Suggestions for a book on the First World War written in German.

[David Davis]

There was recently a request on this forum for suggestions for books on the Miners' Strike of 1984 so I would like to put in another request for a book which has nothing to do with aeromodelling.

I have recently got to know a German lady whose grandfather was killed on the Chemin Des Dames in 1917. I caught her looking through my book and DVD collection on the Great War the other day and though she reads English, all of my books are a bit specialised, I no longer have a general history of the First World War.

I would like to buy her a book for Christmas, on the history of the Great War, ideally written in German.

We have several German speakers and German residents on the forum, I'm hoping that someone will be able to point me in the right direction.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[David Davis]

Thank you Tom. I have contacted the IWM by phone but they were too busy to respond. I'll phone htem again soon.

I have also sent an email in my extremely rusty German to the German equivalent of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

[kc]

I am tempted to repeat Basil Fawlty's advice and say " don't mention the war" but instead I am going to say if you type in www.amazon.de and then search for WW1 you get their german site with books in German. You might then search for a title that you can also find in the English site.

[Braddock, VC]

Couple of German language books that may resonate with her, a novel all quiet on the western front the other is the first volume of mein Kampf though you may need deep pockets to pick up one of those.

[Kevin 216]

David,

You could try Abebooks - they have a search facility that will search many book dealers in the UK.

[David Davis]

Don't you mean, "Im Western nichts Neues?" . Good call Braddock, I'll get her that one.

As for "Mein Kampf," I had the opportunity to buy one in an antiques shop in South Molton years ago. It was in English. Every English-speaking prisoner of war was given one.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[David Davis]

Thank you gentlemen.

I found her a book about the Chemin Des Dames written in German on Amazon's German website.

[David Davis]

Just a note to say that she was delighted with her book!

I thought that it might have been a bit of a risky Christmas present as the Great War is a major interest of mine not hers. However, if either of my grandfathers had been killed in the war, and I didn't know much about it, I might have been interested in a book on the subject. As it was, both of my grandfathers survived the war. One served in the Royal Engineers and the other, a professional soldier in 1914, was wounded four times and was awarded the Military Medal in the last week of the war.