Was Hitler a Riddle‪?‬

A study of what western leaders knew about Adolf Hitler and Nazi ideology & policies before the outbreak of World War II.

Was Hitler A Riddle? is the first comparative study of how British, French, and American diplomats serving in Germany assessed Hitler and the Nazi movement. These assessments provided the governments in London, Paris, and Washington with ample information about the ruthlessness of the authorities in Germany and of their determination to conquer vast stretches of Europe. Had the British, French, and American leaders acted on this information and taken measures to rein in Hitler, the history of the twentieth century would have been far less bloody: the second world war might well have been avoided, the Soviet Union would not have expanded into central and eastern Europe, and the world would have been spared the Cold War.

Praise for Was Hitler a Riddle?

“A pioneering work of great importance.” —Walter Laquer

“Ascher is succinct, insightful, and convincing.” —Evan Bukey, University of Arkansas

“[A vast majority] . . . probably assume that the leaders of Great Britain, France, and the United States simply did not know what was happening in the early years of the Third Reich, much less understand it. Abraham Ascher’s concise book Was Hitler a Riddle? definitively dispels this explanation. In what can only be described as a model of how properly to write scholarly history aimed at a broader audience, Ascher establishes that western leaders knew a great deal about Adolf Hitler, the Nazi Party’s ideology, and the policies of the new regime long before the German invasion of Poland.” —Russel Lemmons