Although it was published nearly two-thirds of a century ago, I never read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich before. I just started reading it this weekend, and it’s a riveting read so far.

Most of us are familiar with the ‘butterfly effect” that is mentioned with chaos theory – – that is, how one tiny, inconsequential action can ultimately have huge effects. There are many examples of this in the Third Reich book because, let’s face it, had Hitler not been the leader of Germany, then the lives of tens of millions of people (actually more like hundreds of millions, or possibly even billions) would be affected.

Of course, most of us know how, as a soldier in World War I, Hitler almost died but was saved, ironically, by a member of the allied forces. And likewise, we realize that if the art academy in Vienna had accepted his application so that he could achieve his youthful dream of being a great artist, then this person name “Hitler” would simply have become a little-known Germany painter of the mid 20th-century.