The greatest pleasure at the completion of a book is to thank publicly those who have contributed directly or indirectly, in a major or minor way, to its creation. In a work on this scale my debts of gratitude are naturally extensive.
I am grateful, first of all, for the expert assistance in dealing with my inquiries and requests of the Directors and staff of several record repositories and libraries which have allowed me access to their archives and supplied me with unpublished material. These include, in Germany, the Archiv der Sozialen Demokratie, Bonn; the different departments of the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek; the Berlin Document Center (where I was helped, quite especially, by the former Director, Dr David Marwell); the Bundesarchiv Koblenz; the Forschungsstelle für die Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus in Hamburg; the former Institut für Marxismus-Leninismus, Zentrales Parteiarchiv, in East Berlin (GDR); the Niedersächisches Staatsarchiv, Oldenburg; the Staatsarchiv München; and the former Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Potsdam (GDR); in Great Britain, the BBC Archives; the Borthwick Institute (York), notably its Director, Professor David Smith, for access to the Halifax papers; the Public Record Offices in London and Belfast; the University of Birmingham Library (for use of the Chamberlain papers); and the excellent Wiener Library, London (whose Director, Professor David Cesarani, and librarians and staff I would particularly like to thank); in the USA, the Hoover Institution, Stanford, California (where I was helped especially by Myriam Beck and Christoph Schlichting); the Library of Congress, Washington; the National Archives, Washington; and Princeton University Library; in Austria, the Archiv der Stadt Linz; the Obeösterreichisches Landesarchiv (where I was especially grateful to Dr Gerhard Marckhgott); and the Wiener Stadt- und Landesarchiv; and in Russia the former Sonderarchiv (Special Archive), now the Centre for Historical and Documentary Collections, Moscow.
I am also grateful to the editors and publishers of those works from which I have cited extracts, and for the owners of the copyright of the photographs reproduced in the book for permission to publish them.
The major debt of gratitude owed to the Director, Professor Horst Möller, and all the staff of the incomparable Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich will come as no surprise to anyone who has undertaken research on the Nazi era. I have always been made extremely welcome in the Institut since first working there in the mid-1970s. Like so many others engaged in research on twentieth-century German history, I have benefited enormously both from its outstanding library and archival holdings and from the expertise of its researchers, archivists, and librarians. In particular, I would wish to single out Norbert Frei (recently moved to the Ruhr-Universität, Bochum), a good personal friend over many years, alongside Elke Fröhlich, Hermann Graml, Lothar Gruchmann (who made available to me parts of the new edition of Hitler’s trial material in advance of publication), Klaus-Dietmar Henke (now Dresden), Hermann Weiß (who gave generous help with a number of archival queries), and Hans Woller. I am also extremely grateful for the kindness shown on many occasions by Georg Maisinger, the business manager of the Institut. Not least, I would like to thank the staff of the Institut’s archive and library for all their assistance in dealing so patiently and efficiently with all of my many requests.
Essential time for reflection, reading, and writing was provided by a stay in 1989–90 at the marvellous Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. Preliminary work for this biography was undertaken at the time, and I was able to profit from interchanges with scholars of widely varying disciplines. I am grateful to the Rector, Wolf Lepenies, and his staff, all the Fellows, and not least to the librarians for complying with my innumerable requests. A good part of the writing was undertaken during a spell in 1994–5 away from my regular duties, thanks to support from a Leverhulme-British Academy Senior Scholarship and from the University of Sheffield. The Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung continued the generous support of my work which began in 1976–7 with the funding for a month in the summer of 1997 spent checking references in Munich. My son, David, kindly took a week’s holiday from his work to help me for part of this time.
I have enjoyed great (and exceedingly patient) support from my publishers in Britain, Germany, and the USA while this book has been in preparation. At Penguin, Ravi Mirchandani (who commissioned the book in what seems an age ago) and Simon Winder (who adopted it and has skilfully overseen all stages of its completion) have been pillars of strength. Their encouragement has been of great importance to me. I would also like to express my thanks to Thomas Weber for his work in drawing up the bibliography, to Diana LeCore for compiling the index, and, quite especially, to Annie Lee for her excellent copy-editing. At Norton, Donald Lamm’s meticulous and constructive suggestions for amending or improving points of the text were invariably perceptive, and I greatly appreciated his insights. At Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt I have benefited from the expertise of Ulrich Volz and Michael Neher, while Jörg W. Rademacher (who translated the bulk of the text) and Jürgen Peter Krause, assisted by Cristoforo Schweeger, performed heroics in the speed of their accomplished translation. And at Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Margit Ketterle and Andrea Wörle have taken the keenest interest in the project since its inception and have been unfailing in their good advice.
