice in sequence.

Memorable Hitler quotes from the book:

"A leader can make mistakes, no question about that. But following a bad decision will achieve the final goal better than personal freedom."

"The victor will not be asked afterwards whether he told the truth or not."

"We are fighting in the far reaches to protect our homeland so that we can keep the war far away in order to spare us the fate we would suffer if it were closer."

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

The books that can be traced back to Hitler's private library help fill in some of the many outstanding questions historians still have about him. I do think that the books you read say something about you; in the case of Hitler it seems as if there was very little in his library that could expand his world view.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides a mini-biography of Hitler specific to the aspects of his reading habits and the books that influenced his life.
Ryback prefers to discuss the formative experiences of Hitler and his personal life, and the book does a decent job. I'd say it is interesting to know a bit more about Hitler as a person from this aspect.

This book talks about Hitler in an objective and academic manner, without being openly biased or hostile which I really appreciated. The exception to this is that the book fails to provide the historical context of Bolshevism being Jewish, which was a very well known fact at the time. Ryback makes it sound like Bolshevism being Jewish is some sort of lunatic conspiracy theory limited to Germany's far right circles, and therefore making it irrational for the European peoples to be afraid of the Jews. But if you read Mein Kampf critically, you'll notice that Hitler clearly takes it for granted that the reader already knows that Bolshevism was almost entirely Jewish, which was common knowledge at the time. In fact, even Winston Churchill said it first (see his article in the Illustrated Sunday Herald, February 8, 1920, widely available online). Was Winston Churchill also part of this German far-right conspiracy?

I say this to highlight that the book overstates the influence that certain books or individuals have had on Hitler. The book makes it sound like it just happens that Hitler formed his ideas because he met Drexler or Eckart or stumbled upon a book by Madison Grant. For example Ryback clearly condemns scientific racism and implies that this came in Hitler's mind because he stumbled upon some racist book and not from a simple natural instinct and / or logic and observation. Surely you don't need a book to see achievements in art, engineering, technology, literature, philosophy etc. in Europe and compare them with sub-Saharian Africa where they didn't even invent a written language? Or you don't need a book to realize that, for example, Egypt used to be the most advanced civilization in the world but now it's not, and ask yourself why?
I would love to read the opposite of this book: an investigation of the books and influences that would make someone believe that all races are equal.


You're probably wondering if this book is helpful to understand Hitler's ideology. The answer is mostly no. Apart from the author's bias against the idea of racial differences, the author doesn't explore the motivations and arguments of the points of views of the books that influenced Hitler and, more importantly, these cover only very small aspects of National Socialism. However, Ryback does mention a couple of fundamental points:

"Grant demonstrated to Hitler that the dynamics of human populations represented a force more powerful than any single political leader, any single government, any political or military alliance regardless of its size or power. This was the Grant epiphany, the intersection between the two inexorable forces of time and demography."

The chapter on The Passing of the Great Race or the Racial Basis of European History does a good job at explaining how Hitler's vision was much greater than the one of a simple politician or tyrant. Hitler believed that what really mattered was the survival of the Aryan and Nordic race in the course of world history, and not a "civic nationalism" which was specific to the country of Germany. The demographic shifts, races being replaced, is what really changes the face of the world.

Another very revealing quote from Ryback's book, while discussing Sven Hedin's "America in the Battle of the Continents" (this book doesn't seem to be available in English):

"Hitler expressed relief that Poland had rejected his repeated attempts at finding a peaceful solution, for had he not gone to war in 1939, he told Hedin, Germany would have been lulled into a false sense of security and turned its attentions to cultural instead of military matters, while the Soviet Union would have continued to prepare itself for war. “And even if we had not neglected armaments, they would have remained within normal limits, which would have left us a few years later in a position of helpless inferiority before the Asian colossus,” Hitler claimed. “Under these circumstances, the fate of Europe and with it thousands of years of culture would have found its end."

Which fits perfectly in the concept that Hitler was trying to protect the whole of White Christian Europe from Judeo-Bolshevism, and that the war was inevitable and not something Hitler wanted.


Overall, Ryback's book is quite interesting to explore how Hitler had a passion for reading books, and you can get quite a few good book recommendations. For example, apart from Grant's book, The Rising Tide of Color, Addresses to the German Nation, and The International Jew.


Regardless of what you may think of Hitler's ideas, this book does a good job at putting them in the context of a solid intellectual foundation that was very widely accepted in the 19th and early 20th century.

[Vijai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whenever I meet someone for the first time, that one thing I wonder is 'What books does this person read? what has he/ she already read? Would they have read, what I have read? What will be their opinion on these books?'

Weird, I know but I am pretty sure a few of my fellow bibliophiles will attest to having done the same as well. Anyway, I had picked this up with the curiosity of knowing what did the man hated by millions read? What did he own? and I assure you that the author has done a fine job of presenting those facts with efforts one can feel are very sincere.

I gave this a four star for the dry narrative. It was just simply difficult to read this book in one stretch. Had it not been for my overwhelming curiosity on the matter, I may have never come to like this book.

Definitely worth a read.

