What do you think?
Rate this book
Hitler's First War: Adolf Hitler, the Men of the List Regiment, and the First World War
Perhaps no individual in modern history has received more intensive study than Adolf Hitler. His many biographers have provided countless conflicting interpretations of his dark life, but virtually all agree on one thing: Hitler's formative experience was his service in World War I. Unfortunately, historians have found little to illuminate this critical period. Until now.
In Hitler's First War , award-winning author Thomas Weber delivers a master work of history--a major revision of our understanding of Hitler's life. Weber paints a group portrait of the List Regiment, Hitler's unit during World War I, to rewrite the story of his military service. Drawing on deep and imaginative research, Weber refutes the story crafted by Hitler himself, and so challenges the historical argument that the war led naturally to Nazism. Contrary to myth, the regiment consisted largely of conscripts, not enthusiastic volunteers. Hitler served with scores of Jews, including noted artist Albert Weisberger, who proved more heroic, and popular, than the future Führer. Indeed, Weber finds that the men shunned Private Hitler as a "rear area pig," and that Hitler himself was still unsure of his political views when the war ended in 1918. Through the stories of such comrades as a soldier-turned-concentration camp commandant, veterans who fell victim to the Holocaust, an officer who
became Hitler's personal adjutant in the 1930s but then cooperated with British intelligence, and the veterans who simply went back to their Bavarian farms and never joined the Nazi ranks, Weber demonstrates how and why Hitler aggressively policed the myth of his wartime experience.
Underlying all Hitler studies is a seemingly unanswerable question: Was he simply a product of his times, or an anomaly beyond all calculation? Weber's groundbreaking work sheds light on this puzzle and offers a profound challenge to the idea that World War I served as the perfect crucible for Hitler's subsequent rise.
In Hitler's First War , award-winning author Thomas Weber delivers a master work of history--a major revision of our understanding of Hitler's life. Weber paints a group portrait of the List Regiment, Hitler's unit during World War I, to rewrite the story of his military service. Drawing on deep and imaginative research, Weber refutes the story crafted by Hitler himself, and so challenges the historical argument that the war led naturally to Nazism. Contrary to myth, the regiment consisted largely of conscripts, not enthusiastic volunteers. Hitler served with scores of Jews, including noted artist Albert Weisberger, who proved more heroic, and popular, than the future Führer. Indeed, Weber finds that the men shunned Private Hitler as a "rear area pig," and that Hitler himself was still unsure of his political views when the war ended in 1918. Through the stories of such comrades as a soldier-turned-concentration camp commandant, veterans who fell victim to the Holocaust, an officer who
became Hitler's personal adjutant in the 1930s but then cooperated with British intelligence, and the veterans who simply went back to their Bavarian farms and never joined the Nazi ranks, Weber demonstrates how and why Hitler aggressively policed the myth of his wartime experience.
Underlying all Hitler studies is a seemingly unanswerable question: Was he simply a product of his times, or an anomaly beyond all calculation? Weber's groundbreaking work sheds light on this puzzle and offers a profound challenge to the idea that World War I served as the perfect crucible for Hitler's subsequent rise.
464 pages, Hardcover
First published September 16, 2010
21 people are currently reading
378 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Weber
179 books28 followersThomas Weber is a professor of history and international affairs at the University of Aberdeen (Scotland).
The award-winning author of several books, Weber divides his time between Aberdeen, Scotland and Toronto, Ontario (CANADA).
The award-winning author of several books, Weber divides his time between Aberdeen, Scotland and Toronto, Ontario (CANADA).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
March 1, 2018
Many historians, and biographies, have attempted to explain how the Great War, ‘made’ Hitler. In this exhaustive book, the author attempts to explain what WWI meant to Hitler, how it affected his views and what happened to the men who fought alongside him.
Hitler was quick to volunteer for the war and joined the List Regiment in Bavaria. He had hoped to be sent to Britain – to invade, ‘perfidious Albion,’ but found himself sent to Lille. Interestingly, I never realised that England and Germany had never met on a battlefield before WWI, but certainly this book shows how the demonization of enemies did affect Hitler’s views in ways that changed his attitudes in the Second World War. For example, his experiences mean that he was always impressed by the British soldiers, but did not take the French army seriously. Such insights are fascinating and make this a very interesting bok.
Although Hitler’s regiment fought in major battles, such as Ypres, the Somme and Passchendale, Hitler himself was a dispatch runner. Of course, this was a dangerous job, but front line soldiers in the trenches, would have seen his role as easy by comparison. Usually, the despatch runners had rooms in local towns and, separated from most of the men outside his own colleagues, Hitler later often embellished the danger he was under. Seen as eccentric, lacking social skills (notably, he was not put in charge of other men), he was always an outsider – he lurks, or perches, on the edge of photographs, did not mix socially with other men, but sketched and walked, while they drank and womanised, and so was not sympathetic to low morale and disliked dissent.
Although Hitler did make some relationships among his fellow dispatch riders, there is, you perceive, a distance between Hitler and the other men in his regiment. The stories of what happened to his colleagues in later years is interesting. Some, of course, took advantage of their previous relationship with him, while other men he fought alongside were forced to leave Germany because of anti-Semitism. The next book by this author, “Becoming Hitler,” looks at his transformation after WWI, to becoming a political leader. I look forward to reading on as this book offered some real insight into how Hitler developed his bizarre theories and how his time in WWI affected him.
Hitler was quick to volunteer for the war and joined the List Regiment in Bavaria. He had hoped to be sent to Britain – to invade, ‘perfidious Albion,’ but found himself sent to Lille. Interestingly, I never realised that England and Germany had never met on a battlefield before WWI, but certainly this book shows how the demonization of enemies did affect Hitler’s views in ways that changed his attitudes in the Second World War. For example, his experiences mean that he was always impressed by the British soldiers, but did not take the French army seriously. Such insights are fascinating and make this a very interesting bok.
Although Hitler’s regiment fought in major battles, such as Ypres, the Somme and Passchendale, Hitler himself was a dispatch runner. Of course, this was a dangerous job, but front line soldiers in the trenches, would have seen his role as easy by comparison. Usually, the despatch runners had rooms in local towns and, separated from most of the men outside his own colleagues, Hitler later often embellished the danger he was under. Seen as eccentric, lacking social skills (notably, he was not put in charge of other men), he was always an outsider – he lurks, or perches, on the edge of photographs, did not mix socially with other men, but sketched and walked, while they drank and womanised, and so was not sympathetic to low morale and disliked dissent.
Although Hitler did make some relationships among his fellow dispatch riders, there is, you perceive, a distance between Hitler and the other men in his regiment. The stories of what happened to his colleagues in later years is interesting. Some, of course, took advantage of their previous relationship with him, while other men he fought alongside were forced to leave Germany because of anti-Semitism. The next book by this author, “Becoming Hitler,” looks at his transformation after WWI, to becoming a political leader. I look forward to reading on as this book offered some real insight into how Hitler developed his bizarre theories and how his time in WWI affected him.
March 14, 2014
This is one of the most interesting books that I have ever read about Adolf Hitler, and I have read a great many. Not only does it successfully demolish a number of myths about this German private who served in World War 1 (‘WW1’) and then later destroyed so many innocent lives as well as most of Europe. To summarise it would be difficult, but let me attempt to list some of the many things that I found fascinating in this superbly researched book by Thomas Weber.
Hitler’s bravery and activities in WW1 are examined minutely. He was so insignificant a personality during the war that there were few records relating to such an unimportant figure in that terrible war. Weber uses the records of, and the memoirs of those who belonged to, the Bavarian regiment, which Hitler joined in 1914, to explore effectively a number of points including Hitler’s reputed bravery. Many of Weber’s sources antedate Hitler’s accession to the German Chancellorship in 1933, and are therefore undistorted by the Nazi’s manicuring of Hitler’s military record. After 1933, much was done to hide the truth about Hitler’s real role during the struggle for the Western Front in France and Belgium. For, it appears that Hitler had little to be proud about, and he must have known that revealing the truth would have helped demolish the myth that helped bring him support from the German people.
Weber describes vividly the terrible conditions that front-line soldiers had to endure in the trenches during the often brief time before they succumbed to bullet, shells, grenades, and disease. For the most part of Hitler’s wartime career, he was not on the front-line. He was a regimental dispatch runner working for the regimental headquarters which were always well out of the firing line. In addition, he spent his nights in comfortable, well-protected, dry quarters quite different from those ‘enjoyed’ by soldiers on the front-line; their quarters in the mud was a living hell.
Granted, Hitler must have been at some risk as he dashed from headquarters to command posts well behind the lines, but this risk was insignificant compared to those in the trenches and shell craters on the front.
It is well-known that Adolf Hitler received the Iron Cross. Virtuous as this may seem, this medal was awarded far more often to those working in regimental headquarters than to those whose lives were at grave risk on the front-line. It came as a surprise to learn that Private Hitler was awarded his Iron Cross by his Jewish superior office, a man who some years later had to flee from Germany to save his own life.
