Gain Hitler And Stalin: Parallel Lives Designed By Alan Bullock EBook

read this book when it first came out overyears ago, and last school year I picked it up and started over again.
While it is a bit dated, this is the only serious work to ever lay the lives of history's two most deadly dictators side by side.
While Bullock's style is a bit dry in places, the scope of his scholarship is truly impressive, There are some golden quotes in this book, not just about Hitler and Stalin, but about the similarities and differences between Nazism and Communism.
Overall, if one has the patience for apage read, this is one of the most comprehensive looks at these two men ever undertaken.
This book made a positive impression when it appeared in, Alan Bullocks distinguished academic career had been preceded by the publication of his biography of Hitler, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny which was acclaimed from its publication inas one of the finest explanations of Hitler.
Beginning in thes, Bullock became increasingly fascinated by the comparisons between the Nazi and Soviet empires the irony of the theoretically opposed ideology but often startlingly similar methods, their tense interrelationship and differences as well.
Bullock felt that the focus on the West and Germany had resulted in a neglect of the GermanRussian axis an interest in the East that preceded important studies by historians such as Norman Davies, and more recently the even more tightly focussed study of Timothy Snyder in Bloodlands.
Bullocks book returns to Hitler, focussing on a comparison of him and Stalin as the framework for a comparison of the two regimes.
It broadens previous attention to political theory in constructing the concept of the Totalitarian state, and takes a less emotionally invested approach to those in thes who attempted a comparison to try and portray the crimes of the Nazis as perversely mitigated by the similarities with Soviet Russia the Historikerstreit or historians fight.

The subtitle is significant Bullock borrows the concept of “Parallel Lives” from Plutarch, implying similarities but also lines/lives that “never meet or merge”.
The structure of the book must have been a challenge, For most of the book he alternates between Hitler/Germany and Stalin/USSR until chapter ten, where the two are compared, Once he reaches a discussion of foreign policy in thes and the period from the NaziSoviet pact onwards, the two subjects are dealt with in a more integrated way.
This section by its nature flows better and possesses greater coherence however its bedrock is the more individual treatment earlier in the book.

Bullocks writing is pleasing and flows well, workmanlike and unpretentious, His broad reading is supported by the voluminous amounts of primary research materials released during Perestroika and afterwards, and thesecond edition contains extensive updates as well as the usual corrections.
The well produced first edition hardback shows a standard of publishing which is certainly becoming rarer

now, with well laid out pages and about five noticeable typos in a book of almostpages.

The book balances the elements of historical biography and the necessary context well, It looks at the men on a personal level, although it focusses on the experiences and personal traits which drive their historical actions rather than giving too much about their personal life thankfully it avoids the dubious realms of pop psychology or obsession with missing testicals etc.
The context of the regimes is described well and sufficiently both to describe the men themselves as well as giving a good picture of the politics of the time.
There perhaps was some temptation taken to delve a bit more deeply into the tactical and strategic aspects of World Warthan was strictly necessary although these passages certainly made good reading and provided some good insights.
Probably the chapters on World Warare those that have dated the most with research over the past twenty years although not to the point of obsolescence.

So what are Mr Bullocks key arguments One point of strong comparison between the two men is their dual sense of historical purpose.
Each believes they have a destiny as great men, which gives them the confidence and determination to pursue power with great effectiveness.
They also both possess incredible natural political instincts, The ability to outsmart and outthink their opponents, to surprise them and where necessary ruthlessly devour them, Both men worked their way up from nowhere, completely dependent on their skills for advancement, Stalin had an added handicap of needing to carefully conceal his ambitions in the context of collective leadership, whereas Hitler was free to develop and exploit the Fuhrer myth.
Both had constraints though, and Stalins machinations in thes to gain power without revealing his hand have some similarities with the contortions of Hitlers commitment to legality in coming to power after the failure of the Beer Hall putsch although the ultimate goal was never concealed.

Stalins lowest point, as he was deceived and ultimately humiliated by Hitler is the pivot of the book, It is here that we see the ultimate interaction of the two dictators Hitlers strategic brilliance, Stalins attempts to buy time, In these pages are one of the most significant factors which will later be telling in the war effort, Yes, Stalin had ripped the heart out of the Red Army or at least the head with his purges of the leadership.
Hitler and most of Europe didnt take Russia seriously as a military opponent, However even this did not overcome Hitlers economic problems, He needed to conquer more territory in order to keep rearming and vice versa, Bullock well points out the Nazi failure to put the full economy on a war footing until surprisingly late in the war, and the lost ground due to competing factions in the Nazi government.

The ensuing war is dealt with well at a strategic and diplomatic level, Hitlers intervention positive and negative in military decisionmaking is well covered, as is Stalins halting but steadily improving military oversight after the shock of the initial German invasion.

