1938: Hitler's Gamble [Paperback]

In this masterful narrative, acclaimed historian Giles MacDonogh chronicles Adolf Hitler's consolidation of power over the course of one year. Until 1938, Hitler could be dismissed as a ruthless but efficient dictator, a problem to Germany alone; after 1938 he was clearly a threat to the entire world.

It was in 1938 that Third Reich came of age. The Fehrer brought Germany into line with Nazi ideology and revealed his plans to take back those parts of Europe lost to Greater Germany after the First World War. From the purging of the army in January through theAnschlussin March, from the Munich Conference in September to the ravages ofKristallnachtin November, MacDonogh offers a gripping account of the year Adolf Hitler came into his own and set the world inexorably on track to a cataclysmic war.A graduate of Oxford University,Giles MacDonoghis the author of several books on German history and has written for theFinancial Times, theTimes(London), theGuardian, and theEvening Standard. He lives in London.BBC History Magazine
“A fine book.... Well-written, combining its diverse sources with elegance and skill, and painting an engaging canvas of the disaster that was developing in Germany and was soon to engulf Europe as a whole.... [Giles MacDonogh's] searing descriptions of the fate endured by Austrian Jewry — from expropriation, casual cruelty and exile, to calculated persecution and murder — are especially impassioned and moving.... It ably conveys the growing desperation and alarm felt by many that year, as Germany began to flex its muscles internationally and stepped up its persecution of its perceived enemies.”

Literary Review
“[MacDonogh] is able to mine dozens of sources in German...[which] help us understand the roots of genocide. The book is excellent on the details of how the Nazis turned on the Jews.”

Kirkus