World War II Books - Books on WWII and Adolf Hitler

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of men and women. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly -- Tis dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated."

World War II, the global conflict that tested the soul from 1939-1945, gave birth to the best and worst in humankind.

From the rise to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany to the dropping of two Atomic Bombs on Japan, great battles were won and lost on battlefields throughout the world and within the souls of men.

For those who made the ultimate sacrifice, who surely "deserve the love and thanks of men and women," this site is dedicated.

Please return to this website if you order more than one title so that we will get credit for each book you order.

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flags of our fathers james bradley world war II books non-fiction

Flags of Our Fathers
by James Bradley

Hardcover - 400 pages (May 2, 2000)

In this unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment in American military history, James Bradley has captured the glory, the triumph, the heartbreak, and the legacy of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America.

Duty Bob Green world war 2 books non-fiction

Duty : A Father, His Son, and the Man Who Won the War
by Bob Greene

Hardcover - 304 pages (May 16, 2000)

As his father's death approached, Chicago Tribune syndicated columnist Greene was forced to come to terms with their distant relationship. He found in another man, Paul Tibbets, the pilot who flew the atomic bomb to Hiroshima, someone who could help him understand his father's generation. Tibbets lived in obscurity in Greene's hometown, Columbus, Ohio. After 20 years of attempts to interview him, Greene got to meet Tibbets informally. That led to friendship and a chance to understand the reticence and the responsibility of Tibbets' and his father's generation.

Embracing Defeat world war 2 books hisory second world war

Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II
by John W. Dower

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Hardcover - 676 pages 1 Ed edition (March 1, 1999)

Embracing Defeat tells the story of the transformation of Japan under American occupation after World War II. When Japan surrendered unconditionally to the Allied Forces in August 1945, it was exhausted; where America's Pacific combat lasted less than four years, Japan had been fighting for 15. Sixty percent of its urban area lay in ruins. The collapse of the authoritarian state enabled America's six-year occupation to set Japan in entirely new directions.

Nazi Terror Eric Johnson WW II books history second world war

Nazi Terror : The Gestapo, Jews, and Ordinary Germans
by Eric A. Johnson

Hardcover - 600 pages (January 1, 2000)

Destined to become the classic study of terror in the Nazi dictatorship, and the benchmark for the next generation of Nazi and Holocaust scholarship.
Eric Johnson's exhaustive new history tackles the central aspect of the Nazi dictatorship-terror-head on. By focusing on the role of the individual and on the role of the society in making terror work, he is able to definitively and dramatically answer such questions as these: Who were the Gestapo officers?

Nurses in Nazi Germany Women in war world war 2

Nurses in Nazi Germany : Moral Choice in History
by Bronwyn Rebekah McFarland-Ick

Hardcover - 304 pages (December 1999)

"The descent into mass murder, for ordinary Germans like psychiatric nurses, was for the most part a matter of choices avoided. How the moral senses could be and were blunted by institutions and ideologies on the one hand and by personal subterfuges on the other--this is the subject of McFarland-Icke's careful and painstaking historical recounting and analysis. This is a quiet and watchful book, devoid of the sensationalism that so easily adheres to the subject of mass murder. But for that reason it has a powerful and lasting effect that extends beyond the historic subject matter."--Michael Geyer, University of Chicago

The Terrible Hours Peter Mass Submarines World War II

The Terrible Hours : The Man Behind the Greatest Submarine Rescue in History
by Peter Maas

Hardcover - 259 pages 1 Ed edition (September 22, 1999)

In The Terrible Hours, Maas reconstructs the harrowing 39 hours between the disappearance of the submarine Squalus during a test dive off the New England coast and the eventual rescue of 33 crew members trapped in the vessel 250 feet beneath the sea. It's also the story of Momsen's triumph. Under the worst possible circumstances, Momsen led a successful mission and helped change the future of undersea lifesaving. Not only has Maas written a carefully researched and suspenseful tribute to a true hero, in the process he has salvaged a long-forgotten, riveting piece of American history. --Svenja Soldovieri

I Will Bear Witness by Victor Klemperer, World War II

I Will Bear Witness : A Diary of the Nazi Years 1933-1941
by Victor Klemperer

Paperback - 544 pages Modern lib edition (October 1999)