Bullock carries the story beyond the final destruction of Hitlers dream, and his descent to paranoia, blame and a sense that for Germany they would all go down together.
The final years of Stalins regime just provide further evidence of his brutal and paranoid nature, as well as the lessons he quickly learnt from history in ensuring the best possible East European buffer for the Soviet Union.

Hitler and Stalin is a powerful, detailed book which shows how so many of the central events of the twentieth century revolved around these two men.
The great man theory of history is widely denigrated, but Bullocks sound exposition of the facts points out clearly both the centrality of these two men to the regimes they ruled as well as how individual will, belief and drive can powerfully influence world historical events, ones which saw a dramatic change from the long nineteenth century, and an ensuing period where perversely immense Western prosperity sat alongside the repercussions of millions of deaths in two great wars.
To those who say history is the product of impersonal forces, Bullocks book can be seen as a weighty and well argued proof that the opposite can be true, and a powerful warning of the consequences of two men who killed millions and changed the world.
This was a long read and it took all my powers of concentration to finish it, The author puts Hitler and Stalin under a microscope, They both were powerhungry and used their considerable talents to do evil instead of good, Uncountable lives were destroyed by them, It is unfortunate that despite numerous attempts were made on Hitler's life he survived and committed suicide while in an underground bunker in Berlin.
Stalin lived into his's, The legacy he left was measured by Krushchev and others and found to be wanting, "Khrushchev charged Stalin with having fostered a leadership cult of personality despite ostensibly maintaining support for the ideals of communism" Wikipedia, After he died Stalin was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum near Lenin, But after Krushchev's Secret Speech his body was quietly removed after several years and buried in an obscure place beside the Kremlin.
Took me a while but I finally finished reading this book, I frankly got overwhelmed with the level of detail and appalled at the level of suffering in the world for which these two men were responsible.
I had to keep stopping to allow myself to calm down and let my disgust with these two men dissipate, It is an object lesson on how dictators take control, Great work of historical synthesis, Made me better understand the context in which Ceausescu and the postwar dictators developed, following the examples of the onemanrule regimes so well covered in this book.
Rees, the author of numerous books on WWII, tries his hand at a dual look at the two crazed tyrants of theth century, Hitler and Stalin.
The material in his work is not necessarily new scholarship but it is the way it is handled that provides an interesting read.
As a WWII historian, I was already familiar with the information but for someone wanting a good, easy to read, compilation history of the war in Europe, this book fits the bill.
Well written and easy to read, Hitler and Stalin provides the reader a glimpse into their respective personalities as war wages all around them.


Just as he did in Auschwitz, Rees uses his topic to set it against the larger canvas, While Auschwitz revealed the horrors of the infamous camp, it also placed the death camp in the context of the Holocaust and the development of the Nazi Germany camp system.
Rees repeats this practice in Hitler and Stalin so the reader gains an understanding of the complexity of the times and how it affected each man and their decisions.
A great example of this is the opening to Chapter: Eliminating Poland, Rees writes " there was one issue on which Hitler and Stalin were in complete agreement, They both loathed Poland. " The chapter then goes into detail about each man's motivation for their respective invasions of Poland and the details of the actual invasions, giving the reader a much richer understanding of the consequences of the actions of these two men.


Hitler and Stalin is not a biography of the two men but rather a look at their motivations, goals, interactions, and the reality of their conflicting ideologies as war raged.
Using many primary sources, Rees incorporates the voices of those involved to help create a dramatic landscape of the war, Rich in detail and personal narratives, Rees' work paints a very strong image of the conflagration that engulfed Europe, While the author occasionally refers back to earlier actions of the two protagonists, Rees does not engage in a biographical comparison of their lives but sticks to the facts as they apply to the wartime events.
The book opens with the slide toward war as the NaziSoviet Nonaggression Pact is signed and examines the motivation behind this historically disastrous document.
He places Hitler/ Stalin in their respective roles and the impact of their decision to dismember Poland, This is an important addition to the story since the invasion of Poland is often only told from the German invasion standpoint.
Usually the narrative gives a bare nod to the horrific legacy of the Soviets as they moved into Poland just a few weeks later.
By blending the two halves of the story together, the reader gains a much richer narrative of the war,

Rees' work does not break new ground but provides an updated way of studying the war, Much of the historiography of WWII in Europe is told only from the Allied point of view as it analyzes Nazi Germany.
Due to the Cold War and the lack of access to sources, the full impact of the Russian participation is often ignored or minimized.
By placing Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union on equal footing, Rees gives the reader a way to examine the NaziSoviet War in its own scope.
This is a great work for the casual reader or to use as a textbook in college entry level class in WWII.
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