B.'s Reviews > The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

My take is that you have to account for time warp to some degree. If there were a few homophobic remarks but the book was otherwise reliable then perhaps they could be ignored and not condoned in isolation. But, the extent of the homophobia here was an indicator that the author wasn’t really attempting to be objective at all and there may be other problems with it. Upon further investigation, it seems that’s the case. Thanks for the advice!

I had the same problem originally bad enough that I put the book down for a year.
After thinking about it, I decided that it is a result entirely of the Era in which it was written and tried again. I had a couple false starts but recently finished.

It's good. There's just some cultural stuff that needs to be thrown out the door. If the author had instead pointed out that Hitler was exterminating homosexuals... And had many in his inner circle to show logical holes in Nazi ideology from the outset, I feel that would have worked better than saying that those same people were perverts or hedonists.

I would strongly suggest listening to the audiobook. It helped me get through.

I actually just came on goodreads to see if anyone else had noticed how often the word “perversion” was paired with “homosexuality”. I was confused at first and assume the author was quoting someone else (audiobook) but after it happened many times I realized it was just his personal beliefs. It also has me concerned about its reliability because I have been telling friends about some of the interesting tidbits I’ve learned. And now I’m concerned about them. I think I’m going to stick it out, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to believe as historical!

Wm. L. Shirer's Rise & Fall of the Third Reich may be part & parcel of its time but it is also direct history, written by an esteemed journalist who lived in Nazi Germany as it unfolded, until being expelled. He then reported from England as it was being bombed by the Luftwaffe.

I've read the entire book & feel that it more than adequately documents both the German people at that time & the political atmosphere that allowed the Third Reich to thrive for so many years.

Journalism has been said to be "the first telling of history" but it is informal history, not the sort inscribed by PhDs with a specific concentration in period history or more formal historians. As such the book may seem somewhat "dated" but what better analysis of Nazi Germany than by someone who lived through the period?

When Shirer's mammoth book appeared, the Book-of-the-Month Club suggested that "it reads like a murder mystery, which in many ways it is." I think this is the best commentary on the book I've come upon. However, Richard Cohen in his excellent new book, Making History, seems to accord it high marks as well, even though Shirer's work is not representative of academic or scholarly history. Bill

Quo wrote: "Wm. L. Shirer's Rise & Fall of the Third Reich may be part & parcel of its time but it is also direct history, written by an esteemed journalist who lived in Nazi Germany as it unfolded, until bein..."

I appreciate the thoughtful response, Bill. I admit I'm no historian, nor journalist, nor can I claim to be a history buff, but I'm not sure I agree that a single point of view from someone of the period is necessarily the best way to read about history. A more formal, academic approach of many points of view taken in aggregate, while not perfect, would stand a better chance of ironing out any personal biases, assumptions, contradictions, etc, surely? A lot of information has since come out out about the Nazis since the time of Shirer's writing as well, not least coinciding with the reunification of Germany.

While I do take your point that an informal, on-the-ground account has value, I suppose what I was looking for was more of a birds eye view, towards the formal end of the scale. In the future I may decide that I want more of the former, in which case I may pick this back up.

Jessica wrote: "I actually just came on goodreads to see if anyone else had noticed how often the word “perversion” was paired with “homosexuality”. I was confused at first and assume the author was quoting someon..."

This was exactly my concern, Jessica! I mentioned the comments on homosexuality because they stick out the most even to a non-expert on the subject, but from my reading around, he's also guilty of a weird sort of historical determinism where something specifically about the German cultural character apparently made the rise of Nazism inevitable, rather than it being just one of several totalitarian regimes that sprung up around that period. There are other criticisms besides, but it's been a while.