THE CAR GUYS:

Inside Hitler's library (Robert Fulford, 10/11/08, National Post)

Timothy Ryback has written one of the most interesting of recent books about him, Hitler’s Private Library: The Books That Shaped His Life (Knopf), based on books Hitler is known to have owned, including 1,200 volumes that ended up in the Library of Congress.

As a reader, Hitler was a self-improver, a purposeful browser who believed in “the art of correct reading,” which seems to have been a method of searching through books for whatever would confirm views he already held. If a writer could give him fresh reasons for his opinions, all the better. An obvious case was Paul de Lagarde’s German Essays, in which Hitler underlined one passage: “Each and every irksome Jew is a serious affront to the authenticity and veracity of our German identity.” Another favourite book was The International Jew, by Henry Ford. “I regard Ford as my inspiration,” Hitler remarked early in his political career.