William Shirer's definitive Rise And Fall of Third Reich was so very well known, so unquestionably acknowledged to be THE book to read on the topic if one were to read just one, that one sort of postponed it when reading other stuff on the topic - after all, the horrors of the second world war, especially the genocide related ones, are precisely what a young person aware of the general history would not go into, for fear of drowning in the then recent past, who knows with what result! So instead one read other books of his, such as Nightmare Years, with unexpected benefits of discovery.
This book, one that a reader picks up naturally after reading his Berlin Diary, is unexpected in a different direction - where one expects him to pick up where he left off his Berlin sojourn in the previous book, and relate the horrors of devastation Germany in general and Berlin in particular went through, which was not trivial at all, he gives that in short too, but much, much more. This too being a diary, one goes with him on his travels as a journalist and reporter while he attend to the important, the very significant events of that year. And that was a lot.
What's more he gives much of the various speeches and documents of importance, from those related to events such as early and unexpected demise of Roosevelt, to the birth of UN and its charter set forth amidst struggles by allies with their conflicting agenda - and these conflicts, as one knows, grew only worse as far as the two powerful nations across the north pole, US and USSR, went.
Shirer, the seasoned and by then cosmopolitan albeit very American, gives an unexpected view in that he sees the various bumbling US personnel as a bit crude, less aware and more impatient to get home, than the patient, suave, knowledgeable counterparts in Europe, particularly USSR. Perhaps this is what earned him the subsequent wrath of his nations' authorities in the McCarthy era, from which he rose with his stupendous definitive work he is known for.
One should count oneself fortunate if one reads this, although it does include some documents horrific - he gives a very small selection of what documents were discovered when allies found the fourteen hundred tons of meticulously documented details of everything nazis had done, decided, and so forth, penned with typical Teutonic thoroughness as Shirer points out.
But even more fortunate one feels is about reading this book not only for its documents quoted but for the comments by its author, the sensitive and intelligent person whose awareness of the world went far beyond his limits of selfish interests - he and a few others such as he (FDR, Upton Sinclair come to mind, among those known generally) guided humanity into the illuminated path of thinking that has been generally acknowledged as the high road since, despite the not quite gone totalitarians including nazis who were not only able to take refuge in various countries around the world but actively sought out by likes of Peron of Argentina and Stroessner of Paraguay, for their preferences lay with the racist and fascist ideology.
Shirer writes about the allies marching in, battling their way into Germany, about death of Roosevelt and the reaction of the then still battling Germans who rejoiced with the impression that they had been granted a reprieve, about the birth of UN and about US insisting - despite USSR opposition - on inclusion of a very fascist Argentina that was an ally of Germany, about Berlin destroyed (and its residents, like other Germans too, upset with their leaders then only about the losing the war, not about having started it or having caused destruction and havoc and genocides that affected others), and about the Nuremberg Trials that - again - the residents of the city and others across Germany then took as theater by victors punishing the losers. About the horrendous facts that came out with documents that showed intention and plans by the nazis, and more.
If only these works by Shirer were prescribed reading for schools, students would graduate and arrive at colleges far better educated than they have for the better part of century past.
