Few twentieth-century political leaders enjoyed greated popularity among their own people than Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s. This remarkable study of the myth that sustained one of the most notorious dictators, and delves into Hitler's extraordinarily powerful hold over the German people. In this 'major contribution to the study of the Third Reich' (Times Literary Supplement), Ian Kershaw argues that it lay not so much in Hitler's personality or his bizarre Nazi ideology, as in the social and political values of the people themselves.

In charting the creation, rise, and fall of the 'Hitler Myth', he demonstrates the importance of the manufactured 'Fuhrer cult' to the attainment of Nazi political ends, and how the Nazis used the new techniques of propaganda to exploit and build on the beliefs, phobias, and prejudices of the day.