# Historical Fiction Recommendations: WW I, WW II and Intervening Period **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 10, 2023, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359 "2023-12-10T09:45:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bashorian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bashorian/32/3546_2.png) [@Bashorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bashorian)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2023, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/21 "2023-12-14T14:11:41Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > How about Irène Némirovsky’s _[Suite Française](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suite_fran%C3%A7aise_(N%C3%A9mirovsky_novel))_, the start of a series that was tragically never completed, covering the experience of the occupation of France almost contemporaneously. This fascinates me, both the substance of the work and the writer herself. ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecc23a/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada_Jr)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2024, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/22 "2024-05-29T19:21:33Z")
For Historical Fiction of WWI I can recommend [Sailor of Austria](https://www.amazon.com/Sailor-Austria-Intending-Prohaska-Official/dp/159013107X), which I think I first heard about on the SDMB. A novel about a submarine captain in Austria’s navy. Another WWI book I recommend is [Horses Don’t Fly](https://www.amazon.com/Horses-Dont-Fly-Frederick-Libby-audiobook/dp/B00BAFORUS/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2A9ROZCN8OCBR&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.4Ev8MEgl4bBJQuYJWRkjR-agMoDETsGQwUJEkxmR2qAO7LyS2QZCrpiSFUDFlKbzu0-ra9CfWZnTfPT9qHVeBYl7CPOlABIso5EHann1iY5_w92Ugd2JdjkpM4xOvphK7bSrYZhOkXxbaCsr_5jAbOmJDeEdSX3OLfMydfYkCfd6p9GUP3ymi0bNorkaU8gsu3t8UIXCkQBnaKq6YMGZKDWp-UZHCPXr2CDSRp6ZSCc.XLHOqnsdCP55q7Foytq7ztkHd26oJ5s6Ye1kPqhVtu8&dib_tag=se&keywords=horses+don%27t+fly&qid=1717010213&s=books&sprefix=horses+don%27t+fly%2Cstripbooks%2C161&sr=1-1). It is the memoir of a young cowboy, footloose and fancy free, who signs up with the Canadian army when the war breaks out, and winds up as a flying ace in the Royal British Flying Corp. The author was a pure-dee Western storyteller, and it is well worth reading. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2024, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/23 "2024-05-29T23:51:30Z")
I found the book of short stories “Tales of War” by Lord Dunsany to be very interesting. It was written in 1918, so it has a lot of bitterness and pathos about the recent war (and some of the stories are quite funny). > **[Tales of War by Lord Dunsany](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5713)** > > Free kindle book and epub digitized and proofread by volunteers. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2024, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/24 "2024-05-30T01:26:28Z")
> [@Reno\_Nevada\_Jr](#): > > For Historical Fiction of WWI I can recommend [Sailor of Austria](https://www.amazon.com/Sailor-Austria-Intending-Prohaska-Official/dp/159013107X), which I think I first heard about on the SDMB. A novel about a submarine captain in Austria’s navy. Fabulous, with some bits of humor. 4 books in the series. ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2024, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/25 "2024-05-30T03:50:00Z")
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned _Goodbye to Berlin_, written in 1939. It’s the novel that the musical _Caberet_ is based on. Unless that’s not the type of historical fiction the OP wants (or wanted in 2010). > **[Goodbye to Berlin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodbye_to_Berlin?wprov=sfla1)** > > Goodbye to Berlin is a 1939 novel by Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood set during the waning days of the Weimar Republic. The novel recounts Isherwood's 1929–1932 sojourn as a pleasure-seeking British expatriate on the eve of Adolf Hitler's ascension as Chancellor of Germany and consists of a "series of sketches of disintegrating Berlin, its slums and nightclubs and comfortable villas, its odd maladapted types and its complacent burghers." The plot was based on factual events in Ishe... ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2024, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/26 "2024-05-30T13:16:20Z")
Evelyn Waugh: _Sword of Honour_ trilogy for WW2 (albeit from his particularly idiosyncratic point of view) and maybe _Scoop_ for a satirical look at the way journalists handle a war. CJ Sansom: _Winter in Madrid_ set in the bleak aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Olivia Manning: _Balkan Trilogy_ and _Levant Trilogy_ - tracing a marriage through the fall of Romania and Greece, and the development of WW2 in the Middle East. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2024, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/27 "2024-05-31T02:43:32Z")
A film I saw in college is _ **Hitlerjunge Quex** _, about a young lad who’s drawn into the Hitler Youth and runs afoul of the Communists in his district. > **[Hitlerjunge Quex (film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitlerjunge_Quex_(film))** > > Hitlerjunge Quex, in English Hitler Youth Quex, is a 1933 German film directed by Hans Steinhoff, based on the similarly named 1932 novel Der Hitlerjunge Quex by Karl Aloys Schenzinger. The film was shown in the US under the title Our Flag Leads Us Forward. > Heini Völker is a teenage boy, living in poverty with his mother and father. Heini's father, a veteran of the Great War, is an out-of-work supporter of the Communist Party. The organizer for the local communist chapter, a man named Stoppel,... In German, with subtitles. _Quex_, BTW, is German for mercury, in the sense of quicksilver (i.e., the element, not the god). _Stoppel_ is razor stubble, which the Communist organizer has in abundance. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2024, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/28 "2024-05-31T03:01:26Z")
