Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
Audiobook15 hours
Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Written by Robert K. Wittman and David Kinney
Narrated by P.J. Ochlan
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
This exploration of the private wartime diary of Alfred Rosenberg—Hitler’s “chief philosopher” and architect of Nazi ideology—interweaves the story of its recent discovery with the revelation of its never-before-published contents, which are contextualized by the authors: The result is a unprecedented, page-turning narrative of the Nazi rise to power, the Holocaust, and Hitler’s post-invasion plans for Russia.
A groundbreaking historical contribution, The Devil’s Diary is a chilling window into the mind of Adolf Hitler’s “chief social philosopher,” Alfred Rosenberg, who formulated some of the guiding principles behind the Third Reich’s genocidal crusade. It also chronicles the thrilling detective hunt for the diary, which disappeared after the Nuremburg Trials and remained lost for almost three quarters of a century, until Robert Wittman, a former FBI special agent who founded the Bureau’s Art Crimes Team, played an important role and tells his story now for the first time.
The authors expertly and deftly contextualize more than 400 pages of entries stretching from 1936 through 1944, in which the loyal Hitler advisor recounts internal meetings with the Fürher and his close associates Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler; describes the post-invasion occupation of the Soviet Union; considers the “solution” to the “Jewish question;” and discusses his overseeing of the mass seizure and cataloguing of books and artwork from homes, libraries, and museums across occupied Europe. An eyewitness to events, this narrative of Rosenberg’s diary offers provocative and intimate insights into pivotal moments in the war and the notorious Nazi who laid the philosophical foundations of the Third Reich.
Author
Robert K. Wittman
Robert K. Wittman created the FBI’s Art Crime Team and was the Bureau’s national expert on cultural property crime. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Priceless. David Kinney is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of The Big One and The Dylanologists.
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Reviews for Devil's Diary
Rating: 4.171428554285715 out of 5 stars
4/5
35 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a multi-faceted jewel of a book. The authors recount the history of Alfred Rosenberg's diary being discovered being made available for study and display. They trace the history of the rise of Nazism from its earliest days. Lastly, they give an inside view of the ease by which intelligent men could put aside moral behavior when blinded by terrible ideology.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Brilliant, and contains one of my favorite sentences of all time. Regarding Rosenberg: "He had all the charm of a mortician."