The Trial of Adolf Hitler: The Beer Hall Putsch and the Rise of Nazi Germany

Description

Sixteen years before the Second World War, Adolf Hitler had already begun his plan to take over the world. With the help of nine close conspirators and a few hundred followers, he staged his first attempt at an overthrow of the German government. That night, Hitler stood on a table in the middle of Munich's crowded Burgerbrau Beer Hall, fired his revolver into the air and shouted 'The National Revolution has begun!' Although they managed to kill nineteen people, including four policemen, the attempt was far from a triumph. Cuffed and behind bars, Hitler and his accomplices, including Germany's most prominent war hero, found themselves accused of high treason; if found guilty, they would face deportation, or worse, life in prison. But the trial did not go as the prosecution had planned and, instead of being cowed, Hitler put his charisma and media savvy to the test, turning the trial into the single greatest opportunity of his life. Frustrating the prosecution and deftly enforcing his position under the eye of a sympathetic judge, Hitler's flamboyant rhetoric, combined with his timely populist message, would win him many admirers in the courtroom and in the media alike. Drawing on the original court transcripts and hundreds of other documents, David King's The Trial of Adolf Hitler is the first book-length account of this gripping true story of drama, intrigue and significance.

David King is the New York Times bestselling author of Death in the City of Light, Vienna 1814 and Finding Atlantis. A Fulbright Scholar with a master's degree from Cambridge University, King taught European history before becoming a full-time writer. His books have been translated into several languages, including Chinese, Turkish, Polish, Korean, Italian, Swedish and Russian.

In The Trial of Adolf Hitler, David King tracks the progression of Hitler's failed coup, arrest, and subsequent trial, which threw Hitler into the public spotlight and gave him a platform on which to introduce his demagogic powers to the German people. A story that drew interest across the globe at the time, but which has been largely forgotten in the annals of World War II history, this narrative is brought to our renewed attention by a book that is as captivating as it is well researched and scholastically precise. * The New Criterion * An almost minute-by-minute narrative of events . . . impeccably researched and engagingly written. -- Roger Moorhouse * The Times * Gripping . . . The Trial of Adolf Hitler provides a textbook example of how a determined demagogue can turn defeat into victory. It is also a disturbing portrait of how an advanced country can descend into chaos and of the human cost that this chaos entails. -- Frederick Taylor * Wall Street Journal *