The Hitler Book: The Secret Dossier Prepared For Stalin From The Interrogations of Hitler's Personal Aides
Henrik Eberle & Matthias Uhl (editors)

This book is an edited version of the dossier compiled by the NKVD on Adolf Hitler life 1933-1945 with a focus on the last year of his life that was presented to Josef Stalin in 1949. This dossier was based on the interrogations of Heinz Linge, Hitler’s valet, and Otto Günsche, his adjutant, that began soon after they were captured by the Soviet forces.

It tells the story of his time in power in something of a snapshot fashion rather than in any normal chronological fashion, an event is discussed, sometimes in intimate detail, and then suddenly it moves on to something that happened several months later so it can be a confusing read if you do not have some grasp on the events and persons covered.

There is also numerous examples of where facts unpleasant to the Soviet regime simply are ignored and not even mentioned, this includes things as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the fate of the Jews. Other things are discussed in an extremely biased manner loosing touch with reality, for example the (Soviet sponsored) Nationalkomitee Freies Deutschland (National Committee for a Free Germany), NKFD, that was formed on Soviet orders and was without consequence for the Germans, is said to have been "a broad-based movement in the POW camps" and that its activities "had a noticeable effect on the soldiers in the front". Another example is the fact that very large numbers of Soviet citizens served with the German forces in some function, this is explained as they being "under threat of death" without any mention of any other possible additional explanation. One final example of this is the coverage of the Ardennes offensive where it is stated that it "was developing successfully" until troops had to be withdrawn due to Soviet offensive, this at a time when the American troops already had repulsed it.

The editors on the whole have done a fine job providing corrections to the incorrect facts that are presented in the book, either through tricks of memory, typos or cases such as the ones mentioned above.

The above criticism aside, the book includes many interesting details on Hitler and his inner circle from a "Soviet" perspective rather than the "Western" perspective that all of us who do not read Russian are used to, so if you are interested in such material, this book is a good buy though one must always consider when & where it was written as well as that it was written for Stalin.

I think Richard Overy summed it up nicely in his foreword to the book:

"As a historical document it must be used with caution. There is much that is deliberately left out, much that its two Soviet authors did not know. The reconstruction of conversations and meetings relies on evidence from years of cross-examination in which the interrogators played a role in manipulating and selecting what they wanted to hear, just as the witnesses struggled to recall long-distant events which the usual tricks of memory must have distorted and disordered. […] But in terms of an overall historical trust it is no more and no less accurate that those many Western accounts of Hitler and the war that pretend that the Soviet Union was an adjunct to the war rather than a core element."

(Reviewed by Marcus Wendel)
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.