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Part 4 of 4

Brigitte Hamann
Hitler’s Vienna: A Portrait of the Tyrant as a Young Man
London: Tauris, 2010

The First Autiste: Hitler’s Self-Education[1]

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4,508 words

Part 3

Hitler is awake all the 24 hours of the day in perfecting his sadhana [self-transcendence]. He wins because he pays the price. His inventions surprise his enemies. But it is his single-minded devotion to his purpose that should be the object of our admiration and emulation. Although he works all his waking hours, his intellect is unclouded and unerring. Are our intellects unclouded and unerring? — Mahatma Gandhi[1]  (more…)

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Part 2

Racial Pioneers: Aryan Mystics, Pan-Germans, & Eugenicists

The Slavization of Austrian mass politics and the Judaization of its elites naturally invited a backlash from the state’s founding population, the Germans. This took various forms, especially the Right-wing ethno-nationalist subculture of the pan-Germans and the more pragmatic, anti-Semitic populism of the Christian-Socials.  (more…)

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Brigitte Hamann
Hitler’s Vienna: A Portrait of the Tyrant as a Young Man
London: Tauris, 2010

My colleague Andrew Hamilton has asked: “What is the best Hitler biography?”[1] While, as so often in Hitler studies, no conclusive answer is possible, surely Brigitte Hamann’s Hitler’s Vienna is an excellent contender for the position. This highly detailed and readable book may well be the single best volume for understanding the origins and context of Adolf Hitler and National Socialism, (more…)