Shoes and Hitler

More views of - or after - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

3 February

I doubt it, but there could be a chapter on what shoes Adolf liked to wear in Der Schuh im Nazionalsozialismus (Shoes in the Time of the Nazis - 1933 to 1945), because the book does run to some 900pp. (well, 876 actually).

It represents a revision of a doctoral thesis (submitted to the technical wing of the University of Munich) by one Anne Sudrow (b. 1970), and apparently is a product history, which makes a comparison of Britain, the States and, of course, Germany - or should that really read The Third Reich (as I imagine that the suppressed populations were brought under the aegis even in this respect)?

If this is not an exhaustive study, it has still probably cornered many of the arguments and research angles, but might have been more manageable as three (or more) volumes. It probably comes with a hefty price-tag, so (forgive me!) not really for those on their uppers.

And, no - for those who might be asking - I didn't get the impression that the book was illustrated*, although (forgive me again!) shoes at this time are its sole subject. Amazing what you can discover on the top floor of a copyright library in a row of books, though why it has it, when it is not seemingly a UK title (and so a copy would not have to be supplied free), I do not know...


End-notes

* In fact, consulting the on-line catalogue tells me that there are 44 tables (but some hold to the view that shoes should not be put on them), and even 92 illustrations, whereas it did not look like that sort of book.


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