the latter of which was nominated for the 2017 Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Studies.
Sharples applied the “Page 99 Test” to her latest book, The Long Death of Adolf Hitler: An Investigative History, and shared the following:
Page 99 of my book finds us in Chapter 4: ‘Celebrations and Condolences’ which is an exploration of how audiences outside of Germany responded to the breaking news of Adolf Hitler’s death in spring 1945. (German reactions to his demise are explored in a standalone chapter of the book.) Page 99 drops us straight into quirky anecdotes (coal miners downing tools and giving themselves an impromptu day off in jubilation) and various statements from journalists, politicians and the proverbial ‘person on the street’. A range of emotional behaviours are documented here, from cries of relief, through to disappointment that Hitler had not been captured and made to suffer for his crimes.Learn more about The Long Death of Adolf Hitler at the Yale University Press website.
In some ways, the Page 99 Test works really well because it immediately highlights two distinctive features in my approach to Hitler’s death. First, it reflects my efforts to reposition Hitler’s death story within the realms of cultural and emotional history. It moves away from the conventional, top-down approach of previous literature that has fixated on the military and political collapse of the Third Reich, and/or the resulting intelligence rivalries and Cold War tensions that obfuscated investigations into Hitler’s fate after the war. Instead, as page 99 illustrates, this book puts the thoughts and feelings of ‘ordinary’ civilians centre stage and traces the meanings that Hitler’s demise has held for different audiences. Second, as the stories presented on page 99 traverse public reactions in Australia, the UK, the United States and Nicaragua, they underscore the book’s unique transnational framework. Hitler’s demise was not only newsworthy for Germans, or even Europeans; but resonated around the globe.
In addition, the material presented on page 99 hints at some of the challenges yet to come. The Times newspaper, for instance, treated Hitler’s passing in the same way as it might report on the death of any other head of state, penning a formal, five column obituary. Other newspapers, however, suggested that the Nazi leader had forsaken all right to such a dignified treatment. The question of how to handle Hitler’s death would spill over, just days later, into a sensational controversy over whether neutral nations should follow diplomatic protocol and extend formal condolences to Germany on the death of its leader.
There is no doubt that page 99 captures the central theme of the book: the passionate, public discourse that sprang up around the fate of the Nazi dictator. Yet in giving us a snapshot of opinion in May 1945, the test actually misses the significant chronological scope of my work. Hitler’s death had been anticipated throughout the war years, imagined within visual propaganda, songs, jokes and even military fundraising activities. Then, the years after 1945 witnessed a protracted search for definitive proof of his suicide; various representations of his fate within popular literature, film and museum displays; and enduring questions as to how to prevent the formation of a heroic legend. In these ways, as my book argues, Hitler experienced a peculiarly long death, one that stretched far beyond those excitable scenes of spring 1945.
--Marshal Zeringue