| Title | : | Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941 |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0801870569 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780801870569 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 627 |
| Publication | : | First published June 20, 1941 |
CBS radio broadcaster William L. Shirer was virtually unknown in 1940 when he decided there might be a book in the diary he had kept in Europe during the 1930s—specifically those sections dealing with the collapse of the European democracies and the rise of Nazi Germany.
Berlin Diary first appeared in 1941, and the timing was perfect. The energy, the passion, the electricity in it were palpable. The book was an instant success, and it became the frame of reference against which thoughtful Americans judged the rush of events in Europe. It exactly matched journalist to event: the right reporter at the right place at the right time. It stood, and still stands, as so few books have ever done—a pure act of journalistic witness.
Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941 Reviews
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This book, a diary written by William L. Shirer (who later wrote “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”), takes you into Europe of the 1930s (more precisely, the time span from 1934 to 1941) and tells you about the day-to-day life of a foreign correspondent stationed in Berlin. Shirer’s diary is also a first-hand report of how Hitler and his henchmen kept deceiving the German public with propaganda and outright lies, this being simplified by having full control over the press, which also required foreign correspondents to have their reports censored before submitting or broadcasting.
This is not history in retrospect. This is ugly history in the making.
There is actually not much I could say about the book that other reviewers haven’t already said.
I would like to point out, however, that what Shirer considered to be the psyche of “the regular German” was actually the psyche of “the regular Nazi”. It might not have occurred to Shirer that the only Germans who freely offered him their opinions were Nazis. Non-Nazis would have known better than to utter any critic of Hitler or Nazi ideology to anyone but close non-Nazi relatives and friends. If reported, they would have been arrested by the Gestapo and would have landed in front of the kangaroo court, called “Volksgericht”, or they would, at least, have been shipped to the nearest concentration camp.
The book could have used a bit more editing. However, given its invaluable content, I consider such flaw insignificant. I rate this book 4 1/2 stars and round up to 5.
If you are the least bit interested in the reality of the Third Reich and how everything came to be, READ THIS BOOK! -
Just as I was finishing Neil MacGregor's engaging, "Germany: Memories of a Nation," a little voice reminded me that it was about time for a reread of William Shirer's classic, "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," while another voice immediately scolded me for not having read his "Berlin Diary 1934-1941."
Maybe I should read that one first? When it arrived two days later, I placed it aside on my drawing table since I have way too many projects on my plate at the moment, but what harm will just a little peek at the first entry do? Well, 605 pages later, my overflowing plate is still calling my name.
A diary at the epicenter of world events is not an objective history. This is a real time narrative that blazes across the pages, filled with urgency, uncertainty, speculation, indecision, good decisions, bad decisions, and regret. An effortless journal that the reader never wants to put it down without reading just one more pulsing entry.
William Shirer began as a print journalist, eventually being recruited by the CBS radio network as one of its premiere European correspondents. One of the many back stories tucked inside this diary, next to the unforeseen dominance of air power covering a motorized blitzkrieg along country roads is the sudden transition of public information and propaganda from print to radio media at such an influential juncture in history.
Shirer witnesses the rise of Nazi Germany up close and personal. He views Hitler and Chamberlain chatting below his own balcony before the sell-out of Czechoslovakia. He reports directly outside the same Compiègne wagon-lit where Germany gets its revenge by forcing France's surrender exactly where Germany had laid down its arms after the previous World War. Months in advance, he predicts the invasion of Poland as Hitler's logical next move while the government dunderheads in France and England remain totally clueless.
Shirer uncannily picks up on all the subtle ticks and mannerism he observes in Göring, Goebbels, Himmler, Streicher, Generals Halder and Brauchitsch as well as those quirks of the very excitable Herr Hitler. He has a poker player's knack for making a quick and accurate assessment of almost every individual he meets, famous or not. His summary insights into the ambivalent German soul resonate to this day.
As I mentioned beforehand, this is not objective history. This is a real time history that simmers with analysis on one page only to boil over with surprising action on the next page while Shirer is constantly trying to outwit his censors, forecast future military and political events, meet a deadline, scoop the competition, find a meal, a pound of coffee, pipe tobacco or an urgent train ticket to somewhere important while dodging bombs and shrapnel courtesy of the Brits flying above whom he is cheering on.
