Germany Biographies

Hailed as the most compelling biography of the German dictator yet written, Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the heart of its subject's immense darkness. 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 the 20th century.

Eve Haas is the daughter of a German Jewish family that took refuge in London after Hitler came to power. Following a terrifying air raid in the blitz, her father revealed the family secret - that her great-great grandmother Emilie was married to a Prussian prince. He then showed her the treasured leather-bound notebook inscribed to Emilie by the prince.

Rommel: The Desert Fox — Genius and Tragedy is a gripping and balanced portrait of one of the most fascinating and controversial commanders of the Second World War, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. Celebrated as a brilliant tactician and feared by his enemies, Rommel became a legend during the North African campaign, earning the enduring nickname “The Desert Fox.” Yet behind the myth stood a complex man shaped by ambition, duty, propaganda, and the moral contradictions of serving under Adolf Hitler. Drawing on wartime records, personal writings, and modern historical research, this book ...

Goebbels: The Mind Behind Nazi Propaganda – A Psychological Biography of Hitler’s Most Dangerous Manipulator Joseph Goebbels was more than just the Nazi Minister of Propaganda. He was a master manipulator, an obsessive seducer, a fanatical antisemite, and a man haunted by deep personal insecurities. His influence on the Nazi regime was devastating, but what shaped him into the ruthless figure we know today? This biography takes a deep psychological dive into Goebbels’ mind: his childhood marked by rejection, his inferiority complex, his relationship with Hitler, and his sinister ...

In this gripping memoir by the chief American interpreter at the Nuremberg trials, Richard Sonnenfeldt recounts a remarkable life. By age 22 he had fought in the Battle of the Bulge and helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp, when he was appointed chief interpreter for the American prosecution of Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials.

During his service, he spent pretrial time with Hermann Göering as well as other top Nazi leaders.

To dream of death is a curse."I WAS BORN with the ability to prophesize the future. The destinies I dream about are impossible to alter, despite my many attempts to do so...nightly visions forewarn me of good fortune, but also of despair, discord, and death--always death."Matilde of Ringelheim, a paragon of virtue and achievement, a legendary woman of passion, beloved 10th-century queen, and saint of the Germanic states, was one of the most influential and charitable women in European medieval history. Her story of love, family discord, betrayal, prophetic dreams, and political intrigue is ...

An inspiring account from one of history’s darkest moments. Marione Ingram grew up in Hamburg, Germany, in the late 1930s and early 1940s. She was German. She was Jewish. She was a survivor. This is her story. As a young girl, Marione was aware that people of the Jewish faith were regarded as outsiders, the supposed root of Germany’s many problems. She grew up in an apartment building where neighbors were more than happy to report Jews to the Gestapo.

Hitler: His Rise, Reign, and Ruin A Complete Biography of Adolf Hitler from Birth to the Fall of Nazi Germany History remembers him as the man who led a nation into war, who turned propaganda into a weapon, and who orchestrated a reign of terror that left tens of millions dead. But who was Adolf Hitler before the speeches, before the swastika, before the world fell into flames? This gripping biography peels back the layers to uncover the full arc of Hitler’s life—from his humble beginnings in Austria and his frustrations as a failed artist, to his rise as a manipulative political force,...

“A fleet-footed and propulsive account . . . Brilliantly sifting a massive history for its ideological through lines, this is a must-read."" — Publishers Weekly (starred review) The author of the New York Times bestseller Blitzed returns with a provocative new history of drugs and postwar...

A gripping chronicle of the personal and national rivalries that led to the twentieth century’s first great arms race, from Pulitzer Prize winner Robert K. Massie With the biographer’s rare genius for expressing the essence of extraordinary lives, Massie brings to life a crowd of glittery...

“Larson is a marvelous writer...superb at creating characters with a few short strokes.”—New York Times Book Review Erik Larson has been widely acclaimed as a master of narrative non-fiction, and in his new book, the bestselling author of Devil in the White City turns his hand to a...

The astounding memoir of a World War II veteran who spent three and a half years in the slave-labor camps made famous by The Bridge on the River Kwai.

Loet Velmans was 17 when the Germans invaded Holland. He and his family fled to London on the Dutch Coast Guard cutter Seaman’s Hope and then sailed to the Dutch East Indies - now Indonesia - where he joined the Dutch army. In March 1942, the Japanese invaded the archipelago and made prisoners of the Dutch soldiers. For the next three and a half years Velmans and his fellow POWs toiled in slave-labor camps.

In the years before the First World War, the great European powers were ruled by three first cousins: King George V of Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Together, they presided over the last years of dynastic Europe and the outbreak of the most destructive war...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An “outstanding new intellectual biography of John Maynard Keynes [that moves] swiftly along currents of lucidity and wit” (The New York Times), illuminating the world of the influential economist and his transformative ideas “A timely, lucid and compelling...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An “irresistible” (The Washington Post) true story of love, murder, and the last moments of the “great hush” before wireless radio connected the world, from the renowned author of The Devil in the White City and The Demon of Unrest “Gripping . . . an...

A lush and engrossing novel of one woman’s quest to keep Nazis from stealing priceless art during WWII, perfect for fans of The Rose Code. Paris, 1939: The Nazis think Éliane can't understand German. They’re wrong. They think she’s merely cataloging art in a Louvre museum and unaware...

In 1991, acting on a tip from a local fisherman, two scuba divers discovered a sunken German U-boat–complete with its crew of 60 men–not too far off the New Jersey coast. The divers, realizing the momentousness of their discovery, began probing the mystery. Over the next six years, they...

Ben Macintyre’s Agent Zigzag was hailed as “rollicking, spellbinding” (New York Times), “wildly improbable but entirely true” (Entertainment Weekly), and, quite simply, “the best book ever written” (Boston Globe). In his new book, Operation Mincemeat, he tells an extraordinary...

This book presents the original wartime diary entries of the 16th Pioneer Company of SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 3 “Deutschland” from 1943, written by its company commander and Knight’s Cross recipient Heinz Macher. He reports firsthand on the third battle for Kharkov and the Kursk Offensive. Eastern Front, 1943: With just 35 men under his command, the young leader of the “Sixteenth,” Heinz Macher, breaks through Soviet defenses before Kharkov. He plays a decisive role in the success of Manstein’s famous castling operation, with which the Germans win the third battle of Kharkov....

He was one of the most feared tank commanders of the Second World War. He was also one of its most contested. Michael Wittmann rose from rural Bavaria to become the most famous Tiger commander in Germany — a decorated Waffen-SS officer whose name became synonymous with battlefield aggression, armoured shock, and the deadly reputation of the Tiger tank. But fame in wartime is never simple. In Michael Wittmann: Tiger Commander, Gary Mitchell takes readers far beyond the familiar “panzer ace” legend to tell the full story of the man behind the myth. This is a gripping narrative of combat...