Hitler's Secret Book

First, I found this book to be rather tedious. The book tends to ramble, repeat, wander, and so forth. It is not a well structured discourse. However, the book contains a number of interesting (and almost prophetic) insights into German mistakes in past foreign policy. These tend to be prophetic in the sense that Hitler repeated those exact patterns he identified as mistakes as the WWII progressed. I suppose hindsight is always 20/20..... Similarly the book is sheds some light on the view of race that Hitler held. He discusses racial differences between the Spartans and Persians and assumes that the differences there, not differences of social organization or military technology, made the major differences in war. Hitler's single-minded focus on race and lebensraum together help to explain not only the developments regarding the Holocaust but also major strategic blunders in the war. For example, he believed that the Russians were incapable of building states that could withstand invasion, so he expected them to fall quickly when attacked. On the whole I would recommend this work to anyone interested in history of WWII.

After reading the reviews of this book I think serious history buffs need to know the history, the facts of this book. Weinberg discovered the original manuscript while working with captured war documents in Wash. D.C. after the war. It was published in German by Bavaria who owned the copyright to such things in 1961 with Weinbergs notes and introduction. Grove Press with Telford Taylor pirated it and issued a very poor translation and even used Weinbergs notes. Put the 2 books together and you will see that. That book quickly bombed as scholars and serious history buffs recognized the poor translation. Weinberg's Hitler's Second Book is a top notched translation of Hitler's words and contain well researched notes and introduction by Weinberg and this edition is being used by schools and Universities ---the pirated edition never was. Thus far, Bavaria has not given anyone or any country permission to translate this manuscript besides Weinberg. If one wants to compare this translation, the only true way is to get the original German edition. Otherwise, trust the professional literary reviews.

Having read Hitler's most celebrated tract, "Mein Kampf" twice, I was extremely pleased to discover the lesser known piece by this author (actually written before his association with his latter days adie-de-camp, and brutal editor, Rudolf Hess) and found the style much more contiguous, the structure less choppy and the content wholly logical and reasonable to digest. Truly worth reading in order to better understand the ideology and character (and person) of perhaps the most maligned intellect of modern history.