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The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
“One of the most important works of history of our time.” —The New York Times
A modern classic and the definitive study of Adolf Hitler, the rise of Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, and World War II by the foreign correspondent who saw firsthand how the Nazi movement swept Europe. William B. Shirer presents nuanced profiles of major and minor figures as well as exacting details of the political movements, wartime strategy, and atrocities of the Third Reich. This epic work is required reading to understand modern history and how fascist dictators can captivate a population to wicked ends.
No other powerful empire ever bequeathed such mountains of evidence about its birth and destruction as the Third Reich. When the bitter war was over, and before the Nazis could destroy their files, the Allied demand for unconditional surrender produced an almost hour-by-hour record of the nightmare empire built by Adolph Hitler. This record included the testimony of Nazi leaders and of concentration camp inmates, the diaries of officials, transcripts of secret conferences, army orders, private letters—all the vast paperwork behind Hitler's drive to conquer the world.
The famed foreign correspondent and historian William L. Shirer, who had watched and reported on the Nazis since 1925, spent five and a half years sifting through this massive documentation. The result is a monumental study that has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of one of the most frightening chapters in the history of mankind.
Here is the complete story of Hitler's empire, one of the most important stories ever told, written by one of the men best equipped to write it.
This worldwide bestseller has been acclaimed as the definitive book on Nazi Germany; it is a classic work.
A modern classic and the definitive study of Adolf Hitler, the rise of Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, and World War II by the foreign correspondent who saw firsthand how the Nazi movement swept Europe. William B. Shirer presents nuanced profiles of major and minor figures as well as exacting details of the political movements, wartime strategy, and atrocities of the Third Reich. This epic work is required reading to understand modern history and how fascist dictators can captivate a population to wicked ends.
No other powerful empire ever bequeathed such mountains of evidence about its birth and destruction as the Third Reich. When the bitter war was over, and before the Nazis could destroy their files, the Allied demand for unconditional surrender produced an almost hour-by-hour record of the nightmare empire built by Adolph Hitler. This record included the testimony of Nazi leaders and of concentration camp inmates, the diaries of officials, transcripts of secret conferences, army orders, private letters—all the vast paperwork behind Hitler's drive to conquer the world.
The famed foreign correspondent and historian William L. Shirer, who had watched and reported on the Nazis since 1925, spent five and a half years sifting through this massive documentation. The result is a monumental study that has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of one of the most frightening chapters in the history of mankind.
Here is the complete story of Hitler's empire, one of the most important stories ever told, written by one of the men best equipped to write it.
This worldwide bestseller has been acclaimed as the definitive book on Nazi Germany; it is a classic work.
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Community Reviews
Look, this is a big book on a horrific topic about which a lot has been said. As I tried to process it, I found myself failing to come up with satisfying overarching explanations and so just fell back on answering a few questions that I was left wondering about after I finished the book.
The most effective analogy I read is that the experience is what it would be like were a violent, racist, street gang to suddenly wind up running America. That analogy isn't perfect, but it accurately conveys a lot of my surprise for how the Nazis came to power, what they did with it, how they governed and interacted with other leaders, and ultimately how they dealt with their own failure and decline.
1. Why didn't anybody stop this guy?
It seems that, within Germany, he was first at first a punchline and then suddenly quite popular, after his early successes in the Rhineland. There were certainly opportunities to stop him, including at a minimum the Beer Hall Putsch, his election to premier, establishment of dictatorship and suspension of civil liberties, and the Rhineland offensive. But it seems that when he was stoppable he was not taken seriously and by the time he was taken seriously he was difficult to stop.
Knowing myself, and reading about his gradual rise, I think I probably would have underestimated him in the same way and largely written it off until it was too late.
2. Was he an effective military commander?
Seems not. Early on, he was bold and surprised his enemies. That worked. However, when he could not achieve sudden victory, he failed at assessing reality and planning for it. Most of his plans following his conquest of France seem flawed not only in their tactics but in their apprehension of reality.
3. So what was he good at?
The same things as many demagogues, as far as I can tell.
+ Fanatically determined
+ Crafted an uplifting vision for a downtrodden people
+ Personal charisma
+ Effective use of propaganda
I didn't see anything in the book that led me to believe he was particularly special beyond these qualities where are not entirely uncommon.
4. He gets a lot of credit for his ability to read opponents and act as a cunning strategist in international relations. That hold water?
