Reading guide Updated 4 November 2026
David Irving's books are written from documents: the diaries, letters, signals and minutes of the people who were there. There are more than thirty of them, written over sixty years, and they were not written to be read in order. This is the order we suggest. Prices below are today's, and every book is shown with its other editions.
First
The war from Berlin, the same war from London, and the trial that followed. Read in this order they are one story.
Start here1933–1945
Written from the German side of the war: Hitler's own papers, the diaries and letters of the people around him, and the signals and minutes of his headquarters.
Everything else Irving wrote grows out of this book and uses its method. Read it first and the rest of the catalogue has a spine.
Also as eBook $29.99 · Audiobook $49.99
Then1936–1941
The same years seen from London, from Churchill's private papers, War Cabinet minutes and the diaries of the people who worked for him.
It is the counterpart to Hitler's War. The two books cover the same decisions from the two capitals, and each is clearer for having read the other.
Also as eBook $19.99 · Audiobook $39.99
Then1945–1946
The trial of the surviving leaders, told from the unpublished diaries and papers of the judges, the prosecutors and the defendants.
It closes the story the first two books open. The men whose decisions you have followed are in the dock, and the record of what they said is the book.
Also as eBook $19.99 · Audiobook $24.99
The three as a set
The same three hardbacks in one order. $169 against $203 bought separately, a saving of $34.
Hitler's War and Churchill's War are printed to order; Nuremberg ships from office stock. The parts may arrive separately.
See the set
BundleDavid Irving · Bundle
Includes Hitler’s War · Churchill’s War, Volume I · Nuremberg, the Last Battle
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Second
Most readers go one of two ways after the first book. Either is a good second step, and the foundation order above works with both.
The inner circle1897–1945
Built from the Goebbels diaries, including the volumes recovered from the Moscow archives in 1992.
The propaganda minister's own record of the regime from inside. With True Himmler, the most read of Irving's biographies.
Also as eBook $24.99 · Audiobook $29.99
The inner circle1900–1945
Built from Himmler's letters, diaries and telephone logs, and the papers of his family and staff.
The SS chief's career from the same kind of sources as the Goebbels book. The two biographies are often bought together with Hitler's War.
Also as eBook $24.99 · Audiobook $39.99
Hitler's War, Goebbels and True Himmler are also sold together as the Third Reich Biographies set.
Churchill's War continues1941–1943
Continues from Volume I on the same sources: Churchill's papers, Cabinet records and private diaries.
Volume I ends in 1941 with Britain alone. Volume II carries the story through the entry of America and Russia to the turn of the war.
Also as eBook $24.99 · Audiobook $49.99
Volumes I and II are also sold as the Churchill's War two-volume set. Volume III, The Sundered Dream, is on pre-order.
Third
With the foundation read, the rest of the catalogue can be taken in any order. These are the books most readers go to next, each on a single subject.
Before the war1933–1939
The six years before Hitler's War opens, from the same German papers and diaries.
Read it if you want the road to 1939 before the war itself. It was written as the prelude to Hitler's War and reads as one.
Also as Paperback $25 · eBook $14.99 · Audiobook $24.99
The bombing warFebruary 1945
Irving's first book, from the records of the raid and the people who lived through it, revised over later editions.
A single event told in full. The shortest way into Irving's method if a thousand-page book is too much to begin with.
Also as eBook $19.99 · Audiobook $29.99
The inner circle1893–1946
Built from Göring's staff records, family papers and interviews with the people who worked with him.
The third of the leadership biographies. Covers the Luftwaffe, the economy and the art collections as well as the man.
Also as Paperback $39 · eBook $14.99 · Audiobook $34.99
The flight to Scotland1941–1945
Built from Hess's prison letters and the British files on his captivity.
What happened to Hess after he landed in Scotland, and what the British made of him. A short book on a single question.
Also as Paperback $25 · eBook $12.99 · Audiobook $24.99
The desert war1940–1944
Built from the Rommel family papers, his letters home and the war diaries of his staff.
The one military biography in the catalogue. The desert campaigns and the field marshal's death after the July 1944 plot.
Also as eBook $14.99 · Audiobook $29.99
Last
The author2005–2006
Written from the notes Irving kept during his imprisonment in Austria.
Not history. The author's own account of thirteen months in a Vienna prison, for readers who want to know who wrote the rest.
Also as eBook $14.99 · Audiobook $29.99
Irving's working method was the same for sixty years: find the papers the participants left, read them before reading what other historians made of them, and reconstruct events from the record. The books quote those papers at length and say where each one is held. Readers can and do disagree with the conclusions; the sources are there to be checked.
Irving Books also publishes some of the documents the histories were written from, in edited editions with notes on what they are and how the text was established. They sit on a separate shelf from the histories and are not part of this route.
Begin with the first book
Hitler’s War — Hardback · $95 hardback · eBook $29.99 · Audiobook $49.99
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