{"title":"Books by Volker Ullrich","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780099590231","title":"Hitler: Volume I","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eSelected as a Book of the Year by the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times, Times Literary Supplement \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e The Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDespite his status as the most despised political figure in history, there have only been four serious biographies of Hitler since the 1930s. Even more surprisingly, his biographers have been more interested in his rise to power and his methods of leadership than in Hitler the person: some have even declared that the Führer had no private life. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet to render Hitler as a political animal with no personality to speak of, as a man of limited intelligence and poor social skills, fails to explain the spell that he cast not only on those close to him but on the German people as a whole. In the first volume of this monumental biography, Volker Ullrich sets out to correct our perception of the Führer. While charting in detail Hitler’s life from his childhood to the eve of the Second World War against the politics of the times, Ullrich unveils the man behind the public persona: his charming and repulsive traits, his talents and weaknesses, his deep-seated insecurities and murderous passions.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDrawing on a wealth of previously neglected or unavailable sources, this magisterial study provides the most rounded portrait of Hitler to date. Ullrich renders the Führer not as a psychopath but as a master of seduction and guile — and it is perhaps the complexity of his character that explains his enigmatic grip on the German people more convincingly than the clichéd image of the monster. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis definitive biography will forever change the way we look at the man who took the world into the abyss.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43403747852466,"sku":"9780099590231","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780099590231_6611f661-4de1-44e9-a4c5-cfb718712560.jpg?v=1786011508"},{"product_id":"9781805332794","title":"Fateful Hours","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A master storyteller' \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eDemocracies are fragile. Freedoms that seem secure can be lost. Few historical events illustrate this as vividly as the failure of the Weimar Republic.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eFateful Hours\u003c\/em\u003e tells one of the greatest dramas in world history: the failure of Germany's first democracy, culminating in the horrific rise of the Third Reich.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut this tragedy was not inevitable. In this gripping new book, celebrated historian Volker Ullrich charts the many failed alternatives and missed opportunities that contributed to German democracy's collapse. In an immersive style that takes us to the heart of political power, Ullrich argues that, right up until January 1933, history was open - just as in the present, it is up to us whether democracy lives or dies.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57682897633653,"sku":"9781805332817","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":55896511414645,"sku":"9781805332794","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781805332794_bdb1a8cb-9a2e-4130-b93d-ccdc43eb8dd6.jpg?v=1792511726"},{"product_id":"9780099590248","title":"Hitler: Volume II","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Meticulous... Probably the most disturbing portrait of Hitler I have ever read' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eDominic Sandbrook, \u003ci\u003eSunday Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy the summer of 1939 Hitler was at the zenith of his power. Yet despite initial triumphs in the early stages of war, the Führer's fortunes would turn dramatically as the conflict raged on. Realising that victory was lost, and with Soviet troops closing in on his Berlin bunker, Hitler committed suicide in April 1945; one week later, Nazi Germany surrendered. His murderous ambitions had not only annihilated his own country, but had cost the lives of millions across Europe. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the final volume of this landmark biography, Volker Ullrich argues that the very qualities - and the defects - that accounted for Hitler's popularity and rise to power were what brought about his ruin. A keen strategist and meticulous military commander, he was also a deeply insecure gambler who could be shaken by the smallest setback, and was quick to blame subordinates for his own disastrous mistakes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDrawing on a wealth of new sources and scholarship, this is the definitive portrait of the man who dragged the world into chaos.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56223667421557,"sku":"9780099590248","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780099590248_21c2667b-29c7-4c4f-89ec-803b3a03032a.jpg?v=1786011509"},{"product_id":"9781324095651","title":"Germany 1923 – Hyperinflation, Hitler′s Putsch, and Democracy in Crisis","description":"As the great Austrian writer Stefan Zweig confided in his autobiography, written in exile, “I have a pretty thorough knowledge of history, but never, to my recollection, has it produced such madness in such gigantic proportions.” He was referring to the situation in Germany in 1923. It was a “year of lunacy”, defined by hyperinflation, a political system on the verge of collapse and separatist movements that threatened Germany’s territorial integrity. Most significantly, Adolf Hitler launched his infamous Beer Hall Putsch in Munich—a failed coup that nonetheless drew international attention and demonstrated the Nazis’ ruthless determination to seize power.   In Germany 1923, award-winning historian Volker Ullrich draws on letters, memoirs, newspaper articles and other sources from the time to present a captivating new history of those explosive twelve months. The crisis began when the French invaded the Ruhr Valley in January to force Germany to pay the reparations it owed under the Treaty of Versailles, which had ended the Great War. For years, German leaders had embraced inflationary policies to finance the costs of defeat, and, as Ullrich demonstrates, the invasion utterly destroyed the value of the German mark. Before the war, the exchange rate was 4.2 marks to the dollar. By 20 November 1923, a dollar was worth an incomprehensible 4.2 trillion marks and a loaf of bread cost 200 billion. Facing the abyss, many ordinary Germans called for a national messiah. Among the figures to vie for that role was Hitler, a thirty-four-year-old veteran who possessed a uniquely malevolent personal magnetism. Although the Nazi coup in November was put down and Hitler arrested, the putsch showed just how tenuous the first German democracy, the Weimar Republic, was at its core.   