Kind of long-winded but it goes through various theories about who was most responsible for the Holocaust, Hitler or his underlings or German people, and how evil was he really? Skimmed the last third of it since it was a hard slog to get through. Author could have abridged it, I think ! One controversy is interesting : either Hitler felt he was doing the right thing and felt no shame, or he was delighting in his evil, knowing it for what it was. ( )

XPLAINING HITLER:THE SEARCH FOR THE ORIGINS OF HIS EVILS BY RON ROSENBAUM takes the reader back to the beginning; Hitlers grandmother, a servant girl perportibly raped by her Jewish employer. Hitlers father's birth, half Jewish and finally Hitler himself. His past, his future and his early life and the theories of why and how Hitler came to loathe the Jews and determined that the extermination of them was necessary.

The book though weighty,over 400 pages, and loaded with various authors and theories gives the readers a peak back in time to try to reason out why Hitler hated the Jews so much that he and the Nazi's slaughtered millions. The amount of information can be a little overwhelming but if you are interested in the history this is a pretty good source. ( )

Lungo, complesso, a tratti veramente pesante e, per me, non sempre comprensibile. Più che un libro su Hitler, uno studio attorno a Hitler che si occupa delle spesso sostanzialmente diverse interpretazioni che di questo enigma storico e umano sono state date dal 1945 in qua. Alla fine si resta, probabilmente, con molte più domande di quante non se ne avessero all'inizio della lettura e con solo qualche abbozzo di risposta ma questo è, probabilmente, l'effetto che fanno i libri veramente importanti. Quattro stelle a lui, due a me. ( )

Dove e quando ha inizio la vera storia di Adolf Hitler? Rosenbaum affronta tutti gli interrogativi che, a partire dall'immediato dopoguerra, hanno diviso storici, filosofi e psicologi, animati dalla volontà di scandagliare la psiche dell'uomo che ha incarnato il Male del XX secolo (fonte: Google Books)

Didn't read all of this ( it's about a third too long ) The introduction pretty much covers the whole idea, the rest is just details. ( )