Goebbels
  • Published: 16 May 2016
  • ISBN: 9780099523697
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 992
  • RRP: $39.99
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Goebbels

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EBook
7 May 2015
Paperback
16 May 2016
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A revelatory biography of Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, from renowned German Holocaust historian Peter Longerich.

Joseph Goebbels was one of Adolf Hitler’s most loyal acolytes. But how did this club-footed son of a factory worker rise from obscurity to become Hitler’s malevolent minister of propaganda, most trusted lieutenant and personally anointed successor?

In this definitive one-volume biography, renowned German Holocaust historian Peter Longerich sifts through the historical record – and thirty thousand pages of Goebbels’s own diary entries – to answer that question. Longerich paints a chilling picture of a man driven by a narcissistic desire for recognition who found the personal affirmation he craved within the virulently racist National Socialist movement – and whose lifelong search for a charismatic father figure inexorably led him to Hitler.

This comprehensive biography documents Goebbels’ ascent through the ranks of the Nazi Party, where he became a member of the Führer’s inner circle and launched a brutal campaign of anti-Semitic propaganda. Goebbels delivers fresh and important insight into how the Nazi message of hate was conceived, nurtured, and disseminated, and shreds the myth of Goebbels’ own genius for propaganda. It also reveals a man dogged by insecurities and – though endowed with near-dictatorial control of the media – beset by bureaucratic infighting. And, as never before, Longerich exposes Goebbels’s twisted personal life – his mawkish sentimentality, manipulative nature, and voracious sexual appetite.

This complete portrait of the man behind Hitler’s message is sure to become a standard for historians and students of the Holocaust for decades to come.
  • Published: 16 May 2016
  • ISBN: 9780099523697
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 992
  • RRP: $39.99
Categories:

About the author

Peter Longerich

Peter Longerich is Professor of Modern German History at Royal Holloway University of London, and founder of Royal Holloway's Holocaust Research Centre. He has published extensively on Nazi Germany, including the acclaimed biography Heinrich Himmler, Holocaust: The Nazi Murder and the Persecution of the Jews, The Unwritten Order: Hitler's Role in the Final Solution, and The Systematic Character of the National Socialist Policy for the Extermination of the Jews.

Praise for Goebbels

[A] grimly compelling new biography

Mail on Sunday

A landmark biography

Daily Mail

Meticulous in its detail… a major work of scholarship

Ben Shephard, Observer

It does for Goebbels what Ian Kershaw's two-volume biography did for Hitler, providing a worthy, dependable life that will stand as a benchmark for a generation... It is very much to be welcomed

Roger Moorhouse, Wall Street Journal

An impressive achievement... illuminating … indispensable

Richard J Evans

An instant classic... Awe-inspiring

Times Higher Education

[An] important addition to the bibliography of the Third Reich. Meticulously researched, it is both revisionist and highly readable

Tim Bouverie, 5 stars, Daily Telegraph

Peter Longerich wrote a life of Himmler of such quality that no one will need to think for decades of writing another. This year, he has produced an even better book, about Goebbels

Simon Heffer, Daily Telegraph

Authoritative, absorbing and chilling

John Gray, New Statesman

Longerich’s magisterial life of Goebbels will stand the test of time as the most authoritative account available of a deeply unpleasant but historically significant man

Robert Gerwarth, Irish Times

A fascinating, chilling and exceedingly well-researched book

Edzard Ernst, Times Higher Education

Longerich succeeds in rendering a revealing psychological study of a narcissistic, compulsive personality who was willingly subservient to his idol

Good Book Guide

The most comprehensive account we have of Goebbels’s life

David Blackbourn, Guardian

Monumental, meticulous and grimly fascinating study

Simon Scott Plummer, Tablet

Definitive study.

Simon Shaw, Mail On Sunday

Intriguing biography.

Roger Boyes, The Times

Psychologically driven work of considerable scholarship. *****

Daily Telegraph