[Haifa · Rating 4 out of 5]

تضم مكتبة هتلر الشخصية ستة عشر الف كتاب، ٧٠٠٠ منها كانت كتب عسكرية تهتم بكل ماهو متعلق بالحياة العسكرية من الخطط العسكرية إلى الزي العسكري
كان هتلر يقرأ كتاب كل ليلة حتى وهو مشغول في احتلال العالم
كتاب جميل وماتع
يسرد حياة هتلر والكتب التي اثرت على مسيرته المهنية

[Bill FromPA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though non-fiction, this book takes the form of a novel-in-stories. Each chapter tells a discrete story about Hitler, centered on one or more of the volumes from his library. Ryback has chosen books for which there is some evidence showing that Hitler actually read it, at least in part. Taken together, the stories form an episodic biography, but one which concentrates on events that are not those usually emphasized in the life of the dictator. For example, one chapter deals with Hitler’s relationship with an early mentor / financer Dietrich Eckart (who presented the then-obscure politician with a copy of Peer Gynt). Another tells of a struggle for influence between National Socialists and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, a form of détente somewhat favorable to the latter being presented in the book, Foundations of National Socialism by Bishop Alois Hudal, a partially read copy of which was found among Hitler’s books, but which was never allowed to be sold under the Third Reich. A chapter on various mystical works Hitler seems to have read is rather tough going for its attempted explication of what Ryback admits is "a dime-store theory cobbled together from cheap, tendentious paperbacks and esoteric hardcovers".

Perhaps because of its bookish emphasis, actual violence seldom intrudes into the narrative. The Night of Long Knives in mentioned in passing, and there is no allusion at all to the 1944 bomb plot which almost succeeded in assassinating Hitler. Although the preface is entitled “The Man Who Burned Books”, there is very little mention of the suppression of literature or authors under the Nazis. This gives the story that emerges a tendency to dwell in the arena of ideas and verbal argument rather than the all too brutal reality that the book’s subject brought about.

Ryback writes authoritatively on the Nazi era and the years leading up to it, and seems to have delved deeply into the particular subject of this book. He cross-checks the volumes for underlining of similar ideas to get some sense of the thoughts of the reader behind the markings, as well as a kind of self-check verifying that the marks actually come from the hand of Hitler. He occasionally evokes the physical presence of the books themselves: the dedications, amount of wear, how far and in what manner the pages have been cut. In one volume, an acquisition dating from WWI, he notes mud-flecks, dirty fingerprints, and, eerily, a short black hair pressed between the pages.

[Caleb Loh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hitler was apparently a voracious reader, owning 16,000 books over his lifetime. As a child, he enjoyed stories about adventurers and colonial adventures written by the likes of Karl May and Sven Hedin. They may or may not have influenced his desire for world domination, though he did court Hedin’s support for the Third Reich during WW2. Hitler was also into religious texts, and said his ambition was to be a preacher. He would give sermons to his sister and half-siblings in the living room. However, he later came under the influence of Dietrich Ekhart, his mentor, who espoused the conspiracy theory that Christianity itself was a perversion introduced to the world by Judaism.

In terms of the political aspects of Nazism, Hitler owned books by many philosophers associated with Nazi thinking, like Fichte and Nietzsche (the Fichte book was given to him by Leni Riefenstahl, the female director of Triumph of the Will). However, he actually shows little evidence of having read them, though they were recommended by the party. Instead, Hitler’s anti-Semitism was fanned by “scientific” biology books showing the superiority of the Aryan race, in which he wrote extensively in the margins.

Hitler was also very well-read in military matters, and knew whole tracts of books by heart, despite having spent WW1 as a corporal. He read well into the night. In 1945, when defeat appeared imminent, Hitler was reading books about Frederick the Great, who was saved by the Miracle of the House of Brandenburg. Hitler was, however, far from strategic - he also showed a deep interest in the occult and supernatural genres, including astrology and the predictions of Nostradamus.

[Victor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this book within three days due to its very easy readability. Mr Ryback has written an interesting book on Hitler’s intellectual journey, including some of the books that he drew inspiration from.

It was also interesting to see the complete National Socialist ‘reading list’ which is featured within the book. I could not find any source online, so I’m happy to keep this book within my possession for further reference.

[Relstuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hitler to most of us is an (evil) enigma. How could he do what he did and be so successful? What kind of person was he?

One way to tell who someone really is, is by looking at the people they chose to have around them, another is by looking at the books they chose to have around them. This book focuses on what we can know was in Hitler's library and what part of that we can know he read. Hitler was a reader. His usual evening reportedly included reading as he went to bed. Like many serious readers he left notes in his books, underlining, and sometimes question marks or exclamation marks. And, some of the books in his library appear to not have been read. Interestingly, we even have some records of the books he checked out from the library as a poorer young man.

In his library he had some 7,000 books on military matters or people. He had about 1,500 on artistic subjects like architecture, theater, painting, and sculpture. Another section contained books on astrology and spiritualism from all over the world. His library also included about 200 photographs of the constellations on important days in Hitler's life with personal notations from Hitler, each preserved in it's own envelope. He had another 1,000 books on diet and nutrition that helped support his vegetarian diet and ideal. There are some 400 books on the church, mainly focused on the catholic church. His library also included 800 to a 1,000 titles of popular fiction which included a large number of detective stories, adventure stories, and love romances. Sociological works are strongly represented in Hitler's library. It is not unusual for them to reflect anti-Semitic views.

"Among the books in Hitler's library is one volume covering a field which he has always shown particular interest: namely the study of hands, including those of many famous people throughout the ages as they could be procured. Hitler, in fact, bases a good deal of judgement of people on their hands. In his first conversation with some personality, whether political or military, German or foreign, he usually most carefully observes the hands - their form, whether they are well cared for, whether they are long and narrow or stumpy and broad, the shape of the nails, the knuckle and the joint formation and so on. Various generals and diplomats have wondered why Hitler sometimes after starting a conversation in a cordial and friendly way, became cool as he went along, and then often closed the discourse curtly or abruptly without much progress being made. They learned only later that Hitler had not been pleased by the shape of their hands."

