The Hitler Book - The Secret Report by His Two Closest Aides

The Hitler Book - The Secret Report by His Two Closest Aides

edited by Henrik Eberle and Matthias Uhl, translated by Giles MacDonogh

John Murray, HK$135

Ignore the subtitle of this paperback edition because the selling point is Josef Stalin, for whom this account was written. The Hitler Book is Giles MacDonogh's translation of German historians Henrik Eberle and Matthias Uhl's translation of the Russian in file No462a, found in the former Soviet archives. It's a copy made by Nikita Khrushchev in 1959 of a report delivered to Stalin in 1949, after the interrogation of Adolf Hitler's valet, Heinz Linge, and adjutant Otto Gunsche, both who confirmed that Hitler was dead. 'The dossier's authors avoided telling Stalin things he didn't want to hear,' observed The Times. The first 30 pages - a foreword by British historian Richard Overy, the translator's preface and the editors' introduction - put what follows into context. This is at times a fascinating view of two tyrants at war for control of greater Europe. The original document, presumably covered in Stalin's habitual jottings, notes and marginalia, is apparently among other Kremlin 'treasures' in Russian President Vladimir Putin's safe.