Be forewarned: one little peek and you will be Shirer's willing captive for the duration! -
A Personal Preamble
Reading
William L. Shirer's
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich rocked my world. At the time, I hadn't read many historical tomes, and it swept me away with its sheer scope in addition to the material covered. When I read Eric Larson's
In the Garden of Beasts a few months later, it seemed to be a sort of on-the-ground companion narrative of what life was like in Berlin during Hitler's ascent to power, and that was the end of my WWII erudition for a while. That "while" ended, and several WWII-centric books later, I came across Shirer's actual eyewitness account of many of the events he would later go on to chronicle, as they unfolded at the time.
Why the good marks?
Obviously, I thought very highly of this book (4.5 of 5 stars). Part of that has to do with the times, but more relates to the way in which Shirer positions himself as an observer. I recently found a photo (below) of Hitler arriving at a youth rally in Berlin in 1934 that seems to capture a sense of in-betweenness I found in the pages of Shirer's diary, and it's this liminal phase that is easily lost to history.
Hitler's countenance in this picture is striking for all the things that it is not (I encourage you to click to enlarge, it's also something in the eyes). The people are gathered, clearly taken with the pageantry of it all, but they are not amassed in a uniformed sea of Sieg Heil salutes. One of the soldiers in the background is himself trying to photograph the Fuhrer as he goes by.
The distance between the Berlin in this picture and the one so masterfully portrayed in
Cornelius Ryan's
The Last Battle (circa 1945) is beyond vast. Though William Shirer will not take you all the way there (
Berlin Diary was first published in 1941), I found his perspective to be worthwhile.
Why Shirer?
There were several things that made Shirer a particularly interesting tour-guide. Hired by broadcast pioneer
Edward R. Murrow (left, below), Shirer was in Berlin (and various other locales) as a radio correspondent for CBS.
Though not a scholar of military or political history, Shirer had a certain depth of understanding of the geopolitical underpinnings of Hitler's rise to power. After covering a rally at Nuremberg in September of 1934, he begins to realize the impact of the strategic use of color, music and "restoration of mysticism" on the German people:In such an atmosphere no wonder, then, that every word dropped by Hitler seemed like an inspired Word from on high. Man's—or at least the German's—critical faculty is swept away at such moments, and every lie pronounced is accepted as high truth itself.
As a journalist, Shirer's reports were subject to the oversight of censors, which, in addition to his direct contact with men on the ground and colleagues in the U.S., left him with a deep skepticism lacking in, say, a Martha Dodd (who he did run into a couple of times). The extent of this censorship would, ultimately, lead Shirer to question the value of bothering to report at all. His notes are interesting as a chronicle of what wasn't being said by the press to the people back home.
However, Shirer was quite unenlightened (in hindsight, even naÏve) on other matters. Perhaps due in part to the continual outpourings from the Goebbels propaganda machine, Shirer often writes of "the German" as an archetype, or of "the Germans" as a people in sweeping terms. He describes Germans as "a people without doubt," and with a "deeply ingrained" sense of militarism.
Some of these impressions grow from the conversations he recounts, such as a September 13, 1939 discussion with a maid in Berlin just after receiving telegrams on the latest bombings in Poland:“Why do the French make war on us?” she asked.
At the same time, he acknowledges the dissonance between the theoretical conception of "Germans" and "Germanism" with what he observes of the people around him.
“Why do you make war on the Poles?” I said.
“Hum,” she said, a blank over her face. “but the French, they're human beings,” she said finally.
“But the Poles, maybe they're human beings,” I asked.
“Hum,” she said, blank again.S., a veteran correspondent here, thinks every woman, and child in this country is a natural-born killer. Perhaps so. But today I noticed in the Tiergarten many of them feeding the squirrels and ducks — with their rationed bread.
Conclusions?
For one thing, I have a greater appreciation for the impetus behind the work of Stanley Milgram (who produced
Obedience to Authority ) and others in the wake of World War II. In the end I wouldn't say that I learned so much about what happened during the early years of the war, but more how it seemed. -
Shirer's diary is a unique window into what was known and believed at the time in Nazi Germany ... I am currently focusing on the 1939-41 period when Shirer, in Berlin, had access to many sources and was able to put information together in a series of brilliant reporting, analyses and conjectures.
In my sequel to A FLOOD OF EVIL, I am thinking of having Shirer meet my fictional character Berthold Becker and carry on a series of conversations - in the Tiergarten, at the Adlon Hotel.
