Examines the evidence for and against all the major hypotheses concerning the origin of Hitler's character. He sifts through all the rumours--including his alleged Jewish ancestry and what biographer Alan Bullock refers to as "the one-ball business"--and the attempts to derive some psychological cause from them. Various Hitlers emerge: Hitler as con-man and brutal gangster, Hitler the unspeakable pervert, Hitler the ladies' man and Hitler as modernist artist working in the medium of evil.