Hitler and Stalin — Parallel Lives
- Author: Alan Bullock
- Publisher: Fontana Press
- Classification: European History, War, World War II
- Reviewed by: Shep
This book is a masterpiece. Bullock interweaves the lives of these two tyrants, chapter by chapter, setting them against the political background of 20th century Europe. From childhood, through their respective rise to power, to the build up of and aftermath of WW2, this book is full of insight into their personalities, behavior, and motivations.
Both men believed that they were destined to their roles. Both men’s presence was still being felt long after their deaths. Hitler’s role was to correct Germany’s humiliation at the end of WW1, to guarantee it’s future by the creation of a new empire in Eastern Europe, and to end the ‘Jewish problem’. Even as he was about to commit suicide, Hitler believed that the world of the future would be eternally grateful to him for his role in this, the ‘final solution’. Stalin aimed to turn Russia’s peasant society into a modern, industrialised, socialist state. Both ambitions would require much sacrifice, both material and human, and both leaders felt they were to be forgiven by history, their destinies placing them beyond all normal moral concerns.
Bullock manages to combine a vast quantity of factual evidence with a compassion towards the many millions that died and suffered under the Nazi and Communist regimes. This book weighs in at over one thousand pages however, and really needs to be devoured, rather than dipped into.
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