[Kale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hitler wasn't always evil. Under circumstances that were sociopolitical, thirst of knowledge and the saying "you're the average of your friend group", paved the way to one of the most infamous dictators. He was extremely influenced by his antisemitic friend Dietrich Eckar.

Maybe a little autistic, narcissistic and grandiose, Hitler read Kant to Schopenhauer. Believe it or not, the book claimed Nietzsche wasn't the source of the Ubermensch that Hitler supposedly frothed over, in which my left leaning friends claim Nietzsche must be as evil as Hitler. An author ERNST SHERTEL wrote about the "ekropic" man , which was actually the inspiration of Hitlers thoughts of the supreme race. "individual possessing an extraordinary, almost supernatural, ability or power" as AI states.

Something to learn from this book was that Hitler found solace in supernatural thinking. Hitler was the biggest cope lord I've ever seen. The story goes that Hitler read the Frederick the Great abridged autobiography in the final months of his... demise. Frederick was about to be MW2 trickshotted by Elizabeth of Russia. Frederick who was contemplating suicide wrote a letter to his friend about the struggle of depression. The next day, the Gods smited Elizabeth of Russia and she was no more. Peter III took her place in which he was a great admirer of Frederick. The war ended with her death.

Hitler coped so hard, he believed he was a second coming of Frederick the Great and the Gods would do the same thing. Some form of Dragonborn or something. Especially when Franklin D Roosevelt died. He actually thought a prophecy occured. Maybe he should have gone to Argentina instead.. roughly a month later, Hitler shot himself.

Nonetheless, I loved this book in a history context because I think it's the only book that goes indepth of the understanding of Hitler and the why's. Everything else about Hitler overshadows that conversation

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in WWII or bibliophilia. It is a very interesting look at some of the books Hitler read and how he selectively used the information therein to bolster his preexisting world view.

[Barbara Roma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing new about his history, however you'll discover more about his tastes and this make you sure that he was intelligent, but not that smart.
He was so passion about books, although learnt so few with them, prefering memorize dates and numbers of wars. Very interesting point of view about him.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was slow to start, but a fascinating and unique perspective of Hitler. Ryback's analysis actually stems from the exact pages Hitler underlines!

[Shellie (Layers of Thought)]

This book looks really scary!

[Elisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tener acceso, por más limitado que sea, a la vida interior de alguien (sobre todo un personaje histórico) es invaluable. La biblioteca de Hitler nos dice mucho de él, creo que nada sorprendente, pero no por eso menos interesante o importante.

Lo que más me llama la atención es la diferencia entre lo que aparentaba leer y lo que realmente leía. Si uno se basa en los cálculos de algunos investigadores, que dicen que Hitler poseía unos 16,000 libros, es obvio que nunca pudo leerlos todos, no sólo porque murió a los 56 años de edad, sino porque estaba bastante ocupado en otras cosas. Aun así, hay muchos testimonios de sus lecturas a altas horas de la noche y siempre estuvo rodeado de libros. Tratándose de un monomaníaco de la talla de Hitler, no es sorprendente aprender que buscaba primero en el índice lo que le interesaba leer en un volúmen, lo hallaba, lo leía de manera inconsistente, y se saltaba el resto. Resulta obvio que alimentaba sus ideas preconcebidas de estas lecturas parciales.

Si Hitler mandaba quemar libros y humanos por igual teniendo a los primeros como uno de sus tesoros, no sorprendre que haya hecho lo que hizo de la manera en que lo hizo.

[davidalromany · Rating 3 out of 5]

في كتير من المعلومات المعروفة لي
1- لكن الذي لم يكن معروفا ان هتلر كان قاري نهم للكتب لكنه كان يقرا اكثر في التي تغذي اتجاهة المتعصب
2-وخطيب مفهوة استطاع تاثير علي ملايين من الالمان لتشجيع فكرته بالعداء ليهود المانيا .وتم اختيارة بسبب قدرته علي تاثير علي جماهير بكلمه واحده منه امام الميكرفون
3-كان مريضا نفسيا بامتياز اثرت عليه احلامه التي فشل فيها مثل حلمه ان يكون فنانا تشكيليا وحاول ان يعود للفن وتلاعب بلوحات .كان عبقري في تعامل مع سياسة رجال حزبه مع رجال الاعمال اليهود وان نجاح فكرته اعلاء فكرة القومية الالمانية ووجود جنس وحيد مميز قادر علي غزو العالم.
4-لم يكن قادرا علي تعاطف او ابداء اي شعور تجاه نساء العجائز وهم في المحرقة مهما حاول اصدقائه من نساء مشاهير المانيا ان يبعثن فيه ان يشعر بنساء والعجائز والاطفال في سجون المانيا
5-عرف عن هتلر حبه الوثيق لفلسفة نيتشية وشبنهاور فيلسوف تشاوم لكن التناقض الحاد كيف الفلسفة لم توثر في ديكتاتور قاتل
6- كان يغذي اوهام هتلر قراءات عن الفيلسوف فخته الذي كان معادي لسامية اليهودية الذي يعتقد انهم يقومون ببناء دولة داخل دولة الالمانية واقترح تخليص اوربا منهم باقامة دولة يهودية في فلسطين

[S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. one reads on goodreads because one is a voracious reader
2. one then reads book reviews because one is a voracious reader
3. books reviews get written for voracious readers.

