Hitler and Stalin... recommendations for... (war, 1920s, USSR, German)

[Sprawling_Homeowner]

... books?

(I know we have a book thread but since we have many people who like history, I thought that some of the C-D history forum participants would be able to recommend good books on the leaders of Nazi Germany and of the USSR).

[Felix C]

I first read and learned much from John Toland's Adolf Hitler and later Allan Bullock Hitler and Stalin Parallel Lives

There is a new book by Dr. Weber on Hitler's service in the First World War which reconsiders his status. Available inexpensively form the Military Book Club.

All three should be at a good public or university library.

http://www.amazon.com/Hitler-Stalin-.../dp/0679729941

http://www.amazon.com/Adolf-Hitler-V...2874854&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-First-...2874886&sr=1-1

[Green Onions]

Ian Kershaw's two-volume biography on Hitler is excellent:
Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris
Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis

As for Stalin, I find him even more interesting than Hitler but I don't think there is as definitive a work as Kershaw's survey of Hitler. Edvard Radzinskii's biography was entertaining, though filled with fantastical claims that put the whole work in serious doubt, to put it mildly. Simon Montefiore's Stalin: In the Court of the Red Tsar was a much more serious and interesting work.

William Taubman's Khruschev: The Man and His Era was an excellent work that I would put on par with Kershaw's study of Hitler and aside from being very interesting for its subject, it contains much tangential information on Stalin, who by the late 1920s included Khruschev in his inner circle.

[Grandstander]

You should ask RPON, I'm confident that he can endorse some good Adoph hagiographies.

[Josef K.]

I liked Richard Overy's The Dictators, which is a fairly recent comparative study. The Bullock book mentioned above is stronger on the Hitler side than the Stalin one.

Taubman's book, also mentioned, is a good one, but Stalin is not its main focus obviously.

[hornet67]

Originally Posted by Green Onions

Ian Kershaw's two-volume biography on Hitler is excellent:
Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris
Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis

As for Stalin, I find him even more interesting than Hitler but I don't think there is as definitive a work as Kershaw's survey of Hitler. Edvard Radzinskii's biography was entertaining, though filled with fantastical claims that put the whole work in serious doubt, to put it mildly. Simon Montefiore's Stalin: In the Court of the Red Tsar was a much more serious and interesting work.

William Taubman's Khruschev: The Man and His Era was an excellent work that I would put on par with Kershaw's study of Hitler and aside from being very interesting for its subject, it contains much tangential information on Stalin, who by the late 1920s included Khruschev in his inner circle.

I agree, Radzinski's book was a bit over the top, but I really enjoyed Montefiore's. What a drunken, paranoid, cruel , brute Stalin was. Reading about his last hours, and how his terrified minions couldn't decide what to do, if anything, was priceless. The only one of that loathsome crew that may have been worse was another Georgian, the pervert and sadist, Beria. What's in the water down there??

[king's highway]

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If you want to know about Hitler, read Hitler's book, Mein Kampf.


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