Here are 100 books that The German Wife fans have personally recommended if you like
The German Wife.
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When I find a big story that has not come out, which has massive relevance for history and for the entire world, I go all out to bring it to light, as I have done with this book. Most of the books I have written have been devoted to telling big, unknown stories that concern the world. (Examples: alien intelligence, the origins of ancient civilisations, the Chinese contribution to the history of inventions, the existence of optical technology in antiquity, who were the people who tried and executed King Charles I and why did they do it.) I simply had to expose this information to the public.
One of the strangest characters of the Nazi regime was Alfred Rosenberg, a Baltic German born in Estonia and educated in Latvia.
He was one of Hitlerâs closest friends from the 1920s. He is often viewed as the chief ideologue of the Nazi Party. After the War, his personal diary was discovered. It commenced in 1935. His activities before that are insufficiently documented, but important details of what he was doing in 1929 were revealed by Heinrich Pfeifer, who was recruited by Rosenberg to be his personal aide in that year, when Pfeifer was only 24 years old.
Wittman and Kinney have written this important book reporting on what was found in Rosenbergâs revealing diary, and it is a riveting read. To find the private diaries of senior people is most revealing, and very rare. Rosenberg was a weird fellow, but then which Nazi leader wasnât?Â
A groundbreaking World War II narrative wrapped in a riveting detective story, The Devilâs Diary investigates the disappearance of a private diary penned by one of Adolf Hitlerâs top aidesâAlfred Rosenberg, his âchief philosopherââand mines its long-hidden pages to deliver a fresh, eye-opening account of the Nazi rise to power and the genesis of the Holocaust
An influential figure in Adolf Hitlerâs early inner circle from the start, Alfred Rosenberg made his name spreading toxic ideas about the Jews throughout Germany. By the dawn of the Third Reich, he had published a bestselling masterwork that was a touchstone of NaziâŠ
In Villa Air-Bel, I wrote about an extraordinary man, Varian Fry. A journalist sent to France in 1940 with a list of 200 artists to save, he expected to stay 2 weeks. He stayed 15 months, establishing the Emergency Rescue Committee. By the time the Vichy police expelled him, heâd saved 2,000 people. Who has the courage to put their lives on the line for strangers? In The Betrayal of Anne Frank: A Cold Case Investigation, I recorded how five people risked their lives to hide the Frank family until they were finally betrayed. Two of the helpers were sent to concentration camps. It takes courage to resist Fascism. Would I/ we have that courage?
This is the real-life biography of a little-known Canadian from Nova Scotia, Winthrop Bell.
Bell worked as a spy for British MI6 in Germany. Bell understood that Hitler, an insignificant minion, rose to lead the Nazi Party because he served as a tool for extreme and powerful Nationalists who fashioned the genocidal programâthe Holocaust.
As Winthrop Bell pursues the truth, the twists and turns of his often dangerous life are fascinating.Â
The thrilling true story of Agent A12, the earliest enemy of the NazisÂ
In public life, Dr. Winthrop Bell of Halifax was a Harvard philosophy professor and wealthy businessman. As MI6 secret agent A12, he evaded gunfire and shook off pursuers to break open the emerging Nazi conspiracy in 1919 Berlin. His reports, the first warning of the Nazi plot for WWII, went directly to the man known as C, the mysterious founder of MI6, and to prime ministers. But a powerful fascist politician quietly worked to suppress his alerts. Nevertheless, his intelligence sabotaged the Nazis in ways only nowâŠ
After retiring from academic medicine, I moved to the ocean and learned of WWII Japanese submarine and balloon bomb attacks on Oregon. With extensive research, consultation, and trips to Europe, Latin America, and Asia, I have now published three historical fiction novels on Amazon: Enemy in the Mirror: Love and Fury in the Pacific War,The Osprey and the Sea Wolf: The Battle of the Atlantic 1942, and Night Fire Morning Snow: The Road to Chosin. My website is intended to promote understanding of America and her enemies in wartime.
Compiled from personal diaries and letters, wartime arts and entertainment, court records, military correspondence, secret police reports and Nazi propaganda ministry assessments, an Oxford professor of modern European history has written this engrossing account of the German military and civilian experience during World War II. Initial enthusiasm for the war effort during the early years of WWII, gradually gives way under the intense bombing of German cities, awareness of the regimeâs genocidal activities and military losses on both fronts. In the final year of the war ordinary Germans, realizing the war could not be won, were simply determined to hold on until a just peace can be attained.
As early as 1941, Allied victory in World War II seemed all but assured. How and why, then, did the Germans prolong the barbaric conflict for three and a half more years?In The German War , acclaimed historian Nicholas Stargardt draws on an extraordinary range of primary source materials,personal diaries, court records, and military correspondence,to answer this question. He offers an unprecedented portrait of wartime Germany, bringing the hopes and expectations of the German people,from infantrymen and tank commanders on the Eastern front to civilians on the home front,to vivid life. While most historians identify the German defeat at StalingradâŠ
Odette Lefebvre is a serial killer stalking the shadows of Nazi-occupied Paris and must confront both the evils of those she murders and the darkness of her own past.
