A bloody dictator, failed artist, passionate lover and instigator of the most extreme genocide in history, Adolf Hitler stamped the twentieth century with force and brutality, creating a totalitarian regime of tremendous cruelty. This book recounts the history of him and the Third Reich, retracing his political and public life and his intimate and family ties, from his infancy in Braunau and Linz, through the tortured events of his Viennese youth, his experiences at the front in the Great War, his discovery of his political vocation in Munich, his theories of violence as a means of conquest and maintaining power, the writing of Mein Kampf and execution of his political and military ambitions, and the end of the Nazi adventure in the bunker in Berlin. Interwoven with the Fuhrer's personal fate, the book describes the historical events of the Third Reich and Europe from the end of World War I to the Nuremberg Trials. Each chapter is supplemented by a detailed examination of a particular aspect in order to understand the psychology and nature of one of the cruelest and most powerful tyrants in history. The slant given to the book by the author, and the calm, even tone of the text, allow the reader to make an objective judgment on the character of Hitler and the historical period; it refuses to sensationalize the story and ignores the historical revisions with which the historiography is filled. The book is supported by a collection of historical documents, photographs and accounts that contribute to making this book one of the most complete and original published on the subject. AUTHOR: Luciano Garibaldi, was born in Rome in 1936 and lives and works in Milan. A journalist since 1957, he wrote for the weekly magazine Tempo from 1958 to 1968 with Raimondo Luraghi, Curzio Malaparte and Pier Paolo Pasolini. In 1964 he published in installments in several newspapers (Il Giornale di Sicilia, Il Giornale di Brescia and Il Corriere Mercantile) the first historic reconstruction of the attempt on Hitler's life on 20 July 1944 when he interviewed survivors of the event in Germany, including the President of the Federal Republic. In 1968 he was the first Italian journalist to enter Czechoslovakia after the Soviet invasion on 21 August. His reports were published in the Corriere Mercantile, La Nazione and Roma. Since 1969 he has been a special envoy for the weekly publication Gente. In 1974 he was one of the first journalists to be employed by Indro Montanelli to work on Il Giornale. In 1976 he was made editor-in-chief of Gente, and in 1984 of the daily La Notte. From 1986 to 1994 he wrote on the third page of Avvenire, from 1992 to 1995 he was a leader writer for L'Indipendente, and then Il Giornale. He currently contributes to the magazines Studi Cattolici, Cammino and Storia Illustrata. He is also the editor of the monthly Processo alla Storia. He has written several books on the recent history of Italy, including Adam to Eve, Year 2000 the story of the conquest of the moon (Genoa, 1970), In the prison of the Red Brigades (Milan, 1978), Mussolini and the Professor (Milan, 1983), My husband, Commissario Calabresi (Milan, 1990), The other Italian: Edgardo Sogno (Milan, 1992), Mussolini's women soldiers (Milan, 1995), The war is (not) lost (Milan, 1998), The tragedy of Armir (Milan, 1999), and The Encyclopaedia of Fascism (Milan, 1999). For White Star Publishers he edited A century of wars (2000).