BOOK LIST: Best books on World War II chosen by Thomas Harding

[image error]





Thomas Harding is the author of the fascinating non-fiction book, Hanns & Rudolf: The German Jew and the Kommandant of Auschwitz, which I reviewed earlier this week (you can read the review here). 


He’s very kindly taken the time out of his busy touring schedule to prepare a list of the best non-fiction books he’s read on World War II:



[image error]





1. Hannah Arendt: Eichmann in Jerusalem. Provides a key exploration of the ‘banality of evil’.



[image error]
2. Rudolf  Hoess: Commandant at Auschwitz Rudolf Hoess, also known as Death Dealer: The Memoirs of the SS Kommandant of Auschwitz. This autobiography was written in a Polish prison cell while Rudolf awaited his death sentence



[image error]


3. Sybille Steinbacher: Auschwitz: A History. A fine introduction to the camp and its background





[image error]
4. Robert G. L. Waite: Vanguard of Nazism. The best book on the Freikorps para-military movement of the 1920s



[image error]


5. Daniel Goldhagen: Hitler’s Willing Executioners. An examination of why ‘ordinary’ Germans perpetrated the Holocaust.





Please leave a comment: I love to know what you think