Full disclosure, I am an unrepentant and unabashed wehraboo and, for lack of a better term, Nazi apologist. I am however very averse to Hitler, just not the way Abraham Foxman and Jonathan Greenblatt want me to be, but rather the way many of his best generals and officers were. i am pro Wehrmacht, pro Nazi, but am anti Hitler.
As others have stated, there is no single book on Nazi Germany, the underlying causes as to why Hitler rose to power, why the German people followed (very good reasons without the advantage of hindsight), his crimes, shortcomings, and failings.
First and foremost, one must understand the grave injustices of the Versailles Diktat, the hardships suffered by the German people at the end of World War I and its aftermath, the legitimate territorial claims Germany had on Sudetenland, Danzig and other areas of the so-called Polish corridor, the legitimate threat of Soviet Bolshevism in Germany and Europe, and how German language newspapers were quite cognizant of the millions of people Stalin was murdering, and the overwhelmingly strong kosher flavor the commissars and other elites in the Soviet Union.
For this understanding, I recommend
Before the Deluge, which is actually nostalgic about the Weimar Period but in many respects indicts this period similar to a soccer team scoring an own goal. An investigation in the Weimar period as a whole is important, the moral and material deprivations suffered. A book called
Berlin Cabaret also has insightful chapters, as well as a book, really a pamphlet about Anita Berber (
Seven Temptations and Five Professions of Anita Berber) provide part of the mosaic that is a correct and enlightened understand about
Incidentally, Martymade aka Darrell Cooper a former S.E.A.L juxtaposes what this country did to Germany and the Germany people at the end of World War I to how we "thanked" the Russian people for giving us a velvet, bloodless revolution and dissolving the Soviet Union.
Show The Martyrmade Podcast, Ep Thoughts on Ukraine (Updated and Remastered) - Mar 13, 2022
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Richard J Evans trilogy on the Third Reich is excellent. I will confess to having listened to the audiobook rather than the three volume book.
Patrick Buchanan's Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War debunks many myths about World War I and II, but does not go far enough in discerning that Nazi Germany truly was the lesser of all evils. The
writings of Ernst Nolte generally are of interest, but cannot recommend anything in particular. His overall thesis vindicating the German people while correctly denouncing Hitler (but despising communism much more) offers an enlightened perspective.
Three other books which should make any person otherwise sympathetic to the Nazi cause quite averse to Hitler include the
memoirs by Heinz Guderian and Erich von Manstein, as well as the
Rommel biography by David Frazier.
I recently read
Tapping Hitler's Generals by Neitzel. Neitzel is a good post war West German, who pays lip service to the idea that the Clean Wehrmacht is a myth, but reading these excerpted transcripts of generals speaking candidly while in British captivity, it in my mind exonerate the bulk of the Wehrmacht as having fought with honor to the extent they were allowed to. It like the memoirs mentioned above convincingly demonstrates Hitler's failure as a leader, morally and practically.
Unfortunately, there is not really one single volume on even the Ostfront--you will have to read many different books to obtain a general understanding. I have read
Paul Carrell's Hitler Moves East,
War Without Garlands, and
John Erickson's two volues Road to Stalingrad/Road to Berlin (but don't remember much about those last two). By Brute Force makes a good argument that overwhelming material superiority enjoyed by the Allies made defeat and disaster inevitable, but I am not quite convinced.
To learn about the truth of German victimhood twoards the end of the war and its aftermath, read ,
Hellstrom, and
After the Reich, and
A Terrible Revenge by De Zayas
These are just some of the volumes I would recommend off the top of my head. There are many volumes devoted to single divisions or fighting units, so again it really all depends on what aspects of this period in history interest you, but these are some of the volumes that have informed my position on this era of history.
I will close with this excerpt from American provocateur and prankster Boyd Rice, as a preemptive rebuttal to anyone who clings to the myths about World War I and World War II and the utterly absurd notion of American exceptionalism. Vergiss niemals, daß die Guten verloren.
Hear now my words and heed them well! .... All that appears to grant freedom to mankind has in fact ordained its' enslavement, impairing and crippling from within while outwardly bearing the banner of liberty.
