Reveals the daily occurrences in the history of the Third Reich, and the disintegration of the Nazi High Command, through the eyes of Goebbels, one of Hitler's closest confidants

Diaries of Joseph Goebbels, second in command to Adolf Hitler.

Joseph Goebbels was one of Adolf Hitler’s most loyal acolytes. But how did this club-footed son of a factory worker rise from obscurity to become Hitler’s malevolent minister of propaganda, most trusted lieutenant and personally anointed successor? In this definitive one-volume biography, renowned German Holocaust historian Peter Longerich sifts through the historical record – and thirty thousand pages of Goebbels’s own diary entries – to answer that question. Longerich paints a chilling picture of a man driven by a narcissistic desire for recognition who found the personal affirmation he craved within the virulently racist National Socialist movement – and whose lifelong search for a charismatic father figure inexorably led him to Hitler. This comprehensive biography documents Goebbels’ ascent through the ranks of the Nazi Party, where he became a member of the Führer’s inner circle and launched a brutal campaign of anti-Semitic propaganda. Goebbels delivers fresh and important insight into how the Nazi message of hate was conceived, nurtured, and disseminated, and shreds the myth of Goebbels’ own genius for propaganda. It also reveals a man dogged by insecurities and – though endowed with near-dictatorial control of the media – beset by bureaucratic infighting. And, as never before, Longerich exposes Goebbels’s twisted personal life – his mawkish sentimentality, manipulative nature, and voracious sexual appetite. This complete portrait of the man behind Hitler’s message is sure to become a standard for historians and students of the Holocaust for decades to come.

As the Minister for Propaganda and Culture, Joseph Goebbels shaped the German people’s perception of the Nazi Party, drumming up public support for anti-Semitism and the war effort through films, speeches, and restrictions on the press and other media. This biography covers his life and the progression of his career from a brilliant young student prejudiced against Jews to a powerful leader who worshipped Hitler and fervently supported the Holocaust. Goebbels’ legacy as a master of propaganda is explored, while sidebars include features on Holocaust remembrance events and the seventy-fifth anniversary of Kristallnacht.

The sheer magnitude of the Holocaust has commanded our attention for the past sixty years. The extent of atrocities, however, has overshadowed the calculus Nazis used to justify their deeds. According to German wartime media, it was German citizens who were targeted for extinction by a vast international conspiracy. Leading the assault was an insidious, belligerent Jewish clique, so crafty and powerful that it managed to manipulate the actions of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. Hitler portrayed the Holocaust as a defensive act, a necessary move to destroy the Jews before they destroyed Germany. Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, and Otto Dietrich’s Press Office translated this fanatical vision into a coherent cautionary narrative, which the Nazi propaganda machine disseminated into the recesses of everyday life. Calling on impressive archival research, Jeffrey Herf recreates the wall posters that Germans saw while waiting for the streetcar, the radio speeches they heard at home or on the street, the headlines that blared from newsstands. The Jewish Enemy is the first extensive study of how anti-Semitism pervaded and shaped Nazi propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust, and how it pulled together the diverse elements of a delusionary Nazi worldview. Here we find an original and haunting exposition of the ways in which Hitler legitimized war and genocide to his own people, as necessary to destroy an allegedly omnipotent Jewish foe. In an era when both anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories continue to influence world politics, Herf offers a timely reminder of their dangers along with a fresh interpretation of the paranoia underlying the ideology of the Third Reich.

The author of the international bestseller The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers a personal account of life in Nazi Germany at the start of WWII. By the late 1930s, Adolf Hitler, Führer of the Nazi Party, had consolidated power in Germany and was leading the world into war. A young foreign correspondent was on hand to bear witness. More than two decades prior to the publication of his acclaimed history, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer was a journalist stationed in Berlin. During his years in the Nazi capital, he kept a daily personal diary, scrupulously recording everything he heard and saw before being forced to flee the country in 1940. Berlin Diary is Shirer’s first-hand account of the momentous events that shook the world in the mid-twentieth century, from the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia to the fall of Poland and France. A remarkable personal memoir of an extraordinary time, it chronicles the author’s thoughts and experiences while living in the shadow of the Nazi beast. Shirer recalls the surreal spectacles of the Nuremberg rallies, the terror of the late-night bombing raids, and his encounters with members of the German high command while he was risking his life to report to the world on the atrocities of a genocidal regime. At once powerful, engrossing, and edifying, William L. Shirer’s Berlin Diary is an essential historical record that illuminates one of the darkest periods in human civilization.

Part biography and part horror, Manvell and Fraenkel delve deep into the mystery shrouding one of Hitler's most evil henchman. Using first-hand accounts from the Nuremberg Trials; by Goebbel's sister Maria; and from the fiance of his youth, Else, Goebbel's carefully crafted character is ripped apart to reveal a boy determined to overcome youthful disabilities and prove, above all, his devotion and dedication to his country. --