A Flood of Evil -
This book, a diary written by William L. Shirer (who later wrote “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”), takes you into Europe of the 1930s (more precisely, the time span from 1934 to 1941) and tells you about the day-to-day life of a foreign correspondent stationed in Berlin. Shirer’s diary is also a first-hand report of how Hitler and his henchmen kept deceiving the German public with propaganda and outright lies, this being simplified by having full control over the press, which also required foreign correspondents to have their reports censored before submitting or broadcasting.
This is not history in retrospect. This is ugly history in the making.
There is actually not much I could say about the book that other reviewers haven’t already said.
I would like to point out, however, that what Shirer considered to be the psyche of “the regular German” was actually the psyche of “the regular Nazi”. It might not have occurred to Shirer that the only Germans who freely offered him their opinions were Nazis. Non-Nazis would have known better than to utter any critic of Hitler or Nazi ideology to anyone but close non-Nazi relatives and friends. If reported, they would have been arrested by the Gestapo and would have landed in front of the kangaroo court, called “Volksgericht”, or they would, at least, have been shipped to the nearest concentration camp.
The book could have used a bit more editing. However, given its invaluable content, I consider such flaw insignificant. I rate this book 4 1/2 stars and round up to 5.
If you are the least bit interested in the reality of the Third Reich and how everything came to be, READ THIS BOOK! -
Reading this was like tagging along with William Shirer on his journalist escapades in pre-WWII Europe.
Shirer was a radio reporter who worked with the likes of Ed Murrow and others, but he had a unique front-row seat (literally) to many of the historic events in the Nazis political domination of Germany and then all of Europe, as he was posted to Berlin until December 1940.
You are with him when he attends Hitler's speeches in the temporary Reichstag. You are with him as he attends the Munich summit in the late summer of 1938. You read over his shoulder as he writes in his diary about his growing concerns that Britain, France and the US are not taking the worsening situation seriously enough. You are with him as the German invaders take him on a brief tour of occupied Poland in September 1939. You are with him as he visits occupied France in the spring of 1940 and witnesses Hitler's vengeful armistice signing at Compiegny. You are with him as he dashes between studios during the early bombing raids of Berlin.
Indeed, reading this 80-year old diary brings an immediacy to the early stages of the war. It is as if you are hearing about the events in real time and don't actually know the outcomes.
It was unfortunate that I had to rush through the end of the book, as I needed to return it to the library. There is a very interesting section there in which Shirer speculates on how Hitler took everyone by surprise and how the British strategy, the only country standing against Hitler at the end of 1940, might unfold. He definitely understood how important it was for Churchill to bring in the might of the USA armed forces.
I look forward to reading Shirer's
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany! -
As a European correspondent(first for a wire service, and later for CBS) stationed in Berlin from 34-40, Shirer was uniquely placed to comment on every major event of the early stages of WWII as they unfolded. Luckily for us, he kept a diary. In addition to reporting on war news he also provides keen insights into the psyche of both the Nazi leadership, and the regular German citizen.
Reading this book felt a little like watching WWII on CNN with Breaking News every other page. this book had a much more intimate and visceral feel than Shirer's best known work, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. -
"He has become—even before his death—a myth, a legend, almost a god, with that quality of divinity which the Japanese people ascribe to their Emperor. To many Germans he is a figure remote, unreal, hardly human. For them he has become infallible."
Shirer's Berlin Diary documents his years as a reporter in the late 1930s, watching Hitler's rise as it unfolded. But Shirer plays more than reporter here. He's a war strategist, psychologist, patriot, soldier, husband, father, colleague, storyteller. And he's at his best describing Hitler's speeches which Shirer attended in person. You can feel the energy jumping off the pages. Shirer saw right through the charade, giving him an ability to analyze, describe, and articulate what was transpiring without being caught up (too much) in the emotion of the moment himself.
