When Adolf Hitler went to war in 1914, he was just 25 years old. It was a time he would later call the 'most stupendous experience of my life'. That war ended with Hitler in a hospital bed, temporarily blinded by mustard gas. The world that he opened his newly healed eyes on was new and it was terrible: Germany had been defeated, the Kaiser had fled and the army had been resolutely humbled. Hitler never accepted these facts. Out of his fury rose a white-hot hatred, an unquenchable thirst for revenge against the 'criminals' who had signed the armistice, against the socialists who he accused of stabbing the army in the back and, most violently, against the Jews - a direct threat to the master race of his imagination - on whose shoulders he would pile all of Germany's woes. This book seeks the man behind the myth. How did the defining years of Hitler's life affect his rise to power?

Prologue: A little context ... -- 1. 'At the time I thought everything should be blown up' -- 2. 'At home I do not remember having heard the word Jew' -- 3. 'I had honoured my father, but my mother I had loved' -- 4. 'The whole academy should be dynamited' -- 5. 'Is this a German?' -- 6. 'I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven' -- 7. 'I passionately loved soldiering' -- 8. 'Louvain was a heap of rubble' -- 9. 'I was right out in front, ahead of everyone' -- 10. 'You will hear much more about me' -- 11. 'At last my will was undisputed master' -- 12. 'For the last time the Lord's grace smiled on His ungrateful children' -- 13. Since the day I stood at my mother's grave, I had not wept' -- 14. What was all the pain in my eyes compared to this misery?' -- 15. 'I could speak!' -- 16. The movement was on the march' -- 17. 'The world of the woman is the man' -- 18. 'You must fight with me -- or die with me! ' -- 19. 'If fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters had been held under poison gas ...' -- Epilogue: The making of the Führer -- Appendix: The German National Socialist '25-point Programme.'.