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For the definitive history of World War Two, three works stand 'way out in front of the sizable pack:

Winston S Churchill � World War Two (six big volumes!)
William L Shirer �The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler
William L Shirer �The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Before the war, long before he would be one of its victorious leaders, Churchill was already an outspoken critic of both Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler (both men made no secret of their hatred for him and knew that in any war to come, he'd be one who'd have to be dealt-with).

Shirer, as a journalist already in Berlin, knew Hitler and watched him start the war.

I read William L Shirer �The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich a loooong time ago. Good read and one I probably should do again.

I also read Castles of Steel (IIRC - prob confusing it with another) was about dreadnoughts in WWI. Interesting take on Winston Churchill as Lord of the Admiralty.

I am sure I butchered both the title and Churchill's job - I will have to dig up the book somewhere and check.

Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty (Briain's "secretary of the navy") during World War One. He wrote three books about that war � The World Crisis, The Eastern Front, and The Aftermath.

He considered World War Two to be an unnecessary (avoidable) continuation of World War One � and would probably see the current conflicts in the Middle East as fruits of seeds that were also responsible for World War Two.

My fav's...

William L. Shirer - The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich
Martin Gilbert - The Second World War
AJP Taylor - The Origins of the Second World War
William Craig - Enemy at the Gates, the Battle for Stalingrad
Dwight D. Eisenhower - Crusade in Europe

Never read Churchill's books, but I'd sure like to.

Plus one on The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Read "Rise and Fall..." while stationed in West Berlin. Kind of neat and spooky at the same time to read about something that happened at a particular locale and then take the bus to that same locale to listen to the echos of history, only some thirty years in the past at that time.

Had a Race Relations seminar in the very house on the Wannsee where (we were told) many of the details for Hitler's Final Solution were worked out. That was an interesting juxtaposition.

In studying what we did to the German people during WWII, I was somewhat disturbed. Then I read �Rise and Fall� and it put things in perspective. The German people were by and large, 100% behind Hitler to the bitter end. They were worked up into a frenzy of hatred for anything not German. Hitler is only partly to blame and AJP Taylor�s controversial book puts the rest into perspective and shows that it takes two (or more) to tango. The Allies need to accept their fair share of the blame, but since they won, the get a pass.

Er, dont want to be too controversial here, BUT who started it ? and then came 'second' ( again!) ...... sympathy, I don't think so !

T260

After reading �Rise and Fall� I don�t have a whole lot of sympathy either. But as a student of history, I try to see the bigger picture and I clearly recognize major failings by the Allies that helped lead us into WWII. The Allies allowed the French to run rough-shod over Germany anytime they showed the slightest signs of recovering from WWI. We just sat back and let them do it every time and never said a word.

Like the saying goes, �if you�re going to kick the tiger in the ass, you�d better have a plan for the teeth.�

I don�t have sympathy for WWII Germany because they as a nation were whipped up into a frenzy of hatred and killing. But if we�re to learn anything from the war, we must see the big picture.

Read Shirer's other Rise and Fall ... book � The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler. It's a lot shorter and a lot easier to read than his ... Third Reich � an easy one-sitting read.