Also available in Hardcover

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Victor Klemperer (1881-1960), honored as a frontline veteran of World War I, was a distinguished professor at the University of Dresden. A scant few months later he was merely a Jew, protected from deportation to a death camp only by his marriage to an Aryan. He suffered every other indignity to which German Jews were subjected, from losing his job to having his driver's license revoked to being denied permission to own a pet, and all are recorded with bitter clarity in his diary entries, which cover the years 1933 to 1941. (A second volume continuing through 1945 will be published in English in 1999.) The German edition of this book caused a sensation when it was published in 1995, and it's easy to see why: the relentless, quotidian nature of Nazi racism comes through forcefully in Klemperer's litany of daily humiliations and insults, a painful chronicle of situations in which readers can readily imagine themselves. Like Anne Frank, but with a more adult understanding of political fanaticism and human weakness, he makes the abstract horror of genocidal persecution very intimate, very personal, and very real. --Wendy Smith

This Is Berlin, William Shirer, World War II, Nazi Germany

This Is Berlin : Radio Broadcasts, 1938-1940
by Noel Rae, William L. Shirer

Hardcover (October 1999)

By the acclaimed journalist and bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, the dramatic daily radio broadcasts that described the menacing steps Germany took toward World War II--just as America and the world heard them.

Through his broadcasts for Edward R. Murrow on CBS Radio, William Shirer was a masterful chronicler of the events in Europe that led up to World War II. His first major Berlin broadcast was an eyewitness account of the Anschluss--the fall of Austria to Nazi Germany in 1938. Soon after, Shirer covered Neville Chamberlain's betrayal of Czechoslovakia and that country's subsequent capitulation.

Citizen Soldiers : The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944 to May 7, 1945
by Stephen E. Ambrose

Paperback - 528 pages (September 1998)

Also available in Hardcover and Audio Cassette

Stephen E. Ambrose combines history and journalism to describe how American GIs battled their way to the Rhineland. He focuses on the combat experiences of ordinary soldiers, as opposed to the generals who led them, and offers a series of compelling vignettes that read like an enterprising reporter's dispatches from the front lines. The book presents just enough contextual material to help readers understand the big picture, and includes memorable accounts of the Battle of the Bulge and other events as seen through the weary eyes of the men who fought in the foxholes.

Truman
by David McCullough

Paperback Reprint edition (June 1993)
Also available in Hardcover and Audio Cassette

From Kirkus Reviews , April 15, 1992
A gargantuan but surprisingly agile and spellbinding biography of the plain-speaking, plain-dealing Man from Missouri. As depicted by McCullough (Brave Companions, 1991, etc.), Truman, though the first President of the nuclear era, was fundamentally a throwback to 19th-century midwestern ideals of honesty. Like the young Teddy Roosevelt in the author's Mornings on Horseback (1981), the pre-Presidential Truman most impresses McCullough as a battler against overwhelming odds: the failed farmer and haberdasher; the WW I captain who kept his unit together under deadly fire; and the scorned product of the Kansas City machine who won Senate colleagues' respect.


With the Old Breed : At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene B. Sledge, Paul Fussell (Illustrator) Paperback - 326 pages Reprint edition (September 1990)		Based on notes he kept on slips of paper tucked secretly away in his Bible, Eugene Sledge has written a devastingly powerful memoir of his experience fighting in the South Pacific during WWII. John Keegan describes this stirring account of the vitality and bravery of the Marines as "one of the most arresting documents in war literature."

Ernie Pyle's War : America's Eyewitness to World War II
by James Tobin

Hardcover - 304 pages (June 1997)
Also Available in: Paperback

Tobin pays homage to Ernie Pyle, America's most celebrated and beloved war correspondent. Living and working among the troops he so vividly chronicled, Pyle offered a unique insider's perspective of the harsh reality experienced by the common soldier during World War II. His superlative front-line coverage was devoured by citizens on the home front, who hungered for news of their "boys" in uniform. Unlike most other war correspondents, Pyle gave faces and voices to the ordinary GIs who populated the horrific battlefields of Europe, North Africa, and the Pacific Islands. Pyle's death in combat, alongside the ordinary soldiers he admired and extolled, served as an especially fitting postscript to his extraordinary career as an eyewitness to war. A respectful and insightful biography of a giant among journalists. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright� 1997, American Library Association. All rights reserved

How to Locate Anyone Who Is or Has Been in the Military : Armed Forces Locator Guide (8th Ed)
by Richard S. Johnson, Debra Johnson Knox

Paperback - 320 pages 8th edition (March 1999)

The author, Lt. Col. Richard S. Johnson (Ret) is the foremost expert in the nation on locating people with a military connection. Over 100,000 copies of this book have been sold and readers have located thousands of people.

