I'm looking for non-fiction books about Nazi Germany, preferably the 1930s. The key word is "Germany". I want to know what it was like to live in Germany during the Third Reich. Yes, I've googled. There are thousands of books. I'm asking for personal recommendations: which have you people read and thought were especially good?
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I have a few Ideas. The primary problem I've found with books about Nazi Germany is that they are LONG.
One I really like that isn't obese is "A Concise History of the Third Reich" by Wolfgang Benz. It's good reading reasonable at 330 pages or so.
The best known work is indeed, in my opinion, the best (from the parts I've read) "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William Shirer. It's great reading but it rolls in at over 1000 pages even without notes and bibliography.
Richard J. Evans has a trio of books about the third reich. If you are focusing on the '30's, you would only need to read the first of the three. His writing doesn't have the same snap as William Shirer, but it is solid work.
I sympathize with your problem. This is a subject for which the choices are so numerous, it is overwhelming. I hope this helps as a start.
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Read the first two books in Richard Evans's trilogy. The first volume "The Coming of the Third Reich" deals with the era from 1919-33 and deals with the aftermatth of WWI, the formation of the Weimar republic, the economic problems and the rise of the Nazi party and ends with the appointment of Hitler as Chancellor. The second volume: "The Third Reich in Power" deals with the years between 1933 and 1939 and deals with the way that Nazis consolidated power and developed a totalitarian State as well as the continual violations of the Versailles Treaty.
Richard Evans is an expert on this era and the books are a fresh way of looking at the era, although the facts are well known and covered in many other books he takes an overview that they were driven by people and characters as much as as by events.
The William Shirer book "The Nightmare Years 1930-40" and explains a lot about life in Germany in that decade.
If I had to make a recommendation then I would use the Richard Evans books as a base and Shirer to add a bit of colour and depth about the characters and personalities in Nazi Germany. You need to read a detailed history to get an overview of what was going on so that Shirer's book makes sense in how it related to ordinary Germans.
There are two volumes written by Ian Kershaw that are also worthy of mention and are objective in their approach "Hitler: 1889-1936 Hubris" and "Hitler: 1936-1945 Nemesis" are very good but focus a lot on Hitler.
spiffer1
Two others to consider are:
Bethge's Biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer - describing the persecution of the Church and its leaders.
Also, Albert Speer wrote Inside the Third Reich - describing the rise of Hitler and the Nazis.
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Anything by Ian Kershaw