I think that's the cycle, the heart of this website. and that is totally unrelated, a digression, to this work. and here's another digression:

I was along Bubbling Well road in the French Concession of Shanghai when I came across a Chinese bookstore of English-language books. many are encased in plastic wrap. I bought this book for 20 RMB (renminbi = people's currency, or about 3 US). unwrapping the plastic, I then discovered the pages inside were slightly out of focus and the paper a little thinner than western normal, almost sure tipoffs that is a copyvio.

what is morally obligatory?

well... issues involved: the author/publisher almost certainly get no royalties. however, Chinese copyright law is pretty strange; it's more about suppressing undesirable books than protecting authors. actually technically the bookstore/vio aren't necessarily illegal under communist chinese law, only perhaps immoral under widely recognized moral principles.... and it's 2013, decades now when most music is downloaded (again without royalty), off the internet.

hmm, tough questions. but if I destroy this book after reading it, I haven't necessarily damaged the author/publisher vis-a-vis borrowing a western copy from a western library?

or if I give a review here on goodreads, i'm at least promoting the book to some small degree, and arguably the author is better off with one chinese pirate edition read and reviewed than one western edition and never reviewed?

or, these are all paper-thin justifications?



Ryback, I suppose, has a write to be ticked off, as GR.com is showing only a 150+ ratings. in other words, his academic work has not brought in heaps of cash, but already some clever Wuzhou pirates have ripped his work. possibly it's bringing them more profit than his work. well, the argument might be made that I should immediately destroy the book, but how about my $3? and since I speak no chinese, there's no recourse from the bookstore or the city government. it's a complete conundrum.

and so , also, is this book.

the work is about Hitler's fascination with reading, his library tinged with mystical volumes (although in one section, he doesn't read the section that apparently predicts him), anecdotes about the Fuehrer. the skies turned blood red right before the invasion of poland-- and this is confirmed here in writing as well as in video documentaries.

hitler's thinking derived from racialist thinkers. he had certain artistic pretensions.

[Kulthoum كلثوم · Rating 5 out of 5]

دراسة بحثية عن الكتب التي شكلت شخصية القائد النازي وأصّلت روح التعصب القومي العرقي فيه، وعززت كراهيته لليهود، وصقلت لغة الخطابة المؤثرة الذي اشتهر به.

قارئ نهم وشغوف بالمطالعة كما تقول مدبرة منزله يقرأ في كل ليلة كتاب أو اثنين لحين الفجر. امتلك مكتبة كبيرة احتوت قرابة الأربعة عشر ألف كتاب نصفها في مواضيع الحروب والتكتيكات العسكرية وسيرة الحكام البروسيين والألمان الذين لعبوا دور عسكرياً، والتي كانت مصدر فخر وإلهام وصورة لرؤية نهضة وتوسع ألمانيا بعد الحرب العالمية الأولى بعد قيود ذل الاستسلام.

بالإضافة إلى مواضيع في التاريخ والفلسفة والدين واليهود وفنون العمارة، والقليل جدا غيرها من الشعر والرواية الرومانسية،لكن أهمهم على الإطلاق الأعمال الكاملة لشكسبير التي غذت تخيلاته بشأن القوى الإمبراطورية البريطانية، ومبكراً روايات كارل ماي الذي شحذت مخيلته من الطفولة في المغامرة والتحدي في المعارك.

تتبع المؤلف الباحث عبر تسع كتب مملوكة موثقة لهتلر، ظروفها وشخوص من أهداها له، مؤرخة أولها كمنصب عريف في الجيش من عام ١٩١٥ (الكنوز الثقافية في برلين ) وآخرها أعاد كتاب قديم قرأه وثقا لشهادة معاونه وهو سيرة ذاتية عن بطله النبيل (فريدريك العظيم) عام ١٩٤٥ في الأسابيع الأخيرة من غزو الحلفاء برلين . . كانت ملاذه وسلواه ورفيقته وصولا لمخبئه في القبو الشهير حتى انتحاره بالرصاص


الفصل الأخير : مصائر كتب مكتبته.

#اقتباس

"يمكنك معرفة الكثير عن شخص ما من خلال الكتب التي يحتفظ به -أذواقه اهتماماته عاداته- الكتب التي نحتفظ بها والتي نتجاهلها وتلك التي نقرؤها وحتى تلك التي نقرر عدم قراءتها" ص ١١

"نحن نجمع الكتب اعتقاد بأننا نحافظ عليها بينما في الواقع هي التي تحافظ على جامعيها. ليس الكتب من تحيا في صاحبها بل هو من يعيش فيها" ص ١٢

"معظم المؤلفين الحقيقيين يشعرون أنهم مجبرون على كتابة الكتب بسبب الفقر الوجودي لا المادي، لأنهم غير راضين عن الكتب التي يمكنهم شراؤها لكن لا يحبونها.. يشعر الكتاب أنهم مضطرون لوضع الكلمات في العالم للتعبير عن الافكار والقصص التي لم تكتب بعد" ص ٧٧

"كتب فورد عن اليهود: يظلون اليهود جزء لا يتجزأ من الجوانب الرئيسية للحياة والاقتصاد الألماني لأن ترسيخهم أعمق من مجرد إظهار للقوة الرسمية، سيطرتهم على الصناعات الأساسية والتمويل" ص ٨٧


دراسة بحثية استرجعت خلالها ذاكرتي شخصيات غير عادية (دكتاتورية) حولنا وعلاقتهم بها، وكم هي الكتب الشيء والأمر العظيم التي لها القدرة على فعل الضدين الخير والشر أي سلاح ذو حدين مع قارئها ومقتنيها.

