Best books on WWII

[Anonymous No.19685486]

Could I get some good books on (various aspects of) World War II? I've read some autobiographies by SS volunteers, and have perused some heavier books like Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder as well as The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by Shirer but the long tomes are too much for me. So my question is: what are the best autobiographical books from the actors in WWII, including soldiers, officers, politicians, and prominent civilians? For example I'm reading The Eastern Front by Leon Degrelle right now, and just ordered a copy of picrel, and I'm planning on reading Hitler's Table Talk sometime soon; so basically, exciting first-hand accounts. They can be from any side, not just German–bonus points for actual obscure movements like the Iron Guard (which I in fact need to read up on) or the Cossacks or even from the war being fought in Indochina. Anything exciting and from the first-person POV.
Thanks.

[Anonymous No.19685509]

Read The Wages of Destruction, Blitzkrieg legend, Death of the Wehrmacht and Ostkrieg
Don't waste time with autobiographies

[Anonymous No.19685526]

>>19685486
>>>/k/
this is a literature board faggot

[Anonymous No.19685612]

Best books on the Italian campaign bros ?

[Anonymous No.19685800]

>>19685486
I read On The Devil's Tale last year.

[Anonymous No.19685943]

>>19685486
Forgotten Soldier, Guy Sajer. Thank me later.

[Anonymous No.19686590]

>>19685486
Not autobiographies but I got Steve Twomey's Pearl Harbor, James M Scott's Rampage, James Holland's (Tom's brother) The Rise of Germany.

For biographies(not auto) I have Arthur Hermann's MacArthur and Volker Ullrich's Hitler: Ascent

[Anonymous No.19686648]

I flew for the fuhrer - Heinz Knocke
First light - Geoffrey Wellum

[Anonymous No.19687271]

People are reading David Irving.

[Anonymous No.19687328]

>>19685509
>Read The Wages of Destruction
The most statistically inaccurate book on Nazi Germany's economy.
>Tooze claims Germans had 1/4th the living standard of Americans.
The man was legit contracted to write the book to make Germany look as bad as possible and to justify Neoliberal economics.

[Anonymous No.19687543]

>>19685943
I second this. Great memoir.

[Anonymous No.19687774]

>>19687328
the economy under nazi germany basically was a proto-neoliberalism lol

[Anonymous No.19687850]

Inside the third Reich by Speer is good. It's a bit overly long on the glory days of Hitler, but Speers' disgust becomes pretty moving when he realizes that Hitler was nothing more than a sophisticated con man.

[Anonymous No.19688026]

>>19685486
> Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder
Muh shit bad but holoverse no.1
>Fall of the Third Reich by Shirer
Cheap propaganda with a shitty psychoanalysis by a fucking journalist
>Hitler's Table Talk
Its a forgery. Read Hitlers Second Book instead

>Iron Guard
For My Legionnaires and The Prison Notes by Codreanu
The History of the Legionary Movement - Horia Sima
>the Cossacks
Cossacks in the German Army - Newland

Obviously start with all of Irving's books, lectures
You should get Stolfi or Toland's for the biography of the big man himself.

>>19687850
>Inside the third Reich by Speer
LOL do you just believe this shit
The guy was a traitor who wrote the most absurd and outright false things to save his skin

[Anonymous No.19688068]

>>19688026
>The guy was a traitor who wrote the most absurd and outright false things to save his skin

A lot of the criticism about the book comes from people who've never read it. He doesn't paint a very good picture about himself, or anyone else in the reich. He also, you know, kind of DIDN'T save his skin, the idiot ended up doing 20 years in prison.

At best he describes himself as being willingly duped by hitler, enamored by the guys personality, and by the time he realized it was all a con, he still went along with it because for one he didn't think he was generally accomplishing anything for the war effort anyway, and for another he'd already committed himself to it and was too dumb to find a way out.

[Anonymous No.19688096]

>>19688068
>the idiot ended up doing 20 years in prison.
20 YEARS OMG!!!

When people where being hanged left and right, mass excecution, a whole nation starved and civilians mercilessly bombed and raped
Bet you believe that Nuremberg was a fair and just trail as well

>by the time he realized it was all a con
Damn the guy who CONQUORED all of EUROPE and quite literally took the total strength of the whole fucking world is a CON MAN

[Anonymous No.19688181]

>>19688096
>When people where being hanged left and right,

Yeah, but the majority of nazis were simply just let go, without any repercussions. Only the REALLY bad ones (and maybe not coincidentally the most famous ones) were the ones killed.

>Bet you believe that Nuremberg was a fair and just trail as well

Is any trial, "fair and just"?. If you want justice, hope for it in the next life, that's probably one of the oldest, and truest ides out there. Even if the courts did somehow enact totally 100% accurate "justice" would that make up for the 50 million dead people?

You're looking at things from pretty naive, simplistic eyes.

Btw, what's this shit about "Believe" whether his account is true? You know what a dumb thing that is to say? Do you think there's a single memoir ever written that was 100% true? Think about if you were to write a memoir, and the mountain of things you know right off the bat you'd lie about, or omit. I don't think any first hand account of ww2, or anything for that matter, is gospel truth.

What is it though? It's just narrative, like everything else in this world. We have no organs to detect "truth", if that even exists, and what we're stuck with is points of view and narratives from other people. Bitch all you want about it, but it doesn't get any better than that. And just because a narrative isn't true, doesn't mean that you can't learn something from it, or doesn't mean that it doesn't contain a some truth. It's up to you, fucknuts, use your brain an analyze the narrative. Or you could just never pick the book up and say, "LULZ, NOT TRUEZ!!!" and learn nothing.

I wouldn't say i "believe" the book, or that it's definitively "true," but it's well written and contains first hand insight from somebody who was actually there, somebody btw who doesn't paint all that great of a picture of himself and the situation as you'd think, and there's value in that regardless. And that's about all you can hope for in any account.