Not sure it does. He seemed to use the same tactics, regardless of his situation: aggression, duplicity, surprise, and coercion. These tools were effective when all of Europe sought to avoid war, but once it started they really weren't, though he kept right on applying them.
5. Did he actually write down what he was going to do and publish it before he did it?
Yes. Including his plan to take power, suspend civil liberties, attack France and eventually Russia, and subjugate the Jews, though he did not write the scale of his plans.
I think a lot of folks blame leaders with the benefit of hindsight and that may not be fair. But one completely fair critique is that it does not seem folks read his widely available book, which would have told them a great deal.
6. What would Europe have looked like under a Nazi government?
Turns out we know the answer. It was already planned and administered that way during the war. Essentially, the Nazis were to enslave the vast majority of the population, save those that they intended to murder. The enslaved population was then to do the sort of manual labor required to support Germans. Little regard was to be paid to the health or safety of the enslaved population, as they were quite literally considered to be sub-human.
7. Why didn't a German just kill Hitler?
Well two things: (1) there was always at least someone trying to assassinate him, generally among his own staff, but (2) he was actually quite popular among the Germans, particularly as time and successes went on.
The assassination attempt that came closest to success was in 1944, when defeat was already evident to most in the military. It failed. Most Germans thought the would-be assassins to be traitors and both they and their families were summarily killed.
8. Did the Nazis almost win the war?
Not as far as I can tell.
It seems difficult to believe they weren't going to have to fight the US and Russia eventually, whether together or separately. I can't make the math work of them being favorites there, but then again they probably weren't favorites to conquer France in three weeks.
9. What explains the scale of this versus other dictators?
It seems a few things were different that made the result of this dictator different than others: One is new offensive technology and opponent's unfamiliarity with how to defend against it and the other is fatigue from World War One put Europe's leaders in a defensive posture that Hitler exploited.
10. What else?
Hitler's fanatical desire to control information and his blatant disregard for the truth are well known. What I did not fully comprehend is how pervasively those qualities would impact by standards. Shirer, an American in Berlin, reports feeling a degree of confusion about reality that surprised even himself. He describes the feeling of being surprised by people who not only deny reality but react emotionally to the idea that you would suggest the truth. He describes the discomfort and eventual internal censorship that follows.
Shirer also added an afterward to the book in the 1980s, which fretted about the prospect of German reunification and openly wondered whether Germany would re-militarize and again threaten Europe. I can see why he would worry about that now that I've read it, but it honestly never occurred to me people would have been concerned about that.
Here are some other useful contemporary quotes that I found that provided different vantage points on Hitler that were difficult for me to process given my historical view.
"PRINCETON, N.J., Nov. 27, 1939 Princeton's freshmen again have chosen Adolf Hitler as "the greatest living person" in the annual poll of their class conducted by The Daily Princetonian. Ninety-three votes were given to the German Chancellor, as compared with twenty-seven to Albert Einstein in second position and fifteen to Neville Chamberlain in third"
* Note that Germany invaded Poland the previous Summer...
"In fifteen years that have followed this resolve, he has succeeded in restoring Germany to the most powerful position in Europe, and not only has he restored the position of his country, but he has even, to a very great extent, reversed the results of the Great War . . . . the vanquished are in the process of becoming the victors and the victors the vanquished. . . . whatever else might be thought about these exploits they are certainly among the most remarkable in the whole history of the world." – Churchill, 1935
"I do not enjoy Herr Hitler’s acquaintance. He is living on the empty stomach of Germany. As soon as economic conditions improve, he will no longer be important... Any special reaction to the election results would be quite inappropriate” - Einstein, 1930 (he later changed his mind on this, but it is still interesting that an enlightened German observer would have this reaction)
The most effective analogy I read is that the experience is what it would be like were a violent, racist, street gang to suddenly wind up running America. That analogy isn't perfect, but it accurately conveys a lot of my surprise for how the Nazis came to power, what they did with it, how they governed and interacted with other leaders, and ultimately how they dealt with their own failure and decline.
1. Why didn't anybody stop this guy?
It seems that, within Germany, he was first at first a punchline and then suddenly quite popular, after his early successes in the Rhineland. There were certainly opportunities to stop him, including at a minimum the Beer Hall Putsch, his election to premier, establishment of dictatorship and suspension of civil liberties, and the Rhineland offensive. But it seems that when he was stoppable he was not taken seriously and by the time he was taken seriously he was difficult to stop.
Knowing myself, and reading about his gradual rise, I think I probably would have underestimated him in the same way and largely written it off until it was too late.
