The First Soldier

“Fritz does an excellent job of weaving together the best secondary source material with diaries, letters to wives, Nuremburg Trials testimony, wartime pronouncements and speeches . . . [and] an equally outstanding job of adding his own analysis and reading of events to create a new and refreshing understanding of many key episodes in the European theater of operations.”—Robert Kirchubel, H-Net Reviews

Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Title of 2019

“Perhaps the best account we have to date of Hitler’s military leadership. It shows a scrupulous and imaginative historian at work and will cement Fritz’s reputation as one of the leading historians of the military conflicts generated by Hitler’s Germany.”—Richard Overy, author of The Bombing War

“Magnificent. Hitler emerges as a complex and nuanced military leader who cannot simply be dismissed as the dogmatic ideologue or the corporal in command. Original, insightful and authoritative Fritz’s latest work is something I will return to again and again.”—David Stahel, author of The Battle for Moscow

“Cuts a swathe through the reconstituted arguments of countless other books about Hitler. Meticulously researched and adopting a thoroughly readable style, Fritz offers profound new insights about Hitler as commander. This is a volume which should serve as a warning to strategic leaders who become blinkered by ideology, self-absorbed and neglect the requirements of successful leadership.”—Lloyd Clark, author of Blitzkrieg