Christian Adam is Head of the Publications Department at the Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr. His previous publications include Der Traum vom Jahre Null: Autoren, Bestseller, Leser (Galiani 2016).

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: ‘Please, God, Keep Me from Writing a Book about Books!’Part IChapter 1. Sifting, Destroying, Controlling and Promoting: The Politics of Literature under the SwastikaChapter 2. Bestsellers in a Dark Time: Their History and ReadersChapter 3. Hitler’s and Goebbels’ Bedtime Reading: What Prominent Nazis Liked to ReadPart II: The Ten Most Successful Book Types in the Third ReichChapter 4. On the Foundation of Facts: Popular Non-Fiction WorksChapter 5. The Colour of Money: NS Propaganda TextsChapter 6. Not So Quiet on the Western Front: The Boom of War BooksChapter 7. Laughing through Life, Jolly Volk: Humour and ComedyChapter 8. From Medical Romance Novels to Science Fiction: The Themes and Authors of Modern Light LiteratureChapter 9. Commodifying Authentic People’s Literature: Karl May, Courths ­Mahler and the Heroes of Pulp FictionChapter 10. Foreign Narrative Art: Bestsellers from AbroadChapter 11. In the Shadow of the Classics: Highbrow LiteratureChapter 12. Blood without Soil: The Successes of National (Social)ist AuthorsChapter 13. Field Grey Pays Dividends: Reading Fodder for WartimeConclusion: On the Trail of BestsellersAppendix: Selected Bestsellers and their Sales FiguresBibliographyIndex

Praise for the German edition:“Draws our attention not only to the breaks in National Socialist cultural policy, but also to the more interesting and generally little-researched continuities.” • Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“A study rich in material, but written in a pleasant, reader-friendly style.” • Vorwärts“Depicts a lost reading landscape in vivid detail … Not only a scholarly study, but an exciting contribution to intellectual history.” • Der Tagesspiegel