Only knock is that I found the pacing a bit slow. I'm tempted to say with some editing this book could really jump, but I think editing out the mundane daily entries would steal the essence of the book. The trudging pace stays true to the evolution of events-both in his personal life and on the world stage. So it's hard not to appreciate it for what it is: a genuine firsthand account of one of the biggest events in world history. -
"Berlin Diary" is one of the more unusual documents to come out of World War II. First published in 1941, not long after America's entry into the war, it acted as a crucial means of informing the American public of the state of affairs in Germany up until the start of the war. Shirer spent the years from 1934 to 1940 in Europe as a foreign correspondent, and was mostly posted in Berlin during that time. As such, he witnessed the rise of Nazi fanaticism from a privileged position, often being given access to Nazi functions that the public could not attend. Shirer's better known work, "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," is more exhaustive and examines the subject from a slightly more detached point of view. "Berlin Diary" is the pithy, day-by-day account of what it was really like on the ground in Berlin, including all the personal difficulties and aggravations that occurred as the end of 1940 approached. It's a fascinating book which will add vital colour to anyone's attempt to understand the period.
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A diary, a regular, honest-to-God, often mundane, sometimes tedious diary. But that's what makes it SO REAL. It's an account of what happened when, where and how from 1934 up to 1940, as the author lives, writes, experiences/witnesses, and reports on events happening in Europe, especially the cities of Berlin, Munich, Geneva, points in France and a few other countries. It's eye-opening, tragic, exhilarating and so personal it's often painful to read.
I loved it. As much as you can love a take on what was going on up to the start, and first few years of WW2 in Europe. Shirer saw, interviewed and knew many of the most important figures of the time. A review fails to do it justice. As I read I was constantly looking up names, places, referring to maps, Wikipedia, and other books I own. I was also constantly telling my husband about...
...the Czechs, the Austrians, Poland, the persecution of Jews, and some of the BIG events, as well as smaller things which aren't as well-known, like food shortages, the fact theaters and cafes stayed open sometimes during bombing raids, blackout curtains, curfews, train schedules! Shirer's diary covered both the BIG, important events as well as the minutiae of everyday life in Germany, Poland, Austrian, Switzerland, France, etc. etc.
This is a treasure, the kind of book which can't be replicated except by living day-to-day and recording the events and the effects on one's own life and those around you.
(OMG his wife had a baby at this time and she was often with Shirer, or being shuttled around to safer cities as she had some serious post-natal complications. Then she went home to the US and I breathed a sigh of relief - and then! - she came back, with her little daughter! OMG! Why isn't there a movie about all this? Or is there, and I've missed it?)
I need to read Mr. Shirer's other books, including the one that continues on from 1941.
Five stars -
William L. Shirer wrote the classic "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" based on his experiences as a foreign correspondent and his later exhaustive researches among the captured documents of the fallen regime. This book is his personal diary written during prewar working assignments in Vienna and Berlin and comprises many of the opinions that he was forbidden or unable to publish at the time and they make fascinating reading. Shirer is a prescient observer possessed of a sharp independent mind (he gets into shouting matches with Nazi officials!) and one is impressed and often amazed by the accuracy of his poliitical forecasts since he was writing them as events were actually unfolding. Until the Czech crisis of September 1938 the world was largely baffled and bemused by Hitler but not Shirer and several of his colleagues, including the CBS radio pioneer Edward R Murrow. His frustration at the fact that nobody would listen to his and others' warnings about the danger of the regime comes through quite clearly. One comes away from this book with a feeling of bitter regret that these warnings were not listened to and that Hitler and his band of political thugs were not stamped on when it was still possible to stop them and prevent the war they were clearly planning.
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Very interesting reading. I only wish I had read this concurrent with The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. This would have provided a really comprehensive look at these years. Having read both of Shirer's books as well as Klemperer's I Will Bear Witness (1933-1941), I really feel i'm getting a good sense of life in Nazi Germany up to the point where the US enters the war. For anyone interested in this time period and how these atrocities could apparently be accepted by the German people, i would highly recommend all three books.
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A 16 hour audiobook
Random thoughts worth sharing:
-Shirer really had a good grasp of reading Hitler and had a knack of explaining German views (or at least pointing out their irony and contradictions).
-I didn't realize how tough the winter of 1939 was for Germany.
- The premise that Germany had to keep attacking other countries to keep from running out of resources is interesting and worth looking further into.
-Where was the Allied air force throughout the attack on France?
-Were the French generals really this inept? Did they not study the Polish campaign? I need to read more about the defense of France.
- Shirer predicted German attack on Soviet Union? At a time when so many diplomats couldn't figure out the basics of understanding Hitler, this guy gets it.
