100 books like The Devil's Diary

By Robert K Wittman, David Kinney,

Here are 100 books that The Devil's Diary fans have personally recommended if you like The Devil's Diary. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Book cover of Total Espionage: Germany's Information and Disinformation Apparatus 1932-40

Robert Temple Author Of Drunk on Power Vol 1: A Senior Defector's Inside Account of the Nazi Secret Police State

From my list on the inner workings of Nazi Germany.

Why am I passionate about this?

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.

Robert's book list on the inner workings of Nazi Germany

Robert Temple Why did Robert love this book?

This crucial book was originally published by Putnam’s, New York, in 1941. 

Riess admitted in his autobiography (which exists only in German) that the book was largely a compilation of material from various sources, much of it handed to him personally by Robert Vansittart, the head of British Intelligence at the time. Large portions of the book were in fact written by Heinrich Pfeifer, and supplied to British Intelligence, part of it on Pfeifer’s two trips to London, and part passed across via Vansittart’s agent Walker in Lucerne.

Riess was a Jewish refugee from Germany who was trusted by Vansittart to aid him in helping to persuade the American public to enter the War against Germany. The book is one of the most astonishing books of its kind ever written, full of breathtaking revelations. It deserves to be widely known and to be a classic text for historical studies.

Its…

By Curt Riess,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Total Espionage as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Total Espionage was first published shortly before Pearl Harbor and is fresh in its style, retaining immediacy unpolluted by the knowledge of subsequent events. It tells how the whole apparatus of the Nazi state was geared towards war by its systematic gathering of information and dissemination of disinformation. The author, a Berlin journalist, went into exile in 1933 and eventually settled in Manhattan in where he wrote for the Saturday Evening Post. He maintained a network of contacts throughout Europe and from inside the regime to garner his facts. The Nazis made use of many people and organizations: officers' associations…


Book cover of The Nazis Go Underground

Robert Temple Author Of Drunk on Power Vol 1: A Senior Defector's Inside Account of the Nazi Secret Police State

From my list on the inner workings of Nazi Germany.

Why am I passionate about this?

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.

Robert's book list on the inner workings of Nazi Germany

Robert Temple Why did Robert love this book?

This book was originally published by Doubleday, New York, in 1944. This book also contains material obtained from Heinrich Pfeifer, not only from Pfeifer’s own experience but from Pfeifer’s secret network of sympathisers and informants deep within the Nazi Establishment.

It is alarming in the extreme, detailing as it does how the Nazis of the SS and SD had since 1943 started planning to metastasize their doctrines all round the world, and found a Nazi International organisation, with the eventual hope of creating a Fourth Reich which was not dependent upon the territory of Germany, but was spread across the world invisibly, so that no armies could ever conquer it.

They planned the ratlines and escape routes to all the friendly countries such as Argentina and Chile. Their ratline HQ was in Madrid, with the full cooperation of the Franco Government. One of the two chief organisers was SS Lieutenant…

By Curt Reiss,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Nazis Go Underground as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Its existence is known only by the effects of its action.' Author Curt Riess on what happens when an organisation goes underground. Written in 1944, thus contemporary to the events of the Second World War and Nazi Germany, The Nazis Go Underground describes how the Nazis planned and organised their descent into the underground as early as 1943. At this stage of the war, the situation for the Third Reich looked grim. With Bormann and Himmler as its architects, the Nazi party would go underground and prepare for World War III from the shattered ruins of Berlin. German generals were…


Book cover of RSHA Reich Security Main Office: Organisation, Activities, Personnel

Robert Temple Author Of Drunk on Power Vol 1: A Senior Defector's Inside Account of the Nazi Secret Police State

From my list on the inner workings of Nazi Germany.

Why am I passionate about this?

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.

Robert's book list on the inner workings of Nazi Germany

Robert Temple Why did Robert love this book?

This is a gigantic book of 665 pages, and a reading task not for the faint-hearted. It has no index, but then, preparing one might have taken months and easily have added another 100 pages to the book.

It is a reference book which can aid anyone seriously interested in the SS security services, the SD. Much of it is based on the basic SS files seized after the War, and it summarises and reproduces those with meticulous and overwhelming thoroughness. But it must be pointed out that the higher-level secret files of the SS and SD have never been found.

The Heinrich Pfeifer book supplies a great deal of information which was unavailable to Tyas. The personnel files of the department heads of the SD have not been found, and the most detailed account of that level of the operations of the SD is to be found in Pfeifer’s…

By Stephen Tyas,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked RSHA Reich Security Main Office as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

During the Nazi regime in Germany, all police forces were centralised under the command of Reichsfuhrer-SS Heinrich Himmler. The political police (Gestapo), the criminal police (Kripo), and the security service (SD) were all brought together under the RSHA umbrella in 1939, commanded by SS-General Reinhard Heydrich. Using RSHA in Berlin as the centre, the web of Heydrich's control extended into every corner of Nazi-occupied Europe. British and American intelligence agencies tried to get to grips with RSHA departments at the end of the war, knowing who was who and what they did, relying on what captured RSHA personnel told them…


Book cover of Hitler's British Traitors: The Secret History of Spies, Saboteurs and Fifth Columnists

Robert Temple Author Of Drunk on Power Vol 1: A Senior Defector's Inside Account of the Nazi Secret Police State

From my list on the inner workings of Nazi Germany.