It is commonly understood that Hitler was forced to leave the theatre of warfare when he was temporarily blinded near the end of WW1. What is not so well known was that the hospital at Pasewalk in Berlin to which Hitler was sent was not an ophthalmic hospital but a psychiatric one. For, Hitler’s blindness was not physical but psychosomatic. This fact was well-suppressed in Nazi Germany.
Weber examines some factors that some have thought may have been relevant to explaining the brutality of the Nazis and their armed forces in the ‘30s and ‘40s. One of these, anti-Semitism, does not seem to have been a significant aspect of life in Hitler’s regiment. Brutalisation of combatants during WW1 is also shown not to have been significant in causing what was to follow when Hitler came to power. Weber explores this thoroughly. Thirdly, Weber demonstrates conclusively that the politics of those in Hitler’s regiment bore little correlation with those who were to support Hitler later. Few combatants in Hitler’s regime became enthusiastic supporters of Nazi politics. Of course, I am drastically simplifying what Weber writes so eloquently and in great detail.
After the war, Hitler was reluctant to leave his military ‘family’, and remained in his regiment. His activities during the left-wing revolutionary period in post-1918 Munich were, Weber reveals, ambiguous. At first, a supporter or sympathiser with the Communist revolutionaries, he later became involved in counter-revolutionary intelligence activities. It was whilst snooping on one particular party that threatened the integrity of Bavaria that Hitler became attracted to that party, and joined it. This marked the true beginning of his political career.
Something that particularly interested me in Weber’s book was his frequent references to the small town of Ichenhausen. This rural town where many of my ancestors lived during the 18th and 19th centuries had a large Jewish population. A number of the Jewish members of Hitler’s regiment were from Ichenhausen. Weber charts their various fates after the Treaty of Versailles was signed. As Ichenhausen’s Jewry has been well-documented, Weber was able to use this town to illustrate many aspects of the involvement of Jewish soldiers in WW1 and its aftermath. He makes frequent reference to the autobiography of Arnold Erlanger, whom I knew well. His father Levi, one of Ichenhausen’s Kosher butchers, fought in Hitler’s regiment and was eventually ‘rewarded’ by being killed in the Holocaust.
Ichenhausen also illustrates well how some Catholics reacted adversely to Hitler’s attempts to alienate the German gentiles against the Jews. Although the Catholics were essentially anti-Semitic, they valued their Jewish neighbours as being fairer in business than the agricultural cooperatives with which they could also do business. Weber is quick to point out that in other parts of Bavaria, notably in Nuremburg, Jews could expect little or no sympathy from their gentile neighbours.
Not only does this book explore and re-explore aspects of Hitler’s early life that have hitherto been accepted uncritically, but also it gives a most revealing insight into the everyday nitty-gritty of military life on the Western front during WW1.
I have read this book as an interested amateur with no specialist knowledge. I am in no position to assess Weber’s information and sources professionally, but I feel that his account is honest and likely to be reliable. Until someone else with his level of scholarship challenges what he has written, I believe that this book deserves to be read by anyone with even the slightest interest in the history of 20th century Europe.
Review by the author of “Scrabble with Slivovitz”, an account of life in Yugoslavia during its final 2 decades.
Hitler’s bravery and activities in WW1 are examined minutely. He was so insignificant a personality during the war that there were few records relating to such an unimportant figure in that terrible war. Weber uses the records of, and the memoirs of those who belonged to, the Bavarian regiment, which Hitler joined in 1914, to explore effectively a number of points including Hitler’s reputed bravery. Many of Weber’s sources antedate Hitler’s accession to the German Chancellorship in 1933, and are therefore undistorted by the Nazi’s manicuring of Hitler’s military record. After 1933, much was done to hide the truth about Hitler’s real role during the struggle for the Western Front in France and Belgium. For, it appears that Hitler had little to be proud about, and he must have known that revealing the truth would have helped demolish the myth that helped bring him support from the German people.
Weber describes vividly the terrible conditions that front-line soldiers had to endure in the trenches during the often brief time before they succumbed to bullet, shells, grenades, and disease. For the most part of Hitler’s wartime career, he was not on the front-line. He was a regimental dispatch runner working for the regimental headquarters which were always well out of the firing line. In addition, he spent his nights in comfortable, well-protected, dry quarters quite different from those ‘enjoyed’ by soldiers on the front-line; their quarters in the mud was a living hell.
Granted, Hitler must have been at some risk as he dashed from headquarters to command posts well behind the lines, but this risk was insignificant compared to those in the trenches and shell craters on the front.
It is well-known that Adolf Hitler received the Iron Cross. Virtuous as this may seem, this medal was awarded far more often to those working in regimental headquarters than to those whose lives were at grave risk on the front-line. It came as a surprise to learn that Private Hitler was awarded his Iron Cross by his Jewish superior office, a man who some years later had to flee from Germany to save his own life.
It is commonly understood that Hitler was forced to leave the theatre of warfare when he was temporarily blinded near the end of WW1. What is not so well known was that the hospital at Pasewalk in Berlin to which Hitler was sent was not an ophthalmic hospital but a psychiatric one. For, Hitler’s blindness was not physical but psychosomatic. This fact was well-suppressed in Nazi Germany.
Weber examines some factors that some have thought may have been relevant to explaining the brutality of the Nazis and their armed forces in the ‘30s and ‘40s. One of these, anti-Semitism, does not seem to have been a significant aspect of life in Hitler’s regiment. Brutalisation of combatants during WW1 is also shown not to have been significant in causing what was to follow when Hitler came to power. Weber explores this thoroughly. Thirdly, Weber demonstrates conclusively that the politics of those in Hitler’s regiment bore little correlation with those who were to support Hitler later. Few combatants in Hitler’s regime became enthusiastic supporters of Nazi politics. Of course, I am drastically simplifying what Weber writes so eloquently and in great detail.
After the war, Hitler was reluctant to leave his military ‘family’, and remained in his regiment. His activities during the left-wing revolutionary period in post-1918 Munich were, Weber reveals, ambiguous. At first, a supporter or sympathiser with the Communist revolutionaries, he later became involved in counter-revolutionary intelligence activities. It was whilst snooping on one particular party that threatened the integrity of Bavaria that Hitler became attracted to that party, and joined it. This marked the true beginning of his political career.
Something that particularly interested me in Weber’s book was his frequent references to the small town of Ichenhausen. This rural town where many of my ancestors lived during the 18th and 19th centuries had a large Jewish population. A number of the Jewish members of Hitler’s regiment were from Ichenhausen. Weber charts their various fates after the Treaty of Versailles was signed. As Ichenhausen’s Jewry has been well-documented, Weber was able to use this town to illustrate many aspects of the involvement of Jewish soldiers in WW1 and its aftermath. He makes frequent reference to the autobiography of Arnold Erlanger, whom I knew well. His father Levi, one of Ichenhausen’s Kosher butchers, fought in Hitler’s regiment and was eventually ‘rewarded’ by being killed in the Holocaust.
Ichenhausen also illustrates well how some Catholics reacted adversely to Hitler’s attempts to alienate the German gentiles against the Jews. Although the Catholics were essentially anti-Semitic, they valued their Jewish neighbours as being fairer in business than the agricultural cooperatives with which they could also do business. Weber is quick to point out that in other parts of Bavaria, notably in Nuremburg, Jews could expect little or no sympathy from their gentile neighbours.
Not only does this book explore and re-explore aspects of Hitler’s early life that have hitherto been accepted uncritically, but also it gives a most revealing insight into the everyday nitty-gritty of military life on the Western front during WW1.
I have read this book as an interested amateur with no specialist knowledge. I am in no position to assess Weber’s information and sources professionally, but I feel that his account is honest and likely to be reliable. Until someone else with his level of scholarship challenges what he has written, I believe that this book deserves to be read by anyone with even the slightest interest in the history of 20th century Europe.
Review by the author of “Scrabble with Slivovitz”, an account of life in Yugoslavia during its final 2 decades.
November 7, 2012
I've started reading this book in October 2011 but didn't finish it. By now i forgot why it made me give up so I gave it a second chance.
Let's see what bugged me.... (to be continued)
Ok, third and final attempt. If i fail this time, Thomas can shove his book in a tiny spot that rarely sees the sun.
What's wrong with this book? Is it too academically? No. Is the language/style used by Weber too hard for a simple man like myself? No.
It's actually a well written, accessible, entertaining book.
It's just that every few pages i get the impression that Weber is trying so hard to prove a point that it actually sounds like he's full of sh*t.
For example, if he claims that 50% of the jews in the regiment did this & that and it turns out to be 3 guys out of 6 in a complete regiment,we've got a credibility issue.
In fact, every time he uses statistics to make a point, i have some serious doubts.
The post war survey in Germany on sympathy for Hitler was based on the answers of some 700 people.
