Hitlerland

By Andrew Nagorski,

Book cover of Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power

Book description

World War II historian Andrew Nagorski recounts Adolf Hitler’s rise to and consolidation of power, drawing on countless firsthand reports, letters, and diaries that narrate the creation of the Third Reich.

“Hitlerland is a bit of a guilty pleasure. Reading about the Nazis is not supposed to be fun, but…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Hitlerland as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

As the title suggests, this is a compendium of American visitors’ 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 “a society undergoing a horrific transformation in the name of a demented ideology,” 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…

The 1930s were the golden age of newspaper reporting. Reporters were celebrities, and most American households subscribed to at least one of more than 2,000 daily newspapers. And the reporters covering Germany were the best of the best, from Edgar Ansel Mowrer, HV Kaltenborn, and William Shirer, to Dorothy Thompson and Sigrid Schultz. Nagorski, a former foreign correspondent himself, brings that expertise to this book, looking at what Germany was like in the 1930s and how American reporters tried to convey the chaos to the public at home. You will want to shout at the reporters—don’t they know what is…

From Rebecca's list on the Holocaust and the United States.

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