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Best book on WW2, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust?

Frostbite

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Frostbite
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Dec 19, 2001
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So I watched Schindler's List on saturday and I've decided to once and for all fill my gap of ignorance about WW2, Nazi Germany, the Holocaust and the state of the world during that 1939-1945 stretch. I've had The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer on my bookshelf for years yet never took the time to pick it up, but I've been told and read that it was somewhat biased against Germany.

So what's the best book out there about WW2?
 
CFLarsen said:
Go with Shirer. It's a good place to start.
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This recommendation wouldn't give the big picture / overview, but if you want the perspective of a german soldier fighting on the Russian front, this book is awesome:

Beiderman, G. In Deadly Combat

Also, anything by Ambrose is a good read too.

B
 
Also: if you want to understand the Battle of France '39-40, you must further read Shirer's "The Collapse of the Third Republic."
http://www.history-europe.com/The_C...to_the_Fall_of_France_in_1940_0306805626.html

Your appreciation of German military superiority in tactics and strategy may be a little dampened afterwards; not because of anything the German HQ did in the BoF per se -> more in how they were fighting such an inferior power in the French High Command.

ie The battle was not Germany's to win, but France's to lose.
 
Raul Hilberg's "The Destruction of the European Jews" is considered the standard work on the Holocaust.
 
Band of Brothers appears to have been pretty accurate in it's description of the platoon level war. Plenty of crazy things to perplex you.

Also good is "Hitler's War", the author appears to be a bit of an apologist for Hitler, but it nicely sets out the dilemmas Hitler faced along the way, and why he made the choices he did.

A similar book is "How Germany Could Have won World War II", which once again looks at things from Hitlers point of view, but makes it clear where he stuffed it up.

http://www.scottmanning.com/archives/000445.php
 
a_unique_person said:
Band of Brothers appears to have been pretty accurate in it's description of the platoon level war. Plenty of crazy things to perplex you.

Also good is "Hitler's War", the author appears to be a bit of an apologist for Hitler, but it nicely sets out the dilemmas Hitler faced along the way, and why he made the choices he did. For example, Germany could simply not create the necessary weapons it needed to take on the world, no matter how well it's initial war went, (at least, not using Hitler's strategy).

A similar book is "How Germany Could Have won World War II", which once again looks at things from Hitlers point of view, but makes it clear where he stuffed it up. That is, the alternative strategies that may have worked.

Fortunately for us all, Hitler was not the economic/military genius he thought he was.

http://www.scottmanning.com/archives/000445.php
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Martin Gilbert's "The Second World War" paints a very good picture of this historical period.
 
Frostbite said:
So I watched Schindler's List on saturday and I've decided to once and for all fill my gap of ignorance about WW2, Nazi Germany, the Holocaust and the state of the world during that 1939-1945 stretch. I've had The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer on my bookshelf for years yet never took the time to pick it up, but I've been told and read that it was somewhat biased against Germany.

So what's the best book out there about WW2?
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A few odd suggestions. Note: you did ask for the best book on WWII, and that's actually a more general topic than Germany, or the Nazis. None of these will tell you everything you need to know, but then, no one book ever will.

1) What They Didn't Teach You about WWII: I forgot the author, but the book has tons of interesting facts about that time. To whit: the rubber collection drive of that time was not to supply the military with rubber--it had tons--but to supply centers for baseballs to replace the at-that-time-normal cork ones taken by a military very short on that substance.

2) Lighter Than a Feather: Title derives from the vow taken by kamikazi pilots before their single missions: "I am resolved that my duties outweigh a range of mountains, but that death is lighter than a feather." Easily the best war novel I've ever read. Author Donald Westheimer uses a Vietnam sensibility as to the nature of war to portray a conventional invasion of Japan nessecitated in this alternate history by the failure of the west to develop the atomic bomb. Written largely as a defense of the deployment of fat man and little boy, it is, regardless of your politics, a hell of a read. It begins on the story of a poor sot entrusted with the almost ridiculously bad job of flying escort for kamikazi pilots--in many ways, presiding over their very deaths--and it only builds from there.
 
Also good is "Hitler's War", the author...

...is David Irving, a notorious holocaust denier, antisemite and racist, liar and falsifier of history, and neo-nazi.

(Irving) appears to be a bit of an apologist for Hitler,

The "bit of apology" includes, inter alia, the claim that Hitler never knew of the holocaust until 1943 at the earliest. The reliability of the rest of his book can be judged from that absurd claim. (Since then, his excuse has change to the claim that the holocaust never really happened, but is a "zionist conspiracy").

As Richard Evans shows in his excellent book, Lying About Hitler, Irving methodically and continously lies, distorts, and simply invents "evidence" to show Hitler in a positive light, while at the same time ignores or explains away everything that shows him in a negative light. His books, as History, are utterly worthless, since one never knows how much really happened and how much is a distortion. Any relation between Irving's version of Hitler and what really happened is purely coincidental.

I have to say, though, Mr. A Unique "I am not an antisemite" Person, that it is hardly a shocking surprise to discover you consider David Irving a reliable historian. His prejudices are, after all, right up your alley.
 
I've had The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer on my bookshelf for years yet never took the time to pick it up, but I've been told and read that it was somewhat biased against Germany.

Read it. It is an excellent book. It is not biased against Germany--in fact, it praises many Germans quite highly, especially those who opposed Hitler, and also the vast majority of the regular Germans who bore the bombings and horrors with exemplery patience (his words, by the way). What he does have is white-hot hatered of NAZISM--which is something quite different.