I enjoyed this book. -
I just picked this one up from the many many books in the house. . . William Shirer is a bit blunt with his assessment of the German population, implying that they lacked the perception to be able to assess a truly human gauge for morality. By today's standards, this may in itself be considered a racist assessment. This book was written before the real atrocities were known, but even so, the signs of genocide were there: the request for lists of psychiatric patients, the monitoring of public hospitals, the lies about reasons for invasion (to protect the people of Holland and Norway) and the double standard constantly invoked regarding the rights of civilians, the diatribes against Jews and blacks and even people of different nationalities, and the lack of press coverage of obvious events. What Shirer doesn't emphasize, (and he should have) is the absolute brutality that was imposed by the Versailles Treaty upon the German people. Shirer writes like a dream, I couldn't put it down. He notes the ambiguity of the British and the French, and documents that there was very little resistance as the Germans approached Paris.
We are also allowed into his personal life, and I read in amazement of his marriage, and the sheer tenacity of his wife, who easily compares to the toughest of pioneer women. He talks about Segovia and Ed Murrow, and various other correspondents and friends, German and otherwise, and heads of state. He gives graphic details about Hitler's henchmen, and gives a stunning blow-by blow of the second French Armistice, which he managed to broadcast live, much to the consternation of Nazi officials. He tells us of constantly stumbling through the dark during an air raid at 1 am in order to reach the transmission station in Berlin, in order to broadcast a censored script that may not even get through.
This is an incredible book, and it was eerie because of parallels of our own current culture, as we invade countries in order to protect them, complain about human rights as we send drones which impersonally kill civilians, monitor the daily lives of civilians and lie about it, and lie about provocations for war. Our government is currently shut down as our Senate and House debate the extent that social services will be cut to the advantage of the corporate investment houses. We are closing schools and hospitals, and monitoring repeat visits of older people to the doctor. We are subject to tirades against immigrants and Muslims as though they were less than human, while perfecting the art of blaming the victim as our economy is making us desperately grab at necessities as shortages continue, prices rise, and we are told that there are too many people, and not enough resources to go around. And that economic development that would provide for everyone is bad for the environment.
Shirer rejoiced and Hitler despaired at the news of Roosevelt's third term. As this country devolves into fascism, what is our excuse? And where are the Democrats? -
This is the gold standard for documenting how a society can succumb to the evils of a dictator. The writer's style stayed true to the diary as he had written it down at great risk to himself in Nazi-held countries. It starts slowly and by almost unnoticeable steps until people start to wonder how they got there. It is the same pattern we see many times except often people in a society do not seem to recognize it and are OK to surrender seemingly minor rights. As with Hitler and the Nazis, one of the first targets is a free press. Then use the power of the government to deal with political opposition in various ways from restrictions on activities, putting them out of business, etc. Soon there are no voices to speak against what is happening as they are gone or afraid to say anything that could result in their elimination. So sad that we just cannot stop the madness.
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I don't know how much Shirer worked over his notes for this instant history of the Nazi rise to power during his years as a correspondent in Germany, but it was not enough to make this book at all comparable to his excellent The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich or his three-volume autobiography.
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This was a very impressive & amazing book. Even if the chapters are not very long, keep in mind, this was a journal, the sound judgement of it`s author and the way he can discern a big chunk of the truth, without many of the other pieces of the whole puzzle, it`s quite remarkable.
There are a lot of first hand informations here, like for ex, when wanting to do the invasion of England the Reich had commissioned that all the civilians with a boat to change it in some kind of a barge suitable for a terrestrial landing, and so on...
Also, there are not hints on the Concentration camps, but, he sees and find easily all the proves that the Nazis are killing it`s the disable & mentally ill people.
Anyway, there are a lot, a lot, of first hand things about that period and I must say that this book it`s a valuable asset for the WW2 history and not only.
Highly Recommended! -
The author gives first account of Germany leading into WWII and the first years of being at war with England. He also writes about things that he saw and the rumors that he heard as he was a journalist in Berlin. He was around for the invasion of Poland, Holland, Belgium and France. He was able to see first hand the damage and also hear the propaganda of the Nazi's excuses.
William Shirer was an American radio journalist living in Berlin and covering the Nazi leaders. He saw first hand the attitudes, the lies and the reasons that Hitler's regime gave on a daily basis. He was able to stay there longer than most journalists since the sensors were able to read over his script each night before his broadcast. In his diary, he writes about the things he not allowed to talk about.
