This book can be treasured by history buffs for its fascinating facts and the author’s graceful and engaging style ... Quick paced and reading like a novel, this book provides a psycho-history of Hitler ... a masterful fusion of information found in at least 140 secondary sources ... [an] epic tale ... The font and layout of the book are pleasing to the eye, but the editing fails to correct many typos in German and several in English.
Longo interviewed a number of Habsburg descendants, telling the heartbreaking story of the orphaned royals but also the bravery and courage of conviction it took for them to uphold their beliefs and resist in the face of evil ... The author's in-depth research paints a vivid picture of this family, producing a richly detailed portrait that will appeal to readers interested in the origins of both world wars and European royal history.
Through interviews with descendants of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Longo...paints a detailed and moving picture of how the Habsburgs suffered under the Nazi regime ... This look at a lesser-known aspect of WWII is scrupulously sourced, well-written, and accessible.
Longo’s account does good service in tracing the long enmity Hitler felt for the Habsburgs and the extraordinary measures he took to erase the royal family, which in the end outlasted him; the author interviewed descendants in writing his book ... Unfortunately, the book is overlong and full of clichés and set pieces out of proportion to the news it brings. ... A middling account that may interest students of the Third Reich and the psychology of nationalism.
