My Battle Against Hitler

Now with a new foreword by Sir Roger Scruton. How does a person become Hitler’s enemy number one? Not through espionage or violence, it turns out, but by striking fearlessly at the intellectual and spiritual roots of National Socialism. Dietrich von Hildebrand was a German Catholic thinker and teacher who devoted the full force of his intellect to breaking the deadly spell of Nazism that ensnared so many of his beloved countrymen. His story might well have been lost to us were it not for this memoir he penned in the last decades of his life at the request of his wife, Alice von Hildebrand. In My Battle Against Hitler, covering the years from 1921 to 1938, von Hildebrand tells of the scorn and ridicule he endured for sounding the alarm when many still viewed Hitler as a positive and inevitable force. He expresses the sorrow of having to leave behind his home, friends, and family in Germany to conduct his fight against the Nazis from Austria. He recounts how he defiantly challenged Nazism in the public square, prompting the German ambassador in Vienna to describe him to Hitler as "the architect of the intellectual resistance in Austria." And in the midst of all the danger he faced, he conveys his unwavering trust in God, even during his harrowing escape from Vienna and his desperate flight across Europe, with the Nazis always just one step behind. Dietrich von Hildebrand belongs to the very earliest anti-Nazi resistance. His public statements led the Nazis to blacklist him in 1921, long before the horrors of the Third Reich and more than 23 years before the assassination attempt on Hitler in July 1944. His battle would culminate in the countless articles he published in Vienna, a selection of which are featured in this volume. "It is an immense privilege," writes editor John Henry Crosby, founder of the Hildebrand Project, "to present to the world the shining witness of one man who risked everything to follow his conscience and stand in defiance of tyranny."

Robinson was mainly brought up by her grandparents. Her grandfather, known to her as Api, was an opthalmologist. Forty years after his death, she discovered a diary that he had kept beginning in April 1945, when he had left her and her grandmother in the countryside and returned to Berlin. Api had been an army doctor and as such, however reluctantly, he had had to join the Nazi Party. His diary is a heart-rending account of what is was like to live in Berlin as Hitler's Reich collapsed-- the hunger, the disease, the bombing, the threat of retribution from the occupiers-- and his struggle to survive, to shake off the stigma of being a Party member, to rebuild his life and to return to his beloved wife and granddaughter.

By early 1945, the destruction of the German Nazi State seems certain. The Allied forces, led by American generals George S. Patton and Dwight D. Eisenhower, are gaining control of Europe, leaving German leaders scrambling. Facing defeat, Adolf Hitler flees to a secret bunker with his new wife, Eva Braun, and his beloved dog, Blondi. It is there that all three would meet their end, thus ending the Third Reich and one of the darkest chapters of history. Hitler's Last Days is a gripping account of the death of one of the most reviled villains of the 20th century—a man whose regime of murder and terror haunts the world even today. Adapted from Bill O'Reilly's historical thriller Killing Patton, this book will have young readers—and grown-ups too—hooked on history. This thoroughly-researched and documented book can be worked into multiple aspects of the common core curriculum.

Edgar Trevelyan Stratford Dugdale (c. 1872 - 14 October 1964) was a translator, completing the first English translation of Mein Kampf. The first English translation of Mein Kampf was an abridgment by Edgar Dugdale, who started work on it in 1931, at the prompting of his wife Blanche. When he learned that the London publishing firm of Hurst & Blackett had secured the rights to publish an abridgment in the United Kingdom, he offered it gratis in April 1933. However, a local Nazi party representative insisted that the translation be further abridged before publication, so it was held back from the public until 13 October 1933, although excerpts were allowed to run in The Times in late July. In America, Houghton Mifflin secured the rights to the Dugdale abridgment on 29 July 1933. The only differences between the American and British versions are that the title was translated as My Struggle in the UK and My Battle in America; and that Dugdale is credited as translator in the U.S. edition, while the British version withheld his name.

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

Madman, tyrant, animal—history has given Adolf Hitler many names. In Mein Kampf (My Struggle), often called the Nazi bible, Hitler describes his life, frustrations, ideals, and dreams. Born to an impoverished couple in a small town in Austria, the young Adolf grew up with the fervent desire to become a painter. The death of his parents and outright rejection from art schools in Vienna forced him into underpaid work as a laborer. During the First World War, Hitler served in the infantry and was decorated for bravery. After the war, he became actively involved with socialist political groups and quickly rose to power, establishing himself as Chairman of the National Socialist German Worker's party. In 1924, Hitler led a coalition of nationalist groups in a bid to overthrow the Bavarian government in Munich. The infamous Munich "Beer-hall putsch" was unsuccessful, and Hitler was arrested. During the nine months he was in prison, an embittered and frustrated Hitler dictated a personal manifesto to his loyal follower Rudolph Hess. He vented his sentiments against communism and the Jewish people in this document, which was to become Mein Kampf, the controversial book that is seen as the blue-print for Hitler's political and military campaign. In Mein Kampf, Hitler describes his strategy for rebuilding Germany and conquering Europe. It is a glimpse into the mind of a man who destabilized world peace and pursued the genocide now known as the Holocaust.

Alone Against Hitler tells the lesser-known but pivotal story of former Austrian chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg. As one of the first leaders to defy Adolf Hitler during the buildup to WWII, his story is of lasting importance. Though young and untested upon entering office, von Schuschnigg courageously rejected the rising tide of Austrian Nazism, insisting on equal rights and respect for the Jewish minority. Jack Bray surveys the geopolitical conditions in Austria during the march to war, highlighting von Schuschnigg’s valiant four-year struggle to prevent his nearly defenseless small nation from being taken over from within by unrelenting, violent Austrian Nazis. Von Schuschnigg’s encounters with Hitler and other central characters of 1930s Germany (Himmler, Hess, Ribbentrop, Hindenburg, Goring, and Papen, as well as their ally, Mussolini) are recounted in scenes of high drama and vivid detail. For his daring defiance, and his refusal of offers to flee the Nazi invasion, von Schuschnigg paid a dear price—seven years in Nazi captivity and abuse to the point of breakdown. In one of Hitler’s final acts from the bunker where he would ultimately take his own life, the trembling fuhrer ordered von Schuschnigg to be killed. Just as von Schuschnigg was set to be executed, with the war at its eleventh hour, he received a near-miraculous deliverance. Although Kurt von Schuschnigg’s name may be unfamiliar now, he was for a brief moment at the center of world history, even gracing the cover of Time magazine in 1938. Alone Against Hitler profiles an oft-forgotten but crucially important figure in WWII history, celebrating the legacy of a man who bravely fought against evil.