Why am I passionate about this?

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.

Robert's book list on the inner workings of Nazi Germany

Robert Temple Why did Robert love this book?

This is a lively and shocking book, exposing countless Nazi wartime spies and sympathisers in Britain, with their stories and photos of them. One of them was Major General John F. C. Fuller.

When I was very young, I knew several people who knew him and spoke of him warmly. He was greatly admired for his book on Alexander the Great. These friends often said they were hoping to introduce me to him, but it never happened. They thought I would find him interesting because of his knowledge of ancient Greece.

None of them appeared to be aware that Fuller was a fanatical anti-Semite and fascist who had supported Hitler. So easily did he survive the War and retain some admirers into the 1960s. Fuller was famous as a genius of modern armored warfare and had countless admirers in the Army. He had written 45 books. He died in 1966.…

By Tim Tate,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Hitler's British Traitors as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Tim Tate, in Hitler's British Traitors, [explores] the entire grimy landscape of British treachery during the Second World War and the astonishing rogues' gallery of traitors working to help Nazi Germany win. [He makes] excellent use of the vast trove of material declassified by MI5 in recent years.' - Ben Macintyre, The Times

Hitler's British Traitors is the first authoritative account of a well-kept secret: the British Fifth Column and its activities during the Second World War.

Drawing on hundreds of declassified official files - many of them previously unpublished - Tim Tate uncovers the largely unknown history of more…


Book cover of The Spinoza Problem

Elias Aboujaoude Author Of A Leader's Destiny: Why Psychology, Personality, and Character Make All the Difference

From my list on the psychological quest for meaning.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a psychiatry professor, researcher, and author at Stanford University. Besides OCD, my research has focused on the interface between technology and psychology, both in its negative manifestations (e.g., video game addiction, online narcissism, cyberbullying) and positive applications (e.g., telemedicine, virtual reality therapy, AI digital therapeutics). My reading tastes and non-scientific writing topics reflect the same interests—deep and highly personal psychological explorations of individuals on a quest for meaning or facing seemingly insurmountable obstacles, symptoms, or character tests.  

Elias' book list on the psychological quest for meaning

Elias Aboujaoude Why did Elias love this book?

I loved the thrilling interweaving of historical fact with creative fiction, psychology with politics, and high Golden Age Amsterdam culture with Nazi Germany depravity.

Irv Yalom reimagines the inner lives of two men who couldn’t be more different, and whose individual and unique fates history still somehow found a way to unite. 

By Irvin Yalom,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Spinoza Problem as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A haunting portrait of Arthur Rosenberg, one of Nazism's chief architects, and his obsession with one of history's most influential Jewish thinkers

In The Spinoza Problem, Irvin Yalom spins fact and fiction into an unforgettable psycho-philosophical drama. Yalom tells the story of the seventeenth-century thinker Baruch Spinoza, whose philosophy led to his own excommunication from the Jewish community, alongside that of the rise and fall of the Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg, who two hundred years later during World War II ordered his task force to plunder Spinoza's ancient library in an effort to deal with the Nazis' "Spinoza Problem."

Seamlessly…


Book cover of The Last Days of Hitler

David Luhrssen Author Of Hammer of the Gods: The Thule Society and the Birth of Nazism

From my list on understanding Nazi Germany.

Why am I passionate about this?

Unlike most children of immigrants who were told nothing about the past, I grew up surrounded by family history—my grandfather’s village in Russia, my father’s memories of 1930s Europe, and my mother’s childhood on a migrant worker farm during the Great Depression. I realized that history isn’t 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.

David's book list on understanding Nazi Germany

David Luhrssen Why did David love this book?

There have been more recent accounts of Hitler’s retreat to the bunker in the last weeks of his life. But even if some new information has surfaced since Britain’s H.R. Trevor-Roper wrote his report, the vividness is hard to match. Trever-Roper recorded his thoughts on Hitler’s end before the rubble of war had been cleared away. It was almost on-the-scene reporting.

By Hugh Trevor-Roper,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Last Days of Hitler as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

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.


Book cover of Hitler: A Biography

Robert Gerwarth Author Of Hitler's Hangman: The Life of Heydrich

From my list on Nazi leadership.

Why am I passionate about this?

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.

Robert's book list on Nazi leadership

Robert Gerwarth Why did Robert love this book?

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 – even a lot of good ones – but Ian Kershaw’s 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.

By Ian Kershaw,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Hitler as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"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.


