Simon Seebag Montefiore ‘The Young Stalin’, ‘Stalin 1878 -1939’, ‘Stalin 1939 -1953.’ Phoenix Books There were protests in Germany a couple of years ago concerning the portrayal of Hitler in the film ‘Downfall.’ Amongst other things in one scene he is seen demonstrating considerable kindness to his nervous new secretarial assistant, Trudy Lange. The problem being that these scenes demonstrated a palpable humanity, something which he was not supposed to possess. In short he is shown to be human. I never understood the protests; it always seemed to me important in attempting to understand a mass murderer such as Hitler to explore all the complexities of his character, even discovering that; ‘Love made him weep his pints like you and me.’ All added to greater knowledge, representing a struggle, an attempt, albeit probably doomed, to gain an understanding of what motivates such monstrous individuals. Having just finished reading Simon Seebag Montefiore’s three volume biography of Stalin I ...