Here is some of the valuable information covered:

How to obtain unit of assignment, home address and telephone number of any member of the air Force, army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Navy, the Reserve Components and the National Guard.
How to locate current, former or retired members of the Armed Forces or reserve.
How to locate any of the 26 million living veterans
How to locate people for a military reunion.
How to obtain ship or unit histories
How anyone can obtain copies of offical military personnel records of current, former or deceased military members.
How to verify if a person is a veteran
How to locate women veterans

U.S. Military Records : A Guide to Federal and State Sources, Colonial America to the Present
By James C. Neagles

Hardcover - 441 pages (March 1998)

Midwest Book Review
From the earliest days of the United States, millions of American citizens have served their country in a military capacity. Most families have one or more members who have served in America's armed forces. For this reason, genealogists and military historians wisely look to military records for information needed to enhance their research. Enlistment forms, muster rolls, pension applications - records created as a result of individuals' military service are extremely valuable because they often contain detailed personal information. U. S. Military Records describes the records that are available and where they can be found. Gathered in the volume is source information for the National Archives and its adjuncts; historical institutions and archives of the armed forces; the Department of Veterans Affairs (Veterans Administration); state archives, libraries, and historical organizations; and such patriotic organizations as the Daughters of the American Revolution. Extensive bibliographic listings of published sources for the United States in general and published sources for each state are also included.

The Official Price Guide to Military Collectibles, World War 2 Books

The Official Price Guide to Military Collectibles (6th Ed)
by Richard J. Austin

Paperback - 356 pages 6th edition (May 1998)

With its vast scope, The Official Price Guide to Military Collectibles covers pieces from such varied conflicts as the Revolutionary War, the Russian Revolution, the Civil War, both World Wars, the Boxer Rebellion, the Crimean, Boer, and Vietnam Wars, and countless others. Illustrated with nearly four hundred photographs, this unique price guide takes a historical perspective by focusing on the origins of objects and offers detailed descriptions taken from original source material.

COMPREHENSIVE. From armor to axes, flight suits to combat boots, army caps to green berets, ammo belts to mess kits, grenades to mortars, bayonets to badges and ribbons, The Official Price Guide to Military Collectibles has it all--with a special concentration on post-1700 objects from the United States, Germany, England, and the British Commonwealth.

BONUS FEATURE--HOME FRONT COLLECTIBLES. Often absent from other guides, home front collectibles are highlighted in this convenient sourcebook, including civil defense items and ration cards, military images (photos, daguerreotypes, post cards, tintypes), military paper (books, documents, letters, manuals), military art (folk art, posters, trench art), and military toys (games, playing cards, lead and paper soldiers).

WRITTEN BY AN EXPERT. With a strong background in weaponry and military history from the eighteenth century to the present, Richard J. Austin brings his more than twenty years of research and study to this reference guide. He is also an expert on naval affairs and warship design and development.

SPECIAL SECTIONS. Essential chapters cover the history of militaria, collecting and buying tips, a state-of-the-market report, a handy glossary, an indispensable bibliography, and lists of auctions, dealers, museums and collectors' clubs.

FULLY ILLUSTRATED, including a beautiful eight-page color insert.

Publishers Weekly
Rarely does a work of historical synthesis combine such trenchant analysis and elegant writing as does Kennedy's spectacular contribution to the Oxford History of United States. Throughout, he takes care to detail parts of the American story often neglected by more casual histories.... Because of its scope, its insight and its purring narrative engine, Kennedy's book will stand for years to come as the definitive history of the most important decades of the American century.

Freedom from Fear : The United States, 1929-1945 (Oxford History of the United States, Vol 9)
by David M. Kennedy

Hardcover

The Greatest Generation
by Tom Brokaw

Hardcover - 412 pages (December 1998)

In this superb book, Tom Brokaw goes out into America, to tell through the stories of individual men and women the story of a generation, America's citizen heroes and heroines who came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War and went on to build modern America. This generation was united not only by a common purpose, but also by common values-duty, honor, economy, courage, service, love of family and country, and, above all, responsibility for oneself. In this book, you will meet people whose everyday lives reveal how a generation persevered through war, and were trained by it, and then went on to create interesting and useful lives and the America we have today.

