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“Who’s more interesting than Hitler? His career from a homeless person to the most admired, most powerful and then, rightly so, the most hated man in the world is unique in all of history,” he said.

Interestingly, the dictator does not come across as the shining leader he liked to present himself as in public. Some incidents described in the book are so bizarre that they could even pass as comical, if it wasn’t for their disastrous historical implications.

For instance, there was the day Hitler found himself surrounded by police in the house of an acquaintance named Erna Hanfstaengl after a botched attempt to overthrow the government of the Weimar Republic in November 1923. When the future dictator vocally announced that he’d rather kill himself than to go to jail, Hanfstaengl wrestled the gun from his hand in a “ jiujitsu move.” Hitler was subsequently arrested wearing only his “pajamas with a blue dressing gown.”

We want to shed light onto the evils of the past

One of the goals of his work, Sandner explained, was to shatter the myth surrounding the dictator even today. “Hitler himself is the best therapy.”

But is it really vital for the understanding of the darkest chapter of German history to know what Hitler had for lunch before he shot himself in the head in the Führerbunker with his Walther PPK pistol in 1945 (spaghetti with a light tomato sauce)? Probably not. Martin Sabrow, director of the Potsdam Center for Contemporary History, however, regards this aspect of the book as typical for the way in which Germans remember their past today: “There’s a strong desire for the authentic in our historical culture. … We want to shed light onto the evils of the past while keeping our distance at the same time.”