100 books like The Face of the Third Reich

By Joachim C. Fest,

Here are 100 books that The Face of the Third Reich fans have personally recommended if you like The Face of the Third Reich. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of 1889-1936 Hubris

David Roman Author Of Geli Hitler

From my list on the batshit-crazy history of Nazi Germany.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a long-time correspondent for American media across the world. I reported on Europe and Asia for the Wall Street Journal, and on Southeast Asia for Bloomberg News. I was always fascinated by deep historical layers to be found in ancient societies like those of Europe, and the sometimes accurate clichés about European tribes and their strange customs; no European tribe is weirder than the Germans, for a long time the wildest of the continent and then the most cultured and sophisticated until they came under the spell of a certain Austrian. The twelve years that followed still rank as the most insane historical period for any nation ever.

David's book list on the batshit-crazy history of Nazi Germany

David Roman Why did David love this book?

Kershaw’s double biography of the Nazi leader (the second part, almost entirely about World War II, is called Hubris) is a classic, and remains the best, most approachable look at the unusual upbringing of a young boy from provincial Austria who once wanted to be an artist, and felt in debt with the Jewish doctor who (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) treated his mother’s cancer. Hubris is most remarkable for the glimpses it provides of a different fate for that young boy Adolf: how he was scarred by family tragedy and by failure at multicultural Vienna, and how the Great War gave him an opening to become the worst possible version of himself.

By Ian Kershaw,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked 1889-1936 Hubris as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From his illegitimate birth in a small Austrian village to his fiery death in a bunker under the Reich chancellery in Berlin, Adolf Hitler left a murky trail, strewn with contradictory tales and overgrown with self-created myths. One truth prevails: the sheer scale of the evils that he unleashed on the world has made him a demonic figure without equal in this century. Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the character of the bizarre misfit in his thirty-year ascent from a Viennese shelter for the indigent to uncontested rule over the German nation that had tried…


Book cover of Nazi Culture: Intellectual, Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich

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?

George Mosse was a refugee from Nazi Germany who enjoyed a long career in my home state, teaching at the University of Wisconsin. With Nazi Culture, he collects essays, proclamations, journalism, and fiction by Nazi authors during the Third Reich. His editorial comments put the ideas of Nazism in context—and remind us that Hitler found an audience well prepared for his message.

By George L. Mosse,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

George L. Mosse's extensive analysis of Nazi culture - ground-breaking upon its original publication in 1966 - is now offered to readers of a new generation. Selections from newspapers, novellas, plays, and diaries as well as the public pronouncements of Nazi leaders, churchmen, and professors describe National Socialism in practice and explore what it meant for the average German.


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 Inside the Third Reich

Jim Carr Author Of Camp X Doublecross

From my list on World war novels for people who love history and fiction.

Why am I passionate about this?

The Second World War has always fascinated me, starting when I first entered school. The war had just started and it became even more real with each successive class when we were encouraged to buy war-saving stamps. On the home front, we experienced blackouts and mock air raids. Sugar, meat, butter, alcohol, and even gasoline were rationed. My cousins were overseas and in the thick of it. They always made sure I had an airplane model at Christmas. And as the war wound to a close, they sent me a cap from one from one of the German soldiers. It still intrigues me and still lives in my head.

Jim's book list on World war novels for people who love history and fiction

Jim Carr Why did Jim love this book?

If you’re curious about what was happening in Germany throughout the war, you’ll love Albert Speer’s memoir, which provides a unique, inside look at Hitler and his closest associates before and after the Allies landed in Normandy. Speer was Hitler’s architect and paints a unique picture of Hitler from the start of the war. It also includes a wonderful series of pictures at every stage.

If you’re fascinated by The Second World War, this book is a must for your library, as it is in mine. I look at the pictures over and over and delight in seeing the principal players who made those years memorable. It’s a book that will stay in your head for a long time.

By Albert Speer,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Inside the Third Reich as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Synopsis coming soon.......