Many friends and colleagues have helped enormously (at times unwittingly) over the years, through discussions or correspondence, through encouragement, and through their own published work, to shape my thinking on the Nazi era. I hope that a collective expression of my most sincere thanks will not appear like a diminution of my great indebtedness to each of them.
My warmest thanks are also owing to Gerald Fleming, Brigitte Hamann, Ronald Hayman, Robert Mallett, Meir Michaelis, Stig Hornshøh-Møller, Fritz Redlich, Gitta Sereny, Michael Wildt, and Peter Witte, all of whom were generous in supplying me with documentary material, giving me insight into their work prior to publication, and engaging in extensive discussion or correspondence on some issues of interpretation. Eberhard Jäckel has kindly allowed me to exploit his great expertise on Hitler on a number of occasions. I am grateful, too to Richard Evans for suggesting in the first place that I should undertake the biography, and to Niall Ferguson for inspiration with the subtitles of the two volumes. I would also like to thank Neil Bermel (Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies, University of Sheffield) for translating for me an article on Hitler published in Czech.
To Jeremy Noakes my debt is of a very special order. His exemplary regional study of Lower Saxony was one of the works, in the early 1970s, which inspired me to consider undertaking research on Nazi Germany. Since that time, he has remained a good friend as well as an outstanding scholar of modern German history. The documentary collection he has put together over many years (Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham (eds.), Nazism 1919–1945: A Documentary Reader,4 vols., Exeter, 1983–98) is a gathering of primary sources in English (with superb commentary) on the Nazi regime which surpasses in range and quality any German collection. A good number of the sources referred to in the chapters which follow, which I have cited wherever possible from a specific German location, will be found in the collection. This applies to one document quite especially, quoted in Chapter 13, which was first published in English translation in the second volume of Jeremy’s collection. This somewhat obscure document, citing a speech by a Nazi functionary which spoke of ‘Working towards the Führer along the lines he would wish’, immediately attracted my attention by its strikingly simple insight into how a dictatorship operated. Having adopted the idea, I developed it to inform my overall approach to Hitler. But I owe it to Jeremy’s collection that I was alerted to the document in the first place. I am also grateful to him for casting his expert eye over the entire typescript.
Two German scholars had the most profound influence on my work, and I would like to express my especial gratitude to them here. I had the privilege of working for a time with the late Martin Broszat, Director of the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, and profited immensely both from his expertise and from his inspiration. Working in Munich in the late 1970s under his guidance was a formative experience for me. A second crucial influence has been that of Hans Mommsen, formerly of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, with whom over many years now I have enjoyed good friendship as well as continued scholarly dialogue. When I first told Hans that I had decided to write a biography of Hitler, his immediate response was: ‘I wouldn’t, if I were you.’ I fear the biographical approach to Hitler is not one he will ever find fruitful. But even where our interpretations of Hitler differ, I hope he will detect unmistakable traces of his own influence on my approach. My admiration for his own scholarly achievement goes hand in hand with my most sincere thanks.
Some friends have contributed more than they perhaps realize. This applies especially to the late William Carr, and to Dick Geary, as it does to Joe Bergin, John Breuilly, Joe Harrison, Bob Moore, Frank O’Gorman, and Mike Rose. Not least, it applies to Traude Spät.
The support I have received from the University of Sheffield, especially from my colleagues in the Department of History, which I have felt privileged to be part of over the past few years, has been of great importance to me. Above all, I would like to thank Beverley Eaton for her quite exceptional help and encouragement during the entire period that I have been writing this book, and even before that arduous task began.
Finally, as always, I would like to thank my family for all they have done to make this work possible. Only Betty, David, and Stephen know the full extent of my debt of gratitude.
I. K.
April 1998