This young woman's childhood trauma shapes her complex journey through World War II France, where she walks a razor's edgeâŠ
I have an international reputation as an expert on dehumanization. I have researched this subject for the past fifteen years, and have written three books and many articles, and given many talks on it, including a presentation at the 2012 G20 economic summit. I believe that dehumanization is an extremely important phenomenon to understand, because it fuels the worst atrocities that human beings inflict upon one another. If phrases like "never again" have any real meaning, we need to seriously investigate the processes, including dehumanization, that make such horrific actions possible.
Many people are unaware that the Nazi genocide of Jews and Roma was built on their earlier mass extermination of disabled people, beginning with children. The killing methods used in places like Auschwitz and Treblinka were pioneered in the murder of many thousands of people with physically and mentally disabled people, whom members of the German medical profession referred to as âlife unworthy of lifeâ and âuseless eaters.â This book by a distinguished Holocaust scholar meticulously documents the journey from the first child killed on Hitlerâs orders to the inferno of the Polish extermination camps.
Tracing the rise of racist and eugenic ideologies, Henry Friedlander explores how the Nazi programme of secretly exterminating the handicapped and disabled evolved into the systematic destruction of Jews and Gypsies. He describes how the so-called euthanasia of the handicapped provided a practical model for the later mass murder, thereby initiating the Holocaust. The Nazi regime pursued the extermination of Jews, Gypsies and the handicapped based on a belief in the biological, and thus absolute, inferiority of those groups. To document the connection between the assault on the handicapped and the Final Solution, Friedlander shows how the legal restrictions andâŠ
Since 2011 I have taught a summer course at Freie UniversitĂ€t Berlin, and have grown fond of the city, including its admirable efforts to acknowledge and atone for its former status as the capital of the Nazi empire. Iâve seen pictures of Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King touring the city and interacting (cheerfully) with Reich officials, and a couple of years ago I made a point of retracing his steps to observe the vestiges (very little) of prewar Berlin. This compelled me to dig deeply into what motivated King to break bread with Nazis, and how the prime ministerâs trip was viewed by Canadians and the world â at the time, and since.
As the title suggests, this is a compendium of American visitorsâ impressions of Nazism in the 1930s. Their reactions varied from confusion to rage to applause, but Nagorski notes that, sooner or later, most came to the realization that Germany was âa society undergoing a horrific transformation in the name of a demented ideology,â and feared the implications for humanity. Another useful reminder of the essential role of solid, independent journalism, and of the methods by which seemingly decent people and entire societies can be devoured by hatred and tribalism. It seems, sadly, that we need a lot of reminding about such thingsâŠ
World War II historian Andrew Nagorski recounts Adolf Hitlerâs rise to and consolidation of power, drawing on countless firsthand reports, letters, and diaries that narrate the creation of the Third Reich.
âHitlerland is a bit of a guilty pleasure. Reading about the Nazis is not supposed to be fun, but Nagorski manages to make it so. Readers new to this story will find it fascinatingâ (The Washington Post).
Hitlerâs rise to power, Germanyâs march to the abyss, as seen through the eyes of Americansâdiplomats, military officers, journalists, expats, visiting authors, Olympic athletesâwho watched horrified and up close. âEngaging if chillingâŠaâŠ
I am Professor of Modern European History at the University of Southampton, UK, and publish widely on diverse aspects of Nazi Germany. The first history book that I ever read was Alan Bullockâs Hitler. A Study in Tyranny - the first scholarly biography of Hitler to appear. I still recall the fascination of reading this as a teenager: it sparked a curiosity that formed the basis of a scholarly career that has spanned nearly three decades. The desire to make sense of the phenomenon of Nazism was never purely academic, however â my own family origins in Germany, and the stories elderly relatives told of their wartime experiences, gave the history texture, immediacy, and urgency.
This is a remarkable historical and psychological examination of the enigma of Adolf Hitler-who he was, how he wielded power, and why he was destined to fail.
Beginning with Hitler's early life, Sebastian Haffner probes the historical, political, and emotional forces that molded his character. In examining the inhumanity of a man for whom politics became a substitute for life, he discusses Hitler's bizarre relationships with women, his arrested psychological development, his ideological misconceptions, his growing obsession with racial extermination, and the murderous rages of his distorted mind. Finally, Haffner confronts the most disturbing question of all: Could another HitlerâŠ
I have been a professor of political science for over 25 years, and I am interested in what causes wars and what causes defeats. I have also been involved in military planning, policy, and politics. I am constantly on the lookout for the pedagogically most impactful accounts of processes and events for my students, to quickly level them up to participate in the policy field. I am especially sensitive and interested in methodologically sound works, where alternative explanations are laid out, and there is a rigorous test to establish the validity of hypotheses.
If Hitler had obtained a nuclear weapon, it would have had a dramatic geopolitical impact on world history. Hitler is poorly understood, especially in the United States, and is often miscaricatured as Charlie Chaplin, or brushed off superficially as evil, mad or sick.
John Tolandâs definitive account, based on over 150 interviews with persons who had known or worked with Adolf Hitler, puts into sharp focus Hitlerâs energy and tremendous memory, his high emotional quotient, manipulativeness, his doubts, and consequently the danger he posed in a far more vivid and creditable manner than are achieved by cosmetic popular accounts.