On a population of a few million people, any conclusion drawn out of that research should be treated with the highest caution. Sociologists will disagree but in my opinion it’s all rubbish.
When he claims only a (small) percentage of the List regiment was made out of volunteers and the overall quality of the recruits sucked big time, he wasn't lying, he was actually kicking in an open door. I have no problems with that, but when he claims that the army took every single men who could walk because they were desperate he is taking his own opinion for truth. In august 1914 the Germans were actually doing pretty well on the front and there was no sign of despair.
The great, late and sorely missed Karel Van Het Reve wrote an essay on Freud and Sherlock Holmes where he pointed out that it is perfectly possible to draw the right conclusion using wrong arguments. Weber is pushing the envelope by drawing conclusions out of a lack of evidence: He starts off by admitting that few evidence is left on Hitler’s life during WW1. What we know is what is written years after the war when Hitler was a politician on the rise. By reconstructing the history of the List regiment, Weber tries to check the accuracy of those post war biographies / hagiographies.
By comparing what Hitler says in Mein Kampf with the actual history of the List regiment Weber successfully destroys a lot of popular myths. However, when he tries to attribute certain qualities to Hilter where there is no actual evidence, he sinks to the level of trash journalism.
There are no accounts of Hitler being either brave or a coward in the official history of the regiment, not in the least because at that time he was nothing but a common soldier and only the very bravest got mentioned. We just don't know what happened with Adolf during the battle of Geluveld. All we know is that he survived. Weber however concludes Hitler was a coward who managed to dodge bullets better than some of his comrades. Evidence? Nothing... From a scientific point of view a very bold statement. I know we all want Hitler to be a coward but even with the most hated man of the 20th century only the truth should matter.
Ok, so Weber got on my nerves more than once but is the entire book rubbish? Nope, on the contrary. When Weber sticks to simply telling the history of the List regiment, he delivers an absolute masterpiece, a must read. This is the story of the common man who got sucked into a war he didn't believe in. This is not about generals, this is about 20 year old men who had to undergo the worst of modern warfare. More than once a private told his officer to fuck off or simply deserted. It reminded me a lot of the books of Sven Hassel, where soldiers fought because they had no other choice, but they were only loyal to their friends.
I think Weber focusses too much on the myths that Hitler created in Mein Kampf. Anyone with the slightest intelligence knows that Hitler told a fairy tale about the war to serve for his own purposes. It's simply impossible to mobilize the masses if you keep on emphasizing that war is hell.
This book is crammed with anecdotes and that's what makes it so interesting. My personal fave is the one about Max Amann being a raving madman who tells everyone to watch out for payback time once Hitler is in power. Well, he wasn't wrong about that. Hitler turned out to be a vindictive little shit. Even though he kept boring people with how good the List Regiment was, he didn't mind having his opponents killed.
That's my boy :-)
Anyway, this book deserves 5 stars for writing the history of the small man in the great war. Too bad he tried to squeeze in some sociology, statistics and a fair bit of bollox.
Still, I recommend reading it.
Let's see what bugged me.... (to be continued)
Ok, third and final attempt. If i fail this time, Thomas can shove his book in a tiny spot that rarely sees the sun.
What's wrong with this book? Is it too academically? No. Is the language/style used by Weber too hard for a simple man like myself? No.
It's actually a well written, accessible, entertaining book.
It's just that every few pages i get the impression that Weber is trying so hard to prove a point that it actually sounds like he's full of sh*t.
For example, if he claims that 50% of the jews in the regiment did this & that and it turns out to be 3 guys out of 6 in a complete regiment,we've got a credibility issue.
In fact, every time he uses statistics to make a point, i have some serious doubts.
The post war survey in Germany on sympathy for Hitler was based on the answers of some 700 people.
On a population of a few million people, any conclusion drawn out of that research should be treated with the highest caution. Sociologists will disagree but in my opinion it’s all rubbish.
When he claims only a (small) percentage of the List regiment was made out of volunteers and the overall quality of the recruits sucked big time, he wasn't lying, he was actually kicking in an open door. I have no problems with that, but when he claims that the army took every single men who could walk because they were desperate he is taking his own opinion for truth. In august 1914 the Germans were actually doing pretty well on the front and there was no sign of despair.
The great, late and sorely missed Karel Van Het Reve wrote an essay on Freud and Sherlock Holmes where he pointed out that it is perfectly possible to draw the right conclusion using wrong arguments. Weber is pushing the envelope by drawing conclusions out of a lack of evidence: He starts off by admitting that few evidence is left on Hitler’s life during WW1. What we know is what is written years after the war when Hitler was a politician on the rise. By reconstructing the history of the List regiment, Weber tries to check the accuracy of those post war biographies / hagiographies.
By comparing what Hitler says in Mein Kampf with the actual history of the List regiment Weber successfully destroys a lot of popular myths. However, when he tries to attribute certain qualities to Hilter where there is no actual evidence, he sinks to the level of trash journalism.
There are no accounts of Hitler being either brave or a coward in the official history of the regiment, not in the least because at that time he was nothing but a common soldier and only the very bravest got mentioned. We just don't know what happened with Adolf during the battle of Geluveld. All we know is that he survived. Weber however concludes Hitler was a coward who managed to dodge bullets better than some of his comrades. Evidence? Nothing... From a scientific point of view a very bold statement. I know we all want Hitler to be a coward but even with the most hated man of the 20th century only the truth should matter.
Ok, so Weber got on my nerves more than once but is the entire book rubbish? Nope, on the contrary. When Weber sticks to simply telling the history of the List regiment, he delivers an absolute masterpiece, a must read. This is the story of the common man who got sucked into a war he didn't believe in. This is not about generals, this is about 20 year old men who had to undergo the worst of modern warfare. More than once a private told his officer to fuck off or simply deserted. It reminded me a lot of the books of Sven Hassel, where soldiers fought because they had no other choice, but they were only loyal to their friends.
I think Weber focusses too much on the myths that Hitler created in Mein Kampf. Anyone with the slightest intelligence knows that Hitler told a fairy tale about the war to serve for his own purposes. It's simply impossible to mobilize the masses if you keep on emphasizing that war is hell.
This book is crammed with anecdotes and that's what makes it so interesting. My personal fave is the one about Max Amann being a raving madman who tells everyone to watch out for payback time once Hitler is in power. Well, he wasn't wrong about that. Hitler turned out to be a vindictive little shit. Even though he kept boring people with how good the List Regiment was, he didn't mind having his opponents killed.
That's my boy :-)
Anyway, this book deserves 5 stars for writing the history of the small man in the great war. Too bad he tried to squeeze in some sociology, statistics and a fair bit of bollox.
Still, I recommend reading it.
March 6, 2021
After finishing volume II of Kershaw’s Hitler biography, I decided my unwritten rule would be “no more Hitler books”. What else was there really to learn? I sympathized with the view of the German historian Joachim Fest who described Hitler as an “un-person”. There especially isn’t much in his early life that is remarkable.
I listened to a podcast where the author discussed this book and my interest was piqued by the promise of “new sources” being used. I decided to read it at some point, but had moderate expectations. All in all, the book turned out much better than I thought it would.
This is essentially multiple books in one: a biographical treatment of Hitler, a regimental history, and a collection of historiographical essays about debates within German history. Although Hitler turns out to be even more of an “un-person” in the war years, this in itself is interesting. Weber carefully deconstructs the post war mythology of Mein Kampf and other Hitler sympathetic memoirs to show that most of this writing puts up a heroic facade. Hitler was thought of as an Etappenschwein, a rear area pig, who lived in relative comfort at regimental HQ and occasionally ran messages to battalion HQs behind the front lines. He was sometimes exposed to artillery fire, but not the mud and constant danger of trench life. Nazi propaganda would later make it sound like Hitler was constantly dodging machine gun bullets to get dispatches through. How else would he have gotten the Iron Cross first class? Here too Weber presents an interesting possibility: medals were disproportionately awarded to soldiers behind the frontline who were on familiar terms with the officers who could submit a recommendation. Even the Crown Prince of Bavaria knew about this disparity and viewed it as unfair, as did many of Hitler’s regimental comrades.
Why does all this matter? In short, credibility. Hitler used his war experience to claim legitimacy for himself as a political leader. He wasn’t just some Austrian nobody, he was a German soldier with an Iron Cross, and a person who could argue that the Kameradschaft of the trenches should become the Volksgemeinschaft of all Germans. Although officers might look down their nose at the upstart obergefreiter, average Germans had more reason to listen to someone who shared their experiences. When Hitler later became a warlord, he could ask any German soldier to risk his life, since after all, he had once faced the same dangers.
The other revelations about Hitler’s early years are not surprising, but interesting nonetheless. He was likely hospitalized in 1918 for hysterical blindness (PTSD) and not mustard gas. His political rival, Kurt Von Schleicher, later secured his medical files to use this against him, but for some reason chose not to. In addition, Hitler served as a soldier of the Bavarian Soviet Republic for several months between 1918-1919, a fact he later wanted to conceal. Based on this evidence, Weber suggest that Hitler’s political ideas were not formed during the war as Mein Kampf proposes.
