DEVIL'S DIARY: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets

Alfred Rosenberg first met Adolf Hitler in late 1919 and later confessed to a confidant that he was far from impressed by his intellect. However, like many millions of others, when he witnessed Hitler's public speaking he soon fell under his spell. In 1920 the fledgling Nazi party acquired a weekly newspaper, Volkisher Beobachter, to use as its first mouthpiece and very soon Rosenberg was its chief writer and editor, thus becoming part of Hitler's inner circle right at the very beginning as "chief philosopher". By the dawn of the Third Reich he had published a bestselling masterwork that would become a touchstone of Nazi thinking, but it was another book which would shape his destiny, his private diary. In it he documented the Nazi rise to power and the genesis of the Holocaust and when examined by Nuremberg prosecutors after the war was instrumental in not just his own conviction and execution, but of many others too. However the diary mysteriously disappeared shortly afterwards but then resurfaced when it was offered for sale for $1million, which is when FBI investigator Robert Wittman got involved in a decade-long hunt for it. In that time he discovered that every person who had handled the diary had reasons for hiding the truth of its content. As well as offering a peerless insight into the rise, fall and innermost workings of the Nazi regime and Final Solution, we learn of more personal aspects such as Rosenberg's role in the theft of artworks and the occupation of the Soviet Union, conversations with Hitler and rivalries with Goering, Himmler and Goebbels. A unique WW2 narrative wrapped in a riveting detective story in 512pp paperback with b/w photos.