Selling Hitler: The Story of the Hitler Diaries

by Robert Harris

‘Si monumentum requiris, circumspice,’ concludes Alan Bullock’s study of Hitler: ‘If you seek his monument, look around.’ The division of Germany, the exhaustion of British power, the entrenchment and paranoia of Soviet Russia, the denials of freedom in the Eastern half of Europe, the entanglement of America in the Western half, the creation of the State of Israel and the consequent instability of the Middle East – all, in a sense, have been bequeathed to us by Adolf Hitler. His name has become a synonym for evil.

There are twice as many biographies of Hitler as there are of Winston Churchill; three times as many as there are of Roosevelt and Stalin. Only Jesus Christ has had more words devoted to him than Hitler.