The Meaning of Hitler

[2] The book analyzes the life and work of Adolf Hitler and is divided into seven chapters, each treating a different aspect of the man.

Golo Mann called it a 'witty, original and clarifying book... excellently suited for discussion in the upper classes of schools'.

[4] The book is divided into sections, each of which explores a different aspect of Hitler's life, personality and actions, which Haffner analyses.

[9] Hitler, who believed in the constant Darwinian struggle for power between nations, turned the German state into a war machine, according to Haffner.

[12] From October 1944, Hitler deliberately prolonged the war by eliminating moderate opposition within Germany, in Haffner's opinion.

In doing so he betrayed the German people and his 'fight to the finish' created a 'stirring legend' but destroyed Germany as a unified nation.

Not an actual adaptation of Haffner's book, the filmmakers use it as a jumping off point and a pace to constantly return to.

Variety described the film as "a free-form, go-with-the-flow meditation on the Nazi era, made in the exploratory road-movie spirit of Werner Herzog’s recent documentaries,"[15] and The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film "aims to pierce the aura of legend that has built up around Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime," and calls it "An intellectual inquiry with burning present-day resonance, ... [and[ also a road trip through some of the darkest chapters of European history ... [which] shines a cleansing light on a mythology that stretches across a century.

...[The film] is an urgent warning about the blind spots that have led us to the present moment, and the need to understand the dynamic at work in Hitler's ascent.