Volker Ullrich

While charting in detail Hitler's life from his childhood to the eve of the Second World War against the politics of the times, the author unveils the man behind the public persona: his charming and repulsive traits, his talents and weaknesses, his deep-seated insecurities and murderous passions.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - This landmark biography of Hitler puts an emphasis on the man himself: his personality, his temperament, and his beliefs. " A] fascinating Shakespearean parable about how the confluence of circumstance, chance, a ruthless individual and the willful blindness of others can transform a country -- and, in Hitler's case, lead to an unimaginable nightmare for the world." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times Volker Ullrich's Hitler, the first in a two-volume biography, has changed the way scholars and laypeople alike understand the man who has become the personification of evil. Drawing on previously unseen papers and new scholarly research, Ullrich charts Hitler's life from his childhood through his experiences in the First World War and his subsequent rise as a far-right leader. Focusing on the personality behind the policies, Ullrich creates a vivid portrait of a man and his megalomania, political skill, and horrifying worldview. Hitler is an essential historical biography with unsettling resonance in contemporary times.

Despite his status as the most despised political figure in history, there have only been four serious biographies of Hitler since the 1930s. Even more surprisingly, his biographers have been more interested in his rise to power and his methods of leadership than in Hitler the person: some have even declared that the Fuhrer had no private life. Yet to render Hitler as a political animal with no personality to speak of, as a man of limited intelligence and poor social skills, fails to explain the spell that he cast not only on those close to him but on the German people as a whole. In the first volume of this monumental biography, Volker Ullrich sets out to correct our perception of the Fuhrer. While charting in detail Hitler's life from his childhood to the eve of the Second World War against the politics of the times, Ullrich unveils the man behind the public persona: his charming and repulsive traits, his talents and weaknesses, his deep-seated insecurities and murderous passions. Drawing on a wealth of previously neglected or unavailable sources, this magisterial study provides the most rounded portrait of Hitler to date. Ullrich renders the Fuhrer not as a psychopath but as a master of seduction and guile - and it is perhaps the complexity of his character that explains his enigmatic grip on the German people more convincingly than the cliched image of the monster.

Dieses Buch schildert die Formierung des Kreisauer Kreises, die programmatischen Diskussionen, aber auch die täglichen Schwierigkeiten, mit denen der Widerstand zu kämpfen hatte. Ausführlich eingegangen wird auf die Rolle der Kreisauer bei der Vorbereitung des 20. Juli 1944. Ein faszinierendes Gruppenporträt auf dem neuesten Forschungsstand.

Mit der DAT-Altana-Entscheidung des Bundesverfassungsgerichts vom 27. April 1999 wurde die Berechnung der Abfindung des Minderheitsaktionars bei Konzernmassnahmen auf eine neue Grundlage gestellt. Bis dato galt in Rechtsprechung und Literatur gleichermassen der Vorrang der Ertragswertmethode. Der Boersenkurs selbst spielte keine oder nur eine untergeordnete Rolle. Nun ist seit dem verfassungsgerichtlichen Urteil der Boersenkurs bei der Abfindung des Minderheitsaktionars als Untergrenze zu berucksichtigen. Die Arbeit befasst sich aus juristischer und oekonomischer Sicht mit der Reichweite und den Konsequenzen dieser Entscheidung fur die kunftige Abfindungspraxis. Auch wird aufgezeigt, in welchen weiteren Bereichen des Kapitalmarktrechts eine starkere Hinwendung zu Marktpreisen moeglich und noetig erscheint.