RSince the start of the mobilization on September 21, US bookshops have reported a slump in general sales figures, but at the same time there has been increased demand for books about World War II and National Socialist Germany.
The book “Der deutsche Krieg 1939 – 1945” (The German War 1939 – 1945) by the Australian historian Nicholas Stargardt is selling particularly well at the moment. It documents how ordinary Germans – teachers, nurses, National Socialists, Christians, Jews – lived through the war, what they hoped for, what shocked them and about which they were silent.
Another audience favorite is the book “Travellers in the Third Reich. The Rise of Fascism from the Perspective of Ordinary People” by the British author Julia Boyd, which shows how many visitors to Germany in the 1930s ignored the persecution of the Jews and whitewashed the increasingly militaristic country.
“Tiergarten – In the Garden of Beasts: An American Ambassador to Nazi Germany”, in which the American writer Erik Larson describes the experiences of Ambassador William E. Dodd in Germany in 1933 and 1934, is also a popular buy. Dodd’s daughter Martha is said to have had affairs with various Nazi figures. Also in demand are the memoirs of the NKVD spy Pavel Sudoplatov (1907 to 1996), who was involved in numerous political murders, and his book “Victory in the Secret War”.