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[Fernando · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Conozco a personas que “leen” muchísimo, libro tras libro y línea a línea, y a las que, sin embargo, no calificaría de “buenos lectores”. Es cierto que estas personas poseen una gran cantidad de “conocimientos”, pero su cerebro no sabe organizar y registrar el material adquirido. Les falta el arte de separar, en un libro, lo que es de valor para ellos y lo que es inútil, de conservar para siempre en la memoria lo que interesa de verdad y desechar lo que no les reporta ventaja alguna".

Esta frase de Hitler, que está en el comienzo del libro y cuyo razonamiento sobre los lectores no se la he leído ni a muchos pensadores ni a críticos literarios, creo que en cierto modo define, sin entrar en polémicas, a muchos de los voraces lectores actuales...

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

very intriguing analysis of HItler from another view. Really found Hitler's suicide and mental process connection to Peer Gynt very interesting. It really helps explain how Hitler thought about death and why he felt no remorse. Very scary, also.

[Lanko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some parts were surprising, others not so much, very few stuff we already didn't know even without reading anything about Hitler.

I was expecting more polemic books and quotes, or more important, considering the title, Hitler's annotations and opinions on some of those books.

[Jessica Luckey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that it was interesting to learn that hitler actually was interested in books and owned them, compared to when I read the booktheif when the nazi's burnt books, overall just an interesting book to read.

[Mel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was not what I thought and I think the title is a little deceptive. The author writes more about the history of Nazi Socialism (fascism), and includes a few of Hitler's books that were given to him as gifts. Hitler seemed to have studied and memorized some of his books. However, in the appendices, the author writes the locations of Hitler's private libraries, but that no surviving catalogue of said books exists. On page 258 the author claims Hitler never uses a fountain pen but an old-fashioned pen or an indelible pencil. (What's an old-fashioned pen if not a fountain pen? Ballpoint pens didn't hit the market until 1946, though technically invented before that. Was it a dip pen? A quill? Man, (author) don't leave out the details!
Based on the information in the book, Hitler was easily, or could have been, swayed.
My biggest complaint about this book is the author claiming Nazi Socialism (fascism) is right wing.
Hitler supposedly was interested in a eugenics program(s), but there might be some confusion in eugenics vs. genocide. If Hitler truly wanted to improve eugenics, he should have asked the help of the Jewish people, instead he had them murdered.
The author also seems to use Christian and Catholicism interchangeably, which is also an issue.
Quotes are used from other books, but a footnote by one book quoted multiple times said, "Leni Riefenstahl was a norotously unreliable narrator." Why include quotes, from someone else's book, from an unreliable source? How can I trust anything the author wrote if he can't get the little/big details accurate?
Two quotes are at the beginning of the book, in between the copyright page and the table of contents, one is Hitler's -
I know people who "read" enormously, book for book, letter for letter, yet whom I would not describe as "well-read." True, they possess a mass of "knowledge," but their brain is unable to organize and register the material they have taken in. They lack the art of sifting what is valuable for them in a book from that which is without value, of retaining the one forever, and, if possible, not even seeing the rest. - Mein Kampf

Sift through this book if it interests you. Take the information with a grain, (or a silo), of salt and research the details. I wouldn't recommend this book though.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Come what may, I would like the reader of this book to go through parts of the Preface of this book:

He considered Shakespeare superior to Goethe and Schiller in every respect. While Shakespeare had fueled his imagination on the protean forces of the emerging British empire, these two Teutonic playwright-poets squandered their talent on stories of midlife crises and sibling rivalries. Why was it, he once wondered, that the German Enlightenment produced Nathan the Wise, the story of the rabbi who reconciles Christians, Muslims, and Jews, while it had been left to Shakespeare to give the world The Merchant of Venice and Shylock?

He ranked Don Quixote, along with Robinson Crusoe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Gulliver’s Travels, among the great works of world literature. “Each of them is a grandiose idea unto itself,” he said. In Robinson Crusoe he perceived “the development of the entire history of mankind.” Don Quixote captured “ingeniously” the end of an era. He owned illustrated editions of both books and was especially impressed by Gustave Doré’s romantic depictions of Cervantes’s delusion-plagued hero.

He also owned the collected works of William Shakespeare, published in German translation in 1925 by Georg Müller as part of a series intended to make great literature available to the general public. Volume six includes As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and Troilus and Cressida. The entire set is bound in hand-tooled Moroccan leather with a gold-embossed eagle flanked by his initials on the spine.

For him the library represented a Pierian spring, that metaphorical source of knowledge and inspiration. He drew deeply there, quelling his intellectual insecurities and nourishing his fanatic ambitions. He read voraciously, at least one book per night, sometimes more, so he claimed. “When one gives one also has to take,” he once said, “and I take what I need from books.” ………. [Preface]

History often imagines Hitler as the purest emblem of irrational evil — a man of volcanic rage, crude prejudices, and a catastrophic charisma that seduced and destroyed a century. However, what happens when you walk into his library? When you open the quiet doors, touch the cracked leather of his books, and find penciled underlinings in Goethe or Chamberlain, Schopenhauer or Karl May?

Timothy W. Ryback’s Hitler’s Private Library is an uncanny, frightening act of historical archaeology — an attempt to understand the mind of the tyrant not through speeches, policies, or propaganda, but through what he read, kept, and underlined. The result is part biography, part forensic psychology, part moral meditation — and all of it deeply unsettling.

