Michael

This poorly written ""novel'' in diary form by Hitler's calculating and sinister propaganda minister is, not surprisingly, a compilation of vicious Nazi doctrine. First published in 1929, fouryears before the Nazis seized power in Germany, it was so widely read that it went through 17 editions and appears here in English for the first time. The story concerns a former soldier who finds his university studies hold little meaning in Weimar Germany, which is beset by economic hardship and revolutionary stirrings. Michael abandons his education to help rebuild Germany for the Volk, and his romantic desire to die for the cause becomes reality when he perishes in a coal mine where he works as a laborer. This book is filled with vituperations against Jews, intellectuals, liberals, utopias and Leninism. Its educational value for students of Nazism is debatable since it contains no introduction placing Goebbels or his times in its historical and social context. (September)