What is a good book to read from memoirs of those Involved heavely in the Third Reich & Hitler.?

Question

I have read Albert Speers memoirs which were fascintanting. I don't think he was an evil man, he just got swept up in all of the power and being able to have a wide-open checkbook to create whatever kind of buildings he pretty much wanted to! At least he was the only one to admit some wrong during at the Nuremberg trials.

Answer 1

I would suggest the following:

Until the Final Hour: Hitler's Last Secretary written by Traudl Junge and edited by Melissa Muller. Traudl was only 22 when she became Hitler's private secretary. She heard the shot that killed Hitler and could smell the bitter almond smell of the cyanide pill that killed Eva Braun.

"The Good Old Days": The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders by Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen and Volker Riess, editors. It's a collection of letters, diary entries, confidential reports etc. by top Reich SS leaders.

My Father's Keeper: The Children of the Nazi Leaderes--An Intimate History of Damage and Denial by Stephan Lebert. The title says it all.

Witness to Nuremberg by Richard W. Sonnenfeldt who was the chief interpreter for the U.S. during the war crimes trials.

Answer 2

Albert Speers memoirs are brillant for understanding what was happening in and around Hitler and the politics and in-fighting of Hitler's inner-circle, and the day to day running of Germany and the war effort. Its a great perspective.

Unfortunately or fortunately most of the other major characters (Hitler, Goebbels, Ribbentrop, Goering, Himmler, Bormann, Keitel, Jodl) died with the fall of the Third Reich. With the exception of Albert Speer, the other major survivors would have been Admiral Doenitz, and then on down to the minor players such as the banker Walter Funk, and other Nazi ministers.

There are also excellent memoirs from lesser functionaries such as Hitler's personal secretaries who witnessed alot of the politics. There are also excellent memoirs from lesser ministers, diplomats, senior military officers who while they were further down the food chain, recalled alot that was happening at the top.

While primary sources such as memoirs start to dwindle, there is alot of secondary sources that piece together the major events - ie William Schirer 'Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' is brillant in examining Nazism from its beginnings right through to the end.

If your really interested in chasing down memoirs of major nazi figures, google names of nazi ministers and see if they survived world war 2 and if they did, see if they released memoirs or retold their stories to newspapers.

There is alot out there on the Third Reich.

Answer 3

Good - you have taken the first step by reading Albert Speer's memoirs. The second step for you to take is to take what you have learned and expand upon it and add to it.
Read: 'Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth'. You will not regret it, and in fact you will learn more about Speer, and the mysterious appeal of Adolph Hitler.

Answer 4

I can also recommend a film: Im Toten Winkel (Blind Spot, as released here). Traudl Junge (married name) was a young girl when she went to work as one of Hitler's two private secretaries in 1942 and worked with him till the end.

I don't know if you can imagine a film that consists entirely in a series of interviews with an old lady -- there are no newsreel clips or reconstructions -- but it is utterly fascinating, both morally and historically.

Answer 5

in actuality, the upward thrust and Fall of the 0.33 Reich is powerful assessment of the nazi era yet I even have some criticisms of it. For one factor, it long predates most of the main extreme revelations approximately WWII, particularly the Allied cracking of the German code, extremely. with regard to the defeat of the U-boats in 1943, Shirer blamed their losses on radar while in actuality it had extra to do with more desirable Allied air insurance over convoy lanes, Huff duff, and understanding merely before deliberate U-boat conferences--because of the cracking of their sea code. apart from, Shirer called the U-boats "underwater craft" while in actuality they weren't actual submarines and traveled and fought generally on the exterior. extra moderen revelations additionally coach that Shirer replaced into possibly incorrect while he wrote that the bones of Hitler weren't in any respect chanced on, because of the fact they have been worn out via Russian artillery hearth. Even Joachamsthaler admitted that the better bridework and decrease jaw have been chanced on; incredibly possibly the cranium and different remains have been too. finally Shirer himself admitted that, even along with his objectivity--he admitted at one factor that "everybody might desire to work out the assessment betwen this martial, imperial, boldly led new Germany and the decadent democracies of the west"-- his very own prejudices recommend the French historians he spoke with in the previous writing the e book have been possibly astonishing even with each and everything. of their view, it incredibly is replaced into, interior the late '50s, nonetheless way too early to place in writing a definitive history of the reich. They have been extremely astonishing that extra time replaced into necessary for extra counsel to come again to mild. and that they have been astonishing which you're able to wait for the sake of a broader attitude. Shirer countered via noting that being a modern compensated for that yet i do no longer think of so. understanding finished nicely he lived between the victors over the reich, Shirer inevitably replaced into very judgmental, slamming nazi leaders at nuremburg as "a wierd and drab number of mediocrates" (they particular got here lots farther in this international of their heyday, than he, a trifling journalist).IMO an exceedingly definitive, objective history of the reich won't be achieveable till possibly 2050-2100--long even with each and everything the emotion and bias has died with the final of the era that experienced those cases.

Answer 6

In addition to the party elite, you might look at such things as The 6th Panzer Army, written and edited by one of the senior officers.

Answer 7

Would read a book called "Heydrich"He was the real power of the SS.This was the man that Hitler endorsed as his successor

Answer 8

The Diary of Ann Frank ?