Beware of dedicated Visual C++ books as they often are mostly MFC (e.g. Visual C++ First Steps, MS Press).
Once you know a little C++ and you speak German, a book I really like is "C/C++ Kompendium, Dirk Louis, Markt + Technik Verlag", which is a really good reference of both languages, that even explaines in detail things like templates and namespaces.