Sebastian Haffner examines Hitler's lifespan, his performance, his successes, errors, intellectual misconceptions, crimes and, last but not least, his great betrayal of his nation, the Western world and human civilisation.

'What makes Haffner's book different is that it is not one more biography but an analysis - a most penetrating analysis - of what Hitler was up to in his astonishing career' A.L. Rowse

'Mr Haffner...has exposed better, and more briefly, than anyone else the clockwork of that infernal machine' Gordon Brook-Shepherd, Sunday Telegraph