The Last Days of Hitler [VINTAGE 1947]

Trevor-Roper, H.R.

Published by The Macmillan Company, New York, 1947

Fine condition black cloth boards with red spine lettering. Includes Author's Preface; List of Illustrations; Foreword by Marshal of the R.A.F., Lord Tedder G.C.B. Deputy Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force 1943-1945, dated 21st October 1946; Epilogue; Note on Sources; Appendix: The Execution of Fegelein; and Index. Illustrated with a black-and-white Plan of Hitler's Bunker, Hitler's Will (Last page of his "Political Testament," showing signatures); rear endpapers entitled Sketch Map of West and Central Berlin (showing escape-routes used 29 April - 1 May 1945), and a black-and-white photographic plate frontispiece showing Hitler and Himmler (captured photograph from S.S. Hauptamt). "There used to be a school of historical thought which held that the course of human history was determined largely by political and economic factors rather than by the characters and actions of individuals. My own experience during this last war has emphasized to me the immense, and in some cases decisive influence exercised on the course of events by individual personalities. In the past it has rarely been possible for the effects of the personality and character of individual leaders to be assessed other than by the study of documents. Their writings may have been recorded; their words may have been memorized; the life had gone out of them. History written on such a basis is inevitably liable to distortion due to point of view or due to incomplete evidence. Here on the other hand we have history written from living material. Mr. Trvor-Roper, as an intelligence officer, was given the task of uncovering step by step the events of Hitler's last few weeks of life. In discharging this duty he has produced a piece of history which is as living as it is accurate, and as monumental as the scale of events he recalls. Although Hitler is dead, the agonies he brought on mankind are still alive, and however much mystery he attempted to weave around his personal activities, they have been laid bare by the flood of living testimony and documentary material which has become available since Germany's capitulation. There is no possibility of distortion in this case. Mr. Trevor-Roper's story sets the seal on Nuremberg. Hitler was not one who was prepared to allow history to follow any predetermined political or economic course. In a megalomania fired by almost hypnotic personality he set himself to determine the pattern of the history of Europe for a thousand years. Here was a man who by ordinary standards would be judged insane, yet it took the combined might of the British Commonwealth, of the United States and of the Soviet Republic to pull Hitler's lunatic structure to the ground. It is not for me to attempt to point lessons to be drawn from the horrid madhouse which was Hitler's court, or from the fantastic debacle which is depicted in this record. I can only be unutterably thankful that the lunatic devotion of the madman's judgment pervaded every aspect of German activity. Never before has the truth of the old saying been so conclusively borne out, "Whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad." May no nation in the world ever again allow itself to be led by a megalomaniac. 21st Octover 1946." - from the Foreword. Seller Inventory # 004454

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Last Days of Hitler [VINTAGE 1947]
Publisher: The Macmillan Company, New York
Publication Date: 1947
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Fine
Edition: 1st Edition