David Lewis: The man who invented Hitler - The making of the Führer

About the Book

How did a penniless drifter and wartime lance corporal become one of the most terrifying dictators in the history of mankind? It is this seemingly incomprehensible question that historian and psychiatrist David Lewis sets out to answer in his fascinating and provocative book The Man Who Invented Hitler.

As a soldier in the First World War, Adolf Hitler never rose above the rank of lance corporal. Before the war, he had been an impoverished wanderer with no direction and no future. And yet — within the space of just a few months after the war's end — he embarked on a path that was to lead the whole of Europe into years of bloody conflict, terror, and the Holocaust.

In this book, Lewis identifies the key moment of Hitler's transformation. Drawing on meticulous historical research, he demonstrates that Hitler left the war not with blindness caused by mustard gas poisoning, as was long and widely believed, but with so-called hysterical blindness — a psychosomatic disorder. He was treated by the controversial psychiatrist Edmund Forster, whose therapeutic methods were unconventional to say the least: he instilled in his patients the conviction that only the strength of their own will and personality could bring about their recovery.

The moment Hitler discovered that through sheer force of will he could overcome his blindness and heal himself, a dizzying sense of his own extraordinary nature opened up before him — and the logical next step seemed obvious to him.

Why Read This Book?

• Offers a completely fresh perspective on the psychological roots of Hitler's rise to power
• Combines historical research with a fascinating psychological analysis
• Reveals the role of the long-overlooked psychiatrist Edmund Forster in the history of the 20th century
• Poses a deeply unsettling question: Could Hitler have become the Führer without this encounter?

Author: David Lewis

State of the book: Good, book cover slightly worn