Hitler Apparently Ghostwrote a Book About How Great He Was in 1923

New research into an early biography of Hitler suggests the genocidal dictator ghostwrote the book himself, right down to the sections that compare the rising Nazi leader to Jesus Christ, the New York Timesreports.

Adolf Hitler: His Life and His Speeches , which came out in 1923, months before Hitler was arrested for his failed Beer Hall Putsch coup, was published under the byline of a German aristocrat, Baron Adolf Victor von Koerber.

Von Koerber's book has previously been believed to have been prompted by Hitler, who felt a biography by a known non-Nazi might bolster his profile in Germany. But now, according to some newly discovered documents from von Koerber's estate, Hitler did more than coerce the aristocrat into penning a bio—he did it for him.

The documents are paired with a signed statement from the book's publisher's widow corroborating the story.

"I'm convinced from the presented sources that Hitler himself wrote this short text or gave at least the basic information to an editor," Sven Felix Kellerhoff, a Hitler scholar, told the Times. "This is important because it shows that Hitler thought about himself as the 'German savior' as early as 1923."

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Photo of Hitler via Wikicommons