Book One: The Rise of Adolf Hitler
- In this first chapter of Book One: The Rise of Adolf Hitler, Shirer begins his narrative in medias res—that is, at a point in the middle of the story rather than at the beginning.
- The setting is January 1933. In Berlin, the Weimar Republic is about to take a heavy hit as a young National Socialist politician—Adolf Hitler—is appointed Chancellor of the German Reich.
- Shirer takes note of the political intrigues going on in Berlin as the days of Hitler's appointment approached, then describes the moment that Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor.
- Pre-planned celebrations erupted in Berlin, as tens of thousands of Nazi storm troopers marched in the streets, holding torches to light the dark January night.
The Advent of Adolf Hitler
- Having set the scene for the rise and fall of the Third Reich, Shirer backtracks to a point in time before the birth of the book's protagonist, and tells us a little bit about Hitler's genealogy.
- First, he gives us a few broad details about the would-be Fuehrer's birth and upbringing, paying particular attention to his birth in Austria and his obsessive belief that Austria and Germany should be united as one.
- (In fact, Hitler thought that all ethnic Germans should be part of a greater Germany, which is ultimately what led him to occupy Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Austria—lots of ethnic Germans lived there.)
- Shirer then goes on to trace the precise details of Hitler's birth, and provides a detailed account of the Hitler family tree.
- Hitler's original family name was Schicklgruber; his father changed it. Shirer wonders if Hitler would have risen to power with that name; he doesn't think people would have gone around saluting and saying "Heil Schicklgruber!"
The Early Life of Adolf Hitler
- Shirer tells us about the values, ideologies, and education that shaped young Adolf Hitler's mind, and he begins by discussing Hitler's boyhood years as a young student in Austria.
- Drawing on Hitler's autobiographical commentary in Mein Kampf, Shirer takes note of Hitler's early ambition to be an artist. He also records the young man's deep disdain for most of his childhood teachers, whom he tends to describe as "mentally deranged" or "honest-to-God lunatics." (1.1.48-52)
- Among his teachers, there was one whom Hitler did admire. His name was Dr. Leopold Poetsch, and he not only taught history to the young Adolf Hitler, but also seems to have nurtured the young man's fledgling fanatical nationalism.
- Shirer goes on to describe the after-effects of the death of Hitler's father, Alois Hitler, in 1903. Hitler wasn't quite fourteen years old at the time, but within two years—as he was nearing his sixteenth birthday—he'd dropped out of school.
- Hitler decided not to find work that would help him support his struggling, widowed mother, but instead dreamed of his future as an artist and spent his days relaxing on the banks of the Danube River. His mother supported him financially for three years. He loved those years.
- Does the phrase "teenage dirtbag" spring to mind?
- Shirer notes that by his mid-teens, Adolf Hitler already felt contempt for non-Germans in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as well as a total devotion to everything German.
- As Shirer puts it: "At sixteen he had become what he was to remain till his dying breath: a fanatical German nationalist." (1.1.70)
- Finally, Shirer says a few words about Hitler's decision to move to Vienna—a decision that he explores in more detail in the section to come.
"The Saddest Period of My Life"
- Shirer begins this section by noting that his four years in Vienna—from 1909 to 1913—turned out to be completely miserable for the young Hitler.
- Drawing largely from the pages of Mein Kampf, Shirer describes Hitler's poverty and vagrancy in Vienna, doing odd jobs, living on the streets or in hovels, and being constantly hungry.
- Poor Hitler.
- The young man was also reading voraciously at the time, already forming the fanatical ideas that the world would unfortunately soon come to know so well.
The Budding Ideas of Adolf Hitler
- During his years in Vienna, Hitler began to follow Austrian politics very closely. As he observed the politicians and political groups in the city, he took note of the strategies and tactics that were making and breaking the local political parties.
- Shirer argues that it was during these years of careful observation that Hitler learned the basic lessons that would shape Nazi Party politics in the years to come, including the importance of propaganda, the value of terrorizing the populace, and the importance of winning the support of powerful, established institutions like the church, the Army, or heads of state.
- It was during these years that Hitler learned the value of oratorical power.
- As he wraps up his words on Hitler's political "education" in Vienna, Shirer revisits the young would-be Fuehrer's anti-Semitism.
- In Mein Kampf, Hitler claims that it was during his time in Vienna that he first began to consider the significance of Jewish populations in Europe, but Shirer argues that this simply isn't true, that Hitler's anti-Semitism was pretty extreme long beforehe moved to Vienna.
- He admits, though, that Hitler certainly nurtured his hatred during those years. The young would-be Fuehrer immersed himself in the readily available anti-Semitic literature in Vienna.
- He couldn't stand living among the Jews, Poles, and Czechs in Vienna—just about anyone who wasn't German revolted him.
- He began to realize that ethnic Germans should be in control of those "inferior" races.
- He wrote that all young people in Austria believed that Austria and Germany were destined to be a single country.
- In 1913, at 24, Hitler moved to Germany; he said his heart had always been there. He arrived with confidence in himself and an oversized sense of mission and destiny.
- Shirer speculates that the real reason he left was to avoid being drafted into the Austrian army, where he'd have to serve alongside Slavs and Jews.
- Not long after his move to Germany, a major historical event gave the young would-be Fuehrer a chance for a new direction in his life. War broke out in 1914, and Hitler enlisted in the German Army right away.