Greatest Generation Speaks, Brokaw, WW II

The Greatest Generation Speaks
by Tom Brokaw

Hardcover

The popularity and credibility of charismatic news anchor Tom Brokaw ensured bestseller status for The Greatest Generation, Brokaw's homage to the Americans who survived and overcame the depression and World War II. The Greatest Generation Speaks expands his thesis that we owe a huge debt of gratitude to those tough and courageous men and women for ensuring the freedoms and comforts that Americans enjoy today.

Rise and Fall of the Third Reich : A History of Nazi Germany
by William L. Shirer

With a new afterword by the author, this unabridged edition tells the complete story of Hitler's empire. Famed foreign correspondent and historian Shirer spent five and a half years sifting through the vast paperwork behind Hitler's drive to conquer the world to bring this definitive record of one of the most frightening chapters in the history of mankind. "One of the most important works of history of our time."

Berlin Diary : The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941
by William L. Shirer

This is Shirer's first-hand account as he watched with increased fascination and horror as Europe plunged madly down the road to Armageddon in the last half of the 1930s. Shirer spent many years in close proximity to Hitler, witnessing first hand the brutality with which Hitler tried to conquer Europe, hoping against hope that Hitler would somehow lose.

Second World War by Winston Churchill, John Keegan (Illustrator)	Much more than a mere chronological narrative, the history of World War II is recounted both periodically and thematically. Keegan analyzes five crucial battles, each characteristic of a distinctive kind of warfare of the period. Photographs, maps, diagrams.
The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt	Hannah Arendt's work is one in a million. No one was ever better able to understand the roots of the nazism movement and especially to try and explain why so many "normal" people could act like murderers if not by action, certainly by total omission.
Crusade in Europe by Dwight D. Eisenhower (20%)	Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours. Paperback - 559 pages Reprint edition (April 1997) Johns Hopkins Univ Pr; ISBN: 080185668X ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.53 x 8.55 x 5.76

In the summer of 1914, Europe was a heap of swords piled as delicately as a house of cards. In its depiction of the first 30 days of the first global war, this Pulitzer prize winning author's definitive portrait of a divided and unstable Europe is more timely than ever before. 16 page photo insert.	The Guns of August by Barbara W. Tuchman
Now republished in trade paperback, here is Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Tuchman's bestselling classic about the quarter century before World War I. With an artist's selectivity, Tuchman brings to vivid life the people, places and events that shaped the years leading up to the Great War. Includes a 32-page photo insert.	The Proud Tower : A Portrait of the World Before the War 1890-1914 by Barbara W. Tuchman, Barbara W. Tuchmann

The 12-Year Reich : A Social History of Nazi Germany 1933-1945 by Richard Grunberger	Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours. Paperback (September 1995) Da Capo Pr; ISBN: 0306806606 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.11 x 8.18 x 5.43
Hitler : A Study in Tyranny [ABRIDGED] by Alan Bullock	The classic biography of Hitler that remains, years after its publication, one of the most authoritative and readable accounts of his life. Here in an abridged edition. Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours.

Based on previously unpublished documents, diaries, notes, photographs, and dramatic interviews with Hitler's colleagues and associates, this is the definitive biography of one of the most despised yet fascinating figures of the 20th century. Toland won the Pulitzer Prize in 1971 for The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945. 150 photographs; 3 maps.

Adolf Hitler
by John Toland

A bestseller in its original German edition and subsequently translated into more than a dozen language, Joachim Fest's Hitler is acclaimed as "the best single volume available on the tortuous life and savage reign of Adolf Hitler" (Time). Ranks as a companion volume to Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and Albert Speer's memoir Inside the Third Reich.

