Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Rglovejoy (talk | contribs) at 21:21, 17 March 2008 (added National Book Award info). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met. (December 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by journalist William L. Shirer was the first definitive history of Nazi Germany in English.

Shirer, an American radio reporter for CBS, covered Germany for many years until December 1940, when increasing Nazi censorship of his broadcasts made work impossible for him. This 1,245 page book, first published in 1960 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. and still in print, colors its historically accurate information with denunciation of Nazism and tyranny.

The book is based largely on the captured documents of the Third Reich, including the diaries of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and General Franz Halder. Additional major sources include testimony and evidence from the Nuremberg trials, British Foreign Office reports, and the detailed diary of Ciano, Mussolini's son-in-law and Italian Foreign Minister. Other sources include confidential speeches, conference reports, taped transcripts of telephone conversations, as well as Shirer's personal recollections during the six years he reported on the Third Reich as a journalist.

At the time the book was written, only a part of the diaries of Goebbels was known. Other documents have been discovered and many documents have since become available from Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union.

The book was adapted into a television program for the ABC network in 1966. It was one of the first programs to be marketed as a miniseries.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich received the National Book Award for nonfiction in 1961.

Criticism

Upon publication, the book was met with criticism from some members of the scholarly community for being more popular history than academic. Elizabeth Wiskemann, for example, stated in a 1961 review that the book was "not sufficiently scholarly nor sufficiently well written to satisfy more academic demands".

William O. Shanahan in 1962 wrote that the book's "narrative does not rise above the most commonplace level of understanding" .

Richard J. Evans concedes that Rise and Fall is a "readable general history of Nazi Germany". His issue with Shirer is that he worked outside of the academic mainstream, and that his research was not informed by the historical scholarship and academic fashions of the time (1960).

Not all historians viewed Rise and Fall negatively. Hugh Trevor-Roper praised the book in the New York Times Book Review

Shirer himself was surprised by his book's reception. Neither his agent nor his publisher thought there was much interest in Hitler or Nazi Germany in 1960; only 12,500 copies were made in the first printing. Rise and Fall became a best-seller in the United States and did well in Britain, France and Italy, though not in Germany.

It should be noted, however, that the text does includes extensive reference notes and footnotes.

The book also includes several speculations (clearly marked as such), such as a footnote that theorizes that Heinrich Müller, an SS chieftain, later went to serve in the NKVD, for which Shirer had no evidence.

Publication

The book has been reprinted many times since it was published in 1960. Current in-print editions are:

• ISBN 0-671-72868-7 (Simon & Schuster, US, 1990 paperback)
• ISBN 0-09-942176-3 (Arrow, UK, 1990 paperback)
• Folio Society Special Book Club Edition (2004 Hardback)

See also

• Berlin Diary
• List of Adolf Hitler books
• The Collapse of the Third Republic, also by Shirer
• List of Holocaust films

References

1. Elizabeth Wiskemann, International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 37, No. 2. (Apr., 1961), pp. 234-235. "It is too long and cumbersome...it is not sufficiently scholarly nor sufficiently well written to satisfy more academic demands. Mr Shirer, has, however compiled a manual ...which will certainly prove useful. "
2. William O. Shanahan, The American Historical Review, Vol. 68, No. 1. (Oct., 1962), pp. 126-128. . "Shirer's history of the Third Reich is woefully inadequate. Shirer's monumental narrative does not rise above the most commonplace level of understanding. The inadequacies of Shirer's account could be dismissed...if his book had not found an enormous audience. Shirer's facility.. does not compensate for this book's essential weakness as history."
3. Richard J. Evans (2003). The Coming of the Third Reich. New York: Penguin Books. p. p. xvii. ISBN 0-14-303469-3. {{cite book}}: |page= has extra text (help)
4. William L. Shirer (1990). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (3rd Edition ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. p. p. 1146. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |page= has extra text (help)
5. Shirer, p. 1145

External links

• Digitalized version of the 1960 edition at the University of Michigan Digital General Collection
• Review of the book by Bryan Hiatt
• Online WWII references Online collection of many original WWII documents, including some of Shirer's sources (e.g. British/French "Color" books, captured German Foreign Office docs, various Nuremberg and NCA documents).
• Third Reich Ruins Geoff Walden's then/now photo-essay collection of many sites mentioned in Shirer's book, early Hilter locations featured.
• The reception of William L. Shirer's 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' in the United States and West Germany, 1960-62 (fee-based jstor link). by Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, in: Journal of Contemporary History v29.n1 (Jan 1994): pp95-128.

• Misplaced Pages neutral point of view disputes from December 2007
• 1960 books
• European history books
• American television miniseries
• Books about Nazism