As a regimental history, this book has a solid narrative. If you know about the first battle of Ypres, Neuve-Chappelle, the Somme, Passchendale, or the Kaiserschlact, then much of this will be familiar ground. There are a few remarkable points, however. Weber takes aim at Isabella Hull’s “absolute destruction” thesis, which argues that German warfare was uniquely ruthless, a fact that later made the Holocaust possible. In the case of reserve infantry regiment (RIR) 16 this description doesn’t fit. Some of the men prepared nooses to hang Franc Tireurs in 1914, but by the time they got to Belgium the German high command had put a stop to atrocities. Hence, restraint rather than ruthlessness was practiced from above. As RIR 16 settled into France and Belgium, the Catholic Bavarians found they had sympathy for local civilians and mutual goodwill developed. Civilians trusted the German military authorities enough to report soldier’s crimes, and many common soldiers donated their rations to civilians in need. On the whole, the soldiers in RIR 16 don’t seem to have become “brutalized” by the war. This casts doubt on the idea that political violence and extremism in post-war Europe was caused by World War I.
Weber uses the last 150 pages or so to offer an account of RIR 16 veterans into the 1960s. A few joined the Nazis and had their careers nurtured by Hitler, but most merely went back to everyday life in Bavaria. Some of the Jewish veterans were murdered in the Holocaust, but the majority managed to escape. All in all, Weber suggests that Bavaria was uniquely resistant to the virulent strain of Nazi anti-semitism. There was a milder Christian anti-Judaism, but even this didn’t seem to cause any issues during the war or afterwards among most of the veterans. The region was generally seen as a problem for the Nazis, as evidenced by a Sicherheitsdienst (SD) report that expressed frustration in the aftermath of the Kristallnacht; Few Bavarians had the “correct” attitude towards the Jews. Weber takes this opportunity to discuss the difficulties of measuring popular support for the Third Reich. In his view, the regime sustained itself on significant partial support, but also in spite of significant passive opposition.
One lingering question I have, which Weber does not attempt to answer, is this: If Hitler’s heroism was such an exaggerated fraud, why did other Nazi veterans like Hess, Rohm, and Goering tolerate it? Hess and Rohm were both more severely wounded and also more likely to have fired a shot in anger. Goering was more highly decorated and had shot down 17 enemy planes. In the early days of the party this tolerance for tall tales seems strange.
I listened to a podcast where the author discussed this book and my interest was piqued by the promise of “new sources” being used. I decided to read it at some point, but had moderate expectations. All in all, the book turned out much better than I thought it would.
This is essentially multiple books in one: a biographical treatment of Hitler, a regimental history, and a collection of historiographical essays about debates within German history. Although Hitler turns out to be even more of an “un-person” in the war years, this in itself is interesting. Weber carefully deconstructs the post war mythology of Mein Kampf and other Hitler sympathetic memoirs to show that most of this writing puts up a heroic facade. Hitler was thought of as an Etappenschwein, a rear area pig, who lived in relative comfort at regimental HQ and occasionally ran messages to battalion HQs behind the front lines. He was sometimes exposed to artillery fire, but not the mud and constant danger of trench life. Nazi propaganda would later make it sound like Hitler was constantly dodging machine gun bullets to get dispatches through. How else would he have gotten the Iron Cross first class? Here too Weber presents an interesting possibility: medals were disproportionately awarded to soldiers behind the frontline who were on familiar terms with the officers who could submit a recommendation. Even the Crown Prince of Bavaria knew about this disparity and viewed it as unfair, as did many of Hitler’s regimental comrades.
Why does all this matter? In short, credibility. Hitler used his war experience to claim legitimacy for himself as a political leader. He wasn’t just some Austrian nobody, he was a German soldier with an Iron Cross, and a person who could argue that the Kameradschaft of the trenches should become the Volksgemeinschaft of all Germans. Although officers might look down their nose at the upstart obergefreiter, average Germans had more reason to listen to someone who shared their experiences. When Hitler later became a warlord, he could ask any German soldier to risk his life, since after all, he had once faced the same dangers.
The other revelations about Hitler’s early years are not surprising, but interesting nonetheless. He was likely hospitalized in 1918 for hysterical blindness (PTSD) and not mustard gas. His political rival, Kurt Von Schleicher, later secured his medical files to use this against him, but for some reason chose not to. In addition, Hitler served as a soldier of the Bavarian Soviet Republic for several months between 1918-1919, a fact he later wanted to conceal. Based on this evidence, Weber suggest that Hitler’s political ideas were not formed during the war as Mein Kampf proposes.
As a regimental history, this book has a solid narrative. If you know about the first battle of Ypres, Neuve-Chappelle, the Somme, Passchendale, or the Kaiserschlact, then much of this will be familiar ground. There are a few remarkable points, however. Weber takes aim at Isabella Hull’s “absolute destruction” thesis, which argues that German warfare was uniquely ruthless, a fact that later made the Holocaust possible. In the case of reserve infantry regiment (RIR) 16 this description doesn’t fit. Some of the men prepared nooses to hang Franc Tireurs in 1914, but by the time they got to Belgium the German high command had put a stop to atrocities. Hence, restraint rather than ruthlessness was practiced from above. As RIR 16 settled into France and Belgium, the Catholic Bavarians found they had sympathy for local civilians and mutual goodwill developed. Civilians trusted the German military authorities enough to report soldier’s crimes, and many common soldiers donated their rations to civilians in need. On the whole, the soldiers in RIR 16 don’t seem to have become “brutalized” by the war. This casts doubt on the idea that political violence and extremism in post-war Europe was caused by World War I.
Weber uses the last 150 pages or so to offer an account of RIR 16 veterans into the 1960s. A few joined the Nazis and had their careers nurtured by Hitler, but most merely went back to everyday life in Bavaria. Some of the Jewish veterans were murdered in the Holocaust, but the majority managed to escape. All in all, Weber suggests that Bavaria was uniquely resistant to the virulent strain of Nazi anti-semitism. There was a milder Christian anti-Judaism, but even this didn’t seem to cause any issues during the war or afterwards among most of the veterans. The region was generally seen as a problem for the Nazis, as evidenced by a Sicherheitsdienst (SD) report that expressed frustration in the aftermath of the Kristallnacht; Few Bavarians had the “correct” attitude towards the Jews. Weber takes this opportunity to discuss the difficulties of measuring popular support for the Third Reich. In his view, the regime sustained itself on significant partial support, but also in spite of significant passive opposition.
One lingering question I have, which Weber does not attempt to answer, is this: If Hitler’s heroism was such an exaggerated fraud, why did other Nazi veterans like Hess, Rohm, and Goering tolerate it? Hess and Rohm were both more severely wounded and also more likely to have fired a shot in anger. Goering was more highly decorated and had shot down 17 enemy planes. In the early days of the party this tolerance for tall tales seems strange.
April 17, 2020
Adolf Hitler stands today as the First World War’s most famous enlisted man. This is not just a consequence of his subsequent role as the Fuhrer of the Third Reich, but because Hitler founded his political career on his experiences during the war, asserting that it was his service in it which shaped his beliefs and drew him into politics. Numerous biographers have seconded his claim by presenting his time in the trenches as the catalyst for the radicalization of an artist of previously vague political opinions. But is it true?
To answer this question, Thomas Weber looks in detail at Hitler’s service as a soldier in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment (RIR), commonly known as the List Regiment after its first commander, Julius von List. Initially consisting of recruits from Munich and its surrounding countryside, it was the unit in which Hitler served from his enlistment at the start of the war until he was mustered out at the end of it. With Hitler’s own thin documentary record from this period having been exploited thoroughly by other biographers, Weber turns instead to a previously unutilized resource: the records of the regiment itself. This makes the bulk of his book as much a history of the List Regiment as it is an account of Hitler’s service from it, as Weber infers liberally from it in drawing his conclusions about his subject.
As part of this effort, Weber addresses a number of misconceptions that emerged about Hitler’s service. Foremost among them is his rank: Weber notes early on that Hitler’s promotion in 1914 was not to the rank of corporal or lance corporal but to Gefreiter, which was still within the rank of private. Indeed, Hitler was never at a rank or a position of command, as he preferred to remain a dispatch runner for the duration of the war. While Weber notes that these runners often took risks that required considerable bravery, he dismisses much of Hitler’s reputation on this score as exaggerated. As a regimental runner, he faced fewer hazards than runners at the battalion or company level, who spent far more time at the front and were more exposed to the dangers of trench warfare as a result.
This underscores one of Weber’s key points in this book, which is Hitler’s detachment from the experiences of most of the others in his regiment. As a regimental dispatch runner, Hitler was exposed far more often to the officers at the regimental headquarters behind the lines than he was to the men fighting in the trenches. Because of this, he was insulated from the growing disaffection the rest of the men of the 16th RIR, whose morale eroded steadily over the course of the war. Weber sees this as a key factor in Hitler’s embrace of the “stab in the back” myth after the war, as he never appreciated the depths of his comrades’ discontent with the war and their desire to be done with it.
