I'm Looking for a Book

to give my wonderful brother for Christmas. He's a smart guy who really loves to read although he does not have a lot of formal education. He enjoys military and history books. Politically, he is pretty moderate and independent. But he is married to a fundie whose father is a Baptist minister. I would like to buy him a nice book that documents Hitler's rise to power, explains fascisim in a historical sense and proceeds to cover various aspects of World War II.

Suggestions?

Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is great and Berlin Diary is another good one, but one I liked even better is called Last Train from Berlin by Howard K Smith, and its easier reading than Shirer.

On edit: I thought of another one.... The Third Reich: A New History by Burleigh. I didn't get a chance to read the whole thing, but I used it for a research paper last semester - it was FULL of great info.

It's one of the best overall. It covers the whole period from Nazism's beginnings through the end of the war.

Two others you might consider:
"Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town". Helps a person to understand how a tiny, ecclectic party turned a town upside down over a few years.

"Inside the Third Reich" by Albert Speer. Speer was a well-educated architect. He happened to do some work for Hitler early in his and Hitler's career and so impressed Hitler that Hitler eventually drew him into his government and put him in charge of building arms mid-way through the war. It always made me wonder if I would have acted any differently from Speer if I'd been in his shoes.

A VERY interesting and easy read that is hard to put down.

...is pretty much a standard on the subject, so you may want to start him off with that.

Also, Albert Speer's "Inside the Third Reich" is very readable, and supplies an insiders view of the "inner circle". Its an apologist attempt by Speer to explain his position with the Nazi government. Even though he doesn't exactly come clean with a lot of blood that was on his hands, one can gleam some inner workings of the Third Reich.

It felt like forced homework. When Albert shed light on the behind the curtain behaviors of Hitler it got very interesting. I'm breezing through William L. Shirer's "The rise and fall of the Third Reich" I highly recommend it.

I have both volumes of John Toland's "Adolf Hitler" and will tackle them in the future.

They Thought They Were Free....don't remember the author

They Thought They were Free -- The Germans 1933 - 1945

Written by a German-American Jew, it is a reporter's view of the rise of the Nazis, in a very accessible style. A lot of first person reporting, interviews, etc.

Highly recommended.

might just as well be written next week.