William Sheridan Allen (October 5, 1932 – March 14, 2013) was an American historian.
He also wrote The Infancy of Nazism and worked on studies of the effectiveness of Nazi propaganda and of the Social Democratic underground in the Third Reich.
[citation needed] He retired in 2001 as professor of history at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
[1] Allen wrote two books on Adolf Hitler debunking the assertion that he came to power through violence.
Rather, Allen claims, Hitler's Nazi movement "seized power" in an act akin to democratic tactics.