A BOOK by a University of Aberdeen historian on the early years of Adolf Hitler is to be turned into a major television series.

Hitler’s First War, by Professor Thomas Weber, will be dramatised for an international audience and has been picked up by French television.

The 10-hour series, called Hitler, will trace the Nazi leader's life from the end of World War I up to World War II and the Holocaust.

Professor Weber's book dismisses the claim that he was a brave soldier during World War I, and challenges the view that the war radicalised Hitler.

Professor Weber said: “It is a privilege to see my book and the research behind it dramatised in this way for a large TV audience.

“Over the years a great deal has been written about Hitler but so little of this focused on his life in the years of the First World War. Hitler’s First War uncovered many myths in regard to his service and motivations following the conflict.

"More importantly it demonstrated how Hitler’s lies about his war years became political tools in his hands for the rest of his life.”

He added: "The series is also a great opportunity to de-mask Hitler. We all think we know what Hitler looks like and what he sounded like.

"Yet in reality we only know the Hitler that Nazi propaganda wanted us to see - there is only one secret sound recording of Hitler where we experience an unchoreographed Hitler, who sounds very different indeed from the Hitler we all think we know."

Production for the TV series is set to begin in 2016.