Ryback, who first encountered Hitler’s surviving books in the Library of Congress (where roughly 1,200 volumes from his 16,000-book collection remain), reconstructs the intellectual and emotional architecture of Hitler’s inner life. He opens with a deceptively simple question: What did Hitler read, and what can that tell us about him? The answer, as the book unfolds, is both more banal and more horrifying than you expect.

We often imagine evil as illiterate — brutish, unthinking, frothing. Ryback dissolves that cliché almost immediately. Hitler was, in his own strange way, a voracious and disciplined reader. His taste was eclectic and erratic: Nietzsche and Wagner, occult pamphlets, nationalist tracts, sentimental adventure novels, pseudo-scientific racial theories, travelogues, technical manuals.

Hitler read histories of Frederick the Great and Napoleon; he read the mystical philosophy of Houston Stewart Chamberlain; he read animal biology and architecture; he devoured Karl May’s cowboy novels like a boy dreaming of destiny.

Ryback reconstructs the scene with cinematic vividness. You see Hitler in the trenches of World War I, his steel helmet beside him, reading Schopenhauer between bombardments. You see him in the Munich of the 1920s, poring over racial theorists, taking notes on the Aryan body. You see him in the Berghof, the eagle’s nest above the world, carrying books with him to the tea terrace.

Ryback quotes from inscriptions, marginalia, dog-eared pages. He finds lines underlined by Hitler in red or blue pencil — as if to mark the points where paranoia and revelation met.

The most chilling part is how ordinary it all feels. The same gestures of reading — underlining, annotating, collecting — that we associate with curiosity or study are, here, appropriated by delusion. It is the banality of literacy, a mirror to Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil.” Hitler read as a student of destiny, a self-mythologizing autodidact, his reading not for understanding but for confirmation. He mined texts for prophecy. Books, for him, were not interlocutors; they were accomplices.

Ryback structures the book around thematic clusters: war, race, music, architecture, philosophy. Each section functions as a small psychological essay, drawing from surviving volumes, inscriptions, and Hitler’s own words. The cumulative effect is eerie — a portrait of a man constructing an intellectual edifice to house his madness.

In his copy of Schopenhauer’s ‘The World as Will and Representation’, Hitler underlined passages about the power of will and the insignificance of compassion. In Chamberlain’s ‘Foundations of the Nineteenth Century’, he marked pseudo-scientific racial theories that glorified the Aryan as world-creator. From Wagner’s writings, he borrowed not melody but myth — the idea of the artist-saviour. In Nietzsche, he read not the existential depth but the theatricality of power. Ryback’s point is not that these authors made Hitler, but that he used them — selectively, feverishly, like a magpie of ideas, stealing glittering fragments to justify darkness.

The image that haunts the reader most is not of Hitler shouting from a podium, but of him hunched over a page, whispering his destiny into the margins. Ryback notes how he annotated passages on architecture’s power to embody spirit — an obsession that later became concrete in Speer’s monumental designs. His reading of occult pamphlets about cosmic forces prefigured his fatalistic belief in Providence.

Hitler’s fascination with Karl May’s cowboys — the lone hero facing destiny in the desert — became the model for his self-conception as a misunderstood saviour. The library becomes autobiography in disguise.

What is remarkable is Ryback’s restraint. He does not indulge in sensationalism or moral posturing. He lets the books speak — or rather, he lets the pencil marks speak. When you see a crude underline beneath a line about “the hero who redeems the fallen world,” you feel the hair rise on your neck. You realize: the apocalypse was footnoted before it was spoken.

Ryback writes with a quiet, hypnotic precision — the prose feels like walking through a museum at dusk, light slanting over dust-covered glass cases. He treats the surviving books not as relics of celebrity but as crime-scene evidence. There’s a tactile intimacy: bindings cracked, pages foxed, Hitler’s ex-libris stamp like a brand. Each book becomes a clue to the psychological architecture of fascism — an architecture built from borrowed words and warped readings.

The great success of the book lies in its moral tone. Ryback neither demonizes nor excuses; he observes. He allows the sheer dissonance to do the moral work. Hitler could weep at Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, admire Greek sculpture, and order genocide. The coexistence of aesthetic sensitivity and moral abyss is not explained — it is exhibited. The reader must stand before it and feel the vertigo.

This balance distinguishes Ryback from earlier psychological portraits of Hitler that veered toward caricature or reduction. He isn’t writing “Hitler, the failed artist” or “Hitler, the mystic.” He writes “Hitler, the reader.” The phrase sounds almost tender, but it isn’t. It’s clinical, forensic, existential. The reader becomes the mirror of our own potential for delusion — the reminder that reading, like thinking, has no inherent morality.

Midway through the book, Ryback quotes a line from Hitler’s own library catalogue: “Books are my only true friends.” It’s almost pathetic — the self-image of the lonely dreamer, betrayed by people, comforted by ideas. Yet this intimacy becomes perverse. Books that should have expanded his world instead narrowed it. Reading, for Hitler, became a feedback loop: every idea fed into the myth of the chosen one.

Ryback tracks this corruption of intellect with surgical precision. For instance, he examines Hitler’s fascination with “the laws of nature” — drawn not from science but from racial pseudoscience. In the margins of one book on evolution, Hitler underlined: “Nature does not forgive weakness.” The sentence reappears, transfigured, in his speeches. The transformation of reading into ideology, of text into bullet, is the story of twentieth-century totalitarianism in miniature.

