Hitler's Berlin Abused City Thomas Friedrich

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Format:: Paperback
Publication date:: 07 Jun 2016
ISBN:: 9780300219739
Imprint:: Yale University Press
Dimensions:: 496 pages: 235 x 156mm
Illustrations:: 33 b-w illus.

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How Berlin captivated Hitler's imagination, and how he sought to redesign the city to align with his obsessions and ambitions

From his first visit to Berlin in 1916, Hitler was preoccupied and fascinated by Germany's great capital city. In this vivid and entirely new account of Hitler's relationship with Berlin, Thomas Friedrich explores how Hitler identified with the city, how his political aspirations were reflected in architectural aspirations for the capital, and how Berlin surprisingly influenced the development of Hitler's political ideas.

A leading expert on the twentieth-century history of Berlin, Friedrich employs new and little-known German sources to track Hitler's attitudes and plans for the city. Even while he despised both the cosmopolitan culture of the Weimar Republic and the profound Jewish influence on the city, Hitler was drawn to the grandiosity of its architecture and its imperial spirit. He dreamed of transforming Berlin into a capital that would reflect his autocracy, and he used the city for such varied purposes as testing his anti-Semitic policies and demonstrating the might of the Third Reich. Illuminating Berlin's burdened years under Nazi subjection, Friedrich offers new understandings of Hitler and his politics, architectural views, and artistic opinions.

The late Thomas Friedrich grew up in Berlin and spent his adult life there. He was a museum curator and for many years was project leader for history at the Museum Education Service in Berlin.

"Our understanding of Hitler’s rise to power, of Berlin’s much debated role in it, of Hitler’s relations with the capital, and of the Nazi movement within Berlin have all been enhanced by the careful scholarship of this impressive volume."—Contemporary Review

“Fascinating.”—World War II

“A fascinating study of the politics, culture and architecture of Berlin.”—Washington Times

“Provocative, this work is of value to specialists as well as to graduate or undergraduate students interested in a nuanced, gritty, and detailed exploration of Hitler and Nazi activities … centered in the hub of the Weimar metropole.”—Douglas T. McGetchin, The Historian