A short life of the author
William Lawrence Shirer (23 February 1904 – 28 December 1993) was an American journalist and historian whose The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960) is the most widely read account of Nazi Germany ever written — over two million copies sold, translated into dozens of languages, and still in print after more than six decades. Shirer’s authority derived from direct experience: he had been a CBS radio correspondent in Berlin from 1934 to 1940, witnessing the Nuremberg rallies, the Anschluss, the Munich Agreement, and the fall of France. No other popular historian of the Third Reich could say “I was there.”
Life
Shirer was born in Chicago and grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He studied at Coe College, then went to Europe in 1925 and spent the next two decades abroad — as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and later as a radio broadcaster for CBS. He was hired by Edward R. Murrow in 1937 and became part of the legendary CBS team — “Murrow’s Boys” — that invented broadcast journalism.
He was stationed in Berlin during the critical years of 1934–1940, covering Hitler’s consolidation of power, the rearmament of Germany, the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, and the beginning of the war. He left Germany in December 1940, when it became clear that the Gestapo was monitoring him closely.
After the war, his relationship with Murrow deteriorated, and he was effectively blacklisted during the McCarthy era. He spent the 1950s in relative obscurity, working on the massive history that would restore his reputation.
Berlin Diary (1941)
Shirer’s journal of his years in Berlin — published shortly after his return to America — is one of the great pieces of eyewitness journalism. Written in real time, without the benefit of hindsight, it captures the texture of daily life in a totalitarian state with a vividness that retrospective history cannot match.
The entries record the Nuremberg rallies (Shirer’s disgust at the spectacle, his bewilderment at the enthusiasm of ordinary Germans), the Munich crisis (his fury at British and French capitulation), the invasion of Poland, and the fall of France (which Shirer covered from the German side, present at the armistice signing at Compiègne). The diary’s power lies in its immediacy: Shirer did not know how the story would end.
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960)
Shirer spent the 1950s writing his history of Nazi Germany, drawing on the enormous cache of German documents captured by the Allies (over 400 tons of diplomatic records, military files, and party archives), on the Nuremberg trial transcripts, and on his own eyewitness experience.
The result — 1,245 pages — is not a conventional academic history. Shirer wrote as a journalist: dramatically, judgmentally, with a novelist’s eye for character and scene. His portraits of Hitler, Göring, Goebbels, and the other Nazi leaders are vivid and contemptuous. His narrative of the key events — the Beer Hall Putsch, the Night of the Long Knives, the Rhineland remilitarisation, Kristallnacht, the invasion of the Soviet Union, Stalingrad, the July 20 plot, the bunker — has the momentum of a thriller.
The book was an enormous bestseller and won the National Book Award. It has remained in print continuously and is still the book most people read first about Nazi Germany.
Critical Response
Academic historians have always had reservations about The Rise and Fall. Shirer was not a trained historian; his analysis of German history and culture drew on a “Luther to Hitler” thesis — that Nazism was the product of a uniquely German authoritarian tradition — that most scholars now consider oversimplified. He gave insufficient attention to the Holocaust (the extermination of European Jews receives relatively brief treatment in a 1,245-page book about the Third Reich). His treatment of the German resistance was dismissive.
Yet the book’s strengths are real. No subsequent history has matched its combination of eyewitness authority, narrative power, and documentary range. For general readers seeking a comprehensive, readable account of Nazi Germany, it remains the standard recommendation — and is likely to remain so.
The Blacklist and Murrow
Shirer’s relationship with Edward R. Murrow — once the most important partnership in American broadcast journalism — ended bitterly in 1947 when Shirer’s sponsor was dropped and Shirer accused CBS of capitulating to political pressure. During the McCarthy era, Shirer found himself informally blacklisted: not formally accused of Communism, but quietly excluded from major broadcasting work because of his liberal views. He spent years in financial difficulty, unable to find regular employment in the industry he had helped create. The experience deepened his contempt for American conformism and corporate cowardice, attitudes that infuse the moral indignation of The Rise and Fall.
Later Work
The Collapse of the Third Republic (1969) applied the same approach to the fall of France in 1940. Shirer’s three-volume memoir, Twentieth Century Journey (1976–1990), covered his life from Iowa to Berlin to the postwar years. Gandhi: A Memoir (1979) drew on his early career in India.
Collecting Shirer
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960, Simon & Schuster) in first edition with dust jacket brings $100–$400. Berlin Diary (1941, Knopf) firsts are $50–$200. The enormous print runs of Rise and Fall mean that copies are abundant, but fine first editions with pristine jackets are increasingly valued.