A link to the film: [1933 Hitlerjunge Quex : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive](https://archive.org/details/1933hitlerjungequex) ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2024, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/29 "2024-05-31T03:51:42Z")
Sorry, here is the film with subtitles: [https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=hitlerjunge+quex+movie+english+subtitles&&mid=FFEEB8015DD93FFB5CACFFEEB8015DD93FFB5CAC&&FORM=VRDGAR](https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=hitlerjunge+quex+movie+english+subtitles&&mid=FFEEB8015DD93FFB5CACFFEEB8015DD93FFB5CAC&&FORM=VRDGAR) ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2024, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/30 "2024-05-31T09:37:59Z")
A couple more: Sarah Gainham: _Night Falls On The City_ - a star of Viennese theatre hides her Jewish Social Democrat husband as the Nazis take over, and how they survive until Liberation. Vasily Grossman: _Life And Fate_ and _Stalingrad/For A Just Cause_ - life for Soviet civilians (originally censored), based on Grossman’s own experiences as a war correspondent ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2024, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/31 "2024-05-31T12:50:59Z")
A good tv series for this period is Babylon Berlin. It’s set in 1929 and follows a German vice cop with PTSD from WWI trying to track down embarrassing material about his father and getting caught up in much larger conspiracies. I like that it gives an interesting view of Germany before the Nazis take over. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2024, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/32 "2024-05-31T13:24:46Z")
The TV series was, I think, an adaptation of or inspired a series of detective stories by Volker Kutscher (English translations available). A similar series are Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther novels. If we’re including TV series, there are _World On Fire_ (BBC) and the German series _Generation War (Our Mothers, Our Fathers)_ (ZDF), and of course many more from different countries over the years. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2024, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/33 "2024-05-31T17:21:34Z")
Fritz Lang’s _ **M** _ (1931). The _Kripo_ (Criminal Police) hunt a child murderer in Berlin: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/TdSL9FvCv0U/maxresdefault.jpg "M - Full Movie - B&W - Mystery/Suspense - Fritz Lang - Peter Lorre - German with English subs (1931)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdSL9FvCv0U) With subtitles. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2024, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/34 "2024-06-04T11:26:04Z")
Some more: Robert Harris - _Munich_, _Fatherland_, _Archangel_, _An Officer And A Spy_ Thomas Keneally - _Gossip From The Forest_, _Daughters of Mars_, _A Season In Purgatory_, _The Cut-Rate Kingdom_, and of course _Schindler’s Ark_ ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2024, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/35 "2024-06-07T17:34:54Z")
Harris also wrote _ **Enigma** _, which (like _ **Fatherland** _ and _ **Archangel** _) was made into a less-than-faithful TV miniseries. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2024, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/36 "2024-06-07T17:43:41Z")
Is _ **Sailor of Austria** _ based on the exploits of Captain von Trapp in _ **The Sound of Music** _ by any chance? ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2024, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/37 "2024-06-07T17:47:17Z")
Set in Britain, not Germany or France, is _ **Danger: UXB** _, a miniseries about a Royal Engineers bomb disposal squad in WWII. Moments of sheer terror punctuated by butt-clenching tension. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2024, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/38 "2024-06-07T19:16:33Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Is _ **Sailor of Austria** _ based on the exploits of Captain von Trapp in _ **The Sound of Music** _ by any chance? Based? no, maybe _suggested by._ ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecc23a/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada_Jr)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2024, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/39 "2024-06-07T22:24:15Z")
Yes, Captain von Trapp was of course a real person, and as I recall does appear as a character in _ **Sailor of Austria** _, but I think the main character bears no relation to any person living or dead. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2024, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359/40 "2024-06-08T04:11:11Z")
A couple more novels dealing with WW1: Pat Barker’s _Regeneration_ trilogy Sébastien Japrisot - _A Very Long Engagement_ Sebastian Faulks - _The Girl at the Lion d’Or_ , _Birdsong_ and his WW2 novel _Charlotte Gray_, about an SOE agent. On a similar theme are Simon Mawer’s _Trapeze_ and _Tightrope_ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-fiction-recommendations-ww-i-ww-ii-and-intervening-period/994359.md?page=3)