Hitler's War

Using information gleaned from German military records and archives, as well as from the unpublished diaries, notes and correspondence of the Reich's top ministers, noted historian David Irving explores the strategies, objectives and execution of Hitler's War from the breathtaking and often surprising perspective of Adolf Hitler himself. This shocking, controversial best seller stunned the European continent with its startling revelations about Germany's ultimate dictator. It is unique among biographies in its method of describing an event—WWII as through the eyes of one of the dictators himself. "What Hitler did not order, or did not learn, does not figure in this book," explains the author. "The narrative of events unfolds in the precise sequence that Hitler himself became involved in them." For instance, the first that the reader knows of a plot against Hitler's life is when Count von Stauffenberg's bomb explodes beneath the table at the Fuehrer's headquarters. It is an unusual technique, but it works. The book sold 25,000 copies in its first UK hardback edition, and it was often reprinted (Macmillan, Ltd.) and translated. It became an approved reference work at West Point and Sandhurst, and it figures prominently in university libraries around the world, because it quotes documents that other historians have failed to find. In 1991 Focal Point, an imprint founded in 1980, published a new Deluxe edition, updated and including The War Path, the narrative of Hitler's prewar years.