Hitler

So the other day I was alphabetizing the German history section at the store and I noticed that one particular episode in this country's history seems to be greatly over-represented in the literature:



I decided to keep a running tally of the books as I worked, dividing them into two categories.

First, the "Hitler" category, which included all books specifically about one or more of the following: Adolf Hitler, the Nazis, the Third Reich in general, World War II, etc.

Second, the "Not Hitler" category, which included everything else.

These were the final tallies:

Hitler: 366 titles, with 283 duplicates
Not Hitler: 159 titles, with 62 duplicates

Of the "Not Hitler" books, 24 might reasonably have been placed in the "Hitler" category, had I not been so conservative in my tallying. These books had titles like "Recent German Military History" or "Recovering from the War": tangentially related but not about Hitler per se.

This is why I am slightly embarrassed whenever German tourists ask me to direct them to the German history section. They would perhaps be right in thinking that Americans do not get the most "balanced" view of their country's history.