ABSTRACT

Ian Kershaw's The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich, first published in 1980, is still one of the most important and widely cited works on Hitler's relationship with the German people. It provides a convincing chronological account of the development of Adolf Hitler's charismatic hold over ordinary Germans. Working on the "Bavaria project" was, for Kershaw, to be the start of a long-standing engagement with the history of the Third Reich that has lasted to this day. In an interview in 2007 with the British newspaper the Guardian, referencing the radical political activity that swept Europe in 1968, he noted the sudden nature of his choice. His resolve to forget medieval peasants and concentrate on contemporary history was also hardened by an encounter in 1972 with a former Nazi in Munich, where he was taking a language course.