Michael Burleigh, an English historian, is the author of an earlier book on the Nazi "euthanasia" campaign of 1940, when Nazi officials, doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators joined together in the persecution of handicapped Germans. Over 70,000 people were murdered in about one year.

In this book Burleigh reflects on the "mind set" of the Nazi murderers, their attitudes towards their victims, and the ethical assumptions they made. He also comments with intelligence and perception on post-WW II reactions.

This book is insightful and interesting and rewarding for both general and scholarly readers. Burleigh brings wisdom and humanity to this all too dreadful subject.

This is a fantastic tape/book combination. It takes about an hour to listen/repeat the entire tape, and it contains lots of well-selected and helpful phrases. Just pop the tape in the car and repeat it 10-12 times, and you can book "ein zimmer" or order wurst with the best of them. I was so impressed with this set that I bought the French series as well. The tape promotes, at the end, an intermediate DK German series that unfortunately appears to no longer be available either at the DK website or on Amazon. Too bad!

I have bought many Eyewitness travel guides but this was the first time I used one of their Top 10 guides. It is an incredible travel aid, especially for first time visitors to a major city like Berlin. The guide is about much more than just the top 10 sites in Berlin. For example, each major site, such as the Pergmamon Museum, is further divided into its own top 10. This is an especially helpful aid in a city such as Berlin where the museums alone are worth the trip and each museum deserves days of exploring. When we fell further and further behind our self-imposed schedule, we defaulted to the Top 10 guide and used it extensively: the top 10 at the Egyptian Museum, the top 10 at the Pergamon, the top 10 on Unter den Linden, etc. In addition, the book lists the top 10 in each of a number of categories such as museums, art galleries (which are separated from museums), restaurants, stores, bars, architectural sites, etc. Plus there are neighborhood sections, each with a top 10 list of things to see and a list of cafes, bars and restuarants. This allowed us to go to a major Top 10, see the top 10 within, and then see some of the top 10 of the surrounding neighborhood. I found the recommendations to be reliable. The book is very well organized and includes helpful thumb nail photos. You may or may not agree with all the "top 10" judgements but as a first time visitor I was less concerned about that and more concerned with getting the most that I could out of my few days in a major city. This is the best city guide I have ever used. As an addendum, if you are going to Berlin, buy the murder-mystery novel "The Good German" set in August 1945.

Joachim Fest's account seems to be a biography of National Socialism. It it, he brings the main characters of the Nazi regime into light and shows that without them, the Third Reich would not have been the way we see it today. Adolf Hitler, Hermann Goering, Joseph Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, Heinrich Himmler, Martin Bormann, Ernst Roehm, Franz von Papen, Alfred Rosenberg, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer, Hans Frank, Baldur von Schirach, the Officer Corps of the Third Reich, Intellectuals and National Socialism, the role of women in Nazi Germany, and finally Rudolf Hoess. Occasionally, the book seems to be a little overwhelming, yet it keeps you interested and the author presents the facts in an interesting fashion. Fest brings to light the fact that each individual played a role in the workings of this regime and without them would never have been what it appears to be today. The author also seems to stress that it was Hitler himself who was the only ! unique individual in the face of Nazism. He was the only one who was intelligent and who saw and carried out what he wanted to be a greater German Reich. All the rest were all just a bunch of stupid, mindless men that blindly followed their Fuehrer in an attempt to hide themselves as failures in life and achieve their ultimate goal, which was power, even if it would mean becoming the pieces in a huge machine of destruction that the world had never seen in its history. Auschwitz kommandant Rudolf Hoess was responsible for the millions that perished in his camp, yet he later claimed that he "also had a heart and was not evil." This statement alone is all the more terrifying because in a sense, it is the truth. I can practically guarantee that you will not be sorry for reading this book. Fest's portrait of National Socialism and Modern Totalitarianism is essential for anyone who is curious in the workings and men of this terrifying era in history.

The main building of the Fagus shoe factory in Germany provides a focus for Annemarie Jaeggi's Fagus, a discussion of the history of modern architecture, which reveals the factory's innovations and buildings. This follows its construction from 1911 when it was designed and built through the 1920s. While the focus is narrow, the book succeeds in documenting a particular style and architectural legacy, and will be of interest to any art library with a specific architectural focus.

In German this book about the revolution of 1918/19 is called 'The Betrayal'. Yes, Germans can make revolutions and they don't buy platform tickets. It seems that everything I learned in (West German) school about that revolution was wrong. These people were as peaceful and idealistic as the East Germans in 1989/90. It wasn't a communist revolution either (as East German textbooks always told), most of its participants were from the traditional social democratic milieu and had no radical aims. They only wanted to install and keep these sowjets at least for a while in order to have control on public service and on the army officers which they thought were counter-revolutionary - in fact they really were. On the other hand they also wanted a parliament and a democratic government. No dictatorship of the proletariat. The betrayal: It was (their own?) social democratic government (Ebert, Noske) which prosecuted the revolution movement with brute force. Extremely right wing para forces were their instrument. It seems that Noske also gave the order to kill Luxemburg and Liebknecht. This book is definitively worth of a reprint in English.

This is a marvelous little history of one of the great royal dynasties of Eurpoe which came to an end with the First World War.

Proof of the universal appeal of this book and Crankshaw's writing style lies in the fact that this reviewer has read the book at three different times in his life (once as an undergraduate, another time at the conclusion of law school and yet another time about a year ago). Even though each of these three readings occurred at times when the reviewer's outlook and background on the subject matter was quite different, he derived pleasure and something new with each reading.

This book is a great, detailed description of the last days of the Third Reich. The coverage of the last days with Hitler is as good as "The Bunker". What is not commonly known is that the last fighting in Germany was some of the hardest fought of the whole war, the German war machine was against the wall and the best was expected from its troops. The details of the troops in the filed followed up with details form the men in charge were really well put together. This moved very well into the Yalta conference and the impressions the leaders there had which differed somewhat from the men in the field. This is just and all around great book, full of wonderful stories and an arm load of detail. If you are interested in the part of the war then you should buy this book.

The father of a murderer was in real life the father of the german nationalsocialist politician Heinrich Himmler, one of Hitler's nearest compains. Himmler educated greece at a humanistic school in munich, but he was not human at all. Andersch had to leave school after a very bad verbal test - as well as his brother, who should finish school soon. This little book shows the character of one of the most important leaders in Nazi-Deutschland, and Anderschs finishes the story with a question: "Does humanism protects against nothing?"

Contains 20 classic fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm's vast supply of enchantment and wonder. Each story has a full-page, full-color illustration by Mercer Mayer, and contains many small, black and white page decorations that follow the theme of the tales. Great for children and adults!