There’s also a terrible irony in his reverence for Goethe and Schiller, the very authors who celebrated universal humanity. Ryback observes that Hitler quoted Schiller’s William Tell in his youth — the story of rebellion against tyranny — without grasping its moral inversion. He admired form but erased meaning. His reading was vampiric: he drained beauty for power.

By the book’s end, the library feels haunted. Most of it was scattered after 1945 — some volumes looted by soldiers, some catalogued in Washington, some lost. Ryback visits the remnants like an archaeologist of consciousness. He opens Hitler’s copy of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and finds passages on destiny and betrayal underlined. You can almost hear the faint scratching of pencil in the bunker.

There is a melancholic undercurrent running through Hitler’s Private Library: the tragedy of books misused. As a lover of literature, you read this book with a kind of double vision — part horror, part sorrow. You feel pity for the books themselves, for the words that were twisted into prophecy. The library, once a refuge of learning, becomes a mausoleum of meaning.

Ryback understands this and writes almost elegiacally about the books’ afterlife. He imagines them now — shelved in quiet archives, their pages no longer dangerous, just yellowing. The energy of their misuse has dissipated. They rest, finally, as artifacts. But they also remain a warning: literacy alone is not salvation. Culture can coexist with barbarism. The act of reading is not immune to corruption.

That realization cuts deep. As a reader, you sense the fragility of meaning itself. Books, which we cherish as vessels of light, can be twisted into instruments of darkness. Ryback’s book becomes, therefore, not just a biography of Hitler’s mind but a moral essay on the limits of humanistic faith. The twentieth century was the century of readers who read wrongly.

Ryback writes with a scholar’s precision and a novelist’s restraint. He also shows empathy for the act of reading itself. There’s a strange intimacy in handling another’s annotated books — a voyeurism that borders on reverence. Ryback allows us to experience that discomfort. We share his fascination and his revulsion. We imagine ourselves in the reading room, turning the same pages, watching Hitler’s pencil marks emerge. The line between understanding and contamination grows thin.

In a broader sense, Hitler’s Private Library fits within a lineage of works that use archives to reconstruct moral psychology — like Sebald’s Austerlitz or Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge. Ryback’s contribution is quieter but no less radical: he shows that the history of ideas can also be the history of misreadings.

What Impact Did the Book Have on Me?

Reading this book felt like holding a mirror to my own faith in books. I have always believed — almost religiously — that reading humanizes, that literature refines moral perception. Ryback forced me to confront the darker truth: that reading amplifies whatever is already within you. It is not inherently good. It is catalytic. For someone like Hitler, it magnified obsession, resentment, delusion. For me, it sharpened awareness, humility, dread.

As a teacher, I felt the book’s sting: we tell students that knowledge liberates. Nevertheless, knowledge without empathy is just velocity without direction. Ryback’s reconstruction of Hitler’s reading life reminded me that education itself is morally neutral until animated by conscience. The underlined sentences in those books are like ghostly reminders that intellect without compassion becomes an accelerant for evil.

Personally, I closed the book with an odd ache — not admiration, certainly, but a sense of tragic intimacy. To see a monster’s handwriting beside Goethe’s lines is to realize how thin the membrane is between civilization and its undoing. It made me read my own library differently, to see marginalia as moral acts.

Why Should You Read This Book Today?

Because it is not, finally, a book about Hitler. It is a book about us — about the dangerous romance between ideas and power, between knowledge and delusion. In an age of misinformation and ideological certainty, Hitler’s Private Library feels prophetic. It warns that intellectual curiosity without moral compass can curdle into fanaticism.

Reading it today is to re-examine the ethics of reading itself. It makes you wary of echo chambers, of selective quotation, of the pleasure of confirmation.

It makes you humble before text. It reminds you that meaning is not a property of words but of readers.

Ryback’s quiet, meticulous prose offers no grand catharsis, no “lesson learned.” It offers something rarer: attentiveness. It teaches us to look closely — at books, at readers, at ourselves. The monster, it turns out, was once a boy reading under a trench lamp, misreading his way into apocalypse.

So yes, read this book. Not to stare at evil, but to understand the fragility of understanding itself.

In those underlined lines lies a mirror — and it reflects more than we would like to admit.

My Final Verdict:

This book is a haunting, cerebral masterpiece of moral archaeology. Ryback turns the simple act of reading into an x-ray of conscience. His portrait of Hitler through his books dismantles the myth of unawareness and replaces it with something more disturbing — educated evil.

This is a book that will make every reader glance uneasily at their own shelves, and whisper a silent vow: to read better, to think deeper, to never confuse knowing with understanding.

[Antonio Gallo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Walter Benjamin sosteneva che si può raccontare molto, di un uomo, osservando i libri che ha letto. E cosa possono svelare, i libri, della vita di chi li ha posseduti, della personalità e delle idee di chi li ha compulsati e annotati se questo appassionato lettore è Adolf Hitler? Timothy Ryback è il primo studioso a occuparsi della biblioteca privata del Führer, rinvenuta in parte nelle città di Monaco e Berlino, in parte nelle stanze del quartier generale del partito nazionalsocialista, nonché tra le ceneri del Berghof, la residenza estiva fatta costruire sulle montagne della Baviera. Furono le forze sovietiche e poi quelle americane, all'indomani della vittoria nella seconda guerra mondiale, a scavare nelle rovine e a trovare le prime tracce delle letture hitleriane: dalle numerose prime edizioni del Mein Kampf, ai libri di arte, architettura, fotografia, ai molti volumi di politica e di propaganda. Collezionista eclettico e asistematico, Hitler amava Shakespeare, era solito citare frasi tratte da Amleto o Giulio Cesare e dimostrò sempre uno spiccato interesse per le Sacre Scritture.

