The Devil's Diary

An unprecedented, page-turning narrative of the Nazi rise to power, the Holocaust, and Hitler’s post-invasion plans for Russia told through the recently discovered lost diary of Alfred Rosenberg – Hitler’s ‘philosopher’ and architect of Nazi ideology.A groundbreaking historical work, The Devil’s Diary offers a chilling window into the mind of Adolf Hitler’s “chief social philosopher,” Alfred Rosenberg, who formulated some of the guiding principles behind the Third Reich’s genocidal crusade. It also chronicles the thrilling detective hunt for Rosenberg’s diary, which disappeared after the Nuremburg Trials and remained lost for almost three quarters of a century, until author Robert Wittman, a former FBI special agent who founded the Bureau’s Art Crimes Team, played an important role and tells the story now for the first time.The authors expertly and deftly contextualize more than 400 pages of diary entries stretching from 1936 through 1944, in which the loyal Hitler advisor recounts internal meetings with the Fürher and his close associates Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler; details jealousy and rivalries within the Nazi leadership – particularly with Goebbels; describes the post-invasion occupation of the Soviet Union; considers the “solution” to the “Jewish question;” and discusses his overseeing of the mass seizure and cataloguing of books and artwork from homes, libraries, and museums across occupied Europe. An eyewitness to events, this narrative of Rosenberg’s diary offers provocative and intimate insights into pivotal moments in the war and the notorious Nazi who laid the philosophical foundations of the Third Reich.