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Rating: 
Summary: payne gives me "pain" while reading book
Review: Although this book showed the reader that Payne knew the topic of Adolf Hitler well, the reader begins to wonder where Payne acquires all of this information, for he rarely credited his sources.
Rating: 
Summary: FACT or FICTION?
Review: Definitely an interesting read. My only question is "how much can one believe?" Good advice, by the way, to ALL students of history: Just because it's printed doesn't make it "FACT". What I did like, however, was that Payne explored a little-known "rumor" about Hitler's supposed 6-month stay in Liverpool (yet it brings one back to the original dilemma-- where did the author get his facts from?) Reader beware.
Rating:
Summary: Dated and embarrassingly inaccurate
Review: This was number one on the New York Times bestseller list for nine weeks when it was released in 1973. I read it as a child and enjoyed it, but I didn't realize as a 10-year-old that it was laden with ridiculous errors. Payne writes well, but entire chapters are completely fabricated, thus making the book worthless. A salient example is chapter 6 where Hitler makes a year-long visit to Liverpool to visit his brother. This is the most embarrassing idiocy to ever appear in a Hitler biography (and there's loads of competition for this dubious distinction).
Hitler was never in England, as his apartment records clearly show from Vienna. Payne relies upon discredited sources again and again, such as William Patrick Hitler and Kurt Krueger, invented Hitler psychiatrist.The book is good for a few laughs, nothing more. It's aged dreadfully and its errors become more ludicrous as the years past. If you want a solid, reliable and definitive biography of Hitler, consult John Toland's 1977 masterpiece.
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