HITLERS FACE

Hitlers Face The Biography of an Image Claudia Schmölders. Translated by Adrian Daub With Hitlers Face, Claudia Schmölders has written an explosive book and delivered a thrilling contribution to physiognomy.--Suddeutsche Zeitung It contains fascinating insights into the mindset of the Twenties.--Ian Kershaw Despite the innumerable books devoted to Hitlers imposing presence and the Nazi dictatorship of the media, no single work has provided a comprehensive and focused study of the sights and sounds which allowed an otherwise unimpressive-looking individual to become a compelling site of attention and allegiance. This is precisely the project of Claudia Schmölderss significant book. She scrutinizes photographs, paintings, filmic representations, and verbal descriptions of the leader to read these artifacts as texts. One might best describe her book as the history of a face and an image, the chronicle of its construction, transformation, and reception.--Eric Rentschler, Harvard University This is a work that can be read with profit by all those interested in the biography of Adolf Hitler and the mythology surrounding his person and image, as well as by those enticed by a biographical methodology that concentrates on the history of visual representations rather than on biographical facts. This book, in short, well deserves the wider readership it will garner in English translation.--Biography In Hitlers Face Claudia Schmölders reverses the normal protocol of biography