“Hitler: A Study in Tyranny”, by Alan Bullock

 

848 pages, Konecky & Konecky, ISBN-13: 978-1568520360

Alan Bullock’s – and that’s Alan Louis Charles Bullock, Baron Bullock, Fellow of the British Academy to you, bucko – Hitler: A Study in Tyranny was, at the time of its publication in 1952, quite the imposing achievement: a lengthy, scholarly tome appraising Hitler, warts and all and, for a while at least, the best Hitler biography out there, at least in the English language. And that’s not just me talkin’ either, bud: The New York Times said it was “the standard biography of the dictator and a widely respected work on the Nazi movement in general”; the historian Ian Kershaw described it as a “masterpiece”; while critic and gadfly Clive James said that “after more than 60 years, the first [book about Hitler] to read is still Alan Bullock’s Hitler: A Study in Tyranny”. So…yeah. And now for a little negativity: this book is badly dated, especially in its remarkably unsatisfactory portrait of the psychology of Hitler himself. To say, as Bullock does in this history, that Hitler was basically without an ideology is to make a mockery of his disturbing worldview and to commit an enormous gaffe in appreciating his basic character. That’s just one of the most noticeable issues, but there are many lesser ones involving sourcing issues, mixed-up chronologies, and a simple lack of information (to be fair, when Bullock wrote his history, the Nazi archives were still only just being sifted through).

Other, better biographies have been published since A Study in Tyranny: the above-mentioned Kershaw published a one-two punch called Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris (reviewed on March 5^th, 2014) and Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis (reviewed on March 6^th, 2014), while Hitler by Joachim C. Fest (reviewed on March 30^th, 2017) is, I believe, the best-ever biography of the son-of-a-bitch ever written. And so time has rather passed Bullock’s magnum opus by. With that said, it’s still a hell of a piece of scholarship, one which Fest and Kershaw made use of when they wrote their own biographies. Bullock offered a very balanced and plausible account of Hitler’s life, attempting to understand the dictator not as a demon, but as a (horrible) human being. Anyone interested in tantalizing controversies or messed-up theories will be disappointed with this book, as Bullock chose not to assess blame for such things as the Reichstag fire. Bullock dismissed the popular claim that Hitler changed his name from Schicklgruber and the myth that Hitler resorted to astrology in decision-making. Oh, and as for Geli Raubal, Bullock finds her best to be left as a mystery. Bullock took a conservative stance in his analysis focusing only on the known facts about Hitler’s life, not seedy speculation.

Bullock offered a thorough study of Hitler’s days in Vienna before the First World War and the ways in which this experience formed his political views, presenting him, accurately, not as the originator of future Nazi principles, but as a product of the anti-rational, anti-intellectual and anti-Semitic ideas that had been circulating in Europe for…well, for as long as Jews have been in Europe. His understanding of propaganda, oratory skills and practical exposure to street politics helped Hitler gain a following; ultimately, it was Hitler’s determination that prompted him to turn down enticing offers of a political position by Franz von Papen and Heinrich Brüning that were less than what he sought: the Chancellorship. During the Second World War, Hitler’s “warlord” image was transformed: “the human being disappears, absorbed into the historical figure of Der Führer”. Bullock also pointed out that this devotion to power led eventually to Hitler’s downfall.

Hitler: A Study in Tyranny can be a burdensome for pleasure reading; I doubt I will read it again, seeing as there are now other, more up-to-date biographies now available. But it is still a very enlightening biography for anyone who wants to honor a master of the biographical arts.