I recommend this book. I found the first 300 pages a quick read, but towards the end seemed as thought the author was ready to leave Berlin. He was tired of the sensors and the propaganda. -
William L. Shirer's thoughts and experiences provide fascinating insight and invaluable context to what it was like to be there in Europe during the years leading up to World War 2. While most history books necessarily look at things in the hindsight of time, Shirer's account provides a raw, running commentary on what people who were there thought about Hitler's rise to power and the run-up to the war. Shirer is a great chronicler and a likeable protagonist, and his own story intertwines with the story of the events going on around him, but never detracts from the main story of the amazing events going on around him.
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I listened to this book which made the march to war chronicled in this amazing diary all the more haunting. The diary not only gives you a sense for what it was like in Germany in the lead up to America's involvement in WWII (spoiler alert: horrifying), it's also a throwback to the golden age of radio and a peek into what was involved in getting the story out onto the airwaves.
If you like diaries (or love them like I do!), want to time travel to pre-WWII Germany, or are intrigued by journalism in the days of radio, this book is for you! -
A real and only slightly edited diary that documented Shirer’s life as a foreign correspondent in Nazi Germany provides a day-to-day observations into various aspects of the country that started WW2.
Though sometimes Shirer is too judgmental and biased towards the German people or various Europeans governments and is not understanding or attentive enough of the prosecution of the Jews, the book describes a society built on lies, propaganda and promotion of false values. It reads as a cautionary tale, especially nowadays, when Putin’s Russia employs the same strategy and the same justification while invading Ukraine. -
Working for CBS radio in Berlin during the lead-up to World War II and through its early stages, Shirer had an up-close, behind the scenes view of developments and experiences on the ground. An engrossing eyewitness account.
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Shiver was a legendary foreign correspondent whose best known work is probably The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
His Berlin Diary is a more than interesting account of daily political life in Berlin between 1934 and his return to the USA at the end of 1940. Not surprisingly the diary had to be smuggled out. He was critical from the Nazis from the outset and became increasingly disenchanted with them as the years went by.
His style is vey simple and easy to read and this makes the narrative all the more interesting. The diary deals almost exclusively with politics except for brief passages about rationing and its effects on the general population. Two things stand out; the ludicrously restrictive censorship imposed on foreign correspondents and broadcasters and the atrocious lies from the Nazi Propaganda Ministry led by the appallingly odious Josef Goebbels.
David Lowther. Author of The Blue Pencil, Liberating Belsen and Two Families at War,all published by sacristy Press. -
The great chronicle of the time right before and the beginning of world war 2, told in realtime by someone who lived through it. Though it may have been edited a bit before publication still it is as real as it gets.
We all remember the history, at least we must, but it adds something extra when reading about Shirer’s disbelief at every point when the great powers should have confronted Hitler, but instead allowed him to gather more power.
Also parallels with current war in Ukraine abound, the same flimsy pretenses for starting the war, propaganda that constantly lies and changing their lies each day, with population eating it all up. The believe that they are the wronged party, that they were attacked and not the other way around and simultaneously believe that they have a right to conquer neighboring nations. The “counterattack “ on Poland is priceless, I haven’t heard about it before.
The book itself is a diary, so it includes also some personal staff, like him meeting his friends which is less interesting to readers, but it is still very engaging. Shirer has a great narrator’s voice. -
William L Shirer is best known for writing a massive tome covering Germany during WWII with a well-won reputation of standing the test of time, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich proves why he had such insight into the workings of Hitler's Germany. In this book, he reproduces his Diary from the time he spent in Germany and other countries in the area during Hitler's rise to power and prior to Germany's declaration of war on the US. In this book he is not in the least unbiased. His displeasure with Germany and Germans is very clear. He is astounded that they would swallow the lies of Hitler and allow him to stay in power.
It is an amazing look at the thoughts of a man, who by no means an insider, was there to see it happen and often in key places to be a perfect witness to the events unfolding. A book that is well worth the read. -
Diary of William L. Shirer while he was CBS radio correspondent in Berlin and elsewhere in Europe. Good first-hand accounting of "breaking news" of the time, including the Austrian Anschluss, Munich crisis, invasion of Poland, invasion of Norway, and invasion of the low countries and France. Although I knew generally about the "home front" in Germany during the war, Shirer provides good information on German rationing and the effect of the Allied bombing raids on Berlin.