Book cover of The Road Back

Richard Zimler Author Of The Incandescent Threads

From my list on survivors of a horrific trauma.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m originally from New York but have lived in Portugal for the last 33 years. I write my novels in English and my children’s books in Portuguese. As anyone who reads my latest novel will discover, I have been greatly influenced the mythology and mystical traditions of various religions, especially Judaism (kabbalah). Happily, I discovered early on that I adore writing about people who have been systematically persecuted and silenced. It gives me a great sense of accomplishment to explore taboo subjects and topics that others would prefer to forget or conceal. When I’m not working on a book, I like to garden and travel. 

Richard's book list on survivors of a horrific trauma

Richard Zimler Why did Richard love this book?

World War I caused 20 million deaths and left 21 million wounded.

Soldiers who survived the gas attacks and trench warfare often returned to societies eager to forget the atrocities of the conflict and move on. Remarque’s insightfully written novel details the struggles of three German soldiers who return home only to discover that they may have no place in a nation that has learned almost nothing from what they regard as a senseless and immoral war.

In May of 1933, this novel and the rest of Remarque's writing were declared “unpatriotic” by the Nazi dictatorship and all his novels were banned.

By Erich Maria Remarque,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

After surviving several horrifying years in the inferno of the Western Front, a young German soldier and his cohorts return home at the end of WW1. Their road back to life in civilian world is made arduous by their bitterness about what they find in post-war society. A captivating story, one of Remarque's best.


Book cover of Art, Ideology, and Economics in Nazi Germany: The Reich Chambers of Music, Theater, and the Visual Arts

Gregory Maertz Author Of Nostalgia for the Future: Modernism and Heterogeneity in the Visual Arts of Nazi Germany

From my list on art and aesthetics in Nazi Germany.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a professor of English and Visual Culture at St. John’s University in New York. My research in recent years has focused on reexamining the fate of modernist art in Hitler’s Germany. I have chosen five books that have shaped our understanding of Nazi art and have new resonance with the present resurgence of fascism and authoritarian governments around the world.

Gregory's book list on art and aesthetics in Nazi Germany

Gregory Maertz Why did Gregory love this book?

This is one of the most influential studies of cultural politics in Nazi Germany which takes as its focus the bureaucracy Joseph Goebbels charged with integrating pre-National Socialist artists and their organizations into the new cultural and political order. Noteworthy, of course, throughout Steinweis’s masterpiece of institutional reconstruction, is the revelation that National Socialist aesthetic preferences were not novel but represented the appropriation of the prevailing conservative taste dominant in the late Weimar Republic.

By Alan E. Steinweis,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Art, Ideology, and Economics in Nazi Germany as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From 1933 to 1945, the Reich Chamber of Culture exercised a profound influence over hundreds of thousands of German artists and entertainers. Alan Steinweis focuses on the fields of music, theatre and the visual arts in this study of Nazi cultural administration, examining a complex pattern of interaction among leading Nazi figures, German cultural functionaries, ordinary artists, and consumers of culture. Steinweis gives special attention to Nazi efforts to purge the arts of Jews and other so-called undesirables.


Book cover of Staging the Third Reich: Essays in Cultural and Intellectual History

Peter Uwe Hohendahl Author Of Perilous Futures: On Carl Schmitt's Late Writings

From my list on German thought.

Why am I passionate about this?

Spending my childhood in Nazi Germany, the nature and the horrific consequences of Nazi ideology have occupied me as a student of German history and later as a teacher of intellectual and literary history. In 1933 Car Schmitt opted to support the Nazis. While he was banned from the public sohere in post-war Germany, his ideas remained influential on the far right and the far left, fortunately without significantly impacting the democratic reconstruction of West Germany. It was the growing international visibility of Schmitt’s writings that became my personal concern after 2000. In particular, Schmitt’s increasing influence in the United States energized me to reread and respond to his writings.

Peter's book list on German thought

Peter Uwe Hohendahl Why did Peter love this book?

Are you tired of Hollywood clichés about Nazi culture? The Princeton historian Anson Rabinbach is your man. His brilliant essays on aspects of Nazi culture as diverse as the popular novel under Nazism, the Nazi-organized leisure industry, and the fate of the humanities at German universities between 1933 and 1945, provide the sharp, well-informed analysis you never got at school. Get started with the interview the author gave to two younger colleagues (pp. 450-480); here things become personal. Of course, Rabinbach is a pro, he knows the critical literature on the topic and cites it to differentiate his argument. But more importantly, his insights and arguments force you to rethink your response to German fascism, and to question the facile opposition of democracy and Nazism portrayed in American pop culture.  