Weber’s account of the List Regiment and Hitler’s service in it takes up three-fifths of the book, with the rest of it taken up with an extended exploration of the veterans’ postwar experiences and their reaction to Hitler’s rise. He is particularly good at detailing how Hitler and the Nazis exploited his wartime service (especially his Iron Cross, which Weber notes was more likely awarded to Hitler because of his proximity to the officers in a position to make such recommendations rather than any especially distinguished example of heroism) and the lengths they went to defend his portrayal of it against any criticism. Weber also details their varied responses to the Nazis’ antisemitism, which he describes to buttress his central argument that Hitler’s radicalization was not born of his service in the war, but a reaction to Germany’s treatment in its aftermath.
With its extensive research and careful debunking of the legends that have developed around Hitler’s First World War service, Weber’s book is a masterpiece of scholarship. Yet his writing suffers from repetition, particularly with his reflexive seizure upon even the smallest details as proof of the validity of his main arguments. It makes for a book that is far more tendentious than it needs to be, as the quality of Weber’s research usually speaks for itself. Even for those uninterested in Hitler, Weber’s book serves as a fine regimental history, one that chronicles how the men in an otherwise unremarkable unit responded to the strain of a debilitating struggle.
To answer this question, Thomas Weber looks in detail at Hitler’s service as a soldier in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment (RIR), commonly known as the List Regiment after its first commander, Julius von List. Initially consisting of recruits from Munich and its surrounding countryside, it was the unit in which Hitler served from his enlistment at the start of the war until he was mustered out at the end of it. With Hitler’s own thin documentary record from this period having been exploited thoroughly by other biographers, Weber turns instead to a previously unutilized resource: the records of the regiment itself. This makes the bulk of his book as much a history of the List Regiment as it is an account of Hitler’s service from it, as Weber infers liberally from it in drawing his conclusions about his subject.
As part of this effort, Weber addresses a number of misconceptions that emerged about Hitler’s service. Foremost among them is his rank: Weber notes early on that Hitler’s promotion in 1914 was not to the rank of corporal or lance corporal but to Gefreiter, which was still within the rank of private. Indeed, Hitler was never at a rank or a position of command, as he preferred to remain a dispatch runner for the duration of the war. While Weber notes that these runners often took risks that required considerable bravery, he dismisses much of Hitler’s reputation on this score as exaggerated. As a regimental runner, he faced fewer hazards than runners at the battalion or company level, who spent far more time at the front and were more exposed to the dangers of trench warfare as a result.
This underscores one of Weber’s key points in this book, which is Hitler’s detachment from the experiences of most of the others in his regiment. As a regimental dispatch runner, Hitler was exposed far more often to the officers at the regimental headquarters behind the lines than he was to the men fighting in the trenches. Because of this, he was insulated from the growing disaffection the rest of the men of the 16th RIR, whose morale eroded steadily over the course of the war. Weber sees this as a key factor in Hitler’s embrace of the “stab in the back” myth after the war, as he never appreciated the depths of his comrades’ discontent with the war and their desire to be done with it.
Weber’s account of the List Regiment and Hitler’s service in it takes up three-fifths of the book, with the rest of it taken up with an extended exploration of the veterans’ postwar experiences and their reaction to Hitler’s rise. He is particularly good at detailing how Hitler and the Nazis exploited his wartime service (especially his Iron Cross, which Weber notes was more likely awarded to Hitler because of his proximity to the officers in a position to make such recommendations rather than any especially distinguished example of heroism) and the lengths they went to defend his portrayal of it against any criticism. Weber also details their varied responses to the Nazis’ antisemitism, which he describes to buttress his central argument that Hitler’s radicalization was not born of his service in the war, but a reaction to Germany’s treatment in its aftermath.
With its extensive research and careful debunking of the legends that have developed around Hitler’s First World War service, Weber’s book is a masterpiece of scholarship. Yet his writing suffers from repetition, particularly with his reflexive seizure upon even the smallest details as proof of the validity of his main arguments. It makes for a book that is far more tendentious than it needs to be, as the quality of Weber’s research usually speaks for itself. Even for those uninterested in Hitler, Weber’s book serves as a fine regimental history, one that chronicles how the men in an otherwise unremarkable unit responded to the strain of a debilitating struggle.
June 19, 2024
Just when I thought I'd read everything worth reading on Adolf Hitler, I found this book (and author) by accident. I was sceptical at first until I opened the cover and noticed that Ian Kershaw gave it the thumbs up. Thomas Weber informs us (constantly throughout the book) that Hitler never achieved the rank of Corporal or Lance Corporal, referring to him as "Private Hitler." Hitler's only promotion was to Gefreiter which provided him with no power of command unlike that of a Corporal (which tends to be applied to Hitler.)
Many things that Hitler stated in Mein Kampf (especially regarding the origins of his Jew hatred), are questioned and examined. This is as much a history of the List Regiment as of Hitler, and I found this book interesting and informative. I'd recommend this to anyone that has already read a biography or two of "Private Hitler" because there is some new ground covered.
Many things that Hitler stated in Mein Kampf (especially regarding the origins of his Jew hatred), are questioned and examined. This is as much a history of the List Regiment as of Hitler, and I found this book interesting and informative. I'd recommend this to anyone that has already read a biography or two of "Private Hitler" because there is some new ground covered.
May 12, 2013
This book presents an in-depth account of how Hitler spent WWI, an account which is at odds with the way these 4 years have typically been portrayed. Instead of being a fearless runner in no man's land and the horrible trenches, Hitler was more often than not closer to headquarters and was despised for that fact by the men who did the actual running. His Iron Crosses, 1st & 2nd classes, were actually the result of patronage. The author marshals convincing evidence that decorations were more often given to staff and admin types than to those actually fighting this most stupid of all wars. Hence, Hitler's ability to gain 2 awards without demonstrating any conspicuous bravery.
Hitler always said he found true comradeship for the first time in his life while in the List Regiment. The author carefully debunks this myth with an examination of Hitler's relationships with his fellow soldiers. He does not seem to have formed any real close friendships with the other men. The lack of bonds is also shown by the way Hitler avoided reunions and his intimidating treatment of the members of the List Regiment when he came to power. It has been a month since I finished the book, but, as I recall, only a few of them became committed Nazis, and none was in the top echelon of the party. for the most part, these veterans were silenced if Christian. If they were Jewish, they were in more danger than other members of the List Regiment. The irony of the last fact is that it was a Jewish officer who recommended Hitler for the Iron Cross, 1st class. Fortunately, he and his family escaped to the USA.
Another fascinating fact uncovered is Hitler's immediate post-war flirtation with communism. He was actively involved with a soviet in Munich. This is in variance with the usual depiction of the Nazi Leander's commitment to the extreme right from the end of the war. People forget that socialism was part of the party's official name. Hitler had no love for the pre-war system as it had rejected him. He could have just as easily taken up with the Communists as the embryonic Nazi party. However, he was able to see the way the wind would blow and drifted away from the Communists. After he gained power, people who knew these facts were silenced, one way or another.
One of the interesting facts to be revealed in this book is how poorly trained and unprepared the common soldier was on both sides. Truly, these men were cannon fodder.
Another one is that he was diagnosed as a psychopath while being treated for being gassed. He should have been sent to asylum. Again, this medical record was disappeared as were people who knew about it.
The author's style is clear and concise. He provides not only a revised view of this period in Hitler's life, but also a good background on the position of Jews in Imperial Germany. They had ever reason to think of themselves as Germans first and secondly as Jews, just as a Lutheran German would think of themselves.
I finished this book with great sadness. Of all the millions who died, why did no bullet or illness find Hitler between 1914-18?l
Hitler always said he found true comradeship for the first time in his life while in the List Regiment. The author carefully debunks this myth with an examination of Hitler's relationships with his fellow soldiers. He does not seem to have formed any real close friendships with the other men. The lack of bonds is also shown by the way Hitler avoided reunions and his intimidating treatment of the members of the List Regiment when he came to power. It has been a month since I finished the book, but, as I recall, only a few of them became committed Nazis, and none was in the top echelon of the party. for the most part, these veterans were silenced if Christian. If they were Jewish, they were in more danger than other members of the List Regiment. The irony of the last fact is that it was a Jewish officer who recommended Hitler for the Iron Cross, 1st class. Fortunately, he and his family escaped to the USA.
Another fascinating fact uncovered is Hitler's immediate post-war flirtation with communism. He was actively involved with a soviet in Munich. This is in variance with the usual depiction of the Nazi Leander's commitment to the extreme right from the end of the war. People forget that socialism was part of the party's official name. Hitler had no love for the pre-war system as it had rejected him. He could have just as easily taken up with the Communists as the embryonic Nazi party. However, he was able to see the way the wind would blow and drifted away from the Communists. After he gained power, people who knew these facts were silenced, one way or another.
