At daybreak on September 1, 1939, a huge German mechanized army poured across the Polish border, while great clouds of German bombers let loose their destruction from the skies. World War II, provoked cold-bloodedly by Adolf Hitler, had begun.

Who was this Adolf Hitler who rose literally from the gutter to conquer most of Europe? How was he able to overcome such incredible obstacles in his rise to power? What was it that enabled him to persuade a nation to embark on a program of mass murder and suicidal war? And what kind of madness led him to destroy that country he claimed to love?

For many years William Shirer's job as an American correspondent in Berlin gave him the opportunity to meet Hitler, listen to his numerous speeches, and observe him at first hand at the moment of his greatest triumphs. What is set down in this book is based almost entirely on what the author himself saw in Germany and on the massive files of secret Nazi documents captured by the Allies at the end of World War II. Step by step, the reader follows Hitler's course of conquest, watches him browbeat his victims, double-cross his friends and enemies, massacre millions of innocent people, and plunge the world in the bloodiest and most destructive war in history. 

Millions of people still living remember Hitler and the horrors of his Nazi Third Reich. But for a new generation, living in uncertain times, this book will provide a vivid, authentic account of one of the most shocking chapters of world history. 

From the dust jacket

About the writing of this book, in reference to being approached by Bennett Cerf to write about Adolf Hitler for the Landmark series:

 "It was not so easy as he assured me it would be. . . . How did you write for young people? You couldn't be condescending. You had to respect them. But you had to keep it simple enough for them to understand," Shirer recalled in his memoir A Native's Return.