The Devil’s Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich - Softcover

Wittman, Robert K; Kinney, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 000757665X ISBN 13: 9780007576654

Publisher: William Collins, 2017

Synopsis

An unprecedented, page-turning narrative of the Nazi rise to power, the Holocaust, and Hitler’s post-invasion plans for Russia told through the recently discovered lost diary of Alfred Rosenberg – Hitler’s ‘philosopher’ and architect of Nazi ideology.

Only recently discovered by former FBI agent Robert Wittman, the diary of Nazi philosopher Alfred Rosenberg, who led the Nazi party when Hitler was interned in 1923, is a ground-breaking document and an object of rumour, obsession and evil. Filled with observations, conversations and Nazi plans, it gives new details of Hitler’s rise to power and personal governance of the Reich. Not simply the Nazi ideological progenitor, Rosenberg was a core member of Hitler’s inner circle: his ideas for the Third Reich and the destruction it wrought laid the foundations for a brainwashed nation and gave its people the justification for the slaughter of millions; he helped plan the Nazi invasion and subsequent occupation of the Soviet Union and was named Reich Minister for the Eastern Territories.

With the first access to the diary's contents, ‘The Devil’s Diary’ is the thrilling story of Rosenberg; Robert Kempner, the German-born Jewish Nuremberg lawyer who prosecuted Göring and Frick and stole the diary; Henry Mayer, the archivist who has doggedly been searching for it for decades; and Bob Wittman, the former FBI agent who finally found it and returned it to its rightful place.

About this title

Review:

‘This engaging book deftly combines the various strands of the story ... Lively and well written ... Part detective story, part history book it restores Rosenberg to his rightful place ... A fascinating read’ The Times

‘Cannot be recommended too highly’ New York Journal of Books

‘A fascinating scholarly detective story centring on the often overlooked ideological architect of the Third Reich . . . The authors do an excellent job of teasing out the fine details and placing them in the larger context, in the bargain offering overdue acknowledgement of Kempner's many contributions to the short-lived effort to bring Nazis to judgement. A footnote to a much larger story but a welcome one’ Kirkus

Praise for Robert K Wittman:

‘A rollicking memoir ... investigative details dazzle ... Priceless can read at times, not unpleasantly, as if an art history textbook got mixed up at the printer with a screenplay for ‘The Wire’’ New York Times

‘Almost every case he recounts has enough intrigue and suspense for a Hollywood screenplay’ Washington Post

‘Genius ... riveting ... should be a TV series’ Los Angeles Times

From the Back Cover:

A groundbreaking World War II narrative wrapped in a riveting detective story, The Devil's Diary investigates the disappearance of a private diary penned by one of Adolf Hitler's top aides--Alfred Rosenberg, his "chief philosopher"--and mines its long-hidden pages to deliver an eye-opening account of the Nazi rise to power and the genesis of the Holocaust.

The diary was discovered hidden in a Bavarian castle at war's end, but after Rosenberg was convicted of war crimes at Nuremberg and executed, the pages mysteriously vanished. More than half a century later, Robert K. Wittman learned of the diary when the chief archivist for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum contacted him at the FBI to say that someone was trying to sell it for more than a million dollars. The phone call sparked a decade-long hunt. From the crusading Nuremberg prosecutor who smuggled the diary out of Germany to the man who finally turned it over, everyone had reasons for hiding the truth.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Collins
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 000757665X
• ISBN 13: 9780007576654
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 528