The Red Führer

Adolf Hitler is regarded as history's most notorious villain for good reason. As an individual filled with hate, he was a natural convert to the extremist movements spreading around Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century and his warped ability to harness the desperation of millions of dispossessed Germans enabled his regime to slaughter countless victims. The Nazi movement that he founded was, and is, universally regarded as a dark reflection of the nature of mankind. But what if this monster had chosen a different path? In The Red Fuhrer, Paul Hynes paints a picture of a struggling artist in Vienna; a man already desperately angry at the world around him but not yet having found a political home until a chance encounter and strange fortunes create a very different man: one who embraces Communism rather than Fascism. In this engaging and thought provoking read Hynes depicts a political transformation from hunger in Vienna to the battlefields of the First World War, to the revolutionary street fights in post-war Germany, as Adolf Hitler and several other characters begin to reshape history into a more chaotic form. One that is ripe for revolution.