The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich : A History of Nazi Germany (Mass Market Paperback)

by William L. Shirer (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
John Gunther One of the most spectacular stories ever told. -- Review --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review
Orville PrescottThe New York TimesOne of the most important works of history of our time.

Hugh Trevor-RoperThe New York Times Book ReviewA splendid work of scholarship, objective in method, sound in judgment, inescapable in its conclusions.

Theodore H. WhiteA monumental work, a grisly and thrilling story.

John GuntherOne of the most spectacular stories ever told. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 1600 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (December 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0449219771
• ISBN-13: 978-0449219775
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.2 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (273 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #604,171 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

115 of 125 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Important but flawed, February 24, 2000

By	John A. Cusey (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of this book. It was the first comprehensive popular history of Nazi Germany to appear in English, and it is probably more responsible than any other single source for shaping the way that Americans think about Nazi Germany, World War II, and the Holocaust. More than that, this is an estimable work of history. Shirer has done an admirable job of combing through the mountains of primary source material that the Nazis left behind and assembling a coherent and comprehensible narrative from it.

Of course, it would be a mistake to view this book as simply or even primarily a work of history. It is intended as an indictment of the evil and barbarity that the Nazis perpetrated in Germany and across Europe for more than twelve years and as an indictment of the men and women in Germany, in France, in Great Britain, and elsewhere who allowed that evil and barbarity to occur. Shirer is not content to point out that Hitler and Himmler and Goering and Frank were monsters; he also is intent on showing how complicit the German Army and the German people were in what happened and how the ignorance, stupidity, and cowardice of the politicians of the West and the Soviet Union actively assisted Hitler's monstosities in coming to pass.

The reader can almost visualize Shirer shaking in outrage when he considers the evil Hitler wrought with the help of the rest of Europe. This outrage is, in many ways, both the book's greatest asset and its greatest shortcoming. While Shirer's indignation makes this a great moral work, it also causes him to be more than a little unfair to some of his subjects and to present the history as being more one-dimensional than it in fact was. Shirer never tells, for example, that one of the principal reasons that Chamberlain and Daladier were willing to appease Hitler was that the Depression had bankrupted both Britain and France. They believed that they could not afford to rearm so that they could stop Hitler militarily, and so they sought to get the best deals they could at the bargaining table. Their policy was, of course, dangerously short-sighted, but it is unfair to both men to suggest that their policy was almost solely the result of cowardice.

Then, too, is the fact that Shirer almost invariably describes Rosenberg as a befuddled dolt, Goering as fat, and Ribbentrop as vacuous. It is readily apparent to the reader that he does so because he feels he must constantly reiterate their lack of praiseworthiness, but it is disconcerting to the reader. I am at a loss to explain what Goering's girth has to do with anything, or what it was about Rosenberg's writing that made him any stupider that most Nazis. While I believe that Ribbentrop deserves almost all of the calumny that can be heaped on him, Shirer never makes a real case for his vacuity.

Finally, it must be said that Shirer appears to run out of steam towards the end of the book. All of World War II is covered in the last 25% of the book, and many important topics, including the Holocaust, get short shrift as a result.

These criticisms should not be taken to mean that I believe that this book is not meritorious or that it should not be read. On the contrary: one would be hard-pressed to find a better, more comprehensible, more accessible one volume book about Nazi Germany. It ought to be the starting point (but not the ending point) for anyone interested in World War II or Nazi Germany.

107 of 120 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The definitive account of Nazi Germany, July 22, 2000

By	Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

William L. Shirer's classic "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" is the most complete single volume account of the history of Nazi Germany ever written. Shirer was a journalist, not a historian and the advantages of this show in his very readable prose and his vivid descriptions (for example, often referring to Herman Goering as "the fat Field Marshall"). The book starts with the birth of the Nazi party and how it found a spokesman early on in an ex-serviceman named Adolf Hitler. The narrative continues through until the end of the war, Hitler's suicide and the final few days under Admiral Doenitz. The only warning to the casual reader is that the book's length exceeds 1100 pages and it is crammed to the brim with facts. Also, it should be noted that the book was published over forty years ago and does not include more recent information that has come to light from, for example, the former East German archives. Nevertheless, this is still a classic work of jornalistic history.

81 of 91 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Single Overview Of The Nazi Regime!, May 20, 2002

By	Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich (Paperback)

I grew up near Lenox, Massachusetts, where author William Shirer spent his last twenty years, and we often drove by the old Victorian where he lived, set back from the road as it was, with a large, lovely lawn hiding the rather reclusive author from public view. I picked up this book again to reread it once more, for I find that it is a wonderful treasure trove of personal observations and actual eye-witness history, written on the run by a man married to a German woman and living in the shadow of the nazis as they climbed into power.

William Shirer's comprehensive treatment of the curious rise and horrific fall of the Nazis in post-Weimar Germany is the benchmark volume to measure all other treatments of the era by. There are so many monographs on Nazi Germany that one reels before the list looming in a relevant bibliography. Save yourself the trouble; this book gives one exactly the kind of complete immersion in and coverage of the realities of the era that too many of the other books lack. Shirer, an American journalist stationed in Berlin as a newspaper (and later radio) correspondant during the rise of the National Socialists, was there, on the ground and at the scene witnessing many of the events he describes in such detail.

He has, of course, written extensively on these experiences, both herein and elsewhere in books like 'The Nightmare Years' and 'Berlin Diary'. But this book has to be considered his masterpiece, and is worth the time, trouble and price for this hefty best-selling volume. After all, it has never been out of print in the forty years since its original publication in the early 1960s. I promise that if you read this, you'll never think of World War Two in the same way. It is indeed a long and difficult read, but one that is well worth the effort. Enjoy!