One of the interesting facts to be revealed in this book is how poorly trained and unprepared the common soldier was on both sides. Truly, these men were cannon fodder.
Another one is that he was diagnosed as a psychopath while being treated for being gassed. He should have been sent to asylum. Again, this medical record was disappeared as were people who knew about it.
The author's style is clear and concise. He provides not only a revised view of this period in Hitler's life, but also a good background on the position of Jews in Imperial Germany. They had ever reason to think of themselves as Germans first and secondly as Jews, just as a Lutheran German would think of themselves.
I finished this book with great sadness. Of all the millions who died, why did no bullet or illness find Hitler between 1914-18?l
July 16, 2022
This is an important book that challenges much of what we think we know about Hitler's development from failed painter to tremendously successful demagogue as a result of World War I. It is well researched using hitherto largely untouched archival material relating to the List Regiment in which Hitler served. That said, it likely overreaches by suggesting that the loss of World War I itself was not the central and traumatic event that the experience of which shaped Germany and Germans in the first half of the twentieth century it has long been thought to be.
Weber starts his debunking earlier. In the first paragraphs of the first paragraph he compares Hitler with another far more successful artist who also served in the List Regiment, Albert Weisgerber. Indeed, according to Weber commemorative book put out in 1932, so at a time when Hitler was one of the best known political figures in Germany and known for his emphasis of his WWI experience, Weisgerber is given pride of place, whereas Hitler is not mentioned much at all. He then goes on to challenge the facts behind the well-known photo of men gathering in Munich to celebrate the outbreak of World War I. Weber maintains a film of the event shows that contrary to impression given by the well-known image, the square, while crowded, was nowhere near jam-packed, and he even suggests that the photographer Heinrich Hoffmann may well have doctored the photo to put Hitler in a prominent position, when the other film footage shows much further away from the column. Soon after that we learn that the notion Hitler got special dispensation to serve as a volunteer in a Bavarian unit is likely a fabrication. Then most crucial of all Weber shows that after his baptism by fire at the First Battle of the Marne, Hitler was selected to serve as a dispatcher running messages between Battalion headquarters and those of his Regiment, and in that capacity he had little experience of the wind and grind of trench warfare. Finally, Weber argues that HItler's promotion to "Gefreiter" has been overblown, and misconstrued as a promotion to Corporal, when in fact his rank carried with it no command authority at all -- a point that clearly irritated a previous reader of the library copy I read that he circled a couple of points where Weber referred to Private Hitler later in the book, but not where Weber explains his choice of words suggesting he did not bother to read that portion before getting angry..
Had Weber focused purely on Hitler's WWI experience this would have remained a short book or perhaps even a lengthy article. The new documentary evidence Weber uncovered in the files from the List regiment definitely add something to our knowledge, but not that much. In that absence, Weber uses the considerable information available to do a social history study of the regiment telling us who the people in the regiment were, where they came from, and they experienced the war. We learn it was not a respected regiment, only getting new modern rifles as they joined the fight on Marne. While there were volunteers, including Hitler, a majority were actual second tier draftees -- young called up to do military service, but then given little or no training, at least not until he war began. They were by no means a regiment of Ernst Junger all committed to the war effort from the first day to the left, and given Hitler's position, he certainly wasn't part of a band of brothers on the front. Rather while he did his job, his connection was to the superiors he got to know at headquarters. Incidentally it was this connection that appears to have led to Hitler receiving his Iron Crosses, not any particular act of daring-do.
As the war ground on, morale sagged and bouts of indiscipline, but Hitler only heard about much of this second hand. His one leave, and then his recovery from injuries gave him exposure to the home front, but he appears to have not taken that in or dismissed it as whining. Also his last injury during the the final phase of Ludendorff and Hindenburg's Spring Offensive meant that Hitler did not experience the complete collapse of morale in the List Regiment that occurred in the summer and fall of 1918, allowing Hitler to imagine the notion that the German defeat could be traced back to weak-willed civilian leadership.
All this offers new valuable knowledge and insights, but his handling of the meaning of the war for soldiers of the List Regiment begins to get caught up in Weber's desire to continue with more debunking. Thus, Weber begins to make an argument that in fact the true change for Bavarians at least was the assassination of the revolutionary leader Kurt Eisner and the decision of the revolutionary government not to hand over power to a more moderate coalition of well established parties in Bavaria, including the mainstream SPD. Under this situation the men of the List Regiment began to truly fear Communisms and Bolshevism and took arms joining rightwing militias. I don't doubt the accuracy of this, and it is useful to have this knowledge about the very specific case of Munich, but just because the men of went home and picked up where they left off voting for parties many had supported before the war doesn't mean that their WWI experience didn't change them. Hitler may have been more unmoored in the immediate aftermath than many in his regiment, but no one gets over four years of fighting the moment one returns home. Even if it is important to note that the war experience didn't predispose soldiers of the List Regiment to become Nazis, though some did, they carried with them their war experience and that began to shape their lives. This isn't exactly new, if it had been there would have been no Stahlhelm or other veterans organizations because that function would have been served by the Nazi Party, as eventually happened after the Nazis came to power. Perhaps for many comradeship was not created so much during the war but in its aftermath, as people returned to their more mundane lives, and experienced the difference, it was this the Nazis were able to draw on along with the economic misfortunes Germans shared in part because of the war.
The last two chapters deal with how the Nazis dealt with the List Regiment and its knowledge of Hitler. It also shows how some refused to work with Hitler entirely, while others at some point along the way found their way to supporting him, sometimes ultimately regretting it. In this section Weber also talks about the fates of the Jews who had served with Hitler, two matters that were intimately intertwined in the case of Hugo Gutman, a Jewish adjutant in the regiment, who appears to have been crucial in the award of the Iron Cross First class to Hitler's. He felt compelled to flee Germany and even changed his name, refusing to talk about that part of his life. These stories are again valuable, and Weber uses this to remind us that totalitarian regime are not truly totalitarian, and in fact they survive not because everyone is in lock step, but because there is no opposition and most people find something they can support.
Weber starts his debunking earlier. In the first paragraphs of the first paragraph he compares Hitler with another far more successful artist who also served in the List Regiment, Albert Weisgerber. Indeed, according to Weber commemorative book put out in 1932, so at a time when Hitler was one of the best known political figures in Germany and known for his emphasis of his WWI experience, Weisgerber is given pride of place, whereas Hitler is not mentioned much at all. He then goes on to challenge the facts behind the well-known photo of men gathering in Munich to celebrate the outbreak of World War I. Weber maintains a film of the event shows that contrary to impression given by the well-known image, the square, while crowded, was nowhere near jam-packed, and he even suggests that the photographer Heinrich Hoffmann may well have doctored the photo to put Hitler in a prominent position, when the other film footage shows much further away from the column. Soon after that we learn that the notion Hitler got special dispensation to serve as a volunteer in a Bavarian unit is likely a fabrication. Then most crucial of all Weber shows that after his baptism by fire at the First Battle of the Marne, Hitler was selected to serve as a dispatcher running messages between Battalion headquarters and those of his Regiment, and in that capacity he had little experience of the wind and grind of trench warfare. Finally, Weber argues that HItler's promotion to "Gefreiter" has been overblown, and misconstrued as a promotion to Corporal, when in fact his rank carried with it no command authority at all -- a point that clearly irritated a previous reader of the library copy I read that he circled a couple of points where Weber referred to Private Hitler later in the book, but not where Weber explains his choice of words suggesting he did not bother to read that portion before getting angry..
Had Weber focused purely on Hitler's WWI experience this would have remained a short book or perhaps even a lengthy article. The new documentary evidence Weber uncovered in the files from the List regiment definitely add something to our knowledge, but not that much. In that absence, Weber uses the considerable information available to do a social history study of the regiment telling us who the people in the regiment were, where they came from, and they experienced the war. We learn it was not a respected regiment, only getting new modern rifles as they joined the fight on Marne. While there were volunteers, including Hitler, a majority were actual second tier draftees -- young called up to do military service, but then given little or no training, at least not until he war began. They were by no means a regiment of Ernst Junger all committed to the war effort from the first day to the left, and given Hitler's position, he certainly wasn't part of a band of brothers on the front. Rather while he did his job, his connection was to the superiors he got to know at headquarters. Incidentally it was this connection that appears to have led to Hitler receiving his Iron Crosses, not any particular act of daring-do.
As the war ground on, morale sagged and bouts of indiscipline, but Hitler only heard about much of this second hand. His one leave, and then his recovery from injuries gave him exposure to the home front, but he appears to have not taken that in or dismissed it as whining. Also his last injury during the the final phase of Ludendorff and Hindenburg's Spring Offensive meant that Hitler did not experience the complete collapse of morale in the List Regiment that occurred in the summer and fall of 1918, allowing Hitler to imagine the notion that the German defeat could be traced back to weak-willed civilian leadership.