2. Was he an effective military commander?
Seems not. Early on, he was bold and surprised his enemies. That worked. However, when he could not achieve sudden victory, he failed at assessing reality and planning for it. Most of his plans following his conquest of France seem flawed not only in their tactics but in their apprehension of reality.
3. So what was he good at?
The same things as many demagogues, as far as I can tell.
+ Fanatically determined
+ Crafted an uplifting vision for a downtrodden people
+ Personal charisma
+ Effective use of propaganda
I didn't see anything in the book that led me to believe he was particularly special beyond these qualities where are not entirely uncommon.
4. He gets a lot of credit for his ability to read opponents and act as a cunning strategist in international relations. That hold water?
Not sure it does. He seemed to use the same tactics, regardless of his situation: aggression, duplicity, surprise, and coercion. These tools were effective when all of Europe sought to avoid war, but once it started they really weren't, though he kept right on applying them.
5. Did he actually write down what he was going to do and publish it before he did it?
Yes. Including his plan to take power, suspend civil liberties, attack France and eventually Russia, and subjugate the Jews, though he did not write the scale of his plans.
I think a lot of folks blame leaders with the benefit of hindsight and that may not be fair. But one completely fair critique is that it does not seem folks read his widely available book, which would have told them a great deal.
6. What would Europe have looked like under a Nazi government?
Turns out we know the answer. It was already planned and administered that way during the war. Essentially, the Nazis were to enslave the vast majority of the population, save those that they intended to murder. The enslaved population was then to do the sort of manual labor required to support Germans. Little regard was to be paid to the health or safety of the enslaved population, as they were quite literally considered to be sub-human.
7. Why didn't a German just kill Hitler?
Well two things: (1) there was always at least someone trying to assassinate him, generally among his own staff, but (2) he was actually quite popular among the Germans, particularly as time and successes went on.
The assassination attempt that came closest to success was in 1944, when defeat was already evident to most in the military. It failed. Most Germans thought the would-be assassins to be traitors and both they and their families were summarily killed.
8. Did the Nazis almost win the war?
Not as far as I can tell.
It seems difficult to believe they weren't going to have to fight the US and Russia eventually, whether together or separately. I can't make the math work of them being favorites there, but then again they probably weren't favorites to conquer France in three weeks.
9. What explains the scale of this versus other dictators?
It seems a few things were different that made the result of this dictator different than others: One is new offensive technology and opponent's unfamiliarity with how to defend against it and the other is fatigue from World War One put Europe's leaders in a defensive posture that Hitler exploited.
10. What else?
Hitler's fanatical desire to control information and his blatant disregard for the truth are well known. What I did not fully comprehend is how pervasively those qualities would impact by standards. Shirer, an American in Berlin, reports feeling a degree of confusion about reality that surprised even himself. He describes the feeling of being surprised by people who not only deny reality but react emotionally to the idea that you would suggest the truth. He describes the discomfort and eventual internal censorship that follows.
Shirer also added an afterward to the book in the 1980s, which fretted about the prospect of German reunification and openly wondered whether Germany would re-militarize and again threaten Europe. I can see why he would worry about that now that I've read it, but it honestly never occurred to me people would have been concerned about that.
Here are some other useful contemporary quotes that I found that provided different vantage points on Hitler that were difficult for me to process given my historical view.
"PRINCETON, N.J., Nov. 27, 1939 Princeton's freshmen again have chosen Adolf Hitler as "the greatest living person" in the annual poll of their class conducted by The Daily Princetonian. Ninety-three votes were given to the German Chancellor, as compared with twenty-seven to Albert Einstein in second position and fifteen to Neville Chamberlain in third"
* Note that Germany invaded Poland the previous Summer...
"In fifteen years that have followed this resolve, he has succeeded in restoring Germany to the most powerful position in Europe, and not only has he restored the position of his country, but he has even, to a very great extent, reversed the results of the Great War . . . . the vanquished are in the process of becoming the victors and the victors the vanquished. . . . whatever else might be thought about these exploits they are certainly among the most remarkable in the whole history of the world." – Churchill, 1935
"I do not enjoy Herr Hitler’s acquaintance. He is living on the empty stomach of Germany. As soon as economic conditions improve, he will no longer be important... Any special reaction to the election results would be quite inappropriate” - Einstein, 1930 (he later changed his mind on this, but it is still interesting that an enlightened German observer would have this reaction)
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