History records no phenomenon like Adolf Hitler. No name still evokes such hate and fear, and no individual has left so much terror, death and destruction in his wake. Even today historians speculate over the question: how did it happen? Was Hitler a madman on the rampage? A puppet of Germany's elite? Or an evil man who planned everything to the last? Joachim C. Fest's now classic biography is the first major post-war German study of Hitler. Scholarly yet highly readable, it reconciles these differing views of Hitler, both bringing unique insights into his obsessive, hubristic personality and examining the economic, political and cultural conditions that aided him in his terrifying rise to power.