It is an important text because Hitlerâs fantasies and mistakes are predictably reproduced by so many other dictators, especially those who find themselves among vulnerable people who share those fantasies.Â
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian John Toland's classic, definitive biography of Adolf Hitler remains the most thorough, readable, accessible, and, as much as possible, objective account of the life of a man whose evil effect on the world in the twentieth century will always be felt.
Toland's research provided one of the final opportunities for a historian to conduct personal interviews with over two hundred individuals intimately associated with Hitler. At a certain distance yet still with access to many of the people who enabled and who opposed the fĂŒhrer and his Third Reich, Toland strove to treat this life as ifâŠ
Unlike most children of immigrants who were told nothing about the past, I grew up surrounded by family historyâmy grandfatherâs village in Russia, my fatherâs memories of 1930s Europe, and my motherâs childhood on a migrant worker farm during the Great Depression. I realized that history isnât just names and dates but a unique opportunity to study human behavior. I wrote Hammer of the Gods about the Thule Society because Thule was often mentioned in passing by historians of Nazi Germany, as if they were uncomfortable delving into an occult group recognized as influential on the Nazis. I decided I wanted to learn who they were and what they wanted.
There have been more recent accounts of Hitlerâs retreat to the bunker in the last weeks of his life. But even if some new information has surfaced since Britainâs H.R. Trevor-Roper wrote his report, the vividness is hard to match. Trever-Roper recorded his thoughts on Hitlerâs end before the rubble of war had been cleared away. It was almost on-the-scene reporting.
Late in 1945, Hugh Trevor-Roper was appointed by the British Intelligence to investigate the conflicting evidence surrounding Hitler's final days. The author, who had access to American counterintelligence files and to German prisoners, focuses on the last ten days of Hitler's life, April 20-29, 1945, in the underground bunker in Berlin.
Robert Gerwarth is a professor of modern history at University College. After completing his DPhil at Oxford, he has held visiting fellowships at Harvard, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and the European University Institute in Florence. He is the author and editor of more than ten books on modern German history, most recently November 1918: The German Revolution.
If you only have time to read one book on the Nazi leadership, it should be this one. It is not the lightest of books (and it has two volumes), but it is well worth your time. Adolf Hitler was obviously central to the Nazi dictatorship and the number of books written about him reflects that. There are lots of biographies on Hitler â even a lot of good ones â but Ian Kershawâs two-volume life of Hitler remains unsurpassed in my view. Kershaw skillfully combines his biography of the dictator with a wider social and political history of the Nazi dictatorship, so readers learn a great deal about both the man at the top of the regime and the ways in which the Third Reich functioned.
"The Hitler biography of the twenty-first century" (Richard J. Evans), Ian Kershaw's Hitler is a one-volume masterpiece that will become the standard work. From Hitler's origins as a failed artist in fin-de-siecle Vienna to the terrifying last days in his Berlin bunker, Kershaw's richly illustrated biography is a mesmerizing portrait of how Hitler attained, exercised, and retained power. Drawing on previously untapped sources, such as Goebbels's diaries, Kershaw addresses the crucial questions about the unique nature of Nazi radicalism, about the Holocaust, and about the poisoned European world that allowed Hitler to operate so effectively.
I am Professor of Modern European History at the University of Southampton, UK, and publish widely on diverse aspects of Nazi Germany. The first history book that I ever read was Alan Bullockâs Hitler. A Study in Tyranny - the first scholarly biography of Hitler to appear. I still recall the fascination of reading this as a teenager: it sparked a curiosity that formed the basis of a scholarly career that has spanned nearly three decades. The desire to make sense of the phenomenon of Nazism was never purely academic, however â my own family origins in Germany, and the stories elderly relatives told of their wartime experiences, gave the history texture, immediacy, and urgency.
In my view, this is the most readable and persuasive of a number of new biographical treatments that have appeared recently. In terms of interpretation, largely Ullrich confirms the line offered in an older two-volume biography, the equally magisterial account by Ian Kershaw published at the turn of the century. Like Kershaw, Ullrich is concerned to explain Hitlerâs power in terms of charismatic authority, and not just dictatorial terror. But whereas Kershaw was of the view that Hitler had comparatively little personal hinterland, foregrounding instead his career as a public figure, Ullrich pulls out a remarkable range of often tiny, seemingly insignificant personal details or anecdotes to generate a compelling view of Hitlerâs own interior landscape â it is all the more impressive for the fact that he uses this to explain better Hitlerâs political outlook and actions. Â
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ⹠This landmark biography of Hitler puts an emphasis on the man himself: his personality, his temperament, and his beliefs.
â[A] fascinating Shakespearean parable about how the confluence of circumstance, chance, a ruthless individual and the willful blindness of others can transform a country â and, in Hitlerâs case, lead to an unimaginable nightmare for the world.â âMichiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Volker Ullrich's Hitler, the first in a two-volume biography, has changed the way scholars and laypeople alike understand the man who has become the personification of evil. Drawing on previously unseen papers andâŠ