All this offers new valuable knowledge and insights, but his handling of the meaning of the war for soldiers of the List Regiment begins to get caught up in Weber's desire to continue with more debunking. Thus, Weber begins to make an argument that in fact the true change for Bavarians at least was the assassination of the revolutionary leader Kurt Eisner and the decision of the revolutionary government not to hand over power to a more moderate coalition of well established parties in Bavaria, including the mainstream SPD. Under this situation the men of the List Regiment began to truly fear Communisms and Bolshevism and took arms joining rightwing militias. I don't doubt the accuracy of this, and it is useful to have this knowledge about the very specific case of Munich, but just because the men of went home and picked up where they left off voting for parties many had supported before the war doesn't mean that their WWI experience didn't change them. Hitler may have been more unmoored in the immediate aftermath than many in his regiment, but no one gets over four years of fighting the moment one returns home. Even if it is important to note that the war experience didn't predispose soldiers of the List Regiment to become Nazis, though some did, they carried with them their war experience and that began to shape their lives. This isn't exactly new, if it had been there would have been no Stahlhelm or other veterans organizations because that function would have been served by the Nazi Party, as eventually happened after the Nazis came to power. Perhaps for many comradeship was not created so much during the war but in its aftermath, as people returned to their more mundane lives, and experienced the difference, it was this the Nazis were able to draw on along with the economic misfortunes Germans shared in part because of the war.
The last two chapters deal with how the Nazis dealt with the List Regiment and its knowledge of Hitler. It also shows how some refused to work with Hitler entirely, while others at some point along the way found their way to supporting him, sometimes ultimately regretting it. In this section Weber also talks about the fates of the Jews who had served with Hitler, two matters that were intimately intertwined in the case of Hugo Gutman, a Jewish adjutant in the regiment, who appears to have been crucial in the award of the Iron Cross First class to Hitler's. He felt compelled to flee Germany and even changed his name, refusing to talk about that part of his life. These stories are again valuable, and Weber uses this to remind us that totalitarian regime are not truly totalitarian, and in fact they survive not because everyone is in lock step, but because there is no opposition and most people find something they can support.
February 23, 2021
Answered my questions about how those who served with him saw him. No hero, never a corporal as was later claimed, just a private who refused the responsibility of promotion because he would have to lead at the front. Most of his comrades saw him as a “rear area pig” running messages only BEHIND the lines. Interesting how many of them became victims of the Nazi rise to power, if they didn’t sanitize their memoirs of WWI and make him a mythic hero. The truth behind his Iron Cross & the Jewish officer who finally recommended him. What became of him? Turns out he immigrated and lived not far from me at the end of his life. I wish he had spoken up, written about his famous trench mate instead of blending into the background. His fate and that of many other Jews who served with Hitler are answered here.
January 16, 2016
This is an interesting read, clearly carefully researched. I am not normally a student of the Hitler story arc, and almost everything in here was news to me. Goes pretty deeply into the future Fuhrer's experiences in the Great War -- the book almost tracks his war experiences day by day -- and how they did or did not shape his later policies. This book needed a final copyedit, and at times I wished the author would back up his conclusions a little more clearly. I also wished for some definitions of the author's terms -- he seemed to treat "anti-Semitism" and "racial anti-Semitism" as two different phenomena without saying what he thought the differences were between the two. But this was quite an informative read otherwise.
October 21, 2020
A well-researched book debunking the myths surrounding Hitler's actions during the First World War and how these experiences transformed him. From the blurry, out-of-focus image at the start of the book, by the end of this interesting read we get a clear picture of Hitler during and after the First World War, as well as a sense of how the people who were around him at one point or the other perceived the "rear area pig".
While many theories just gloss over Hitler's radicalization, attributing it to his war experience, this book offers solid arguments to the contrary, showing that the Führer's radicalization started indeed later.
While many theories just gloss over Hitler's radicalization, attributing it to his war experience, this book offers solid arguments to the contrary, showing that the Führer's radicalization started indeed later.
September 24, 2023
Hitler claimed that his experience on the front lines of the First World War greatly shaped his political outlook, and helped him get to where he ended up. Weber challenges that viewpoint in this book, which gives a detailed look at both Hitler and the regiment he served in, the Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (known as the List Regiment after its commander). He argues that Hitler did not see any direct action on the front, or even in the trenches, and by working closer to regimental headquarters he was unable to get a proper view of how the soldiers felt. For this Weber notes that most soldiers had a dim view of the war, and that had Hitler been amongst them he would not have favoured the "stab-in-the-back" myth that was propagated after the war.
The last third of the book has Weber look at Hitler's post-war career, and rise to power, and how he tried to use the RIR 16 to his benefit, including veterans, with mixed results. Weber shows that while some did join Hitler, it was nothing more substantial than the general population, and concludes by showing that Hitler's political views were mainly formed in the post-war years, and not during the war as has been traditionally stated.
Overall an interesting look at an early period of Hitler's life, and one that tries to clear up a muddled period of his life.
The last third of the book has Weber look at Hitler's post-war career, and rise to power, and how he tried to use the RIR 16 to his benefit, including veterans, with mixed results. Weber shows that while some did join Hitler, it was nothing more substantial than the general population, and concludes by showing that Hitler's political views were mainly formed in the post-war years, and not during the war as has been traditionally stated.
Overall an interesting look at an early period of Hitler's life, and one that tries to clear up a muddled period of his life.
March 10, 2025
My immediate response to this was “ugh, why do I have to read ANOTHER Hitler biography,” but the second half got me. Weber makes a very important contribution, complicating Hitler’s own narrative of self-radicalization during the First World War that has been uncritically reproduced by the historiography. That was certainly the story I got in high school and undergrad! He also contextualize the man alongside the political trajectories of his regiment, and that of Bavaria more broadly— showing both soldiers and a region that came out of the war with their political convictions mostly intact.
September 18, 2025
A very well researched bit of work taking a deep dive into the regiment Hitler was in during his time during WW1. Looking at the political, social and religious motivations of those in the regiment (as best as the author can) during WW1, after WW1, during the Nazi period and the post war period.
There are a lot of personal stories here and Weber does a good job of looking at Hitler in a usually unexamined period of his time in WW1.
There are a lot of personal stories here and Weber does a good job of looking at Hitler in a usually unexamined period of his time in WW1.
February 8, 2025
Dr. Weber's two volumes are the best books about Hitler. While Richard Evans obsesses over the sex lives of Nazis, Dr. Weber shows that, his winning the EK 1 aside, Hitler was actually a REMF for most of the First World War, and that most German 11Bs of that war were not brutalised into being killers, Himmler being a REMF and Heydrich not being old enough to enlist.
October 9, 2018
Concienzuda aproximación del papel de hitler durante la I Guerra Mundial que desmonta el mito de valiente correo que ponía su vida en peligro entre las trincheras, así como el impacto que tuvo en su radicalización.
April 23, 2020
Derribando los mitos de la propaganda que han llegado hasta nuestros días.
Antes de empezarlo tenía miedo que resultase demasiado académico pero no es el caso, bastante ameno, de hecho.
Antes de empezarlo tenía miedo que resultase demasiado académico pero no es el caso, bastante ameno, de hecho.
March 2, 2024
Extensive history of the List Regiment of the Bavarian Army in the First World War and its most infamous member, Adolf Hitler. Thomas Weber is making several arguments here. The first, which he stresses and reiterates perhaps a bit too much, is the lack of any connection between the war itself and the post-war political lives of the soldiers who fought it. He makes a good case that the rank and file soldiers were highly diverse in their post-war political lives, though the officers were more likely to align with the Nazis. He uses a number of List Regiment soldiers' stories to point out that many aligned with socialist or centrist political parties, or with the SDP's Reichsbanner organization. Some veterans of the List Regiment opposed Hitler before and after he came to power. Dozens of List Regiment soldiers were Jewish and Weber reveals much about their lives, including those that were killed in the Holocaust. The story of Hugo Gutmann, a Jewish officer in the List Regiment who escaped Germany in 1940, is a fascinating contrast to that of Private Hitler.
A second argument he makes is that the horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust cannot be simply attributed to the "brutalization of war"; the men of the List Regiment were not turned into inhuman killing machines because of their experiences in 1914-1918. Their behavior in the war varied and tended to be focused on survival. Weber also rejects the idea that there was a surge of war-fever in 1914, as Europe's populations leaped lustily into battle. He cites the 1914 Christmas truce, and similar events, to argue that there was no uniform nationalist-driven xenophobia in the Imperial German Army. Overall, he rejects the notion of German national development as having been broken from the start, or cursed with a "special path" that set it apart from other nations.
