Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics

A startling reassessment of Hitler's aims and motivations, Frederic Spotts's Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics is an adroitly argued and highly original work that provides the key to a fuller understanding of the Third Reich. Spotts, author of the distinguished Bayreuth: A History of the Wagner Festival, convincingly demonstrates that unlike the traditional biographical view that Hitler was an "unperson" who had no life outside of politics, Hitler's interest in the arts was as intense as his racismand that he used the arts to disguise the heinous crimes that were the means to fulfilling his ends.

Frederic Spotts has written four other books on European political and cultural affairs. His study of Bayreuth is acknowledged as the standard work on the subject. Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics was written while Spotts was a visiting scholar at the Institute for International Affairs at Berkeley.