“Originale o plagiario, l’uomo è il romanziere di se stesso”, scrisse Ortega y Gasset. La frase l'ho scelta da tempo per caratterizzare i miei interessi nella lettura. La trovate anche in testa a questo blog. Mai come in questo caso, questa frase si adatta per chi questo libro è stato scritto. Superfluo e scontato dire che la vita stessa del Fuehrer e´ un romanzo, un giallo, un noir e quant´altro si possa dire sul personaggio. Ma qui sono in ballo le sue letture, i libri che lo hanno formato, modellato, fatto pensare e fare cio´ che ha fatto e ancora oggi si cerca di capire come e perche´ l´ha potuto fare.
Scorrendo i titoli che l´autore di questo libro gli attribuisce mi sono davvero spaventato. Non tanto per il numero dei titoli quanto per i nomi degli autori. Molti sono nella mia biblioteca, molti amici e conoscenti li avranno anche loro. Siamo persone normali, peró , almeno speriamo. Ma allora resta lecita la domanda: leggere e´ pericoloso? O almeno leggere questi libri che Hitler ha letto ci puo´ fare diventare tanti piccoli o grandi Hitler? Mamma mia che impressione mi fa! Giuro che mi vien voglia di non leggere piu`…

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book but it suffers from the problem that though he 'collected' or was presented with many books there is little evidence that Hitler, even in his youth, was a reader of books or that his thinking was formed by them. If you read biographies, for example, 'Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris' by Ian Kershaw you will find the reading that formed his thinking, pre WWI, was the polemical antisemitic, volkish, pamphlet literature that flourished in Vienna. If you pour through the 1,100+ pages of the second Kershaw volume 'Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis' you will find mention of Hitler's love cakes but not a mention of books read.

It is always fascinating to see what books people own but it is not always a guide to what has formed them. By the time Hitler encountered 'The International Jew' by Henry Ford, which he highly praised, his antisemitism was fully formed. Ford's 'International Jew' is unlikely to have influenced him, though he may have read some of it because 'The International Jew' is not a sustained work but a collection of newspaper articles and pamphlets. It is very unlikely Hitler ever read philosophers like Nietzsche or Johann Gottlieb Fichte,a copy of whose work was presented to Hitler by Leni Riefenstahl.

Hitler was presented with a large number of books, van Meegern, the notorious Dutch forger/fraudster who sold one of his execrable fake Vemeer's to Goering, presented a copy of his elaborately produced book to Hitler and it was found in his library. Owning books doesn't mean they have been read or even looked at. Being seen to own a great library was something that was expected of Hitler.

The evidence for the shallowness of Hitler's reading is there in Mein Kampf. Hitler is not Karl Marx, Lenin or Stalin whose lifetime of reading, and belief in the printed word, is there in everything they wrote.

If you want to read about nasty who really read books you need to read 'Stalin's Library' by Geoffrey Roberts or 'Molotov's Magic Lantern' by Rachel Polonsky. Mr. Ryback is a good historian but he oversells what the remains of Hitler's library can tell us about the books, if any, that formed what must always, and jokingly, be referred to as Hitler's 'thinking' or even more ridiculously his 'philosophy'.

[Ensaio Sobre o Desassossego · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enquanto estava a ler este livro, e me apercebia dos livros que Hitler tinha nas suas 3 bibliotecas pessoais, comecei a pensar para mim mesma se a biblioteca de alguém define essa pessoa. Ou seja, se, por exemplo, uma pessoa olhar para a minha estante, e reparar nos livros que eu lá tenho, se essa pessoa fica a pensar que me conhece. Que sabe quem eu sou. O que penso. Será?
E depois, outra questão. Os livros que lemos têm influência em nós, têm sempre uma influência em nós, seja de uma maneira ou de outra. Mas ideologicamente falando, os livros que nós lemos definem a nossa ideologia? Hitler lia muitos livros que propagavam o ódio aos judeus e a exaltação do povo alemão, como um dos maiores povos que o planeta já tinha visto. Muitos livros sobre a importância do "Sangue e Solo" e sobre a comunidade e como esta deveria predominar sobre o indivíduo. Leu muitos filósofos, mas todos proclamavam a grandeza do povo ariano e como, um dia, um novo líder chegaria para devolver a raça ariana ao lugar cimeiro entre todos os povos. Hitler escolhia estes livros porque eles representavam exactamente aquilo que ele pensava ou, por outro lado, estes livros é que moldaram o seu pensamento?

Não consegui arranjar uma resposta satisfatória para estas minhas dúvidas, mas penso que a biblioteca de alguém não define quem essa pessoa é; define, sim, os seus gostos e os seus interesses. Por exemplo, na minha estante tenho muitos mais livros de política e de história do que romances. Tenho muitas biografias e auto-biografias. Não tenho praticamente fantasia nenhuma (a não ser As Crónicas de Gelo e Fogo). Isto diz alguma coisa de mim enquanto pessoa? Alguém que olhe para a minha estante vê quem eu sou? Penso que não. Apenas repara nos meus interesses.

Portanto, depois de ler este livro, eu ainda não sei o que é que a biblioteca pessoal de alguém pode dizer desse alguém. Mas sei que este livro empreende uma análise bastante interessante à biblioteca de uma das pessoas mais enigmáticas da história. E é tão interessante que uma pessoa que tinha na sua colecção cerca de dezasseis mil volumes e ainda assim mandou queimar milhares de livros.