Hitler and Stalin
The Tyrants and the Second World War
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4.6 • 5 Ratings
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
'You have to read it' Volodymyr Zelensky
'Laurence Rees brilliantly combines powerful eye-witness testimony, vivid narrative and compelling analysis in this superb account' Professor Sir Ian Kershaw, author of Hitler: Hubris and Hitler: Nemesis
'In this fascinating study of two monsters, Rees is extraordinarily perceptive and original' Antony Beevor
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Two tyrants. Each responsible for the death of millions.
This compelling book on Hitler and Stalin - the culmination of thirty years' work - examines the two leaders during the Second World War, when Germany and the Soviet Union fought the biggest and bloodiest war in history.
Hitler's charismatic leadership may contrast with Stalin's regimented rule by fear; and his intransigence later in the war may contrast with Stalin's change in behaviour in response to events. But as bestselling historian Laurence Rees shows, at a macro level, both were prepared to create undreamt-of suffering - in Hitler's case, most infamously the Holocaust - in order to build the utopias they wanted.
Using previously unpublished, startling eyewitness testimony from soldiers, civilians and those who knew both men personally, Laurence Rees - probably the only person alive who has met Germans who worked for Hitler and Russians who worked for Stalin - challenges long-held popular misconceptions about two of the most important figures in history. This is a master work from one of our finest historians.
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'Coming from one of the world's experts on the Second World War, this is an important and original - and devastating - account of Hitler and Stalin as dictators. A must read' Professor Robert Service, author of Stalin: A Biography
'Impressive . . . well paced and well informed with an eye for telling anecdotes and colourful character sketches . . . Rees' decision to add personal stories to his narrative adds an important layer to our understanding of both the dictators themselves and their victims' Robert Gerwarth, The Daily Telegraph
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Rees (The Holocaust) draws on eyewitness testimony to identify "key differences" between Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler in this informative yet somewhat skewed account. Stodgy bureaucrat Stalin was deeply committed to the Communist Party, according to Rees, while Hitler was a charismatic leader who regarded the National Socialist German Workers' Party as "disposable." Both leaders tried to build utopian societies (racist ideology shaped Hitler's vision; Stalin's was influenced by Marxism), yet Hitler's tendency to self-deceive blinded him to crippling military losses, and Stalin's growing paranoia sabotaged the Red Army, forcing 400,000 Russian soldiers into penal units and another 160,000 to their deaths as enemies of the state. Rees decisively interprets the thinking behind Hitler's actions, including the decision to invade the Soviet Union, yet tends to speculate when it comes to Stalin's strategies, concluding that it is "hard, if not impossible" to understand why Stalin proposed a military alliance with Britain and France, and offering "likely" reasons for why he miscalculated the 1939 invasion of Finland, which resulted in a humiliating loss for the Red Army. Despite the lack of balance, this richly detailed history powerfully documents "the destruction that tyrants with utopian visions can inflict upon the world."
