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Putsch! How Hitler Made Revolution.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 15, 2012
My wife and I are going to Munich later this month so I can see the sites I am writing about and perhaps have conversations with today's Germans about why so many Germans in the 1920s and 1930s chose to support Hitler.
The first section of my book (Munich 1923) was drafted before I came across Hanser's book, which I will now read against the text of what I have written and hopefully find additional insights to incorporate.
... finished reading what is an excellent description of Hitler through the events of 1923; now taking notes and developing possible story lines related to those notes.
... here's a fascinating item .. Hitler, when Chancellor ... a 7 foot bookshelf of the works of Karl May ... he read them all through again ... for him Old Shatterhead was Siegfried in buckskin ... Karl May's heroes were for Hitler idealized Prussians, exemplars of a master race ... Klaus Mann wrote that through Hitler's eyes, Karl May's childish and criminal fantasies influenced the history of the world ... many of Old Shatterhand's deceptions and stratagems were reflected in the reckless policies of the Third Reich
My character (Berthold) has read Karl May's books about the American West, which were huge hits in Germany, when he was a boy. Apparently, Hitler kept on reading them when he was an adult. Karl May's Shatterhand and Wagner's Siegfried ... what a combination!
Finished reading about a week ago. Finished transcribing notes today. Here are some additional items ... terrifying even in hindsight ...
... Hitler's appeal to German manhood ... like a call to arms ... preaching a gospel of sacred truth ... like another Luther ... his magnetism held thousands as one
... the swastika is an incitation to race murder ... the Nazi flag was called the most brutal design ever invented for a flag ... Hitler designed it himself
... Nazi marching songs (1923 or before) ... "cut the Jewish bodies to the bone" ... "when the hour of vengeance comes/we'll be ready for any mass murder/everything will be so much better/when Jewish blood spurts from our knives
... persons who looked Jewish were stopped on the street ... abused, insulted, beaten up ... an American visitor was seized and his trousers ripped open to see if he was circumcised
... correspondent Ernest Hemingway ... noted in one of his dispatches ... the dogged sullenness and hysterical desperation of thr Germans as they watched the plunge to worthlessness of their currency
The first section of my book (Munich 1923) was drafted before I came across Hanser's book, which I will now read against the text of what I have written and hopefully find additional insights to incorporate.
... finished reading what is an excellent description of Hitler through the events of 1923; now taking notes and developing possible story lines related to those notes.
... here's a fascinating item .. Hitler, when Chancellor ... a 7 foot bookshelf of the works of Karl May ... he read them all through again ... for him Old Shatterhead was Siegfried in buckskin ... Karl May's heroes were for Hitler idealized Prussians, exemplars of a master race ... Klaus Mann wrote that through Hitler's eyes, Karl May's childish and criminal fantasies influenced the history of the world ... many of Old Shatterhand's deceptions and stratagems were reflected in the reckless policies of the Third Reich
My character (Berthold) has read Karl May's books about the American West, which were huge hits in Germany, when he was a boy. Apparently, Hitler kept on reading them when he was an adult. Karl May's Shatterhand and Wagner's Siegfried ... what a combination!
Finished reading about a week ago. Finished transcribing notes today. Here are some additional items ... terrifying even in hindsight ...
... Hitler's appeal to German manhood ... like a call to arms ... preaching a gospel of sacred truth ... like another Luther ... his magnetism held thousands as one
... the swastika is an incitation to race murder ... the Nazi flag was called the most brutal design ever invented for a flag ... Hitler designed it himself
... Nazi marching songs (1923 or before) ... "cut the Jewish bodies to the bone" ... "when the hour of vengeance comes/we'll be ready for any mass murder/everything will be so much better/when Jewish blood spurts from our knives
... persons who looked Jewish were stopped on the street ... abused, insulted, beaten up ... an American visitor was seized and his trousers ripped open to see if he was circumcised
... correspondent Ernest Hemingway ... noted in one of his dispatches ... the dogged sullenness and hysterical desperation of thr Germans as they watched the plunge to worthlessness of their currency
September 19, 2009
Terrific early history of Hitler, including interviews with contemporary acquaintances that I have not seen elsewhere. Also puts Hitler in historical context.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews