This is a paperbound edition of a work first published in 1978. Joseph Goebbels, Adolph Hitler's "Minister for Propaganda and Enlightenment," was an almost obsessive daily diarist during the war years, recording his thoughts on the course of the military situation, international and domestic political developments, and his hopes for Nazism for posterity. This volume collects the surviving extracts of the diary for the period from February 27, 1945, before the Western Allies had crossed the Rhine and as the Soviets were advancing through Hungary and Czechoslovakia, to April 9, 1945, two weeks before Goebbels moved himself and his family into the bunker from which they would not return as Nazism collapsed around them. The diary reveals, in the words of the late Hugh Trevor-Roper, the influential British historian who edited this volume and provided the introduction, Goebbels' "opportunism, his radicalism, his nihilism, his hatred of humanity; but also his incredible mental energy, his unfailing flair for propaganda, and his personal courage." It also shows the extent to which Goebbels, like most of the Nazi leadership, had become thoroughly disconnected from the realities of the war. Annotation ©2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)