As Ullrich’s panoramic narrative reveals, other Germans responded to the successive crises by launching a cultural revolution: 1923 witnessed the emergence of a multitude of new movements, from Dada to Bauhaus, and of such iconoclasts as Bertolt Brecht, George Grosz and Franz Kafka. Yet most observers were amazed that the Weimar Republic was able to survive, and the more astute realised that the feral undercurrents unleashed could lead to much worse. Publishing a century after that fateful year, Germany 1923 is a riveting chronicle of one of the most challenging times any modern democracy has faced, one with haunting parallels to our own political moment.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":56297568764277,"sku":"9781324095651","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":57685988114805,"sku":"9781324093466","price":27.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781324095651.jpg?v=1792599274"},{"product_id":"9781913368371","title":"Bismarck","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn accessible biography of Otto von Bismarck, Germany’s first chancellor.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898) has gone down in history as the Iron Chancellor, a reactionary and militarist whose 1871 unification of Germany put Europe on a path of disaster leading up to World War I. But, as this new edition of his accessible biography shows, the real Bismarck was a far more complex character.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e A leading historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century history, Volker Ullrich demonstrates that Bismarck—the “Founder of the Reich”—was, in fact, an opponent of liberal German nationalism. After the wars of 1866 and 1870, Bismarck spent the rest of his career working to preserve peace in Europe and to protect the empire he had created. Despite his reputation as an enemy of socialism, he introduced comprehensive health and unemployment insurance for German workers, and he was concerned with maintaining stability and harmony far beyond Germany’s newly unified borders. Comprehensive and balanced, \u003ci\u003eBismarck\u003c\/i\u003e shows us the value of looking anew at this monumental figure’s role in European history.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56309419802997,"sku":"9781913368371","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781913368371_50420181-50e5-48d4-8a44-ddecf4874f45.jpg?v=1786035181"},{"product_id":"eight-days-in-may","title":"Eight Days in May","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Superb' David Aaronovitch, \u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'A punchy account that is a proper page-turner'\u003ci\u003e Financial Times\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 'The last days of the Third Reich have often been told, but seldom with the verve, perception and elegance of Volker Ullrich's rich narrative' Richard Overy, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Bombing War\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 1 May 1945. The world did not know it yet, but the final week of the Third Reich's existence had begun. Hitler was dead, but the war had still not ended. Everything had both ground to a halt and yet remained agonizingly uncertain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Volker Ullrich's remarkable book takes the reader into a world torn between hope and terror, violence and peace. Ullrich describes how each day unfolds, with Germany now under a new Führer, Admiral Dönitz, based improbably in the small Baltic town of Flensburg. With Hitler dead, Berlin in ruins and the war undoubtedly lost, the process by which the fighting would end remained horrifyingly unclear. Many major Nazis were still on the loose, wild rumours continued to circulate about a last stand in the Alps and the Western allies falling out with the Soviet Union.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e All over Europe, millions of soldiers, prisoners, slave labourers and countless exhausted, grief-stricken and often homeless families watched and waited for the war's end. \u003ci\u003eEight Days in May\u003c\/i\u003e is the story of people, in Erich Kästner's striking phrase, stuck in 'the gap between no longer and not yet'.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e'A fast-paced, brilliant recounting of the turbulent last days of the Third Reich, with all the energy and chaos of a Jackson Pollock canvas' Helmut Walser Smith, author of \u003ci\u003eGermany: A Nation in its Time\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57466722287989,"sku":"9780141994109","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141994109.jpg?v=1785654783"},{"product_id":"fateful-hours-1","title":"Fateful Hours","description":"\u003cp\u003eDemocracies are fragile. Freedoms that seem secure can be lost. Few historical events illustrate this as vividly as the failure of the Weimar Republic. Germany's first democracy endured for fourteen tumultuous years and culminated with the horrific rise of the Third Reich. As one commentator wrote in July 1933: Hitler had \"won the game with little effort. . . . All he had to do was huff and puff-and the edifice of German politics collapsed like a house of cards.\" But this tragedy was not inevitable.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eFateful Hours\u003c\/em\u003e, award-winning historian Volker Ullrich chronicles the captivating story of the Republic, capturing a nation and its people teetering on the abyss. Born from the ashes of the First World War, the fledgling democracy was saddled with debt and political instability from its beginning. In its early years, a relentless chain of crises—hyperinflation, foreign invasion, and upheaval from the right and left—shook the republic, only letting up during a brief period of stability in the 1920s. Social and cultural norms were upended. Political murder was the order of the day. Yet despite all the challenges, the Weimar Republic was not destined for its ignoble end.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawing on letters, memoirs, newspaper articles, and other sources, Ullrich charts the many failed alternatives and missed opportunities that contributed to German democracy’s collapse. In an immersive style that takes us to the heart of political power, Ullrich argues that, right up until January 1933, history was open. There was no shortage of opportunities to stop the slide into fascism. Just as in the present, it is up to us whether democracy lives or dies.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57647719055733,"sku":"9781324134435","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-volker-ullrich.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}