Historical Context
This edition is offered as historical source material for research, study, and private collection. Irving Books does not endorse National Socialism, racial hatred, antisemitism, political violence, or unlawful discrimination. Some material reflects the language and ideology of its period and is presented for historical understanding.
Historical Material Policy ->About the book
Joseph Goebbels turned newspapers, radio broadcasts and cinema into instruments of Nazi power. David Irving’s biography follows the aspiring writer from his Catholic upbringing and university years to the street battles of Weimar Berlin, the propaganda ministry and the collapse of the Third Reich.
Inside the book
Drawing on Goebbels’s diaries, private correspondence, government records and interviews, Irving connects political ambition with the life behind the carefully managed family image: marriage to Magda, affairs, rivalries and dependence on Hitler’s approval. The narrative examines newspaper campaigns, film production, censorship and antisemitic persecution, then follows the struggle to maintain morale through military defeat and the bombing of German cities. Stalingrad, the 1943 total-war speech and the July 1944 bomb plot mark turning points in Goebbels’s pursuit of greater authority.
Historical context
The book’s documentary detail accompanies a deeply compromised interpretation. Irving shifts responsibility for persecution away from Hitler and minimises aspects of the Holocaust. In the 2000 libel judgment, the court found deliberate manipulation of historical evidence and specifically rejected his account of Hitler’s conduct during Kristallnacht. Readers should approach these arguments critically, alongside established scholarship on Nazi persecution and genocide.
This edition
A hardback copy bearing David Irving’s original right-thumb impression.
- Red, blue, or black ink
- An original right-thumb impression applied individually by David
- Certificate of authenticity included
- Prepared and dispatched by Irving Books
Please note
This carries David's original right-thumb impression; it is not a handwritten signature. Position, clarity, and impression vary naturally, so every copy is different. Product photography represents the book edition; the exact mark on the copy supplied will be unique.