Book cover of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

David Hanna Author Of Broken Icarus: The 1933 Chicago World's Fair, the Golden Age of Aviation, and the Rise of Fascism

From my list on the perils of fascism.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've found the creep of authoritarianism to be very disquieting. One would have to be willfully blind to not see its manifestations both here and abroad. I wanted to better understand how this phenomenon cast its shadow over the world and I found the '33 Chicago World's Fair an ideal lens to view this through. I've been fascinated by world's fairs since I was a child and the '33 Fair was the first to consciously feature the future. I'm also strangely drawn to this period – if I believed in reincarnation it might provide answers, but I don't. The Zeitgeist just before the full, brutal ugliness of fascism broke over the world, fascinates me.

David's book list on the perils of fascism

David Hanna Why did David love this book?

The first half of the book is like watching a slow-motion car wreck. There were so many missed opportunities to stop Hitler before he did his worst, I wanted to shout ‘Stop this guy before it’s too late!’ Alas… Shirer was our man in Vienna and Berlin from the late 1920s-early 1940s, which adds an intimacy to his words that I find lacking in other similar accounts.

By William L. Shirer,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It was Hitler's boast that the Third Reich would last a thousand years. Instead it lasted only twelve. But into its short life was packed the most cataclysmic series of events that Western civilisation has ever known.

William Shirer is one of the very few historians to have gained full access to the secret German archives which the Allies captured intact. He was also present at the Nuremberg trials.

First published sixty years ago, Shirer's account of the years 1933-45, when the Nazis, under the rule of their despotic leader Adolf Hitler, ruled Germany is held up as a classic…


Book cover of Hitler's War and the Germans

Neil Gregor Author Of How to Read Hitler

From my list on biographical studies of Hitler.

Why am I passionate about this?

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 Bullock’s 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 – my own family origins in Germany, and the stories elderly relatives told of their wartime experiences, gave the history texture, immediacy, and urgency.

Neil's book list on biographical studies of Hitler

Neil Gregor Why did Neil love this book?

This is not a full biography – the biography Steinert wrote later in her career is not available in English – but many of the ideas in Steinert’s biography can also be found in this earlier work, which has faded into posterity slightly but can be read with great profit. Here, Steinert is concerned to give texture to a hitherto often two-dimensional image of German society and its attitudes to Hitler’s War. The result is an interesting, differentiated account of public opinion in Nazi Germany. In many respects, it was pioneering and opened up questions surrounding the relationship between state and society that other historians went on to explore further in the 1980s. Steinert’s Francophone background, and perhaps the fact that she was a female writer working in a profession that was then very male-dominated, probably account for the fact that her work is less well-known in the English-speaking world…

By Marlis G Steinert,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Hitler's War and the Germans as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Text: English, German (translation)


Book cover of After Midnight

Moritz Föllmer Author Of Culture in the Third Reich

From my list on life in Nazi Germany.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a historian at the University of Amsterdam, one of my concerns is to understand why so many Germans supported and participated in Adolf Hitler’s atrocious political project. I am equally interested in the other side: the Nazis’ political opponents and victims. In two decades of researching, writing, and teaching, I have read large numbers of official documents, newspapers, diaries, novels, and memoirs. These contemporary texts have made me vividly aware of how different people lived through the Nazi years, how they envisioned their lives, and how they remembered them after World War II. The questions they faced and the solutions they found continue to challenge and disconcert me.  

Moritz's book list on life in Nazi Germany

Moritz Föllmer Why did Moritz love this book?

Prefer to learn about Nazi Germany through literature? Try this novel by Irmgard Keun, who excelled at writing from the perspective of different young women. Here, nineteen-year-old Sanna relates how her life has changed under the Third Reich. She encounters people who express unqualified admiration for Adolf Hitler or at least concede that the Nazis are right about many things, who enjoy denouncing others or adapting to the new rules of the game. With her naïve understanding and unsophisticated language, Sanna lays bare vain pretensions, catchy slogans, and ponderous pseudo-profundities. She can’t understand why she should listen to Nazi speeches and avoid Jews. Contacts with critical friends finally compel her to leave Germany—just like her literary creator, who published her novel in exile in the Netherlands. 

By Irmgard Keun, Anthea Bell (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked After Midnight as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Depicting a young woman's life in Nazi Germany, a masterpiece from the author of Child of All Nations

'I cannot think of anything else that conjures up so powerfully the atmosphere of a nation turned insane' Sunday Telegraph

Nineteen-year-old Sanna just wants to drink her beer in peace, but that's difficult when Hitler has come to town and his motorcade is blocking the streets of Frankfurt. What's more, her best friend Gerti is in love with a Jewish boy, her brother writes books that have been blacklisted and her own aunt may denounce her to the authorities at any moment,…


Book cover of Total Espionage: Germany's Information and Disinformation Apparatus 1932-40
Book cover of The Nazis Go Underground
Book cover of RSHA Reich Security Main Office: Organisation, Activities, Personnel

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,388

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler, and Germany?

Nazi Germany 159 books
Adolf Hitler 141 books
Germany 492 books