Simply astonishing is the history of Wittgenstein and Hitler. With Wittgenstein having an annoying habit of correcting people and Hitler hating being corrected so much he once said that the composer was wrong when someone pulled him up about a mistake in his singing. Whether Wittgenstein set Hitler on course to being a Jew hater is not proved by this book but it certainly is suggested in an almost eerily believable fashion. ( )

This is one of the most astonishing books I have ever read. It details the evidence to show that Adolf Hitler and Ludwig Wittgenstein, the philosopher, went to school together.

In itself, that fact is amazing. But it goes further. Wittgenstein may well have been the focus for the young Hitler's anti-Semitism; the author draws on evidence from Mein Kampf and other sources to suggest that this was so.

Starting from that premise, the book continues to explore Wittgenstein's philosophy in an accessible way (and the book is important for that very reason!), its links with the mainstream of European philosophical thought, and the role that Wittgenstein's thought played in the development of world politics and philosophy over the following fifty years. ( )