Hitler
by Joachim C. Fest, Richard Winston, Clara Winston (Translator)

A Blood-Dimmed Tide : The Battle of the Bulge by the Men Who Fought It by Gerald Astor	Drawing on firsthand accounts by survivors of the bloody Battle of the Bulge, diaries, letters, and official documents, this study describes the events of the campaign, hardships faced by the soldiers, the battle's horrifying costs, and the controversy surrounding the campaign.
The Ss, Alibi of a Nation, 1922-1945 by Gerald Reitlinger	Mesmerizing reading of how a protective unit [in its conception] became the most feared fighting force Europe had ever seen. Staid leader H. Himmler weaves his medieval based traditions and his diabolical plans to eventual application. Not only does his craftiness inveigle Adolph Hitler, but also the entire Nazi homeland.

A Time for Trumpets : The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge by Charles B. MacDonald	One of America's most respected historians, Charles B. MacDonald also fought in the Battle of the Bulge as an infantry commander. He tells the story of this remarkable battle with both the perspective of an eminent military historian and the immediacy of an eyewitness. His authority and experience make A Time for Trumpets an unmatched work of veracity and power.
The Mighty Endeavor : The American War in Europe by Charles B. MacDonald	Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours. Paperback - 621 pages Reprint edition (December 1992) Da Capo Pr; ISBN: 0306804867 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.76 x 9.36 x 6.26

Six Armies in Normandy : From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris
by John Keegan

The man "who writes about the war better than almost anyone in our century" ( The Washington Post Book World) here details how the armies of six nations met on the battlefields of Normandy in what was to be the greatest allied achievement of World War II.

The Bitter Woods : The Dramatic Story, Told at All Echelons- From Supreme Command to Squad Leader- Of the Crisis That Shook the Western Coalition
by John S. D. Eisenhower, Stephen E. Ambrose (Introduction)

John S. D. Eisenhower, son of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, presents a comprehensive portrait of what happened that December, and how the Allies triumphed. In his introduction to this reprinted volume, Stephen E. Ambrose says that "The Bitter Woods will be read so long as the Republic lasts." That's high praise from America's leading historian of the Second World War, and this book is, in truth, one of the better World War II titles available.

The Last Battle by Cornelius Ryan	Ryan's well-known ability to recreate the sights and sounds of war with breathtaking immediacy resounds in this portrait of the last Allied offensive against Hitler's Third Reich--the Battle for Berlin. 52 photos. 4 maps.
A Bridge Too Far by Cornelius Ryan	The dramatic final volume in Ryan's superb World War II trilogy focuses on the battle for Arnhem. Ryan draws from a vast cast of characters--from Dutch civilians to British and American strategists to common soldiers and commanders--to bring to life this daring military operation. Photos.
The Longest Day : June 6, 1944 by Cornelius Ryan	This classic bestseller--back in print to coincide with the 50th anniversary of D-Day--offers a brilliant, authentic, gripping account of the hours that preceded and followed the Allied invasion of Normandy. "Fifty years from now the history of D-Day, I am sure, will lean heavily on this book."--John Toland, New York Times Book Review.

To the Bitter End was written practically as events unfolded, smuggled out of Germany in portions because Gisevius wasn't sure he would live to complete it, and first published in 1946. It offers a firsthand account of Nazi Germany and the various underground efforts to prevent Hitler from doing what he ultimately did. Gisevius may not have earned credit for halting the tragedy, but he does offer today's readers important lessons about the nature of dictatorship and the seductive powers of evil.

To the Bitter End : An Insider's Account of the Plot to Kill Hitler, 1933-1944
by Hans Bernd Gisevius, Peter Hoffmann, Richard Winston (Translator), Allen Dulles

This book deals with two things. The first is Trevor-Roper's naturalistic account, who discusses for the first half of the book how the Nazi regime came to power, and it looks at the various personalities of people within the Third Reich, such as Adolf Hitler himself, Heinrich Himmler and Albert Speer. The second half is an intimate account of the last ten days of Hitler, beginning with his fifty-sixth birthday in an underground bunker below the ruins of the Reich Chancellery.

The Last Days of Hitler
by Hugh Trevor-Roper

The Trial of the Germans : An Account of the Twenty-Two Defendants Before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg by Eugene Davidson (Editor)	Availability: This title usually ships within 2-3 days. Paperback - 696 pages Reprint edition (September 1997) University of Missouri Press; ISBN: 0826211399 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.72 x 9.24 x 6.15
Justice at Nuremberg by Robert E. Conot	Availability: This title usually ships within 2-3 days. Paperback (June 1984) Carroll & Graf; ISBN: 0881840327 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.39 x 8.29 x 5.20

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