By Anson Rabinbach, Stefanos Geroulanos (editor), Dagmar Herzog (editor)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Staging the Third Reich as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A widely celebrated intellectual historian of twentieth-century Europe, Anson Rabinbach is one of the most important scholars of National Socialism working over the last forty years. This volume collects, for the first time, his pathbreaking work on Nazi culture, antifascism, and the after-effects of Nazism on postwar German and European culture. Historically detailed and theoretically sophisticated, his essays span the aesthetics of production, messianic and popular claims, the ethos that Nazism demanded of its adherents, the brilliant and sometimes successful efforts of antifascist intellectuals to counter Hitler's rise, the most significant concepts to emerge out of the 1930s and 1940s…


Book cover of School for Barbarians: Education Under the Nazis

Helen Roche Author Of The Third Reich's Elite Schools: A History of the Napolas

From my list on childhood in Nazi Germany.

Why am I passionate about this?

Why did I end up spending almost a third of my life researching Nazi boarding schools, and childhood under the Third Reich more generally? I sometimes wonder if it was because I myself was sent to boarding school at the age of nine – somehow, I can sympathise with what these children had to endure, as well as knowing full well from a historian’s perspective which hardships were truly unique to a National Socialist elite education, and which were simply the kind of heart-ache that’s common to any institution which takes children away from their parents at a young age… 

Helen's book list on childhood in Nazi Germany

Helen Roche Why did Helen love this book?

Written during the Third Reich itself, this is the hard-hitting book that told the world just how heinous Nazi education policy was – although it was only heeded by a prescient few at the time. Anyone who is worried about how easily schooling can become subject to ideology should definitely read this book!

By Erika Mann,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Published in 1938, when Nazi power was approaching its zenith, this well-documented indictment reveals the systematic brainwashing of Germany's youth. The Nazi program prepared for its future with a fanatical focus on national preeminence and warlike readiness that dominated every department and phase of education. Methods included alienating children from their parents, promoting notions of racial superiority instead of science, and developing a cult of personality centered on Hitler.
Erika Mann, a member of the World War II generation of German youth, observed firsthand the Third Reich's perversion of a once-proud school system and the systematic poisoning of family life.…


Book cover of Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis

Judith Sumner Author Of Plants Go to War: A Botanical History of World War II

From my list on natural environmental science Nazi Germany.

Why am I passionate about this?

The ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes noted that botanists should write history because so much history involves plants. Coincidentally, I am a botanist with a deep interest in history. I began as a child botanizing abandoned farmers’ fields, and now I am always on the lookout for topics at the intersection of plants and human affairs. The books on my list are among many I read while researching for my book. In exploring the role of plants in warfare, I have synthesized vast information about human and military needs, from rationed foods to camouflage and battlefront medicine. Germany provided many unexpected findings.  

Judith's book list on natural environmental science Nazi Germany

Judith Sumner Why did Judith love this book?

Science collapses when scientists ignore objectivity and unbiased analysis, and Robert N. Proctor argues this effectively in this book.

I had long assumed (incorrectly) that racial doctrine during the Third Reich came directly from Hitler, but many German scientists actively espoused racial policies with supposed scientific justification. It may be hard to accept that some scientists became sympathizers overnight, no doubt for their own welfare and survival.

Proctor illustrates that pure science can be adapted for evil intent and that a self-centered agenda can result in illegitimate outcomes. 

By Robert N. Proctor,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Racial Hygiene as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Scholars exploring the history of science under the Nazis have generally concentrated on the Nazi destruction of science or the corruption of intellectual and liberal values. Racial Hygiene focuses on how scientists themselves participated in the construction of Nazi racial policy. Robert Proctor demonstrates that the common picture of a passive scientific community coerced into cooperation with the Nazis fails to grasp the reality of what actually happened-namely, that many of the political initiatives of the Nazis arose from within the scientific community, and that medical scientists actively designed and administered key elements of National Socialist policy.

The book presents…


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…


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