The book is biased, though, in the sense of this being a personal work by a journalist, not a research tome by a professional historian. So Schirer tends to be light on the documentation (relatively speaking, of course--he DOES have a lot of footnotes and a huge bibliography, but less than you would expect for a work that covers all of the Nazi era), and sometimes sacrifices details and accuracy to tell a more compelling story.

Nevertheless, he is a fascinating writer, and his book--while somewhat outdated--has, by and large, survived a lot of criticism and later research. If not always 100% accurate, it is still very nearly true in every essential point.

So what's the best book out there about WW2?

It depends. An excellent one is Bollock's HITER: A STUDY IN TYRANNY, which is also somewhat shorter than the others below. Perhaps the most outstanding single book is HITLER by Joachim Fest, while the most up-to-date and comprehensive book is the two volume HITLER, 1933-1938: HUBRIS, and HITLER, 1939-!945: NEMESIS by Ian Kershaw.

Perhaps also useful is what books to avoid, which includes many quite famous ones. Avoid all books by David Irving, a holocaust denier with a Hitler fetish. Robert Payne's THE LIFE AND DEATH OF ADOLF HITLER runs across Hitler's life with a dashing disregard for the truth, while Albert Speer's INSIDE THE THIRD REICH is simply the usual apologetics of the ex-war criminal, not a word of which can be trusted.
 
I'd recommend Hitler by Joachim Fest (this even seems to be in English).

Although it is a biography about Hitler it gives much insight about the 3rd Reich and Nazi Germany. And if it is not exaclty what you are looking for, Fest has written several other books about the 3rd Reich.

I've only read Hitler, but based on this one, Fest is definetly an author I'd recommend.

Edited to add: Skeptic beat me to it
 
Raul Hilberg is excellent on the holocaust. Also try 'The path to Genocide - essays on the final solution' - Christopher Browning.
From the personal viewpoint, The Diary of Anne Frank is very informative. There was a new 'updated' version brought out a few years ago with previously 'censored' passages re-inserted.

Its a huge undertaking to think about studying such a huge subject. The best idea is to pick an area which interests you, and look at that in depth.
My own areas of interest are Montgomery, Rommel & The North Africa campaign because my Father was there. Also I have always had a interest in the human tragedy of the Holocaust because I grew up with children and grandchildren of Jewish and Polish refugees. One of my neighbours bore the numerical tattoo from one of the concentration camps.
Peter
 
Skeptic said:
Also good is "Hitler's War", the author...

...is David Irving, a notorious holocaust denier, antisemite and racist, liar and falsifier of history, and neo-nazi.

(Irving) appears to be a bit of an apologist for Hitler,

The "bit of apology" includes, inter alia, the claim that Hitler never knew of the holocaust until 1943 at the earliest. The reliability of the rest of his book can be judged from that absurd claim. (Since then, his excuse has change to the claim that the holocaust never really happened, but is a "zionist conspiracy").

As Richard Evans shows in his excellent book, Lying About Hitler, Irving methodically and continously lies, distorts, and simply invents "evidence" to show Hitler in a positive light, while at the same time ignores or explains away everything that shows him in a negative light. His books, as History, are utterly worthless, since one never knows how much really happened and how much is a distortion. Any relation between Irving's version of Hitler and what really happened is purely coincidental.

I have to say, though, Mr. A Unique "I am not an antisemite" Person, that it is hardly a shocking surprise to discover you consider David Irving a reliable historian. His prejudices are, after all, right up your alley.
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As I have stated in another thread, you have confused two completely different books. The author is not Irving, but Heinz Magenheimer. And I still feel he appears to be a bit of a Nazi sympathiser, but is still worth reading just to see things from Hitler's point of view, since he was the guy who was driving WWII.
 
As I have stated in another thread, you have confused two completely different books. The author is not Irving, but Heinz Magenheimer.

So, I am supposed to believe that, of the two books named "Hitler's War", it just so happens that BOTH authors (Irving and Magenheimer) are apologists for Hitler? And it just so happens that you described "Hitler's War" in your original recommendation as "the war from behind Hitler's desk"--which is PRECISELY the way Irving always describes his "Hitler's War"? And it just so happens you "forgot" to mention in your recommendation that you mean Magenheimer's book and not Irving's--despite the fact that Irving's book is by far the more famous ("notorious" might be more accurate) of the two, as you very well know?

That's just a BIT too good to be true, AUP.

I say you're bluffing. I say that when you said "Hitler's War", you meant Iving's book, which is by far the most famous of the two, written by a Hitler apologist, and described by its author as "the war behind Hitler's desk", just like you said. I say that only after I posted who Irving is--making it rather obvious why you'd like him--did you try to find a way out of the neo-fascist corner you painted yourself into.

You solution? You did a google (or amazon) search for "Hitler's War", and, luckily for you, found out that there IS another, obscure book by that title--which lets you keep up the facade that this is the book you "meant all along", and I am "unjustly" accusing you of being an Irving sympathizer. I'll bet you don't even own, let alone read, Magenheimer's book.
 
Skeptic said:


So, I am supposed to believe that, of the two books named "Hitler's War", it just so happens that BOTH authors (Irving and Magenheimer) are apologists for Hitler?
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Out of three books. There's also one written by E. P. Hoyt.

I've not read any of them so I can't say anything about the motives of the two other authors. (Irvings's are quite clear).

By the way, I've noticed that similarily titled war books tend to be similar in content also. (For example, I have three books with the name "Korpisoturit" and they all are quite similar first-person accounts of the WWII in Finnish front.)
 
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