R. H. S. Stolfi’s Book: Hitler: Beyond Evil

http://lukeford.net/blog/?p=97794

Panel: https://twitter.com/RebDoooovid
https://auis.academia.edu/OttoPohl (Historian)
Claire Khaw: http://thevoiceofreason-ann.blogspot.com/

Jewish Book Council: R. H. S. Stolfi’s premise, that Adolf Hitler did not think of himself as an evil man doing evil deeds, is diametrically opposed to other biographers’ theories of Hitler, the man. Stolfi professes that Hitler was underestimated by his enemies as well as historians and his biographers. Stolfi quotes Ian Kershaw, a recent biographer of Hitler, as saying that “someone with so few intellectual gifts and social attributes ….was no more than an empty vessel outside of his political life….” In Stolfi’s opinion, Hitler was a talented architect, a good artist (not a mediocre one as is often described), and a music aficionado as well as a heroic front-line soldier of World War I. The common bias of Hitler’s previous biographers, according to Stolfi, is that a fear of interpretation leading to comprehension of the man, might also be considered an apology for his actions. All of Hitler’s previous biographers began their studies from a viewpoint of contempt for the man, rather than an openness to learn about him. Stolfi sees Adolf Hitler as a self-proclaimed messiah.