Letters to Hitler - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0745648738 ISBN 13: 9780745648736

Publisher: Polity, 2012

Synopsis

Between 1925 and 1945 thousands of ordinary Germans of both sexes and all ages wrote letters to Hitler. Lost for decades, a large cache of these letters was recently discovered in the KGB Special Archive in Moscow, having been carted off to Russia by the Soviet Secret Police at the end of the war.

The letters range from gushing love letters - ‘I love you so much. Write to me, please,’ this from a seven-year old girl named Gina - to letters from teachers, students, priests, businessmen and others expressing gratitude for alleviating poverty or restoring dignity to the German people. There are a few protest letters and the occasional desperate plea to release a loved one from a concentration camp, but the overwhelming majority are positive and even rapturous, shedding fresh light on the nature of the Hitler cult in Nazi Germany.

This volume is the first publication of these letters in English. It comprises a selection of the letters and includes a contextualizing commentary that explains the situation of each writer, how the letter was dealt with and what it tells us about Nazi Germany. The commentary also describes the bureaucratic procedures that evolved to deal with the correspondence (Hitler never read any of it), which ranged from warm thanks to referral to the Gestapo.

About this title

About the Author:

Henrik Eberle is lecturer at the University of Halle.

Victoria Harris is a Research Fellow at King's College, Cambridge.

 

Review:

"A valuable addition to the available sources. There is also a lot here for the general reader: the letters are often surprising in tone and content, and sometimes funny."
Literary Review

"A historic gem ... Eberle's work is an interesting but chilling case study on how a seemingly educated and mature society can be manipulated to the point of blind fanaticism."
Morning Star

"Sheds a whole new light on life under the Nazis."
Daily Express

"An excellent example of the increased drive to portray history from the ordinary, everyday people - if that's what Hitler's followers could be called."
Review 31

"A history of the Third Reich at its most personal and individual; from the fawning letters of sycophants to desperate pleas for clemency from both active opponents and innocents swept up in terror ... an excellent book."
The Australian

"The letters have, like something from a Hans Fallada novel, the stamp of grimy, gritty truth."
The Age

"Gripping evidence on the relationship between Hitler and some ordinary Germans."
Australian Journal of Politics and History

"A unique and captivating view of one nation's devotion to its dictator."
Deseret News

"This collection of letters to Hitler from ordinary Germans is full of fascinating and sometimes disturbing testimonies to the charismatic power of the Nazi dictator. It adds notably to our knowledge of the German people's attitudes towards the Third Reich and its policies."
Richard J Evans, University of Cambridge

"This collection of letters to Hitler provides unique and fascinating insights into the social-psychological climate of the times. Here published for the first time in English, the long-lost letters from ordinary citizens read like voices from the past. Perhaps most strikingly they reveal loyalties to and support for a dictator and a regime we are still struggling to understand."
Robert Gellately, author of Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany

About this edition

• Publisher: Polity
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0745648738
• ISBN 13: 9780745648736
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240
• Editor: Eberle Henrik