In all of this is, of course, Private Adolf Hitler. Weber draws a considerable amount of information about Hitler's wartime life and attempts after the war to embellish his military record into an epic of courage and battle. The growth and promotion of this mythical version of Hitler's war was central to the future dictator's rise to power and self-image. The reality is utterly at odds with the myth. Although Hitler's duties as dispatch runner were not "safe" (no one's in that time and place was), he was primarily behind the front at Regimental HQ. He spent very little time in front-line combat or in the hell of the trenches. Weber describes Hitler as creating an "ersatz family" with the other dispatch runners and officers of the Regiment, and he was most keen on remaining where he was in the relative comfort of the HQ. Finally, Weber discusses how as dictator and warlord Hitler would frequently drift into nostalgia over his life in the First World War, and even enact policies inspired by his understanding of the war and why Germany had been defeated.
A second argument he makes is that the horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust cannot be simply attributed to the "brutalization of war"; the men of the List Regiment were not turned into inhuman killing machines because of their experiences in 1914-1918. Their behavior in the war varied and tended to be focused on survival. Weber also rejects the idea that there was a surge of war-fever in 1914, as Europe's populations leaped lustily into battle. He cites the 1914 Christmas truce, and similar events, to argue that there was no uniform nationalist-driven xenophobia in the Imperial German Army. Overall, he rejects the notion of German national development as having been broken from the start, or cursed with a "special path" that set it apart from other nations.
In all of this is, of course, Private Adolf Hitler. Weber draws a considerable amount of information about Hitler's wartime life and attempts after the war to embellish his military record into an epic of courage and battle. The growth and promotion of this mythical version of Hitler's war was central to the future dictator's rise to power and self-image. The reality is utterly at odds with the myth. Although Hitler's duties as dispatch runner were not "safe" (no one's in that time and place was), he was primarily behind the front at Regimental HQ. He spent very little time in front-line combat or in the hell of the trenches. Weber describes Hitler as creating an "ersatz family" with the other dispatch runners and officers of the Regiment, and he was most keen on remaining where he was in the relative comfort of the HQ. Finally, Weber discusses how as dictator and warlord Hitler would frequently drift into nostalgia over his life in the First World War, and even enact policies inspired by his understanding of the war and why Germany had been defeated.
June 6, 2015
Es una obra interesante en tanto en cuanto intenta cubrir una etapa de la vida de Hitler que él intentó reescribir, borrando las huellas de su pasado y reconstruyéndolo desde la visión fantástica del soldado que nunca existió.
No porque no fuera soldado, que lo fue, ni que no hubiera estado en la guerra, que sí estuvo. Sino como los sueños de lo que quiso ser, degeneró en una pesadilla que le haría negar la realidad y visualizarla heroicamente.
La investigación del autor, le lleva a buscar registros y opiniones en artículos, libros, testimonios y un sinfín de cartas y diarios que muestras mil versiones distintas de vivencias diferentes. Algunos mostrando relatos manifiestamente falsos, otros simplemente distorsionados por el tiempo o la circunstancia. Esto hace que a veces el libro desconcierte con pronunciamentos que una vez elaborados son corregidos por otros aparentemente más fidedignos. Un puzzle de cientos de piezas que nunca terminan de encajar pero que finalmente muestran al soldado que fue, y al guerrero valiente que la propaganda nazi consiguió construir.
Quizás un anexo con el listado de nombre, compañía, regimiento, rango, fecha, lugar y relación con Hitler, permitiría una lectura más fluida de la obra. Muchos personajes aparecen a lo largo del libro de forma esporádica y una línea de tiempo de los mismos permitirían entender mucho mejor sus circunstancias personales y el por qué de sus opiniones. Así que a falta de ella, recomiendo lápiz y papel, o bien tener acceso a https://es.pinterest.com/mispins/libr...
No porque no fuera soldado, que lo fue, ni que no hubiera estado en la guerra, que sí estuvo. Sino como los sueños de lo que quiso ser, degeneró en una pesadilla que le haría negar la realidad y visualizarla heroicamente.
La investigación del autor, le lleva a buscar registros y opiniones en artículos, libros, testimonios y un sinfín de cartas y diarios que muestras mil versiones distintas de vivencias diferentes. Algunos mostrando relatos manifiestamente falsos, otros simplemente distorsionados por el tiempo o la circunstancia. Esto hace que a veces el libro desconcierte con pronunciamentos que una vez elaborados son corregidos por otros aparentemente más fidedignos. Un puzzle de cientos de piezas que nunca terminan de encajar pero que finalmente muestran al soldado que fue, y al guerrero valiente que la propaganda nazi consiguió construir.
Quizás un anexo con el listado de nombre, compañía, regimiento, rango, fecha, lugar y relación con Hitler, permitiría una lectura más fluida de la obra. Muchos personajes aparecen a lo largo del libro de forma esporádica y una línea de tiempo de los mismos permitirían entender mucho mejor sus circunstancias personales y el por qué de sus opiniones. Así que a falta de ella, recomiendo lápiz y papel, o bien tener acceso a https://es.pinterest.com/mispins/libr...
January 6, 2016
Weber pursues an interesting line of inquiry, specifically seeking to debunk the myth that Hitler's experience in WWI shaped his weltanshauung. This notion arises from the fact that Hitler made brilliant use of a fawning media once he was in power and his propaganda sought to validate the often fanciful accounts of his war experiences as recounted in Mein Kampf. By making the assumption that Hitler's close companions in the war (who were of similar economic, social, and geographic backgrounds) ought to have had been similarly affected and influenced by the war, Weber shows that, in fact, WWI was not nearly as transformative an experience as has been believed. Men of the List Regiment did not, on the whole, turn into rabid anti-Semitic nationalists and those who did acted years later out of opportunism.
The book suffers, however, from swathes of disorganized and poor writing. While nobody wants to defend Hitler, multiple digressions on his unctuous character and the inequity of Iron Cross awards are not valuable additions to the book's thesis. Better editing would have made this much more persuasive.
The book suffers, however, from swathes of disorganized and poor writing. While nobody wants to defend Hitler, multiple digressions on his unctuous character and the inequity of Iron Cross awards are not valuable additions to the book's thesis. Better editing would have made this much more persuasive.
October 29, 2013
This is a great addition to the biographical literature on Adolf Hitler that attempts to shed light on one of the least understood periods of his life, the First World War. While this is commonly felt to have been one of the most formative periods of Hitler's life, the author makes a reasonably convincing case that most of what is claimed about the period is actually an invention of Nazi or anti-Nazi propaganda. I say "reasonably convincing" in that the record is so incomplete as to make any conclusive determinations problematic, but the author had integrated the writings, diaries, and histories of Hitler's brothers in arms -- some previously unexplored -- to make a very useful contribution to our understanding.
The book is a repetitive at a small scale and could have benefited from better copy-editing.
The book is a repetitive at a small scale and could have benefited from better copy-editing.
June 25, 2016
Possibly the most important book written on Hitler so far this century, Weber did a great job tracking down evidence that proves Hitler's account of his World War I service was greatly exaggerated, and in fact the brave "front soldier" of Nazi legend was more or less what American troops in Vietnam would have described as a REMF. More records survive from World War I than might have been expected, and Weber uses them ably here, along with diaries, other first person accounts, and sociological research to paint a vivid portrait not only of Hitler but the 16 Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment's war and after-war. The paperback edition includes a valuable postscript with even more new information. Valuable reading and a great contribution to scholarship.
March 19, 2015
Weber försöker bevisa några teser som strider mot huvudforan av historieskrivningen, och han är ganska övertygande. Han menar att första världskriget vaken brutaliserade befolkningen eller soldaterna, och att första världskriget i sig själv inte ledde till ett större stöd för nazismen. Han visar också ganska övertygande att Hitler inte stred i frontlinjen utan tjänstgjorde relativt tryggt som ordinans bakom stridslinjen. På sätt och vis försvarar han tyskarna som folk och menar att nazismens övertagande berodde på naivitet, våld och konformism snarare än aktivt stöd. Hade boken inte varit så tjatig hade den varit ännu bättre.
September 10, 2015
Weber is detailed and methodical and even without the introduction you would know he is a disciple of the great Niall Ferguson from the numbers driven analysis that runs throughout he book. The numbers are carefully but liberally used to dismantle a number of the myths that still exist about the rise of Hitler and the origins of his thinking, and Weber attacks this mission with passion. If only his writing consistently matched the quality of his research and analysis.
February 25, 2014
Passionnant. En résumé : il s'est planqué pendant la première guerre car en tant qu'estafette il n'était jamais en première ligne. De plus la première guerre n'a pas "fait" Hitler contrairement à la légende qu'il a voulu construire. Et son idéologie est probablement né beaucoup plus tard même après la révolution allemande.
March 16, 2015
This debunks once and for all the myth of Hitler's First War service. A very illuminating look at the cover up and rebuilding of the "hero" myth.
May 20, 2013
Excelente para poder mirar de una perspectiva diferente a "Adolf Hitler" , un poco tedioso para quien no gusta mucho de la historia .
January 17, 2015
Interesting
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews