Reviewed by Phil Overeem (Language Arts)
The title is deceptive: Rosenbaum's book explores the world of "Hitler Explainers," distinguished scholars across the globe who have tried to "unpack" one of history's most ominous mysteries. If one thinks about it long enough, one realizes that the questions these men spent (and are still spending) time answering are often essential ones about the human race. I have seldom been as absorbed in a book or as enthusiastic about making someone listen to me talk about it for 30 interrupted minutes. ( )

3116 Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil, by Ron Rosenbaum (read 1 Oct 1998) This is a most extraordinary book. It is full of investigative detail, though it is not written like an investigative reporter's book. It delves into the many rumors and hidden things of Hitler's life, spending a lot of time on his half-niece, Geli Raubal, who shot herself in Hitler's apartment on Sept 18, 1931, and also on the possibility that Hitler was one-fourth Jewish. And on many other things related to Hitler and those who have written about him. This is a heavy, excellent book, provoking one to serious thought. ( )

Formidable, fascinating, rigorous look at attempts to explain how the world ended up with Hilter. I'm a big Ron fan from his NY Observer columns, but this book really best conveys his skeptical, warm, curious intellect looking for god, truth, evil and humanity around an excruciating subject. This book led me to many, many other books on WWII and the Nazis. ( )

Debates concerning the historical and moral significance of Adolf Hitler have gone on since the beginning of his rise to power in Germany. In the decades after his bunker suicide, those debates elevated to arguments over the very nature and existence of evil. An integral part of the arguments has been the ongoing attempt to understand the why of Hitler. In this engaging work of literary journalism, Ron Rosenbaum travels the world to converse with some of the historians, philosophers, filmmakers, and others who have attempted to make sense of Hitler's actions, to find a root cause for the Holocaust.

Rosenbaum methodically examines the evidence for and against all the major hypotheses concerning the origin of Hitler's character. He sifts through all the rumors--including his alleged Jewish ancestry and what biographer Alan Bullock refers to as "the one-ball business"--and the attempts to derive some psychological cause from them. Various Hitlers emerge: Hitler as con man and brutal gangster, Hitler the unspeakable pervert, Hitler the ladies' man, Hitler as modernist artist working in the medium of evil....

But Rosenbaum's portrayals of those who would define Hitler are as fascinating as the shifting perspectives on the fÜhrer. Here we see the brave journalists of the Munich Post who attempted to reveal Hitler's evil to the world as early as the 1920s. We witness Shoah director Claude Lanzmann's imperious attempts to stifle analysis of Hitler and the Holocaust, branding such historical inquiries as "obscene." We see the effects, on a frazzled Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, of the controversy surrounding the publication of his Hitler's Willing Executioners. We see the interior crises of Hitler apologist David Irving and philosopher-novelist George Steiner, among others, as they struggle with the ramifications of their work and thought. And, best of all, we have Rosenbaum to serve as an informed, intimate, and on occasion witty guide. In White Noise, Don DeLillo depicted the satirical academic discipline of "Hitler studies;" Ron Rosenbaum breathes a life into the field that no fiction can match. --Ron Hogan

Seeking explanations for Hitler's monumental evil and the Holocaust, Rosenbaum traveled from Vienna and Munich to London, Paris and Jerusalem, interviewing leading historians, biographers, philosophers, psychologists and theologians. While this convoluted, selective survey of Hitler scholarship will frustrate readers looking for hard answers, it offers groundbreaking insights into the enigma of Hitler's psyche.

When Hitler's war ended in 1945, the war over Hitler--who he really was, what gave birth to his unique evil--had just begun. Hitler did not escape the bunker in Berlin but, half a century later, he has managed to escape explanation in ways both frightening and profound. Explaining Hitler is an extraordinary quest, an expedition into the war zone of Hitler theories. This is a passionate, enthralling book that illuminates what Hitler explainers tell us about Hitler, about the explainers, and about ourselves.